With the spectators calm, Suijin resumed the questioning Dungeon-chan.

“Now then, miss Dungeon-chan,” Suijin spoke, floating back and forth in front of one of the three bronze pyramids the girl stood upon. “Tell us more about your interaction with the defendant.”

“W-well…” the girl stuttered. “The first thing she did was lay waste to the surrounding monsters I had carefully raised to lure adventurers. T-they weren’t even a threat to them! She just burned them all with one spell, along with the adventurers, turning the surrounding lush fields into an inferno!”

The crowds gasped and cursed again. To my dismay, Aphrodite didn’t bother to shut them up. For some reason, nearly every single person was now seemingly against me.

“What happened next?” Suijin asked the purple-haired girl.

“After that monster realized that the surrounding monsters posed virtually no threat, she used that as an indicator for the threat level of my dungeon.”

“Which was?”

“She was over-leveled for my dungeon and she knew it! That’s why she proceeded! She didn’t even bother to explore my meticulously crafted labyrinths and traps! She just stood at the entrance and burned up my dungeon to a crisp! All… my hard work…”

The girl broke down in tears and buried her face in her hands.

The crowds again erupted in anger, throwing more spoiled garbage at me from both the towering pyramids.

“No more questions,” Suijin said with a smirk and moved away.

“Does the defense have any questions to the witness?” Aphrodite asked.

“No, Your Honor,” Naunet replied.

No way… Something like this…

“I have certainly heard enough,” Aphrodite said and stood up. “In light of this new evidence I see no other choice but to find the defendant, Lilith, guilty of the crime of harassment. Better luck next time on other charges though, Suijin.”

I looked at Suijin. Despite landing only one charge out of the slew of accusations he threw at me, the water god seemed disturbingly satisfied.

Aphrodite looked directly at me and continued, “Lilith, you have been found guilty and are sentenced to five years in the depths of Suijin’s deepest, darkest watery prison. Without the right of appeal or parol, with endless options for renewal.”

“Hahahahahaha!” Suijin laughed like a maniac.

“F-f-f-five years?” I gasped and fell on my butt. That’s it, I thought. It’s over.

I looked up at the bronze-skinned goddess that was supposed to get me out of this predicament. She seemed about as disappointed as someone who lost a five-dollar bet.

When I looked at Suijin, our eyes met. Those were the eyes of a psychotic maniac, who would like nothing more than to “play” with his newest toy.

No, it can’t end like this! This was supposed to be a world of endless possibilities! A world where I become a great hero and have lots of fun lording my stats over others like some kind of god!

What right do these deuses have to take that away from me!? Ah, that’s it!

I got up from my feet, looked up to Aphrodite, who was resting on her horrific tentacle flesh pile far above me, atop the imposing artificial mountain. With pleading puppy-dog eyes I said, “Before you take me away, can I at least say goodbye to my friends?”

“Friends?” Naunet asked with a raised eyebrow and looked at Cyra, the giant bipedal grizzly bear named Mr. Claw, and two metallic golems that observed the trial from the remains of the Adventurer Guild’s staircase, half-submerged in an endless lake.

Aphrodite yawned and said, “Sure, I’ll allow this. You have a couple of minutes while I get my after-trial massage. Cupid—”

Aphrodite didn’t need to waste another word. The naked stud gracefully glided through the air, landed behind the goddess. The gory cough of meat and guts receded just enough for Cupid to reach Aphrodite’s delicate shoulders. He proceeded to massage them with his strong, manly hands.

“Go ahead,” Naunet said to me and summoned a giant serpent. It slid beneath my feet and took me through the air, down from the bronze pyramid and onto the white staircase. When the snake reached the white marble steps I hopped off its back and the snake returned to Naunet. I walked up to Cyra, the girl that just this morning became my adopted sister. Somehow, that now seemed like such a long time ago.

“I’m… not sure what to say,” Cyra said awkwardly. She looked genuinely sad about the whole thing.

“That’s fine,” I said with a smile and slowly walked past my big sister. The two golems and the bear looked at me with confusion, while I judged if they posed a threat to me. Then I jumped on Cyra’s back and wrapped my legs around her waist, binding her arms. I put one hand around her throat, squeezing tightly, sinking my nails into her flesh, and with my other hand grabbed the side of her head, pushing the fingernail of my index finger into the edge of her right eye socket.

