Ch.307308. Final Battle (4)

《■■■■■■■■───!!!》

It howls.

《■■■■■■■■───!!!》

The beast, the beast of ‘Wrath’ howls in terrible agony as the flesh of its throat is torn away.

This is no simple wound. No mere injury. About 1/3 of its neck is crushed and shattered, with endlessly boiling metal-like blood gushing forth. It’s a severe injury where torn blood vessels and tendons between chunks of flesh are exposed, along with its coal-black bones.

Thinking everything was over, its wrath stack had reset, returning its physical abilities to normal, and in that careless state without any defense, this perfect ambush made Satan’s aspect howl in pain.

Regardless, I briefly shifted my consciousness to materialize the “Bloody Wolf God” aspect of the Orc deity, successfully executing a perfect ambush, and I smiled slyly───

───Slash!!

Toward the creature clutching its neck and screaming, Bjorn, who had retained part of me as ‘Vengeance,’ split Satan’s head in half with his sword.

Thus, Satan’s aspect met its ‘death’ with no room for excuses. Normally it could expend power to resurrect, but Bjorn’s chaos-infused demonic sword, born from the power of chaos itself, left Satan no possibility of revival········

───Guh, guhh····guhk!!

《Leave it to me, Bjorn.》

Immediately after, realizing that Bjorn, dying in both body and soul, might truly perish if he absorbed Satan’s aspect’s soul, I instead absorbed the enormous amount of soul particles that formed the essence of Satan’s soul as it tried to flow into the dying Bjorn.

Then, something amazing began to happen.

A sensation I hadn’t felt for hundreds of years—my cognitive range expanding to a higher level—enveloped my mind, while simultaneously my soul broke its framework, shattering and leaping with all its might toward an even higher realm.

And······now two paths remain before me.

One is to completely transcend the framework of ‘divinity’ and become the one true god who governs everything in this world.

The final destination of mortal emotions toward all things, of all faith directed toward all gods. In other words, becoming ‘God’ in the true sense—able to control this world at will.

The other path is to thoroughly delve into the hole of vengeance, which is my essence among divine attributes, ultimately becoming identified with the very concept of ‘vengeance’ itself.

In other words, like the main body of this aspect I just fought so fiercely against, transcending to become the ‘God of Vengeance’ recognized across all dimensions.

And certainly, the power of being the one true god is incredibly alluring.

Even a highest-tier god can exert enough power to manipulate the world at will, but the realm of a true one god is····within the output of its abilities, truly anything would be possible.

Literally, I could remake the world as I please, and possess power that could be called omnipotent and omniscient, limited to this world.

········What nonsense.

What? Rule as the one true god of just this tiny dimension, barely the size of a planet? What would change?

Just remain a frog in a well, rotting away, trembling at threats that could someday destroy the world?

Nonsense, nothing but nonsense.

I am greedy.

I never let go of what comes into my hands, I must have what I desire, and furthermore······.

······Rather than stagnating and rotting away with the fancy title of one true god in a tiny dimension, I will choose the possibility of moving forward and developing endlessly.

This was the path I chose.

※ ※ ※

After Satan’s aspect fell, the momentum of the demon invasion was broken.

Of the original 17 dimensional gates, only 12 remained, and 6 of those closed on their own. The demons stranded in this world were mercilessly slaughtered, and the remaining dimensional gates were closed as well.

And at the same time.

《················.》

《··········.》

《············.》

In the meeting hall where the seven Demon Lords who had invaded this world gathered—the minions of seven Demon Kings who had joined hands for once—a chilling atmosphere prevailed.

Needless to say, the cause of this gloomy atmosphere was the failure of their joint interdimensional invasion plan.

It’s not that they hadn’t tried hard.

These Demon Lords, who possessed considerable power even among those under the Demon Kings, had planned to invade a randomly discovered dimension and use that achievement to gain independence.

Some Demon Lords had indeed established independent achievements and gained independence from their Demon Kings, and with 72 cases of such successful independence, they judged it wasn’t impossible.

Moreover, even though it was just a small dimension the size of a planet, if it was stable enough to have its own soul realm, it might not be worth a Demon King’s direct invasion but valuable enough to command subordinate Demon Lords to invade.

So these seven Demon Lords requested independence from the Demon Kings on the condition of conquering this dimension, and the Demon Kings, while snickering, granted permission just to see what would happen.

Filled with thoughts of independence and establishing their own power base, they smiled confidently, saying this would be nothing, and began the dimensional invasion──

──What they encountered was an insane number of gods.

A world where gods could easily intervene, where gods could easily be born, simply teeming with gods—the worst possible world for demons.

The result of recklessly charging in without proper reconnaissance, thinking they could just take what they wanted, was being dragged toward catastrophe regardless of their intentions.

Thus began the worst days.

The demon forces they had ambitiously gathered were more than half decimated by the counterattack of the local mortals. Just when they somehow managed to suppress them at extreme cost, the indigenous gods’ forces swept away the demons entirely.

With their first invasion so disastrously failed despite their careful preparations, they somehow scraped together resources for a second invasion with their diminished standing.

Paying a massive price for dimensional gate technology, borrowing various elite troops from acquaintances, they even sold half their souls to contract with ‘Satan’ to counter the locals’ ultimate weapon······.

The result was defeat.

Satan’s aspect, obtained by selling half their souls, suddenly disappeared, its soul vanishing. The demon forces across the world were being annihilated with the suspiciously powerful support of the Dawn Empire.

Even the demon worshippers they had hidden as advance bases were completely uprooted········.

《············Y-you worthless fools!!》

Finally, the Demon Lord of ‘Wrath,’ unable to contain himself, began pouring out his anger toward his trolling colleagues, marking the beginning of their downfall.

《······What did you do right? Our ‘Lord Wrath’ who lost the cavalry with his impulsive charge?》

《What? You dare lecture me when you didn’t even fight properly because you were busy hoarding gold that wasn’t even yours!! If you want to argue, you should have just───》

《········Hah, pathetic.》

《What’s pathetic? Is it pathetic that you, ‘Envy,’ descended personally only to be outmaneuvered by low-level mortals?》

《········’Pride’. Lost troops while fooling around with experiments.》

《Sloth, you who did nothing, just shut up!!!》

Thus, in a truly ‘demonic’ fashion, they were shouting at each other, raising their voices, and trying to avoid responsibility when───

《───Ah, here you are.》

Before them, ‘Vengeance’ appeared.

‘Vengeance’ manifested before them in the form of a giant with a skull head.

The demons were shocked that someone who until recently had been merely a local deity of one world had directly set foot in the demon realm as an entity equal to a Demon King, albeit of lower caliber······.

《Ah, you’re wondering why I’m here?》

Perhaps noticing the demons’ emotions, ‘Vengeance’ showed a very happy and joyful smile and—uttered words of despair toward them.

《Well, it’s nothing special. I just came to collect the price I negotiated with your masters, the Demon Kings. The Demon Kings were quite reasonable. When I demanded you all as the price for forgiving your invasion, they gladly agreed.》

No sooner had those words ended than ‘Vengeance’ reached out his hand and seized the demons───

A few days later, they became beings who had to scream despite having no mouths.