999,999+ Max Stat: Even the Gods Can't Stop Me

Chapter 19: Chapter 19: Fall

This was messy, messier than usual. Claude wanted what was called a peaceful meeting, exchanging simple words, since they were all beneath the same faith, where reason existed.

Even the pope, who at one point had been his friend, could listen to the guardian and heed his words. But his worst fear came true. The old man before him, the pope he had raised, had defected.

"Baron..." Claude called to the pope, using his real name. "So you changed as well..." he said, backing away.

The pope saw those disappointed eyes and stepped back. Golden light hovered around both of them. He wanted to say something, to reply to Claude. But the time was nigh. Two beings of infinite power walked before them. He needed to escape, right now.

Running past the cracking floors and the shaking building, he raced to the window, but looked back at Claude once. Then he simply jumped away, before the building came down on them.

Claude too backed away, looking toward Raphael. "What insanity is this?! You are an archangel, a servant of the faith, why cause chaos?"

"Claude, don’t," Amon said. "Heaven is heaven no longer. Like you said, reason doesn’t exist in their hollow consciousness."

The fiery golden light bloomed brighter around Raphael. "You dare!" he bellowed. "You, the destroyer of worlds, dare comment on me? On heaven, where the Creator resides!"

"Where the Creator resides? Surely, Raphael." Amon said, walking toward the golden light. The heat, the radiation, none of it touched him.

"You don’t need to jest. The one and only has long since left his residence, long left his throne, leaving his lambs lost, leaving you all in disarray."

"Blasphemy!" Raphael bellowed, waving his hand. Something like a vibration echoed loudly, like the after-effect of a bell, spreading across the collapsing church. The many priests and people felt their ears rupture in pain, blood spewing from their ears.

There was slight blood dripping from Amon’s ears as well, but that mattered not to him. "You don’t care about the people, or the monument they built for the one and only. Swallowed in your own pride, you deserve nothing heaven gives." Amon bellowed, his body releasing a faint golden aura.

[Skill Judgement used, SSS- tier]

[Target detected: Archangel, Raphael.]

[Negative karma detected.]

[Cardinal sin Pride detected]

[Medium detected, "Baal," enforced by the Prince of Hell]

[Would you like to enforce judgement?]

[Yes] or [No]

"So I condemn you, Raphael," Amon said.

Raphael felt it, an eerie but familiar aura around Amon. The aura of the one who sat on the throne of heaven.

"Wait... you? How?"

Amon said nothing. He simply closed his eyes, for what he was about to do would shake the three worlds and beyond. A skill he could only use three times a century. A truth only he knew.

"To burn down heaven, and burn your arrogance, and burn your sins away."

Another light filled the room, no longer white and gold, but blood crimson. The stench of sulfur spread around. A familiar magic circle appeared beneath Raphael.

"NO!" he shouted. "You don’t have the right! This power...how?!"

"Ask your brother in hell," Amon said, channeling the divinity he had, finishing the ritual.

Two demonic hands came through the crimson magic circle, grabbing Raphael. His body was gradually encased in red curses, dimming his golden divinity, so much so that his wings deteriorated then and there, his flesh gradually coming apart.

"Amon!" he bellowed, as he was dragged down, slowly, painfully. "This is not ov—!"

And he was gone.

The shaking stopped. The building, which had been on the brink of collapse, stopped as well. Peace reigned once more.

Claude, still on the floor, couldn’t believe it. He turned to Amon, the golden immortal. He had seen everything and still couldn’t believe it. His mind struggled to reason with the impossible.

He wanted to speak but couldn’t; his heart was still shaking.

Amon, what are you? he thought. Never in history had he seen or experienced what had just happened, an archangel, a power on the scale of a nation, thrown into hell, just like that.

"It’s done. Don’t be afraid, numbskull," Amon said. He tried to walk toward him, but dizziness overtook him, and he fell to his knees.

[-583,365]

[High amount of divinity has been used]

[Temporary deficiencies in all stats aggregated.]

Claude quickly walked to Amon, helping him up. "You... okay there?"

Amon smiled. "No, and I don’t think you are either."

"Well, not after learning you could do that too. You know what will happen after this, right?"

Amon nodded, standing up properly, looking around. "You can come out now," he said, looking at a dark corner.

Claude looked at the corner too and was met with two red eyes in the dark. His body flinched in fright, and he backed away, holding up his cross toward the thing glaring at him and Amon.

It moved, with aching steps, stepping out from the corner, the dark figure shifting into a human form, taking on human features. The smoky black horns turned into balding hair; the long hands shrank into small, fleshy ones. A middle-aged man in a stained shirt and half-torn pants walked out, carrying something over his shoulder.

"You forgot this guy," he said, throwing the dead, burned body of the pope down before Amon.

"Amon!" Claude shouted. "This man...he is..."

"Baal..." Amon said, walking toward him, holding out his hand. "Give it to me."

Baal looked at him, at his golden eyes staring down at him.

"Why should I? I could just be difficult, seeing as you’re so wea—"

"Give. It. To. Me." Amon growled.

There was a pause. Baal couldn’t help but instinctively take a step back, his past history with the golden slayer still unnerved him to this day. He took out a key, the same as the ones Amon had, but a different color.

"I hope you keep your end of the bargain, Immortal," Baal said, handing the key to Amon before vanishing from the spot at once, as if in a hurry.

Claude approached Amon. "You... you planned this?"

Amon said nothing. "Let’s go. It’s time to meet your other brothers and sisters."

"Wait, what the hell just happened? How? When?"

"I’ll tell you on the way, numbstick. Now let’s go."