“Ghrl—Li… lith…” Cyra choked as I effortlessly overpowered her. The girl that made her living as a rent-a-girlfriend stood no chance against a mass-murderer like me.

“Nobody move or the girl gets it!” I shouted.

“Let go of my daughter this instant!” Suijin roared and moved away from his pyramid, closer to me.

“Not another step!” I shouted and squeezed Cyra’s throat tighter. “If anyone so much as moves a finger, I’ll snap her neck!”

“D-daddy!” Cyra cried.

“Don’t you dare do anything to her!” Suijin screamed, but remained in place, floating in his water whirlpool.

“You’re not the one making demands now!” I shout back and sink my fingernail deeper under Cyra’s eyeball. I feel a trickle of blood flow down my finger.

“No! Please!” Suijin’s imposing voice falters. “Please… Don’t hurt my daughter! I’m… Infertile... She’s the result of the only time I successfully impregnated a human woman…”

“Ha! I knew it!” Naunet laughed triumphantly.

I couldn’t care less.

“Unlock my skills!” I demanded. “I’m getting out of here!”

“Silly girl,” Aphrodite spoke softly while Cupid continued massaging her shoulders. “There’s nowhere for you to run, don’t you understand?”

“She’s right,” Naunet shrugged. “You’re only making things worse for yourself.”

“Do it now!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. Then I looked into Suijin’s eyes and added, “If you value your offspring’s life.”

Suijin clenched his fists. He looked at me, at Cyra, back at me. He then slowly raised his hand and reluctantly snapped his fingers.

I immediately knew it worked. I popped up my semi-translucent status bar and confirmed all the skills were there. [Freeze], [Appraise], [Ice Spear], [Heavenly Sunfire Inferno], and others. The [Summon Hostile Wild Water Dragon] skill was still glitchy and kept flickering, but that was fine. I didn’t need that skill. I needed a new skill.

The only reason I got away with summoning such strong dragons for just 1805 Mana Points was that they were hostile to everyone, including me. But for this spell, the Cost would have to be much higher. I could grind for a thousand years and I still wouldn’t have enough Mana Points. I needed to offer something more.

The answer was obvious. If I wished for the power to erase, I had to offer the power to create. Within a second my new spell was ready.

Skill name:

Into Nothingness They Go

Level:

1/1

Type:

Active

Cost:

Skill creation

Erases all known and unknown gods from existence.

“Bye-bye,” I smiled and cast the spell.

“STOP HER!” Aphrodite screamed as she jumped up from her cushy resting place. But she didn’t get to say or do anything else. The goddess faded from existence, disappearing into nothingness.

“My Lady—” Cupid shouted and reached out to his goddess, but the very arm he reached out with faded out of existence, along with the rest of Cupid’s body.

“You—” was the only word Naunet got out before succumbing to her fate. It was the first—and last—time I saw anger on her face.

Suijin faded like the others, starting from the lower part of his body. But there was neither anger nor fear on his face. Like Cupid, he reached out with his arm but toward a human. He looked at Cyra and said, “My daughter… Live… I always—”

Suijin disappeared before finishing his last words.

With the gods gone, their most recent creations—held together in this realm by their will alone—crumbled. All the pyramids collapsed and faded before the separate stones fell into the water, and all reincarnated spectators turned back into the very muck they were made from.

“Hahahahahaha!” I laughed and let go of Cyra. She fell to her knees while I stood tall and proud.

“Haha, serves you right!” I kept laughing. “Now I can return to establishing myself as a hero! I think I’ll start by saving the world from this dreadful dragon invasion.”

“Hero!?” the grizzly bear behind me growled. “You’re no hero! You’re a monster!”

“She’s a witch!” one of the metallic golems cried out.

“Burn the witch!” the other golem shouted. “Burn the… witch!”

And the golems did just that. They both pointed their sleek, nimble mechanical arms at me, their hands split open, revealing black holes from which they spewed flames like flamethrowers. I was standing so close that I had no time to dodge.

[HP -203]

The flames stopped. I had burn marks all over, though my clothes somehow survived.

Health Points

552/755 (+1/sec)

The bastards took down nearly a third of my HP!

