In the dim night, a halo of light flickered atop a towering tree. The bizarre luminescence, formed by tens of thousands of fireflies gathering together, was hard to make out from a distance, but it took the shape of a young girl.
Hair as smooth as a carpet. Quietly closed eyes. Soft lips. An inexpressible beauty was sculpted from the halo of light. The form of the Saint of Heaven, Meiel, descended upon this land as light and pointed in a direction.
[Look. Shea. At the King of Humans.]
And beside her. Shea stood atop the tallest tree, watching the village of the immortals.
An impossibly far distance. A distance so vast that without her Seven-colored Eyes, even people would look like heat hazes. The regressor Shea watched the entire tragedy of the immortal village with her far-seeing eyes.
[He is the destroyer of order. He denies civilization and history, and views humans merely as pure humans. Where they were born, what they learned, the history they lived through—none of it has meaning to him. Because he is separated from all of that, the king of pure 'humans'. Because he represents the 'humans' walking this land right now.]
Shea couldn't easily bring herself to speak. Because the sight of him was far too unfamiliar.
She knew he had an undying body, but it was her first time seeing him fight with it. And his way of fighting was far too brutal.
Trusting in his immortality, he throws his body like a tool. Now, a broken arm, flowing blood—they are all tools to him. He smashes his own body to strike their heads, drives skewers into their bodies, and then sheds his blood to neutralize them.
The Blood Demon's blood is a curse. That alone cannot kill the immortals. But he moved aiming precisely for their 'Divine Bodies (神體)'. An immortal's divine body is a link connected to the Offering God. Because he dyed the cross-sections with curses and severed them, the immortals' combat power was rapidly being whittled away.
A fight between immortals is a war of attrition. Instead of attacking bodies that will regenerate anyway, shaving off the opponent's strength is the requirement for victory. Rather than focusing strength to aim for a single moment, one must continuously make favorable exchanges.
And he fought more brutally than anyone else.
[He affirms everything. He doesn't care about the means or methods either. He twists rules, bypasses promises, and finds gaps in the order to slip through. There are no taboos for him. Whether it can be done or not, only that matters.]
The immortals rushed in to crush him with numbers. Unkilled even when slashed by swords, they were fierce and reckless. A storm that would tear a person to shreds assailed him.
However, instead of dodging, Hughes leapt into the gap between the three. His head was struck by an elbow, and his abdomen was pierced by sharply spread claws.
Even while his whole body was being slashed, his hands moved busily. He scraped away the elbow with a skewer and scooped the blood flowing from his stomach to scatter it. The Demon God's power exerts a powerful dominance exclusively over his blood. The movements of the immortals drenched in the blood containing the Progenitor's blessing gradually slowed down.
The Demon God's power touched the rules of the world. As long as it aligned with that logic, it provided infinite and unconditional power. The immortals were horrified by the power of another immortal that did not wane.
[If all humans were good, it might be fine. But some humans are evil, some are cowardly, and some are indifferent. There are countless people in the world who hurt others, deceive others, and don't care what happens. If left alone, evil spreads like a stain. Dyeing the surroundings in darkness.]
An endless brawl, an exchange of powers cursing each other. Clearly, compared to the robust immortals, Hughes, who was merely a single individual, was weak.
However, as the fight dragged on, Hughes gradually gained the upper hand.
[He is the King of Humans. An ancient evil that has existed since the distant past, indulging the sins of humanity. Shea. He is... even now, weakened by being banished by humans, such a dangerous existence.]
Only then did Shea realize what the ancient evil the Saint of Heaven had told her to subjugate was.
The King of Humans. An existence that awakens the evil instincts within human hearts. An ancient evil far more dangerous than the demons of the past who died and became Offering Gods.
The Saint of Heaven, who had foreseen all these sights, showed her the landscape she was seeing.
To her last hope and first despair, Shea.
[Even so, will you still shelter the King of Humans?]
Shea quietly watched the ancient evil.
***
The Demon God of Tir promises an undying body limited to 'me'. My blood is bound with a powerful dominance like a vampire. I deliberately shed it to erode the immortals' bodies.
That said, I didn't have enough to pickle the immortals in blood like Tir, so I simply injected it into the bodies they had offered through the skewers. It was an amount of bleeding that went past anemia into exsanguination, but as a Demon God, I could withstand this level of loss.
"Why is everyone flinching?! The Offering God demands a sacrifice!"
One immortal rushed in holding a dagger. I quickly read his thoughts. The offered part was the right buttock. A difficult part to aim for.
"Ah, I really don't want to aim for a man's buttocks."
Making a silly remark, I reached out and blocked the dagger. The sharp blade tore through my palm and protruded out the back of my hand. Pain ran down the nerves of my arm.
A gamble I would never have made if I didn't have regenerative abilities, turning my precious hand into a scabbard. Gripping the dagger in my hand, I squeezed. My muscles contracted, grasping the blade. In that state, I pulled his arm sharply and swept his ankle.
The immortal instantly lost his balance and slipped. At the same time, I slipped my hand out after turning the dagger into a card, easily targeting his back. The skewer dug into his defenseless buttock.
My hand was torn, and his buttock was pierced. In terms of exchange ratio, it should be an overwhelming loss for me. But in a fight between immortals, it's different.
Compared to my hand that healed on its own, a black mark of curse gradually spread across his buttock.
"How...! My Offering God...!"
"Please don't say too much. It's unpleasant for me too."
Shaking my hand vigorously, I looked around as I felt the pain gradually fading. Countless immortals were surrounding me, hesitating.
The fighting spirit worthy of immortals had long vanished. No matter how much they punched and tore into living flesh, it regenerated quickly. In comparison, I was slowly gnawing away at their bodies with Blood Arts.
