Chapter 68: Ch 68 : New Identity

Mammon drank the antidote for the poison that Xar’gath emitted. Xar’gath was still not moving, but a low, ragged breath proved he was still alive. Mammon sighed, an almost human sound. He hadn’t wanted to give this bastard such a painless death, but his powers worked only in this way. He could only play the game of poison with Xar’gath, a patient predator waiting for his prey to finally succumb. Days passed in the demonic realm, each one a slow, agonizing crawl towards oblivion for Xar’gath. The vitality in his body was siphoned away, minute by minute, until all that remained was a husk. And then, a truly mysterious force took hold. Xar’gath’s entire body was pulled towards Mammon, not as a brutal act of force, but as if by an inevitable gravity. His form dissolved, not into dust, but into a swirling vortex of energy and memories, which then flowed into Mammon. Mammon’s mind was instantly flooded with the memories of Xar’gath: the taste of a thousand victories, the sting of defeat, the face of his demon king, the devotion for the demon lord Deimos, and the fear he had felt in Veridia. He could now freely transform into Xar’gath’s figure and use all his talents. Mammon took on the form of the hulking, hunched demon, mimicking his movements and even the way he had gritted his teeth in frustration. He was now a perfect copy, as he headed towards the capital of the demons, his mind set on farming more talents and memories from the unaware denizens. While this was happening, in a world far away from Veridia, on a planet filled with lush, green forests and ancient mountains, a world teeming with life and spirits, a monotonous voice sounded in the head of an unconscious child. [Binding successful! The Lottery System is online.] Hearing this voice, the unconscious child, a half-orc, came back to his senses. His head throbbed, and a deep-seated weakness had settled in his bones. He was weak and fragile, looking no older than 17. He lost all his energy just by looking around, and was about to fall down again when a voice sounded in his head again. This time, he saw a glowing panel floating in front of him. [Dear host! You are given a free chance for a lottery.] "Wahhh.... What is this?" The orc was momentarily stunned. He had never seen anything like the digital panel floating in front of his eyes. He tried to touch it, but he didn’t have the strength to even lift his fingers. [Host, do you want to spin the lottery wheel?] The voice of the system again sounded in the orc’s ears. "Lottery? Spin it..." he said in a weak voice. The spinning wheel in the digital panel began to turn. If the orc had seen the items in the spinning wheel, he would have surely been dancing in joy, but he couldn’t even keep his eyes open. [Ding! Congratulations, host, for winning the Perfect Strengthening Pill (A-Grade)!] The orc’s ears twitched. "The pill... where is it?" he asked, his eyes looking at the panel with hope. [The rewards will be stored in system space. You can take them out whenever you want.] [But you can’t put rewards back into the system after claiming them.] "Just give it to me," the orc said, using the last of his strength to ask for his reward. [Reward: Body Strengthening Pill (A-Grade) claimed.] A small, shimmering pill appeared out of thin air and floated in front of the orc. He directly ate it, as he had no strength to admire its beauty or even hold it. He had been hungry for the last few months, and his body was currently thrown in a barren wasteland, where not even grass was available. Upon eating the pill, his power, which was just at F-Grade, began to soar, and he instantly reached the Pinnacle of E-Grade. He could have reached D or even C if he had a body-refining technique. But currently, he didn’t possess any, and most of the effects of the pill were lost. But the remaining effects were more than enough to make the orc healthy again. "What type of magic is this?" the orc looked towards the floating panel and saw a few tabs. "Status?" He began reading the words to understand what this system was for. But suddenly as if listening to his words, the words in the system panel changed. [Name: Ragnok Race: Half-Orc Profession: Body Refiner (E-Grade) Talents: Orc’s Strength (B-Grade), Hunter (C-Grade) Lottery chances: 0] The panel showed Ragnok all his information and a floating avatar of him on the right side. The digital panel was none other than Thea. And this was possible due to Thea’s Omni-Cognition talent, which allowed her to know all the information of a being, even a demigod, at a glance. Ragnok, now healthy and fit, looked at the system panel with grateful eyes. He tried to start a conversation with the system but didn’t find an answer. The only time Thea answered was when Ragnok asked a query about the system. "Turns out I need to complete missions from the system to earn a chance to spin the lottery," Ragnok said as he dived deeper into the system’s mechanisms. "Why did you help me?" Ragnok asked in an embarrassed tone; he was just a dying man and didn’t know the motive behind the system’s help. "You will know it soon," Thea replied through the system panel. The world they were currently in was called Solara, and the God of this world was called Kairos. The system was the leftover particles of Thea, which used the replication talent to create an entire new system for Ragnok. Currently, many of Thea’s particles, which were not visible to the naked eye, were roaming in the entire atmosphere of Solara, creating a hidden network that covered the entire world. Thea used this to collect valuable information from Kairos’s world and also to search for targets to bind with the system, turning them into hidden assassins who would listen to the system’s commands. Ragnok was not chosen by Thea. Instead, it was Sunny who chose Ragnok. Thea didn’t think highly of Ragnok because of his low-grade talents. She wanted only life forms with S-Grade and above as her host. But Sunny saw something special in Ragnok—a halo only visible to him and other gods. It turned out that Ragnok was a previous god, who had either died because of an invasion from one of the demon gods or was a god whom Adam had erased when he didn’t find their progress satisfactory.