Chapter 290: Your World Is Doomed

The last thing I expected was to see these supposed elites voluntarily falling to their knees to genuflect themselves like that...

I wasn’t the only one that was surprised as, looking back at the others, the Guardians and even Siti and Diana were also showing surprise at the sight of the three of them kneeling before us.

Diana crossed her arms, "Funny... You guys really change your attitudes pretty quickly, huh? And your people were even giving us a hard time downstairs too."

Khar paled slightly and lowered his head even further, "Please forgive me! If I had known you were True Awakened from the very beginning, I would have shown you the utmost respect I could!! Please let me atone for this with my life!!"

He wasn’t even joking about it as he reached behind him to pull out a dagger, holding it in preparation to slice his own neck open.

What the fuck?! Ok, everybody calm down!!

I reached out and stopped him by grabbing his wrist, the blade having already drawn a short line across a part of his neck when he dragged it across his skin before I could stop him.

A trail of blood was already rolling down the side of his neck and I realised he was serious about slicing his neck open and would have done so if I hadn’t stopped him.

I honestly just stopped him out of reflex since I didn’t want him to kill himself over something like this, but it seems like Diana and Siti had a different idea about this.

Diana huffed at him, "This guy really thinks he can just decide to die and absolve himself of his disrespect so easily."

Siti crossed her arms, "Typical. He just wants to run away from responsibility. Good thing you stopped him in time."

That’s honestly not the reason why I stopped him... Ugh, whatever...

I pulled his hand away from his neck, the guy looking even more pale now after hearing what the two Mortal Goddesses have said.

"You’re still needed," I told him simply, plucking the knife from his grasp and handing it over to Olivia.

He lowered his head again, "A million apologies... I am undeserving of your mercy..."

I sighed before gesturing at the three supposed Dukes kneeling in front of me, "So... Can we get an explanation for this? What even is a ’True Awakened’?"

The other two Dukes turned to look at Khar, as though asking him why I was unaware of this.

Khar himself looked surprised as well, giving me a wide eyed look as if I had just revealed we were actually aliens from another World.

"Forgive me but... Are you... Perhaps not aware about the prophecies of the Awakened?" Khar asked.

I shrugged, "Explain it like we have never heard it before."

He hesitated for a moment before finally speaking, "When the monsters appeared and started slaughtering their way through the world... Most cities fell within days to the assault before people started awakening powers, the people who we know as the Awakened. We had been chosen to save this world and we banded together to fight back against the invasion... But even with these awakened powers we were not strong enough to completely push them back so we had to retreat and gather our own strength."

I raised an eyebrow at him, "What does that have to do with a ’True Awakened’?"

The woman beside him answered, "Even among us Awakened... There were different levels of strength... A low powered Awakened might be able to stand up against a single monster on their own but for us... The ones that are assigned the rank of Duke... We are able to take on a small army of them on our own. But even with us, we could not fight our way up the mountain where the monsters have originated from, so we believe that we need someone even stronger than us, a True Awakened, to truly rid this world of these creatures."

The fatter guy gave us a worried look, "I assume that all of you have... Umm... Been separated from society for quite a while?"

I understood what he was asking for and hesitated for a moment.

We could use the same excuse where I tell them that we are just wanderers which was why we are clueless about the common sense of this ’new’ world but... Maybe we should just tell them the truth from the very beginning?

I’m not sure if this would result in them changing their attitudes towards us since they might only accept us as ’True Awakeners’ because they thought we were of this World, but they might turn hostile the moment they know we were aliens.

I turned to look at my group behind me and both Siti and Diana seemed to have taken that as a sign that I was leaving this to them and stepped forward.

"We’re actually from another world."

"We’re not your people, just so you know."

All three of those Dukes blinked at them, their minds unable to catch up with what they had just heard.

"I’m... Sorry?" Khar mumbled, looking like he was afraid the slightest noise from him might cause him to get killed.

Siti shrugged, "You heard us. Your monsters came to your World through a portal. They opened another portal to try to come to ours, so we beat them back and we’re here to close that portal leading to our World."

The woman with the ice powers gasped, "That... That means... You aren’t people from our world?"

Well... Since we’re already ripping off the bandaid...

"No, we’re not. Like she said, a portal had opened in our world that led us into your World. We are actually people from a different World."

All three of Dukes looked at one another, their faces constantly shifting between confusion to disbelief and even fear.

And as if that wasn’t enough to confuse them, Liyana stepped forward to address them.

"It would do you good to know that the three people standing before you are Gods in our World. Of course, my Goddess is the most Godly out of all of them."

Rahayu and Olivia immediately glared at her and I decided to interrupt them from starting another fight by speaking up, "Ahem... So yeah... Just letting you know that we probably aren’t this ’True Awakened’ that you were thinking of. We just came from another World and we awakened our own powers."

Khar looked at me, "But... But your powers... They are so much stronger... And her... Her powers too... No... Everyone here... You are all strong?"

Diana puffed up her chest, "Of course! You think we are just some normal people sent here to check out your World? We’re here to close the portal, we’re the best of the best!"

At this point, I’m a little afraid that we might actually end up frying their brains with all the new information we were giving them so I decided to ask a question of my own.

"Assuming that we were True Awakeners... What would you have done after finding this out?"

Khar straightened himself, seemingly recovering after being asked a topic that he was familiar with.

"We would have roused for war. With True Awakened leading the charge, we could reclaim the mountain and eliminate the monsters for good."

I pursed my lips, "Do you know what awaits you at the top of the mountain?"

"It’s the leader of the monsters. If we kill it, all of them will perish alongside it."

I shook my head, "That’s not it... Did you not hear the part where I said we came through a portal? These monsters of yours are doing the same thing... They are coming through a portal to enter your World. At the top of that mountain is what we call a Gatekeeper that is maintaining the portal that leads to our World. To stop these monsters from crossing into your World, you have to go through the original portal that they have used to get here and kill the Gatekeeper there to close your portal. But... I believe your World is already infested with multiple portals at this stage and you might spend the rest of your life closing these portals and they would just keep reopening... What you see here in this part of your World is just a small group of them..."

Khar stared at me for a good few seconds, "Gatekeeper... Portals... A small... Group... But... That means... Our World... Our World..."

"It’s lost... I’m sorry," I sighed.

He looked down at his hands that were shaking quite noticeably.

He then suddenly clenched them and shook his head, "No. It’s not lost. Look at this... This city we’ve built! We can still live! We can still survive! We... We can still reclaim it! Even if it’s not our generation, then the next one! Or the one after that!!"

Ah... They still don’t know that the dead will transform into Anomalies in a World that has already been saturated by miasma...

Well... We have a lot of explaining to do then...