Chapter 109

Chapter 109
A hideous shriek, the sound of a god being pounded into the earth, reverberated insanely through the trees.

The man who had felled the divine being, however, looked upon it with a face empty of all feeling.

Jenira, who had been staring at him in a daze—at a man who seemed to emanate something immense and holy—finally heard him speak.

“Get a hold of yourself.”

“Ah—” she let out a sharp breath, reacting to the words of the man—no, of Marquis Palatio.

“Are you able to stand?”

“Y-yes.”

“Then go down to the altar now. Your sister will be there for you.”

“But… what will you do?” she managed to ask.

Silently, he crouched and retrieved the frozen apple she had let fall, returning it to her hand.

“Obviously, I will deal with that and follow after,” he stated flatly, turning his eyes away as if the conversation was over.

“Jenira!”

“Sister!”

Syrkal, who had been waiting in distress below the altar, rushed up as soon as she saw her sister.

“Thank you, from the bottom of my heart!” Syrkal cried out.

“Take her down now,” the Marquis commanded. Once Syrkal had hastily guided her sister away, he returned his focus to the immense, writhing shape of the Basiliora—the “Receiver.”

‘Damn, I understood it was large, but this is absurdly huge,’ he thought, feeling his heart hammering in his chest. Without Deus, both Jenira and he might have been consumed.

But that reflection was brief. Marquis took a mana potion from his belt and drank it all, his gaze locked on the iron bars driven into the roof of the beast’s mouth.

‘The ambush worked, so the initial stage is done. The real challenge begins now,’ he considered, looking down toward the altar.

The Receiver Basiliora roared in anger, its monstrous cry making the very ground tremble. The noise was so powerful it felt like it pierced the flesh, as if freezing rain were lashing every nerve.

[Who… what are you?!]

A voice echoed inside his skull—a deep, yet reasoning tone that belonged to Basiliora, a creature now both divine and conscious.

Its fury was obvious, but underneath it ran a current of… dread? A slim trace of the emotion wove through the beast’s enraged cry.

With a sound like thunder, the creature twisted itself around the altar once again, surging upward with such power that it broke the edges of the platform. Its climb was furious, enough to send a shiver through Alon.

But the attempt was useless. Before it could reach the summit, violet filaments had already coiled firmly around its gigantic body, hauling it back down to the earth.

“Did you believe I would allow you to reach Marquis?” Deus’s voice called out as he hit the creature’s head, forcing it down again.

With a resounding crash, the Thunder Serpent God was once more thrown to the ground.

***

Reinhardt was certain of one fact: Marquis Palatio was completely deranged. Every statement from the man’s lips was the sort of insanity no sane person would ever speak.

Or so he had believed—until he witnessed it himself.

“Hah…”

Reinhardt gazed at the far-off spectacle, his mouth hanging open in disbelief.

There, a being of divine stature—the massive Thunder Serpent—was crashing to the earth. A human, striking down a god… The vision was so staggering it sent a thrill through Reinhardt’s usually hardened heart.

And yet…

“Is that really Deus?” he whispered to himself.

It had been ages since he last saw him. Deus had become far more powerful than Reinhardt had ever conceived.

With a booming impact, Reinhardt watched as Deus was hit by the creature’s enormous tail, hurled backwards through the forest. Trees exploded in his path as he was thrown across the landscape.

As if struck by a massive enchantment, a cloud of dust billowed up noisily despite the downpour, a testament to the sheer power of the strike.

Even for a Sword Master, such an impact would be impossible to withstand without injury. In truth, it was a blow of such force that it could have been instantly lethal.

Yet Deus, standing before his eyes, looked almost absurdly untouched—apart from being covered in grime and dust.

“A unique skill, I suppose,” Reinhardt mused, releasing a soft, empty chuckle as he understood what Deus had accomplished.

In that moment of divine assault, Deus had protected himself by enveloping his body in his characteristic threads, his unique ability taking the force of the impact.

As Reinhardt grasped this, Basiliora—the Receiver—bellowed in rage and charged wildly at Deus, its monstrous form tearing up the land.

Crash!

The mere action of its dragging weight across the ground produced a deafening noise, as if announcing a cataclysm. The Receiver lunged forward with its colossal frame, trying to flatten Deus completely.

But in the following moment, Deus halted the approaching disaster.

Using his violet threads, he lashed them to the surrounding trees, weaving them into a makeshift barrier. Wrapping his own form in his threads, Deus stopped the creature’s charge and unsheathed his sword. With a clean cut, he altered the trajectory of the monstrous force.

Thud!

Basiliora was thrown to the side, smashing into a great cliff, far from the altar. The collision made Reinhardt’s spine tingle.

“Just how much stronger has he become?”

Reinhardt could not contain his astonishment. He had thought he himself had improved significantly, yet the figure he had always striven to exceed had climbed to heights far beyond him.

