I Regressed With a 10,000x God-Tier Multiplier-Chapter 15: The Starweaver’s Deal

The right hand of Lucifer began to aggressively slice downward. He prepared to scream the order to fire.

He never made a sound.

A blinding absolute flash of pure white starlight erupted completely out of thin air. It did not expand outward. It simply flashed once to entirely consume the dark antechamber.

All physical motion aggressively ceased instantly.

The mechanical whine of the five thousand arcane batteries completely stopped. The glowing green fire in the massive braziers instantly froze.

The leaping flames suspended perfectly still like jagged glass sculptures. A single drop of dark viscous fluid falling from the fleshy ceiling stopped completely mid-air. It hovered exactly an inch above the shoulder of Lucifer.

Lucifer could not move his arms. He could not swing his sword. He could not even blink. He was entirely paralyzed and locked inside a violent temporal freeze.

He aggressively pushed his multiplied mana through his veins to try to break the hold. His thirty thousand mana points felt like a single drop of water pushing against a massive iron dam. The sheer suffocating magical pressure actively crushing his physical body was completely divine.

"Do not fire the weapons, mortal Warlord."

A voice echoed directly inside the skull of Lucifer. It was not loud. It carried the heavy absolute weight of an entire galaxy. It sounded like chiming crystals and rushing wind.

The pure white starlight violently coalesced directly in front of the black adamantine doors. It aggressively formed into a towering twelve-foot-tall humanoid avatar made entirely of shifting constellations and glowing white energy.

She wore a simple flowing gown woven from pure starlight. Her eyes were twin supernovas.

Astrid the Starweaver. A Goddess of the Celestial Realm.

Lucifer gritted his teeth. He aggressively fought the divine pressure just to pull a single ragged breath into his paralyzed lungs. The sheer proximity of a literal deity aggressively strained his mortal vessel. Sweat instantly beaded heavily on his forehead. It rolled slowly down his face in the frozen time.

"You freeze my army," Lucifer choked out. He forced his vocal cords to physically vibrate against the temporal lock. "To protect a cult?"

The massive starlight avatar floated slightly closer. The heat radiating from her form was blinding.

"I do not protect the dark magic," the voice of Astrid resonated heavily in his mind. "I protect my lost children. The Cult of Decay has gathered fifty Dark Elves behind those adamantine doors. They act as physical guards for the inner sanctum."

The goddess paused. Her supernova eyes stared directly into the soul of Lucifer.

"They are not evil," Astrid pleaded softly. "They are heavily brainwashed. The Cult has bound their minds with parasitic blood magic. My children will be completely annihilated in the crossfire if you order your army to breach those doors with heavy area-of-effect spells.

I cannot intervene directly. The World Laws forbid me from striking the mortal plane."

The chest of Lucifer heaved. He was physically sweating profusely now. Maintaining his consciousness under the absolute crushing weight of frozen time entirely drained his stamina.

He did not bow. He did not drop to his knees in blind reverence. He was a Warlord who had completely broken the system laws. He looked directly up at the towering goddess.

"Your children are standing directly between me and my objective," Lucifer stated coldly. His voice entirely lacked respect. "We lose our tactical advantage if my men march in there without breaching the doors first. It becomes a close-quarters knife fight. I will take heavy casualties."

He took a ragged breath and glared at the glowing avatar.

"My soul physically bleeds when my soldiers die. I almost died an hour ago from the backlash," Lucifer said ruthlessly. "I am not risking my life and my entire mana pool to carefully save your brainwashed guards for free."

The goddess completely froze. The swirling constellations inside her avatar flickered. She was entirely unaccustomed to mortals speaking to her like a common merchant haggling over copper coins.

"You dare demand a price from the heavens?" Astrid asked. Her voice dropped and caused the frozen stone room to vibrate.

"I demand a fair trade," Lucifer spat back aggressively. He completely refused to yield to the divine pressure. "You want a precision strike. You want me to cloak my army, infiltrate the stronghold silently, and execute the cultists without harming a single Dark Elf. That requires massive stealth magic. It requires time. It requires extreme physical risk to my own body."

Lucifer stared directly into the blinding light. "I will save them. You will heavily compensate me for the extreme risk to my soul."

The antechamber remained completely silent for ten long seconds. The temporal freeze held perfectly. The massive avatar of starlight finally slowly bowed her head. The absolute desperation of a mother trying to save her corrupted children easily overrode her divine pride.

"You are a terrifyingly cold creature, Lucifer," Astrid whispered. "But you are highly effective. Save the Dark Elves. Break their mental chains by killing the Cult Leader. Do this and I will grant you a celestial boon that your fragile mortal soul desperately requires."

A glowing blue system interface aggressively shattered through the frozen white light.

┏━━━━━━━[ Divine Quest Issued ]━━━━━━━┓

│ Entity: Astrid, The Starweaver.

│ Objective: Infiltrate the Cult of Decay.

│ Restriction: Do not kill the 50 Brainwashed Dark Elves.

│ Reward: Astrid’s Astral Blessing.

│

│ Do you accept? [YES] / [NO]

┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛

Lucifer mentally smashed the ’YES’ prompt.

"Deal," Lucifer rasped.

"May the stars guide your blade," Astrid said.

The starlight avatar shattered into a million glowing particles. It completely dissolved into the humid air. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

Time snapped back into place instantly.

The mechanical whine of the five thousand rifles resumed loudly. The green fire in the braziers aggressively leaped upward. The single drop of dark fluid finished falling to splash heavily onto the shoulder of Lucifer.

"On my mark!" the Elven Commander shouted. He fully prepared to fire.

"Hold!" Lucifer roared and aggressively dropped his raised hand. "Cancel the breach order! Power down the rifles!"

The Vanguard instantly obeyed. Five thousand heavy ice-rifles powered down with a unified echoing hum.

Elara turned to Lucifer. Her starlight eyes completely filled with extreme confusion. "You cancelled the strike? We are losing the element of surprise."

"The plan changed entirely," Lucifer said. He heavily wiped the thick sweat from his forehead. His entire body ached from the temporal pressure. "We are going in completely silent. We are going to bypass the guards and strictly execute the targets."

He reached deeply into his expanded mana pool. He prepared to cast a spell that would push his Warlord core to its absolute breaking point.