The moment the god of vampires descended.
A dense pressure settled over the area around me.
The other vampires were crushed beneath that pressure, but I somehow braced my legs and resisted.
Ruuuumble!
“Guh, gaah!”
“O, our god!”
“Lead us!”
As the vampires began to worship in terror, the pressure grew even stronger.
Even reverence born of fear was still faith, after all.
It was divine power incomparable to mine, when I had only managed to increase my population by three in eighteen years.
“……Kgh!”
[It seems you have not gathered much divine power.]
I could feel the god of vampires sneering at me.
He considered me an easy opponent, one who couldn’t even put up a proper struggle.
He wasn’t wrong.
As the GM had said, in this now-real Log, directly killing a race’s god had been added to the conditions for defeat.
From the god of vampires’ perspective, all he had to do was kill me, standing right before him, and he could eliminate one competitor.
“There are a few things I want to ask.”
I resisted his pressure, just barely keeping myself from falling to my knees.
Perhaps he found the sight interesting, because he lessened the pressure and entertained my question.
[Hm. So even so, a god is still a god? What do you wish to ask?]
“Before you came here, what country were you from?”
At my question, the god of vampires furrowed his brow slightly and answered.
[Why do you ask?]
“If you’re from a country I know, I thought I might beg for mercy.”
[Ha! As one who has become a god, do you not even have the bare minimum of pride?]
“I’ll take care of my own pride, so you don’t need to worry about it. So, what is it?”
After hearing my answer, he looked at me with utter contempt and spat out his reply.
[The Kingdom of Askrid. I shall tell you as a gift for your journey to the afterlife.]
“……”
A country name I had never heard before.
With that, it was certain.
The world he and I had lived in before dying was completely different.
Or perhaps, from the beginning, our races had been assigned according to what we had been in life.
‘Otherwise, there wouldn’t have been any reason for our assigned races to be fixed in the first place.’
[Farewell.]
Ruuuumble!
While I was lost in thought, he began emitting pressure again.
A force even stronger than before came crashing down on me.
But I, too, was different from before.
Grnnnngh!
Unlike earlier, when I had only barely managed not to kneel, this time I stood proudly and glared at him.
[W-what?!]
“No matter how much of a god you are, a body without divine power is the same as that of a mortal. But a body can be trained.”
Over the past eighteen years, my body, honed through repeated hunting and training, had now reached the level of a 2nd Era combat unit.
The pressure of someone who was merely 1st Era, a tribal god-level being, was something I could just barely withstand with the strength of my flesh alone.
“It’s simple. Earlier, I endured your pressure with only my body’s strength and without using divine power. Now, I’m simply using divine power.”
Step! Step! Step!
After reinforcing my body with divine power, I moved forward while bearing the pressure.
The god of vampires, flustered by the sight, increased the intensity of his pressure even further, but all I had to do was pour in more divine power as well.
[Y-you bastard!]
“Are you sure you can afford to fling your divine power around like that? What a waste of precious strength.”
This was a kind of bluff.
In truth, my own divine power was also on the verge of depletion.
No matter how much I endured with my physical abilities, there was nothing I could do about the absolute difference in divine power.
Also, there was something I learned after facing another god for the first time.
Between gods, even if one entered the range of omniscience, it was not easy to read the other’s true thoughts.
That was why I desperately hid what was in my heart and acted calm.
“O, our god!”
“I-impossible……”
At the sight, even the vampires around us began to feel fear toward me, not their own god.
They did not truly believe in me, so I could not gain divine power from them, but I could achieve the effect of cutting off his supply of divine power.
If I kept pressing him like this, it seemed I could force him to retreat without even fighting.
[Kgh, khahahaha……]
But then, he began to let out an ominous laugh.
I sensed his emotions surging in an unusual way and stopped walking.
[Khahaha. A frightened little rat is always the one that lunges most fiercely. What are you so afraid of?]
“……”
[Before I descended, I caught a bit of what was said to this one. You said you’re the only human here?]
Having completely regained his composure, he lifted his head and mocked me.
[Bullshit! If you had survived eighteen years without creating any creations in the first place, you could never have gathered even that much divine power!]
