174. Meeting with the God of Death, Gera

After I defeated the God of Darkness, Hai Yanta, the Unrivaled God Karupedan appeared.

They must have been observing this fight from somewhere.

They had an angry look in their eyes and a scowl on their face.

It must be because of the King’s Marbles.

They must know that by bringing a mountain-load marbles with me, I could defeat anyone excluding themselves.

I bluntly asked the speechless Karupedan.

“Why are you staring at me like that?”

“Uu……. Obvious victories are no fun.”

“I’m just doing as you decided, right? I’m perfectly following those rules you’ve set.”

“Kehe. I guess so. Shall we go meet another god?”

“Huh? Well, sure. Do as you will……”

I thought that they had just looked over this a lot easier than I thought they would have.

It was strange.

If they changed the rules to which we’ve agreed upon now, it was true that it’d be a huge problem for me.

Karupedan continued to walk forward slowly.

Usually, they would’ve teleported my snapping their fingers.

From the beginning, it was incredibly difficult to even guess at what they were thinking.

“But you know.”

“Hm?”

“The God of Darkness, Hai Yanta, died.”

“Yep!”

“To cut to the chase, will Earth’s nights disappear?”

“Hey. What do you take me for. Have you forgotten that I am an Unrivaled God?”

“Ah……”

“All those you will be killing going forward, I can do all their jobs in their stead, so don’t worry. Their duties were carried out by such trivial powers. There’s no way I couldn’t do them, is there?”

“…….”

“Kehe. Right. I will eventually die by your hands too, right?”

“You speak of it so easily that it’s hard to comprehend for me.”

“You wouldn’t know. A life where you welcome and look forward to death. What would a human know, when they only live a hundred years?”

“I guess so. So what will happen once you die?”

“You can do it instead.”

“Huh?”

“Didn’t I mention this before? If you kill a god, all their abilities are transferred onto you. Even the powers I have, you will inherit.”

“Are you telling me to feel the same pain you’ve felt until now?”

“Kehe. Dunno, not sure what will happen. You’ve heard already from Barub, right? As expected, he speaks too easily.”

“……”

“It’s as Barub said. I was a god from the start. I don’t remember anything before that. Even though I’m an Unrivaled God who holds the reins of the celestial plane. Isn’t that funny? Despite not even remembering my past, I control all dimensions.”

“……..”

“However, it’s different for you, right? You’re slowly building up your strength to rise to the up. There’s no guarantee that you’ll go through the same process. Not only that, but you’ll keep your memories of the past.”

“I asked a pointless question. After all, none of your mean spirited pranks will end until I kill you.”

“Kuhut. True, true.”

“But why are we walking towards the next destination? We can go there easily, can’t we?”

“No real reason. Just because. I guess I want to enjoy what time remains? Look around. Isn’t it beautiful and wonderful?”

“Whew…. Sure. Who’s next?”

“Lai Yanta. The God of Light. Light and darkness. If only one of them disappear, then the other becomes pointless. There needs to be light in order for darkness to stand out, and there needs to be darkness for light to be beautiful.”

“Hard to believe that the one saying this ordered me to kill them.”

“Heh. Is that so?”

I followed them for a long while.

In Earth’s time, it seemed that we had been walking for over 3 hours.

Karupedan was walking far ahead of me, and looking at their back, I felt a sense of loneliness.

Is it because I’ve come to grasp their past and future somewhat? I knew that they had a part in the portals that appeared on Earth, but I couldn’t help but feel pity.

Soon, the god stopped in their tracks.

It seemed that we had arrived at our destination.

They directed me towards where I needed to go by raising their chin, then promptly hid their form.

There, I could see a cube shaped tunnel.

Similar to an entrance of an evacuation bunker, a door on each side made a small doorway.

Walking over there at once, I opened the door and went down.

A light so intense that I nearly couldn’t open my eyes lit up the entire area.

Almost as if starting at the sun, I felt pain in my eyes.

No matter how much I had physically grown, it seemed that I couldn’t do much against the light emitted from a god.

Without a choice, I had to close my eyes and rely on Eye of Insight as I moved forward.

Going down the last step, it happened as I arrived on the smooth floor that seemed polished.

“What…. Are you? Are you the one who killed Hai Yanta?”

“……”

I could hear a clean and pure voice, as if jade marble was rolling around.

The source of the voice was a woman dressed in fancy clothing and accessories.

A peerless beauty. There was no other way to describe her beauty.

With clothing fitting of a heroine from fairy tales and slender tall height, you could say that she was the definition of what a beauty was.

However, no matter how she looked, it didn’t change the fact that she had a part in making the portals on Earth.

Fluttering her dress, Lai Yanta came closer and spoke.

“Well, I want to thank you. He had a form that was too unsightly for a god. He wasn’t beautiful at all. Isn’t that so?”

“Lai Yanta?”

“That’s right. I am the Goddess of Light, Lai Yanta. How do I look? How does my beauty that cannot be compared to his?”

“It seems everyone here is insane. Comparing this place to Earth, Earth is a really nice place to live. A fellow god like you has died. And on top of that, nothing like this had occurred before. Even still, you blabber on like a poisonous snake?”

“I figured something like this would eventually happen. To every god in the celestial plane. I didn’t expect peace to last forever.”

