Chapter 923: Ch 922: The Price

"Whoa!"

A one-eyed black raven flapped his wings wildly, unable to contain his excitement.

"That kid was sitting on two trump cards this whole time? This is seriously, seriously..."

Loki couldn't even find the words. He'd actually been keeping tabs on the people involved in Ryo's raids on Ouroboros for a long time.

But that was just part of the job. At first he hadn't cared much, and he'd been a little annoyed, if anything.

Then Zeus went after Ryo, and things changed.

Ryo had made him take a loss on a deal, sure. But Zeus was the one who made his skin crawl.

If those two wanted to kill each other, the best outcome was both of them going down in flames.

And if one of them had to die, Loki wanted it to be Zeus.

Ryo only had a beef with him because of Ouroboros. But Zeus? That damn stud had actually set his sights on Loki's body.

Lusting after a raven? What kind of sicko does that?

So if Zeus died, Loki was all too happy to applaud.

"Still, that attack looked like a mini version of the Big Bang. But will it really kill Zeus? Should I toss a few more shots at him, just in case?"

While he was muttering to himself, he heard the faint scratch of a pen.

Loki blinked, turned around, and saw Krishna writing on a golden scroll with a quill. He was startled.

"Your Eminence, are you drafting a new executive order?"

"Mm."

Krishna didn't seem to be in a good mood. Her voice was low.

"So, who's this one going out to?" Loki asked carefully, as Krishna's messenger.

As a seasoned double agent, Loki always tread carefully around people he couldn't afford to offend.

Right now, he was testing whether Krishna would let him spread this intel around.

"Come and see for yourself." Krishna finished writing, tossed the quill aside, and sighed.

"..."

Loki shuffled over on tiny steps and looked at the open scroll.

The writing was simple, but he still read it aloud without meaning to. "If you encounter Ryo Yagami, leader of Arcadia, during a mission, you may abandon the mission. All losses will be covered by the First Union. Sealed, First Union."

"Th-this... this is..."

His beak hung open and wouldn't close.

Abandon the mission just for running into him? Hostile or not?

He'd only ever seen one other person get treatment like that.

Queen Halloween, the Three Digit rule-breaker, the strongest being in Little Garden who can actually make a move.

Ryo's "treatment" had caught up to that Queen's?

Loki lowered his voice and glanced at Krishna, who stood by the window with her hands behind her back.

"Your Eminence, isn't that a bit over the top?"

"Over the top?" Krishna answered, then shook her head. "It's the price, and it's also helplessness."

The price... for wiping out Arcadia, huh? But how was anyone supposed to know the so-called Arcadia would produce a monster like this? Loki grumbled inwardly. At the same time, he was shocked.

It was the first time he'd ever seen regret on Krishna. Even if it was only a trace, it was definitely regret.

He didn't know whether she regretted not finishing the job when Ouroboros destroyed Arcadia, or regretted crossing Ryo at all. Either way, Ryo might be the first person ever to make her feel that way.

As for why Krishna regretted it, Loki understood perfectly well.

A rare defensive Another Cosmology, plus that move which took a bit of time to prepare but matched the Big Bang in power. It was a near-full-power strike from a legendary Three-Digit, close to the ceiling of the Three-Digit rank.

Short of a Two-Digit stepping in personally, who could kill Ryo?

And if a Two-Digit did step in?

Did anyone really think Ryo had no backers?

Forget the die-hard Demon Star Algol, or White Night Demon Shiroyasha, whose leanings were getting more obvious by the day.

Oh, and Queen Halloween. She had been quietly funding Ryo for ages, and Ouroboros had noticed.

Even setting those three aside, the Thousand Eyes twin goddess and the Buddha had both taken an interest in Ryo. Lately, even the Lord of Cross had mentioned Ryo once in the Garden of Eden.

He was only the leader of a Five Digit community, but nobody had ever treated Ryo like a lower-layer community leader, and now...

By now, the big pantheons had probably all filed Ryo under "do not touch."

Down in the lower layers, there was simply nothing you could do about him.

It was even more ridiculous than Zeus lying low down there back in the day.

At least Zeus used to get hunted by Hephaestus and his crew. But Ryo? Besides Zeus, the only ones with a grudge against Ryo were Ouroboros.

With everyone else, Ryo kept things friendly. Sure, he'd drop his friends in it from time to time, but it was never anything that even scratched them. Just nasty pranks, really. Who'd take that seriously?

And the people on good terms with him: Shiroyasha of the Thousand Eyes, Indra, Kenshin and Mata from the Heavenly Army, Hephaestus, Hera, Apollo, Athena, and Heracles on the Greek side. Then add his old Arcadia connections...

Strong fighters, a strong network. When you thought about it, even without Krishna's order, Ouroboros probably couldn't do anything about Ryo anyway.

Because Ryo now had the power to make sure that anything Ouroboros wanted to fail would fail.

So that's what Her Eminence meant by "helplessness."

It really was helpless, Loki muttered to himself. He lowered his head, rolled up the scroll, and picked it up in his beak.

"Your Eminence, how far should this order go?"

Krishna kept her back to him and answered flatly. "Everyone."

"Got it!"

Moments later, there was the sound of wings beating.

In the old castle, only one figure remained standing by the window in silence.

...

..

Upper Layers, On Mount Olympus—

Amid the ruins of the summit, wiped clean from the mountain.

Ryo, still clad in his Cloth, walked slowly toward the broken throne.

When he reached it, he looked at the small heap of white sand on the seat, the last thing Zeus had left in this world. He was quiet for a moment, then said softly, "You shouldn't have dragged other people into this."

Ryo could accept being ambushed or assassinated. He knew he was doing the kind of work that got people killed.

What he couldn't accept was people he cared about being maliciously dragged down with him.

And when Zeus crossed that line, Ryo didn't hesitate to hit back with everything he had.

"Such a waste. I was saving the Cloth and Athena Exclamation for a Two-Digit."

He sighed, reached out, and picked up the black book lying on the throne.

The dictionary-sized book had taken some damage from the attack, but not much. It was still fully usable.

It was the Greek pantheon's greatest treasure.

Ryo turned and walked away, without a trace of regret for the shattered throne.

...Everything fell quiet.

But for the gods and buddhas who had watched it all, the waves in their hearts were only beginning.

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