Snatch.
Someone grabbed ____.
And ____, who was grabbed by the shoulder, was startled.
It wasn't the only thing that startled.
“……!”
Hugo, who was confronting ____, was also forced to be startled.
And with good reason—the thing grabbing ____'s shoulder was none other than a pale hand!
Of course, it wasn't Igeon.
The face that emerged from the gate above ____'s head was clearly…!
“!!”
Sure enough, ____, grabbed by the man, also glared.
“What! Why is this bastard…!!!”
____ immediately tried to shake off ____'s hand as if it had bugs on it.
But it was at that moment.
Crunch!!
“Aaaack!!!”
Along with a blinding black flash, ____'s scream rang out.
And when Hugo, who'd squeezed his eyes shut against the flash, reopened them, he was startled.
‘This…!’
Indeed.
____'s shoulder and the right side of his upper body had been severed.
And from the severed torso, strange black demonic energy was gushing along with blood.
That was unmistakably the monarch's demonic energy.
And perhaps because it was no lie that he'd been born a human, ____, his physical body destroyed, was in extreme agony.
“You son of a…!!”
And then it happened.
‘!’
At last, the bastard fully revealed himself from within the gate.
Hugo immediately went on guard, but ____, encountering his older brother, screamed hysterically.
“Goddammit! Why the hell did you come here!!”
Yet even at ____'s curses, ____ raised the corner of his mouth with unruffled calm.
[You worked hard, little brother. Your time ends here.]
“What do you mea… Aaaack!!!”
____ vomited blood at yet another flying attack from ____.
As soon as Time snapped his fingers, ____ collapsed without putting up any resistance.
And so Hugo was bewildered.
‘That ____ with just one hit…!?’
No matter how he looked, that bastard was a monarch.
As proof, in the Alps, with a single finger he'd turned the trapped Giselle into a chunk of meat!
And now, having evolved to the level of a vassal deity. Hugo could gauge the magnitude of that power at a glance.
‘____ possesses the power to annihilate Earth in one blow.’
If that bastard appeared in his true form, he was a final boss-level being who could obliterate Earth in an instant!
But this ____ was laid low by a single finger?
‘That bastard…!!’
Indeed, it was no wonder Heli had warned him never to approach.
But regardless of that, ____, veins bulging, pulled something from his chest.
“You damn unlucky bastard, you think I'll take this lying down from someone like you!”
Had he perhaps prepared something specifically for ____?
But at the object ____ was trying to bring out, Hugo flinched.
He had identified the nature of the item.
‘Yeonu-ssi!’
It was unmistakable.
It was an ordinary glass bottle, but well.
‘The feeling is exactly the same as the fragment of Yeonu-ssi's soul that Geon was carrying.’
The 10% chunk of soul taken from the fish deity.
Moreover, what ____ held was on an entirely different dimension from the 10% his friend possessed.
‘90%!’
Surely it was all of Yeonu's remaining soul.
But that was not all.
‘I can feel ____'s energy from Yeonu-ssi's soul?’
Though not as potent as ____'s, it was faintly perceptible.
Well, it wasn't incomprehensible.
‘Since Yeonu-ssi was probably the god who handled ____'s divine authority.’
Unlike Igeon, in the previous generation, Yeonu and Junu seemed to have been the ones respectively wielding ____ and ____.
But soon ____ laughed.
“I know you were trying to use the soul of this former serpent lord deity!”
____ immediately opened the lid.
“No matter how faint, the serpent lord deity is still a deity! I'll make good use of this!”
But just as he was about to use this soul.
Bang!!!
“!!!”
A brutal strike aimed for ____'s arm.
And at that moment, when the blow struck Chaos's arm!
“Kugh!”
The small bottle holding Yeonu's soul flipped from ____'s grasp and fell to the floor.
Thanks to that, ____ glared at Hugo, who had launched the strike.
‘That bastard interfered to the very end!’
____ hurriedly tried to retrieve the bottle.
“Where do you think you're going!!”
Hugo swiftly snatched up the bottle.
____'s eyes bulged as he tried to kill Hugo.
“You little…!”
A vicious demonic energy tried to engulf Hugo, but it was only for a moment.
