Chapter 308 A God?
Pride shattered the [War Room], allowing himself to return to Larm. Following that, he released a burst of raw power to terrorise everyone on the field and boost the fear amongst the enemies. He expected to receive his power back, but all he got were two very important feelings.
The first of which was a familiar feeling. Greed. His fellow Sin God was nearby, right above him in fact. Although it felt a bit different, there was no denying that [Greed] was there.
The second feeling he got was also familiar, but not in the good way. More like the kind of feeling that made one was want to puke out their insides and fly into a blind rage.
“Veermiiilliioon!”, He bolted towards her, faster than lightning with his claws ready to rip her to shreds.
On the moment of collision with the entity before him, he noticed that he couldn’t move. It felt like he’d just rammed into an iron mountain and shattered all his physical bones, but there was no pain whatsoever.
Now that he was stuck here, there was a third feeling.
He was in the grasp of the creature’s massive claw. Upon closer inspection, he started to notice just how different this creature was from Vermillion.
Vermillion’s feathers were pure golden with red tips. This one, had a mix of golden feathers everywhere, white feathers for her underbelly, dark violet feathers at the tips and black feather patches. An orb about the size of a human head rested comfortably on her chest, although it looked nothing more than a peanut when compared to her size. The creature was majestic in an eerie sense, with a crown of standing feathers on its head, a jet-black beak and vermillion red eyes. It had 4 pairs of wings that barely flapped, yet kept it airborne.
If Vermillion was a picturesque golden statue, her child was art beyond normal standards that radiated a sense of superiority.
This third feeling… was something he’d never felt before. [Pride] was only strong because of how overwhelmingly superior he believed himself to be above everyone else. Even amongst his fellow sin gods who were arguably on the same level of power, [Pride] couldn’t fathom himself not being superior to them.
Yet, this third feeling he got was, confusing. Every single fibre of his intangible, conceptual existence told him to move away as far as possible. He, under no circumstances, wanted to be near that thing. In a flight or fight situation, [Pride] had never chosen [Flight]. Even if it appeared to be flight, he was fighting in a round-about way. This time around, he wanted to fly away as far as possible and never return.
He wanted to consume her, but now it became almost too obvious who was going to be consumed.
Was this what terror felt like?
‘Ah… this [Pride] guy really isn’t anything significant, is he?”
Going to be consumed? How laughable.
The way she spoke of the [Pride Sin God] already showed that she was much higher than he was. She had already consumed him and had reached a higher level of [Pride].
In his final moments, [Pride] started to feel that maybe being a stepping stool for the new [Pride Sin God] wouldn’t be such a terrible idea.
If [Pride] continued to fight, to be prideful, there was a good chance he would have devoured her instead. However, [Pride] wasn’t the same as it was before the God Wars. [Pride] had spent over a century fused with others, living as a different entity. Even now, [Pride] couldn’t help, but be overshadowed by that entity’s personality.
***
[System is fully functional]
[You have multiple notifications]
[Would you like to see all new notifications?]
No.
I didn’t get any message popping up on my screen afterwards. I had a clear view of the battlefield now. Aside from the corpses, blood and fleeing soldiers, there was an interesting fight going on. A three headed wolf was fighting with a devil. Obviously, this was Kuro.
That at least told me that both he and Shitsuke managed to make it back and that Kuro found himself a body to temporarily possess. The fact that he still looked the same as he did in hell was him just using his [Devil Form]. That body’s life force was starting to crumble, so he eventually would lose this fight if he didn’t end it with the next five or so minutes.
Somewhere close to them, there was a black orb floating eerily above the field. I couldn’t get a read on it, so I chose to ignore it and focus on other things. Sending my senses elsewhere, I spotted others engaging in other useless battles.
To be honest, I wasn’t interested in any of these things, but it was time to clear up this mess. It felt like I just came back to meet children playing with their lives on the line.
“I think [Devil Miasma] should do the trick.”
The other minds agreed with me, so I simply spread out my miasma unto the battlefield. It spread fast and wide, encasing the whole field in my colourless odour, immediately causing mass unrest amongst the enemies. Soldiers of the West would be exempt from this, including the cyclopes who I remember allying up with before my evolution begun.
A certain black orb that had been floating ominously in the centre of the field shattered, catching my attention. A griffin much bigger than the others emerged from it. It blew up a breeze as it stretched, I think?
That didn’t matter. A red imp fell out of the black orb, meaning, Shitsuke. From the looks of things, he’d been beaten up pretty badly. The body he was using was starting to deteriorate, so I had to act fast.
Before that though, the griffin from before charged at me. He looked so incredibly small that I got the feeling he would fit into my claw. As a joke, I raised my claw at the last second, but I couldn’t feel a thing. I knew that he was in my claw, but I couldn’t feel the impact from his charge.
Name: -
Race: ????
Talent: ????
Health: ??? Stamina: ??? Mana: ??? Magic Power: ??? Strength: ??? Speed: ??? Defence: ??? Intelligence: ??? Karma: ???
Chaos Energy: ???
I wasn’t getting anything from the system about this guy, but when a voice whispered to me. I heard the thing in my claw’s name.
‘Pride.’
‘This is just like that time with-’
‘G-Greed.’
Greed. Another face that almost killed me. I wasn’t too happy with finding someone related to that yellow bastard, but I guess there wasn’t much of a problem. When I heard his name, I first assumed this was going to be a problematic fight, but now that I held [Pride], I couldn’t help but think,
‘Ah… this [Pride] guy really isn’t anything significant, is he?’
