Supreme Divinity.
At least, that’s what It calls Itself—a Transcendent Being.
Originally, this deity should have been called something other than Supreme Divinity. Before becoming the Supreme Divinity, It was known by many names.
The Scarlet Heir of the Veil.
The Eldest Child of Compassion, among others.
It had a name befitting Its birth and life—only until It became the Supreme Divinity.
With a loud crack, a thick blade pierced through Its non-existent skull.
The Supreme Divinity perceived it.
And tasted the skill embedded within that blade.
A remarkable skill that made It reminisce about Its past—a truly excellent technique.
From afar in the universe, It observed an attack aimed to destroy Its divinity.
It was nothing short of—
A breathtakingly loving perfection.
An ultimate strike achieved by shattering accumulated nothingness with equally built-up emotions.
The Supreme Divinity felt it.
Felt Its nonexistent skull splitting.
Sensed the depletion of Its divine power originating from the destruction of Its avatar.
Perhaps this depletion would drive the Supreme Divinity toward death.
That much was certain.
Death was undoubtedly the final destination.
Thus, death was undoubtedly painful and despair-inducing, but—
It accepted all of it.
Because even though It was facing death, there were still things to learn from such a strike.
Acceptance was inevitable.
It could have evaded.
It could have blocked.
It could have rendered Itself nonexistent.
But should It do so? This question arose.
The Nothingness crafted by humanity.
The perfected form of that Nothingness.
A love so profound for the Nothingness It longed for—it could not be rejected.
For millennia, the divine power that constituted It already defined It as the Supreme Divinity.
So It neither dodged, nor blocked, nor erased.
It simply and calmly accepted.
Because It was the Supreme Divinity.
Crack!
Its nonexistent head splits.
The faint divine aura on the sword and the indomitable spirit of humanity cutting through Its skull could be felt.
To be precise, it wasn’t the skull but rather some essence at the core of what formed the Supreme Divinity that split.
An excruciating yet astonishing sensation.
It is dying. The Supreme Divinity is dying.
Though this strike won’t kill It immediately, it’s clear that It will lead to Its demise.
Yet there was no regret.
For while Nothingness may not have loved It, It loved Nothingness.
Even the most accomplished wielder of Nothingness despised It.
All practitioners of Nothingness feared, revered, and hated It.
Yet the Supreme Divinity did not care.
What It desired was the perfection of Nothingness.
And that alone.
A transcendent being with willpower, capable of devouring the body and mind of intelligent beings to assimilate their knowledge and experiences.
In the midst of flashing pain, the Supreme Divinity experienced a brilliant inspiration.
When It was drawn to Gelaadridion, the shining star, or perhaps when It instinctively consumed War and Knowledge.
This inspiration was far more intense than anything It had ever felt before.
This inspiration guided It back to the past.
To the moment It first cleaved through the immature universe of Gelaadridion and defeated the mightiest deity, experiencing a pleasure like no other.
That was the memory of when It first called Itself the Supreme Divinity.
It realized then that It would become infatuated with this pleasure, leading to Its decline and weakness.
That this pleasure belonged to the weak and was unworthy of the strong.
Yet It indulged regardless.
The feeling was unlike anything It had experienced from consuming dying stars, the distortions of black voids, the frozen order of worlds, or even the transcendents as massive as Itself.
It was captivated by Nothingness.
It was enraptured by the first spice It consumed.
Nothingness, in a way, was a successful experience.
It was the comedy and tragedy born from life’s twists and turns.
It was a tantalizing delicacy mixed with countless trials, realizations, failures overcome, victories attained, and triumph over oneself.
It was also the ultimate form of victory.
It understood.
To grow stronger, It only needed to continue as usual.
It just had to consume what It always consumed—strength, laws, universes—and digest them.
Had It done so, It would have reigned like the Veil of Compassion, Its mother.
But the Supreme Divinity did not.
It was captivated by humanity.
With a dull sound, the deeply embedded blade broke inside Its head.
Phey frowned and swung the broken sword.
Though broken, its power remained formidable.
The technique was wondrous.
The Supreme Divinity loved this technique.
It loved every technique humanity displayed.
As Nothingness approached, the Supreme Divinity resisted not.
Kneeling in place, It contemplated billions of years of existence while observing the incoming Nothingness from afar in the cosmos.
It wandered through dozens of universes aimlessly.
Consuming everything in sight.
Until finally, It saw something brief but radiant and brilliant.
Humans called it Nothingness.
And thus, the Supreme Divinity consumed countless forms of Nothingness.
Now, Nothingness has come to consume It.
It sensed the impending end.
Yes, if expressed in words, the end was—
“Unqualified.”
Between the universe It observed and Gelaadridion, a pair of eyes suddenly appeared.
Burning eyes with horizontal pupils.
The remaining time was exceedingly short.
Still, It had something to do.
The divine power that had bound It for thousands of years stretched even in these final moments.
Before Phey struck with the broken sword, before the master of darkness who lurked behind the world consumed It,
The divine power of the Supreme Divinity arose.
And suddenly, the sky split.
Without a sound, without light, without shock, it split.
Yet everyone present couldn’t help but look up at the overwhelming presence.
