Chapter 218: Battle of Divine Power
"What's that?"
"Is it the God of Light? It's so bright! The God of Terror's domain has been torn apart! Such incredible power—nothing we tried before even came close to affecting the God of Terror!"
"She's attacking the God of Terror! The God of Terror is moving—that's the first time it's reacted! Could she actually pose a threat to it?"
"Is that a friend or foe? If it's another opponent on the God of Terror's level, the capital, Aleisterre—we'll all be completely doomed!"
"It doesn't matter! She's striking at the God of Terror—that makes her our ally for now! A battle of this magnitude is beyond us. We can keep watching from afar."
Shouts and frantic chatter echoed across the communication devices of every force defending the capital: the Nightblades, the city guard, and the royal guards alike.
None of them knew just who or what the radiant angel was. She had appeared out of nowhere, ripped through the divine domain of the God of Terror, shattered the plaza, and soared heavenward amidst a cascade of brilliant light.
Few knew what truly lay beneath the abyss, and fewer still of a mission to awaken something buried below.
Inside Rudolf's home, Sieg stood at the window, eyes narrowed, gazing at the holy figure that had erupted from the depths beneath the capital. In his mind, he compared that winged, flawless feminine form to fragments he remembered of ancient lore.
"The physical vessel of a fallen god who manifested in the material world during the War of the Abyss?" Sieg asked Rudolf, frowning.
"Indeed," Rudolf replied, wonder and excitement sparkling in his eyes. "Isn't it incredible? She is immensely powerful. This body alone harbors strength beyond imagination. All it lacked was something akin to a soul to animate and command it."
"In a sense," he continued, "she is a god—a miracle incarnate. Until the power within that vessel is depleted, she will wield strength that defies mortal comprehension."
Rudolf stared at the angel with undisguised fervor. This unprecedented discovery struck at the very core of his being, his thirst for forbidden knowledge and pursuit of mysteries yet unknown. It was, he believed, the true meaning of life.
"The Corpse of the End..."
Sieg murmured the name of the kingdom's ultimate weapon. So this was what the Royal Research Institute had been focusing on in secret. The power of the divine had ever been an object of mortal yearning and fascination.
"The existence of the capital's shadow was always more than it seemed," Sieg mused. "And beneath that abyss lay the amalgamation of the foul and corrupt, an entire city's worth, steeped over decades... If the Mirror of the Stars was inverted to forge a 'soul'—a congregation of myriad hearts—then yes, perhaps it could animate that otherwise inert divine corpse."
His sharp mind pieced together the truth quickly, even without Rudolf's explanation. The royals' plan was clear.
"Did the Royal Research Institute and the crown truly think this through?" Sieg muttered. "We've never fully understood how curios function—their principles and true purposes remain mysteries. Yet they're counting on a curio they don't fully understand to defeat a god of terror?"
The scholar within him viewed the "god" born of the Mirror of the Stars with deep suspicion. Yet at this moment, it seemed that this uncontrollable weapon—this supposed angel—was their only hope of suppressing the God of Terror.
Sieg knew that Rudolf had to be aware of the risks. Yet the latter showed no worry, no caution—only naked glee and exhilaration.
"This man... Was all that talk of history and ancient secrets just to satisfy his curiosity?" Sieg thought grimly. "Even his service to the royal intelligence corps—was it all just a means to that end? He's dangerous."
Sieg began to reassess Rudolf, this "friend" who had been his research partner for so long. Far more dangerous than a mindless servant of the crown was a man driven purely by selfish obsession.
"Once I ensure Noelle's safety," Sieg decided inwardly, "this kingdom will no longer be my home."
He cast a final, faintly melancholy glance at the land he had thought of as his home for years—then turned his gaze back to the distant clash unfolding between the Perfected One and the God of Terror.
With a sharp hiss, the Perfected One hurled a radiant spear of light. It tore through the God of Terror's domain, ripping a gleaming trail across the darkness as it soared toward the colossal black shadow looming in the sky.
A low rumble rolled through the heavens. The massive shadow, which had been inert until now, began to stir. Its deformed arm swept forward. Black chains spilled outward, twisting and weaving into a writhing sphere. Then, the God of Terror hurled this sphere toward the incoming spear of light.
The moment they collided, the spear of light disappeared, crushed under an invisible weight, annihilated, swallowed up by the void.
Seemingly unaffected, the black sphere continued its advance toward the Perfected One, not showing any trace of damage from its collision with the spear.
The shadow above had awakened. For the first time, it recognized the Perfected One below—an existence so pure, so antithetical to itself—and began its assault in earnest.
On the twisted, walnut-like mass of its head, countless grotesque eyes of all sizes snapped open, each one locking onto the winged figure below.
With a collective blink, reality itself began to warp. Within its domain, a god had absolute power.
Around the Perfected One, where her light pushed back the darkness, countless black vortices bloomed in the air. From them crawled horrors incarnate, projections of terror ripped from the minds of Aleisterre's citizens, whose souls had been swallowed into the God of Terror's divine domain.
