The Outer God Needs Warmth

Chapter 44

Hyungkeshni yielded to the Outer God's words.

While the Outer God framed it as persuasion, it was, in essence, a threat: "Do what I want, or I’ll kill you." It would be more accurate to call it surrender.

The moment Hyungkeshni sacrificed countless worlds to save herself from suffering a horrible fate, the Outer God, rather than celebrating, nervously pondered how best to navigate the current situation.

The Outer God thought,

"If it’s just about saving Hyungkeshni, I can make her a hero."

The Sphere Humans were currently under the Outer God’s control and could move at its will.

In the worst-case scenario, the Outer God considered combining the royal corpses into a grotesque "Outer God Monstrosity" and declaring itself the villain while claiming Hyungkeshni failed in her heroic mission to stop it. This idea briefly flashed through its mind before disappearing.

The Outer God's mind was sharp when devising underhanded schemes.

But the Outer God quickly dismissed this approach because it had a major flaw: even if Hyungkeshni survived and wrote a book, the Outer God couldn’t read it.

The Outer God had two ways of remembering books:

A blessed individual reads it aloud.It licks the light of someone who has read the entire book.

The fact that the Outer God had no direct way to read books highlighted its nature.@@@@

Regardless, a blessed individual reading the book would suffice.

The problem was that no blessed individuals remained in this world.

Hyungkeshni had hunted them down and killed them all.

While Tis-ha was healing and rebuilding the kingdom, Hyungkeshni had also been quite busy.

Let’s recount her story.

Back when the Mirae Hope Sect was still active, Hyungkeshni left Yasle after warning him five times.

This wasn’t a betrayal—it was stipulated in their original contract. When she first made a pact with Yasle, Hyungkeshni agreed to help him but would leave if he ignored her advice.

Thus, her departure was not an act of treachery but a fulfillment of their terms. In fact, giving Yasle five warnings showed considerable patience.

Truthfully, Hyungkeshni’s reasons for helping Yasle were rather dark, so it was surprising she supported him for decades.

Her motivation wasn’t complex. To Hyungkeshni, Yasle wasn’t a cult leader but a young, righteous priest from Yonglang, a devout theocratic nation.

He was an idealistic, merciless cleric—compassionate yet unwavering in his condemnation of heretics.

In contrast, Hyungkeshni was the archetypal wicked witch, as if plucked from a fairy tale. She preyed on the weak and fled from the strong, cackling as she scattered curses.

Her sinister laughter earned her the nickname "Witch of Delight." Those who opposed her saw her as a mocking, elusive figure.

One day, a righteous cleric came to her—a man consumed by vengeance after losing his nation.

Intrigued, the witch decided to cooperate, curious to see how such an upright young man might fall.

"The higher they climb, the harder they fall. But how far can that fall go?"

Her curiosity was satisfied when Yasle, once a virtuous man, became undeniably evil.

When a group of blessed individuals attempted to summon the Outer God again, Hyungkeshni used a hidden failsafe embedded in her magic to stop them and killed the summoners.

At first, she thought these killings were enough.

But when she saw members of Andrew’s Mirae Hope Sect banding together to summon the Outer God, she realized she had to act decisively.

Fearing the god’s return, Hyungkeshni exterminated every blessed individual.

Her cowardice drove her to relentless action. After years of effort, she killed them all—except Tis-ha, who she spared after witnessing his divine protection.

Excluding Tis-ha might have stemmed from fear of challenging a god-blessed hero.

Ultimately, the Outer God descended through Tis-ha, rendering Hyungkeshni’s efforts futile.

Now, she was at its mercy.

Faced with no real choice, Hyungkeshni complied to save herself, finding hollow comfort in blaming her surrender on the threat she faced.

And so, decades of effort crumbled, leaving her as nothing more than a tool for the Outer God.

It was her own doing.

If only she hadn’t taught the summoning rituals.

If only she had opposed the sacrifice of innocents.

No, from the moment she chose to indulge her curiosity about Yasle’s fall, this outcome had been inevitable.

She wasn’t truly evil, but her malice had led her here, just as gossip and schadenfreude drag ordinary people into ruin.

By ignoring Mirae Hope Sect’s atrocities, she had enabled them.

Her actions snowballed, unleashing the very entity she had named the Outer God into reality.

Now, she had accepted its veiled threats.

She had fallen off the cliff’s edge.

And then—

Boom!

The door burst open with a loud crash, and a soldier from the Ansellus Kingdom entered.

Moments earlier, the soldier had forced his way into Tis-ha’s strangely empty chamber to investigate reports of an intruding witch. Despite risking punishment for interrupting the royal family’s private quarters, he prioritized safety above all.

He was a responsible and upright man.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh!"

But his bravery was rewarded with a horrifying sight: an eldritch scene of Sphere Humans filling the room like an exhibit in a modern art gallery.

Overwhelmed by the grotesque scene, he collapsed, screaming.