Chapter 476: Final Battle
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu
No matter how confusing the situation was in a two-sided battle, at least one would be able to discern the overall situation and tell who had the advantage. But if the battle became three- or even four-sided, it would be difficult to tell what side a chess piece was even on, so of course the situation would become more confusing.
We of the h.e.l.l Faction were originally trying to survive in between the more powerful Order and Chaos Factions to begin with. We could only win taking advantage of the two major factions’ conflicts. But since this was now a three-faction situation, many people’s true allegiances became difficult to determine. There were quite a few individuals who were double or even triple agents, such as the Queen of Temptation, or myself with all my ident.i.ties. And now, Karwenz had revealed himself to be a fourth faction, making things even more chaotic.
Despite such a chaotic situation where everyone had their own goals and plans, it still wasn’t difficult for me to determine the overall situation of myself and my enemies. That was because no matter who a person or faction was, they would all desire personal benefits. As long as I could determine what they wanted, and if they would be friendly towards h.e.l.l’s successful construction or not, it would be easy enough to determine if someone was an enemy or not.
And now, the chess match appeared to be nearing endgame. Naturally, this made things even easier to determine.
The relatively weaker Order Faction didn’t have much to pressure us to begin with. Karolan, the G.o.d of Holy Light, had already lost his incarnation here to three forbidden spell level attacks in succession. Although incarnations were just like consumables, he would still be unable to recover the lost divine power. Weakening him yet again would be a good thing for us. And, the G.o.d of Wisdom Kalumandas didn’t even come here with the intentions of fighting us. We had reached an agreement, and perhaps he would even become our ally in the future.
From a certain standpoint, this was a negative of overly pure Order. Without emotions and sufficient benefits as motivation, the relatively more independent Order Main G.o.ds naturally wouldn’t work their hardest for the completely emotionless Source of Order.
So, from the very beginning, our main enemies would be the Chaos Faction led by Cynthia. I also used almost all my ace cards against the Chaos Faction.
Right now, there were still three ongoing fights against the Chaos Faction. The two forever hungry beasts were still tearing at each other, so let’s just ignore them for the time being. I was highly on guard against Chaos War G.o.d Donatis, and Devil Lord Marshan and enraged Bastian wouldn’t be so easy to deal with. I also left a backup plan to deal with him, so Donatis probably wouldn’t be a problem.
As for Sophocles the Deceiver who’d previously signed a ceasefire agreement with us but broke it? Envy Marsolit and Pride Omar had already finished reviving. I directly sent them to the l.u.s.t Inferno to support Cher, but I didn’t order them to fight to the fullest and force Sophocles to the brink.
Any Main G.o.d existence who was forced to the brink would definitely bring out all their hidden ace cards. Since h.e.l.l’s overall combat strategy was only to stall for time, maintaining a stalemate would be perfect for us. There was no need to force things to an all-out fight.
Karwenz appeared to be quite bored sitting there as still as if he was a sculpture. It seemed that he had zero intentions of going into battle against any of the remaining Demon Lord Main G.o.ds.
“Do you think that I’m an idiot? You want me to fight for you for free before I even complete my goal? I’m just going to wait here.”
As for that fish soup… it had already been tossed aside. n.o.body even wanted to look at it.
Just a single sip had caused the Abyss Prince himself to turn a shade of green and then run over and vomit for quite a while. This had already surpa.s.sed the power of any poison in the world. A Main G.o.d level Demon Lord like Karwenz should have been naturally immune to all poisons already.
Originally, I didn’t intend on trying it, but I became curious and tried the fish soup after seeing Karwenz’s reaction. I then directly changed to using another incarnation’s body in an attempt to immediately forget the memory I’d just obtained.
The older the fish, the staler and harder its meat would be. And as this fish was formerly a Demon Lord itself, it had an uncalculatable age, and the fish meat itself was hard enough to ignore any normal Myth-ranked weapon. No normal amount of cooking would ever possibly soften it. And in order to soften this fish meat, Karwenz had tossed large amounts of strange ingredients into his soup such as powerful acids, sharpening portions, armor-piercing enchantment potions, corrosive magic flames from the Chaos Abyss, and so on.
