"…Forlorn Ash King? Are you awake?" Pangea asked as Exodus rubbed his eyes.
They weren't on a specific path in the forest, and instead went straight north, with Exodus floating on one of Pangea's giant lotuses.
"…Yes, I'm awake. What is it?"
"Well, since you don't have any clue where we're going, I've decided to tell you a little bit and reserve the rest of the information for later!"
"…Alright," Exodus replied, rubbing his eyes again.
"Where are we going?"
"Heh, the Yellow River, of course! But, that flows through the eastern region of Gange, so we have to travel all the way there before we can meet the Imoogi."
"…A Dark Incarnation, huh? I hope interacting with him is not like how I interacted with the other Catastrophes. I could end up killing him then."
Pangea giggled.
"As confident as always, Lord of Ashes! But, you don't have to worry. He's someone also trying to breach the World Barrier, but with strength alone, so he's constantly training and doesn't have time for personal endeavours."
Exodus nodded, before almost falling off of the giant lotus flower due to his weight. He caught himself and began to sit cross-legged.
"…Pangea. I've noticed you haven't told me much about yourself."
"…Hm? Do you want to know about me? Are you interested?"
Exodus shook his head.
"Too… busy. I just don't believe I can trust a lady who has more than a few secrets."
"What's wrong with a lady having just a few secrets? We all have a few secrets, and you have far more than I do."
"…Hmph." Exodus puffed out, staring at Pangea blankly.
"Don't worry, you find out all of my secrets eventually, and I will find out about all of yours too."
Exodus avoided answering that and instead focused on the young flying serpent that slithered towards them. He didn't attack sight, and neither did the serpent either, as they both recognised themselves as similar, in a way.
Until, a flying axe chopped off his head, as if someone with incredibly precise aim had intentionally hunted it down.
"…"
Exodus gazed elsewhere and saw a group of five make their way to them, comprised of two males, a berserker holding another axe and a scholar writing in a personal journal, and two females, one of them a priest, and the other one a hooded assassin, it seemed like.
The lotuses Pangea and Exodus sat on disappeared, and they passively walked by the group of four. Exodus noticed that they were slightly averting their gazes, however.
"…?"
He turned around and saw them dash like they were running for their lives. He assumed it must've been because of him, since he was massive compared to the average adult male and had a monstrous aura, even as a human.
But, as they ran, petals flowed by, and they halted in place, though they felt as if they were still running.
"Whatever reason would you be running for?" Exodus asked, standing in front of them. They didn't reply. They instead droned and drooled like they were the undead.
"They're being controlled," Pangea said, after inspecting them.
"By who?"
"I don't know. But, they must be quite fearless, perhaps, to be able to cast such an effective hypnotizing spell on a group of people and let them run around like they're possessed. Let me free them."
The petals grazed the group of five, and instantly, the spell cast over them was diminished and then vanished completely.
"What the…?! GAH!!" They all shrieked in unison, before running away in mania. It seemed the petal had also caused them to fall victim to one of Pangea's tricks.
"Hm… the Divine Sage of Charity is going too far. He's allowing ordinary people to cast advanced spells for no cost at all."
"Spells?"
"From what I can see, this is the result of a spell being cast on them, something that the Sage of Charity had brought to existence, by analyzing Art Forms and reconstructing them, which was creating spells, and allowing the ordinary people to do things only those with Void Worlds can."
"Unfortunately, since he's rarely seen, and is probably not in the Boundary Realm either, there is nothing many people can do about it."
Though Void Worlds could be possessed by many, there was a high chance that they would be infected with Nihilism or Absurdism, both of them detrimental to the minds, bodies and souls of living beings, and led to the Void Worlds being unusable, unless one desired to be corrupted and led astray.
This was why some would resort to the power of spells so that they could stand equal to those with Void Worlds. However, they could not be any more different than the other.
"…Hold on. I feel something." Exodus said. There was a foreign power in the air, that made his heartbeat grow faster. For some reason, what he felt was a thrill, which he only felt during battles.
"I feel it too, be careful, the power of a mystical being may be nearby," Pangea said before she looked perplexed.
"Wait… this… this isn't close to the power of a mystical being!"
Meanwhile, deeper in the forests, a ritualist with silver hair and olive skin, wearing blackened robes and a thorn ring on his finger, which signified his faith in the mystical being, the Sinful Mother, said the words:
"All those who are wicked, be still, and all those who are good, be thankful, for you shall all be baptised under the bosom of the Sinful Mother."
Upon those words being said, a bright flare of green light went up as a shot through the skies, like lightning, and in the pursuit of purifying both the good and bad, struck down all who were nearby, including Exodus and Pangea.
The Sinful Mother is said to be the first Goddess born from the Primordial Darkness in the Depravity creation myth, and believers of the Sinful Mother regard themselves as the true enforcer of the Primordial Darkness's will.
"…Someone is committing various acts of tomfoolery around here, daring to try and imitate a power which they can never obtain," Pangea murmured.
The strikes of purification were blocked by her flowing lotus petals, before Exodus charged forth, in pursuit of the brazen fool who dared to do such a thing.
He used his wings and even flew through trees, and eventually reached the priest of the Sinful Mother, who had spread his arms, awaiting a glorious death so he too could rejoice in the bosom of the Sinful Mother.
Pangea followed soon after, and once she saw the ring, she immediately knew that this was the doing of a Priest of Depravity. A member of a self-proclaimed church, but was truthfully just an occult in disguise.
"Most of them are fools without a Void World, so, with the power of the spell, they hope to purify as many people as they can, thinking that the Sinful Mother, a mystical being who doesn't even exist, will grant them eternal paradise in the pall of eternal darkness."
"But, they wouldn't dare to do this if they saw us in our true forms," Exodus told her.
"What a pathetic being."
But, that feeling of exhilaration he felt… that couldn't have ever come from a mere imitation of a Void World's power. Was there perhaps something else probing them?
"Maybe, the hypnotism spell wasn't cast by him, but by someone else," Exodus spoke to himself, before releasing his wings and flying into the air.
"Huh? The guys from the kingdom are gonna notice you if you blindly float around like that…" Pangea told Exodus before she realised that he was too deep in his thoughts to hear.
She went to see what Exodus was looking at from her giant lotus flower and saw something strange.
In the chasm that was created by Exodus just half a day ago, it seemed like someone or something had settled within, with the power that seeped out from within. Someone with strength comparable to a Catastrophe, as exceedingly rare as that was.
"Is it because I'm so incredibly weak now that those who wouldn't be able to look me in the eye before are now able to excite me…? I guess I'll just have to see for myself." Exodus affirmed as he went closer to the chasm.
"…Hah… he's just gonna cause annoyances to pop up for me all the time. What a mess this is gonna devolve into if the Gange Kingdom catches us around here." Pangea said as she followed him near the gorge.
…
Deeper into the chasm's depths, a man with a chipped, black obsidian blade called the [Deformed Sword] sat, staring at the multitude of corpses he had scattered all over the chasm's floorbed.
He was naked and was extremely muscular. Yet, he seemed young. As if he had only reached the age of 20 yesterday. He also had various runes, used to construct spells, tattooed all over his body.
"How many more bodies do I need? Five? Ten? Two…?"
"Yes… two. Two is more than enough."