Chapter 468: Beast of Armageddon
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu
“Boss Ayer, you left me a pitfall!”
Of course, I wouldn’t suspect Ayer. He had already sacrificed everything for the sake of our grand scheme. But now, I knew who had leaked Hell’s secrets to Karwenz.
“Ilmisya! You dare to betray me?”
I was filled with regret, but there was no such thing in the world such as medicine which could cure regrets. Perhaps I had overly believed in Ayer’s abilities. I never expected that even Ayer would misread someone. Not all of the four Devil Lords he brought were solidly allied with us. There was actually a traitor among Ayer’s allies!
Even without Ayer’s promises, the other three Devil Lords had all shown their utmost sincerity.
The most ancient Devil Lord, the Devil King Kamiltias, Lord of Lies, as well as Marshan, the Devil Lord of Rebellion, used concrete actions to show their sincerity. They already transformed themselves into Hell Devils, meaning that they were now the protectors of Hell and the new Cycle of Reincarnation. This was the equivalent of tying their future to Hell for all eternity. It would be impossible for them to betray Hell.
Heimor, the Lord of Despair, was still in the mortal plane and hadn’t come to Hell. However, he had given me the Queen of Storms’ divine power—the best sign of his loyalty as this meant he was directly betraying the Chaos Faction. Ayer even personally handed over some major tasks to complete in the mortal plane to Heimor. Evidently, the Lord of Despair was trustworthy as well. These three Devil Lords’ sincerity and Ayer’s trust in them caused me to forget about the lack of sincerity shown by the fourth Devil Lord.
Previously, I had been under the impression that there wasn’t enough Hades Mist left to complete Ilmisya’s transformation into a Hell Devil. But now, it would seem the truth was that she had been intentionally stalling her own transformation. In that case, her loyalty was suspect from the very start.
But upon closer analysis, it was also impossible for Ilmisya to be a loyal member of the Chaos Faction and a supporter of Goddess of Chaos Cynthia. That was because as long as she directly revealed our grand scheme to the will of the Chaos Abyss, it would have been impossible for us to even achieve this much or succeed in the first place. From the moment that she knew about our plans but didn’t report them to the Chaos Abyss, she had already betrayed the Chaos Faction.
“Benefits? Faction? Just what side is she on? Or, is she on her own side?”
Unlike demons that were always in frenzied chaos, devils were sly and highly skilled at scamming and scheming. Since she simultaneously betrayed Ayer and me, as well as the Chaos Faction, the only reason could be a sufficient amount of personal benefits. Ilmisya wasn’t a Main God, so the amount of benefits she could obtain was limited. She would definitely need a more powerful supporter as a shield to protect her. And, any person backing her up would need to be powerful enough to give her a sufficient amount of benefits and support… I understood everything as I watched Ilmisya and Karwenz kissing passionately.
“Karwenz! You dared to set such a pitfall for me! Ilmisya was loyal to you from the very beginning!”
Karwenz, who was currently using a normal-sized body, lifted his head out from Ilmisya’s breasts. First, he proudly gave my incarnation a big thumbs up as if he was saying “Are you envious of me since you’re forever single?” And then he changed his hand gesture to show me the middle finger as my incarnation instantly exploded and I lost vision of them.
“…I was actually fooled by a single-celled organism! I was actually scammed by a pig!”
I was now ridiculously angry, yet this only helped me to calm down inside. Seeing how proud Karwenz was made it obvious that he had planned all of this from the very start.
“Just what does he intend to do? So he’s not solidly allied to Cynthia? What can he obtain from betraying her?”
Ilmisya knowing about our plans for Hell and not telling Cynthia meant that Ilmisya had betrayed the will of the Chaos Abyss. Naturally, Karwenz must have known about Hell and also not said anything, meaning that he also betrayed the Chaos Faction. The Abyss Prince betraying the will of the Chaos Abyss? This was such an unbelievable scene… Too much information and too many possibilities flashed through my mind. I had no idea what he was up to for now, but there was something I was certain of.
