I Was Summoned to Die, so I’m Climbing the Pantheon for Revenge!

The cheers of the demon soldiers faded as the fog continued to lift, revealing not just the frozen valley and the jagged mountain peaks, but something else. Something that had been hidden for centuries.

Behind the corpse of the Brume Whale, where the mist had been thickest, a structure began to materialize. It was a tower—ancient, impossibly tall, its black stone surface absorbing the pale light rather than reflecting it. It had no windows, no doors, no visible entrance. It simply rose from the mountain like a dark spear thrust into the sky.

“What is that?” Vane breathed, his greatsword lowering.

Sebastian adjusted his spectacles, his demonic eyes narrowing. “It was not on any map. The fog must have concealed it completely.”

Cain stared at the tower. His [Nova] interface flickered, attempting to scan.

<Host. The structure is saturated with divine magic. It appears to be a seal—a lock of some kind. The whale’s death has destabilized the concealment enchantment.>

“The Goddess’s sanctuary,” Sofia said softly, her newly regenerated voice still raw. “It was hidden behind the whale all along.”

The Generals exchanged glances. Malakor hefted his axe. “Then we break it open.”

But before anyone could move, the corpse of the Brume Whale twitched.

It was a small movement—a shudder along its flank, a ripple in its dead skin. Then another. And another. The creature’s ventral grooves, which had been silent, began to pulse again. Not with memories, but with something else. Something alive.

“Back away!” Cain shouted.

The demon soldiers scrambled, raising their rifles. The Generals formed a defensive line. But the whale did not rise. It did not attack.

It opened its mouth.

The vertical chasm of baleen plates split apart, revealing a dark, pulsing throat. And from that throat, they came.

At first, they looked like shadows—small, writhing shapes, no larger than a human child. But as they spilled out onto the snow, their forms became distinct. They were vaguely humanoid, with too-long limbs, skin the color of old bruises, and faces that were smooth and featureless except for a single, vertical slit where a mouth should be. They had no eyes, no noses, no ears. Only that hungry, gaping slit.

And they moved fast.

The first wave hit the demon soldiers before anyone could fire. The creatures didn’t bite or claw. They simply touched—a single, cold hand on a soldier’s arm, a press of that featureless face against a helmet. And the soldier would freeze. His eyes would go wide. His mouth would fall open. And then he would drop his weapon and stumble backward, muttering, “I… I forgot. What was I doing? Who are you?”

“Soul eaters,” Zephyra hissed, her shadows recoiling. “They don’t consume flesh. They consume existence. Memories, identity, the very sense of self.”

The creatures poured from the whale’s mouth in a tide. Dozens. Then hundreds. They spread across the snow like a living flood, ignoring the dead whale, ignoring the tower, focused entirely on the living.

“Artillery!” Vane ordered. “Fire at will!”

The remaining mana-cannons thundered. Blue shells exploded among the horde, tearing through dozens of the creatures. But for every one destroyed, three more emerged. The whale’s body was a womb, and it had been gestating these horrors for centuries.

The demon soldiers fought bravely. Their magi-rifles spat blue bolts, cutting down wave after wave. But the creatures were relentless. They slipped through the firing lines, touching soldier after soldier. Within minutes, half of the remaining force was wandering aimlessly, their minds wiped clean.

“Fall back to the fortress!” Vane commanded, but his own voice wavered. One of the creatures had brushed his gauntlet. He stared at his hand, frowning. “I had a daughter,” he murmured. “I think. What was her name?”

Sylas grabbed his shoulder, shaking him. “Vane! Focus! You are a General of the Abyss!”

But Vane’s eyes were distant. The soul eater’s touch was insidious, and even his hardened mind was beginning to fray.

Malakor swung his axe in wide arcs, cleaving through the creatures. But each swing was slower than the last. His face, usually set in a mask of iron fury, was slackening. “I am Malakor,” he repeated to himself, as if trying to remember his own name. “I am the Iron Wall. I am… I am…”

Scarlet fought with her usual ferocity, her scythe carving paths through the horde. But even she was slowing, her movements becoming hesitant. “Sofia-sama,” she called out, her voice trembling. “I feel strange. I can’t remember why I’m holding this scythe.”

Zephyra’s shadows were retreating, shrinking away from the creatures. The Shadow Weaver herself had pressed her back against a rock, her elegant composure shattered. “They are eating my thoughts. I can feel them gnawing at my schemes, my plans, my memories of the court. It is… cold.”

Sofia raised her hand to summon a blood lance, but nothing happened. She tried again. A faint crimson spark, then nothing. Her [Immortal] skill had regenerated her body, but it had drained her mana reserves to near zero. She was defenseless.

“Cain,” she said, her voice urgent. “I cannot fight. My power is gone.”