“Impressive,” I say and duck down, placing the palm of my hand on the marble steps. “Freeze!”

A layer of blue and white ice rapidly spreads from my hand and traps both golems. I continue sending more ice, raising the golems up into the sky, some sixty feet away from me, Cyra, and the bear. Convinced that the golems were now out of range I stood up with a devilish smile.

“Let… us go!” one of the golems screamed from afar.

“Let me show you real fire,” I said as I raised my arm and followed it up by shouting the name of my favorite spell, “Heavenly Sunfire Inferno!”

I sent the fiery vortex at the golems. The grizzly bear was got scared that the flames might hit him too and jumped into the water. But the golems had nowhere to go. They screamed as the fire approached them. I had my revenge by listening to their robotic screeches of agony that kept getting more distorted as their bodies broke down. Soon there were no screams at all. The ice that held the golems melted, and the ball of fire fell into the water.

“W-why?” I heard Cyra’s trembling voice behind me.

I turned around to face her. She was still on her knees, which put us on about the same eye level. Her entire face was wet from tears.

“Why?” I parroted her, baffled by the question.

“Because I wanted to live, dummy!” was what I wanted to tell her, but then I got a better idea.

“I wanted to test myself,” I said with an evil grin.

“T-test yourself?” Cyra gasped. “For something like that… My father—”

“Not just him,” I smirked.

Cyra’s eyes opened wide.

“Everyone,” she gasped again. “You killed them all? The entire town… The … Everyone here… You killed them all to test yourself… For something like that?”

“It was very important for me,” I said.

“J-just kill me too,” Cyra lowered her head in despair.

“You’re not even worth killing.”

“BUT YOU ARE!!” I heard a growl of an animal behind me.

I looked behind me and see the giant bear jumping out of the water with his paw raised high. His eyes were blood-red, burning with fury. His razor-sharp claws sparkled through the flying droplets of water.

I cast [Ice Spear] and pierced the bear through the guts before he had a chance to harm me. Then I placed my hand on the stairs and cast [Freeze], spreading my ice upward and trapping the bear mid-air.

“AAAARGH!” The bear howled in pain, blood trickled from his mouth. He trashed and howled, but could not get out—his lower body was frozen solid, along with the spear that was still lodged deep into his belly.

“Don’t hurt him, you monster!”

I turned around just in time to get punched right in my face by Cyra.

[HP -7]

Didn’t even break my nose. I smirked and pointed with my index finger just to the side of her right leg. I then cast [Ice Spear] and nicked her calf muscles.

“AARGH!” Cyra cried in pain and fell to her knees again.

“Foolish big sister. If you wish to kill me then hate me, detest me, curse me, and survive in an unsightly way.”

With those words, I walked past Cyra, to the edge of the staircase, away from her, away from Mr. Claws, who was still in a raging fury, trying to break free.

“I never did test how long this spell would last,” I said to Cyra. “So be sure to finish him off before he gets loose. The meat should last you for years. And you can use his skin and bones to make a small raft. Consider that my parting gift.”

With my feet just inches from the edge, I placed my hand on the water and cast my [Freeze] spell. It was time for me to go, but this time I wanted to travel in style. So, I kept channeling my freeze spell. I started with the hull and worked my way up to the deck. The bridge obviously had to have two stories. Even though I planned to travel alone, I wanted to travel in style. I even made sure to add child-safe handrails.

The total length of the boat ended up a little over eighty feet. I added a swimming pool on deck, though I would later need to figure out how to heat the water without melting the boat.

With the boat finished, I cast [Freeze] spell again to travel up on deck. I did not look back. I hopped on deck and ran to the bow of the ship. Latching onto the railing I pointed forward and shouted with excitement, “Alright, let’s go!”

The movement of the ship ended up almost the same as my “ice path”. I held onto the railings of the ship and channeled my [Freeze] spell through the entire thing down into the water, and as the water under my ship froze forward it moved the ship with it.

“Sails are too complicated,” I grinned, satisfied with my creation. “I’d end up depending on the wind, and that won’t do! I’m not depending on anything or anyone ever again! Once I save this world from all the water dragons I’ll go down in history as the greatest hero ever!”

Without any friends, I set sail on my ice boat. My adventures had only begun!