“No matter what he intends, I absolutely can’t allow him to succeed!”
Sending more incarnations to follow them would be meaningless. I would have to bring sufficient strength to the Pillar of Ice to suppress a Devil Lord and a Demon Main God. But right now, I was still busy with the Lord of Putrefaction, who was no longer strategically important at all.
“Omar, use the chain mode. We don’t have much time at all. Go ahead and overload. Stomp this worm who’s lost his courage to death.”
That’s right, in my eyes, the current Ladvioka wasn’t much at all anymore. Perhaps he still had a Main God’s power level, but he definitely was no longer that former fierce warrior who was courageous and decisive on the battlefield. The most ancient Inferno Demon who had once ruled the battlefields of the Holy War had lost the courage to personally enter the battlefield. From the moment that he changed his style five thousand years ago to start raising subordinates, he had denied everything about his past and started all over again.
Perhaps Ladvioka believed that he now possessed armies which would more than make up for the commander’s personal weaknesses, but my opinion was that he had split his efforts in half. Not only that, half of his efforts now concentrated on something completely unrelated to his natural talents as an Inferno Demon. Perhaps his dominating power level and the long amount of time indeed helped him to obtain bountiful harvests from raising his armies, but taking such a path that would clash with his natural talents would definitely have lower efficiency.
It was meaningless to comment on right or wrong for the paths others took. For instance, elves typically studied both magic and physical combat, and were more than capable of easily defeating ordinary human mages and warriors, thanks to the elves’ natural talents and long lifespan. But right now, Ladvioka had been cut off from all the dimensions under his control. His armies had all been killed by the Mountain Inferno and the dimensional laws of Hell, with many former subordinates even willingly joining my side. Now, Ladvioka was indeed the weakest Main God in all of Hell. He could be killed!
“Don’t mind any consequences or how high of a price we have to pay. Kill Ladvioka!”
My order surprised Omar, but he didn’t hesitate at all as he jumped within the bone giant.
“Slaughter! Destroy… I’ve never felt so powerful before.”
The bone giant’s pure desire to slaughter was now under the control of logic and reason again. The bone giant with Marsolit at its core would only be capable of maintaining the most basic desire to do battle. But once Omar entered, he took over the bone giant’s thoughts, while Marsolit was able to concentrate entirely on the body. This helped the bone giant to be reborn.
Omar was an emperor to the undead to begin with. All the undead connected to him would become a part of him. It was impossible for Marsolit to compare to Omar in calculation abilities. To use an analogy that might not necessarily be accurate, if I compared the Seven Original Sins and their complete connections to a person’s body, then “Envy” Marsolit would be the spine and nerves acting as connectors, while “Pride” Omar would be the brain controlling all of the body’s actions.
The haphazardly put together bone giant was only capable of instinctive movement. But now that it had a brain controlling its body, it would become capable of expert movements for its slaughtering. Perhaps Omar himself wasn’t strong enough to support such a powerful physical body, but “the stronger and more numerous the undead that he ruled over, the more powerful Omar himself would become” was his natural talent ability. This made Omar into the strongest possible CPU and stabilizer.
But, just this alone would still be insufficient to kill a Main God. He would have to become even stronger in order to win!
There would be no time for idle thoughts when facing a Main God level opponent. I got rid of all idle thoughts, lowered my head, and softly touched where I was currently standing—the bone giant’s skull.
“Envy.”
“Pride.”
“Oh, I almost forgot. Sloth…”
A tremendous amount of Hell’s divine power transformed into actual “Concepts” that were purple, green, and blue. These three colors represented three different aspects of the soul, three sides of my own soul. These three aspects all joined within the bone giant.
The bone giant’s entire body distorted and changed; thick bone needles began growing out of the limb bones, the right fist became distortedly sharp, while the legs began to lighten. A tailbone began growing, while wings appeared on its back. This monstrosity was now different from how it previously put itself together through instincts alone. It was now perfecting its own physical body, or perhaps more accurately, evolving!
