[Gods-and-Demons Group Chat]

[Ashveil]: Never thought it would turn out like this.

[Ironclaw]: Same. I figured Deceitful Bloom had long stopped caring about Beacon's fall.

[Boiling Orange]: Deceitful Bloom, I hate you. If you don't give me ten sets of BS-Rita merch, I'm never talking to you again.

[Ashveil]: Buying BS-Rita merch at a high price.

[Foolishness]: And someone still dares say BS-Rita has no backing?

[Hearthsmoke]: Don't you count?

[Foolishness]: I already told you I don't.

[Boiling Orange]: If I'd known, I would've voted against her in the Council.

[Crispfang]: Her reasoning was airtight. Everything she said followed the general trend. Even if we voted again now, the result would be the same.

[Drummer]: She hasn't lied in so long I nearly forgot the flowers on her Vine represent deceit.

[Bitter Chalice]: When I told her about how the captain accelerated Forest Sea's collapse, she even acted along with me.

[Old Incense]: She does look genuinely happy every time she visits BS-Rita. Hard to see any agenda.

[Thorn]: Is BS-Rita really worth scheming over like this?

[Card]: Why wouldn't she be? Little Painter, Kart Racer, Diamond Miner, Chaotic Restaurant, Chaotic Blocks, Card Swap… just six games and she's already a tier 12 Nightmare. No other player grows fast enough to deserve this level of planning.

[Spring Morning]: If I'd known she would become this strong, I'd have schemed for my race too.

[OneCup]: What's the captain of the radical faction saying?

[Tailsea]: He said compared to Deceitful Bloom, he's still too conservative.

[Captain]: And which one of you wasn't fooled by her before? You're still dancing in her palm!

[Captain]: I even said privately she would never act this passionate for no reason. Drummer and Bitter Chalice said I was being paranoid.

[Drummer]: Well, you can be pretty paranoid sometimes.

[Captain]: Get lost.

[Winter Wandering]: When did the plan even start?

[Spring Morning]: There is no clear point. It just happened naturally. You never know which step she nudged.

[Scallion Carp]: Maybe Divine Game caught on, otherwise it wouldn't suddenly change the reward for killing a Hunter.

[Tailsea]: Too late now. Forced kills won't work. Verdant-Windrush only succeeded thanks to luck skills. Lania Kaia's last real shot was Wither Monarch… what a shame.

[Ashveil]: Where the hell did all of you crawl out from? I thought you muted this group already.

[Scallion Carp]: We usually just don't feel like talking to you.

[Honey Jar]: Turns out we were right.

[Spring Deity]: I knew demons were all black-hearted!

[Winter Wandering]: Spring Deity, please shut up. You're painful to look at.

[OneCup]: Wait, didn't Deceitful Bloom call BS-Rita a golden apple before?

[Deceitful Bloom]: Apples are meant to be eaten.

...

After Rita spoke, the entire hall stayed silent for several minutes.

Every player was digesting the mountain of information they had just witnessed.

Across races, across worlds, what unites everyone isn't love. It's gossip.

The seven other gods on their thrones didn't react. They simply sat still.

As for Deceitful Bloom, she returned to her seat, back into the shadows, as though stepping out earlier was solely to let everyone see her true form.

She removed herself from the eye of the storm and broke the silence.

"I have answered your question. Next."

Dawn-Cicada looked lost and shaken. She pressed her lips together and didn't speak again.

What no one expected was that the next person to speak… was BS-Rita.

Her voice was remarkably calm, as if none of this had anything to do with her.

She didn't even look at Deceitful Bloom. Her gaze drifted somewhere in the distance as she asked:

"What crisis forced you to push world after world into merging?"

She didn't waste her question on anything about favoritism.

She didn't hide what she had deduced either. There was nothing worth hiding.

The urgency behind the updated invasion sequences was unmistakable.

Anyone paying attention would have guessed something similar.

Yes, Deceitful Bloom had schemed with her as a piece on the board—

But Rita had risen from tier 2 to tier 12 in under a year.

That alone was reason enough for a god to maneuver for their kin.

If she could be schemed for, then the plan must have aligned with the greater trend.

Otherwise Deceitful Bloom would never have been unable to save Beacon back then.

"The actions of gods are watched by Divine Game, and no player can gain from a god's favoritism."

That line was very likely true.

Teaching and observing might be permitted, but when it came to worlds and races, no single god held that much power.

Rita would not forget the public votes initiated by Foolishness and the captain.

Her gaze shifted across the hall.

A few players looked shaken, a few enlightened; most had little reaction.

These veterans had far more years of gameplay behind them.

This deduction wasn't rare among them.

From the fifth throne on the right came a voice:

"An unavoidable crisis."

Every player froze.

That answer was useless—yet it was technically still an answer.

The game had only said the players could ask.

It never said the gods had to answer constructively.

After a stretch of tense silence, players began firing questions one after another, each sharper than the last.

Rita truly was exceptional.

Even with her mere twelve tiers, no one questioned why a god would want her for their race.

In fact, no one even thought it unreasonable.

But it raised another question:

Dawn was already an eight-star world.

Why did Deceitful Bloom still push plans for them?

She wanted Dawn-Cicada to obtain BS-Rita.

But she would certainly want Lania Kaia as well.

"Dawn is already an eight-star world. Why are you still planning for it?"

[The stronger a world's overall power, the higher its chance to survive the crisis.]

"What benefit does the surviving world get?"

[It may build its own Isolated Isle, ascend as a god, or restart its world. Whatever it desires may be attainable.]

Silence again.

Only the tightened breathing of players remained.

"Is Arisentna a world that survived the previous crisis?"

[Yes.]

"That's why it never appeared in the previous invasion sequences?"

[Partially.]

"Why can Arisentna's students awaken divine talents before it even enters the invasion sequence?"

[Because the world is special, but its magic reserves are insufficient.]

"What are the Hunters' victory conditions in this game?"

[You are clever. They must kill all Mechanoids within three hours.]

"What happens if they fail?"

[They enter the invasion sequence and enter the war.]

"How many worlds survive after the crisis?"

[There is no fixed number.]

"Can Arisentna's teachers… no. I mean, the Hunters—be revived if they die in this game?"

Every gaze in the hall snapped to Rita.

Shock rippled through the players.

No one had ever thought to ask that.

In Divine Game, death was always just a penalty.

This question shattered a foundational belief.

The answer dropped like a stone:

[When a Hunter dies in this Divine Game, they die permanently.]

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