Ira didn’t hide his presence from the Gods. As he felt the growing hostility, he vanished somewhere distance, leading them further and further to the edges of the Divine Realm. Eventually, all the scenery vanished and all the only visible thing was a seemingly endless desert filled with white sand. The wind even failed to blow, leaving the land completely undisturbed, until Ira appeared that is.

“This is as good a place as any.” Ira grabbed a handful of the sand and let it fall between his fingers.

The Divine Realm was a constantly expanding gathering of varying lands. Any of which would upset the balance of power in the Mortal Realm as each contained traces of divine power. The value of such lands couldn’t be calculated and Ira had already destroyed many of those lands.

The Gods weren’t too far from his current position since he didn’t go through the trouble of hiding.

Ira closed his eyes and gathered all of the Void’s influence. As a result, granules of sand around him began to float into the air. The phenomenon spread across miles of the desert and Ira stood in the epicenter.

He established control over the surrounding the space. Knowing that the origin blade could easily sever it, Ira didn’t focus too much on it.

After that, he began to alter the space around him as well as his own mass. The ground underneath him began to sink slightly but it stopped as he pushed his alteration further.

Black mist drifted off the surface of Ira’s skin before covering his body like a second layer of skin. A quiet shockwave spread out from the area around him and the air began to stir.

As the distance between the Gods and Ira began to got shorter, Ira’s actions became quicker.

Ira’s eyes shot open and his body went alight, a low black flame drifting across the surface of the darkness that covered him. His black hair danced as if he stood in the middle of a storm but there was no violent wind around him.

The entire time, Ira remained silent, even as the Gods became visible. They sought to wage a one-sided war but no one expected Ira’s victory. In fact, some of the Gods didn’t even expect a fight but a swift capture.

Ten black lances rose out of the ground and began to orbit Ira.

“Avarus, have you decided to end it all here?” Xandes asked bemusedly as he watched Ira’s strange display.

Ira didn’t reply as he prepared to separate himself from reality. Meanwhile, the Gods also made an attacking formation while sealing the area.

“You showed me something nice…” Ira’s voice was distorted as it echoed across the area.

“Oh? And what is that?” Xandes asked languidly. Of course, he was only acting. He had tightly gripped his shield, expecting Ira to show a devastating display.

“Xandes, give the order to attack!” A God urged.

“Quiet. I’ll hear what he has to say. Get on with it, Avarus!” Xandes began to raise the sword.

“That sword...What it can do….I’d like to try it.” Ira raised his arm as he finished.

Feeling an immense sense of danger, Xandes pointed the sword toward him.

A ray of darkness was fired from Ira’s palm and met the origin beam head on. An unthinkable thing occurred as the two attacks combined into a grey sphere that continued to grow. It seemed to reach its peak as it exploded into a cloud of grey and dissipated soon after.

Xandes, as well as the army of Gods, remained silent under the clear stalemate. The idea of a weapon formed from Origin Realm failing began to take root and Xandes discarded his previous behavior.

“Attack! Attack now!” Xandes threw away the chariot and took to the sky with Origin Armor leaving a trail of colorful yet faint clouds behind him.

“I learned a lot from you Gods as well,” Ira said with a strange sound that seemed to be a laugh.

He fired off the black lances and they struck ten of the slowest Gods but that wasn’t the end of the ability.

“Aaah!”

“Help! Help!”

“No! What is this?!”

The ten victims began to swell up as if they were inflated with air and then they burst into a shower of tiny black orbs that began trailing after other Gods. Each time a black orb made contact, a God would be compressed into it and absorbed.

At the same time, three black wolf skulls rose from the ground, each one massive in its own right. The surface of the wolves seemed to be covered in an inky black liquid that bubbled ominously and spilled as they gnashed their teeth. Ira pointed in the general direction of the Gods and the wolf heads flew forward. They opened their jaws and an abyss formed at the end of their throats, pulling everything into it.

Suddenly, an origin beam cut through one of the wolf heads while the other two continued to swallow Gods whole.

“Xandes! Please!” A God shouted as he fired all the spells he could at the approaching wolf’s head.

Xandes ignored the plea for help and kept his eyes on Ira, though it was too late.

Ira separated himself from the laws of reality as the Gods moved to avoid his attacks. He raised his hands into the air and drove them into the sand, sinking them beneath its surface.

After his swift movement, hundreds of towering hands burst from the ground all around the Gods. They reached to the sky with their palms upturned and burning black orbs began forming in each of them.

