They all call me an Outer God.

"..."

Ria felt intense pain, a burning pain all over his body. The excruciating pain, like maggots crawling into his bones and penetrating his soul, made him clutch his head. His body surface turned uncontrollably black, then wriggled and throbbed, extending out large tentacles.

The fact that their tentacles were dancing wildly and uncontrollably was enough to prove that they were extremely excited.

This scene defies the norm; almost no one can feel joy in the face of the pain of having their soul torn apart and reassembled multiple times, but Ria is able to feel inexplicable excitement amidst the pain.

Pain is probably the only thing that proves he is still alive. If one day Ria can no longer feel these things, he might start to lose the ability to distinguish himself from the monsters in mythology.

"My emotions seem to be out of control. I keep expressing myself inappropriately. If this continues, will I awaken some strange personality traits...?"

"Calm down, calm down, now is not the time to be happy—"

Ria took a deep breath and retracted the tentacles that were making a ruckus due to their emotions.

He stretched out his hand, in which was a strange, blood-red ball of light. This was the divine essence that Messiah had given him. Just touching it, he could feel its unimaginable power, which was incomparable to the knighthoods of the previous Meme Ones.

As he spent more time in contact with the light, his skin began to rot and emit a pungent odor, but it would then repair itself automatically, with scarlet lines resembling the spread of fungal hyphae appearing on its surface.

These patterns represent the fusion of the Red Moon's divinity with his soul. While the taste of power is exhilarating and the boundless divine power is almost irresistible, Ria does not intend to consume Him with his own body.

"My body can't contain you."

How could a meme-two person contain the godhood of meme-zero? Ria is always cautious; he won't be greedy where he shouldn't be. For example, this time he only intended to pass on the godhood of the Red Moon to the original godhood—

That enormous, golden pupil, seemingly infinite in size, is said to have been taken from Azathoth, the blind and foolish lord, by the gods while he slept. The gods then played an unknown trick on him, allowing him to remain in some elusive void near Earth.

They claimed to the outside world that this enormous thing was the only awakened deity.

But who can distinguish between being awake and asleep? Since the world is just a dream of the original ruler, what difference is there between waking up and falling asleep in the dream?

After thinking for a moment, Lia felt that she couldn't think about this problem any further, otherwise she would easily fall into a philosophical trap and become neurotic.

He gripped the divine spark tightly in his hand, his consciousness sinking into complete darkness. The surrounding darkness was oppressive and sticky, but Ria struggled to open his eyes.

Before him stood the enormous golden eye, and the two stared at each other for a long time before Lia silently handed over the power of the Crimson Moon.

“I am you, and you are me. Giving you authority is equivalent to me being able to use that part of my authority.”

“We’re in the same boat. I’ll help you gather the power of the gods… If the Primordial One awakens, I hope you can put in a good word for me.”

"After all, doing business with me isn't free."

"I'm joking," Ria said, then watched as the Red Moon's authority was entwined by tentacles that stretched from the void from the ever-growing eye. Each god's divine essence has a different form; usually, it manifests as something they once cherished most. If the divine essence becomes invisible, it means that the god has no cherished object, or that the object has long since vanished.

Ria was also very curious about what her trade godhood would look like. She estimated that when Meme Zero arrived, the mature godhood would reveal its true form.

It might take the shape of money, or perhaps it will resemble a swarth.

"Gurgle...gurgle..."

The tentacles wrapped around the Red Moon's authority, sealing it completely like a cocoon, and dragged it back into the depths of nothingness. Then, another gray-black tentacle reached out to Ria, containing a small, purified authority.

This thing is the limit he can currently adapt to; no more, no less. Too little and his authority will dissipate; too much and he will no longer be able to maintain his human form, turning into an unformed mythical creature.

Ria caught it, and the crimson substance automatically merged into his consciousness. This thing meant that Ria now had the right to control death. Fortunately, it was a weakened version; otherwise, if a believer sacrificed himself to him and then died, Ria would probably soon have no believers left.

Now is the time to let consciousness return and fight for control of the body.

Ria ran her gloved fingers along the handle of her cane, about to turn and leave, when in an instant her pupils contracted and she swung her cane in the direction of her two o'clock without hesitation. The cane transformed into a sharp sword and pierced straight into a rusty red patch of ground.

His reaction was extremely fast, and the movement of the rust was even faster. In an instant, it disappeared completely and then pierced through the void in all directions with countless threads, leaving Ria unable to move.

Then, rust-red traces reappeared on the ground, bubbling up like molten lava. As the bubbles burst, a hand began to emerge from them.

At first, it was just one hand, and then that hand gripped the ground, trying to slowly pull the entire body out of the ground. It was clear that this process was not easy, and as the figure of this person was revealed, the divine core behind Ria showed an unusually violent instinctive emotion of rage.

"Don't be in such a hurry. Do you know how long I've been looking for you?"

Ria saw a young man whose face was blurry, seemingly quite handsome, yet also extremely ordinary, so ordinary that he would be easily forgotten.

The man was dressed in a retro dark red suit, but his vest was a striking fluorescent green, and even his gloves were an asymmetrical bunch of yellow-green velvet half-finger gloves.

From an aesthetic point of view, this person's outfit was absolutely terrible, but the other party didn't seem to think so. For such a grand day, He probably brought the best outfit He could think of.

"It's been such a long time. I can't even remember the last time I've shown myself like this."

The man had only his two legs left to remain, and he looked at Ria with a smile on his lips, his gaze fixed on her like a bundle of goods.

Ria's eyes were gleaming with gold. For some reason, he felt an intense loathing for this person from the very first moment he saw him.

This emotion was quite rare for him. After all, even when he first met Hephaestus, Ria had never felt such an instinctive aversion to them. This emotion appeared so abruptly that he almost wanted to break free of his restraints immediately, kill the other party, and then tear them into a thousand pieces, mash them into mincemeat, and mix them into cement to pave the road.

(End of this chapter)