Why Betrayal

"My god."

Hong Yuan strode over, carrying her heavy giant axe on her shoulder.

"You finally came back in one piece!"

Her loud, blustering voice instantly broke the somewhat heavy atmosphere in the passage.

"I thought you weren't going to leave with us!"

She complained at the top of her lungs while unceremoniously swinging her free hand to slap Chen Guan hard on the shoulder, producing a muffled thud.

"It's good that you're back."

Su Yuehe also hurried over.

"It's good that you're back safe and sound."

She raised the back of her hand and haphazardly wiped the moisture from her cheeks. A distinct ring of redness still lingered around the edges of her eyes, but her voice was already filled with heartfelt joy.

That genuine, heartfelt emotion expressed her current feelings far better than any flowery rhetoric could.

Long Ao also walked over to Chen Guan's other side, weapon in hand. He still had that cool guy demeanor, preferring not to talk much, and merely gave Chen Guan a firm nod of his chin as a greeting.

But the meaning conveyed in his eyes was very clear.

This was probably Long Ao's version of caring.

"It seems we really don't need to prepare any psychological counseling plans in advance."

Yin Chen strolled over slowly from behind with his arms crossed, his tone regaining its usual teasing edge.

"Though I am personally quite curious."

He tilted his head slightly, looking into Chen Guan's eyes.

"What exactly did you go in there to do?"

He paused for two seconds before immediately adding the second half of his thought.

"I'm just curious about what you actually did to make the overwhelming resentment in this godforsaken place dissipate so cleanly."

He spread his hands and shrugged.

"I'm guessing you probably owe all of us a detailed explanation right now."

Faced with the chorus of his companions' concerned greetings and curious inquiries, Chen Guan just stood there quietly and listened.

He could clearly feel that when his hand clasped tightly with An Changqing's, when Hong Yuan's warm palm slapped his shoulder, and when he was once again surrounded by these familiar, vibrant auras of life, a long-lost sense of grounded reality slowly flowed back through his veins into the depths of his heart.

He didn't need to be some abandoned ancient god at all, nor did he need to be some unlucky descendant bearing a bloodline curse.

He was just Chen Guan.

The companion of the people standing right here.

Chen Guan swept his gaze over the faces of everyone in front of him one by one, and finally, he gave a slight nod.

"I'll tell you all about it on the way back."

He hadn't yet come up with a good lie for some of the more unreasonable details.

He needed time to make it up.

But a lazy voice, tinged with a bit of mockery, suddenly echoed directly in the depths of his mind without any warning.

"Hey, kid, long time no see."

Chen Guan didn't pause his forward footsteps at all, and the muscle lines on his face didn't change in the slightest.

But the processing speed of his brain came to a momentary halt in that instant.

This lazy voice echoing in his mind belonged to Baal.

Long time no see indeed.

"What kind of godforsaken corner of the world did you run off to?"

Baal's voice carried a distinct tone of disgust.

"To put it in terms you can understand, the signal here is terrible. If your signal hadn't suddenly vanished, Lord Baal would have almost forgotten about you. Reconnecting the signal cost Lord Baal quite a bit of effort."

He paused for a moment.

"Hmm, wait a minute."

His tone underwent a subtle change in the next second, as a hint of surprise mixed into that laziness.

"This scent is a bit familiar."

He drew out his words in Chen Guan's mind.

"I say, are you lucky or just unlucky, kid? How is it that you always manage to step squarely onto the graves of these kinds of things?"

His tone grew increasingly curious.

"Let me see, which god did you find this time?"

Chen Guan silently gave his response in his heart.

"An unlucky bastard who was betrayed by his believers and harbored eternal regret for ten thousand years."

Having Baal deliver himself to the door didn't seem too bad. If Chen Guan had to find an old timer with enough age right now, it would definitely be this Mr. Demon God who had lived for an unknown number of years.

Living long enough and having a high enough status meant knowing an abundance of rich secrets.

"An unlucky bastard?"

Baal let out a low chuckle deep within Chen Guan's consciousness, sounding as if he had just heard an extremely absurd joke.

"Kid, your understanding of the word 'god' is still too shallow."

He restrained his smile. "An entity that a civilization would use every means possible to betray and erase is never exactly a saint."

Seeing Baal acting like he knew the inside story, Chen Guan said honestly, "That will wanted me to inherit everything it left behind and take a seat on its divine throne."

"Divine throne?"

Baal's laughter became even more pronounced.

"Oh, so that's how it is."

He slowly and methodically analyzed the situation in Chen Guan's mind.

"Its true body should have completely perished by now. It's probably just a final, restless thought looking for a new vessel to exact its revenge."

His tone carried a bit of certainty.

"You possess the kind of traits it likes, which is why it went to such great lengths to seek you out."

"Do you know the true identity of that will?"

Chen Guan immediately caught the key information revealed in the other's words.

"Of course I do."

Baal's tone became somewhat subtle, feeling like someone flipping through an ancient, dust-covered tome.

"Although I was probably only just born when it completely perished, I've still heard some of the rumors about it."

"In those records older than history itself, which you humans call the Lost Era, it had several different titles."

Baal's voice slowly unfolded in Chen Guan's mind.

"The Specter of the Old Days."

"The Apocalyptic Walker."

"Or you could call it by its most core honorific."

"The Lord of Nihility."

These heavily weighted words smashed hard into the depths of Chen Guan's consciousness.

He had always thought he had merely encountered an ordinary god, otherwise it wouldn't have been slain by mortals.

Yet he completely hadn't expected that the titles tied to this cluster of residual will would have such an astonishing background.

Although he didn't quite understand the specific meanings, just looking at this string of titles told him it was far from simple. Moreover, judging from Baal's words, this was an existence even older than Baal.

"Why does your facial expression look so weird?"

Su Yuehe carefully caught the fleeting, strange look on Chen Guan's face.

"Are there still some unresolved lingering effects?"

"No."

Chen Guan quickly gathered his wandering thoughts, looked at Su Yuehe, and shook his head. Then, he posed the most crucial question to Baal in his heart.

"So why was it betrayed by its believers?"

The murals he had seen deep in the passage and the emotions he had felt all pointed to a tragic betrayal.

"Why?"

Baal's tone took on an obvious hint of mockery.