Chapter 383 - 383: Gods

Isagi could not be killed — not so long as he himself refused to give up — but immortality did not mean victory in battle. It only meant the battle would continue. Nothing more.

[Blade and sword: ineffective.]

[Magic: completely restricted.]

[Ranged bows, crossbows, even firearms: almost impossible to lock onto him, and there was no way to open any distance at all.]

Isagi had tried every conceivable way of fighting. None of it worked.

He could feel it — their two 'stats' were exactly, perfectly identical. Neither in Strength nor in speed did the god hold any overwhelming advantage over him. In fact, that very parity was the only reason he could keep the fight dragging on, turning it into something like a war of attrition.

But even that wasn't enough.

Every kind of attack he threw meant nothing to the War God standing before him — a being who could see the future, who knew every magic in the world, and whose skill with arms had reached the absolute pinnacle. Whatever he did would be read, countered, and answered with a storm of retaliation.

That was what battle really was, when you stripped it down. Attack and defense. Nothing else. Or: to land a hit, or to be hit.

He could not manage the former — he simply had no way to wound the God King before him — while the God King could wound him without effort. Which meant this battle could not be won. That was the simplest fact of it, one even a child could grasp.

So then — how could he solve it?

The answer was simple enough: find a way to land a hit. But the simpler an answer sounded, the harder it was to actually carry out in a moment like this.

Breaking through the God King's [World Eye] wasn't really the hard part. All he had to do was make sure every possible future ended with his own attack landing, or with the God King defeated.

Nullify the God King's magic. Surpass the God King's skill. Do both, and he would win.

But could he actually do it?

Odin, for his part, did not believe any human could. He'd said so from the very start. This battle had never truly been about winning or losing. The so-called 'trial' had never been meant to let the boy defeat him. The God King simply wanted to see, with his own eyes, how a [Hero] of the lower world fought. Nothing more.

Even within this Nightmare. Conceptually, absolutely, the two combatants' 'strength' was set as perfectly equal. The God King had never once imagined the boy could actually win.

And yet, now — after being killed some uncountable number of times — Isagi had long since stopped keeping count — Odin had come to acknowledge the boy before him.

He truly was a [Hero].

Through the act of fighting him in person, the God King had finally learned just how far a child of the lower world could grow. And he decided that was enough. He even wanted to stop there. But that was only a god's own wishful thinking.

To Isagi, there was only one acceptable outcome: victory. If the result wasn't that, then he would simply repeat it — again, and again, a thousand, ten thousand times — until he won!

All that remained was to surpass the God King before him, completely, in every respect. Whether in blade and fist, or in the grasp and use of magic, or in that purest, most reckless kind of slaughter.

Surpass him, and only one outcome could remain: certain victory.

So then — let a god deal with a god.

After being killed once more, the golden points of light that had been the boy's body did not reassemble into his original human form. Instead —

Odin —

— heard the roar of thunder, furious and absolute.

The God King of Asgard seemed, for a moment, to sense the presence of a familiar old friend. But what actually filled his vision was not the Olympian god who ruled over thunder and lightning, but a towering, impossibly beautiful pure-white Great Dragon.

[Divine Dragon].

Clouds began spreading outward. Withered branches stirred and began to grow again. The slender dragon seemed rooted to the earth like a branch of the very trees around it, or like some ash-grey vine. In its grip was an oddly-shaped great sword, and it roared its fury toward the distant God King.

Then — a single stroke split the heavens and the earth in two.

"—!"

It was a plain, unadorned strike, yet it was enough to cleave even space itself. Neither the God King's magic nor the great spear in his hand could stop it in the slightest — because this was an absolute cut, a slash that severed the world itself. It seemed as though even the [Nightmare] born from the depths of the gods' own hearts would be split in half.

Something beyond a god's imagining had just happened. In that instant, the God King witnessed another 'god' he had never known existed.

"—

This was no longer simply a matter of interest.

