Reincarnated Hero System - Chapter 1193 - 1193: A Tale of Two Friends II

By the time the Great Valmone War was forcibly brought to an end through the actions of Prisma, the same associate of Mallory and Kirone who had waged war against the Kyrexi over a thousand years earlier, the two goddesses found themselves holding the single greatest combined battle power among the remaining god Rulers.

Their parents, having been injured during the conflict, stepped down from their ruling positions to recover from the severe damage inflicted upon their souls, formally passing the majority of their territory and authority to their daughters, which further expanded their forces and universal influence.

With the positions of Supreme god King and Queen left vacant, Mallory and Kirone moved to claim those seats through force, marking one of the rare moments when Kirone publicly set aside her usual bright demeanour.

The god Emperor, having been gravely wounded since the opening battle that sparked the war, had little chance to intervene, especially with the Spirit Empress pursuing him for revenge over the imprisonment he had caused her a thousand years prior.

He was the only true obstacle between Mallory and Kirone and their ascension as ‘Supreme’ Rulers of the divine.

Among the titles they acquired were those tied to the core governance of the universe’s Pantheon itself, becoming the Main Entities responsible for some of its fundamental processes.

In Kirone’s case, her position as ‘Main Entity of Space and Time’ was passed down directly from her mother.

In Mallory’s case, the former Deity presiding over ‘Evolution’ had met an untimely end during the war, allowing her to assume the role, as there was no other being in the universe better suited to it than her.

Even the ‘Universe’ itself was on her side.

For a time, everything appeared to be falling neatly into place.

However, it was during this fragile transitional period, in the aftermath of the war and the sudden influx of newly acquired power, that the greatest threat they had ever faced emerged.

The god Emperor, having recovered from most of his injuries, finally acted in earnest, setting in motion the conflict that would later be known as the Divine Civil War.

The Old gods against the New gods.

The war between the Old gods and the New gods wasn’t as violent or overwhelming as the Great Valmone War, but it was far from light in any sense of the word.

The god Emperor was a ruthless figure who’d held the position of Master of the Universe for hundreds of thousands of years before Mallory and Kirone had even been born, and despite how circumstances might have made him appear, he was never someone to underestimate.

At his command, war was launched against the New gods, and at the same time, he sealed off outside intervention, preventing other races from interfering in the divine civil war, cutting off both the New gods’ allies among other races and limiting involvement from the Old gods’ allies as well.

He didn’t want anyone meddling in this affair, as he intended to handle it personally and erase the two goddesses who’d been a constant thorn in his side for over 4,000 years, almost as though their parents had taught them how to become even greater irritations than they’d ever been.

The civil war between the New gods and the Old gods passed through many phases, though the most memorable moment of the entire conflict was the incident where Mallory had been placed in mortal danger.

Across countless histories, universes, and dimensions, the first step toward the downfall of many great rulers had always been betrayal.

Several of Mallory’s close and trusted subordinates revealed themselves to be agents planted by the god Emperor, schemes set in motion nearly 7,000 years earlier when Mallory and Kirone had first begun their rise to power.

The god Emperor had observed their actions from the very beginning and had quietly embedded his own people within the New gods, subordinates Mallory and Kirone had unknowingly accepted into their ranks and elevated into positions of authority.

Once again, this served as proof that the god Emperor, who’d ruled the universe long before either goddess had drawn breath, was never to be taken lightly.

Those spies on double-payroll finally revealed themselves during the war, not through open confession, but through their actions.

It occurred within a crucial war theatre, where their decisions caused Mallory to lose a significant portion of her forces, losses she couldn’t immediately notice as she was occupied fighting several god Kings at once.

She killed some, forced others back, and withdrew, intending to return to her base, only to fall into a trap prepared by the god Emperor’s hidden agents.

This led her directly into a sealed and secret territory of the Old gods, where, coming straight from a one-against-many battle, she was thrown into another confrontation.

Even Mallory, with all her power, couldn’t prevail.

She was eventually defeated, and the Old gods attempted what they had sought for thousands of years: her death.

