Ch.297Storm (5)

Llewellyn flew through the air.

He felt his body being pushed back, a fierce sense of speed shaking everything around him.

Even as his surroundings violently trembled, Llewellyn pondered.

What was the reason he could remain intact?

Judging by the tingling in his hands, the reason was simple. Llewellyn gripped his sword hilt as he sensed the rapidly approaching sea.

When it all came flying at him, the techniques engraved in Llewellyn’s body reacted.

Reflexively, he intercepted the incoming attack. Swinging his sword as if shaking it off, he deflected the malice aimed at him.

But could he really deflect all of a transcendent being’s attacks that way?

‘Of course not.’

Llewellyn sought the reason for his survival not within himself but externally.

The reason the incoming attack hadn’t precisely destroyed him was because it wasn’t a perfectly coordinated strike.

Sunlight might condense into a spear of flame, lightning might rush like a flash to pound him, and wind and all manner of malice might become attacks targeting him.

But all these forces contained an enormity and might that inevitably canceled each other out. When they targeted Llewellyn at a single point, the outcome was obvious.

Even so, he hadn’t blocked it without damage.

Llewellyn gritted his teeth and deployed his anti-magic power as his vision violently distorted.

Crack!

He felt his body breaking through the anti-magic platform he had created, continuing downward.

The force pushing his body was alarming. Even superhuman strength lost its effectiveness while suspended in midair.

Desperately trying to steady himself, Llewellyn deployed anti-magic platforms in succession.

Crack, crack-crack-crack!

He felt his body breaking through multiple platforms as he was pushed down.

Fortunately, his speed was decreasing. Gritting his teeth, feeling the intense pain racing from his back throughout his body, he glimpsed the mourning notification appearing in the corner of his vision.

He should be grateful just to have his limbs intact. Llewellyn thought this as he desperately rolled his eyes.

In his violently shaking vision, Llewellyn saw the sea.

“Oh shi—!”

The impact came before he could finish cursing.

Water sprayed upward as he struck the surface, bringing a wave of pain.

But his speed had decreased. An ordinary human would have died from internal injuries long ago.

But Llewellyn was no ordinary human.

He was a homunculus and a divine being; such injuries wouldn’t kill him. Not unless his head was cut off.

So Llewellyn opened his eyes wide underwater and looked up at the sky.

Whether there were conditions or they were just waiting for the right moment, the attack came as Llewellyn surfaced.

“Llewellyn, are you unharmed?”

“Fortunately.”

“Be careful, they’re targeting you. They believe if they can deal with you alone, they can somehow bring down the rest.”

And that was indeed true. After all, Llewellyn was the most crucial element in closing this world and blocking the transcendent beings’ access.

Without him, it wasn’t that no one else could do it, but they lacked the capacity.

That was why Netel, who had been waiting for so long, had finally taken action.

Llewellyn was the culmination of Netel’s core forces, techniques, and all their developments that had accumulated over time.

He felt the weight of that responsibility. That’s why he looked up at the sky from beneath the water.

More threatening than anything else was what lay above. Even what he had fully deflected still flew off with undiminished power.

So he waited, for the precise moment to…

“Llewellyn!”

A sudden sense of déjà vu. The moment Llewellyn created a platform underwater and kicked off—

Something surged up from the seabed even faster.

With a sound that seemed to reverberate inside his body, Llewellyn’s body shot upward.

“Kuh…”

His eyes rolled. Through those rolling gray eyes, he glimpsed a massive structure on the seabed through the slits.

It was a building so intricately detailed yet twisted that it almost made him laugh in disbelief.

There was no need to question whose doing it was. Llewellyn, now floating slightly above the water, was finally able to stop himself by creating an anti-magic platform.

“So they were in the sea too…!”

The God of Dreams exclaimed in shock while Llewellyn let out a hollow laugh in agreement.

The two of them, suspended in midair, beheld the underwater temple that had completely surfaced.

It was something very familiar to Llewellyn.

A form similar to what one might call cosmic horror.

Llewellyn swallowed the blood filling his mouth and flipped his body.

