Ch.851Power of the Malevolent God

– BOOM!

The shockwave from the missed punch pierced through the inner wall, creating a thunderous sound like hundreds of lightning bolts striking at once.

A force closer to an avalanche than a human fist.

The thick castle wall exploded as if hit directly by a siege cannon, and debris flew high into the air in a parabolic arc before crashing down on the wooden palisades at the city’s outskirts.

‘Just the aftershock is this powerful?’

Meiharin, who had barely avoided the blow by using consecutive space compression techniques, broke into a cold sweat at the sight.

A streak of blood colored her lips red, dripping steadily from her chin.

This was the backlash from using Chukji—a transfer sorcery that compresses space to move dozens of meters in a single step—in rapid succession.

Chukji was never meant to be used consecutively like this.

How could passing through compressed space with a human body be so simple? Even for Meiharin, consecutive activation of Chukji meant accepting damage to her bones, muscles, and internal organs.

But she had no other choice.

Had she not dodged that way, she would have been shattered into pieces like the castle wall, her flesh scattered everywhere.

‘…Truly a monster.’

Meiharin swallowed hard as she stared at Hersella with astonished eyes.

The divine aura of the Heavenly Killing Star integrated into every cell of her body. The light of murderous karma flowed like a nebula across her skin, flaunting unfathomable power.

Strength that easily surpassed even Orhan in his prime.

Literally lightning-fast speed.

Muscles and bones strong enough to casually withstand the recoil of transcendent power.

Hersella’s combat prowess with her Divine Demon Body manifested was already far beyond Meiharin’s imagination, even without considering the special properties of that power.

‘This is completely different from the records. I never imagined the difference would be this vast…’

The Heavenly Killing Stars from two hundred, four hundred, and six hundred years ago were also powerful figures who dominated their eras, but they were never monsters like the current Hersella who could blow away castle walls with just the air pressure from her punches.

Perhaps only the first Heavenly Demon from eight hundred years ago could have demonstrated such power.

In a way, this was to be expected.

The Heavenly Killing Stars born during the past six hundred years could not surpass the wall of heroes because of Heaven’s Wall created by Carlos the Great.

Thanks to the divine aura of the Heavenly Killing Star, they could demonstrate power comparable to heroes even without crossing that wall, but in the end, a Champion was just a Champion.

They might have been called the strongest in the East by the standards of their time, but compared to the powerful figures of the current era—where Heaven’s Wall was partially broken and those who reached the realm of heroes began to appear one by one—they were merely “decently” strong.

However, unlike previous Heavenly Killing Stars, Hersella had surpassed the level of an ordinary hero and belonged to the upper ranks among heroes. She was in a completely different dimension from the previous Heavenly Killing Stars who were merely the strongest Champions.

That’s why Meiharin had been overwhelmingly on the defensive since Hersella manifested her Divine Demon Body.

—-

Did she think Durandal, having lost its indestructible power, could not withstand her explosively increased strength?

Hersella, with her Divine Demon Body manifested, put away the longsword she had been holding and, without even glancing at the crimson short sword embedded in the ground, pressed Meiharin with just Frosting and her bare fists.

“What’s wrong? You’ve suddenly gone quiet.”

“……”

Meiharin bit her lip.

The snake of the Demon Hand had burst like a balloon in the wind pressure long before it could swing its venomous claws.

The Call of the Dead was crushed like a water balloon under Hersella’s slightest foot movement, and the Cold of the Netherworld left no trace, overwhelmed by the heat emanating from Hersella’s body.

“Weren’t you boasting quite proudly just a moment ago? ‘Behold the result of your arrogance’… wasn’t it?”

Even the dozens of curses contained in the Curse Bird’s wings had no opportunity to be fired.

Even if they were lucky enough to hit… it was uncertain whether they would have any effect.

Despite the Eye of Death and Weakness glaring with blue pupils, Hersella’s movements, transformed like a nebula, boasted transcendent power and speed as if curses had no effect on her.

“So, when exactly are you going to show me these ‘results’? After I’ve grown old and died?”

“Kugh…!”

Meiharin let out a suppressed groan as she narrowly avoided Haschal’s fist by performing two consecutive Chukji techniques.

Her face was contorted with frustration and anger. The backlash from Chukji was hitting her with pain, but she had no time to recover.

– CRASH!

The forty-meter distance she had barely managed to create was narrowed to within three meters in the blink of an eye.

It was a speed reminiscent of teleportation magic.

“ᡝᠪᡠᠨᠵᡳᠮᠪᡳ ᡝᠨᡩᡠᡵᡳ!”

Unable to perform a third Chukji due to the backlash, Meiharin hurriedly twirled her staff and deployed a defensive sorcery to compensate.

