Ch.1154How Could You Even Think of Such a Thing?

The power of thought that Haschal obtained after reaching the realm of heroes was the ability to interfere with the world’s time.

More precisely, it was the ability to form a separate space similar to the present world but with a distorted flow of time, and to compress all actions performed within it into reality.

As a result, from the perspective of those facing her, attacks that seemed slow would suddenly extend at an unbelievable speed.

“I was honestly a bit worried about what ability would awaken… but this is beyond imagination.”

Just interfering with time alone was already a rare and high-level ability, but this wasn’t simple time manipulation—it was the power to form an independent world.

In terms of rank, it was an extremely rare and high-level power of thought even by the standards of the Xanten Empire era or Sigurd’s age, not just the current era.

“Is it because I planted the seed of divinity? It’s certainly high-ranking… but that approach won’t be very efficient.”

“For combat purposes, a simple acceleration-type would be much more effective.”

The problem was that while its rank was inherently high, its power was inferior to acceleration-type abilities despite consuming similar amounts of energy.

Think about it.

Creating a subspace with a different time axis and projecting it onto reality to implement time compression versus enhancing physical abilities to increase attack speed.

Which would be more complex and difficult?

Haschal’s power of thought was certainly comparable to the powers of gods in rank, but in terms of utility, simple acceleration had a clear advantage in power-to-consumption ratio.

After all, being high-ranking and being useful in combat are completely different matters.

Additionally, being a time-based power, it had the weakness of being easily countered by other time-based or spatial powers.

“Well, it may be ambiguous in terms of power versus consumption, but that speed alone can lead most situations overwhelmingly in her favor. Isn’t that enough?”

Of course, these were merely slight drawbacks—compared to other powers of thought, it was still one of the most useful abilities.

Speed-related powers could create a turning point even against powerful enemies, and against equal opponents, they could maintain control of the battle.

“Any power depends on how it’s used. If that power of thought is honed to the extreme, it will show strengths distinct from mere acceleration.”

Powers of thought grow and evolve with training, so as Haschal became stronger, her ability would develop in a more powerful direction.

And indeed, it did.

—-

After defeating Valenstein, Haschal led the Battle of Zeren Plains to an overwhelming victory and was recognized as the true master of Durandal and the new First Sword of the Empire.

Afterward, the Third Prince’s faction, having lost most of their core and main forces, suffered repeated defeats with broken morale until they were reduced to just Isabella’s Benes territory.

Of course, since most of the insect monsters Isabella had raised were lurking in that territory, conquering it wouldn’t be a simple task.

That’s why Leopold temporarily halted his army and only ordered them to march again after making thorough preparations to deal with the insect monsters.

Meanwhile, Haschal secretly returned to the islands and waited for Isabella in the underground waterways with some companions…

– I almost got tired of waiting, you damn whore!

Finally, when she appeared, Haschal smashed her head in a surprise attack, throwing down a bold and powerful challenge.

“That’s right! That’s how you should smash a witch’s head!”

Astraea’s reaction was particularly dramatic.

She even forgot her “paladin-like” manner of speech that she had maintained to preserve her divine dignity and decorum, jumping up with clenched fists and shouting.

Well, it’s understandable.

During the witch hunts led by the Holy State to exterminate Lilith’s followers, her Order of Order was the most active participant.

“Not yet! Crush all her limbs completely! Make her crawl through the sewers like her insects!”

So how could she contain herself at the sight of the last witch—a blemish her Order had failed to eliminate—lying with her head smashed, twitching? It was a natural reaction.

“…Astraea, please calm down a bit.”

“Ha, look at that. After putting on such airs, your old personality isn’t dead at all.”

Saulite tried to calm Astraea by placing her hands over Astraea’s fists. Menes added a joking comment with a smirk.

Astraea was famous for mercilessly crushing and burning the limbs of evildoers without hesitation when they were still mere humans.

She had become somewhat milder after becoming Sigurd’s companion and ascending to divinity, but Menes still remembered her old self very clearly.

“No, why are we talking about the past now? That was so long ago…”

“How could I forget? My arms flew off the moment we met.”

Menes himself had gone to deal with a man-eating werebeast, only to be mistaken for the culprit and nearly have his limbs crushed by her spear and mace.

Fortunately, Ceres arrived with the real culprit’s head and cleared up the misunderstanding, but by then his limbs had been torn off at least ten times.

Since limbs were merely rechargeable consumables for a werebeast who had reached beyond the Champion level, it wasn’t exactly a serious injury.

