Ch.176Chapter 176. Charon’s Coronation (1)

Chapter 176. Charon’s Coronation (1)

Charon stood before the giant crouching at the center of the imperial palace. Above the giant’s head floated a massive black hole called a dimensional gate, hovering like an angel’s halo.

This being with three pairs of wings and the appearance of a beautiful woman was the evil god Shamishur. The one who opened the dimensional gate and summoned the demons.

Charon observed her slowly.

Her transparent skin, sparkling like diamond and appearing just as hard, along with her completely black eyes lacking pupils, exuded a strange divinity.

Though Charon’s body, made from mixing demon bodies, was also large, it was like a baby before its mother compared to the evil god’s enormous form that easily exceeded 50 meters.

“Hmm.”

Charon looked at the red energy enveloping her head. It was divinity shed to perfectly control her soul, but it still hadn’t penetrated into the evil god.

He had succeeded in gaining the authority to command demons, but failed to completely subjugate her soul.

“What do you want, Shamishur?”

This evil god had shown no particular movement even when Charon turned the capital into a wasteland. At first, he thought she was focusing on maintaining the dimensional gate’s stability, but something was different.

“Fine. I’ll find out myself.”

Crack!

Charon, surrounded by red divinity, plunged his right arm into the evil god’s leg. The diamond-like skin cracked slightly as his right arm entered.

Charon poured his divinity inside. It was to penetrate the evil god’s soul, or more precisely, her mental world, to completely break her mind.

This was an ability Charon had learned, specifically the traditional soul-stealing method of the outer gods known as Watchers.

Now that he had become a collection of many souls, he would be stronger than those beings.

Charon’s divinity flowed into the evil god.

No, just as he was about to pour it in, his vision suddenly shook and a blackout followed.

Had she launched a mental attack first? Or invited him into her mental world?

“…!”

When he opened his eyes again, a completely black world spread before him. The evil god’s mental world.

Feeling something unfamiliar, he examined his body. His physical form had been reconstructed. It was the body from when he was the priest of the Autumn Leaf tribe and father of three children.

“You’re doing something pointless. Do you think you, who have fallen to become a mortal, can defeat me in the mental world?”

Charon moved confidently. Whatever happened, he had entered the mental world. That meant his objective was accomplished.

Charon was a being with divinity. He could use his abilities even inside another’s mental world.

Charon’s body split and divided into two. The two then divided into four, and then into eight.

This was an ability only Charon, a collection of multiple souls, could use. With multiple beings possessing abilities equal to Charon’s, he should be able to defeat any enemy that appeared in this world.

The so-called Fluid Clone Technique, or rather, the Charon Clone Technique.

After walking for some time, the surroundings suddenly brightened.

“This is…!”

The original Charon’s eyes widened. The changed location was the Autumn Leaf tribe.

“Oh, Lord Charon!”

“Priest Charon, what brings you here?”

“Look at this! I caught a wild boar all by myself!”

The tribe people approached Charon, ignoring the clones around him.

“What a trivial game.”

Charon frowned and ignored the tribe people as he walked past.

They were all fake. People who died long ago. They were nothing but beings created by the evil god to stimulate his guilt and longing.

“Enough of this, show yourself now.”

Whoosh!

As soon as Charon finished speaking, flames erupted.

“Barbarians! Kill them all!”

“Death to the heretics!”

Soon, armed knights and inquisitors of the Goddess Church chanting spells rushed in.

To recreate the hell of that day.

“P-Priest! Save us!”

“Lord Gapun!”

The tribe people were massacred one-sidedly. The blood they shed formed pools.

“Is this boring game over now? You’re desperate to mock humans, aren’t you?”

Charon asked, trying to maintain an expressionless face.

“Daddy!”

But of course, it wasn’t over. His three children who died long ago came looking for him.

“…!”

Charon’s eyes wavered. He had expected this. He had expected it, but its destructive power was beyond his expectations.

“We need to run away! There are too many of them!”

“There’s a cave over there! Hurry!”

The children pulled at the original Charon’s arms.

“This is meaningless.”

He tried to push their hands away and walk, but.

“Th-they’re shooting arrows! Aagh!”

When one child was hit by an arrow, Charon instinctively turned his head. That was the moment.

– Meaningless? Is that so?

With an eerie woman’s voice, Charon’s clones all turned their heads toward him at once. With expressionless, and therefore more creepy, faces.

‘…She took control? When?’

Charon, not panicking, shot his divinity at the clones. Unable to use Charon’s power, the clones collapsed helplessly.

Checking, he found that the other souls had returned to his soul. She must have returned the souls with some strange ability and then created new clones.

– I’ve been watching you since you invaded the capital.

The clones distorted their bodies grotesquely and stood up again. Their faces remained Charon’s. They rushed not at Charon, but at his children.

“D-Daddy!”

Monsters with Charon’s face bit into the children. They were trying to eat them like hungry beasts.

As if trying to recreate something that happened in the past.

Charon dredged up his painful past.

