Truth be told, he had not thought that Cauldron would have agreed to his demands. This was for a number of reasons, not least because they agreed without trying to bargain! Who the hell does that when you are striking a deal with someone who could be best described as a lord among the fiends of the Infernum and did little at all to hide that fact! That, and nobody that took themselves seriously opened with what they actually thought they would get, instead allowing the other side to dicker them down as they clashed and parried each others positions and demands.
So, Cauldron was either desperate (entirely possible), Scion was worse than he thought and they had inside knowledge (it was a possibility), they were hoping to get Amy or Taylor to try and stop him and force him into a confrontation with those two (and he preferred avoiding both crazy girls), they were idiots that had been hard carried by a powerful thinker ability who let their critical thinking skills atrophy (by the void and the stars, why did this seem so possible?) or they were so utterly ruthless that they would sacrifice anything so long as their goals were met. Which was almost respectable.
Almost. As it was... giving him a blank check in addition to the miscellaneous crap he asked for? "I will of course, need a few days, to assess the exact requirements of the project." Keep it calm, keep it professional, even as inside wheels spun and burned, bound souls fragments speaking and whispering as they passed through him, small clues and hints bubbling and burning hints into the walls of his veins. After all, for all that Scion was not a God, he was close enough in many respects, and truth be told?
He needed to make sure he was not going to be stepping on a pair of crazy ladies toes with his upcoming stunt.
"Good news everyone!" To be sure, saying to his inner circle could come off as odd, but of the twelve members, eight of them were literally fiends bound to his very essence and wrought to love him. Frankly, between that and his awesome arcane powers, if he wanted to engage in a little drama? He was being a little dramatic. "We can proceed with the plan, as neither of the two are that worried about it."
Or rather, they had very easily affordable price tags. Because all Amy wanted was a few platters of fine delicacies, little samples after all was said and done. Taylor's little gift was more involved, but then again he had to just forward Legend traveling around Ireland as a rainbow slinky while singing an ode to Lucky Charms to Cauldron and say it would be for strange and esoteric reasons. Such as allowing the two crazy girls to allow him first crack at Scion as after some consulting they apparently considered his more esoteric and planar ambitions to be less problematic than the girls in the long run.
Not really the case, but then he could not be bothered to explain things to them. Then again, it could also be that he was the one that was least insane between the three of them? That, or they thought they would be able to actually kill him and have it stick... unlike the girls. It was hard to permanently get rid of one who was dead and dreaming a figment of herself into the waking world (whoever would have guessed?) or someone so connected to life and flesh that they could just make a new meatsuit around their soul.
Rather short sighted of them to forget that the nobility of the lower planes treat him as an upstart young peer and just what that implied.
On the one hand, he admired the lengths to which Cauldron was willing to go. On the other hand? He was a slaver of damned souls, a monarch of torment who gazed on the putrid depths of reality and tore scraps of its essence away to devour. He left his humanity behind, but it was recent enough that as he looked over the pyramid that stood at the apex of ten worlds, their entire populations having migrated towards the bloody altars with smiles on their faces to the song of angels...
That he was rather justified, as the Simurgh bowed down, the knife plunging into her core, as on each of the nineteen other altars daggers sank into cores of the other Endbringers, Eidolon silently screaming as his boneless head was impaled on the peak of the altar, his still beating heart at the bottom of the pit, wrapped in chains made from his own skull and unraveled testicles, Corona Pollentia and Gemma glowing as gems on the central altar.
But even this act of butchery and carnage was in many ways, a prelude, as the stars turned, and the Silver and Ivory Keys were presented before the Gate. The Gate Opened. The Gate had always been open. Screaming, the sky shattered and broke, a hole in the world that revealed a garden of not quite dead flesh, a silver form sleeping as the dead in the midst of it. A bloody knife, humming and pulsing moved. Words ripped and tore, whispered secrets that thundered with grand authority. Crystalline flesh bubbled and melted, turned into a slurry that screamed and whimpered, dead eyes thrown open.
A trillion mouths and eyes screamed as they vanished down a greedy gullet, as every scrap of energy and lore was wrung from an Entities remains, a red star that burned black to the soul erupting from a space between worlds. The pyramid shifted, and golden eyes, impassive and unaware flew open, as truths were forced into his mind like maggots. The Golden God commanded the blasphemy before him to Still. And the void drank his command, hungry and devouring in silence and stillness, a slavering entropic maw as laughter tore itself away from hearing, an absence that was.
And with blood and flesh, the lord of the damned spoke his own command, memories and protocols stolen from his previous feast shearing through defenses and objections. [HARVEST].
And Gold fell as Silver did. And as swiftly, did the pyramid fade, vanishing into a place between, leaving behind only a naked and shivering Eidolon, gasping and whimpering on the barren earth, twitching and unresponsive.
Alternate Route
But even this act of butchery and carnage was in many ways, a prelude, as the stars turned, and the Silver and Ivory Keys were presented before the Gate. The Gate Opened. The Gate had always been open. Screaming, the sky shattered and broke, a hole in the world that revealed a garden of not quite dead flesh, a silver form sleeping as the dead in the midst of it. A bloody knife, humming and pulsing moved. Words ripped and tore, whispered secrets that thundered with grand authority. Crystalline flesh bubbled and melted, turned into a slurry that screamed and whimpered, dead eyes thrown open.
And yet, this would not be a meal, as lips curled into a smirk cruel and knowing. No, for there was a simple thing really about these Entities, as silver flesh ran into a sea of blood and bone, viridian flames igniting and erupting beneath. Nuclear explosions erupted, searing pillars of hate as words whispered, as the knife cut and directed the forces at play. As all the physical dross was melted and burned away, souls igniting and writhing, hands gripping the sins and karma of the dead entity and squeezing them tight, compressing the spiritual until it once more turned physical.
Some would say the resulting product was lacking for all the effort. A simple silver rod three feet in length, the total sum remains of the Thinker. Of her essence. Of her sins. Of her refined karma. Of the countless curses and cries of despair from civilizations and worlds beyond mortal minds ability to fully comprehend. Even someone with only the faintest scrap of awareness, less than that which was needed to really be considered alive, could tell there was weight to the rod. To anyone with mystic potential? It was a black hole clad in gleaming silver, viridian runes burning along its length.
Experimentally, Constantine gave it a wave, as flick of the wrist as if it were a Harry Potter wand. And with that wave, reality tolled as if struck. And so the Lord of the Black Ring laughed, as the pyramid vanished.
No mortal soul could ever reveal what occurred, as Constantine brought his war against the Golden Man, though all on Earth Bet knew how it began. Bold as brass did the laughing magician walk up to the first hero, and on striking the man who looked at the silver rod in his hand with horror and disgust, keened as bones and flesh tore, warping into a portal, a gateway through which he walked, a smile on his lips into a world of gleaming crystal spires.
The last Bet ever saw of Scion was as the frame crumbled, burning away, meteors covered in a green flame that shrieked of hate falling like rain, monsters emerging from tears in formerly pristine spires, consuming it all around them, as parahumans around the world shrieked as one in agony and terror.