When the Receiver released another shrill scream and charged once more, Reinhardt could only scowl. Despite the initial injury to its upper jaw from Marquis Palatio’s first blow, Basiliora had suffered little real harm.

Again, it stormed forward—this time not only toward Deus, but straight for the altar.

Deus braced to block the assault again, but now he appeared to be under clear strain.

“Tsk.”

Clicking his tongue, Reinhardt moved in a blur, placing himself directly in front of Deus.

“I was keeping this for a last resort…” he grumbled quietly, steadying himself for the monster’s charge.

He took his stance: right foot advanced, left foot behind. His right hand held his sword’s hilt, raised high, while his left hand supported the blade.

Click.

The noise of his blade clearing the scabbard sounded, and Reinhardt gritted his teeth as he drove power into his right foot.

“Secret Technique—”

With a detonation of energy, Reinhardt swept his sword downward, releasing a move he had perfected in the heart of the jungle.

“Meteor Sword!”

Boom!

The very ground warped under the pressure of his blade, multiplying the gravity in the vicinity by dozens of times.

The earth fractured.

The trees shattered.

The stones split.

Even the falling rain seemed to stop in mid-air before being crushed by the overwhelming weight.

Under this colossal gravitational force, the massive Receiver was driven into the ground, its monstrous charge entirely arrested.

“All preparations are complete. Move forward with the plan,” the voice of Marquis Palatio declared, marking the climax of the fight.

Alon watched the events with a combination of admiration and concern.

“I never told them to push themselves this far…”

From the beginning, Alon had expected Basiliora to climb toward the altar, and his strategy only required Deus to stop the creature’s charge once or twice.

He had never conceived that anyone could withstand such a catastrophic force beyond that.

Yet Deus had done exactly that, holding back the assault of a beast that had consumed faith for generations—perhaps not a true god, but at least deserving of the title guardian deity.

What made this achievement even more astounding was Basiliora’s divine quality, which lessened harm from non-divine entities. Stopping such a creature was no minor feat.

Thanks to Deus’s actions, Alon had finished all his preparations without difficulty. Looking around, he saw that Deus and Reinhardt had already withdrawn from the battleground.

Breathing out in relief, he spoke quietly to himself.

“Phew…”

Letting out a sigh, Alon watched Basiliora, the Receiver, as it stormed toward the altar once again.

Its furious screams cut through the air, a wordless howl of irritation after having its advances blocked again and again. The pure violence of its charge was a living catastrophe. Yet, observing this disaster approach, Alon calmly weaved a sequence of hand signs.

“One point,” he chanted, his voice calm.

The time Alon had bought since his initial strike on Basiliora served three vital goals:

First, mana regeneration.

His severely constrained mana reserves meant that even one spell could almost empty him. He required time to restore his power.

“Expansion,” he uttered, proceeding to the second step.

This stage involved cutting the stream of faith aimed at Basiliora and delaying for the debilitating spells cast by the Thunder Serpent tribe to fully activate.

While Basiliora’s huge stored faith protected it from major injury, the tribe’s ritual debuffs would certainly shift the balance.

Finally, “Vibration.”

The last step depended on his artifact, the Necklace of the Eye Eater, which pinpointed Basiliora’s vulnerabilities.

With this final preparation done, Alon returned his attention to the gigantic being as it started to climb the altar.

“Destruction.”

With that one word, Alon released his spell upon the altar.

—

BOOM!!!

The enormous structure, already filled with fractures, fell apart with a roar that seemed to break the world.

SPLASH!

From inside, a burst of water exploded outward, swallowing everything in its way. The deluge wiped out the nearby terrain and immersed half of Basiliora’s huge body in its flow.

Despite the turmoil erupting around him, Alon stayed calm. This was all according to plan—a situation he had faced innumerable times while exploring “Psychedelia.” In the game, setting off a “Jungle Flood” required destroying one of the many “Rain Altars,” and now, reality reflected that event.

He looked down at the scene unfolding below. Everything was set.

Basiliora was now suffering from the Thunder Serpent tribe’s debuffs, half-sunk in the floodwaters, and pierced through its mouth by a giant, magically reforged spear—a lightning rod fashioned with the tribe’s help.

Only one job remained: to strike the final blow.

“Array of Thunder,” Alon murmured.

At that moment, Deus and Reinhardt, who had sought shelter on a high jungle area safe from the flood, saw the scene develop.

Under the gloomy, ash-gray sky, a brilliant light burst forth from Marquis Palatio at the center of it all. The radiance seemed to split the world in two.

“What in the world…?” Reinhardt swore, his face marked with disbelief.

Deus, filled with fresh respect, tightened his grip on his sword hilt, unable to turn his eyes away.

And then it occurred.

Behind Marquis, a pair of luminous eyes materialized as if carved into the substance of reality itself. As the gray sky split, a brilliant light descended—pure, blazing, and relentless—cleaving the stormy heavens with holy radiance.