The civilized people who destroyed the tribe and set fire to the mountain, and himself holding the cold bodies of his three children in the cave, shedding tears.

He only moved after the flames that burned the mountain for two days had died down, but he couldn’t go far. The foot of the mountain was full of imperial army barracks. It was a number he could never defeat alone.

He hid in the cave again and waited for days, and eventually hunger came. All the tree fruits and animals were burned black and inedible.

…In the cave were three pieces of cold meat. He had no choice.

To take revenge, he had to survive.

By any means necessary, he had to survive.

“Shamishur!”

Charon shot out his divinity, killing all the monsters.

The red divinity extending from Charon’s body dominated the space and shattered it. But the real beginning was now.

“Daddy! Daddy!”

“Help us!”

“Save us!”

Between the broken spaces, Charon’s children appeared. So many children that their numbers couldn’t be counted.

The children all rushed toward Charon at once. No, they poured down like a waterfall.

Grind!

Gritting his teeth, Charon silently shot out his divinity to shoot them down. But there were too many. The children kept appearing endlessly from the broken spaces.

“The fire was too hot!”

“The arrow wound hurt so much!”

“Daddy, why did you eat us?”

Each word stabbed at Charon’s heart.

“I had no… I had no choice. I… I had to live…!”

Overwhelmed by the sight, Charon rambled. The children, gaining momentum, swarmed like locusts and covered Charon.

“Liar! You were just looking for someone to blame! It wasn’t for us!”

“Because you couldn’t blame yourself! So you decided to blame the gods!”

“How many people have you sacrificed for that pathetic revenge? How many children have you killed?”

“You know! The real monster that should disappear is you!”

The voices of the children burying and attacking Charon spread like echoes.

Not long after, a red monster’s hand appeared through the children.

“Yes! I did it! I ate my children!”

It was Charon.

“And I swore! That I would, absolutely would kill all the gods!

Did you think I would cry and beg my children for forgiveness? Now? After coming this far?!”

Charon’s voice gradually rose.

“How much do you think I prayed to Gapun, to the Roas? I offered all kinds of precious things as offerings and prayed for their well-being!

Though there was never a response… I believed that someday, someday they would surely respond! That I had lived keeping my duties to the best of my ability! And the reward for that waiting was the destruction of my tribe and the death of my children!

How, how could this happen? Why must I suffer such pain? Why did my children have to die? Why did you take everything from me? Why, why!”

It was close to a scream. Of course, no answer came.

“…Merciless monsters like you wouldn’t understand.”

Charon spread his wings and flew up.

“I no longer cry, nor pray. I will not beg for mercy.”

Gathering divinity in both hands.

“I don’t care what sacrifices follow. I will! Break this yoke! And end your farce!

I am the end of the gods, the end of mythology!”

He shot out his divinity in all directions, crushing all enemies.

“Haa, haa, haa, haa.”

A space filled with the corpses of monsters mimicking his children. Charon’s heavy breathing echoes.

– Good.

The evil god spoke again.

The broken space reconstructs itself. Suddenly the space had transformed into a bizarre and distorted cosmic landscape.

Charon surveyed the situation from atop a temple floating alone in space.

– Now I know who you are.

A massive, transcendent being standing before the temple looks down at Charon. It conveyed some information to him.

It was an era when the separation between the spiritual world and the material world was vague.

When this world, this planet was born, it arrived after traveling from the distant universe, spilled its blood to create the sea, and shed its flesh to make the land.

One of the first gods, now vanished into history, known as the Ancient God Race.

– I am the Fulfiller. The one who receives sacrifices and provides in return.

The creator god worshipped by the first humans of this planet. That was Shamishur.

“You’re… tired.”

She briefly dreamed of standing in the heavens again with the help of idols, but it was a fleeting dream. Her hatred for humanity and the playful gods was momentary.

She was tired in the face of endless pain and eternal time. She was longing for an end.

– Do you want my power? Take it.

Shamishur extended her enormous hand to Charon.

– Take it and reach the heavens. Kill them all.

“…!”

– Kill and kill, and someday even the hateful Ishtania! End it with your hands!

The moment Shamishur’s hand touched Charon’s body, the cosmic landscape briefly went dark.

When he opened his eyes again, he had returned to the ground in his original body. The body of Charon, the priest of the Autumn Leaf tribe.

“I succeeded.”

He also succeeded in dominating the evil god’s soul and body. Unlike before, the soul was empty of its contents, but it had not perished.

Given more time, he would be able to skillfully handle the evil god’s powers as well.

Thud thud thud!

At that moment, the evil god’s abdomen split open and a group of human corpses fell out. The corpses of the possessed.

Charon searched through the memories remaining in the evil god’s body and soul, and discovered that the evil god had ordered the cloud demon to bring the bodies of the possessed.

“George Raid Team.”

That’s what they were called.

“Rise.”

Charon extended his hand to them.

“Grrrr…”

Soon after, the George Raid Team rose, emitting red eye light.

“To me, to you… a chance has returned.”

They followed behind Charon, staggering. In a form very different from before.