Ch.120120. Humanity’s God

Everyone in the vicinity of the Inertia Emperor is overwhelmed by his presence and psychic flashes.

His four-meter-tall stature and sacred appearance make even the non-religious unconsciously search for God, while monsters recognize that charging at him would mean certain death, so they remain still, merely on guard.

Yet amid this overwhelming atmosphere, a Dragonia who remains completely unfazed swings an axe toward the descended Inertia Emperor, and finally, the battle between these two beings who will end this fight begins.

CLAAAAAANG—————KWAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAANG!!!!

As the Inertia Emperor blocks the Old Hero axe swung by Dragonia with his crescent blade coated in psychic structure, the resulting thunderous sound and shockwave once again shake the space station—

KUGUGUGUGUGUGUNG…………!!!

Eventually, all space stations in the area collapse at once, unable to withstand the strain of the battle, but the unconcerned Dragonia and Inertia Emperor spread their wings and begin their combat in the vacuum of space.

Dragonia, larger in size and wielding a shorter weapon, charges forward aggressively, trusting in his physical resilience, while the Inertia Emperor, compensating for his relatively smaller frame, counters with a long glaive enhanced by psychic structures.

Of course, this is merely an improvisation, as the psychic structure shatters whenever the two weapons collide, so the Inertia Emperor resolves this by employing additional means of attack.

With each flap of his wings, falling feathers transform into freely moving blades that burrow into the gaps between Dragonia’s scales before exploding, and the light he emits serves as an excellent weapon in itself.

Additionally, with simple gestures, the Inertia Emperor launches weapons made of psychic structures through the air or creates shields for defense—simple but effective methods with which he pushes Dragonia back, but…

[■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■─────────!!!!!]

Despite the Inertia Emperor’s numerous attacks, Dragonia’s body shows no wounds severe enough to hinder combat—moreover, injuries below a certain threshold heal instantly.

True to his reputation as one of the toughest individual monsters, most of the Inertia Emperor’s attacks merely create slight scratches on Dragonia’s skin or draw a few drops of blood at most.

In short, there was insufficient firepower.

For this reason, instead of foolishly continuing to pound away at the incredibly durable Dragonia, the Inertia Emperor shifted his strategy in another direction.

Whoosh———CLANG!

Beginning by forming a massive halberd-like psychic blade above his glaive to shatter the Old Hero one-handed axe, the Inertia Emperor adopted a primary strategy of destroying his opponent’s weapons.

Indeed, while Dragonia’s physical body is too durable to be killed without firepower equivalent to a battleship’s main guns, his weapons are another matter entirely.

Swinging random pieces of scrap metal reinforced with force fields and psychic energy has clear limitations due to material quality, and the hammer is gradually losing its durability as the psychic energy fades, its blue glow dimming.

Therefore, the Inertia Emperor avoided close combat and instead persistently targeted the weapons, able to focus on this approach thanks to his similar speed but smaller size allowing for much more nimble movements.

At first, only temporary weapons like scrap metal pieces used in place of axes were destroyed, but as time passed and cracks began to form in the hammer, even Dragonia seemed to grow cautious.

However, since retreat was not an option at this point, Dragonia had to accept the potential destruction of his hammer.

No matter how powerful his claws and tail might be as weapons, they inevitably fall short compared to the custom-made hammer created specifically for him.

Above all, the Inertia Emperor was a being who existed to face enemies that Old Heroes alone could not handle, making him a warrior by no means inferior to Dragonia.

While Dragonia’s physical capabilities were overwhelmingly superior, the Inertia Emperor possessed various abilities that Dragonia lacked.

As time passed, Dragonia, whose hammer eventually shattered, began to fall behind the Inertia Emperor who confronted him with weapons difficult to face barehanded, until finally—

Whoosh!

Disgracefully, Dragonia used his built-in teleportation organ to flee, and thus the Kupan Space Station survived the monster attack.

※ ※ ※

At the same time.

‘Let’s see… the emotions that came in this time…’

Having personally retrieved Dragonia, who unlike the others would be problematic to lose, I proceeded to collect the souls of the Old Heroes and the Emperor of the Central Empire.

Yes, as everyone probably suspected, these Old Heroes and the Central Empire Emperor who acts under the name Inertia Emperor are in my hands.

I too am outwardly active as humanity’s god, with two main purposes for this.

First, I can grow stronger by absorbing emotions like divine reverence sent to humanity’s god, while simultaneously expanding my influence by converting recovered souls into psychic beings subordinate to me.

In particular, these psychic beings subordinate to me are essentially parts of myself with only self-awareness, making the process practically no different from absorbing souls directly.

In other words, I am consuming the faith and souls of an ultra-massive power that occupies 1/3 of our galaxy, while simultaneously possessing another force of comparable size.

The second reason is to prevent the actual birth of humanity’s god.

Humanity, which I had been carefully nurturing as a potential source of faith, has been increasing their average psychic aptitude dozens of times faster than I anticipated, rapidly expanding their influence.

Naturally, I recognized that given enough time, a god could easily emerge from this process, so I decided to exploit this to my advantage.

When the foundation was gradually forming in the psychic dimension, I personally went there and devoured it whole, using it to make the world recognize me as humanity’s god.

As a result, I have effectively conquered 2/3 of our galaxy, but this has conversely prevented me from ascending to the next level.

Even if I devour all human souls, while the quantity is sufficient, the quality is too low for ascension, and divine entities with high enough quality to be useful for ascension cannot grow sufficiently due to pressure from humans and monsters.

Therefore, just as I did with Valvar previously, I deliberately nurture extraterrestrial divine entities while periodically invading humanity to obtain souls and faith to increase my power.

The high-quality faith gained in the name of “humanity’s god” during these invasions can serve as a decent energy source for ascension, and simultaneously, these internal conflicts that aren’t truly internal help maintain humanity’s quality.

Our galaxy is vast, and it’s impossible for all humans across territory comprising 1/3 of this galaxy to have democratic governments.

Naturally, among these planets, some are dystopian complete-control societies or lawless anarchic worlds, but among these are particularly malicious planets.

Planets where all humans except nobles undergo modification and brainwashing at birth, turning 99.9999% of the population into virtual bio-robots; decadent planets where the upper class visits to enjoy their “hobbies.”

Planets that kidnap humans from other worlds to extract their brains and insert them into machines as production equipment; planets where humans are treated as livestock.

These planets mostly exist in remote areas away from the prosperous regions of the Human Federation, and humans busy fighting monsters cannot afford to suppress these malicious planets that could spark civil war.

Therefore, I occasionally clean up such planets.

A large fleet with at least ten interstellar hive ships is deployed, and in emergencies, a moon-sized organic vessel with planet-destroying weapons—a Doomsday-class hive ship—is also mobilized.

Virus bombs are detonated to fill the entire planetary atmosphere with deadly viruses, key facilities are destroyed with laser strikes, and if recovery is impossible, the “Doomsday” class hive ship is called in to fire the Planet Killer.

Beyond merely burning the planet’s surface, it plows through the crust to destroy any underground facilities that might exist, completely erasing the civilization.

This is the “recycling” operation that occurs occasionally, albeit rarely.