From a certain standpoint, it was impossible for anyone to ignore the existence of the God of Holy Light. That was because he was by far the strongest Main God in existence. It could even be said that he was the main reason why the Order and Chaos Faction still maintained their balance of power despite the Chaos Faction being overall more powerful. It was an indisputable fact that nobody would deny: the God of Holy Light was the most powerful existence in the world.
It seemed inconceivable how a Main God who was only slightly under two thousand years old managed to reach the point where he far surpassed the power level of far more ancient existences. However, it could be understood if you analyzed just how far widespread belief in the Holy Light had become.
More than seventy percent of all humans worshipped the Holy Light. Humans were the ruling species of this generation, so they had strong reproductive abilities and powerful countries. This meant that the God of Holy Light possessed more than thirty percent of the power of faith in all of Eich. This persisted for 1700 years ever since he ascended to Godhood, which would mean several dozen generations of humans… Back in earlier generations, the Elf Gods split up the source of belief amongst themselves, weakening their overall power. The God of Holy Light was different as every single fervent worshipper and chosen individual would become power for the God of Holy Light after they died. The God of Holy Light’s Divine Kingdom would forever be the one with the most overpopulation problems. Countless souls within his Divine Kingdom were providing belief power to him, from the previous Holy War to the present!
This was a frightening amount of accumulated power. Compared to the previous generation the Elf Gods ruled, this would possibly be more than ten times, or even one hundred times the accumulated power of belief of all the Elf Gods added together! That was because humans far exceeded elves in reproductive ability and rate at which a generation of humans would die out. The number of souls that entered the God of Holy Light’s Divine Kingdom did so faster than elves would for the Elf Gods, so of course the God of Holy Light had a far greater amount of belief power.
Short-lived species would have great difficulty comparing to longer-lived species in strength and wisdom. Yet, short-lived species had a huge advantage for becoming “food for the Gods”. By the way, it should be mentioned that humans had complex emotions and personalities, meaning that their belief contained a great deal of stubbornness and emotions. This helped to make their “soul food’s” nutrition and taste much better than the elves’.
Humans created the God of Holy Light. And now, he was powerful to an inconceivable realm. Even his incarnation was already at a Main God’s power level. If you only looked at his energy level, it was possible that he already matched or even exceeded the Creator Goddess’s level.
This was both a coincidence and a certainty. This was the miracle created together by humanity along with Karolan, the previous Holy War’s Child of Fate. But right now, for us, this meant a huge amount of trouble.
Such a powerful existence like the God of Holy Light would naturally affect many things in the overall situation. I had been constantly testing his current condition.
The God of Holy Light’s overwhelming power still had a price to it. In a way, the power of belief stemmed from soul shards. While soul shards were filled with “nutritious” memories and emotions, they wouldn’t be that easy to digest. Although the God of Holy Light obtained far more power of belief than any predecessor in history, the power of belief in him was so much that it was impossible for him to retain a sense of self.
However, there were many different types of not having a sense of self. Was he just like a computer program that would only determine if something was beneficial for himself or not? Or had he already transformed into part of the Holy Light itself, becoming unable to make any decisions at all? Or had he been synchronized with the Source of Order, becoming nothing more than a loyal dog and puppet?
The type of condition he was in would determine what type of decisions he would make in critical moments.
Would he follow the foundational “Cleansing” Concept of Holy Light and fight Chaos to the bloody death? Or would he only care about his personal benefits, being a cold and calculating machine? Or would he even not do anything at all apart from being a divine power automated server?
That was why I had always carefully tested him—with the Northlands, with the Church of Pure Holy Light, with Estrada’s decision—cautiously treading on his limits and seeing how he would react. Finally, I confirmed his current condition…
“He’s already become the Source of Order’s complete puppet? That’s the worst possible outcome of all…”
When I used the “Hammer of Salvation” as the catalyst to borrow power from the Tower of Holy Light, this also opened up a direct path to the Tower of Holy Light. This spatial door which appeared for only an instant exposed the Tower of Holy Light’s coordinates, giving the God of Holy Light’s incarnation the opportunity that he had been lying in wait for.
The Seven Circles of Hell were all Infernos that were separated by the concept of Space itself. It would be impossible to physically travel between the Infernos by foot alone. The God of Holy Light lost a large amount of divine power in forcefully breaking through the dimensional barriers, yet he still proceeded to fly in the sky.
“…Not only has Karolan lost his sense of self, he’s even instinctively strengthening himself and became the complete puppet of the Source of Order. Since you were the previous generation’s Child of Fate, you really have failed so spectacularly in such an embarrassing fashion!”
