"You may call me whatever you like… But it surprises me that a mere demi G.o.d would dare to antagonise a true divine being…! What gives you such brazen confidence? Is it merely that sh.e.l.l –" Sun pointed at Belic"s treant body, "— given to you by the Land G.o.ddess? If so, you should know that a Terra Root is nothing before my cleansing flames! Not to mention a thousand Terra Roots, even the Land G.o.ddess herself would hesitate to face me…!"Faced with Belic Wildwood"s provocation, the being that he referred to as Sun played it cool.
He fixed his eyes squarely on the treant"s visage and pulled back Lars and Luca to float beside the pillar of light before he retorted. Sun did not even pay a glance to Lars and Luca as he did so, however, his action drew raised brows from the creature of darkness. A crafty look then crept over Belic"s face.
"Aghaha! I may be but a demi G.o.d in a puppet body, but what about you? Injured as you are, why did you bother to manifest yourself here? Just to defend the Truthstone…? And after you already knew you"d be facing a peak-Myth Terra Root, you didn"t even send a full avatar but just a minor conscient! Looks like you"re still badly injured from the clash with my lord back then...!" Belic threw out her conjectures, smiling widely but with a sneaky look in her eyes.
Listening intently, Lars took careful note of the words spoken. This could be key pieces of information into the mysteries behind this world.
"Based on what"s been said so far, the being in divine light should be the Divine Lord himself, or a conscient of his will… From what I can tell, this should be the same conscient that met me and ordained me as the Child of Light… I"m glad he"s arrived to save us, but what implications could this have on myself? And what caused me to be chosen as the Child of Light in the first place…? Could it have to do with that strange voice I heard back in the cave that saved me from the crawler?"
Many thoughts ran through Lars mind, but he could only watch and confirm his hypotheses as the conversation unfolded.
The Sun Lord did not respond to Belic"s words. Without a change of expression, he instead pointed a palm at Belic and shot a concentrated beam of light at her, causing her to frantically dissipate her body into miss in order to dodge.
A second later, the remainder of the purple mist flowed into the corrupted treant while a small portion of the mist reformed, this time forming only Belic"s head and face which looked slightly paler.
"b.a.s.t.a.r.d! Don"t you know better than to strike a woman! Haha! But you"ve always been a cruel, heartless cold blooded killer! You think you can defeat me with just sneak attacks? You trying to silence me before I can find out the truth about your reason for being here…? Heheheh!" Belic maintained her arrogant att.i.tude even as the treant"s body moved threateningly.
"…Be silent! You dare trespa.s.s and damage by temple? Only divine retribution awaits you!" Sun decreed loudly, but even Lars could feel the discomfort in the golden being"s words.
"Hmmm… It can"t be for the Bell, the Truthstone or their wielder – those things are just Myth artefacts after all… Could it be…" As Belic mused to herself, a sly smile returned to her face.
"Could you be protecting the boy and girl…? Ah! Right!! Could one of them be your long awaited Child of Light?!" Seeing that Sun did not move and stayed silent, Belic continued, becoming more and more pleased as she a.n.a.lysed the situation.
"You!! Shut up!!! The moment I"m recovered, I"ll find and destroy your true self! Until then, I"ll wipe out your conscient here first! DIE!!!" Face twisted with rage, the Sun Lord pressed his palms together and chanted, causing countless rays of life-extinguis.h.i.+ng fire to shoot straight at Belic.
"No matter! Regardless of why you"re protecting them and this place, all I have to do is to crush it all! Aghahahha!!!" Belic laughed maniacally as her head turned to the same purple mist and was sucked into the treant"s body. Speaking from the treant"s body, Belic laughed and the corrupted Terra Root charged forward to break apart the golden rays of light forcefully.
"Just a weak conscient! Come on! Show me how you deal with this Terra Root"s vitality! I wanna see your pitiful face when those golden flames that you"re so proud of sputter out! Aghahahah!"
A deep violet glow surrounded Belic"s body, accentuated by 9 black b.a.l.l.s of energy that circled the treant like miniature planets in orbit. Then the ancient tree opened it"s mouth to concentrate all the violet energies and black b.a.l.l.s into one compressed beam of distortion to fire back at the Sun Lord. This main beam clashed with the majority of sun rays and snuffed out the light of every ray of light it touched. However, the purple distortion beam was also weakened by every light it touched.
Simultaneously, the treant"s body charged forward to forcefully smash aside more rays of light while countless dark vines burst out from the treant"s back to support her charge, striking forth towards the Sun Lord"s pillar like mult.i.tudinous scorpion stingers.
"Is that all you"ve got!?! I"ll thrash your conscient even faster than I expected!! Aghahhaah!!!"
The treant managed to advance, closing more than a third of the distance to the pillar of light. When the Sun Lord"s conscient realised that his technique could not hold Belic back, he grimaced and let out a great shout as he raised his right hand then lowered it in a chopping motion.
"Heaven"s Severing!!!"
For a short moment after the Sun Lord"s action, nothing happened. Belic continued to advance, pouring forth more and more tendrils of darkness while laughing maniacally. Then a couple of seconds later, following the movement of this chop, the 10 metre thick pillar of light cleaved downwards like a celestial blade.
It was like a scene of a great tree being felled and crus.h.i.+ng everything in it"s path – only, this tree fell from the skies and devoured whatever it touched for several dozen kilometres. The Heavenly Severing attack completely bisected the treant and erased the entire trunk of it"s body, leaving only two arms and disjointed portions of roots.
The attack didn"t stop there, though. The fiery pillar then exploded, blinding Lars and Luca and taking their breath away. At first, the power of the blast left their ears ringing before their hearing disappeared completely, replaced only by a dull numbness. Even the bubble of protection stretched and began to crack, almost unable to bear just the side effects of the divine attack.
Though turned blind and deaf from the impact, Lars" heart was pumping crazily at the scene of unstoppable power.
"Heavenly Severing… A move that exceeds the Mythical realm by leaps and bounds… If I had such power…" Unwittingly, his mind began to a.n.a.lyse the technique, the power of Divine Light and the laws at play behind the scenes, hungry to emulate the G.o.dly power.
If the Sun Lord"s conscient were a living, breathing being, it would have been left breathless. In this case, devoid of breath, the conscient"s brilliant light had faded by more than half. The great attack left him sorely drained as he scanned the surroundings to confirm his adversary"s death.
This time, there was no dust to settle as even the dust was vaporised by the heat.
As sight returned to Lars and Luca, they were struck in awe.
The aftermath of the destruction left a smooth canyon a kilometre deep that looked like a half-cylinder snaking nearly a hundred kilometres off into the horizon.
"This… Divine Sun Lord… Invincible might…" Luca fell to her knees in the bubble body going limp at the terrible scene.
However, Lars was silent as he spent 95% of his consciousness meditating on the laws, while another 5% of his mind to observe the surroundings grimly. He had a bad feeling that things were not over yet.
Just then, a cracking of the earth was heard from the bottom of the smooth canyon, before a sapling emerged…
A dark black-purple rotting seed.