Chapter 67 – Blood-Soaked Mud

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

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Blood-Soaked Mud feared the Sun God greatly.

The proof of that was its settling into the dark deep sea where sunlight could not reach.

But it had not simply hidden out of fear. It was also a cunning workaround to circumvent the constraint that its true body could not descend without the Sun God’s help.

Having been scheming behind the scenes, the Sun God would have stood by and watched rather than helped, even if it had been unharmed.

Moreover, having placed itself in the very place where the Sun God’s power was weakest, even if the Sun God had wanted to help, it could not have.

The scheme it had devised for itself had become the very thing that tripped it up.

Even knowing that full well, Blood-Soaked Mud called out to the Sun God.

[Sun God! If I am defeated, Star Creation’s power grows too! Will you stand by and watch your adversary grow stronger?!]

The sight of dark reddish mud writhing and contorting in every direction was revolting.

It was all the more so because the captured humans, protruding like spikes, were crying out too.

Every time the great demon cried out, the captives cried with it.

Ripping open their throats, already cut and wounded by saltwater.

Haaahh… Haaahh…

Even amidst the sound of boiling seawater frothing and Blood-Soaked Mud writhing, the hoarse voices rang out clearly.

There was no way to fully rescue the captives and keep them alive.

The captives had already been half-merged. All of their insides had been fully drained by the dark reddish mud, and they were parasitically dependent on it for every vital function.

Only thinking and screaming remained as the last freedom left to them.

It was time to end the check that had only been possible on the off chance things could still be saved.

…I orbited the stars within my flesh.

“The reverse, actually. If I kill you, the Sun God grows stronger too. The Sun God has no reason to help you.”

[O, you know! God Who Makes Stars, you surely have no intention of making the Sun God any stronger than it already is?!]

“Kill the wicked.”

The trajectory drawn by the stars was the shape of overlapping lightning bolts.

A punishment miracle I had used so many times it felt like second nature: Sound of a Thousand Thunders.

Sizzzzzzzt!

I stroked the serpents of electricity wrapping and spiraling down my right arm with my bare hand.

“I do not make the blunder of letting the enemy before my eyes slip by out of fear of the enemy behind me.”

Conversation was a form of standoff, aimed at finding a gap in the opponent.

I awaited the moment its tension reached its peak and then fractionally slackened.

…Exactly like this moment.

The instant I snapped my fingertips toward the demon, a voice swelled with fury rang out.

[Thickheaded lump of stone!]

The most certain method for catching a slime-like monster was scorched earth.

The bolt of lightning fired off responded accordingly, splitting from tens into hundreds, and then into a thousandfold.

From the outside in. Leaving not a shred of flesh. Thoroughly.

Defeat it completely.

With that thought, I clenched my fist.

Boom!

The first explosion did not reach Blood-Soaked Mud.

A natural outcome. There was a possibility it had left a single tiny scrap of flesh behind just in case.

I could not allow the unsatisfying sight of it regenerating from a single piece.

Here, I introduced a time lag. Then I surrounded it from all sides.

After that, I tightened the lightning inward.

Boom, boom, boom.

[Must you go this far!]

The bedrock that formed the deep sea floor was shaved away in one sweep.

The rockslide fragments flung out by the explosion were not just one or two.

I tracked every single fragment with my eyes.

Because it might have slipped a piece of itself into one of them.

Sure enough, a boulder with dark reddish mud stuck to it was mixed in among them.

I shaped a hand from divine power.

I seized every one without missing a single piece, then crushed them in my grip.

And before the shockwave of the explosion could subside.

I opened and clenched my hand once more.

Boom, boom, boom, boom…

[Why?! I only wanted! A long life, a life of predator rather than prey!]

No matter how much it struggled, it was over.

If the lightning covered it completely, it would die.

But the demon’s tenacious clinging to life was far more persistent than expected.

Blood-Soaked Mud’s choice, trapped in the center as the lightning bore down.

It made full use of the authorities it had devoured. It had stubbornly concealed that power until it was cornered into crisis.

The dark reddish mud that formed Blood-Soaked Mud was melting.

[I will not die, never! As the mightiest predator, I shall determine the life and death of all living things myself!]

-While transforming into dark, murky seawater.

The demon, melting and boiling, called out toward the encircling walls of lightning.

[Devour, O Sea! O My self!]

And the sea answered that call.

Whooooooooosh!

The water droplets falling from above rapidly multiplied.

Of course, the sudden rain that came boiling into steam the moment it neared, but… the wall thousands of meters high was slowly and surely narrowing the distance.

The sea did not care whether the monsters trapped within its body were cooked to death.

The flesh of the monsters boiled up and burst again and again with pus, dirtying the water.

At this moment, the sea, once called the cradle of life, had a single purpose.

To kill me, even if it meant killing every living thing.

Blood-Soaked Mud, having become the seawater itself, trickled through narrow crevices in the rock and mocked me.

[God Who Makes Stars, I shall devour you and become second only to the Sun God!]

The entire sea closed in to fill the crater I had created.

Pouring in like a waterfall, boiling furiously, evaporating endlessly, yet advancing with overwhelming sheer volume.

In that dark blue sea, I could no longer feel a single sign of life.

Not the creatures that had existed before the Black Sun, and not even the monsters Blood-Soaked Mud had created. A sea where everything had died.

Simple lightning could not possibly handle this.

At this moment, I turned over the maxim I had once recited when making a star.