Boom!!!
“Aaaack!!!”
____'s back was gouged by ____'s attack. Simultaneously, ____ was dragged into the gate.
“Youuu…!!”
____ laughed slyly.
[Killing that bastard won't do.]
At least, not here.
Hugo felt a chill at that gaze.
And ____'s screams, sucked into the gate, echoed out.
It sounded as if his body were being pulverized.
In the end, as Hugo froze at those screams, ____ laughed.
____ leisurely entered the gate.
But then it happened.
[Oh right. I almost forgot.]
“……!!”
____ had vanished.
At the same instant, Hugo's body froze.
An icy cold hand touched his neck.
And that was none other than ____!
Indeed.
____ was behind him.
With his neck seized, Hugo felt his breath choke off.
It was terror.
The terror of dying.
Simultaneously, the terror of seeing a future where humanity and gods alike are annihilated.
As if shoved into a coffin with breath constricting, neither hand nor leg would move.
And the bastard retrieved Yeonu's soul, which had gone into Hugo's pocket.
[This is not something for the likes of you to possess.]
“……!!”
Even as ____ took Yeonu's soul, Hugo could not move his body.
But that was only for a moment.
Hugo, who had bit his lip until it bled, suppressed the terror with pain and shouted with fighting spirit.
“Don't ignore me!”
Finally, Hugo shot an arrow at them, about to vanish into the gate.
Kwa-kwa-kwang!
____ appeared extremely surprised.
[!!]
Something strange had stuck to his arm.
And then.
Slice!
[!]
____'s forearm was severed and fell to the floor.
The arm that had been holding Yeonu's soul.
Because of that, ____ widened his eyes, but soon laughed.
[Indeed. So this is what faith of 600% becomes upon reaching vassal deity.]
____ let out a scoff, as if amazed.
Had he perhaps not expected things to turn out this way?
And though he'd tried somehow to retrieve Yeonu's soul, perhaps his allotted time to linger had run out.
[It can't be helped.]
Thus the gate completely shut.
____ and ____ had wholly vanished from this place.
In the end, after some time had passed.
Once their demonic energy had completely dissipated, Hugo sighed in relief and slumped down.
‘It was so instantaneous, I had no time to summon Geon.’
But Hugo, picking up Yeonu's soul, felt relieved.
It was because of the cheers resounding from all over the city.
“Waaaaaah!!! The monsters are retreating!”
“This is ____nim bringing everyone else back to life!!!”
Hugo smiled.
‘At any rate, it seems the city's defense was a success.’
Thanks to the deity named Igeon.
It appeared humanity had received salvation once more after twenty years.
* * *
-Can you see that! The dead are coming back to life all across the city!
-Igeon is resurrecting people!
-My word, resurrection—I've never seen or heard of such a thing!
-Perhaps, as snakes were depicted as beings of resurrection in the past, could it be that he is indeed the Seat of Resurrection?
-In any case, due to this incident, faith that had been directed at other deities is gathering toward Igeon!
-However, separate from this, there is a sentiment of regret being expressed by citizens...
-Regret?
-Yes! Young Igeon-nim was cute!
-That's right! It's an otherworldly cuteness! Please, just one more time in that youthful form!! No, stay that way forever...!!
-There are rumors that with ____'s ability, he could transform back into that youthful form; wouldn't it be possible once more?
“Ah, what are those little bastards saying!!”
In the end, Igeon, who was watching TV, burst his veins.
At the same time, he nearly flung away the gukbap he was eating.
“After all the suffering I went through, they're telling me to shrink again, damn it all!”
“P-please calm down. Everyone is expressing gratitude to Igeon-nim. And it really was genuinely cute, so...”
“What?!”
Igeon glared at the civil servants beside him.
Indeed.
Igeon was now at a large gukbap restaurant within the city.
Since city restoration was still in full swing and the monster extermination hadn't been completed, most of the holy ones were being supported with meals while they devoted themselves to restoration.
Well, amidst all that, Igeon refused.
“Ah, whatever. Just continue the report you were giving.”
“Ah, yes! The observatory is being restored, and the monsters that entered the world city are being driven out beyond the dome. The holy ones have exerted themselves!”