After he randomly stirred a lot, this fish meat indeed softened somewhat. Yet, the color and the taste, and that super acidity… I immediately changed to yet another incarnation. At least this was far more convenient than creating a new head and face.
Setting aside the matter of the super-acidic fish soup which was absolutely disgusting, I intentionally tried to learn more about my enemies from Karwenz… er, just chat!
“What other ace cards do those Chaos Main G.o.ds have? Are any of them relatively easier to deal with?”
“Anything can be possible as long as you’re willing to pay the price. Still, don’t even think that it’s a good idea to force them onto the brink right now. Oh, if what I see is correct, it will be impossible for all the existences within this dimension to leave here after h.e.l.l is complete?”
He actually tried to learn more information about h.e.l.l from me instead.
“Yep, all those with h.e.l.l’s Concepts will find it impossible to leave. Any dead souls that want to leave can only do so through the Cycle of Reincarnation. These are ironclad dimensional laws of h.e.l.l that all existences have to obey.”
Some things were impossible to hide, so of course I could tell him. Of course, if he misunderstood and got the wrong impression, that wouldn’t be my fault at all, would it?
“What about you?”
“I’m Wumianzhe Roland, one of the Four Pillar G.o.ds of h.e.l.l. Of course I’m tightly tied down by h.e.l.l’s dimensional Laws. It’s impossible for the Four Pillar G.o.ds to ever leave h.e.l.l. This is one of the foundational rules of h.e.l.l. I can swear on my very soul.”
“The Four Pillar G.o.ds? Ha, you’ve always been a scammer who only tells the truth. Don’t you know that the more serious you act, the more likely it is that you’re scamming someone? And if you ever swear on your soul, then it’s one hundred percent certain that you’re scamming someone by only telling the truth.”
Really? Did I actually have such a habit? I tried thinking back and was rendered speechless. He was actually right!
“Wonderful, then. It would seem that we’ll have chances to fight again in the future. Right, since you’re so free right now, how about practicing some swordsmans.h.i.+p with me?”
I looked quite free right now? Okay, I was indeed quite free, but I wouldn’t be stupid enough to practice swordsmans.h.i.+p together with Karwenz. I was merely a Holy Knight who practiced swordsmans.h.i.+p on the side. How could I possibly compare to a professional Sword Saint in swordsmans.h.i.+p? Would I be that idiotic?
[Now you’re only calling yourself a Holy Knight who practices swordsmans.h.i.+p on the side instead of a Sword Saint yourself? Such a convenient memory you have there.]
Hmph, the situation in h.e.l.l was going wonderfully now and I was in a great mood, so I pretended not to hear Astrya.
h.e.l.l’s operations were becoming ever smoother. The only remaining enemies were those few Chaos Main G.o.ds, and our original greatest weakness, insufficient combat strength to guard the Four Pillars, had been solved by Karwenz.
Yep, Karwenz had filled in this insufficiency for us. No matter how casual he acted, since he needed to use my Tower of Ice and Tower of Death to pull out Cynthia’s soul and give her a physical body so that she could be killed, then he would naturally guard these two towers until the Pillar G.o.ds awakened. In that case, he naturally became my personal fighter… What about after the Four Pillar G.o.ds woke up, you ask? As long as Ayer revived successfully, what would I have to worry about? Who cared if Karwenz tried to turn on me then?
The situation indeed seemed quite well now. If it wasn’t for the fact that it would be inappropriate, I would even be floating on cloud nine while singing right now. Suddenly, I felt that since it was rare for the situation to be so good, I could afford to act a little arrogantly.
“The war is about to end, and I’m about to realize my dream that I’ve had for so long. I am now undefeatable, hahaha! After this war is finally over, I can finally go home and get married! Cough cough, don’t look at me so strangely, I’m just telling a joke. Don’t you think it’s funny?”
I even made three successive death flag comments, yet n.o.body even laughed! This truly made me feel awkward.
“…I suddenly sense a dangerous evil intention from your words. Is this a new method of cursing? Gooseb.u.mps have appeared all over me. It would seem that it’s quite effective.”
