'Hmm…I'll need to use the Tyrant pathway uniqueness for the Magic System that's similar to Harry Potter…'
'So that leaves the Darkness, Twilight Giant, White Tower, Sun and the Hermit Pathways to be distributed.'
'And the Hanged man pathway is necessary for the plan of my apotheosis ritual…'
'How do I pick the most suitable people for these pathways though? Do I just help any random person along the way or should I wait for someone to naturally pop up?'
Loki thought about it for a while, debating the pros and cons of each method before settling on the latter since he didn't want some whimsys who couldn't handle their own in a fight as a part of the Tarot Club.
He'd make sure to supply suitable contenders with Beyonder Characteristics and recollect them if things went south and they weren't able to save themselves.
'By the way…I wonder what happened to that dog that brought me along to the first village when I spawned into this world…I never met it again after that time.'
'No one even knows of such a kind giant fluffy dog.'
'Perhaps he's only ever kind to me and cruel to everyone else?'
'Well whatever it is, I'll make sure to help him out when I finally see him.'
With all that decided, Loki finally began to observe the world using the crimson stars in his Sefirah Castle, all to find people who would fit his criteria to join the Tarot Club.
Those who could become True Gods or even Great Old Ones and still have the courage and decency to remain faithful to him and his orders.
"No…not this one, she's too pretty, likely a demon."
"No…not that guy, he's more handsome than me…"
"No…not..."
"..."
The world had changed since his time as a naive Sequence 9 beyonder, villages had grown into smaller fiefdoms with Nobles sprouting up here and there claiming to protect their land from invasions and famines.
Both were rather common due to lack of education and widespread sensitivities since every man was to fend for himself even under the rule of these great nobles.
As such, the first member of the Tarot Club, the child of darkness was found in one such invasion.
The boy was literally a 'hidden gem'. He hid away from the assault of various bandits and enemies on his village as he cowered in the darkness in hopes that they would miss him.
Fortunately even during the light of the day, the darkness seemed like his friend, bending and curving around him to shield him, while the light remained his enemy.
Loki liked the symbolism and hence chose him to be the light bearer for the Darkness pathway.
He named him Salazar, Salazar Slytherin.
The second one he found was a man who loved training with the sword, a son of a Noble that bravely stood behind with his fellow villagers to defend them from the oncoming onslaught of a large group of bandits who aimed to pillage his village.
Loki chose him to be the path clearer for the Twilight Giant pathway.
He named him Godric, Godric Gryffindor.
The third was a woman of much refine.
She held grace in her actions and she constantly attended to those in her fiefdom in pain and suffering, helping them grow from injuries, cooking them something delicious while also making sure that their mental well being was taken care of, she was a pillar of light for everyone.
And so, Loki chose her to be the anchor for the White Tower Pathway.
And he named her Helga, Helga Hufflepuff.
The final person to grace his ranks was a simple commoner who fought against the Lord and Ladies sucking her fellow villager's dry. Using as much as she could learn about mysticism to make her own rudimentary charms to curse those that ruled over her.
He chose her to be the lighthouse of the Hermit Pathway.
He named her Rowena, Rowena Ravenclaw.
And once they were all chosen, he let them rise, while covering them with a hint of the Grey fog to keep them slightly hidden while also making sure that should they reach a high enough level and be able to notice the Grey Fog itself they would directly associate their rise with his kindness.
Time passed and the world changed as they rose.
Since each one was someone who had seen the ruthless ways of the world, they attempted to change the haste and waste around them by becoming Lords and Ladies of their own regions causing a time of lasting peace and prosperity to arise.
This change for the better Loki and the other Gods and Goddesses named the Third Epoch.
An epoch where four of history's greatest Beyonders rose with the help of their followers while simultaneously pulling them along the way to rise even higher than they would have otherwise.
Attention to scientific discovery was unlocked and people became calmer and more unified to each other's sensitivities as the world turned peaceful at last.
Loki played a key role in all this since he whispered sweet nothings in the ears of his chosen ones in their dreams in the guise of the Tarot Club, watching the world change through them as he quietly molded it to his liking.
Only, things weren't all as good as they seemed.