At this moment, by taking opportunity of just this instant, the Source of Order’s puppet was already close to the Tower of Holy Light. As long as this tower was destroyed, one-fourth of Hell would be destroyed with it, and Karolan would remain as the only incarnation of Holy Light.
“Karolan, open your eyes! Fate is Watching You!”
My angry roar echoed in the air, but I wasn’t merely cursing at him. I was using the power of a God Equipment as my anger transformed into a messenger of misfortune, which appeared in front of Karolan, the God of Holy Light.
It would be impossible for my main body to catch up to him. But as I was the ruler of this world with power over the Concept of Space, I was able to instantly send an incarnation to block his path. Although my incarnation was torn apart instantly, it already managed to succeed in activating the power of the “Unpredictable Fate” staff.
[Unpredictable Fate. High-level God Equipment staff.]
This pitch-black staff had been a gift to me from the God of Fate himself. And now that Fate had gained the Concepts of Measuring Scale of Good and Evil as well as Judgement, this God Equipment’s curse of misfortune would become even stronger.
[Third ability: Fate is Watching You. Choose a target, and the target’s luck will decrease. The luck this individual loses will be added to yours for the next two hours. This ability ignores all magic resistance and immunities. Even other True Gods are not immune to this ability. Note: This ability can only be used once on each target for their entire lifetime. The target will become immune to this ability afterward.]
This high-level God Equipment’s curse activated instantly. A black glow twirled itself around Karolan’s incarnation, but then vanished instantly as if nothing had happened at all. Yet, invisible chains of karma were now secretly changing.
Another incarnation of mine appeared. This incarnation was wearing Patricia’s God Equipment crown on his head. He locked onto the attacking God of Holy Light as his target.
“Meteors, rain death and destruction down on my enemies!”
[Patricia’s Protection. High-level God Equipment crown.]
[Seventh ability: Star Power Summoning. Summon countless stars to crash down in an enormously destructive AOE attack with yourself as the center. Limited to one use per month.]
The next moment, the entire sky was transformed into a bullet hell, just like in certain video games. The pure power of moonlight transformed into a devastating meteor shower that began its destructive attack.
This divine powered meteor shower should have originally landed in random locations in a wide AOE radius. Yet, thanks to the guidance of Fate, these meteors continually adjusted their trajectories and took abnormally strange paths that were either straight, curved, or even backwards. But no matter which path they took, all the meteors finally ended up exploding against Karolan’s incarnation that was making normal efforts to dodge the meteors.
The results of the experiment I did previously to test the effects of negative luck were proved once again. As long as one’s fate was negative, randomly tossing a stone in the sky would likely cause you to be hit by your own stone. And if your fate was the most negative it could possibly be, tossing ten stones into the sky would likely end with you getting hit by eleven.
These divine powered meteors were Patricia the Moonlight Goddess’s ultimate technique. Their power actually exceeded her full power in normal situations. Plus, Karolan currently had negative luck, and my luck was massively increased from stealing his. This made the damage from these meteors higher than normal by more than ten times. Karolan’s protective barrier immediately shattered after blocking only the first few meteors. With continuous meteors pounding his body, Karolan’s incarnation that had already lost a significant part of divine power was now on the verge of collapsing.
But, the next moment, the God of Holy Light’s incarnation gathered itself together and cut off the entire outer portion of itself. It then formed something like an arm and made a throwing movement.
“Splitting off part of yourself? NO!!!”
After splitting off most of itself, the incarnation which had been giant-sized was now just a ball that wasn’t even one meter in diameter. However, the intensity of its energy was rapidly increasing. Judging from the high amount of energy it was emitting, it was evident that the God of Holy Light’s incarnation was even willing to self-destruct in order to completely destroy the Tower of Holy Light.
“You shameless person who doesn’t even have a face or skin anymore… Die!”
The explosive Holy Light was right in front of my Tower of Holy Light. It would be too late if I didn’t use my strongest ace card here. I grit my teeth and instantly sent another incarnation, together with a white rose, in front of that now-ball-formed incarnation of Holy Light.
And then, the rose bloomed…
The exact same scene from the River Styx occurred again. Once again, the God of Holy Light’s incarnation met with the same result.
[Ayer’s White Rose. Wondrous mystical item. Highest-level God Equipment.]
[Ability: The chosen target will instantly die.]
[System Notification: Yep, that’s right. That’s how simple the explanation is. There are no other effects. Believe me—not even a Main God can handle being targeted by this rose.]
My System’s original notification had absolutely been correct. Ayer had used countless years to create three roses of death which were the physical representations of the Concept of Death. Not even a Main God would be able to stand up to one of his roses.