I mean, I could already tell from a single glance that he wasn’t anything particularly impressive, but for him to be weaker than [Greed]? I simply couldn’t believe it.
No. Maybe I was looking at this from the wrong angle. It probably wasn’t that he was weak. Maybe my evolution had made me a bit stronger than he was?
Speaking of, I guess it was time to see my stats.
+
Name: Hyakkiyako Hinotori
Race: Arcane Demonic Twilight Phoenix King
Talent: ?
Health: 100,000/100,000 Stamina: 150,000/150,000 Mana: 70,000/70,000 Magic Power: 1000 Strength: 60,000 Speed: 80,000 Defence: 60,000 Intelligence: 1000 Luck: 86 Karma: 0
Chaos Energy: Stage 0 (0.1%) Corruption: 0%
Divine Energy: Stage 0 Tribulations: 0/1
+
…
What the FUCK!?
W-When did I get so strong physically?
A bit stronger than he was? Sure, I couldn’t see his physical stats cause of all the question marks, but this wasn’t normal! I was already regarded as A rank before, mostly because of my skills and not physical ability, but now that my physical abilities were at this point, didn’t that automatically put me on S rank?
Seriously, what the hell was this? I could probably beat Minerva in a fight now. When it came to physical ability, now I knew nobody on my level. I never thought I’d actually live to see the day this would happen.
Also, where are my levels? What is my level, even? I suddenly don’t get levels? Same for [Pride]? What the heck is up with this system. But then, when I bring up the stat of one of the goblin soldiers…
Name: -
Race: Hob-goblin Warrior Level 45/60
Talent: C grade
Level: 65
Health: 31/1300 Stamina: 20/2000 Strength: 500 Speed: 550 Defence: 213 Intelligence: 50 Luck: 10
This random guy has a level, but neither [Pride] nor I do. Just to be sure, I made a few more inspections, till I noticed a trend. The only ones bearing levels were all under me. Specifically, the soldiers that have access to the system.
From what I was getting, the only one’s with a level on the system were those registered on the system. I wonder why Alpha suddenly chose to remove such a feature. She removed the race rank, status and age features too.
Ah… this was a bit confusing, but now wasn’t the time for this.
Sheesh… uh, I guess I had to attend to all the dying soldiers. While I was busily thinking about something as trivial as a level, people were quite literally dying. I was starting to feel a bit incompetent.
‘M-Mas… ter?’, Amethyst weakly sent a message.
‘Hm, Amethyst got beaten up quite badly.’
It’s not like I wasn’t aware of her state. She was one of the first things I noticed when I came up here, but when I looked at her, I couldn’t feel anything in particular. It just felt like I was watching a lizard bleeding out and I had no interest in it.
Something didn’t feel right, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
‘Well, whatever. Let’s just hurry up and get this over with.’
I absorbed [Pride] into my claw, consuming him entirely. I didn’t receive any notifications from the system like I usually did, probably because I asked the system to hold off on any further notifications.
Quickly, I summoned Amethyst to me, and she appeared in a poof of smoke. I created a platform to lay her body down on, then used a [Restore Potion] on her. The hole in her chest was cleared up, almost as if it was never there.
‘Now, if only we could use Reverse Potions on every dead person here.’
‘Yeah, just like we did for Amethyst.’
‘Hmm…’
Oh… Amethyst was the solution to this problem. Well, not Amethyst per say, but her skill [Overlord]. I could simply use her skill to resurrect every member of Larm. And all I needed were a few words.
“Wake up.”
***
Beryl leaned against a tree, huffing heavily and holding a wound made at his side. That monstrous wolf was really hell bent on killing him, but he managed to survive. If it wasn’t for his little cyclone trick, he would have definitely been killed.
By now, he’d made some significant distance and could rest to recover a bit. He reached into a pouch to take a potion, but immediately stopped in his tracks and looked up.
‘W-What in the word is that?’, He saw an iridescent creature up in the sky.
But that was impossible. Beryl was blind. He shouldn’t have been able to see light, but even then, he could see the shape of the creature up in the sky.
“Wake up.”, he didn’t know how, but he heard the creature’s voice very clearly. Following her statement was an increase in the life force around Beryl.
He’d sensed he was next to a pile of corpses, but all of a sudden, they weren’t corpses anymore. Each and every single one of them just had life breathed back into them.
Beryl couldn’t believe his eyes. Well, senses. He was beyond shocked and was starting to feel like the wolf bite was affecting his cognitive ability. Because, if he what he just felt was real, that meant the creature, with one command, just resurrected an army of monsters.
‘I-Is that a god?’
Now Beryl wanted to return even faster. He had to tell his master what just happened. A god had appeared in Larm. There hadn’t been a single sighting of gods for the past six years. They were more abundant over a hundred years ago, but their number dwindled over time till there were none.
If there was a god here, then conquering Larm was really the best idea. Maybe the approach of forcefully doing so was bad, but convincing the god to help them was as good as anything.
“Lady Hinotori’s back?”
“The queen! She woke up!”
‘Q-Queen? That’s their queen? T-Then…’
His mind flashed back to what he’d heard about the Demon Lord Conference. A crazy bastard intruded to deliver news on a new candidate participating in the selection. The Queen of Monsters, she was called. This was no mere monster queen.
Bright enough to make him see her, powerful enough to resurrect her dead soldiers. That thing couldn’t be classified as normal anyway he put it. He had to report back. He had to tell his master to change his mind. No, beg him to change his mind. There was no fighting such a creature.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is fre𝒆w(e)bn(o)vel