Ch.1106Preliminary Skirmish

Just as humans have a weakness in their hearts, gods too have a fatal point that leads to death when broken.

The divine core.

The vessel of divinity that is the essence and source of a god.

Just as a human dies spitting blood when their heart is pierced, a god whose divine core is shattered loses their divinity as the divine power contained within scatters.

Having maintained an extraordinarily long life far beyond mortal limits through divine power, once that divinity is lost, their life ends and they can only die.

Destroying the divine core with overwhelming power, or with a force antithetical to divinity—that was the most efficient and certain method to kill a god.

That’s probably not its true form but an avatar created with divine power… well, it doesn’t make much difference.

Even avatars have divine cores.

It was a natural principle. An avatar is a temporary physical body created by a deity residing in another dimension using their divine power.

For divine power not to scatter and collapse, it needs something to serve as a vessel and core to concentrate that power.

In other words, avatars also have divine cores, and destroying them can completely collapse and annihilate the avatar.

Of course, since it’s an avatar and not the true form, this alone wouldn’t kill the god… but that only means they wouldn’t die instantly.

Unlike when an avatar naturally disappears upon reaching its time limit, divine power from an avatar whose core is destroyed scatters completely and cannot be recovered.

The severity depends on how much divine power was invested, but ultimately, weakened powers and drastically reduced lifespan are unavoidable.

For an avatar to be destroyed by an enemy meant a mighty god would fall to become a weakling too ashamed to even call themselves a deity.

In Invidius’s case, having invested most of his divine power into creating this avatar to ensure his enemy’s destruction, he could instantly become terminally limited.

In summary, if I could find and destroy the divine core of this avatar that had descended here, I could permanently eliminate the threat of the evil god Invidius from this world.

…Of course, I’d first need to find that divine core.

======[ Haschal ]======

Beneath Invidius’s feet spread a sea of dark mana, within which something indescribably bizarre writhed continuously.

Even stranger, hundreds of pitch-black hands—like human hands with cosmic filters applied—kept shooting up from the surface.

This was a sea of intensely dark mana that Invidius had directly drawn from the void, mixing in part of his divinity.

If my feet touched it, even I doubted things would end well.

Even what people call “a poison so potent a single drop could kill an elephant” would be like blessed holy water compared to that sea of dark mana.

I might not die from falling in… no, I couldn’t even be certain of that.

This was dark mana directly drawn by an evil god. It would likely be on an entirely different level from ordinary dark mana.

Since I questioned whether even my mana resistance could withstand the corrosion of that mana, to engage in close combat with him, I’d need to fight while flying through the air without setting foot on that sea surface.

So that’s what I did.

Intensifying the blue cross star that served as my divine core, I charged toward him like a streak of stellar light.

– Woooong!

“I’ve seen that before!”

I avoided the invisible force forming in the air with its faint vibration and dove between the gaps of black beams shooting from his wings.

My movement was close to aerobatics. The dark mana beams that missed me carved and melted the earth, enveloping the world in smoke and thunderous noise.

“Holy Order! Form the divine barrier formation!”

The high priests who had joined despite being told not to deployed protective miracles to block the attacks, while hero-class forces including the Celestial Sword Corps spread out widely to prepare their techniques.

I broke through all of Invidius’s defensive attacks and approached him, positioning myself in the air above his head, looking down at his massive form as I raised Durandal.

“Looking again, you’re disgustingly huge.”

Literally as massive as a mountain… no, honestly even larger than a mountain.

I could tell from a distance that his body was extraordinary, but up close, it was truly beyond comprehension.

“You must have given your mother a hard time at birth… oh, is that why you were abandoned?”

【 That woman, died. 】

Your mother died?

Hmm, that makes sense. Very convincing.

If I gave birth to a child that looked like this, I’d commit suicide too. Of course, Invidius’s goddess mother probably didn’t actually end her life by suicide.

【 Now, your turn. 】

“…Your dreams are big.”

– Whoooooosh!

I rapidly descended to avoid his massive arm that created windstorms with just the sound of cutting through air.

“Haaah!”

As his arm like a pillar brushed over my head, I simultaneously spun my body widely and swung Durandal.

– Swaaaack!

While Defying Fate and Sky Slash were sealed, the power of severance still remained.

The vacuum blade extended with spatial cutting power collided with his forearm, scattering fragments of darkness and light.