“And from all over, gratitude for Igeon-nim...”
“Ah. What. Those holy ones are alive? They're useless bastards anyway, they should've just died along with the monsters.”
“……!!”
The civil servants broke into a cold sweat, thinking that even when revered, Igeon was still Igeon.
“The monsters?”
“Ah... yes! The monsters are still swarming outside the dome. It seems they're still eyeing an entry into the city.”
“Will it be alright? If they manage to get inside the dome again...”
Igeon said,
“It should be fine for the time being. The reason the dome was breached this time wasn't a physical breach—it was opened from the inside because of Yongyong's siblings.”
Thanks to people's faith, the power of the serpent lord's seat was also rising.
The ____ of the serpent lord's seat, which protected the world, was firmly guarding the land of humanity.
However.
‘This state can't last long.’
A month at most.
They needed to begin exterminating those bastards soon.
And with high probability, the last monarch who'd invaded Earth.
If ____ were struck down, they could drive out the monsters and attain the eternal victory humanity had long awaited.
Well, to do that, they would need to prepare for the final war, of course.
And it was then.
[All divine authorities have reached Stage 4.]
[Now, there is not long left until you leave the fledgling stage and become a complete deity.]
[Depending on which side awakens first, you may become the God of ____ or the God of ____, and the other will automatically vanish.]
At that notification, Igeon narrowed his brow.
‘As expected, I can only choose one of the two.’
But if his prediction was correct, ____ and ____ could be used simultaneously.
“If I raise experience evenly and evolve them at the same time, maybe both will become Stage 5.”
But at those words, the deities under him spoke.
[____ and ____ are powers that even that genius 13th Original Inhabitant could not fully handle on his own.]
“What?”
It was the blazing serpent lord side that spoke.
[The fact that he couldn’t wield both by himself was too great a risk, so in the end, he distributed them to his vassals.]
“Really?”
Surely that was why Yeonu and Junu were each made to use ____ and ____ separately.
[Of course, as the divine authorities were split, their power diminished.]
“The power diminished? By how much?”
[Even a Stage 5 power, when split between two deities, probably dropped to around Stage 3 level.]
“……!”
Meaning, the ____ and ____ that Yeonu or Junu used were not the complete forms.
At the same time, Igeon realized.
That even though ____ had extracted the serpent lord's power from Yeonu, he must have remained dissatisfied.
‘What that bastard wanted was power at Stage 5 or above.’
So since Yeonu ended in failure...
Well, it didn’t matter anyway.
‘I need ____ to deal with ____.’
Naturally, Yongyong's siblings had used ____'s Stage 3 technique, Creation, to generate all sorts of things and kill them.
‘But there's no way that would work on a monarch-class.’
Because ____ was a bastard who could instantly revert any such creations back to nothingness.
And to be honest, he himself still couldn't figure out how to kill the time traveler.
‘There must be a way.’
And if it really came down to it, even if it meant choosing the God of ____...
But just then.
“No!!”
“!”
Startled by the voice that suddenly burst through the door, Igeon was taken aback.
The one who entered was Hugo.
And seeing him, Igeon was dumbfounded.
“Why are you here? Not going to the gynecologist with Jiu-ssi?”
“What? Is Jiu sick somewhere?!”
“No. Not that.”
“Then what kind of bullshit is that! At our age, why the hell would we go to a gynecologist!”
Igeon groaned.
This bastard, still clueless.
Well, it wasn't certain, so he'd told Jiu-ssi to go to the hospital first.
Then Hugo, fuming, sat down in front of Igeon.
“Anyway, you can't choose the God of ____!”
“What. Did you read my mind?”
“No! I just figured you'd do that!”
Hugo sat down, huffing.
‘On top of that, what that bastard is aiming for is the God of ____.’
Did Igeon think he'd let things flow according to the monsters' wishes?
“It has to be ____, unconditionally!”
Well, it didn’t matter.
Hugo beamed at the grumbling Igeon.
“Take this. I picked it up on the way. You bastard.”
Hugo placed something on the table.
It was Yeonu's soul.
(Continued in the next episode)