Ch.1100Ripple From a Small Rock

Heaven’s Wall captures, breaks, and burns any god attempting to descend, destroying them completely.

Though the Wall has been reduced to just a few layers through repeated destruction, its function remains fully intact.

Even gods descending in avatar form rather than their true bodies cannot endure long before burning up and being expelled.

Invidius knew this fact all too well. He had no choice but to know—he had experienced it firsthand not long ago.

Nevertheless, Invidius chose to force his descent, willingly accepting all the damage it would cause.

The emptiness of lost divinity. Rage like phantom pain drew him to the mortal realm.

He was a bastard child, abandoned to the void without even receiving a name.

Having never received anything since birth, his hatred and fury toward the one who stole what was his completely obliterated his reason.

– Kuuuuung!

Thus began his descent.

A bone-white, tree-thick arm covered in black veins like a net burst through the spatial rift, grabbing the rocky wall of the underground cavern.

Eight fingers dug into the rock wall like claws, crushing it. The firmly anchored left arm slowly pulled the evil god’s body through.

– Kwaddddd…!

The massive body of the evil god gradually revealed itself, causing earthquakes throughout the entire cavern.

Rather than creating his own passage to descend, he used an existing underground rift as a pathway, so there was no interference from human gods to block his descent.

Though he consumed enormous power forcing open the narrow rift, at least he wouldn’t end up like last time, when he was intercepted midway and lost only an arm.

Since he emerged in a massive underground cavern, he wouldn’t immediately be detected by the Wall and burst into flames.

Of course, once he revealed himself on the surface, he would burn continuously until he vanished completely.

‘Not yet…’

Invidius knew this fact well. That’s why he hadn’t attempted to descend until Heaven’s Wall was completely destroyed.

If he hadn’t accidentally discovered Haschal and lost his reason to rage, he would have quietly waited in the void for the right time.

But Invidius had discovered Haschal, and immediately chose to descend, breaking through the world’s rift to escape the void.

That was Paulus’s plan and arrangement.

It was the core of his grand scheme to weaken an evil god who would only hinder his ideal society, then have Haschal destroy him.

—-

Dozens of days earlier.

After the World Tree’s demise, Paulus visited the Great Desert wondering if anything remained, and discovered a rift in the world where the god had died.

There, he found countless void monsters swimming about, and deep within the rift, the evil god of envy looking up at this world from the depths of the void.

Beings that would surely bring calamity if left alone.

Unfortunately, Paulus lacked the ability to eliminate all those void monsters, and closing the world’s rift was completely beyond his capabilities.

So Paulus cast only illusion powers on the monsters and waited.

He waited for the moment when someone who could handle the monsters and evil god in his place—the Goddess of Stars and Dawn—would set foot in the Great Desert again.

Hoping that Haschal, after vanquishing the evil god of envy, would obtain his divinity and become complete.

Yes.

Paulus’s goal was to use the weakened evil god as a sacrifice to complete the Goddess of Stars and Dawn.

Even if the completed goddess hadn’t ascended yet, she couldn’t freely roam the surface until all of Heaven’s Wall was destroyed.

Keeping her underground until Invidius was destroyed and Haschal was completed.

And then, right after the great task of destroying Heaven’s Wall was accomplished, assigning Haschal the task of eliminating the chaos that would spread across the surface when she returned.

That was Paulus’s true aim, and although there was the minor issue of him dying before seeing it through to the end, he had at least succeeded in setting things in motion.

Only two issues remained.

Whether Haschal, after killing Invidius and taking his divinity, would truly become complete as Paulus calculated…

【 Groooooooooooo!! 】

…And whether the current Haschal could actually defeat Invidius.

That was something no one could know. Not Paulus himself, nor Elpinel in heaven, nor Alfodhr of chaos.

The future of the stars was being put to the test.

It was the achievement of one human’s twisted fanaticism.

—-

– Kwarrrrrrrrrung-!

A roar that seemed to destroy the world. The desert pulsated violently like waves.

In the darkness of the underground where not even moonlight reached, the finally descended evil god of envy moved forward, wrapped in tidal waves of dark mana.

