CHAPTER 261: CHAPTER 260 - THE VOICE DROPS SOME SOLID LORE.

The silence had weight.

Not the awkward kind, nor the peaceful kind.

It was ancient. Watchful. Like the hush before an avalanche—the moment before some long-forgotten truth remembered how to breathe.

Raven stood still, golden eyes narrowed as the voice—no, the entity—hovered just beyond reach.

The cave’s crystals hummed faintly, shadows rippling along the jagged ceiling like ink in water.

Then, at last, she spoke.

"I suppose you’ve earned the right to know more about me."

The voice didn’t come from one direction. It folded over itself like silk, both distant and intimately near.

"I was a goddess once," she said, soft and steady, as if reciting a line too familiar to carry emotion. "So long ago, I can’t even recall the weight of my own name."

Raven’s brow twitched.

"...A goddess."

"Yes."

"Right."

He didn’t hide his skepticism. "Next, you’ll tell me you’re also the Queen of Dreams and the Duchess of Wishful Thinking."

The voice laughed.

Not mocking.

Just... tired.

"Tell me, Raven," she said, her tone turning clinical, curious. "Do you truly believe this world has no gods?"

He didn’t answer immediately.

"I’ve been around," he said. "Fought monsters, am crawling through ruins, and also heard of nobles playing deity with coin and cruelty. But never—not once—have I seen a church or anything like that. Not even the stories are consistent."

She hummed. "So you think mortals survive without someone to pray to... or curse when things fall apart?"

Raven’s silence stretched longer this time.

The ’goddess,’ however, continued, more firmly now, "Every world has gods. Dozens. Hundreds. Forgotten or feared. Loved or locked away. You just haven’t been looking in the right places."

Raven couldn’t say anything in response, as it seemed strange now.

Why had he never heard about the gods of this world?

If there were gods and goddesses—which he knew there were since he had already met two of them—then why had there never been a mention of them?

Why was it that there was not one religion in this world?

He recalled how even in the novel, there was no mention of them—at least not until the point he had read.

It was as if the gods were erased from everyone’s memories.

So, Raven folded his arms slowly.

"Fine," he said. "Let’s say I believe you. Let’s say you’re a goddess. Then tell me... what kind of ’divine being’ ends up trapped in a ruin, disembodied and powerless, whispering through walls?"

He tilted his head.

"You feel more like a demon than a goddess."

The air pulsed.

Not with anger.

With weariness.

"Even gods aren’t invincible," she whispered. "Power is not immunity. Not from everything."

His gaze sharpened.

"Did something happen?"

A long pause.

Then she spoke again, and the cavern seemed to darken with the weight of her words.

"Black Dragon."

Raven blinked. "What?"

"You asked what happened. That’s what happened. A black dragon descended upon this world—a creature so powerful that even gods trembled."

Raven’s breath caught faintly in his chest.

He didn’t interrupt.

"It came without warning. Without reason. It simply... existed. And in doing so, undid everything. No one knew where it came from. Some believed it to be the manifestation of entropy. Others, the punishment for divine arrogance."

Her voice faltered slightly.

"It wanted world domination, so it needed to start from one point. So, it set its eyes on this continent—the three empires. There were gods here, sure, but the numbers were way lower than elsewhere. So, it began slaughtering them. Us. One by one."

Raven paused for a second.

"Wait, wait," he raised his hand, frowning. "What do you mean, three empires? This continent has four kingdoms and two empires."

The voice went silent, and for the first time, the air in the cave seemed confused.

But then, as if something clicked for both Raven and the voice, both of them said at the same time.

"It was the past..."

Yes. From the goddess’s words, it was clear that the four-kingdom alliance used to be an empire.

That would make it a total of three empires on this continent.

What made Raven feel dumbfounded, however, was that the novel he had read had reached around 1000 Chapters, and the protagonist hadn’t gone out of the kingdom alliance.

He hadn’t been able to discover all of this.

Heck, there was little to no information about the empires.

Raven had always wondered why they didn’t attack the Four Kingdom Alliance, but he could never get the answer.

He had even asked Crisaius once, but the old man had said that he would tell Raven everything once the time was right.

Now, Raven felt like even the old man didn’t know much. That was why he had said all that philosophical shit, like, ’time will tell’ and all.

Not thinking too much about it anymore, Raven exhaled, waving his hand. "Please continue what you were saying."

The voice was silent for some time before she continued as her voice came low and ashamed.

"That black dragon killed me, too."

Before Raven could say anything, the voice continued, sighing.

"Or at least it tried to. It couldn’t because I ran. I ran deeper than any soul should go, and I bound myself here, to this trial ground. A sanctum... a prison... it doesn’t matter anymore."

Raven stood still, lips a tight line.

"You’ve been here ever since?"

"Yes. Waiting."

"For someone strong enough to help?"

A faint, bitter chuckle.

"No. For someone lucky enough."

That made Raven blink.

"...Lucky?"

"Myria," she said, and now the tone shifted. Softer. More reverent. "The little princess. She’s not strong. Not yet. But her luck... It’s something else. She is bound to reach high in her life."

Raven squinted his eyes as he knew where this was going, and he also understood how she knew he was the world-blessed, or the protagonist, in layman’s terms.

Somehow, she could sense people’s luck.

But then it clicked.

’Wait, weren’t the demons also able to pinpoint the people with high luck?’

The demons had picked up many of the stories’ side characters, who, like any other side characters, had high luck.

’Could it be that they have someone with such an ability as well?’ He wondered inwardly, but on the outside, he nodded.

"Right," Raven said. "She must have some good luck to survive the first trial."

The voice, however, quickly denied that.

"Oh, no, no. She didn’t go through the trial. Why would I send her to the trial when she was the only option I had?"

Raven exhaled.

The weight of everything was slowly bearing down on him.

"But then we came and you changed your mind, right?" He asked, already knowing the answer.

"Yes," she giggled. "I found you—the real variable. The one with even greater luck than hers."

He didn’t respond right away.

A goddess. A black dragon. Divine slaughter. Then, some other realizations.

This wasn’t just backstory—it was world-breaking.

So much that he could barely believe it.

It was too much for even him to take in.

However, despite still processing everything, he spoke up.

"If all that’s true," he said finally, quietly, "then I have one question left."

She waited.

His voice didn’t waver.

"What happened to the Black Dragon?"

Even the crystals dimmed. The shadows stilled.

The silence that followed wasn’t empty.

It wasn’t heavy with dread like before.

This time... it was staring.

Raven frowned, waiting for the answer.

But none came.

Not because she didn’t have one.

But because—he realized with creeping unease—she was confused.

"You don’t know?" The voice finally said, slowly, disbelievingly.

Raven blinked. "...Know what?"

The cave felt like it exhaled all at once. Even the flickering shadows seemed to still, awaiting her words.

"Oh, how things have changed," she muttered. "Something that should be known to all mankind isn’t known by the world-blessed."

The way she said it made Raven feel pitied, and he didn’t like that feeling.

"Okay, you’re losing me here," he said, his brows drawn. "I just asked what happened to the damn dragon."

She didn’t laugh.

Didn’t speak immediately either.

Then, she replied quietly, "He was killed."

Raven, who had been waiting for some grand reveal, groaned into his palms. "No shit. Of course, it was killed—"

It was a no-brainer.

What he wanted to know was what happened.

The ’goddess,’ however, wasn’t done yet, so she continued, cutting his words short. "The black dragon was slain by a man—the progenitor of the Vaise bloodline."

As if a bomb had exploded inside Raven’s head, his head went blank.