“…It won’t cut.”

The severing strike that had penetrated about thirty percent into his arm couldn’t advance further and dissipated along with the darkness of dark mana.

Did he simply pour in dark mana recklessly to withstand the strike until all its power was exhausted?

With dark mana overflowing like an ocean, such tactics became possible. Simple but effective.

【 Meaningless. 】

Black blood poured down like a waterfall. Invidius laughed as he covered his wound with darkness to repair it.

“Well, three cuts should do it.”

If one strike couldn’t break through, I’d just have to layer strike upon strike until it shattered. Of course, that wouldn’t be easy.

【 Delusion. 】

Invidius snorted derisively, then pointed his right arm at me and spoke again.

【 Thief, give it back. What you took. What you possess. 】

What I took—he wanted me to return the divine power equivalent to his right arm that I’d claimed.

Shameless, as befitting an evil god.

“You dropped it yourself, why blame me?”

He lost his arm because he attempted to descend despite the Heaven’s Wall being intact.

If anything, it was his own doing, and the divine power I gained from defeating that arm was simply claiming lost property and spoils of war.

In other words, it was power I obtained through legitimate means. It was already mine.

“If you’re that upset, try killing me and taking it from my corpse!”

I thrust out my left hand as I shouted.

– Kwaooooo—!

A vortex of light spiraled up my arm and shot toward his chest. It was the power of True Heaven Collapse Fist, swirling with destructive mana.

【 So I shall. 】

In response, Invidius spread wide his wings made of human arms and let out a fierce, majestic roar.

The earth trembled in fear at his cry.

【 I am the craving that takes. The envy that steals what was lost and the obsession that covets what was never received! 】

The god’s power manifested.

My True Heaven Collapse Fist was devoured by invisible teeth and disappeared, and the barrage of severance strikes I unleashed afterward shattered upon colliding with Invidius’s claws.

“Not yet!”

【 Give everything back. 】

The collision of divinity against divinity, mana against dark mana, twisted the atmosphere and shattered the void, scattering multicolored lightning in all directions.

“Everyone attack! According to plan, carve away as much of his flesh as possible!”

Amidst that chain of violent explosions, I focused on marking one of Invidius’s arms while ordering my allies who were engaging his other arm.

“Until he reveals the location of his divine core!”

That was the essence of Plan B.

It was impossible to defeat a being of such power through attrition, so we needed to somehow find the divine core’s location and destroy it.

【 Divine core. I will not give you the chance to target it. 】

“I’ll just have to create an opening!”

【 Impossible. 】

Chains of black arms filled the air. I slashed through them all, swinging Durandal in every direction. Even the chains that grabbed the blade were torn apart by Frosting.

– Kwaooooo!

A waterfall of dark mana poured down from the black clouds above.

“Kenaz!”

I spread runic flames like an umbrella to block it momentarily, then used that opportunity to escape its range. I deflected the beam that came flying at me, as if anticipating my move, with Durandal.

“Kuk…!”

Tremendous pressure bore down on both arms.

Black droplets penetrated through the gaps in the slashed space. The moment they touched my skin, smoke and sparks erupted as my skin burned black.

My body was pushed back by the massive pressure contained in the beam. Without Defying Fate, blocking it was at my limit. It was too fast to dodge.

“This is nothing…!”

I spewed fire from my back to hold my ground. The collision between the pushing force and my resistance. My body caught in between creaked as if about to be crushed.

“Kuuuugh…!”

【 Surrender. 】

Invidius bent his two wings forward and aimed all those hands at me as he spoke.

“Like your mother gave up on raising you?”

I ignored him with that single taunt and continued to resist.

Just as my arms were about to break with a creaking sound, the dark mana beam finally disappeared, allowing me to barely escape.

– Crack, crackle.

My halo and cross star glowed even more intensely. The divinity of stars and dawn maximized my body’s recovery, repairing the cracked bones.

“Ha, this isn’t easy…”

The brief initial clash that could barely be called an engagement.

In that momentary collision alone, I painfully realized the impact of having Defying Fate sealed.

‘…I can’t dodge anything. How is it so fast?’

Evasion using time compression and time stop. With those suddenly blocked, I couldn’t properly avoid most attacks and had to either cancel them out or block them.

Considering the difference in class between him and me, this was truly a fatal weakness.