Resentment furrowed in the hearts of the unfavoured.
Cheek, the Chained God, the War God, the lord of the Abyss, the Mother to all, and the Moon Goddess all felt left behind through this progress.
And so they sowed dissent against their enemies in the softest but harshest ways possible, by filling the minds of commoners with malice.
They whispered to their followers that the ones leading the change were evil, and the ones leading the change only wished to consume them to grow themselves further without letting any of them grow, akin to a parasite.
But even those against never realised that their complaints only stemmed through the gradual corruption of the outer gods.
Only Loki did.
However it was already too late.
"Amon…I didn't know this would happen…" Cheek said softly, her voice trembling as she spoke with fear and a soft reverence.
Loki simply sighed before speaking, "It's not that you did this that hurts me…it's that you did it at a point in time where we don't have a single Great Old One on the planet that hurts me."
Cheek remained silent with her head bowed in an apology as she tried to shrink herself into a ball before she spoke once again in a soft squeaky voice, "I can sacrifice myself if you promise me that I won't have to live as a corrupted fragment of 'Her' holding."
Loki chuckled softly, "Sacrifice yourself? For what? You're overestimating your worth to think that you can hurt 'Her' with a sacrifice. I mean sure both of you have the ability to touch the primordial chaos, but realistically, your authority is far lower unless you can merge with the Red Priest Pathway in a short amount of time."
Cheek's head lifted at that comment as she looked at Loki with a firm gaze. "And what if I can?"
Loki's eyes widened slightly at the comment.
"So you've been preparing to advance to a Great Old One all this time too? What about the Red Priest True God out there?"
Cheek paused for a few seconds before explaining, "He's already corrupted. It would be for the benefit of all if he were killed. His death would serve a greater purpose."
Loki whistled softly as he heard the declaration before speaking up again, "If you can merge with the Red Priest pathway Uniqueness and reawaken the will of the Primordial Chaos in you I have a better way to get us all out of this situation without you having to sacrifice yourself."
Cheek's eyes widened slightly before she broke into a wide smile that almost tempted Loki to do the unthinkable.
"Of course you would." Cheek said with admiration.
"Of course I would." Loki reaffirmed before continuing to discuss the finals of his plan with her.
…
Hermione sat blankly in front of Harry and Ron's beds while Daphne sat in front of Astoria's. Both looked equally lost and forlorn as they stared at the result of what was possibly their own actions.
The sleeping draught had worked, barely, since each patient kept trembling awake at random moments while they slept, trying to get out of their restraints before falling asleep once again.
Meanwhile, more and more patients had been added to the Hospital Wing.
It started from various students who Hermione and Daphne knew, like Malfoy, to professors like Flitwick and Sprout who Madam Pomfrey knew and was in close contact with.
But at this point no one really knew who was in contact with whom to have fallen sick to the plague. It was absolute chaos both at Hogwarts and the Wizarding world at large.
The two girls had stayed up for about eighteen hours straight at this point yet neither felt a lick of sleep.
Even Hermione who had a lot less energy in her when compared to Daphne given she was just a Sequence 6, found herself wide awake in a situation like this.
Since each time she even blinked she found herself staring at a void of regret and sorrow that she didn't wish to face.
For a second, the two girls looked at each other and spoke across beds.
"It'll be alright, right?" Hermione asked Daphne who appeared to be calmer than her.
But Daphne just shook her head, "I don't know…I'm only taking this better because Astoria…she's already been through something similar once before…it was just…less violent then."
Hermione nodded, her eyes turning hollow and losing more hope than ever but she held firm. No tears, or expressions of pain showed up on her steeled face as she looked at Ron and Harry.
Yet the feeling of a hint of history repeating itself lingered at the back of her mind.
'Why do I get the feeling that something like this has happened before?'
'Has it happened before?'
Hermione kept looking at her two friends and not long after she slipped into slumber herself.
Only, her dreams weren't as dead as the ones of the two before her.
As soon as Hermione fell asleep she found herself transported to a realm she recognised, it was Knockturn alley. A place she had been to countless times with her friend Daphne on missions.