Those who had lost consciousness woke up, and those struggling in agony lifted their heads.
Even Phey, about to strike with the sword, looked up at the sky.
The perfection of Nothingness.
It lies at the end of the path of Nothingness.
And the path of Nothingness is about overcoming oneself.
It’s about becoming stronger than yesterday’s self and filling the gaps in today’s self.
It’s something It had long studied, long indulged in, and long yearned for.
Finally, the Supreme Divinity reached this longing.
Beyond the split sky, a universe was visible.
Beyond that universe, something flickered.
Very faint.
Yet also dazzling and vivid.
Contradictory but true.
Intensely bright yet dim.
Certainly powerful enough to be overwhelming, but too distant and unreachable to appear faint.
There was no other way to describe this presence.
From the farthest reaches of the universe.
A universe in a different dimension.
A universe already doomed and frozen.
Within it, dark light flickered.
“That’s….”
Someone spoke, and everyone looked up.
No one knew what it was at first glance, but soon everyone realized.
It was a sword dance.
Although too far away to discern clearly, the sword dance was eerily familiar.
Especially to Aslan.
It was Aslan’s swordplay.
Proof of twelve years of arduous struggle, the martial art of the weak that the Supreme Divinity had admired endlessly.
Clearly, the Supreme Divinity loved humanity enough to want to consume it entirely.
Among them, It especially adored the warrior who could slash even the stars.
After longing for thousands of years and striving to reach this realm,
The Supreme Divinity cleaved a star.
The star’s clouds parted.
The universe churned.
Every time It swung tentacle-like blades, time melted and burned.
The frozen space, the apocalypse created by Its mother, melted away.
Thus, time and space began to move again.
They moved, merged.
The merging universe burned brightly enough to see even when turning away.
“Light?”
A transcendental being lingering in the universe already destroyed by Its mother.
An entity that could only breathe within a death so absolute no divine rank could resist.
Finally, It overcame Itself.
At the moment It swung the sword, It was neither the Scarlet Heir of the Veil nor the Eldest Child of Compassion.
It was the one who, as the weakest, defeated the mightiest deity.
The sole deity who overcame the Mother of Compassion, who scattered death across all universes.
It achieved what not even the greatest evil deities could accomplish.
It revived the universe.
Not even monstrous machines that caused destruction through mighty techniques could achieve what the Supreme Divinity did through human martial arts.
Seeing the Supreme Divinity, Aslan recalled a phrase in his mind.
“Let there be light.”
Truly fitting.
From a distant world, light blossomed.
The luminous light of creation.
The universe burned, breathing anew.
A universe that should have been eternally frozen and dead reignited and gave birth to life.
It was a gift from the Supreme Divinity.
An ode to the martial arts It had witnessed and the ultimate answer to the concept of Nothingness It presented.
The end of Nothingness as reached by the Supreme Divinity.
The masters chosen by the Supreme Divinity, the veterans who walked the path of Nothingness and utilized it, could not help but gaze upward at this transcendent martial art.
A transcendent martial art burdensome even to the Supreme Divinity.
Hence, the Supreme Divinity began to crumble.
It was no longer a transcendental being.
Its essence was struck by Phey’s swordplay, and Its divine power diminished.
Using the diminishing divine power to execute a transcendent technique,
It could no longer reign as a transcendental being or an evil deity.
It was an unfit participant on the stage, unable even to interfere in Gelaadridion.
Thus, It was pulled off the stage.
Even from the distant universe, It could be seen.
Slowly being devoured by the darkness.
Disappearing as if being eaten.
Gradually torn apart by the black clouds, the mass of tentacles making up Its form faded away.
Still, the Nothingness did not stop. Its sword dance continued, burning vividly until the very last fragment.
The disappearance of the Supreme Divinity did not take long.
In the blink of an eye, It vanished, and the universe closed.
In front of Phey, the evil ghost that had shaped half of Its body into darkness returned to being a corpse missing its left half.
The holy sword beside it solidified as the universe flowed.
The destruction unleashed earlier now collapsed to the ground with a thunderous roar, but compared to the spectacle moments ago, it was nothing surprising.
Amidst the silence, something appeared before Aslan.
[Completed Main Quest]
[! Defeat the Evil Deity, the Supreme Divinity]
[LEVEL UP]
[LEVEL UP]
The weakest evil deity, which chose to remain weak, has died.
Only at the end did It truly become the Supreme Divinity.
Thus, this was Its final gift.
[■■■ Special Reward Acquired]
[■■]
Characters blurred into incomprehensible black ink.
Subconsciously, Aslan realized it represented the sword dance from moments ago.
A few words confirming the death of the Supreme Divinity.
Only then did Aslan accept that the Supreme Divinity was truly gone and raised his head.
The reason and principle behind this action were unclear, but the result was evident.
The closed sky beyond was vivid.
An underripe sun cast a long trail from the earth.
Long footprints stretching from the shadows of shattered mountains resembled fingers reaching toward the heavens.
A sorrowful cry of the earth toward the harsh sky.
Under the closed sky, Aslan sat and thought.
Despite everything, there were still too many evil deities in the world.
The mightiest evil deity still loomed above Him.
