Chapter 537 Fallen Celestial Deity I
Desolate Catacombs
Truham
Desert Country of Tarse
February 10th
Year 1053
The Desolate Catacombs lay deep beneath the surface, a haunting relic of a once thriving Ancient Underground Kingdom's capital city that was now reduced to mere ruins, with shattered and depilated buildings scatted haphazardly.
Flickering runes on the ceiling, once powered by potent magic, illuminate the darkness intermittently, their brilliance fading over centuries of zero maintenance.
Inhabited by subterranean monsters and used as a clandestine meeting place for occult groups, the catacombs usually echoed with the sounds of life. Yet, on this particular day, an eerie silence reigned, unlike a place inhabited by thousands of monsters.
The remnants of a once majestic castle stood at the centre of this ruined city, its halls marred by the lingering stench of blood.
Corpses of various monsters littered the floors— ranging from the lowest-ranked goblins, orcs and minotaurs, to monsters like Vilecrawlers, Gorglings, Land Octopi, Centaurs, and many other powerful monster races, most of which were humanoid types.
Footsteps rang out through the main hallway, coming from two beings who casually walked through this gory scene without batting an eye.
On the left was a young-looking woman who seemed to be at the peak of her teenage years, of average height and a fairly slim build. She had long waist-length black hair and piercing red eyes that focused intently on the book she was reading while walking.
In front of her was a tall handsome adult man, dressed in a black long-sleeved collared shirt and similarly coloured trousers, holding up a giant great sword of earth over his shoulder that was still dripping with the blood at the tip.
His long black hair was tied up in a ponytail with a ribbon as red as his eyes, while his long bangs hung over his face, parted to the left.
He was the one who was responsible for the carnage the monsters had gone through on this fateful day, and the woman with him was simply there to accompany him as she had no other important place to be at the time.
It went without saying that these two were the Deadly Sin Siblings, Pride and Greed.
They were currently in a dungeon that Evan had told them about, where Greed could acquire a skill that was quite similar to one of the skills he had lost while being sealed.
The Deadly Sin Siblings had finally begun making a proper effort to regain the other rare skills they had during the war a thousand years ago.
What they had been using since they were unsealed, were the innate skills they were born with and could not lose, but the others they had acquired over the course of their three century-long lives, were lost due to the effects of the Previous Second Hero's seal on them.
But since the skill runes had been etched in their souls once, regaining them was not a difficult matter.
In fact, Pride was here after clearing a one-time dungeon on her own and regaining her 'White Flames' skill, and one other one that was closely tied to her idiosyncrasy.
She saw this situation as an opportunity to pick only the best skills and discard the ones she felt were useless and only took up extra space in her soul.
Anyway, the two of them made their way down to the throne room of this castle, and the figure who they were met with was one that placed expressions of surprise on their faces.
Surprise that changed to understanding a moment later.
"I was wondering why otherworldly monsters Aquamoras and Stoneshapers were here, it all makes sense now."
Greed spoke as he stabbed his earthen blade into the ground, causing a giant spiderweb-like crack to spread out across the floor as he continued.
"You're not from this world, are you? Celestial."
His words were directed towards the being on the throne, an aged man who appeared feeble and frail, with dull skin and tired, sunken eyes.
He sat on the weathered throne, surrounded by the ruins of the once magnificent throne room, calmly gazing at the two demons before him.
"High Demons, huh?"
The man chuckled lightly, adjusting his position on the throne before replying to Greed's question.
"Yes. Although the race of Celestials exists on this planet; I, Qutia, am not one of them."
"That much was obvious to me. Anyway, the fact that you're on that throne means you're this dungeon's boss, and it just so happened that I came here to slay this dungeon's boss."
The earthen great sword Greed held shattered to pieces and the symbol on the back of his palm flashed, followed by the appearance of his true weapon, the Sword of greed, Mammonas.
He held up the great sword with one hand and pointed it towards the aged Celestial, whose aura he could sense was on the level of that of an Intermediate Grandmaster just like him.
"Hahaha…To think that a Celestial Deity like myself who used to traverse the greater Universe, has now been reduced to a mere grandmaster realm dungeon boss.
How low I have fallen. Tell me, Demons of Gozon, do you not find me pathetic?"
The moment the word 'Gozon' left his lips, Pride who was still focused on her novel at the side, snapped the book shut and looked up at the celestial with lightly narrowed eyes.
"How do you know of that name?"
For a moment, the faint hope that this man may know about the state of her home world and what happened to it in the past thousand years was borne in her heart, but she squashed it as soon as it appeared to prevent disappointment.
The aged Celestial only chuckled lightly to himself before answering.
"How can I not know the name of the home world of my friends."
"Friends?"
"Yes. Before I joined the ragtag group of Celestials who were part cause of my current state, I was friends with a few of your world's Interstellar Demon Emperors.
We adventured through many realms together. Those were fun times."
A nostalgic look flashed through his eyes as he spoke, but it was soon quickly replaced by one of sadness.
"Demon Emperors?"
"Hmm? Are you perhaps unaware of that title?