In the dream she was about to turn around after someone had violently pushed her when-
Hermione awoke with a gasp. Gulping fresh air as if she were drowning only moments prior.
A tremble of fear clenched her chest as she tried not to think too hard about what had just happened.
She had a feeling that if she thought about it, she wouldn't return the same from whatever happened afterwards since her head hurt for some reason even as she skirted around the memory.
"What was that?" Hermione whispered, opening her eyes to see that it was already after noon and someone had been kind enough to wrap a blanket around her while she sat on the chair by the bed.
"What happened, Mione?" Daphne asked softly, placing a hand on Hermione's shoulder, causing her to turn around to spot Daphne holding a tray of sweets and biscuits.
"I….nothing just a bad dream I guess…"
Daphne's eyes sharpened, "Prophetic dream?"
Hermione paused at the question, unsure of an answer until Daphne explained, "If you're unsure it likely is."
Hermione nodded but remained quiet, only whispering a response in return, "I feel like if I think any more about it I'll explode."
"...!" Daphne's eyes widened and she quickly placed the tray away on a desk on the side before rummaging through her pockets to pull out a key item in all this mess, the silver topaz pendulum.
Hermione's eyes widened too as she saw the pendulum before quickly asking her a question, "Why did you take it away from me!?"
"Professor McGonagall asked us about it since she remembered we were messing around with it when we were at Dominic's place. I took it to show it to her. I was about to return it to you…didn't think it would cause such an adverse reaction…."
Hermione nodded and quickly attempted to snatch the pendulum but as soon as her fingers brushed against the cold metallic surface her vision was tinted with crimson as a scene played out in front of her overwriting reality.
A tall woman whose figure she didn't quite recognise was kneeling in front of an altar speaking reverentally to Mr. Error.
"Mr. Error, I have a mission that requires Beyonders below the demigod level to participate, the lower their level the better. It could help in solving the matter of the plague once and for all. Are there any such members in the Tarot Club who could help me?"
By the time the vision ended, Hermione was already holding onto the silver Topaz pendulum but her eyes remained widened.
'Solve the plague once and for all?'
Her gaze shifted towards Harry and Ron whose hands and feet that had been bound by leather straps appeared braised and bruised and then towards Astoria whose hands held deep gashes once again after Madam Pomfrey had fixed her up before.
Then her eyes flickered to the pained look in Daphne's eyes before she nodded to herself to accept the mission.
'If they need only Beyonders below demigod level the mission can't be that dangerous, can it?'
With that Hermione excused herself from Hospital wing for a moment to go to the washroom where she set up an altar for Mr. Error and performed a prayer in response.
"Please inform your blessed that I accept the mission Mr. Error."
When Hermione returned to the Hospital Wing Daphne was already tending to Astoria, cleaning her up and redoing her bandages so Hermione helped with Harry and Ron.
Although her bandaging skills were rather poor when compared to Daphne, she managed to get through it in time for Daphne to propose something else.
"I was thinking about it, and wondered if it was possible for us to figure out a cure to all this, Mione?"
"Us? When not even the Headmaster could?"
"..." Daphne simply shrugged, "You did figure out it was the Basilisk in the second year before everyone else, didn't you?"
Hermione smiled and nodded, "To the library then? Since the Headmaster said what happened is a repeat of the Bubonic Plague, why don't we start from there?"
Daphne nodded with a wry smile, the best she could muster given the situation.
And so after Madam Pomfrey returned to check on their beds once again and gave them the go ahead, the two girls rushed to the Library where there was a surprising lack of people given the current situation.
It was only after they spoke to Madam Pince that they learnt that the school was currently under curfew and that very few Beyonders were allowed to move around unrestricted.
They quickly settled into a corner seat after that to isolate themselves from the world before pulling up books about the Bubonic plague.
And they noticed something pretty quickly.
"What curse would be fatal to Beyonders more than muggles? And what curse would be more fatal to those stronger and higher in sequence than those weaker and lower?" Daphne asked, puzzled.
After thinking for a bit in silence, Hermione finally said with some confidence, "Maybe it has something to do with why we act?"
"The acting method?"