Toward the land where the star had risen.

-Gooooo…!

The void’s dark mana, with density beyond black liquid, almost like metal, writhed like snakes, enveloping the evil god’s body and undulating.

Whenever that dark mana flow brushed against the underground rock walls, the entire wall was dyed in darkness and melted away like lava, collapsing.

The melted bedrock formed a black sea, rippling in rhythm with the evil god’s steps, and all kinds of monsters emerged from it, roaring as if cheering for the god’s descent.

A mountain-like giant advancing, wrapped in darkness given form, walking on a sea of dark mana created by melting the world, giving birth to monsters and being worshipped by them.

This was literally the embodiment of calamity itself.

This terrifyingly powerful divine being, newly descended into the mortal world, inflicted a massive shock on the world by its very existence.

As the fuse for all calamities to follow, and as the beacon announcing the return to the old era.

– Crack!

Heaven’s Wall cracked and split. Thin lines spread like spider webs between the moon and stars in the night sky.

Like thin ice on a lake that would collapse with just a touch.

—-

‘…Is this Paulus’s gift?’

Returning to his hideout, Feiryus looked up at the splitting sky with a smile of mixed emotions.

It was regrettable that his longtime partner had perished, but the gift his partner left at the end was quite satisfactory.

‘I can save quite a few sacred artifacts. Thank you, old friend.’

Heaven’s Wall cracked from the shock that spread throughout the world.

This was very welcome news for Feiryus. Thanks to this, he could save nearly half the sacred artifacts he would have had to use to destroy Heaven’s Wall.

The sacred artifacts stolen from the Holy State were originally meant as sacrifices and tools to break the last Heaven’s Wall.

Therefore, Feiryus had actually planned to destroy this wall without using sacred artifacts, just with souls of the dead as before, even if it took more time.

That thinking changed right after Bellona’s knights, stolen from Garmerlic, were summoned back to Garmerlic’s side.

At that moment, Feiryus was certain that Garmerlic himself had learned that Feiryus had stolen part of his army and knights.

Not just what he had done, but what his god had done—namely, that Alfodhr had stolen the divinity of death.

This meant that Garmerlic and all his forces would consider Feiryus and his god as enemies.

Perhaps to the extent that they would prioritize finding and killing him above all else.

Therefore, Feiryus decided to break Heaven’s Wall first.

To face completed demigods like Garmerlic or Haschal, he needed power that reached the level of a demigod himself.

So he needed to break Heaven’s Wall as quickly as possible, even if it meant using the sacred artifacts he had been saving.

To awaken the three Valkyries his god had arranged for his apostle, so that the three of them could stand against enemies of demigod caliber.

‘The holy grail is only half full. Originally, I would have had to use most of the sacred artifacts as sacrifices, but…’

Thanks to Paulus sacrificing himself to create cracks in the Wall, he could save as many sacred artifacts as possible for breaking this wall.

Feiryus expressed his sincere gratitude for this contribution.

Though Paulus’s soul had completely disappeared, so he wouldn’t be able to hear his thanks anyway.

—-

Unlike Feiryus who only focused on the cracks in Heaven’s Wall, those who possessed divinity and had awakened divine status detected and responded to Invidius’s descent itself.

They all turned their heads to look at the empty space where the dead World Tree had been.

“…Fuck.”

The Goddess of Stars and Dawn, who had been about to cut down void monsters, frowned and sighed.

“Could it be…no, that’s impossible. But this energy is clearly Lady Bellona’s…?”

The demigod of death, sensing familiar power from an unfamiliar evil god.

“…It’s shaking. This world, this prison without bars created by the last ascenders.”

“Grrrr…finally, finally it has come! The time to wake from the two-thousand-year-long dream…!”

The transcenders of the old era who had been waiting in the darkness beneath the earth for their time to return…

「 Void dimension divine entity descent detected. Major threat assessment. 」

Even Himmel’s strongest weapon created by the dwarves of the old era, which had remained silent in the hands of monsters until now.

「 Emergency activation initiated. 」

The dragon Fafnir spread its black iron wings wide and roared.