Vritra and the others suddenly found themselves standing in a completely black area.

Before they had a chance to say anything, a scroll appeared before them.

"What is this now?" Yennefer asked, hoping there was no more trouble.

Vritra extended his hand to catch it, but the scroll opened on its own and big characters that they all could read appeared.

[You all have been summoned to the Court of Higher Beings!!]

[Your trial will start in an hour, prepare yourself!]

[If you are unable to find an advocate within the allotted time, the court will provide one for you!]

[No disrespect towards the judge will be tolerated, be careful. A mistake can cost you more than just your lives!]

[Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for your patience...]

"The hell is this now? Didn’t we win the game? What is happening?" Vritra asked, he was hoping to be sent back to the Zoratian planet already.

"Divine, didn’t we only need to win this game to solve the problem? What’s happening now?"

There was only one guy who could have the answers.

"Well this is expected, some random humans who were no more than NPCs in the game according to the gods have won. It is a big blunder for them." Divine spoke, then continued.

"For now, just fight your own case, don’t get any advocate from the court. And explain how your planet was attacked first and it should be fine."

"Sigh, you better pray nothing goes wrong." Vritra had an even stronger urge to beat Divine up, unfortunately he hadn’t even seen that guy.

"I guess we have an hour worth of free time for now, what did he say?" Vanessa asked, looking concerned.

"..." Sighing again, Vritra told everything Divine had said to him.

And it really wasn’t much of a help.

"Don’t we need some sort of evidence or witnesses?" Diana asked, she hadn’t directly talked with the gods.

But she was well aware of how shrewd these gods can be, they can’t be trusted or underestimated.

"Nothing we can do for now, let’s just go there and see how it goes. The gods might have already thought of this possibility and removed the evidence already." Vritra shrugged.

For now, none of them could feel any of their strength.

Neither as demigods nor the strength they had gathered, it all seemed to be locked away.

If they win the case then the Zoratian planet will be safe and their strength will increase greatly and the gods will also be punished.

But if they lose then they and the planet are a lost cause.

And here they were at a disadvantage since the gods have more information and should be well prepared.

"Looks like they aren’t calling for me..." Just then Asmodeus spoke.

He was a player so him winning the game was nothing strange, not only does he not need to go to the court but he will also receive his prize soon after the case is finalized.

Asmodeus had gotten completely different messages from them all, but he had already gotten attached to this group.

So even winning didn’t bring him as much joy, instead he was worried about them.

"Oh right, I almost forgot about you." Vritra spoke, his gaze moving to Asmodeus.

"And now we have our witness."

"H- Huh? Me? But I don’t know anything..." Asmodeus spoke in confusion.

"You don’t know anything about the plan of sabotaging the Zoratian planet to cancel the further competition?" Vritra asked, frowning, this guy can’t be this useless, right?

"I- I don’t... The others were doing something shady but I don’t mix with their group... So I don’t know." Asmodeus spoke meekly.

"Alright, it’s okay. Just lie then." Vritra said and explained the whole story.

"Alright sir, I’ll do my best!" he spoke with confidence.

They chatted for a while and an hour passed very quickly, then another scroll appeared in front of them.

[Prepare yourself, you’ll be teleported into the Higher Beings court in a minute.]

[Remember, every mistake you make will push you towards defeat.]

Vritra looked at others who nodded.

Just as the time was about to end, a question popped before them.

[Would you like to get an advocate from the court?]

"No." Vritra answered.

[Very well, then get ready.]

A few moments later, the eleven of them were swallowed by a bright light and disappeared.

In the next second, they all found themselves sitting on wooden chairs, present in a large courtroom.

The eleven of them sat in the front row seats while more than a hundred seats were behind them which were filled with creatures of different races.

It looked pretty much like a human court, the only difference being no humans could be found around.

Beside and in front of the seat of the judge, a few figures dressed completely in white were standing, not even their faces were visible though.

There was a big throne for the judge of the trial and on either side were two stands for both the parties.

Yasmine and the others looked to the other side and saw ten blurry figures sitting on the wooden chairs.

It was the gods.

"..." Vritra looked at them for a few moments, it wasn’t hard to find their identity as the other party of this trial.

"Yo gods, how you doing?" Vritra called out, fully aware that here they can’t do anything.

"..." All ten of the gods looked at him strangely, although they had been pretty shocked earlier but they had now completely calmed down.

"You are from the Zoratian planet?" one of the gods spoke, but for Vritra they all looked exactly the same.

He could not see their shapes.

"Yes, we are." Vritra nodded.

"And Divine is backing you?" another god asked, the tension in his voice was pretty clear.

"Divine? The guy who died long ago? Of course not, it is one among you who has helped me, you didn’t think the friendship between the ten of you is good, right?" Vritra said, shaking his head.

"Clearly, one of you wants to remove the others, he even made sure that we would win this trial."

The gods didn’t believe one word he said but the confidence in his voice and all the events still made them unsure.

They still believed that Divine must be backing him but now there was a seed of doubt in their minds.

"Be quiet! All of you may rise from your seats, the judge is here!!" one of the persons in dark attire announced in a loud heavy voice.

Everyone in the court rose to their feet, even the gods and Vritra’s group.

Despite Vritra’s confidence earlier, he was also a bit worried about this trial, they had no information or any backup.

The only way for them to win was if Divine had made some arrangements in advance.

Otherwise matching the gods who had planned things thoroughly and have who knows how many backups would be impossible.

The whole court was filled with silence and after a few tense seconds, the judge finally walked towards the throne.

All eyes drew towards the judge, but most looked down the next moment in fear, that was a higher being after all.

Even the gods don’t dare to do anything stupid right now, they all bowed as if servants to their masters.

All the women in Vritra’s group looked a bit surprised but none of it could compare to what Vritra felt.

The graceful judge took her seat after gesturing for them to sit, her eyes however instantly moved to Vritra.

For an instant she flashed a smile, before appearing serious, as if she knew no one here.

’E- Evelyn? What is she doing here? She is the judge!!’ Vritra exclaimed, his eyes wide open.

Right in front of everyone was none other than the beautiful Evelyn that Vritra had met twice already.

And both times, she had been quite aggressive with him.

’So she is on my side unless she lied about any of it and used some trick or something, which I doubt, then haven’t we already won?’ Vritra thought.

’Divine, is she really on our side?’ he asked just to confirm.

"She is." Divine answered right away.

Vritra then looked to the side at the ten gods who had just taken their seats, they looked pretty confident and arrogant.

Just from their posture and movement.

Vritra could sense their gazes as if they were already the winners.

"The court will now proceed with the hearing!" one of the dark clothed men announced.

Then added: "The advocates of both sides, please explain your cases."

The man in black was doing this after so long, such cases don’t come often after all.

He was being careful to not make any mistakes and remember what exactly were the dialogues he was supposed to speak.

From the side of the gods, a man with three feet height and an octopus-like face stood up, he was wearing a strange attire that consisted of rainbow colors.

He walked away from the seats and looked arrogantly towards Vritra’s side, waiting to see their advocate.

"Hello everyone, I am the world famous and the greatest ever advocate PetoPhil. And today I have taken this case so you already know who is going to win." PetoPhil spoke confidently.

And the people sitting among the three hundred seats began to whisper among themselves.

’Looks like this guy is pretty famous...’ Vritra thought as he heard a few of them talk, then stood up.

After taking a deep breath, Vritra stood up, he glanced at Evelyn first who sat there without any expression.

But he could clearly feel the intense gaze.

❖❖❖

Thanks for reading...