"Yes…don't we act to suppress the will of the previous inheritor of the Beyonder Characteristics from reawakening within us? Perhaps this curse causes them all to go mad for a reason related to that? That would solve the reason from earlier since those that have accumulated more characteristics are more likely to go mad and those that have less like muggles, who have none, are less likely?"
"That…makes sense? But then does it mean that as long as one loses their Beyonder Characteristics they can forgo the curse?"
"That might be possible, but the question remains, how does one forgo their Beyonder Characteristics without dying or going mad in the process?"
There was silence for a few seconds before-
"I…might be able to help you with that, girls." a voice suddenly interrupted the two of them, causing them to become startled and almost prep their Beyonder abilities in retaliation.
"Woah Woah I'm not looking for trouble. I'm here to help, I promise!" the tall woman said with an air of elegance as she raised her hands gracefully and spoke calmly.
"Who're you?" Daphne instantly asked but Hermione remained slightly surprised, 'She's the one that contacted Mr. Error?! Mr. Error's blessed!?'
"I'm Coco Chadwick." The woman said as if that were introduction enough, but to Hermione it was, since she instantly elaborated on the woman's behalf.
"Chadwick! You're from the founding family of Ilvermoney School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."
"Gotten in one." The woman nodded calmly before continuing to explain her mission.
"A little birdie told me your location." She sent a meaningful glance Hermione's way before continuing, "And since you girls happen to be the perfect candidates to help me, I couldn't resist interrupting you by arriving here."
"Help? You? I'm sorry we're busy." Daphne quickly shot the woman down but Coco didn't take it seriously, instead she spoke calmly, "Don't be so quick to turn down my offer. I come bearing news about your troubles. You're trying to cure the plague aren't you? What if I told you it was possible to simply rid the world of it all at once?"
"Rid the world of it?! How!?" Hermione asked this time, baffled because not even the Headmaster had this solution but slightly accepting of the absurdity because it had come from Mr. Error's blessed.
"Your decryption of the matter is almost right, keyword being almost."
"Almost?"
"Yes, almost. While the madness does stem from the Beyond Characteristics itself, and the fact that those who have more of it suffer more, it is not the end of the problem. Tell me, do you know the will of what else is present in the Beyonder Characteristics apart from its predecessor?"
"....the original Creator?" Hermione asked a little unsure but Coco nodded, "Precisely. And that's the key."
"Ah…" Daphne gasped softly as she mumbled, "The Primordial Chaos."
"Bingo! Exactly!" Coco said with her smile widening as she explained further.
"The Original Creator is called the Primordial Chaos and this curse awakens his will as the Primordial Chaos within everybody. So as long as we kill the root of this will, everything will return to normal."
The two girls stood dumbfounded.
'Kill the Original creator?'
'Why did the difficulty suddenly jump beyond Great Old One level?'
'Aren't I just a silly little beyonder that isn't even a Demigod yet?'
But Hermione also quickly found that this didn't cover the entire picture.
"Why does the curse skip people in direct contact with those that have been cursed?"
Coco simply shrugged, "It's learnt from the last time."
"Learnt from the last time?" Daphne mumbled, her brows forming as she thought about it for a second before coming up with an answer, "Is it to cause more chaos and confusion?"
Coco snapped her fingers again, "Precisely. With it skipping people seemingly at random, no one knows who or when they'll get affected or even who is infecting whom. The last time this happened, the High Sequence Beyonders all sealed themselves up and caused the spreading to die out. But this time, it's becoming harder and harder to stop the spread in any way."
"...so the only way is to kill the Original Creator…?" Hermione asked with fear.
Coco looked into her eyes for a moment with maturity beyond her apparent age before she nodded sharply.
"Yes."
…
Loki gazed at the cosmos that had been simmering to a boil slowly over the pressurised vessel that was the battlefield of Earth. His gaze soft and steady as it observed each key item he had placed on it to counter every corrupted god and outer god they might meet today.
"It's about to begin…" Loki mumbled.
And not even before the echoes of his words died out in the Astral Realm, the white moon shimmered with a deep crimson, flickering with power as it rose by twelve degrees in the sky signifying that something vast had dropped off it, unburdening its orbit as a few new cracks spread along its bottom before a vast, gigantic, ginormous figure appeared above the planet.
