Chapter 547 - Vs. Virillius Augustus VIII

  Boris readily opened his mouth and swallowed the souls that were offered. Most had been recycled over the years, with some of the particularly unlucky having reincarnated as many as fifty thousand times. Still, there was at least a googol packed into the morsel. Eudysseus had birthed a super civilization many, many, many times more advanced than Mara’s. They’d conquered not just planets, but whole galaxies, terraforming the planets to better suit their needs so that they could spread across the stars.

  And they were only one of the myriad seeds that Claire had sowed among the stars.

  Not all of them proved successful. Only half the worlds she’d blessed with life managed to establish civilizations at all. And even fewer had advanced to the point of spreading all over their planets.

  But with so many permutations, so many chances, and so much direct interference, some were bound to succeed. And those that did established their presence all across her ever-expanding zone of control.

  Still, they ended.

  Rather, she ended them.

  She compressed the space she’d stolen into a single tiny point and snuffed out all their lives without so much as a second thought. Just so she could feed them to Boris.

  And yet, nothing seemed to happen. Even after ingesting every last soul, he simply sat still, unchanged.

  It was only as the world unfroze—as her father and the gods finally got over the callous indifference with which she’d committed mass murder and began to express their confusion—that she finally met her lizard’s eyes.

  And then, finally, after a pair of silent nods, he began his advancement.

  The near-infinite power trapped in his stomach rippled through his body. A veritable rainbow of light overflowed from his mana veins and swallowed the seventh realm in its entirety.

  But then, just as quickly as it’d formed, it vanished. It wasn’t sucked back in. It didn’t evaporate. It didn’t fade away.

  It simply vanished as the system sang its song.

  And not because he’d taken a step.

  But because he’d taken two.

  Notice

  Boris has ascended to the Divine Throne and become the God of Comatose Omnipotence and Animated Armaments.

  The system-wide experience-multiplier has been lowered from 40% to 35%.

  System-wide bonuses for rest and bodily transformation have increased in effectiveness.

  Sleeping has been enabled for all individuals classed as sentient weapons.

  The Napping skill has become more potent and is no longer strictly self-targeted. The potency of the associated well-rested bonus has increased by 1500%. The Napping skill now actively heals the target for 10% of their maximum health per systemic minute.

  The Insomniac class has been removed. All instances of the Insomniac class have been replaced with the Napper class.

  The Napper class’ requirement count has fallen from 4 to 1.

  The Napper class’ evolution has been accelerated from level 50 to level 25.

  The Napper class has become capable of evolving into the Kidnapper class.

  The Napper class has become capable of evolving into the Dreamwalker class.

  The Living Armour class has become capable of accessing the Shapeshifting skill.

  The Living Armour class has become capable of mutating into the Living Weapon class.

  The Living Weapon class’ ability score coefficient has risen from 33 to 105.

  The Living Weapon class has gained access to the Execute skill. Living weapons deal increased damage against lower-health targets.

  The Living Weapon class has gained access to the Endure skill. While being wielded, living weapons are more durable and are capable of ignoring fatal damage not in excess of their maximum health.

  The Living Weapon class’ Self-Repair skill has been enhanced. Base recovery rate increased.

  The number of ability points gained for each Living Weapon level has risen from 4 to 13.

  The system vomited a wall of text. There were hundreds if not thousands of classes in the list. Whole species were changed in an instant, evolved in the blink of an eye into newly-crafted superior variants as they were bathed in his divine essence.

  Worming its way through the system, his power spread through not only the seven hospitable universes, but even those that had long fallen to ruin, and those that had yet to mature. Every world within each was doused in his strength. So many lives were affected that, even in his overwhelming divinity, he was incapable of producing a number.

  The gods could not keep silent.

  Some screamed across the divine space in which the observers were gathered. Some screamed into Claire’s ear and demanded explanations. And some pulled her into World Chat to sweet talk her into divulging her methods.

  Because there was a problem.

  Even though he was newly born, even though he’d never once been Celestial, even though he’d clearly done nothing to deserve his divine power, he was more powerful than average. In time, his power would only accrue. And with his name newly announced, his worshipper count was sure to explode across all seven realities.