“……”

“The one to have you kill the gods must be Karupedan, right? On top of that, you must’ve obtained a massive amount of power from them. That’s why you were able to kill Hai Yanta.”

“Nope. The only help I got from them was being guided to this place. As you are aware, they’re quite out of their mind.”

“I guess so. If any help was given, it must be from Gera. A sympathetic God of Death. Isn’t that quite the irony? This place is quite amusing.”

“Since you know of my goal, I won’t drag this on.”

“Oh. You’re planning to kill me? Even though I’m this beautiful?”

“Are you saying that while considering the age difference between the two of us? You’re way too old. Not beautiful at all.”

“Look at how you talk….. You really aren’t beautiful at all, aren’t you human?”

“Even so, you’ll be ash when you die, just like the rest. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Hm…. Do you really think so?”

“Yep. I guarantee it. You cannot beat me. It’s the same with all the other gods.”

“Hoho.”

“AH!”

With a deafening roar, Lai Yanta emitted a light intense enough to call it the light of the century.

Not only could I not open my eyes at all, but it was almost too bright for me to see her form using my Eye of Insight.

It seemed that the powerful light that was penetrating even through my closed eyes was making me lose my sight.

Urgently swallowing a King’s Marble, I tried to block the light with my hands.

“I’m not sure how it was with Hai Yanta, but it’ll be different with me.”

“……”

I could feel my body burning up in an instant.

At the wave of her hand, the light became solid projectiles and flew towards me, causing a massive explosion.

To think that I’d be able to feel hot despite consuming a King’s Marble.

Not only that, but to think that even during my invincible state, I couldn’t stop the light from blocking out my sight.

I didn’t take any serious damage, but I couldn’t hide my surprise at how much it was affecting me.

Was this the reason why Karupedan didn’t say much regarding the use of the marbles?

I felt slightly more afraid of the powers that the gods I’ll be meeting in the future wielded.

Covering my eyes with one hand, I raised the other. Then.

“What? You unsightly fool!”

“I don’t like seeing that beautiful face pathetically crumple. Seems I’ll have to turn off the light?”

“Kuuu!”

The area around me and Lai Yanta was suddenly covered in darkness.

That’s right. I had used the power that I had obtained from Hai Yanta.

Lai Yanta and Hai Yanta.

Their powers were incredible and were equal to each other, but with my mana and magical energy empowering it, the darkness was enough to overpower the light.

The light that lit up the area began to shrink, and the light that she emitted also began to dim.

The darkness was slowly eating away at Lai Yanta’s light.

Quite frightened, she tried to break through the darkness that was closing in her like a cage.

If she was able to get through the encasement of darkness I put around her, she would be able to use the light left around the area and put up a desperate struggle.

However, she didn’t have enough strength to do so.

This was the first time this goddess was facing against an overwhelming force.

Without being able to put up almost any resistance, she slowly lost her light.

“Kuaaa. This isn’t beautiful. No……”

“Why didn’t the two of you get along better? To be fair, in my arsenal of magical spells, do you know I have these spells called Meteor and Iceberg? How these two skills interact with each other is exactly how your relation is to each other, I guess.”

“Kuugh! Please stop it…. Please….. The light! The light is……”

“Please get rid of it. Please. The portals and monsters. Let us live. I’m sure you’ve heard many prayers like these. Isn’t that so?”

“Kuhgh! Please……”

“Think of it as punishment for your crimes. This punishment is too light compared to what your small little head cruelly conjured up.”

“Kuuu…..”

I was able to defeat the Goddess of Light, Lai Yanta, without doing much.

All I did was use the power I obtained from Hai Yanta.

I could’ve destroyed her by a bombardment of attacks, but you could say that I chose a quicker and easier method.

This also was a chance for me to test out my new power.

Completely encased in darkness, her body turned cold and rigid, unlike the beautiful form that she had sought after.

Her beautiful form was nowhere to be seen, and it was as if I was looking at a twisted crop dried out from a drought.

At my will, the darkness dissipated, and the bright line that lit up the area had already disappeared.

From where she fell, her soul rose up like smoke and came towards me.

It was the same as when I had defeated the god of darkness.

It was the process of her power being inherited by me.

Her soul that finished leaving her body was instantly absorbed by me.

“Ah….. It’s a disgusting feeling as expected.”

“Kehe.”

“Is it amusing?”

I didn’t know when they had arrived, but Karupedan was standing right next to me.

“Nope. It’s so boring that it’s nearly unfun.”

“Then why didn’t you stop it? I’m sure that you can change the rules if you wanted to? You could even get rid of the King’s Marbles as if they never existed in the first place.”

“Then I’d have to change too much. If you didn’t have these marbles….. Then you wouldn’t be alive, and who would I be killed off by? Hehe. Moron.”

“…….”

“Kehe. Will you keep going like this?”

“Yep. There’s no point in dragging this out, right?”

“Hm…. Then let’s go. The next is Gera. The God of Death, that is.”

“Gera…..”

“Kehe. Something amusing about what I said?”

“I’m sure that you know it all already, since you’ve been sneaking peeks, right? Don’t ask me something you already know.”

“Hehe. Yes, yes. This Unrivaled God dared to upset a human. Sorry.”

“……”

“Let’s go!”

-snap!