It was a gigantic woman with fleshy organs hanging off of her.
The astral barrier blocked the figure from entering the planet which gave everyone inside it some respite but Loki waited patiently.
He was waiting for the one single moment when the barrier shattered for his plan to succeed.
His gaze remained fixed on Mother Goddess of Depravity even as other orbiting gods and goddesses appeared on the field outside the barrier.
Crimson light falling from the moon onto the planet birthed abominations of bizarre products. A three headed man whose heads could be juggled in any order, a giraffe whose legs were replaced by multiple long necked heads of other giraffe's, a person whose cat had fused with his head causing his face to sprout an unnatural cheshire grin along with a tail and so on and so forth.
Demons all over the world shivered as Rowena redirected the crimson light towards the Abyss as punishment for attempting to destroy her kingdom.
The Chained god shivered when Salazar wrapped a rapidly growing sapling in darkness and tossed it towards the Antarctic.
Rowena, however, not yet a full-fledged True God, suddenly fumbled with the weight of the crimson light, however Helga and Godric stepped in at that moment to help support Rowena in directing the light to three different locations.
First the Abyss, next the War God's home, and finally the mirror dimension. But given the light was already spread thin, it was reflected back out of the mirror dimension and onto Loki himself who simply turned it into a rune and stole it.
Loki watched patiently with a steady gaze as the barrier over the Astral World trembled after it recognised the authority of the Original Creator.
"Ho…" Loki breathed out softly as he watched Mother Goddess of Depravity appear on the battlefield, shattering the barrier in the process using the authority of the mother of the Primordial Chaos, the embryonic Original Creator of the next universe.
Loki immediately teleported Rowena, Helga, Salazar and Godric away as the shards of the broken barrier were still floating in the air around them. Making sure they were safe from harm since they were going to be his backup plan should something happen to him in this fight.
Almost as soon as they teleported away, the first shots were fired.
Loki activated his theft and stole all the abilities he could from Mother Goddess of Depravity, namely he stole her ability to 'invoke' New Life; the authority which gave her the option to imbue anything even attacks from enemies with their own life, her ability to 'invoke' Revoke life; which gave her the ability to steal all life from her enemy and sentence them to an early death and her ability to 'invoke' moon manipulation; which allowed her to mix the spirit world and the real world and unleash several malice filled spirits into the real world.
However, Mother Goddess of Depravity was not one to easily give up since she rather easily chose a separate option to save herself!
Given she could no longer use New Life or revoke life, she chose to corrupt the spawn of the Original Creator within her which caused her to also become corrupted with her own abilities in turn which allowed her to regain New Life and revoke life to some extent albeit in a weaker fashion.
But by the time she did so, Loki had already moved.
"I wish for the will of the Original Creator to become the absolute strongest it has ever been closest to me." Loki made a wish that was inconsequential to him!
He was immune to corruption, but Mother Goddess of Depravity who was the closest to the spawn that was the Original Creator and the first born of the Original Creator could not simply ignore his call.
The first time he had woken up when Loki had disturbed 'Him', 'She' had lost her sefirot and total authority over her pathways, now when the will of the Original Creator suddenly rose to an all time high due to Loki's wish, she wailed as she felt her body tear apart.
This was where the wording of Loki's wish came into play.
He had wished for the will of the Original Creator to strengthen closest to him, meaning the closer one was to him the stronger the will's effect would be.
That would mean that the Original Creator who was within Mother Goddess of Depravity would tear her own body from the inside to be closer to him to regain sanity.
A premature birth that would end this universe and start another directly if it happened, and one that Mother Goddess of Depravity couldn't let happen for she would be erased in that scenario.
But Loki didn't stop there.
He stepped closer!
This amplified the effect!
So now even though Mother Goddess of Depravity partially regained her authority of New Life and Revoke life, she was being constantly tortured with her womb being torn open from the inside by the Original Creator before she was healed by New Life.
Mother Goddess Of Depravity didn't stop her attack however, she brought out her authority of Mother and exercised 'Life'!