It was [Shock].

Utter, absolute shock, born of something wholly unknown. That a child of the lower world could reach such heights — how? Was it a Skill? Some kind of magic? Or...?

The gods often spoke of the lower world's potential, but even so, this was absurd.

Well, well, well.

The gods' Falna — no, this had nothing to do with Falna at all. Even without any god's Falna, the boy before him would most likely have grown to this exact point regardless. So this was simply an established fact.

The fact was: a new 'god' had been born!

"—!!!"

Accompanied by the Great Dragon's piercing shriek, that world-severing strike poured out like a raging storm. For the first time in his existence, the God King felt genuine, mortal threat.

If he did not dodge, he would truly die.

The eight-legged steed galloped across heaven and earth, dodging those world-splitting strokes with unimaginable speed. The God King carried no burden of pride here — he had no intention of actually testing the power of that blow.

For a true Warrior, the most important thing was to value his own life. Recklessness, foolishness, bloodlust, even the willingness to die alongside an enemy — these were all marks of the weak. Because thinking was always harder than not thinking. Constantly calculating how to win was far more difficult than simply swinging a weapon without a thought in your head.

Only the weak gravitated toward the simple path. The truly strong always chose the harder one.

[The opponent's body is enormous — it cannot possibly be skilled at evasion.]

He had already seen it. Before drawing near the Divine Dragon, before spurring his steed into a gallop, before the boy transformed into the god before him — Odin had already seen it. In his own hand, the great spear, carrying boundless thunder and fury, wind and tsunami.

One strike — the future in which this towering dragon was cleaved in two!

And then — the future in which it healed.

Almost the instant the great spear sank into that coarse, ash-grey, branch-like body, the dragon's wound had already begun to close.

[Immortality] once again!

The vitality of the dragon before him was so stubborn, so relentless, that even the God King found it hard to believe. Could this creature be the very source of the boy's power?

Correct. But what Odin didn't know was that this was merely 'one source' among others.

The Divine Dragon's attacks were fierce and powerful, but also too crude — crude enough that even a 'powerful warrior' could find a way to dodge them. So to the God King before it, they posed almost no threat at all.

Not enough. Still not enough!

The Arcanum the boy could summon churned wildly, countless fragments of memory assembling themselves within his mind. And so, what happened next was something that had already happened once before.

It was what Isagi had once done within Ais's Nightmare. Summoning every 'strong one' from his memories, and turning them into weapons against his enemy.

Except — this time was different. Back then, in the girl's dream, because it had been her dream, the strong ones he summoned were always somewhat 'bound' — whether in their stats or in their mechanics, they were hollow imitations, form without substance. That was why, in Ais's heart at that time, the [Black Dragon] had been the strongest, most terrifying being of all. Naturally, everything else had been a step weaker by nature.

But now was different. This God King's Nightmare was absolutely 'fair and equal.' His own strength here was set exactly equal to Odin's. So the 'gods' who answered Isagi's call would manifest strength exactly matching that of the God King Odin before them.

"—!!!"

Once more, a strange, extreme color began to bleed across heaven and earth. Everything began to be dyed a total, absolute black, spreading like boundless night, swallowing everything in its path.

Then — golden light began to fall. At the far end of that darkness, a single point of light began to spread outward.

That gold was radiant beyond measure — even the God King of Asgard felt, once again, a presence that left him awestruck. It was...

[The King].

Humans, gods, even monsters or animals — all had the concept of communities, of groups. And wherever lives gathered together, a [King] would naturally emerge. That was simply the law of nature. Within any group, for countless different reasons, there would always emerge the strongest, or the cleverest, or the most beloved, or the one everyone could accept... various reasons, all leading to the birth of a [King].

And so a [King] would always exist. Absolutely, without exception.

And more than that — supreme. Unmatched.

