I Got Reincarnated as a Zombie Girl-Chapter 326 - 322 – When the Gods Begin to Fear

Peace rarely lasts long in the world of the gods.

At the pitch-black depths of the ocean, where light surrenders before it can even touch, tranquility feels so profound, almost painfully tender in its gentleness. Nerys’s temple stands in warm silence, its coral walls emitting a soft glow like the embrace of a long-lost mother, while the water currents flow gently like the breath of an ancient creature finally able to sleep without nightmares. There is no clash of swords, no soul-rending screams, no wills colliding until reality cracks.

Sylvia’s group is resting a rest that feels like the first breath after drowning for too long.

Sofia is still struggling with her slow recovery. Her body is carefully reconstructing itself, the conceptual wounds closing like heart wounds that refuse to be rushed, because hurrying would only tear them open wider. Alicia sits alone in the meditation room, surrounded by circles of soul light that are now calm yet heavy, like an ocean harboring a storm in its depths. She no longer fights those screams; now she only listens, balancing them with invisible trembling hands, a task that gnaws at her mind until it feels empty.

Stacia curls up in a corner of the temple, her eyes tightly shut as she realigns her perception of space and time. There is a small fear there, the fear that one tiny mistake could bring disaster back, and she doesn’t want to be the cause.

The little treant remains innocent and fragile, like a child who has just lost everything. It runs around outside the temple, laughing softly with a voice still trembling from trauma, then suddenly stops, staring into the ocean’s darkness, its small eyes trying to embrace something too vast, too cold, too lonely to comprehend alone and Sylvia... she watches from the perfect distance.

She doesn’t force.

She doesn’t command.

She simply exists, like a lighthouse that never blinks even as a storm rages in her own heart. Her eyes are gentle, but behind them lies an ocean of sorrow she never reveals sorrow because she knows this peace is only temporary, and she will be the one to pay its price later.

This peace is fragile like thin glass over an abyss, but for now... it feels so precious, so alive.

Yet elsewhere, peace is never allowed to breathe.

Far from the sea, in a directionless realm that makes the soul feel trapped in an eternal nightmare, Xynareth stands alone amid a space that never stops changing. Its walls are not walls merely folds of reality devouring each other, cracks whispering of failures, distances that never stay fixed. One step could bring total destruction and now that space trembles violently, like a heart that has just realized death is at the door.

Not from an attack.

Not from external interference.

But from pure fear creeping coldly into their immortal bones.

Xynareth raises a hand with an almost trembling motion, forcing the space to stop folding. For a moment, she creates absolute stability, something that feels painful to her, because stability means accepting reality. Before her, Zha’gor stands like a cracked shadow of time, his face shifting: young and full of hope, old and despairing, unborn, already dead.

"You feel it too," whispers Xynareth, her voice cracking for the first time in thousands of centuries.

Zha’gor does not answer immediately. His eyes stare into the void, at the point where time should end but keeps spinning in torturous denial.

"Velgrath... is gone," he says softly, his voice heavy like a gravestone. "Not defeated. Not sealed. Completely erased, as if he never existed."

Those words hang, piercing to the core of their immortality.

Xynareth clenches her fist until the space around them groans. There is a chill she has never felt before the fear that she could be next.

"Korthan is truly dead," Zha’gor continues in an increasingly hollow tone. "Olmerath surrendered in humiliation. Nerys knelt with unseen tears. And Velgrath... not even granted the honor of being remembered."

A torturous silence envelops them.

The death of a god is not new. But death like this a total negation makes them feel small for the first time.

Velgrath was an eternal night.

Unspoken secrets.

Unyielding fate.

And Sylvia did not destroy him with light.

She swallowed him alive, as if that night was merely a small snack for the darkness now dwelling within her.

"This is no ordinary power," says Xynareth, her voice trembling with anger mixed with fear. "This is no mere evolution. The world itself is allowing it as if the world has grown tired of us."

Zha’gor turns, his eyes empty. "The world always chooses the new when the old begins to rot."

"We... are locked," hisses Xynareth, the word tasting like poison on her tongue. "By the World Avatar."

That name makes the air heavier, like bars slowly closing.

From the beginning, that avatar has been an ever-present shadow, an invisible boundary making their freedom mere illusion. They can move, but never truly free.

"Escape is impossible," says Zha’gor, his voice flat yet full of restrained despair. "Direct attack... would be suicide."

