Magical Girl's Knight Brother

Chapter 600 Fragmented

Unlike other deities who are born of nature or are united by faith.

Tanya was born in a dream world, once just an ordinary mortal, a little girl born into a poor family. One snowy, bone-chilling night, she carried a small basket containing her last few boxes of matches, hawking them on the cold street... hoping someone would buy them, exchange them for a few coins so she could buy a black bread, or... find a warmer corner. Alas, no miracle occurred. Tanya didn't sell a single match. Just like in those fairy tales, in the end... in that cold corner, she felt her body grow colder and stiffer... until she could feel nothing at all.

Whether it was luck or misfortune, at the moment she was about to die, the rules... or rather, the "wealth" aspect of human belief, chose her. Although this power was not strong, it was enough to elevate her to a higher level.

And so, a little match girl who froze to death on the street became a "goddess of commerce" worshipped by countless itinerant merchants and nobles. Perhaps those wealthy merchants would never have imagined that the deity they worshipped would actually be a ragged little girl. An alternative "Little Match Girl".

Scáthach also recognized Tanya's identity, or rather, she was not surprised by it, because in this world, there are only a few ways for gods to be born. The only possibility for a god like this, whom Scáthach had no recollection of, is a newly born god.

Thinking this, Scáthach slowly lowered her spear. "What exactly happened here? Why is Ilúvatar in this state? What happened to the Empty Mirror?"

The name "Empty Mirror," symbolizing the last line of defense in the age of gods and the key barrier maintaining the existence of the dream world, carried a heavy weight when spoken by Scáthach.

Upon hearing this, Tanya paused slightly in the illusory image of gold coins that had been swirling in her clear eyes. The feigned ease and shrewdness on her youthful face vanished, replaced by a deep solemnity and weariness.

Her dirty little hands unconsciously tugged at the hem of her tattered clothes again, her gaze sweeping over Ilúvatar's horribly mutilated body before finally meeting Scáthach's scrutinizing gaze.

"Sigh." She sighed softly, her voice filled with helplessness. "Since you've asked, I have nothing to hide anymore. This business—no, this situation—has long since become a complete mess."

She paused, as if organizing her thoughts, her gaze fixed on the void, as if piercing through the thick stone walls of the castle to see the distant and shattered battlefield of the gods.

"At the beginning, the Void Realm was relatively stable. Those filthy things from the 'nightmare' outside couldn't break in no matter what. We were relatively safe inside, and the other gods also used their power to block most of the pressure."

Her metaphor, though bearing a trace of mortal thought, was remarkably vivid. But the next moment, her tone took a sharp turn, filled with deep helplessness. "But soon, trouble struck. The gods discovered that the 'bridge' built between the Empty Mirror and this world, the passage connecting the realm of the gods to the dream world below, was 'blocked,' and in both directions."

A gloomy look appeared on Tanya's small face.

"Nightmare things can't get in anymore, which is great news, right? But the problem is... we gods outside this world can't 'descend' into the dream world either. Originally, this wouldn't be too much of a problem; the gods have their own ways of communicating and influencing, after all, the connection of faith is still there. But the problem is..."

"Something has happened to the gods."

She deliberately emphasized the words "over there".

"The fall of each and every god is like a hole that cannot be repaired being punched in the carefully woven 'box' of the Void Realm. The laws of this world will be violently shaken by this hole, like an earthquake or tsunami."

"Without the support and power of the world's stable laws, the Void Realm also began to collapse... One by one, the power of faith was severed, the entire Void Realm became fragmented, the gods lost their connection, and could not even determine whether they were friends or enemies."

Tanya's gaze abruptly shifted to the dying Ilúvatar on the ground, her voice filled with uncontrollable grief and indignation.

"And the Society... Lady Ilúvatar, the Watcher of the Stars... Chili was too close to the front lines of 'Nightmare.' When cracks appeared in the power of the Void Realm, those filthy, twisted nightmare whispers, like the most poisonous fog, seeped in through the cracks, directly defiling the divinity of the Pool." Her small fists clenched tightly, her knuckles turning white.

"Then, Chi changed, becoming... a monster who only knew bloodlust and destruction. Pao was no longer a god who protected the stars, but became a minion of nightmares. Chi turned against his own side and launched a frenzied attack on the gods who had fought alongside him in the past."

The underground hall was deathly silent.

The stars have turned against them.

Desk, slumped on the ground, felt a chill run through her body as she listened, as if she were witnessing a terrifying scene of gods in the starry sky slaughtering each other. Scáthach's gaze beneath her helmet became even more profound and icy.

Tanya took a deep breath, suppressing her surging emotions.

"The gods... had no choice but to kill the corrupted Lady Ilúvatar after paying a heavy price." She spoke the word "kill" with immense weight.

Killing a god, even if the target is a former comrade who has been corrupted, is the deepest taboo and the greatest sorrow among the gods.

"But the consequences of killing a Star God are catastrophic." Tania's voice trembled slightly. "Chi Na's enormous, shattered divine body and uncontrolled stellar divine power, like a runaway meteor, fell directly from the crack in the Void Mirror and crashed into the mortal realm, right here."

"I was unaware of it at first, and by the time I found out, it was too late."

"Those damned, all-pervasive Great Old Ones, like hyenas smelling blood, have followed the cracks in the Mirror of Emptiness and the 'traces' left by Lord Ilúvatar when she fell. They have their eyes on this land stained with divine blood and polluted by the remains of the Star God, and want to turn it into another nest for them on Earth."

Scáthach's violet gaze moved slowly, precisely dissecting Ilúvatar's horrifying wounds as Tanya narrated. The divine spear piercing Ilúvatar's chest, the crimson blasphemous fur constantly writhing at its edges, and the sense of fragility and weakness emanating from her massive divine body... all of this corresponded perfectly with the tragedy Tanya described: the collapse of the Mirror of Emptiness, the corrupting influence of Ilúvatar, and the gods' inevitable slaying of her, after which she fell to the mortal realm.

The power of the Great Old Ones' worm-eaten pleasures gnawed greedily at Ilúvatar's remaining divinity and life force like maggots clinging to bones, preventing any possible self-healing and even deepening the corruption.

This scene itself is the cruelest and most direct commentary on Tanya's words.

However, a crucial question arose in Scáthach's mind. She slowly raised her head, her cold gaze refocusing on the ragged merchant goddess Tania.

"Since the passage between the Mirror of Emptiness and the mortal world is completely sealed, isolating the inside from the outside, nightmares cannot enter, and gods cannot leave..." "Then, how did you break through this barrier and descend to this mortal realm?"

If the barrier of the Void Mirror is so strong that even the gods cannot penetrate it to descend to the mortal realm, then how could this merchant god, whose power doesn't seem to be top-tier and who even appears to be down on his luck, be able to appear here?

Tanya flinched slightly under Scáthach's piercing gaze, a hint of helplessness and...pain appearing on her dirty little face. She seemed to have been touched on something extremely painful, and subconsciously clutched the pocket of her tattered clothes.

"Ah... well..." she drawled, her voice tinged with melancholy, but her eyes were unusually clear, showing no sign of lying. "The path, well, it's always paved by people... uh, God, isn't it? Especially in the business of 'trading,' sometimes you have to... find loopholes in the rules, find shortcuts and such."

Feeling a little uneasy under Scáthach's gaze, she quickly spoke.

"Okay, okay, it was a deal I made with a weirdo."