  The most advanced civilizations were sure to be the ones that prayed to him the loudest, for any weapon with true artificial intelligence was immediately bolstered by his power. And oh so many of them there were.

  That was why they clamoured for attention.

  But Claire broke free of all their clutches.

  Swinging her lizard, she shattered the very fabric of reality, obliterating not just her World Chat module, but the accompanying systemic communication layer that backed it.

  All the voices fell silent.

  Even the ones not directed at her.

  It was a system-wide outage, restored only when Flitzegarde rebooted it, albeit with the ability to contact Claire disabled. The goddess made sure to include her father and her lizard in the blacklist as well, just to prevent the particularly foolish from interfering with the duel.

  Giving Boris another few light swings, and confirming that he still felt the same in her hand, Claire pointed him at her father with a smile.

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  “What do you think?” she asked, cheekily. “Pretty good trick, right?”

  “Claire…” He massaged the bridge of his nose and breathed a heavy, tired sigh. “You really are your mother’s daughter.”

  “Somehow, I doubt Mother has ever driven half the pantheon to disbelief.”

  “Perhaps not. But she was always far too mischievous for her own good.”

  “I know.” Claire cracked open Boris’ mouth with a flick of the wrist and stuck her arm inside again. “That’s half the reason she was killed.”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “What?” A fire lit in his eyes—a cold but searing flame. He clenched his fists so hard that his weapons began to crack. Even made of his own divinity, they could not handle his unfettered power.

  “I’ll tell you if you win,” she said, with a smirk.

  He bit his lips for a few moments before shaking his head and raising his weapon with a laugh. “Fine.”

  “Oh, and since we’re surprising the audience, maybe you should stop lying about your ultimate.”

  She didn’t even need to look to know that she’d driven another freakout in both Valencia and the Divine Realm.

  But even that played second fiddle to the moment that Boris closed his jaws.

  He bit down and sucked, taking her blood straight into his body.

  The skill that required it was technically no longer an ultimate. In fact, it wasn’t even a skill anymore. Gods didn’t have skills. It was precisely because they’d transcended the system that they were divine to begin with. But Boris could still call upon the function. He was a god, after all, even if he did only have a couple billion devotees.

  The world twisted and warped.

  The surrounding stars almost seemed to lose their shape as they were sucked towards the girl and her lizard. Because they’d suddenly released so much raw mana that the very fabric of reality began to lose its form. It cracked and splintered, breaking apart as Boris ran his magic through his offering. Despite all appearances, it was not Claire’s flesh.

  It was the Phantom Blood—the Blood of House Augustus.

  Their might was felt across the universe. Across every world that dotted the realm.

  Even back on Mara, ten quadrillion light-years away, they felt it the moment that it was engaged.

  Grinning, Virillius put together an apocalyptic spell of his own. Tracing a circle with one arm, he crafted a magic formation as large as the sun. His formula was so densely inscribed that it was impossible to read, let alone decipher. Finally free of Claire’s realm—without his resources being actively drained, and without his spells being torn apart—he was able to demonstrate the full extent of his power.

  It was a race to see which of the two would be first to produce their constructions.

  And Claire was in the lead.

  The magic she’d poured into their surroundings returned to her, condensing as a silver membrane that envelopped lizard and wielder alike.

  It began to bubble and morph, to grow into an all-powerful weapon.

  Its ultimate shape was that of a lance—a giant, glimmering shieldlance that extended past her fist and shoulder alike. The silver of its body was marked by countless runes, but only for a moment. They quickly vanished, disappearing beneath his skin as another dozen layers were scribbled overtop. Each was a further enchantment, another bit of strength pulled from the world of dreams and hallucinations. And each came with another set of eyes. Unlike Claire’s, which were all condensed down to a tiny fraction of their original size and put into their proper places, Boris’ eyes were spread all over his body. They all moved in tandem, shrinking and multiplying every time the lizard blinked.

  It was a knock-on effect of his divinity.

  Or more specifically, the combination of his divinity and the Phantom Blood.

  And then, right as he shut his eyes again, Claire swung him.