“……”
[Which means there are rats somewhere that you secretly called into being! All I have to do is keep you tied down here and slowly hunt them down! Hey! You there!]
“Y-yes!”
He suddenly pointed to one of the surrounding vampires and gave an order.
From my perspective, it was the worst possible order.
[Choose five on your own and track down the humans! Do not leave a single one alive!]
“Stop! I’m the one you want!”
I shouted, but they didn’t even pretend to listen.
They only filled the gaps left by the pursuit team and tightened the encirclement.
While the god of vampires and I had been facing off, the sun had set, and the area covered in stretching shadows had widened.
[Do you want to stop them? Then there is only one way. Break through this encirclement yourself.]
“You bastard!”
[I wonder if you can survive this. It is almost a shame I will not be able to see the result myself. My creations!]
“Yes! Our god!”
[Keep him pinned here! Even death must not deter you!]
With those words, his pressure vanished completely.
Since possession also consumed divine power, he could no longer endure the expenditure.
The vampires surrounded me and waited in silence.
Grind.
“Move out of my way. Then I will at least spare your lives.”
“Our god, Vlad, has commanded us to keep you here.”
I threatened the vampires through gritted teeth, but they did not move at all.
They had realized that all of my divine power was depleted as well.
In that instant, I felt my mind turn completely white with rage.
“I already warned you. Know that every death that occurs from this moment on is entirely your responsibility.”
With those words, I charged at them.
I thrust the spear in my hand toward the one at the very front.
Thunk!
“Gck!”
A 1st Era combat unit could not possibly keep up with the speed of a 2nd Era combat unit.
Belatedly, the surrounding vampires rushed toward me.
They had calculated that, with my spear lodged in a body, I would be unable to respond to attacks coming from both sides.
What a ridiculous thought.
Whoosh!
Thud!
Without pulling the spear free, I swung it as it was and sent the body impaled on it flying.
The body, already a corpse with its heart pierced, was torn free from the spear and obstructed the charge of the one on the right.
As for the one coming from the left, I shoved him away with the opposite end of the spear, then swung it backward and cut him horizontally.
Slash!
“Guhah!”
By then, even more vampires began rushing toward me.
But they were no match for me.
I stabbed.
Thunk!
Swung.
Slash!
Struck.
Thud!
I swung my spear and moved my body in a frenzy.
Before me, the vampires were swept away like fallen leaves in an autumn gale.
After fighting like that for some time, when I finally came to my senses, there were no vampires left standing before me.
“U-ugh……”
“M-monster.”
Even those who remained conscious were so terrified that they could not dare think of attacking me.
I looked at them for a moment, then kicked off the ground and ran.
Quite a bit of time had already passed since the pursuit team had begun chasing Lucy.
I ran desperately, urging my legs onward.
‘Faster, faster, faster, even faster!’
I pushed my body, trained over years, to its absolute limit.
I even wrung out the tiny amount of divine power that had recovered while I was fighting and used it to increase my speed.
But even that seemed not to have been enough.
“Hah, hah……”
“You little brat! Why won’t you fall!”
“Damn it! Even the human god has caught up already!”
The sight I saw the moment I caught up to the pursuit team was Adam, covered in blood, facing off against the vampires.
Because of omniscience, I knew why Adam had been unable to run away.
But that reason only made my failure sink in all the more painfully.
Ignoring the vampires who fled in fear of me, I headed toward Adam.
Adam stepped aside without a word, tears streaming down his face.
Thanks to that, I was able to face the calamity born from my failure with my own two eyes.
“Lord Huma.”
Haaah, haaah.
Lucy was holding Eve in her arms, gasping for breath.
Her back was stained red with blood flowing from wounds that looked as though they had been carved by enormous claws.
Eve was in Lucy’s embrace, sobbing loudly.
“Moooommyyyy! Daaaddyyyy!”
“……”
“Please, take care of the children.”
Leaving only those words behind, Lucy’s head drooped.
With trembling hands, I checked her pulse.
I felt no movement at all.
Tremble.
My shoulders began to shake with rage.
I wanted to kill that bastard Vlad right this instant.
But it was not yet time.
“Adam, Eve. Help me.”
Lucy was dead, but there was still a means left to save her.
I picked Lucy up in my arms and headed deeper into the forest.