Invisible plagues, rotting undead corpses oozing pus, demonic blades slick with blood, shriveled children singing eerie lullabies with hollow eyes...
Every nightmare the people of Aleisterre had ever harbored was given hideous form by the God of Terror's dominion.
The monstrosities howled as they surged forward, shrieking, clawing over each other in their rush to tear apart the angel who now hovered alone in the corrupted skies.
And the God of Terror wasn't finished. Manifesting these nightmares was but the first whisper of its inscrutable will. Its twisted limbs stirred anew as it prepared its next attack...
Within the divine domain, terror began to concentrate and coalesce. From beyond, the people of Aleisterre watched in astonishment as the god's divine domain began to shrink.
The God of Terror was concentrating all its power within a smaller domain. Compression meant intensification. Soon, black mist coiled around the shadow of the god.
A sound like the last breath of the unwilling dead echoed from the mist, thick with terror and the scent of human mortality.
That mist, black as the void and drawn to the deity's frame. It unspooled toward the Perfected One, who stood encircled by incarnations of terror.
Then came a chain-bound sphere forged of black iron racing toward the Perfected One. The skies spilled forth a cascade of fog, terror and smoke, crashing down like a waterfall. But the Perfected One's gaze remained cold and utterly unmoved.
It gazed heavenward, unfolding its wings of alabaster. Radiant, composed, and serene, its divinity at that instant outshone the God of Terror's raging fury.
It raised a hand with languid grace. A flash stirred within the eyes of that perfect, expressionless visage. Then, blinding light erupted from the sphere of black iron.
It poured out from every seam. The sphere swelled with brilliance and exploded right before the Perfected One, scattering into countless luminous fragments.
These fragments didn't fall. Rather, they hovered, swirling with sentient grace, each a star possessed of its own will. Against the dark backdrop of the divine domain, radiant stars formed a silver river flowing through the void.
That stellar stream encircled the Perfected One, forming a luminous boundary. Any incarnation of terror that dared approach was met not with resistance, but annihilation. The stars collided headlong with the twisted forms, utterly destroying them.
With every explosion came an impossible eruption of power. Beams of pure light shot skyward, piercing through the veil of divine terror and into the skies far above.
Pillars of radiance burst forth from the ring of stars, devastatingly beautiful and lethally precise. They spread outward, consuming everything they touched.
Before that celestial river, the incarnations of terror were but minute specks of dust. They vanished in an instant, lost, obliterated, utterly erased.
Where those incarnations of terror had once been, there remained only a lingering, sacred white glow.
"Good thing I ran when I did... This isn't the first battle I've seen where I was laughably weak in comparison..."
Wang Yu darted from stone to floating stone, desperately fleeing the clash between the Perfected One and the God of Terror.
He couldn't say where this battle ranked among the legendary duels he'd witnessed, but he had never before felt so dangerously close to being caught in the crossfire.
There was no one to shield him now, and no certainty of safety. All he could do was run—as fast and far as possible from the epicenter of divine force.
A tremor passed through him, an invisible wave of power that brushed across his back. It pierced his body like a whisper through the soul. Organs twisted. Bones creaked in pain. Something inside him tore.
He spat out a mouthful of blood—only to swallow it back down as he controlled himself with Blood Tempest.
His steps faltered in mid-air, but he recovered instantly as he pushed his battered body to its very limits. He had to flee. The real attack was only just beginning.
That wave had only been a precursor, nothing more than the windup to the true confrontation between the two divine beings—and yet if it had struck someone other than Wang Yu, that someone would likely be dead.
That invisible force passed through all of Wang Yu's barriers, ravaging his insides, rending his organs, and opening up countless wounds within his body. If not for Blood Tempest, he would've collapsed right then and there.
Rock crumbled all around him: this wave of power tore through not just flesh, but matter itself.
The Perfected One's radiant motes gathered once more, coalescing into something even brighter than the spear of light she had initially conjured.
It was a sword, long and brilliant, forged of light so pure it defied detail. Its edge was so keen, so sharp, that it almost seemed blurred—a perfect blade for a perfect god.
With a wingbeat, the Perfected One began charging up.
Circles of light spun behind her back, visible to the naked eye—ring after ring of pure energy, entwining, rotating, and fusing. Raw power, barely contained.
So vast was the pressure that buildings far below crumbled. The rock in the vicinity was pulverized into dust. And Wang Yu, hapless fugitive, felt that same pressure crash upon him once more.
Raising the blade, the Perfected One gazed without expression at the black torrent of terror falling from above—then moved.
To her back, the rings of light shattered. Their gathered force was unleashed in a single instant. Her sword strike broke the speed of sound by orders of magnitude.
A white arc sliced upward, cleaving the black flood in two. In the blink of an eye, the towering shadow of the God of Terror was split cleanly down the middle, beginning at the shoulder.