I shall shine from the highest heaven to beneath the waves.

Now was the time to properly put those words into practice.

The change happened the instant I resolved to do it. The stars within my flesh became comets and fell toward my fingertips.

To reveal the most powerful authority granted to me.

-Exercise of Rights, Judgment.

-Reading alignment…

If Blood-Soaked Mud had hidden its most powerful means until the end, so had I.

[Sunlight. Right. You had sunlight. But I’ve told you repeatedly: in the deepest of the sea, sunlight cannot reach.]

Within the mocking tone, I could sense its wariness.

It seemed Blood-Soaked Mud had investigated this power to some extent.

But the great demon, always arrogant at the most crucial moment, had always let the most fatal opportunity slip by.

“I did not bring light.”

My entire body was dyeing golden.

Just as when I had become a meteor and plunged down, the surrounding area was being gnawed away by an overwhelming amount of light.

Even the minerals at my feet that had been smoking and hardening began to melt once more.

Bright red molten rock flowed along the ridges of the seafloor.

Following hard behind the light that had swallowed everything buried in its path.

“I brought a star.”

-Judgment Authority, Golden Path

A beam of golden light erupted.

Not from one place, but from across my entire body.

The brilliant sunlight swallowed both the light ahead and the flowing molten rock in one sweep.

And the pure light became pure force itself.

Creeeaaaak!

The ground, unable to withstand the erupting light, cracked apart.

Bright red molten rock surged up through the crevices and was crushed straight under the light.

Of course, the change did not stop at the ground.

The moment the light expanded in all directions, a scream-like cry from the great demon that had become the sea itself was heard.

[Sunlight, sunlight!]

The sunlight pierced through the sea that was trying to devour me.

The dark deep sea, which had merely been too deep for light to reach, was heating up.

The color of the sea, which had been nothing but deep blue, was gradually becoming more vivid.

More blue, more luminous… a clearer color.

I looked up at the sea slowly dyeing emerald green.

Below the surface curved like a waterfall, the boiled carcasses were dissolving like foam.

No, the entire sea was transforming into foam.

The sea that had turned emerald grew hotter, and hotter still.

Bloop, bloop, bloop, bloop!

From within the boiling foam, the sea finally began to dye golden.

“A star to fill the sea with light!”

-As if perfectly projecting brilliant sunlight.

[Sunlight, sunlight. This, all of it, sunlight! It’s sunlight!!!]

The result of the lower water boiling faster than the upper water could evaporate was an explosion.

Boom… boom…!

From all over the sea, explosions erupted.

It was an explosion within water, not transmitted through air, but even so, the sea swayed in an instant.

Of course, everything caught in these explosions was torn to shreds and scattered into the water.

Amidst it, I found familiar shapes.

The people that Blood-Soaked Mud had devoured.

…The soul of the slain belongs to the slayer.

I was the last to take action.

One final reason to squeeze out every last ounce of strength.

“Before the sea devours them, I will devour it first.”

[No, please, please! I am, I am on the lesser side! I looked out for them! I gave them a path to survive even in the darkness! What crime have I committed?!]

“The crime of confining those who longed for stars to wander in the deep sea even in death.”

It was the moment before light burst from my body.

I faced the sea turning golden and submerging in foam.

Within it, I could see a familiar face being swept up in the explosions.

The body left as nothing but a shell shattered into pieces, broke into fragments, and turned into golden dust.

Ad.

A man who had shown the best courage an ordinary person could show.

“And the crime of making those who believed in me suffer.”

[I would be of greater use! Think of the many things I can do, young god! If you would take me as your subordinate!]

“To me, that one life is more precious than yours.”

[It was only, only… only one person!!!]

“Then believe that.”

My answer for the demon, shrieking its innocence like a tantrum, was resolute.

“You are dying because of that one person.”

Flash.

A single burst of light pierced the entire sea.

In that instant, every shadow that had been hidden by the heavy water vanished.

The entire sea dyed to a complete golden.

Carrying within it a surge of foam and a tremble of explosions.

The sea that had absorbed the heat of sunlight directly was boiling like water in a kettle.

That sight looked as though the sea was being shattered to pieces.

The sound of a chain snapping.

When the light finally faded, the traces of the great demon were gone without a trace.

Only another voice reached my mind.

[A star that does not burn does not shine. A star that cannot shine is devoured by the darkness.]

The Devouring Sea.

The god who had been one of the pillars of the Church of the Cycle alongside the growth of life left behind only a final will full of regret.

[Young god, do not be afraid to shine and walk the same path I did.]

With those words, the heat and light of my body cooled.

The molten rock began to harden once more, and the rain pouring from above grew heavier.

Whoooooooosh…

The sea, once sterilized, began to collapse.

I soared upward to avoid the collapsing sea.

Rummmblllllllllle.

The hot steam and rain mixed, damp and humid.

The waterfall formed by the collapsing sea raged wildly in an enormous cacophony.

As I quickly flew past beside it and looked down, the sea was already finding its old form.

The crater I had driven into it was already concealed by the thick current, its trace gone.

Craaaash…

I was briefly dazed looking at the waves crashing and scattering.

As if the battle just fought had been a dream.

It was at this moment that the sound I had been bracing for arrived.

The sound of a chain snapping.

…That made two.

The second great demon died, and the Sun God’s second constraint was also undone.

I let out a sigh mixed with relief and worry.