“Ugh, that was… hardly an injury for a werebeast. I apologized right after the misunderstanding was cleared. Bringing that up now is so petty…”

“Ah! Suddenly my severed arms are aching! My crushed legs are throbbing too!”

“Come on, really…!”

However, Menes would bring up the incident whenever he had the chance to tease Astraea, leading to their bickering.

Given the time perception of gods living eternal lives, “whenever he had the chance” meant only about once every few decades.

“But does she have a chance…? That witch has accumulated over thousands of sacrifices for her ‘Netherworld Farewell.’ Killing her multiple times would be meaningless.”

Ceres, who had been looking at the two gods with disdain, turned his gaze toward Haschal and muttered as if to change the atmosphere.

One of Lilith’s powers, Netherworld Farewell, was the ability to resurrect by using those who had relationships with her as sacrifices when facing death.

Isabella, who had received this power, had accumulated about eight thousand sacrifices over the past hundred-plus years.

Even excluding those who had already died naturally from old age, the number would still be overwhelming—well over a thousand.

To be frank, even someone stronger than her would find it impossible to kill her through conventional means.

Her opponent would exhaust their energy before Isabella ran out of lives.

Moreover, Haschal wasn’t even significantly stronger than Isabella.

Landing a surprise attack was certainly satisfying, but the longer the battle continued, the more her chances of victory would plummet.

“There are… methods. About three of them.”

Menes glanced at Ceres and answered while stroking his long chin.

As she said, the situation was virtually hopeless, but there were roughly three ways to turn it around.

“Three? Didn’t Regin derive only two ‘strategies’?”

“Regin did.”

According to Regin’s calculations, there were only two ways to defeat Isabella, who had thousands of lives, other than through conventional means:

Either trap her in destructive terrain like lava to quickly deplete her numerous lives, or use powers with advantageous compatibility.

Powers that ignore resurrection or regeneration and inflict absolute death, or abilities that nullify powers themselves.

However, this was an underground waterway, not a lava field, and powers like absolute death or power nullification were high-level abilities impossible to obtain at this point.

Even flame powers like Karma Fire or Holy Fire that could continuously burn the opponent would be meaningless, as Haschal and Lacy lacked the energy to maintain the flames until Isabella died.

So, for the current Haschal, there seemed to be no option but to honestly reduce Isabella’s thousands of lives one by one.

“But when I thought about it carefully, I realized there was one more way.”

However, Menes had come up with a third method that even Regin hadn’t considered, and he had slipped this idea into the otherworldly soul when injecting Regin’s predicted information.

Since Menes himself wasn’t certain of its effectiveness and considered it a nothing-to-lose approach, he hadn’t bothered to mention it to the other gods.

“One more…? May I ask what method that is?”

“Well… if she didn’t take the information we provided lightly, I don’t need to explain. She’ll show us directly now.”

…To begin with, it was a method that even the thick-skinned Menes found difficult to explain with his own mouth.

—-

Indeed, there was no need to explain.

– Close your crotch! I can’t breathe because of the stench!

– Wouldn’t it be better to get used to it? You’ll have to lick it like a dog later!

– Then at least apply some butter! Though it would rot instantly anyway!

“No…”

“……”

“Menes…?”

“What are you looking at? It’s not my fault.”

Even the gods sighed, wondering what kind of life this human had lived to develop such speech habits.

– Your flesh smells different. Sister has the scent of peaches and violets…? Your sweat tastes sweet rather than sour, and your breasts… are about 7cm larger?

“…Was this perhaps a civil war between Lilith’s followers?”

“Magic users are all out of their minds…”

And after Ophelia’s “sister identification,” which led to the conclusion that this woman was beyond salvation.

– …No, wait…! This is, what…?! What on earth have you done!!

Haschal, who had broken through Isabella’s magic and killed her once, then disrupted the subsequent “Netherworld Farewell,” proving Menes’s idea herself.

– How does it feel to return to being a virgin?

By using the mechanism of healing miracles to replace the internal organ that was the cradle and origin of the Netherworld Farewell power with a new one.

“……”

“Don’t tell me that ‘method’ was…”

Thanks to this, Menes was able to avoid having to explain the method with his own mouth in front of Elpinel and his companions—

“…Well, it worked, didn’t it? That’s what matters.”

“Don’t come near me. Insanity is contagious.”

But he couldn’t avoid the eyes of the other gods looking at him as if he were something inhuman.