Chapter 95 – War of the Gods

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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After the Sun God intervened, the aspect of the fight changed noticeably.

The people, who were clearly overwhelming the enemies just a moment ago, were being pushed back little by little.

It was because the Dream Demons, who had been busy running away to avoid the arrows flying from afar, advanced little by little.

But the real problem was that the bastards also started ranged combat.

They threw their dying compatriots, scaring the people.

And as the standoff lengthened, the strengths they hadn’t been able to utilize were seen.

It was their vastly superior mobility.

It was completely different from when Dream-Shedding Eye was commanding.

The Sun God skillfully handled the Dream Demons, befitting the alias God of War.

[The living have stiffened. Prepare to enter in clusters of dozens. Dig in at once and induce a melee.]

The speed at which the widely scattered Dream Demons clustered was beyond imagination.

They hissed and dashed, aiming for places where the formation was relatively weak, and it was not a speed that human footwork could catch up to.

Even if they forcefully tried to send reinforcements, other intact places would instead become dangerous.

If the formations they were painstakingly guarding broke down all at once, it would be the end.

The moment I tried to protect everything by myself, there was no way the Sun God would just stand by.

Yet, I couldn’t just stand by and watch either.

The means I could offer against the Dream Demons swarming to crush the people were limited.

– Protective Miracle, Barrier.

– Granted Miracle, Stability.

I blocked the Dream Demons’ entry paths with barriers.

I watched the demons completely surround us to the very end and blocked them one by one.

I had to do at least this to buy time for the people to prepare.

How long had they been circling around.

Eventually, some Dream Demons whose patience ran out fiercely revealed their teeth.

=I can’t stand it, just break through!=

=Even if we die, we can just come back. It’s no big deal. Right?=

The bastards were confident that they would win as long as they got close.

To the extent that they threw themselves at the barriers I had set up.

Naturally, there was no way they would be fine.

The Dream Demons who jumped toward the barriers burned and died just like that.

Without being able to let out a single groan or scream.

Only after seeing that sight did they flinch and step far back.

The only one who maintained composure was the Sun God alone on the city walls.

[I feel your intention not to expose them to danger. A warm yet exclusive light. The firmness that does not tolerate those who go against your standards. Your essence is arrogance.]

The red feather cloak stood up stiffly.

The green obsidians twinkled all over the red-gold armor.

They were signs that appeared before manifesting a miracle.

I have to be prepared.

Even if rotting, he is the final boss of this world.

He would show a miracle similar to or more powerful than the pure white flame vitrification he showed before.

I glared at the Sun God with the intention of pouring out all my power if necessary.

[Star that acts like the sun while not being the sun, witness the miracle of the God of War.]

<<>>

Whoosh-!

It was a red light so vivid that it made the eyes hurt.

Even I, who was called a god, flinched, so it was obvious how ordinary people would feel.

However, compared to the amount of light that burst out, it was too quiet.

Just looking at the effect, it felt like bloody water would pour out right away, but I couldn’t find any changes, to the point of feeling ominous.

Was it a miracle that simply took away vision?

With the grand alias of God of War, just that?

By the time I wondered what on earth he was planning, my question was resolved thanks to the voices heard from below.

“Enemies? Are they reinforcements?”

“Something is strange. Everyone, solidify your stance!”

It was the Dream Demons.

The Dream Demons that hadn’t been seen just a moment ago were thickly filling the surroundings.

Of course, they weren’t real, but illusions formed from the red light.

The problem arose as the illusions of the Dream Demons rushed in.

Aiming spears or arrows at the rushing illusions would never work.

While everyone was panicking, only the holy knights, wrapped in blessings and miracles, saw through the essence.

“I, I stabbed it!”

“It’s coming!”

“Everyone, do not be agitated. It is a simple illusion, do not be unnecessarily scared and hold your ground. The enemy is using a shallow trick.”

“An illusion? Hey. I was scared for nothing.”

However, the moment the Dream Demon’s illusion swung and thrust its tentacles.

The people who firmly trusted the holy knights opened their eyes wide all at once.

Letting out a scream full of pain as soon as they parted their lips.

“Aack, ack! Aaaaargh!”

“B-Breath. Breath.”

They even fell over and rolled around on the ground.

The lips they bit tightly to endure were torn and burst, bleeding profusely.

Even the holy knights, who had calmly held their ground from beginning to end, were agitated by the sight.

“Didn’t you say it was an illusion? Why, why are they doing that?”

