Ch.144144. Divine Execution (2)

Bjorn trembled, shuddering at the corpse sprawled before his eyes.

“Finally, finally… one!!”

At last, he had achieved the second stage of his long-cherished revenge—killing one of the 12 main gods with his own hands—a wish he had harbored for ten years.

In his brain, a storm of emotions derived from hormones—joy, ecstasy, and a sense of achievement from overcoming adversity—raged wildly.

Had he not been a Grade 1 approaching transcendence, he would have died from hormonal imbalance and immune system overload—such was the overwhelming ecstasy that threatened to send his bodily functions into overdrive.

Unlike avengers commonly portrayed in media, he felt no emptiness whatsoever.

The notion of losing purpose after completing his revenge would absolutely never happen to him.

Bjorn knew that his family had been guided to the realm of the great God of Vengeance, and that he could meet them in the afterlife as much as he wanted.

Moreover, having already dedicated his body to the great Bloodletting God of Vengeance, he had far too much work ahead to even think about resting.

So rather than feeling frustrated or empty like a fool, he was purely rejoicing in the tremendous achievement he had accomplished.

He, himself, had killed one of the 12 main gods of the pantheon!

Through the quality and quantity of the spiritual energy being absorbed, Bjorn knew that the being he had killed was undoubtedly a god, and he trembled at the overwhelming power flowing into his physical body, but…

At the same time, a sudden thought occurred to him.

For someone who was supposedly the Goddess of Wisdom, Magic, and Knowledge, one of the pantheon’s 12 main gods—and furthermore, the Emperor who should be the Empire’s greatest military force and strongest apostle…

After actually fighting them, they weren’t that strong, were they?

Of course, he had confirmed that the goddess had been weakened by having her divinity torn away, but even so, he had dealt with both of them in less than a minute…

In a way, it’s not strange that such doubts would arise.

However, from a more omniscient perspective, this was simply a matter of compatibility between Bjorn and his opponents.

First, there was the professional compatibility issue.

When a warrior and a mage face off at a distance, the mage naturally has the advantage, largely because mages can employ more varied tactics than warriors.

Warriors are inevitably strongest in close combat situations, while well-prepared mages can avoid being drawn into such close quarters.

However, in this case, both sides encountered each other at a distance of about 10 meters—practically point-blank range by high-level standards.

Moreover, Bjorn was no ordinary warrior to begin with.

He could counter a mage’s various techniques with magic of his own, making the battle essentially more like one between a mage and a holy knight.

Additionally, Bjorn’s ability design was the perfect counter to the Emperor and Anath.

The Emperor was a monster who fought by continuously reviving based on immortality, with MP fully restored upon resurrection.

The orichalcum armor that normally surrounded his body—itself a divine artifact—allowed him to withstand and endure attacks from ordinary warriors, but…

As luck would have it, his opponent was Bjorn, who was far from an ordinary warrior.

With attack power maximized through chaos-attribute aura and various skills, he could pierce through the divine orichalcum armor and blow off the Emperor’s head in a single strike.

Crucially, his divine artifact—the greatsword—had absorbed chaos power and transformed itself, gaining not only enhanced performance but also the new power of soul absorption.

This was an extraordinary ability that absorbed the soul at the moment of taking a life, using it as nourishment to strengthen himself.

It was a power rarely seen, one that guaranteed defeat on first encounter with no second chance, and one with no particular countermeasure even if known.

Having fallen victim to such an attack—the epitome of “you’ll get hit if you don’t know about it”—even the mighty Emperor died pathetically.

As for Anath, her case differed from the Emperor’s.

First, Anath was quite similar to the “Wizard” type of mage.

Wizards, those who approach magic as an academic discipline, are well-known for becoming stronger the more prepared they are.

The more information they have about their opponent and the more thorough their preparations, the stronger they become. With perfect preparation, they can one-sidedly dominate their opponent.

However, conversely, if they encounter someone for the first time without preparation, they would be not only weaker but even inferior compared to other types of mages.

Thus, one reason was that Anath, being unprepared, couldn’t fight at full strength.

The other reason was the power of the amulet Bjorn wore.

This divine artifact named “Will of Ma-Duk” was a defensive artifact providing high defense, regeneration, complete mental immunity, and resistance to various elements.

However, just as the other divine artifact “Blood Magic Sword” transformed with chaos power, there was no reason the Will of Ma-Duk wouldn’t change as well.

The amulet, having absorbed plenty of chaos power leaking from Bjorn, lost its elemental resistance ability but gained the special ability to apply Dispel to chaos attribute techniques.

This special Dispel reverted magical energy—the energy that constitutes magic—back to its original chaotic state before becoming magic.

The combination of these abilities, blatantly designed to kill mages, was why Anath died from an unexpected situation.

But Bjorn, not knowing these details properly, simply assumed that both opponents were weaker than expected—

—while simultaneously resolving never to let his guard down.

※ ※ ※

Shortly after, Bjorn was cheerfully making his way to kill the next god with light steps.

Having placed Anath’s head next to the Emperor’s severed head, he cut down the Pleasure Maidens and other Rom Empire creatures he encountered along the way.

Since the followers of the Bloodletting God of Vengeance had already evacuated long ago, he felt no hesitation whatsoever.

Thus, thinking about the god’s corpse stored in his space expansion pouch, Bjorn was moving leisurely as if jogging when he changed his mind.

He decided that walking would take too long, so he resolved to summon a chaos minion he could ride.

“Come, 《Army of Chaos》.”

The skill he used was ‘Army of Chaos’.

Originally a skill that randomly summoned soldiers tainted by chaos power, the well-practiced Bjorn could somewhat control what being he summoned.

[■■■■■■───!!!]

Thus, Bjorn used his skill to summon a large flying creature—a Chaos Dragon tainted by chaos power.

A pitiful creature that had lost all the intelligence and reason a pureblooded dragon should possess, reduced to being a mount for someone else.

“Now, let’s go!”

Leaping onto the Chaos Dragon and landing in one motion, Bjorn immediately grabbed the reins and began steering the dragon.

[■■■■■■■■■■───!!!]

After letting out a roar that induced magical fear mixed with draconic energy, the dragon took to the sky—and began flying somewhere according to Bjorn’s will.

His target was the residential district where he sensed two divine presences simultaneously.

Though he would have to face two gods at once, with the power he had gained from killing gods, he could handle both in one go.

Without any arrogance, but based on cold calculations in his mind, Bjorn had made this judgment and was advancing toward the divine presences when—

《—You!!! It was you!!!!》

Suddenly, an enraged female voice loud enough for him to hear clearly rang out, and simultaneously, dozens of giant furnaces formed in mid-air began firing heat ray cannons.

Heat ray cannons made of compressed heat so intense they appeared white rather than red began pouring down, attacking the Chaos Dragon.

However, the dragon, having gained powerful physical abilities in exchange for losing its intelligence and reason, skillfully flew around avoiding most of the heat rays, but…

SCREEEEECH!!!

Unfortunately, one shot hit its wing membrane, effectively vaporizing one wing, causing the Chaos Dragon to plummet to the ground.

Of course, falling from this height was not enough to kill or even scratch either the Chaos Dragon or Bjorn.

“…What the f—[CENSORED].”

However, immediately after the crash, Bjorn couldn’t help but curse.

What greeted him and the Chaos Dragon after falling to the ground—specifically the middle of the residential district—were houses that had transformed into something like robots and dozens of heat rays.