Cain looked at the horde. Hundreds of soul eaters were still pouring from the whale’s mouth. The demon soldiers were breaking. The Generals were forgetting themselves. In a few minutes, everyone in the valley would be mindless shells, wandering the snow until the cold claimed them.

He looked at his own hands. His MP was critically low from the [End of Absolute Level Error]. But his [Absolute Gluttony] was still functional. It was always functional. It was the skill that had kept him alive in the abyss, the skill that had consumed everything in his path.

<Host. I detect your intent. I strongly advise against it.>

“What’s the alternative, Nova?” Cain asked silently. “Watch everyone die?”

<The soul eaters are not ordinary biomass. They are conceptual entities. Absorbing them will trigger the disadvantage clause of [Absolute Gluttony of Everything]. The nature of the disadvantage is unknown. It could be fatal.>

“Unknown isn’t certain death.”

<It is a significant risk.>

“Risk is my middle name.”

<No, it is not. Your middle name is...>

“Nova. Focus.”

Cain stepped forward, placing himself between the horde and the retreating generals. The soul eaters turned toward him, their featureless faces somehow sensing the vast, delicious mana radiating from his broken system.

“Cain, what are you doing?” Sofia demanded. “You cannot absorb all of them. Your body will—“

“It will do what it has to,” Cain interrupted. He raised his hands, palms facing the horde. “Nova. Activate [Absolute Gluttony]. Maximum range. Maximum absorption.”

<Executing. Host, I am logging this decision under protest.>

The darkness erupted from Cain’s body.

It was not the gentle, fluid slime of his earlier transformations. It was a maelstrom—a vortex of absolute hunger that expanded outward in every direction. The snow turned black. The air itself seemed to be sucked toward him. And the soul eaters…

They screamed.

For the first time, the creatures made a sound—a high, keening wail that was part agony, part surprise. They were being pulled into the vortex, their shadowy bodies unraveling, dissolving into streams of dark energy that flowed into Cain’s chest.

Hundreds of them. Then thousands. The whale’s body deflated as the last of its unholy children were torn from its womb. The vortex grew brighter, more intense, until the entire valley was bathed in a cold, purple light.

And Cain felt it.

The memories. Not the stolen memories of the whale’s victims—these were the soul eaters’ own. Fragments of an ancient existence, of being created in the dark, of waiting, of hunger. They flooded into him, and with them came the disadvantage.

His body began to fade.

Not dissolve. Not break apart. Fade. His hands became translucent. His arms followed. He could see the snow through his own chest.

<Host! The [Absolute Gluttony] skill is consuming your physical vessel to fuel the absorption! You are being erased!>

“Can you stop it?” Cain gasped.

<No. The process is autonomous. I can only observe.>

Cain looked at Sofia. She was staring at him, her crimson eyes wide with something he had never seen before—fear. Not for herself. For him.

“Cain, stop!” she screamed. “You’ll disappear!”

He wanted to say something reassuring. He wanted to tell her that it was worth it, that the soul eaters were gone, that the path to the Goddess was open.

But his mouth was already gone.

The last thing he saw was Sofia running toward him, her hand outstretched. Then the world went dark.

When the purple light faded, the valley was still.

The soul eaters were gone. The whale’s corpse was a hollow shell. The demon soldiers, those still conscious, stared at the empty space where Cain had stood.

Sofia knelt in the snow, her hands clutching nothing. Her face was pale, her eyes red-rimmed. “Cain,” she whispered. “Cain!”

Sebastian approached slowly, his usual composure fractured. “My Lady. His vital signs… I cannot detect them.”

“He can’t be gone,” Sofia said, her voice rising. “He’s the anomaly. He broke the System. He can’t just… disappear.”

Scarlet stood nearby, her scythe hanging limp. “The creepy guy… he saved us. All of us.”

Zephyra emerged from her shadows, her face unreadable. “The tower is fully visible now. The path is open. But at what cost?”

Vane shook his head, his memories slowly returning. “He was just a human. From Earth. And he sacrificed himself for demons.”

Malakor grunted. “He was no human. Not anymore.”

Sofia remained kneeling in the snow, staring at the empty air. She remembered the white void, the fragments of a past she could not grasp. She remembered Cain’s hand pulling her out.

And now he was gone.

“No,” she said, her voice hardening. She stood up, her crimson eyes blazing. “He is not dead. His skill consumed his physical form, but his soul—his anomaly—is still here. I can feel it. Faint, but present.”

She turned to Sebastian. “Prepare a containment vessel. We are not leaving this valley without him.”

Sebastian bowed. “As you command, My Lady.”

The Generals exchanged glances but said nothing. The hunt for the Goddess would wait.

For now, they had a different mission: finding the ghost of the man who had saved them all.

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