A divine possession sorcery that summoned a beast-shaped spirit.

– Hisssss!

Something scaly resembling a giant snake slithered out from the empty air.

A descendant of the sea serpent that encircled the world, the North Sea Dragon… the spirit of the white serpent of the Frost Gorge, the mother of the spiritual creature that had tried to kill Hersella on Meiharin’s orders but was instead subjugated and turned into the knuckle weapon called Frosting.

– SHHAAAA!

A translucent wall of scales appeared before Hersella.

The spirit of the serpent, letting out a shrill cry, wrapped around Meiharin like a snake protecting its eggs, shielding her body like an iron wall.

Though it had been merely at the level of a Dragonborn when alive, now strengthened through divine possession sorcery, its scales had become as hard as dragon scales.

It was among the finest defensive sorceries Meiharin had mastered.

“…Ha, that’s a familiar face.”

However, to Hersella, who had fought something resembling a dragon, albeit indirectly, the hissing white serpent spirit was nothing but laughable.

Facing the wall of scales, Hersella let out a steaming sneer and raised her left arm, covered in red nebula, above her head.

Murderous intent concentrated. The stars flowing like rivers along her forearm all swam toward her raised left hand, flashing a terrifying yet dazzling cluster of stellar light.

Cosmic power gathered at her fingertips.

“KYAAAAH!”

Her nebula-infused nails, carrying clusters of stars, became five streaks of red light striking down like lightning—

– CRACK!

The serpent’s body was torn into six pieces.

“SEEEEEEEK!”

Indeed, no parent can defeat their child. The words proved true.

The serpent, reduced to just a soul and summoned as a shield, suffered a fatal wound from a weapon made from its daughter’s corpse and writhed in agony, letting out a desperate death cry.

It was truly a tragic family reunion.

“How pathetic. I didn’t expect it to fail to withstand even a single strike.”

Of course, to Hersella, an expert in family annihilation, the tragic reunion of the serpent mother and daughter meant nothing.

“To bring out such a worthless thing as a shield. It seems you’re running out of tricks?”

Hersella kicked away the pieces of the serpent’s spirit that were disappearing like dust, and pulled her right arm back behind her shoulder, clenching her fist tightly.

“Then it’s about time…”

She glared at Meiharin, who was preparing a counterattack from inside the serpent, with hatred and contempt in her blood-red eyes.

Just as when she wielded Frosting, the cluster of stars circling her right arm concentrated in her tightly clenched fist, flashing an ominous, vivid starlight.

“I’d like you to die as disgustingly as possible. So I can engrave that image in my memory and reflect on it for the rest of my life.”

Contempt and mockery. A gaze like looking down at a sick chicken.

“How dare a mere girl…!”

Flames sparked in Meiharin’s eyes. Deep wrinkles carved into her contorted forehead, and her glaring eyes tore at the corners, shedding tears of blood.

“Don’t underestimate me. I’m far from showing my true depths!”

With a roar closer to a beast’s howl, Meiharin awakened all her mana at once to confront the star-filled fist coming toward her.

Meiharin’s left hand shot out the claws of Qiongqi, while her right hand created black lightning, grasped it, and stabbed it like a dagger toward Hersella’s side.

The Curse Bird’s wings spread behind her also burst all the eyeballs hanging from their feathers, firing dozens of curses.

Blindness, silence, eardrum destruction, hallucinations, auditory hallucinations, hair loss, pressure, deadly poison, weakness, aging, heat, frenzy, misfortune, blood flow reversal, nerve stimulation, stone creation, phantom pain, excessive bleeding, and more.

Curses that distorted senses, damaged the body, affected the mind, and were created solely to inflict pain.

Almost all the curses Meiharin knew erupted like waves and engulfed Hersella.

And then.

The moment all those sorceries that Meiharin had desperately unleashed touched Hersella’s body,

– WHOOSH!

A pitch-black hole suddenly opened in Hersella’s abdomen, which had been covered in nebula. Like the corpse of a dead star devouring everything, it was filled with darkness like an abyss.

– WHOOSH!

“…Huh?”

Meiharin let out a startled exclamation. All the curses she had fired were being sucked into the black hole that had opened in Hersella’s lower abdomen and disappearing.

This was one of the powers of the Divine Demon Body that had integrated the divine aura of the Heavenly Killing Star throughout the body.

The murderous karma in the divine blood dissolved into every cell had transformed the anti-magic blessing that dwelled in her body.

Beyond merely resisting curses, bindings, and mental magic. It had become the power of predation—capturing incoming mana itself as nourishment for murderous karma, devouring and digesting it, and converting it into power.

The wide-open cosmic hole completely devoured Meiharin’s curses.