“Xandes! Stop him! He tried that attack once before and it wiped half of us out!”

Xandes understood that it was time to take action as the losses would go beyond what he could accept.

“Stop there, Avarus!” The origin armor on Xandes body began to glow brightly. He swung his sword and a bright beam cut dozens of the hands apart, causing them to disappear.

He then aimed at Ira and fired an origin beam but it went straight through him.

“What?!” Xandes paused out of sheer confusion and it was then that Ira attacked.

The towering black hands that held black orbs began to descend toward the ground as if they were slamming their palms against the sand. As soon as they made contact with the white sand, spirals of black fire spun like tornadoes, ripping Gods into them.

“Avarus!” Xandes raised his origin shield and an iridescent clear dome formed around him as well as hundreds of other Gods.

Storm clouds resembling the Origin Storm surrounded the land while a whirlpool of burning shadows spun in the middle. The Gods who were caught up in the storm of darkness were burned away without a single trace while their own kind observed.

Since the rest of the Gods were hidden behind Xandes’ shield Ira took that time to mount an offensive attack. He accelerated his body forward but as the Gods watched, he seemed to be incredibly slow. As he advanced, the space behind him began to twist in a strangely mesmerizing way.

“Xandes, he’s coming!”

“Kill him! Forget about his secrets!”

“Do something!”

The Gods panicked as Ira’s form suddenly began to speed up.

“Quiet! Who do you think is keeping you alive?! Show some gratitude!” Xandes barked as he called forth even more of the Origin Realm.

Ira’s shadowy form suddenly appeared in the blink of an eye and his fist smashed into the barrier Xandes raised. Instead of a loud impact, there a was distant ringing sound that spread in the ears of the Gods.

A small crack formed on the barrier, too small to be seen and then it grew, spreading like a web. The damage in the barrier grew even more apparent as the burning whirlwind disappeared and only the origin clouds sat around them.

“Xandes…” A Goddess whimpered as she looked at the barrier riddled with fissures.

“It will hold have no worries- Again?!” Xandes’ eyes widened as noticed Ira pulling his fist back once more.

Once his hand was pulled back as far as it would go, the black flames covering his hand condensed until it his hand showed a glossy reflection. He didn’t say a word as he struck the barrier once more.

The glowing dome filled with origin energy was blasted apart and a wind that could blow mountains apart sent the Gods flying off into the distance and Xandes was no exception.

The howling tempest woke him out of his daze and thrust the sword downward as he hit the ground. Holding onto the sword with every bit of his strength, Xandes managed to withstand the windstorm that threw the other Gods into confusion.

When everything settled and all debris cleared, an expanse of crystals lay as far as the eyes of the Gods could see. Above them, a blanket of stars sat in the sky and it became clear that the entire space was destroyed and it wouldn’t be too much of an exaggeration to say an entirely new sub-realm was created.

Xandes grunted as he stood up and surveyed the result of his clash with Ira. Gods could be seen, completely thrown into disarray, but a large amount remained alive.

For some reason, Xandes suddenly felt compelled to look to a large pile of crystals far off in the distance. The pile shook and then began rising before a hand broke through.

“Why, Avarus?” Xandes muttered a question toward Ira whose body was revealed as climbed out.

“Why is it that all of you, your accursed race, fight against fate?!” Xandes shouted in pure rage. “Your kind outlived your era! There was no longer a need for mere beasts to watch over the Divine Realm! So why is it that you wish to resist?!”

As Ira freed himself from the pile of crystallized rubbled, he sent a cold glance at Xandes.

“You aren’t the first to ask me that,” Ira replied, thinking of the entity who guarded over both realms.

He could no longer use his reality separation but he prepared to fight against Xandes who also expanded the power of the Origin Realm inside his armaments in order to defend against Ira.

“I can show you the answer better than I can tell you.” Ira flashed a vicious grin before black mist covered his body once more.

“No, I’ll be the one to strip the answer from your bones!” Xandes pulled his sword from the ground and raised it high.

Ira had no worry of an origin beam being fired at him, but the blade itself was exponentially stronger than Godsteel.

Other Gods began to gather their bearings and slowly surrounded Ira, summoning whatever was left of their divine power which wasn’t much.

Ira looked around the battlefield once more, taking in the sight of the Gods. He flashed his sharp metallic teeth with a smile of pure delight.