Surprisingly, right now, the immortals were feeling the sense of helplessness they would only experience when facing another immortal.
"Why the hesitation? You are immortals, aren't you? Since you don't die, shouldn't you fight without fear?"
They didn't fall for the provocation. They were intimidated.
They, who had always held the upper hand with the strength of being undying, faltered at the visible wounds. They hadn't died yet, but the gradually slowing regeneration speed instilled an instinctive fear in them.
The fear of an end they were feeling for the first time since becoming immortals—the fear that if this continued, they might really die.
Actually, if they had all rushed me at once from the beginning and torn my body to pieces, I would have been helplessly defeated. They lack grit. Feigning composure, I said.
"This level of power is common beyond the prairie. Were you just playing the neighborhood boss with only the Piu tribe until now? I am the enemy the Offering God personally ordered to be killed. You shouldn't attack me with half-hearted resolve."
"Hmph! You sure talk big for someone with a hole in them!"
A tall immortal, a head taller than the others, appeared parting the crowd. The elderly immortal, with her white hair loosely disheveled and torn sleeves fluttering, clicked her tongue as she revealed her rugged, muscular build.
The immortals looked at her, who appeared late, and said.
"Left Arm! Where have you been to arrive only now?"
"I stayed in the back. I didn't like attacking someone we treated as a guest until yesterday. Once you take them in, you must care for them until they leave. That's our tradition, I say."
A bronze body that seemed to have been trained ceaselessly. Among it, the left arm with its sleeve torn off stood out prominently. She was Left Arm. An elder who competed for the 1st or 2nd rank in strength in this immortal village, and the godmother of the immortals.
The immortals called out to her with a sense of relief.
"This is not the time for that! The Offering God has personally ordered it!"
"My ears aren't deaf yet. Stop screaming."
Scratching her ear as if annoyed, she stepped forward, still wearing a sullen expression.
"That's why I left it to you. Dealing with an intruder rather than a guest makes for less restless sleep. Tsk tsk. But even so, it seems it has come down to me stepping in."
Grumbling as she clapped her hands, she suddenly grabbed a log next to her and threw it at me. Instantly, the massive log filled my vision. There was no point in trying to block or dodge this. Hit directly by the log, I became a single mass and rolled far away.
"However. Since it's come to this, this old body can't be left resting either! That's enough of your antics! Get up, youngster!"
Tch. She doesn't even give me a chance to let my guard down.
I pushed away the log, which had already grown lush with leaves, and stood up. Thanks to making branches and leaves grow using Druidism, the impact wasn't that significant. Just because I have regenerative abilities doesn't mean I have to take every hit.
"My. The whole village mobilizes at a single word from the Offering God. Will you be alright?"
"The Offering God ordered so! But now, that doesn't matter! If we can't catch a single rat that messed up the village, how can we protect our traditions and children!"
'Left Arm' tightly bound her left arm with a leather strap she pulled out from somewhere. And when she put strength into her left arm, the left arm offered to the Offering God was compressed as hard as rock.
"We were born as warriors! I will fight you with the pride of a warrior!"
***
"Yeah. Meiel. I know what you're trying to say. But you know,"
Shea, who had been watching the fight, suddenly opened her mouth. The Saint of Heaven slightly turned her gaze and listened to her words.
"Hughes might not be as bad a person as you say?"
The Saint of Heaven sees the future. To her, even this situation where the King of Humans was engaging in battle with barbaric civilization was a strand of the future she had 'seen'. She wouldn't be surprised no matter what. Because it was inside the prophecy.
However, she cannot see the future of another Saint. Therefore, Shea's doubts were all outside the prophecy.
The Saint of Heaven, too, was a girl bestowed with enlightenment by the first Saint in the distant past. No matter how powerful she is, limits exist. Meiel agonized and answered Shea's words.
[Shea. I'm not trying to argue his good or evil, but showing you his essence. If there is no respect for what has been built, there will be constant conflict. If he wins and tears down the order, only a wild nature where the law of the jungle prevails will remain in its place. That in itself can be called evil.]
"Yeah. That's true, but how should I put it. Hughes didn't exactly try to destroy all rules and order, you know? Even though he did scrape at their insides."
And Shea was one of the most unpredictable people among the humans Meiel had experienced.
"And there were some slightly unpleasant things about the immortal village for me too, you know? Hughes probably wanted to mock those."
[What is that?]
"It's hard to put into words. Maybe that they act a bit high and mighty? It feels less like they're helping well and more like they're ignoring you well. It gave me a subtle sense of discomfort."
She's moody. Regardless of Shea's friendship with the King of Humans, she took his side because there were parts of the immortal village that oddly annoyed her.
Shea is simple. Because of that, she is harder to understand. Meiel let out a small sigh as she looked at her, the one who would become the wedge of the future.
[The immortals are the only village on this land with a stable system. Even when the World Tree burned and Wu Hou died, this village survived. Even if it originated from evil, their order supported one axis of this myriad of nations. Yet, do you think a bloodbath must blow through the immortal village?]
"Huh? Probably won't go as far as a bloodbath? Would Hughes really go out of his way to kill all those people?"
[Yes. He accepted the challenge. He fights and defeats those who risked their lives to challenge him to protect their meager pride, primitive faith, and barbaric traditions. And he kills those who fought with the resolve to die, and spares only those who wish to live cowardly.]
"Is that the future you saw?"
[It is a future that has already been realized.]
The future seen by the Saint of Heaven is nearly absolute. Unless Shea stepped in personally to twist it, it would generally come true as is. Even knowing from experience that it was true, Shea was half in doubt.
"That's weird. Doesn't seem like he would."
There are many who won't believe unless it is shown to them. Meiel decided to show her the truth.
[Watch, Shea. The deed he has wrought.]