However, unlike all my other God Equipment aces, this strongest ace of mine was a one-time consumable item. If Ayer had still been alive, he would have been able to replenish the energy within this rose. But now, this death rose no longer had a true master alive, so I could only helplessly allow its rose petals to scatter in the wind. Of course, the rose took the God of Holy Light’s incarnation along with it.
The God of Holy Light had now recently lost two Main God level incarnations, yet his divine power still didn’t show any obvious signs of weakening. His incredible strength had definitely far surpassed all realms of common sense. And even though I was able to deal with this current dangerous situation, the grudges between us were certain to make us into the greatest of mortal enemies.
“Sigh, you call me reckless? I think you’re the reckless one, Roland.”
I slightly heaved a breath of relief, seeing the golden glow beginning to dissipate, when the sigh coming from behind me caused goosebumps to appear on my back again.
“Damn it, I just used up all my aces…”
I turned around to see Karwenz who had a displeased expression. To be honest, I really did forget about his presence in the heat of the moment just now. Without a doubt, this was a type of looking down upon him. No wonder he was so displeased.
“…And I had wanted to ambush him with these God Equipment.”
Yep, from the very start, I had never intended to have a direct physical confrontation with him. The Chaos Faction had far too many advantages when it came to brute strength. Originally, I had just intended to stall him while using God Equipment to ambush him.
First, I would use a debuff curse to lower his luck, and then weaken him with attack magic to lower his defenses. Finally, I would win with the instant-death attack. This was the classic three-step combo for dragon slaying that mages used. It was an especially effective strategy against tough-skinned targets.
Originally, I had intended to use this three-step combo of God Equipment on Karwenz. He had a much larger body size than other Demon Lords, and would always completely concentrate on only battling. He was basically the easiest target to ambush.
“But now, when I was pressured, I accidentally used all my prepared tricks on the God of Holy Light’s incarnation…”
And now, I could only grit my teeth and continue to face my displeased younger brother head on.
Fortunately enough, however, it was the God of Holy Light that had rushed over here, so Karwenz was more than happy enough to watch me fight him. If another Demon Lord had arrived here, it was highly likely that it would become 2 on 1 against me.
But before we could restart our battle, the entire Indifference Inferno started shaking violently yet again. The hole that the God of Holy Light previously created exploded yet again, and a gigantic creature suddenly appeared in a cloud of smoke. This was the opponent that I had originally arranged for the God of Holy Light.
“Envy?”
The Borealis had indeed just rushed out of the Thieves’ Inferno. It was just that it now had a wretched appearance. Its main body and outer parts had all been melted, and large amounts of pieces were falling off what remained, as if it would be destroyed at any moment.
“It would seem that I gave you the worst possible opponent…”
The strengths of each Main God that came to attack Hell were quite obvious. The most difficult one to deal with was obviously the most powerful one, the God of Holy Light’s incarnation. His original version of the Holy Light represented Cleansing, which was the natural counter to the undead. All of my Hell Kings would be countered by him. And so, I directly went with Sun Bin 1 ‘s strategy for racing horses, and had Marsolit, the weakest of my Seven Original Sins, do his best to stall the God of Holy Light.
Of course, another reason why I gave the weakest Sin, Envy, the strongest Main God as his opponent was because this was only an incarnation of the God of Holy Light, who would have rather low intelligence. Karolan should have been the slowest out of all the Main Gods to see through this world’s secrets. Yet I hadn’t expected that the moment he sensed the existence of the Tower of Holy Light, he’d decide to go all out with zero inhibitions.
And now, not only did Marsolit, who was the slow to power up type, become seriously injured, the God of Holy Light’s incarnation was even the first to discover this world’s secrets. Karolan had unhesitatingly attacked after he discovered the Tower of Holy Light. I had apparently matched Envy with the wrong opponent.
Yet, Marsolit’s arrival still made things slightly easier for me. At the very least, a Main God (well, his incarnation) had been directly killed and was no longer a threat. I was now the one who had the 2 on 1 advantage. I was gaining the upper hand!
And, Envy’s personal abilities were highly unique. Someone would have to manipulate him in order to utilize his strongest powers. And, as long as he had enough time, his combat strength wouldn’t be below the other Original Sins at all.
“Now then, it’s time for you to witness Marsolit’s true—”
I only half-finished my arrogant words before I was interrupted. I had just received extremely bad news from one of my incarnations.
“The Pride Circle of Hell has been broken through, and Omar was actually seriously injured and then sealed? That damned Lord of Putrefaction…”