Even Mid rank demons like you should know…or wait, weren't you considered 'Peak Ranks' now? To think the strength of Gozon's High Demons has reduced this much too, it's a pity."
The man's words referred to a time far before Pride and Greed were born when even Sovereign Level Existences were only 'Upper Mid Rank' demons.
As someone who had lost his power and fallen to a lower level, he could see that the two Demon Siblings were in a similar situation as he was, and because his original level was far higher than theirs, he could easily tell what Level they were in originally.
One might have expected the two demons, especially Pride, to feel that the man was trying to mock them by calling them mere Mid Ranks, but they remained silent, allowing him to continue his monologue.
"The late Peak Ranks of Old would roll in their graves if they heard this. Even Transcendents were just High Ranks then, with the Peaks being in the realm above.
Oh, those were good times. Sillmothon, McEnda, Olveth, Xellmonnod, Alvey, Gun-"
"Did you just say Alvey? You know him?"
Pride's voice cut Qutia's monologue short, snapping him back to reality as he gazed at the demon and nodded.
"It'd be weirder if I didn't know the most powerful Peak Ranked Demon of Gozon's Interstellar colonies.
Well…it's been thousands of years so he should have at least gone higher than merely Demon Lord and become a Demon King by now.
Seeing as he was friends with that Freakish Singularity, he might as well have become an Emperor himself."
"Singularity? What's that?"
Greed spoke up before Pride could prod the man for more details about Alvey, signalling his sister to calm down with his eyes.
"Ah, in these parts, you call them 'Irregulars', those beings who can escape causality's bindings. Alvey was friends with one of the most dangerous of them in all of existence.
A Grade Seven Singularity.
Would have told you who they were but his name is 'Unspeakable' within this Universe."
The aged celestial tacked on some extra details at the back, before coughing lightly and speaking.
"I haven't met anyone from a familiar place in a while so I may have spoken too much."
Qutia slowly got up from the throne, his aura rising along with him and putting the two demons on guard as they saw he was stronger than they initially assumed.
"I may have lost most of my levels and Skills, but my years of experience still remain with me, along with my most powerful Ult-no, Unique Skill.
I would bestow that power upon the person who defeats me. "
The essence of the World Law Doctrines of Earth and metal coalesced in front of him, morphing into a simple longsword which he grabbed and pointed towards the both of them.
"So then High Demons, which of you would be taking this Challenge?"
Pride sighed softly upon hearing the man's question, ridding her head of useless thoughts as she took a few steps back and left the stage for Greed.
Both the Celestial and Greed silently stared at each other for a moment, their grandmaster-level auras filling the area.
**WHOOSHH!! BAAMMM!!!!
The two suddenly charged towards each other, moving so fast it seemed like they disappeared from their original positions and reappeared in the centre of the throne room, their blades clashing with a loud noise.
And so began their battle, each attack a dance of power as Greed wielded his massive great sword, imbuing it with his aura while also launching Earth, Fire and Wind Magic spells.
The aged Celestial countered with his unnamed longsword, infused with the essence of the world laws of Earth, and Metals, while also using a strange Crystal Magic.
In the midst of deadly sword combat, they channelled their respective energies, intertwining magic, demonic, celestial and physical prowess to harm themselves, increasing the intensity of their blows.
The Celestial Race's innate eponymous energy was quite harmful to demons, but Greed had his demonic energy that had the same effect on Celestials.
Both of them mixed these energies into their sword slashes and spells, with the goal of dealing extra damage to the other.
In the heat of the battle, Greed suddenly unleashed his idiosyncrasy, an ability once limited to stealing physical strength but now evolved with his advancement to the grandmaster level, allowing him to do the same to his target's agility too.
He then used one of the skills he had regained, his Evocation skill to summon 'Covetous Archers', humanoid constructs fuelled by the emotional energy of greed. The archers fired arrows that dealt 50% of Greed's Strength Stat as physical damage, before making the target unable to use 20% of their physical strength for 20 minutes.
Luckily, the second effect of the arrows could not stack, or Qutia would have been in for the worst time of his life.
Though the man had powerful defences and his magical prowess was outstanding, Greed's greater physical abilities and idiosyncrasy made close combat quite the challenge, and also enable the High Demon to deny him the chance to take the distance required for ranged combat.
Qutia got some attacks in on Greed, but the demon's clothes were crafted with powerful monster materials, before being enchanted with defensive demonic runes, offering him double-layered protection that reduced the effects of the celestial's attacks.
In a display of power, Greed unleashed his favourite wind Magic spell; Sylphide's Breath, and the celestial retaliated with a similarly high tier Spell: Crystal Burst, a spell that summoned an array of large, shimmering crystals charged with immense magical energy, hurtling towards Greed with unstoppable force.
The impact of the crystals created a brilliant display of light, engulfing the surroundings in a massive explosion that shattered the castle. The devastating shockwave caused massive damage to nearby buildings and landmass, leaving behind a scene of utter destruction.
The fight escalated to the skies, with Greed unleashing his wings while Qutia simply used his racial flight ability.
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