Xynareth nods slowly, a bitter taste in her chest. "We need help."

They send desperate calls to other layers of reality, their wills screaming for allies.

The response from the underworld comes too quickly, too coldly.

Absolute rejection.

Baal doesn’t even bother hiding his mockery. His will strikes like a slap.

"The underworld already has a new queen," his resonance echoes with satisfaction. "I will not fight a death the world has already acknowledged."

Xynareth feels something inside her crack deeper.

One by one, ancient demons, chaos entities, beings of darkness all reject them with increasingly insulting tones.

Sylvia’s name has become a terror spreading faster than wildfire.

When they call Belial, there is a faint spark of hope that nearly makes their hearts beat again.

But the one who answers is Seere, his voice rough and angry.

"NEVER CONTACT US AGAIN!" he roars, his raw emotion striking like a storm.

They do not know that Seere favors Sylvia, and the connection is severed harshly.

Xynareth stares into the void, her face finally crumbling the expression of a god who has just lost everything.

"They... are afraid," she whispers, her voice full of bitterness.

Zha’gor laughs a dry, bitter laugh full of painful denial.

"How funny," he says, his voice breaking. "The demons are braver in accepting reality than we are."

For the first time in their eternity, true panic assaults them cold, sticky, unavoidable.

They refuse to surrender.

Refuse to kneel with tears of humiliation.

Refuse to be judged by a being who was once merely an ordinary human.

But their choices vanish one by one, like stars extinguishing in an ever-darkening sky.

"We are totally isolated," says Xynareth, her voice hollow. "The inter-pantheon portals are dead. Even if it’s open..."

"No one will come," Zha’gor finishes, his tone of despair no longer hidden.

Despair envelops them like thick fog that never lifts.

And right at that moment

The space trembles in an unfamiliar way, making their immortal hairs stand on end.

A small rift opens like a fresh wound. From within slips a pale, fragile light not holy, not dark, but full of wounds that never heal. Its presence is light, but the vengeance within is so sharp that reality itself recoils in fear.

A woman steps out.

Her pale green hair falls like autumn leaves refusing to die. Her face is beautiful, but consumed by sorrow gnawing at eyes that once loved with their entire soul, now leaving only frozen hatred. The aura around her is not vast, but heavy with unforgiven wounds.

Minthe.

Xynareth and Zha’gor immediately tense, their immortal instincts screaming danger.

"Who are you?" asks Xynareth, her voice wary yet hiding a glimmer of hope.

Minthe smiles a cold smile full of long-fermented poison.

"Someone who lost everything because of Persephone," she answers softly, but each word feels like a knife.

That name makes the space groan.

"I slipped in when the portal opened for Sylvia’s evolution," she continues, her voice calm yet vibrating with vengeance. "The world was too busy welcoming its new queen... until it forgot to close the small gap for someone like me."

Zha’gor stares at her deeply, trying to read a soul completely shattered.

"And what do you come for?" he asks.

Minthe raises her hand. In her palm appears the shadow of Hades, the man who was once her entire world. His face full of love now reduced to ash.

"Hades," she whispers, her voice breaking for the first time. "Murdered. By Persephone’s hand."

No tears fall, her hatred is too dry for that. But the tremor in her voice is enough to make the space mourn with her.

"Persephone took the only one I loved," she continues, her cold tone growing sharper. "And Sylvia... is her heir. Her disciple. Her protégé. Blood from that darkness’s blood."

Xynareth narrows her eyes, her heart pounding with a new, bloody hope.

"You want revenge," she says.

Minthe nods slowly, her eyes burning with cold fire.

"I want them dead. Sylvia. And her two sisters. I want them to feel what I feel is an endless loss."

Zha’gor smiles faintly, but with new respect there.

"You are alone," he says.

Minthe returns the smile, a smile that makes the space feel colder.

"Not anymore."

She steps forward, the aura around her beginning to rise dark, broken, but full of unshakable determination.

"I don’t need your power," she says firmly. "I need time. Opportunity. And you... need someone who has nothing left to lose."

Xynareth and Zha’gor exchange glances.

Meanwhile, far in the calm ocean depths, Sylvia suddenly sighs deeply for no clear reason. Her chest tightens as she senses something bad approaching. As if the world has just shifted slightly toward something darker... and something rotten, full of wounds, has begun creeping closer.