Attacks rained down toward Llewellyn as he rose above the water’s surface.

Attacks from beyond the universe poured down in quantities and densities too vast to measure.

But he considered it fortunate, in a way.

Only Llewellyn could withstand this.

And as the firepower concentrated on him, their attacks lost efficiency. Cooperation or intelligent coordination resembling human behavior was something impossible for them.

Because they were too vast, too powerful.

For them, cooperation was virtually a non-existent concept. That’s why Llewellyn instead steadied himself in midair and stood upright.

His divine heart beat roughly with each breath he took.

Thump, thump, thump.

Divinity resonated with each heartbeat, filling the space. A power symbolizing the order and laws of this world.

It was the natural enemy of the transcendent beings’ power, which was chaos itself. That was another reason Llewellyn remained intact.

Llewellyn rapidly regenerated his internal organs with divinity and leaped.

WHOOOOOOSH!

Concentrated light plunged toward the sea.

Seawater erupted like an explosion, and hot steam filled the space.

Overwhelming heat. But not enough to vaporize the entire sea. Llewellyn avoided the steam, stepped on a platform he created in midair, and jumped again.

Bang, bang, BANG!

Llewellyn jumped repeatedly, ran, and threw himself forward.

Each time, attacks flew at him again and again.

Even with Llewellyn’s increasingly sharpened senses, he could barely make out the faint forms—hands throwing spears forged of light, lightning pouring down from the sky through judging eyes.

Meanwhile, something long and formless generated winds that wrapped around Llewellyn like spider webs, and something that once controlled the God of Night wielded the night itself as a weapon.

The sky above the pantheon greatly distorted.

Brilliant light rose from somewhere, day and night intertwined and changed dozens of times, and gusting winds pulled clouds down to ground level and tore them apart.

He could feel confusion, fear, and agitation spreading widely.

But they could fight. Knowing this, Llewellyn dodged the attacks rushing toward him while looking for an opportunity.

Even just buying time like this would be beneficial, but he didn’t think they would leave things as they were.

Indeed, it was as he expected.

Suddenly, the air twisted. It was as if screams could be heard from beyond the universe.

How would a person insert their arm into a hole smaller than their arm?

The method is simple. Just push it in until the arm is crushed and the flesh tears.

It’s not a conventional method, but in simple terms, that’s one way.

It’s possible if one can endure the pain and loss. Llewellyn knew that what was happening before his eyes was exactly that.

Suddenly, an arm emerged from the twisted space. Something massive, translucent, whose form even Llewellyn couldn’t clearly perceive.

He knew it existed up to the forearm, but even its trajectory and form were unclear.

It rushed toward Llewellyn. From its passing trajectory, Llewellyn sensed death.

This was not something he could face head-on. Even with techniques that had reached the divine realm beyond human capability, this was an attack that would kill him if it hit.

That was the law it operated by. In the face of this one law that had bloomed from chaos, Llewellyn gripped his sword hilt.

He couldn’t afford to lose his star cluster yet. Though he had regeneration, he couldn’t dodge all the attacks that would come in that gap.

There was no choice. Llewellyn drew in a breath and clicked his tongue.

“Miracle Manifestation.”

The most powerful thing he could use without sacrificing his star cluster. His surging divinity took a clear form.

The God of Dreams silently assisted Llewellyn. The dreams he controlled clearly overlaid the transcendent being’s form in Llewellyn’s vision.

What had been vague became clear. It was too massive to dodge. That left two options.

Either don’t dodge, or dodge faster.

Llewellyn chose the latter.

“Survivor, Valterok.”

His surging divinity sketched armor over him. A knight who once pierced a massive monster with a lance on horseback and pinned it to the ground raised his head.

With the clanking sound of armor, the eyes that were barely visible through the slits blinked.

The black knight performed a sword salute with his left hand holding the sword.

Llewellyn imitated him.

That overwhelming amount of anti-magic power, the arcane knowledge of the anti-magic school densely engraved in every circuit of his body.

He even recreated the core that replaced the heart.

Though it felt as if his body was twisting, it hadn’t actually changed.