  She didn’t bother moving from her spot. Simply aiming his edge at her father, she broke the world apart.

  Because it was unnecessary.

  There was no travel time.

  There was no delay between the moment she swung her weapon and the moment the strike was delivered, regardless of the amount of distance between them. For in the dream world, there was no such thing as a link between cause and effect. All was simply as Claire saw it, as she thought and expected.

  And by ingesting the Phantom Blood—the blood that marked her as one of the dream world’s masters—Boris was able to bring it into reality, to twist the real world’s rules so that they would be as his mistress commanded.

  It was different from divinity. Though rule-breaking, divinity still required a strict order of operations and sequence of events. It was simply an override somewhere in the chain, a forced recomputation under a newly defined set of parameters.

  The Phantom Blood, on the other hand, was entirely rule-agnostic.

  Claire had decided that she wanted to slash her father from far away, land the hit directly upon his body, and release so much energy that she would flat-out destroy everything in her path.

  And that was exactly what happened.

  The total amount of magic that existed in the seventh realm increased twelvefold as she obliterated nearly a tenth of all its matter.

  But her father still stood.

  Hell, he was undamaged.

  He didn’t even bother faking the usual ultimate. He simply struck the attack with the butt of his spear and forced it to disperse around him. And then, he completed his own spell. Rising from his feet, his magic circle rotated and took up the space in front of him before unleashing a hail of blades—an armada of crimson spears that each fired three more of their own.

  In a way, they were almost reminiscent of Claire’s orbital bombardment. But they weren’t nearly so primitive.

  The whole first wave launched at once, with every single blade aimed right at her chest. At a glance, it looked like there was enough space between them for one to dash right through, but each moved at a different, ever-changing, superluminal speed, ensuring that they would be difficult if not impossible to evade. And that was just the very first wave.

  A second was hot on its tail, and then a third, a fourth, and a billionth.

  Eudysseus was the attack’s first victim. Claire teleported the planet between them and used it as a shield, only to watch as the closest projectile tore into its core and detonated it in a violent explosion, all without losing a hint of speed. Every last bit of its mass was instantly converted to energy.

  With a frown, she swung Boris and released another magical blast just as powerful as her first.

  But that too was reversed.

  While Eudysseus had gone from mass to energy, Claire’s strike was subjected to the opposite effect and turned from energy to mass—another, even denser wave of spears.

  It was a potent, unavoidable, and unblockable attack.

  But it never reached her.

  Shoulderhorse sucked the projectiles right up and erased them from existence. The pony’s ability had once been impossibly expensive. She needed to expend twice as much mana as the caster in order to suck up a spell. But as it turned out, Claire’s pool was infinite.

  With the pony—with Greymane—doing his job, there was no way for magic to affect her.

  Ever since her fourth ascension, she had been effectively immune.

  Urging Boris to take another drink of blood, Claire took exactly one step forward. By way of hallucination, she was already right up in her father’s face. And by way of hallucination, her lance was already in his throat.

  Or at least, it should have been.

  That was just how the ability worked.

  Or rather, how it should have worked.

  But they were stuck in a quantum state. Her lance was both buried in his neck and not, somehow existing in two places as the very universe twisted, groaned, and struggled to compute the outcome.

  An instant and an eternity in one as the phenomenon continued to bounce between manifestation and cancellation.

  And then, finally, it ruled against her.

  Boris was deflected by her father’s spear even though he should have long sunk into his flesh.

  Not missing a beat, Claire twisted her body into a spinning slash while calling for Collarsaur and activating Compulsory Liquidation—the goddess’ killing blow. Her father blocked again. But the second time, she was ready.

  Engaging her ultimate, she ignored his attempt at defense and delivered a blow straight into his gut. The accompanying damage should have closed the duel. The damage she’d dealt was a million times greater than his health, but he shrugged it off and sent her flying with a kick in the gut.

  Her spine snapped.

  Though made of a substance beyond true ice, though clearly, certainly unbreakable, it snapped right in half as she was sent tumbling through the stellar system.

  Just like her phantom blood, its signature property was flatly denied.

  Because the gloves were off.

  Virillius had activated his ultimate.