Chapter 285: Malevolent god of fire
Check out my entry for the WPC August: Beyond the Bloodline.🔥
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Some tried to destroy the water droplets acting like mirrors or the lenses, but Nicole simply recreated them again and allowed the focused laser beams to continue piercing the bodies of the monsters all over.
Others tried using magic power, aura, and death energy to defend, but it was basically pointless.
Barriers that blocked magic and energy-based attacks were useless against these beams as in the end, they were just light rays from the sun that were being focused and fired.
Sadly, the monsters could not understand this and many of them ended up perishing under the attack.
All of a sudden, the water droplets that made up the lenses evaporated instantly, and a wave of sweltering heat suddenly swept across the entire area.
Nicole tried recreating the small water droplets but they evaporated immediately after she did so.
Just as a light frown appeared on her face, a large shadow was suddenly cast onto the ground. Nicole looked up to see a giant ball of black flames descending towards her at breakneck speed.
It looked like there were two suns in the sky, one yellow, and one black, just that the black sun was getting closer by the second.
Calmly gazing at the incoming attack, Nicole rose her palm and pointed it in the direction of the black sun, utilizing her freakish control over the water element to generate a huge ball of water that was roughly the same size in just a few seconds.
She gave another gesture and the ball of water launched forward, colliding with the black ball of flames and exploding immediately after.
**BOOOOOMMMM!!!!!!!
The resultant explosion of steam that followed carried enough heat to scald the skins of any grandmaster realm existences nearby, and the explosion’s shockwaves helped spread this heat as it reached the knight captain and the other combatants of Vako city at the city gates.
Nicole, unaffected by this, snapped her finger and the surrounding temperature began dropping rapidly.
She extracted all the water in the steam and condensed it at different points, generating fifty-centimetre-long spikes of water which she then turned to ice and launched towards the remaining monsters.
However, the spikes of ice never reached their targets as right before they hit their targets, they were suddenly engulfed in flames and completely melted in an instant.
Seeing this, Nicole finally turned her gaze towards the person responsible for this, a man with dark-coloured hair that had red highlights, and red-coloured eyes.
He was dressed in what seemed to be a casual shirt and a pair of trousers with partial armour around his joints, however, Nicole was able to instantly infer that his ’causal’ clothes were made with peak grandmaster beast hides.
Floating behind him, was a ring of black fire that constantly rotated around. Nicole could swear she felt that the ring of flames was very similar to the essence of darkness the parasite-infected monsters had, and it seemed even stronger.
Just when she was wondering who this man was, the voice of the high priestess Sakaala gave her the answer.
"...T-tha-that Appearance!!!"
And it wasn’t an answer she wanted.
Sakaala fell on her but and pointed at the man floating in the sky, her hands shivering as the power of her god raged within her, instantly informing her of who he was.
With a shaky voice that reflected her current state of fear, she screamed out.
"Ma-malevolent god of fire!!"
Her words instantly caused a stir amongst all the combatants of Vako city who heard her, their expressions changing to ones of shock and fear as they gazed at the man in the sky.
Some wanted to doubt her words, but they knew that Sakaala was a priestess of the god of fire, there was no way she could mistake the sworn enemy of the god she worshipped.
Morale instantly went negative, with many of the adventurers and soldiers instantly turning tail to run.
If the man in the sky was really one of the malevolent gods from the myths, then how could they, mere mortals, fight him?
As for the god of fire in question, he turned towards the priestess who identified him and spoke with a light frown.
"You have that bastard’s aura."
All colour drained from Sakaala’s face as she felt her impending death, however, a light-hearted voice that rang out shocked her back to normal.
"That’s one of the malevolent gods? Looks like a random Epic Realm Human to me though?"
Layla casually spoke as she switched the assault rifle in her hands for her twin pistols, ones she could fire bullets generated with energy from.
"I thought Sakaala said all the malevolent gods were killed in the myths?"
"In her defence, she said they were ’vanquished’, not killed. There’s a difference."
"Fair point."
Edward replied with a shrug after hearing Esna’s words, while the godslayer girl stared right at the malevolent god in the sky whose attention was on her despite the fact that she was the weakest among the quartet.
"Also, Layla, he’s not a human."
The frown on his face deepened as he heard her say those words, the ring of fire behind him beginning to spin faster as multiple thoughts ran through his mind.
’So, it was him, huh?’
Esna instantly identified this man and the reason for her strange feeling ever since earlier, and the reason why she had not participated in the battle as she was looking for the ’source’ of that feeling.
"Would you guys believe me if I said that the way I feel when I see that guy, is the same way I felt when I met Arthur’s dad for the first time?"
Edward looked at her in light confusion as he did not get why she suddenly said that, but Layla and Nicole who just came over instantly understood.
"Esna, you mean...?"
"When these guys called themselves gods, looks like they weren’t lying after all."
The fact that Esna said that, and the fact that her racial abilities were currently activated, meant that the man floating in the sky, was a genuine member of the god race.
As a member of the godslayer race, a race born out of the necessity to cull the numbers of the god races members, it was impossible for Esna to mistake his identity.
All ’slayer’ races had inbuilt detectors for the races they were meant to slay, after all.
Furthermore, simply because he was in Esna’s presence, the man was experiencing a drop in his overall power.
His Vitality, Energy levels, Physical strength, agility, and durability were seeing reductions in their maximum values.
In fact, ever since Layla’s group joined the fray, he had been experiencing this power reduction, and he had not taken action because he was trying to find out the reason for this reduction.
He had concealed his presence while doing so, hence the reason why Esna was very confused as her racial abilities were telling her there was someone there, but she could not see nor sense the person.
Now then, there was a reason why he cared so much about his stat values being reduced.
The Malevolent god of flames, his name being Gilbalar, was an existence who had once reached the Legendary realm and gained the ability to use the powers of universal laws like the other gods of Gade.
However, following his defeat at the hands of the Benevolent gods of fire and water a thousand years ago, he had his realm reduced to the inferior stage of the Epic realm and was sealed.
The seal had only been broken recently and he had recovered his power to the level of a Peak Superior Stage Epic realm.
He then devised a means to cheat his way and become able to use the power of the universal laws temporarily, and this was only possible because although his body currently had an Epic realm level of power, his soul was still that of a Legendary.
One of the three major aspects of his existence, his soul was at the Legendary level.
But for this means to work, his body needed to be at least at the very peak of the Epic realm, and either have stat values that corresponded to that level or higher.
Values that had mostly dropped down to around the level of the Average Superior stage Epic due to Esna’s mere presence.
This caused him to be unable to use the powers of the universal laws once more, and he was trying to discover the reason.
But now he had no choice but to make an appearance as the small monster army that had been given to him by his Lord, was being utterly decimated by Edward, Layla and Nicole.
He knew that he was going to be recognized by the servants of that ’abominable bastard’, which was why he had made a grand appearance and all, and he had indeed succeeded in inflicting fear into the hearts of all those from Gade.
Sadly, his status as ’Malevolent god of fire’ had nothing on the quartet, as to them, he was just another Epic Realm existence.
