Chapter 153 - Episode 21. God of Ashes (6)
Chapter 153: Episode 21. God of Ashes (6)
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Jaehwan gauged the rough number of enemies approaching the inn from outside. Even at a glance, it was not a force he could handle alone.
Turning to Manri Shintong, Jaehwan asked, “Can you hide the children in that safehouse?”
Manri Shintong seemed to understand who he meant.
“Two children will not be a problem.”
“Jaehwan-nim, I...”
“Stay here. I cannot protect you while fighting from now on.”
Shouts and chaos were already ringing out from outside, as if fighting had begun.
Jaehwan lifted the inn’s curtain and said, “I have another request for you.”
“What is it?”
“Besides finding information, can you spread it too?”
* * *
Thirty minutes had already passed since Jaehwan entered the inn.
Martis sat on a bench in front of it, rubbing the place where the gatekeeper had hit him.
A God of Today standing watch beside him said, “So it was true that the Black Shop’s gatekeepers are strong.”
“Quiet.”
Martis rubbed his lips and snapped back.
He had heard plenty about the Black Shop’s reputation, but he thought they were people long past their prime. He never expected to suffer such humiliation at the hands of a mere gatekeeper.
“I’ll win if we fight again.”
“Then I’ll fight you again.”
Martis jumped to his feet at the voice from behind him.
Baeko had apparently been listening for some time. He stood at the inn entrance with the other gatekeepers.
“Want to try?”
Martis clenched both fists. The moment Baeko drew his sword at him...
“Martis.”
The God of Today beside him scanned the surroundings with a tense expression.
Suspicious-looking people were gathering around the inn.
Martis and Baeko’s expressions changed. They turned their backs to each other and looked around.
[A Task has arrived on the ‘Metaverse Eighth Floor’!]
[The current holder of the ‘buff’ is ‘God Slayer Jaehwan’.]
The Task announcement came almost at the same time.
Jaehwan’s face appeared before them with the message.
[If you kill the buff holder, you can obtain that ‘buff’.]
Baeko quickly understood what was happening.
‘Did these bastards come to kill Jaehwan-nim?’
Some of them seemed to have received the information in advance and waited nearby. Dozens of gods had already surrounded the inn.
Martis and Baeko almost simultaneously blocked the inn entrance.
“I’ll cut down anyone who does not stop.”
“You won’t get through here.”
Their voices came out at the same time.
Baeko and Martis glared at each other warily, but this was not the time for them to clash.
“Martis. So it was true that you joined the God Slayer.”
“I heard you became some kind of God of Tomorrow.”
Martis immediately recognized the gods who stepped forward with snickers.
The God of Charge, ‘Boost’.
And the God of Retreat, ‘Retire’.
They were known here in the 〈Metaverse〉 as the ‘Advance-Retreat Brothers’. They were not on the level of the Metaverse Six Gods, but they had gained quite a reputation on the Eighth Floor.
The Advance-Retreat Brothers were not alone.
The gods gathered around them were not those who had entered the Eighth Floor through ‘Yesterday’, like Martis once had. They had either climbed to the Eighth Floor before Yesterday’s System was created, or arrived after Yesterday was destroyed.
Simply put, every god before them was a ‘real one’.
Boost mocked Martis. “Do you think a little underling who could not face us even when backed by Yesterday’s power can stop us now?”
“Step aside while we are still asking nicely. We have business inside.”
Martis had no intention of retreating.
This was his chance to prove that the ten years of training had not been wasted.
“We are Gods of Today, not tomorrow, you bastards. Everyone, gather up! Hold this place!”
The remaining Gods of Today gathered around Martis.
“We’ll help this once.”
Unexpectedly, the Black Shop’s gatekeepers lent a hand.
With Baeko and the gatekeepers beside him, Martis felt as though he had gained an entire army.
A slick voice came from the crowd.
“Baeko of the Black Shop. I have heard of you. Looks like the God Slayer sought help from relics of a bygone age.”
Six figures in black stepped out from the center of the crowd.
They were the Six Black-Clad Killers, former subordinates of Rakers, the God of Assassination and a former member of the Metaverse Six Gods.
