A burst of pure white light spread out from the ground where Duke Yuma stood.
The divine realm of Yuma’s power, [Life-and-Death Holding], expanded widely.
Yuma spotted two enemies.
[Lv.573] Agneth
[Lv.599] Morg
Just moments ago, countless hammers hovered above the heads of the humans of the Zepharos Kingdom and the Join Tribe, and now a massive sword shape floated ominously above Morg’s head, the [God of the Precarious Hammer].
Morg, appearing as a Yeti, twisted his mouth into a smirk.
“It’s been a long time coming, but being on the receiving end feels rather crummy, huh?”
Morg lowered his head to glare at Yuma.
Whoosh…!
The burning god, [Flame of Destruction] Agneth, unleashed a stream of red flowers from his mouth, flames billowing from his entire being.
“You dare block the return of the gods to the Divine Realm while invading the Intermediate World, you little bug!”
The flames pouring from Agneth intensified and thickened around him.
“Divine Domain Declaration.”
Agneth stomped the ground with power.
“Child of All Things Burning.”
Swoosh—!
Suddenly, enormous wings unfurled from behind Agneth.
On those massive wings, countless feathers of flame settled in place. As Agneth walked forward, what appeared to be mere feathers transformed into a literal flock of birds, spreading out magnificently.
Countless fiery feathers swarmed into an infinite array of birds, fully blanketing the sky.
The countless birds soared from the heavens, raining down upon the earth.
Agneth’s divine realm, [Child of All Things Burning], was a unique case, acting both as a summoning of kin and fulfilling the role of a divine domain simultaneously.
Thousands of phoenixes, Agneth’s kin, charged toward Yuma and his party.
‘I’ll help you die.’
Killing that war god, Yuma, was impossible.
He had witnessed a single [Phoenix] of his kin fall before the brute strength of the evidently stronger gods like him.
It was crystal clear that what awaited was death.
‘If I must die—’
He resolved to take everyone else along with him, except for that war god.
Whoosh!
So he unleashed the phoenixes endlessly.
Screech! Swoosh!
Yuma and the Join Tribe gaped in awe at the sky filled to the brim with phoenixes, leaving not a single spot of blue in sight.
Tremble, tremble…
A young member of the Join Tribe shook all over, his beak trembling in fear.
It was literally a calamity descending upon them.
Tens of thousands of phoenixes entered the realm of Life-and-Death Holding simultaneously.
At that moment.
Crash!
As soon as the phoenixes touched the vast expanse of Agneth’s divine realm, they burst into glowing halos, exploding in midair.
Kaboom!
A chain reaction explosion.
Kwah─kwahkwahkwahkwahkwah!! Kkwaahkwahkwah!! KWAHAHAAANG!!
As the flaming birds charging with the intention to annihilate everything exploded in a spectacular fashion, the members of the kingdom and the Join Tribe stared blankly at Duke Yuma, who was elegantly standing in the center of a white circle.
“…Without even moving a finger. Just with his divine power, he’s slaughtering nearly ten thousand divine followers like that.”
Kregel, the leader of the Join Tribe [Eger], widened his eyes in admiration.
Duke Yuma’s divine art ‘Life and Death Battlefield’ completely incapacitated the flaming birds.
Kwahkwahkwah! Kkwaahkwah!
As the flaming birds vanished in mid-air, the black ashes fell messily to the ground.
“Th-that crazy…!”
Agneth gritted her teeth, unable to approach Duke Yuma’s group, her gaze fixed on the crumbling red birds.
The sight of nearly ten thousand flaming birds being extinguished in an instant was indeed a spectacle.
Agneth’s divine art, [Universal Summoning], allowed the summoning of
However, the divine art that Yuma had just activated, [Life and Death Battlefield], possessed the power to partially dismantle the divine arts of lower-ranked gods compared to his deity status.
Since these flaming birds belonged to Agneth’s
Hwaah─!
As he exuded a light even more intense than the flames surrounding him,
Duke Yuma was well aware of all the auxiliary effects of [Life and Death Battlefield], so he had somewhat anticipated that the flaming birds would be destroyed.
Of course, he never imagined that not a single one would be left.
Yuma took a step further.
Although [Universal Summoning] had been drastically weakened, the flames igniting all over Agneth’s body showed no signs of dying down. In fact, they blazed more fiercely.
“I still cannot accept this.”
A giant ball of flames formed in Agneth’s hands.
“The very fact that an insignificant human like you has become a god.”
Agneth brought her hands together.
She hurled the massive sun she created towards Yuma.
It was a very emotional judgment, far from losing reason and somewhat close to despair.
That guy.
Yuma, who had once been human and was now a god, provoked her anger.
She unleashed that fury.
With a profoundly human-like mindset, she threw the giant sun aiming to kill Yuma.
Kugugugu!!
The sun stomped forward, cracking the ground beneath it.
Yuma raised Balmung.