Previously, I’d mentioned how power levels represented how much of one’s own potential a person had made use of. Saint rank represented a clear personal path and a “perfect future”—the Soul World. The next rank up, Myth rank, represented being able to project one’s personal concept into something physical and real, perfecting one’s own path in reality.
This was something incredibly difficult. The great majority of swordsmen would choose to project their own concepts into their personal weapons. This would help to concretely increase their combat strength as well as continuously improve one’s own understanding of their personal “Concept”. The end result was that large amounts of powerful weapons were created—the so-called Myth rank weapons. And as the weapons’ masters progressed in power level, the weapons were also capable of evolving to reach SemiGod rank.
Of course, projecting one’s personal Concept wasn’t limited to only weapons. Some Myth-ranked individuals would even choose to project their personal Concepts into their own physical bodies, strengthening themselves and improving their supernatural abilities. Others melded their personal Concepts with their Soul Worlds, greatly magnifying their Soul Worlds’ effects. Still, the publicly recognized safest method with the least side effects was to imbue one’s personal Concept into a personal weapon… the main reason for this was that if one made any mistakes, it would be possible to start over again.
I was someone who had previously achieved the rank of SemiGod. Back when I was at Myth rank, the Concepts I had greatest mastery over would be “Death” and “Soul”. That was how the now famous “Staff of Yongye” came to be. And this time, when I entered this power level and above again, the “Seven Original Sins” became the Concepts I chose to emphasize the most here in Hell.
“Imbuing my ‘Concept’ into my personal weapon? That would be such a waste. Take a look at my children. They’re the best vessels for accepting my power. My children, I give you the blessings of Envy, Sloth, and Pride. Evolve! Surpass the limits of this world!”
The undead creations of the Seven Original Sins combined with the Concepts of the Seven Original Sins. What better combination could there possibly be? The three powers of Envy, Pride, and Sloth began to strengthen and distort the bone giant monster. The overly high speed of evolution still didn’t satisfy the bone monster, as its abnormal bones suddenly wrapped around itself and the bone giant became a bone egg as it continued to greatly evolve itself.
Ladvioka didn’t have the habit of simply idling while watching his enemy finish their combat preparations. He once again attacked with his greatsword and Inferno Demon whip. However, his Inferno Demon whip was suddenly grabbed by a large hand that appeared from nowhere, while his greatsword was unable to even shatter the bones surrounding and protecting the egg. The egg then cracked and revealed a single eye that glowed red while staring at him, causing Ladvioka to feel a mysterious fear as if his death was staring at him.
The bone egg creature tugged, flung, and hit. The gigantic Ladvioka didn’t even have time to let go of his Inferno Demon whip before he was flung onto the ground as if he was nothing more than a clumsy and pudgy chicken.
“Envy, I bless you with the ability to be compatible with all energy types and biological structures. Your path of evolution is pathless. You are destined to become the very top of the food chain. You shall toss the so-called theory of evolution into the trash heap!”
What monstrosity revealed itself from the bone egg? Its entire body was crafted out of bone. However, its left bone wing resembled a dragon’s, while its right bone wing resembled a demon’s. Its tiger-shaped skull had a single horn that was gathering a frightening amount of energy. The flames within its eyes possessed the power of a forbidden spell that could steal one’s soul. One incredibly distorted arm was shaped like a hammer, while the other arm was simply a dragon’s head that desired to tear into meat. And if it wasn’t for its tremendous dragon tail that swung between the mountains, it would probably be impossible for such a creature to maintain its center of gravity.
“Pride, I bless you with the steadiest soul and greatest physical body. You are the amalgamation of countless souls and physical bodies. Only the will of the very highest level will be able to rule those countless souls, allowing this monster that shouldn’t possibly exist to act according to an individual’s will. Omar! My undead child, I have given you the greatest stage to show your talents on. Show me, prove to me that you are my most outstanding child!”
Soulfire lit up within the tremendous beast, which actually managed to move as dexterously as a martial arts master. With one sidestep, it arrived next to its prey, and the next moment, it lifted its hammer arm and smashed viciously at the Demon Lord collapsed on the ground.