Odin, too, was a [King]. He was the God King of Asgard, and he himself governed over 'authority' — the very power inseparable from the concept of a [King]. So this golden presence before him felt utterly, intimately familiar.

And there was more still. Within that dazzling golden radiance, overflowing outward, was something absolute: 'Rule' itself.

If, from the [Divine Dragon] just now, what Odin had felt was an eternal, undying vitality bound to heaven, earth, and nature — then what stood before him now embodied something absolute, unquestionable, unsurpassable: authority.

That was the power of 'rule.' It was the law etched into the most pure, most essential fabric of this world.

Golden light began to emerge from the ground, scattering like fine dust of stars. Then, upon the ground, a perfect 'symbol' took shape. It was the law of this world, in which all things and all workings were contained — and from it, birthed, came —

[The Elden Beast].

A presence entirely beyond comprehension, alien to this world.

Odin only saw a great hand reach out from the ground, black-shelled, wrapped around a golden radiance that served as its inner 'skeleton.' It slowly unfurled. It closed around the single perfect golden sigil etched into the earth. Then it sank down again — and for a long, long while, until every last trace of gold had vanished from the ground, leaving only a sea of absolute black — it rose again.

[What manner of creation is this?]

Within that neck, slender as a tower, that radiant gold seemed to reach straight toward the heavens.

Was it a whale? Or something else entirely?

It resembled some impossibly vast fish, yet it bore several pairs of golden wings. Like a Golden Tree grown from the earth. And yet entirely the shape of some creature of the sea — legend held that all land-dwelling life had once evolved from the ocean, and what stood before him now seemed to be the very first form life on this world had ever taken.

[Perfect].

Even the God King could not help but marvel — the Elden Beast before him was perfect to a degree beyond description. It was so beautiful. So overwhelming.

As countless streams of golden light fell from the sky, the once-black heavens transformed into something achingly, beautifully like dawn. That brilliant orange pierced through the twilight mist, leaving the heart yearning.

Within the vast beast's body, countless stars glittered, and in its arm it gripped a golden greatsword.

Odin fell silent. Seated atop his eight-legged steed, for a moment even he wasn't sure how to continue this 'trial.'

Too perfect. Everything before him had reached such a degree of perfection that even the God King couldn't bear to destroy it.

"What an interesting little pet. I'd almost like to keep one."

Brilliant pillars of light poured down, transforming into towering, sky-piercing golden trees.

Odin murmured his admiration. Then he watched the great golden beast before him swing the sword in its hand. It wasn't the same kind of ferocious, purely lethal strike the Divine Dragon had unleashed moments before — this was something else entirely. A rule.

The golden rule was: [Perfection].

And so — the great golden sword fell Heavy upon the spear in Odin's hand. The god, whose height had exceeded ten meters, towering like a giant, now looked small as a child before the Elden Beast.

Because of that — the weight of the golden greatsword felt especially crushing — and more importantly, for the very first time, the god who could foresee the future felt the true 'weight of an attack.'

It was exactly as Isagi had thought earlier. If every possible future was one in which he would inevitably 'be hit,' then the 'attack' would inevitably land — and Odin would never be able to dodge it again.

The plan had succeeded. The [Perfect] golden beast pulled this battle, once trapped in an endless loop, back into something 'interesting' once more.

Golden light blazed. The weapon in its hand was only the Elden Beast's crude imitation of a [King's] symbol, given form — but it was far from its only means of attack.

For a [King] — or for a [God] — "Arcanum" was the strongest weapon of all.

The blackness beneath Odin's feet began to shimmer with golden light, surging up like molten lava, swallowing his entire form.

Then — countless golden spears surged out of the midair, and as the God King found himself bound within circles of that same gold, they came rushing from every direction to pierce his body through.

This was not magic. This was 'prayer.' It was the purest Arcanum — and so, even Odin, who governed over 'magic' itself, could not simply ignore it.

And so — just as Isagi had foreseen.

The God King, at last, bled.

____

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