White divine power enveloped Balmung.
It was as if clouds from the sky were entangled in the sword.
Balmung clashed with the massive sun.
Jjeo-eong.
Dust spread wide in a perfect circle.
The sun’s orbit twisted.
The misaligned sun began to reverse.
Jjeo-jeo-jeo-jeo-jeok!
It became a black sun that devoured even the same flames.
The sun struck Agneth.
Chijijijik…!
The ground was burning from the heat.
Agneth stretched out his right hand to claim the flames of the black sun as his own.
Hwarureureuk…
Agneth’s mouth curled up as he was filled with the abundant energy flowing into his right hand that touched the black sun.
“Foolish human… Is it because you weren’t born a god from the very beginning? You’re dreadfully ignorant!”
Power surged within him.
With this power, he would absorb that black sun shot out again by that fool and turn this crisis around.
Agneth resolved and continued to support the black sun with his right hand.
“Ku-uugh… What is this…!”
He was engulfed by the black sun.
His right hand.
“Kraaaaaaak!”
And then his arm.
The black flames that swallowed his arm consumed his entire body in an instant.
Agneth’s body couldn’t handle the volume of the engulfing flames and was eventually devoured by the black sun.
[Fiery Destruction], Agneth perished like that.
[Dangerous God of the Mace], Morg stood at a distance. He had used his teleportation powers early on to survive the black sun. Morg entered deep contemplation as he watched Duke Yuma approaching him.
In Morg’s mind echoed a voice that did not belong to him.
Not a voice coming from the present, but a recollection of events from two days ago.
*
Morg was leaning back against a massive desk, lost in thought.
“….”
He needed to find a way to overcome the current predicament of being trapped in the Intermediate World and unable to return to the Divine Realm.
Something appeared before Morg.
It was a blurry figure, but it definitely was something that hadn’t been there moments ago.
Morg slowly opened his mouth.
“Eltnis?”
=Indeed, Morg. You have quite the keen eye.=
The once hazy figure became transparent enough to be classified as translucent.
The deities of the transcendent god realm.
The Eight Evil Gods.
Among the Eight Evil Gods, the most influential one, the God of [Nullity], Eltnis.
Morg glared at Eltnis.
There was no way he had truly descended.
“You’ve merely sent an illusion.”
=Yes, I wouldn’t come down directly. There’s no reason for that yet.=
Morg, resembling a Yeti, twitched his thick eyebrows.
If other gods were saying such things, it would be considered empty talk out of fear of the God of War Yuma. But [Nullity] standing before him wasn’t the type to show off with such pointless bravado.
He wasn’t the kind of guy who could throw around empty bravado.
Morg opened his mouth.
“What do you want?”
=I’m thinking of making one request of you.=
“Request?”
=Yeah, a request. As you know, Agneth is a hot-headed guy, and overwhelmed by his own insecurities, he might recklessly charge at the God of War, Yuma, and just get himself killed.=
=That’s why I’m telling you this, Morg.=
“Get to the point.”
=Buy yourself some time, risking your life.=
“…What?”
=You’re going to die, Morg. Probably at the hands of that Yuma guy.=
Feeling that there were still words left to say to Eltnis, Morg decided to keep silent and listen.
=Whether you die or not is irrelevant. You need to keep the God of War, that guy, tied up in the continent of Yeigel for as long as possible. You can do that.=
=You understand what I mean, right, Morg?=
Eltnis continued.
=If you can buy me about a week, I’ll take care of that God.=
=Die like a god, Morg.=
=Then, after I’ve killed the God, this world will remember you.=
To the outsider, it sounded like meaningless ramblings from [Nothingness].
But the one involved, [The God of the Perilous Mace], knew exactly what [Nothingness] was talking about.
*
Shaking off the memories playing in his head, Morg focused ahead again.
The God of War, Yuma, was slowly approaching.
His entourage was behind him.
Morg started calculating meticulously in his mind.
‘From the divine power I sense… that blue-haired swordwoman is Yuma’s apostle. And that blonde girl is a Holy Maiden. Disregard them.’
What he was about to do was a curse.
‘That God easily dodged my confession of sin… He must be able to bestow a mental barrier on his followers.’
Morg was a god who wielded mental powers.
For a god like him, Yuma was practically a natural enemy.
However, there was one way to land that curse.
A method to break through all the mental barriers bestowed by Yuma.
Slowly raising his left hand.
‘Those two will do.’
He designated his targets.
“Sleep of Sin.”
The curse was about to be cast.
The medium of the curse was not divine power or magical energy.
‘I offer my soul, Morg.’
A noble soul.
It was a curse activated by sacrificing his own essence.
No matter how strong the mental barrier of a god might be.
The odds of blocking a curse that required a god to sacrifice his soul were low.
Swoosh—
“God of War.”
From Morg’s palm, two strands of chains erupted.
“Now, let’s see you sink into eternal despair.”
Towards the two designated targets.