“Ahh! Damn it all!”
The venerated Demon Lord showed us all just how a ball-shaped object would roll. The heavy hammer arm didn’t hit its target, simply brushing by Ladvioka instead, causing him to howl in pain as he lost his right hand. But, this was only the beginning.
“Sloth, I bless you with the memories and soul to heartlessly slaughter. You shall become the purest slaughter and judge of all.”
A silver holy light descended upon the tremendous beast. By only pointing, silver chains suddenly bound Ladvioka who was attempting to escape. As the greatest Judge of Law, this tremendous beast was using the power of Law to judge this evil invader from the Chaos Abyss.
“You are judged to be guilty!”
The energy level coming from the silver chains had already surpassed any so-called True God. Ladvioka kept howling as he discovered that he was actually unable to break free from these chains.
“I shall name you… the Beast of Armageddon!”
Names represented power. True names represented the universe and the dimension’s recognition of an existence. At this moment, the Beast of Armageddon suddenly flew over. Its terrifying imposing manner actually created a difference in power level that directly froze Ladvioka completely.
The Beast of Armageddon who would bring Armageddon to the Gods roared fearsomely, causing the entire dimension to be afraid and tremble.
This beast was no longer a hastily assembled byproduct. The energy level it possessed was incredibly destructive. Every single body part it had was all for the sake of battle. No, the most foundational change was that just earlier, it had been a temporarily assembled machine, but now it was a truly powerful individual that seemed like it had flesh, blood, and soul!
“Originally, there were 578 seconds remaining until its collapse, but now there’s only 167 seconds. It’s going to collapse even faster…? Still, what’s mass-produced absolutely can’t compare to custom-made. This investment was worth it!”
I just calculated the amount of time left before the Beast of Armageddon collapsed, and the resulting number of seconds was actually less than three minutes. This silent bone beast wouldn’t be wasting a single second. Since it would completely collapse soon, it would be fine as long as it killed a Demon Main God before it collapsed!
Even though Ladvioka was forced to the brink, he still didn’t give up. But, the Beast of Armageddon before him was now beginning to enjoy its meal…
With 124 seconds remaining, Ladvioka lost his left arm, and his greatsword was devoured by the Beast of Armageddon.
With 79 seconds remaining, Ladvioka’s head was twisted 180 degrees for the second time. He was no longer able to regrow his head this time, and he was truly forced to the brink.
With 46 seconds remaining, Ladvioka’s gigantic body was ripped apart into 16 pieces. It became impossible to put him together again.
With 37 seconds remaining, Ladvioka’s final Inferno self-destruction ignited the entire Mountain Inferno. This entire sub-dimension would have to be reconstructed. And, the Chaos Faction finally saw the first demise of a Chaos Main God in this Holy War!
Countless meteors streaked through the mortal plane. Ladvioka’s final death screams caused countless dimensional masters to tremble in fear. The other Main Gods in the other Seven Circles of Hell continued fighting their enemies while in confusion.
Perhaps Ladvioka had one last trick up his sleeve, or perhaps a new Tiny Demon popped out somewhere. His soul didn’t appear anywhere in Hell or the River Styx. But even if he was able to revive himself somehow, he would be forced to start over from zero again, making it certain that he would no longer have anything to do with this Holy War.
Meanwhile, in the Indifference Inferno of Sloth, Karwenz was laughing as he flirted with Ilmisya as they headed directly towards the Tower of Ice. Even Ladvioka’s death screams didn’t cause him to turn around. But right now, a familiar yet also unfamiliar person appeared before him and blocked his path.
“The Marchioness of the Flame Sea? I never expected that my brother who’s always so soft on his own people would allow you to enter Hell. Nor do I believe that you’re capable of stopping us… Fine, don’t glare at me like that, Sister-in-law Eliza. Don’t you agree with me? My brother treats you so terribly, doesn’t he?”
However, the person who appeared just like an “ordinary maid” gently shook her head as she picked up the hems of her skirt and smiled while curtsying.
“This is my personal choice. This time, I shall stand next to him for all eternity.”