But they failed.

A Deity’s soul was protected by multiple layers of energy tied closely to their existence, and for Mallory, a goddess, that energy was divinity.

There were four such layers surrounding her soul, and the Old gods wore through all of them, leaving her soul in a state that should have meant death according to the universe’s laws.

Still, she continued to draw breath, and her heart continued to beat.

It didn’t matter the universal law Authority they used against her, from Destruction Authorities to curses and poison.

Nothing worked.

It was incomprehensible.

Pure blood gods possessed immortality in the sense of endless life, and while Mallory had granted herself artificial regeneration through her power of evolution, even that shouldn’t have been enough to withstand the combined Authorities of the Old god Kings.

Not even the god Emperor himself could end her life, and his Authority existed on a completely different tier from hers.

While the Old gods struggled to kill her, Kirone learned of the betrayal within their ranks and of Mallory’s capture.

Mallory had been imprisoned deep within Old god territory, a place the New gods wouldn’t have dared enter even at the height of their power.

Both Kirone’s and Mallory’s subordinates believed she was finished, unable to understand why the Old gods hadn’t already killed her, with many suspecting they intended to use her as leverage against Kirone.

Upon hearing of Mallory’s capture, Kirone’s first act was to purge every traitor within Mallory’s forces, subjecting them all to brutal deaths. Uncovering the real traitors was easy with her Authority of Time, so she knew exactly who to hunt down and who to erase.

After this, Kirone ignored every warning, theory, and plea from her subordinates and proceeded to carry out what would be remembered as one of the most unthinkable prison breaks in the history of the Valmone universe.

Alone, she breached Old god territory, descended into the deepest layers of the specialised prison where Mallory was held after the Old gods realised they couldn’t kill her, and freed her before escaping.

When the Old gods realised what had happened, disbelief was their first reaction, followed by confidence, as they assumed Kirone had doomed herself through sheer audacity.

That delay cost them dearly, as they never could have expected that Kirone wouldn’t just succeed in breaking Mallory out, but would also escape Old god territory entirely and return her safely to New god headquarters.

How those feats were achieved remained a mystery to everyone except Kirone and Mallory.

Only the two of them knew of the items they’d received from a certain Cosmic Entity they’d encountered several thousand years earlier, when they were merely teenagers caught up in a Nexus Event.

Not even their parents were aware of that meeting.

But for the two of them who knew exactly what powers they’d gained from that encounter, it could be said that Mallory had already been expecting Kirone to come for her.

When the god Emperor and several Old god Kings later read through the records of the prison using Authorities over the laws of knowledge, they saw the moment Kirone appeared before a chained Mallory, imprisoned within the core of a supergiant star, and Mallory’s first words were shocking, to say the least.

“You’re late.”

Those were the first words Mallory spoke, and Kirone’s reply was even more unbelievable.

“Well, excuse me, I was dealing with the traitors among somebody’s subordinates, so pardon me if I’m a few days late.”

It wasn’t the kind of exchange anyone would expect from two goddesses inside a maximum-security prison deep within Old god territory, was it?

◇　◇　◇

With Mallory’s eventual release and recovery, the war between the two factions resumed at full strength, only to be brought to a forceful conclusion through a ceasefire.

It was a ceasefire that Mallory and Kirone had forced the Old gods to accept, largely because even they were worn down by the conflict, their forces depleted, and any further fighting would have left them vulnerable to interference from other races eager to exploit the chaos.

Faced with that reality, the Old gods had little choice but to end the war, bringing the divine civil conflict to a close in a draw.

Even so, the events of that war sent shockwaves through the universe, especially Kirone’s act of breaking into an Old god prison to save Mallory.

Once more, the bond between the two was laid bare for all to see.

They were inseparable, and many believed they would remain together until the universe itself reached its end.

That was what people thought, and that belief was exactly why no one could have predicted what followed not long after.

No one could have imagined the New gods faction would suddenly fracture.

No one could have believed that Kirone would attempt to take the life of the same person she had once braved unimaginable danger to save.