“It’s an illusion, it is an illusion but… it seems we shouldn’t let them approach.”

“You mean all of those bastards!?”

I think I understand how they feel too.

But it was while the Sun God was closely watching this side.

There was no way to help the people screaming like that right now.

I needed time to prepare.

If there was any consolation, it was that I had completely figured out the Sun God’s miracle.

I endured the sharp gaze and orbited the stars within my flesh.

“A miracle that manipulates hallucinations that even give phantom pain. If it’s like a God of War, it’s like a God of War. If not, it’s infinitely not.”

[Humans are sensitive to what they see and to pain. If you show them and make them suffer, they are bound to believe anything.]

Instead of pressuring further, the Sun God said in a sunken voice.

[Only the pain that strikes them and what they see are their fragile reality and truth. Their meager understanding relies solely on pain.]

No, it’s a deception.

He’s preparing a miracle while pretending to talk.

The Sun God’s feather cloak was standing up stiffly once again.

[The God of War, Sol Invictus, bound them together by making them feel desperate pain together.]

– With those words, he surprisingly raised his gauntlet.

[And now, I will make you understand again! What kind of existence a god is!]

Of course, I couldn’t just take it sitting down.

At the same time the Sun God spewed out the red light, I also gathered light at my fingertips and raised it.

“I wondered why you were quiet.”

– Exercise of Rights, Accumulating Deception.

– Exercise of Rights, Pleasant Oblivion.

I hadn’t usurped just one or two Elysiums.

Especially the synergy between Deception, which allowed one to ignore hallucinations, and Oblivion, which nullified illusions already cast, was amazing.

The fluorescent blue light spreading against the red light.

The two streams of light clashed in front of the boundary of the sky they each governed.

Since lights clashed, naturally no sound could be heard, but all beings under the sky were covering their ears.

Regardless of whether they were Dream Demons or humans, crouching down tightly.

Of course, there were exceptions.

The Sun God and I did not leave those exceptions alone.

[Disperse the enemies. Make them terrified so they cannot request reinforcements. How many times must I command you to unite as one and divide the enemy!]

“Do not separate, protect those who are with you! Just as I did, do not abandon them either!”

Flashes bursting from everywhere.

The voice of the god ringing loudly in their heads.

Humans and demons desperately fought, regardless of their spinning vision.

“In the name of the great Godfather of Stars, the Young Father!”

=Ah… O Sun, O great Sun! How can I repay the sins of the past days when I dared to disobey you!=

The Dream Demons seemed to have already forgotten about Dream-Shedding Eye.

The bastards who followed reluctantly saw the Sun God’s power and immediately prostrated themselves.

The Sun God was slowly inciting this fanaticism.

What was contained in the red light wasn’t just malicious illusions.

The Dream Demons exposed to this ominous light for a long time were rushing in more belligerently.

“I understand why you were called the God of War. You castrated fear, from all the forces under your command!”

[God who makes stars, maggot of the End Times. You do not know that all the values you respect are meaningless before pain.]

When I frowned, the returning words were quite a spectacle.

[What life fears is not death, nor everything left behind after death. They only fear pain. The only means that can bring them understanding. They do not avoid the unknown, but merely avoid the pain they must endure to know.]

“Spouting nonsense…”

I have no time to listen to the words of a madman tainted with sadism.

Right now, this side was at a disadvantage.

It was taking on the aspect of a melee just as the Sun God intended.

If it continued like this, we would inevitably drink the bitter cup, but I wasn’t worried.

Because the light of authority I spewed out was driving away the red light little by little.

The Sun God read many things from my confident attitude and clicked his tongue.

[Tsk.]

As the Sun God withdrew the red light, the clash ended inconclusively.

Instead of completely clearing away even my influence, he compromised to the extent of staying under his own sky.

In the area where the red light stayed, under the Sun God’s sky, the illusions of Dream Demons still grew.

But the illusions formed by the red light could not approach the area I illuminated, under my sky.

Because the moment they crossed the boundary line, they wavered like a haze and disappeared.

The Dream Demons, who lost the support of the red light, were rushing toward the Sun God in droves at some point.

It’s not even a swarm of cockroaches, jeez.

Thanks to that, a lull arrived.

It meant the exhausted people were given a chance to catch their breath.

Looking only up to here, I seemed to have an overwhelming advantage, but the Sun God did not look frustrated at all.

He just stood on guard with his quills standing up stiffly like a hedgehog.

[I have watched all the paths you have walked. And I judged. That until now, it was the foolish nonsense of a madman.]