There were also gods such as the Killer Guests and Corpse God Cleaners, those who handled subcontract work for the Alliance.
No matter where he looked, they were all formidable high-grade gods.
Martis bit down hard on his lip.
“Attack!”
Weapons flew toward them as Martis drew up his World Force.
He dodged and endured all kinds of Settings, including manipulation, enhancement, and law-type Settings, swinging his sword again and again.
Those were attacks that would have been difficult for him to handle in the past. Yet now, some were easy enough to dodge, while others were bearable even when they hit.
‘This is more manageable than I expected.’
Looking around, the other Gods of Today seemed to feel the same.
It was strange.
The Advance-Retreat Brothers and Six Black-Clad Killers had been one or two steps above them only a short time ago.
“Is that all you bastards have?”
At Martis’s shout, the enemies’ expressions hardened. One by one, they manifested their Sanctuaries.
As befitted high-grade gods, the Sanctuaries were neither small nor weak. Before long, the area around the inn was dyed in all kinds of colors.
Some gods grimaced as sparks flew where their Sanctuaries trespassed upon one another.
“Hey, move over.”
“No. You should be the one to back off.”
That worked in favor of the Gods of Today and the gatekeepers.
Watching the gods draw closer, Martis raised one hand.
It was a technique the Gods of Today had secretly trained for over ten years.
They had originally made it to kill Jaehwan together, but not anymore.
Sanctuary Bonding.
It was a technique that temporarily combined the Sanctuaries of gods who had lived entirely different histories. An ordinary god could die if they attempted it improperly, their World Force flowing backward.
But they were no longer ordinary gods.
Every God of Today had experienced the same emotions and built the same history over ten years.
Sanctuary Manifestation.
「Today」
It did not possess power equal to the bond Jaehwan and Ethan had shown, but it was still a vast Sanctuary born from the World Force of each god joining together.
As if they had returned to the days of training inside the [Time Cube], Martis and the Gods of Today stabbed forward in unison.
“Stab!”
Gods screamed and fell back beneath the devastating barrage of Stabs. Some suffered fatal wounds and rolled across the ground.
Martis recalled Jaehwan’s words.
Trust in the time you have built.
They could do this. They were not weak.
“Again!”
It had only been ten years, but they had spent those ten years desperately fighting to live.
Ordinary gods did not spend such a long time tempering their souls in harmony with their Vicegerents.
Martis’s soul and World Force moved in harmony inside him.
That small harmony resonated with the Gods of Today beside him, creating an even greater current of harmony.
“Stab!”
Unable to withstand the sudden barrage of Stabs, the Advance-Retreat Brothers and Six Black-Clad Killers were thrown back in disarray.
“Gaaaaah!”
More screams followed.
Though they had attacked with three times as many people, they failed to gain the upper hand. The gods who had confidently swung their weapons began backing away one by one.
A strange unease spread through the crowd.
Martis did not miss it.
“Jaehwan-nim is someone we could never defeat even if all of us manifested our Sanctuaries. Got that? Trash like you would be finished with a single Stab. So leave while I am asking nicely.”
Martis did not know how strong Jaehwan truly was.
Still, his boast effectively shook the crowd.
If even mere underlings were this strong, how powerful was the God Slayer?
One god broke through that unrest and parted the crowd.
“Move.”
The voice made it feel as though someone had seized them by the hair and forced them beneath the sea.
The excitement of battle cooled at once.
Martis unconsciously took a step back. Every one of his senses sounded an intense warning.
A man with disheveled hair and ragged blue clothes glanced at the Gods of Today before taking a light step forward.
Then something unbelievable happened.
With a thud, the man’s stamp shattered the Sanctuary 「Today」 without resistance.
Two or three Gods of Today staggered, their faces twisted in pain as their World Force flowed backward.
“Anonymous Gods? I see you actually managed to crawl out of that sewer.”
The moment Martis heard that voice, his hunch became certainty.
Even if every God of Today rushed him with the determination to die together, they could not defeat that god.
“Why are you in the 〈Metaverse〉?”
“You know me?”
Of course he did.
No, anyone in the 《Abyss》 would know his name.