What changed was only the law. Llewellyn grasped the twisted reality in his hand.

VROOOOOOM!

It sounded almost like an engine.

The rushing form was already at close range. Normally, it would be impossible to avoid.

But that was only considering Llewellyn’s mobility alone.

Llewellyn concentrated the anti-magic power that was trying to spread out and wrapped it around his body.

He wove the anti-magic power beneath his feet more densely and stepped onto that platform.

[Explosive Leap]

Before the cracking sound could even be heard, the anti-magic power moved. He controlled the anti-magic power enveloping his entire body like a form of telekinesis.

Thus, Llewellyn shot upward, leaving sound behind.

The black figure soared high into the sky. The transcendent being’s long arm, unable to follow, sliced through the air, and Llewellyn was pushed slightly by the ensuing shockwave.

Monsters fighting on the ground were knocked away, and people crouched down to withstand the impact.

It was the aftermath of movement exceeding the speed of sound. It might affect the battlefield, but Llewellyn had no time to worry about that now.

With his greatly distorted vision supported by the God of Dreams and divinity, he used his extended divinity instead of his senses to grasp the battle situation.

“Fuck.”

The curse escaped his lips immediately.

Battles were taking place throughout the pantheon. People were shooting arrows, wielding magic, and swinging swords, spears, and blunt weapons to kill monsters.

Among them were the contractors. Those who could only be contained by the strongest, who weren’t numerous even in the pantheon.

Wielding lightning, becoming living light that melted every weapon it touched.

From those who controlled wind to send invisible blades flying, to the contractor of the severely distorted “God of Night” whose original form was unrecognizable.

Even one moving freely in a translucent form.

All sorts of contractors were fighting in the pantheon. From Nui to Lorian, even Lie Hejedia had drawn her sword to block the contractors.

If this continued, it would be the end. Once balance began to collapse somewhere, everything would be in vain.

Then the method was…

Llewellyn’s eyes rolled up toward the top of the pantheon.

The Cradle, the fortress of the black knights, and below it, the sphere-shaped fortress of the Three Clans.

There was no one inside. Then…

Llewellyn extended his left hand and clenched it.

*

The Empress flew toward the massive body and slashed at it.

Just like the aftermath of the supersonic movement that had occurred somewhere in the pantheon, she cut deeply into the massive body while continuously emitting all kinds of shockwaves.

But the regeneration was faster than her cutting. She cut off her own buried arm as if it were nothing and bounced away to avoid the invisible attack aimed at her.

As the Empress retreated in midair with her dress billowing, red and white trajectories overlaid the massive body in her wake.

SLASH!

From the tail of the great dragon to its entire body, it was the trajectory of arms and claws made from blood that had just been drawn. The consecutive strikes contained enough power to make the massive body falter, even as it regenerated immediately upon being marked.

The perfect harmony of overwhelming technique and power comparable to Lucilla, if not Llewellyn. It was indeed powerful enough to push back an avatar.

But that was all it could do. The Three Throne-Bearers knew they were essentially just buying time.

But for how long?

No one knew how long it would take Netel to close the world. Even the transcendent beings didn’t know.

If they were unlucky, they might have to fight for over a year. No matter how strong the Three Throne-Bearers were, they couldn’t hold out that long against an avatar.

Everyone recognized the need for a different strategy at that moment.

“Hmm? Oh?”

The Empress suddenly let out a sound.

It was such a dumbfounded voice, despite being in a battle that left no time even to roll one’s eyes.

Considering that the Empress maintained minimal dignity while displaying madness, it was a voice that demanded attention.

Sure enough, even the massive body stopped attacking. Why?

The Court Count turned his head in puzzlement, and the Prophet in foreboding.

“…What?”

They saw their own sanctuary rising high.

The fortress of the Three Clans approaching the feet of Llewellyn, who stood high in the pantheon.

“What on earth…?!”

Just as the Prophet exclaimed in shock.

BOOM!

The massive body that had been facing the Three Throne-Bearers suddenly shot upward. As if someone were pulling it.

Toward the fortress floating high in the sky.