There would be no existence as honest as the Sun God’s feather cloak.

However, the degree to which the feathers making up the cloak stood up was different.

Vertical.

Completely vertical.

It stood up so fiercely that the chain links weaving the cloak were sparsely revealed.

Clang, clank-.

The scales attached to the Sun God’s golden armor were colliding and applauding.

[But on the other hand, I harbored expectations of an Adversary who would make my victory shine. Disappointed by that triviality and weakness, I only considered you a maggot.]

And the Sun God.

The mad Absolute did not miss my every move.

Putting every single gesture, even the trajectory of a single star orbiting within my flesh, into his eyes, he fully revealed his vigilance.

[You are the first to clumsily follow both in strength and strategy.]

That clear hostility soon brought an unexpected result.

Pure white flames began to soar from inside the city walls, from the imperial capital.

They were so far away that other people probably couldn’t hear it.

But beings sensitive to the screams of souls crying out, such as gods, could hear it all.

‘H-Heueok.’

‘Someone, h-help.’

Because of their burned vocal cords, they couldn’t even let out a groan.

Their thoughts were merely monotonous, suffering from burning pain.

…As soon as I realized who they were, I took action.

“Crazy!”

I abandoned my wait-and-see attitude and flew toward the Sun God.

All the surrounding scenery stretched, turned into lines, and then tore straight apart.

The only ones maintaining an intact form were me and the Sun God in front of me.

And the moment I clenched my fist and tried to smash it.

It’s cold.

My spine chilled.

The intuition as a god, that sense developing into foresight, warned me fiercely.

If I go in further, I will undoubtedly die.

Die? Me?

There was no time to seek an answer to the question.

I was stopping my rush and stepping back.

– It was truly a hair’s breadth difference that the Sun God’s hand gesture brushed past the place where I was.

The Sun God was glaring at me with a look of certainty.

[I know for sure. You, your foresight is growing steeply.]

The hand gesture that crossed the sky was leaving a massive scar.

The air existing in the area was blown away entirely.

Whoosh-.

The surrounding air was sucked into the artificially created vacuum.

Leaving the Sun God and me separated.

It was right then that a proper thought was heard.

‘D-Dream-Shedding Eye! This is different from what you promised! Didn’t you say you’d save us?!’

‘Stupid fool… I know. O Noble Sun, we will serve you! Much more than our use as sacrifices…!’

The Sun God didn’t listen to those words deeply.

Instead, he merely returned a scornful sneer.

[Stupid and trivial things that cannot understand without pain.]

The 400 captured survivors, and even the magicians of the imperial capital who supposedly survived.

They were devoured by the pure white flames and turning into a handful of ashes.

[Do you still not know that you must offer if the god desires?]

The entire souls of the humans burned and melted down.

The memories and intelligence contained within, the possibility of becoming stars and all instincts as living creatures melted into a single drop of sticky mucus.

In a way, it might be the purest form.

The remains of humans gathering by becoming stardust, a nebula itself.

The Sun God clustered them into one and newly forged it into an elongated shape.

Into a spear of a crude and simple shape.

The Sun God’s only impression looking at the rugged spear was a single nod of his head.

The mad Absolute slowly swept down the spear forged from humans and gripped it anew.

[Witness, face the greatest miracle of the God of War Sol Invictus.]

It was a familiar posture.

A javelin throw.

Instead of stepping back, I raised both arms.

It’s now.

It was a fierce battle precisely for this moment.

I orbited the stars within my flesh.

I called upon all the stars in the sky that had been silently holding their breath until now.

Herald Star, Sentinel Constellation, Consoling Constellation, Ever-Weeping Constellation, Atoning Constellation, Seeding Constellation, Afterglow Constellation, Deductive Constellation.

There was no longer a need to call them out loud one by one.

Because that’s how a firmly established connection works.

“The one who becomes a witness is you, mad god.”

Originally, the sky is the domain of the Sun.

But the Sun God popped out forcefully using a trick, and descended not as the Sun God but as the God of War.

This was also the reason why the sky split in half.

It’s still my time.

I drew a new constellation on my halo behind my back, on the night sky guarded by the stars.

This time, there is no need to be flashy or show great creativity.

“Defend, protect, and make them remember!”

What I drew was a simple circle.

It just had to be a circle.

“The greatest celestial body that once shone upon the world!”

It is an opportunity to announce the new god by striking back at the greatest miracle prepared by the Sun God.