“The God of the Deep Sea, ‘Russell’.”
Every god who clashed with him in the 《Abyss》 was caught in his Sanctuary and drowned.
At that moment, Martis thought he understood why Russell had appeared here.
Russell was one of the gods who had killed the most gods in the 《Abyss》 over the past three hundred years.
Before Jaehwan appeared, he had often been called the ‘God Killer’ or ‘God Slayer’.
Russell’s heavy gaze turned to Baeko.
“Young one of the Black Shop. Is Manri Shintong well?”
Baeko seemed to know Russell and looked extremely tense.
Without lowering his combat stance, Baeko asked as respectfully as he could, “Did you come because of a request?”
“No. I came to meet the god you are hiding.”
“He is currently in a private meeting with my master.”
“So?”
As though that did not matter in the least, Russell began walking toward Baeko.
The semicircle guarded by the Gods of Today and the Black Shop’s gatekeepers rapidly tightened.
Baeko shouted urgently, “Even if you are the fifth star of the Seven Stars...”
Baeko’s eyes widened.
A massive wave covered his entire vision.
A blade flew through the gaps in that wave and split Baeko’s body into three pieces.
Baeko sucked in a breath, then realized he had seen an illusion.
His body trembling, Baeko dropped helplessly to his knees.
Perhaps it had not been an illusion.
Russell’s killing intent alone had already killed him once.
“Finish what you started saying.”
This was one of the Seven Stars.
One of the twenty-one strongest gods in the 《Abyss》.
The fifth star of the Seven Stars, the God of the Deep Sea Russell.
“Have the gatekeepers withdraw.”
The one who said that was the God of Flash, who emerged from the crowd.
“Ray?”
“It is Rayray. It has been a long time, Russell.”
Rayray calmly nodded and stepped in front of the inn.
“What brought you here? I thought you despised the 〈Metaverse〉 and such. Why come all the way to this junkyard?”
“There is satisfaction in finding recyclable trash.”
“I thought you feared the owner of this junkyard.”
Russell’s expression stiffened.
“Move. This is your final warning.”
Rayray did not retreat.
“Russell. How could you, as a senior, come to bully a star that has only just been born? Is that the measure of you? If so, there is a reason you cannot rise to the ranks of the Seven Heavens and Seven Divine Thrones, no matter what you do. You cowardly fifth star of the Seven Stars.”
Russell did not answer. He looked silently at the sky, then muttered in a voice like he was reciting a poem.
“Playing with you before meeting the God Slayer would not be so bad.”
The sound of waves came from somewhere.
It was a dangerous vibration rising from the deepest part of the sea.
Martis urgently opened his mouth, but no voice came out. It felt as though he had been forced to swallow water.
The crushing pressure of World Force flooding the area tightened around his lungs.
It felt as if he had been dragged into the depths of the sea.
Rayray and Baeko’s faces had gone pale as well.
“Tear them all apart.”
Something was approaching through the deep sea.
Whenever the sound of fins moving rang out, people in the crowd were caught up and ripped apart.
Martis had not felt this way even when he faced the Metaverse Six Gods.
Overwhelming fear consumed his entire body.
Ironically, that was when Martis recalled Jaehwan’s epithet.
God Slayer.
Even while watching the slaughter unfold before him, Martis thought that epithet suited Jaehwan better.
Not because Jaehwan had killed more gods.
“Why are you smiling, Anonymous God?”
Russell’s hand had changed into something like a shark’s maw. As it pointed at Martis, the sound of a massive predator approaching came from within the waves.
Martis finally understood that he was going to die.
Yet even with death before him, he grinned.
He cried and laughed at the same time.
Because he had never felt this way in Yesterday.
It was a sensation he could only feel by truly living Today.
The fear of death stabbing deep into his lungs made him feel truly alive.
The only regret was that he would not feel this overwhelming sensation tomorrow.
At last, a pitch-black shadow descended on Martis.
A ray of black light flashed, and the shadow of the waves split cleanly in two.
“You did well. Go wait inside the inn.”
Martis blankly looked at the man.
The one who had taught him this feeling was speaking.
“The owner’s dumplings are quite good.”
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