Almost instantly Loki found his body mutating uncontrollably as his feet turned into roots that dug into the ground, his hands turned into stalks and his head into a flower that bore fruits before returning to the ground.
But Loki didn't die then, a large Big Ben dropped out of the sky, its clock turning back by a second before a large bell struck, ringing to change the very fabric of the universe as the changes in Loki were reversed before he reappeared.
However, this reversal of time applied even to Mother Goddess of Depravity!
But this was not a mistake!
Almost as soon as the damage within Mother Goddess of Depravity was reversed, Loki performed a new theft!
This time he stole four abilities in succession! A series of thefts he had planned from earlier!
He stole her ability to invoke New Life, Revoke Life, and her ability to manipulate the moon. These were the same as the previous time, but this time Loki followed it up with the most important theft of the game, the theft of her thoughts of corrupting the Original Creator's spawn so that she could not regain her New Life abilities!
Now suddenly with the burden of the corruption of the wish that Loki had made about increasing the Original Creator's will around him, the pain that the Goddess bore could be borne no more as she was forced to leave the planet almost instantly and create distance from Loki to stop herself from being torn apart by the symbolism of her own baby.
But Loki wasn't so forgiving.
Almost as soon as Mother Goddess of Depravity even thought about leaving, her thoughts were stolen.
She entered a short daze and was left with an opening where Loki stepped even closer before plunging his hand straight into Mother Goddess of Depravity's womb!
Taking the moment of the stabbing as an opportunity Mother Goddess of Depravity stepped away and moved back out of the planet leaving Loki behind.
However, almost immediately after she teleported away Loki began laughing uncontrollably.
"Hmm…?" Mother Goddess of Depravity twisted her head in pain to look at Loki carefully to figure out what exactly he found so funny right now, they had just begun fighting and the fight was nowhere near done, so why was a mere King of King of Angels laughing so arrogantly after winning a single round?
"You're wondering why I'm laughing so much, aren't you?" Loki asked softly, trying to hold his shoulders from trembling so much as he contained his twitching lips.
Mother Goddess of Depravity remained silent in confusion but suddenly her eyes widened as she looked towards her stomach and then towards the shards of the barrier that had suddenly frozen in place before returning to the sky to reform the barrier around the planet in the Astral World.
"Precisely." Loki snapped his fingers making a correct gesture as he calmly walked over towards Mother Goddess of Depravity, only the astral barrier separating them this time. "You didn't think you could simply barge into my house uninvited and I'd let you right?"
"..."
"Tell me, why did you choose my house out of everyone's out there? Wouldn't the Abyss be faster for you to go into since you could regain your sefirot quicker? Why come straight away to me when I didn't even do anything to you? It's almost as if you wanted to get beaten up."
"Ho- How!?" Mother Goddess of Depravity blurted out in shock and surprise.
"Oh, you're so surprised by how I controlled that little spawn of the Original Creator in you to recreate the astral barrier? Or is it related to some deep mysticism secret that made you want to kill me first?"
Mother Goddess of Depravity remained stunned in silence as she felt a force beyond her comprehension invoke the Supreme Authority of the Original Creator within her and expel her from the solar system.
She resisted with all her might, but resistance was futile unless she wished to reuse the Supreme Authority and risk giving birth to 'Him' prematurely.
Even so she managed to delay her departure long enough for her to listen to Loki's explanation.
"I asked Cheek to merge with the Red Priest and when you revealed the supreme Authority to break the barrier, I parasitised it through 'Their' symbolic connection and since I can't get corrupted I simply now control 'Him'-"
Loki suddenly coughed up blood.
And then he violently vomited piles of flesh and blood before stopping to wipe off his mouth as his skin suddenly rotted and started to die.
He swiped through the air and stole back his parasitism of the spawn that was the Original Creator to stop the sudden unexpected rebound as he spoke softly.
"It seems not even I am immune to the corruption of the Original Creator, but I'm immune enough to kick you out…" Loki mumbled before laughing once again as he shouted for Mother Goddess of Depravity to hear as she zoomed out of the Solar System, "Keep trying in another Two Thousand and Hundred Sixty Years you hag!!"
…