Even though I was clearly telling a joke, everyone was taking me seriously and suspecting what I meant. How unacceptable. Should I say that everyone from this non-Earth world was too stupid to get a joke?
“Go home and get married? Get married to whom?”
Even though things were now almost over, Elisa still sent over her own dissatisfied comment and inquiry while in the middle of concentrating on her own self-evolution. Still, this reminded me that I needed to hurry and send Elisa to the Land of Spring. Otherwise, it would be too late.
“Alright then, at least I have my System… Astrya, you know that this joke of mine isn’t a bad joke at all!”
It would seem that I found yet another reason to keep Astrya around—for the sake of my joyful daily life! How could I possibly allow myself to lose such a wonderful commenter who understood my jokes from Earth?
[…Yep, your humor is the same as it always has been, unsalvageable. You’re also just as much of a jinxer as you always were. Why don’t you take another look at Ah Dang’s combat situation? Things have changed there again. I think I should give you the custom t.i.tle of ‘Idiot that deserves to die because he can’t keep his mouth shut.’ This t.i.tle will increase the success rate of you jinxing yourself with your own comments. Would you like that?]
“What?”
I concentrated on Ah Dang’s Gluttons’ Inferno and saw something inconceivable. The two tremendous beasts that should have been tearing at each other had completely vanished. All that remained was a gigantic demon egg which was in the process of hatching.
I then checked my incarnation’s memories and witnessed an inconceivable scene.
Just one minute ago, Gaar the Murky Nightmare, a low-intelligence lifeform whose very name was nothing more than onomatopoeia, suddenly cast a superbly complex restraint magic formation which successfully restrained Ah Dang.
Then, Gaar’s tremendous physical body suddenly opened up to reveal a devilishly beautiful female face hidden within. This female actually devoured Ah Dang in one gulp, then this ent.i.ty transformed into a demon egg that was filled with the essence of the Chaos Abyss.
This demon egg was enormous. Although it was an egg, it wasn’t round in any way at all. It looked more like countless chunks of meat put together. The most eye-catching part was how it kept glowing an abnormal green that seemed like a type of magical rune. Some of these runes even distorted into what looked like painfully howling faces, which was really discomforting to look at.
According to the information I had on Gaar, this demon lived solely to devour, and his only purpose in life was to continuously eat and evolve. His very existence was the complete definition of what Chaos represented. Yet, since he lacked any intelligence at all, he didn’t have a demon n.o.ble t.i.tle, and was even treated as a natural calamity within the Chaos Abyss itself. The will of the Chaos Abyss… no, that Cynthia had been able to control Gaar and send him here to attack us was already quite astonis.h.i.+ng.
I could understand that perhaps Gaar had always concealed his true strength, yet the demon egg’s constantly increasing energy level gave me a tremendous sense of danger. And, there was a familiar instinctive fear that I felt like I had experienced before. And even without my instincts, just its abnormal appearance alone made it obvious that this demon egg couldn’t be ignored.
“What’s with Gaar? Why did he suddenly transform into an egg?”
I asked this in a heavy tone, yet Karwenz chuckled to hear this.
“Gaar? You’ve asked the right person. Only I and Cynthia know about his true ident.i.ty. Even the very name Gaar is nothing more than a joke. Gaar is actually nothing more than an amalgamation of countless corpses and souls from the Chaos Abyss. He doesn’t even have a sense of self, so how could he possibly actually have a name?”
“No sense of self? Then how did he even come here? Cynthia is capable of controlling a hunk of flesh that doesn’t even have its own sense of self? Isn’t that the equivalent of using her own physical body… No, it can’t be!”
Yet, Karwenz had an expression that said my guess was right on the mark.
“Ha, indeed. Cynthia’s true body is still in hibernation and can’t move, so of course she’ll try to think of a method to prepare a backup physical body. But, you don’t need to worry too much, because Gaar is nothing more than a failed experiment. Gaar probably needs at least ten more Holy Wars of feasting on souls before he evolves into an existence capable of containing Cynthia’s divine soul. She already gave up on him long ago. But now, she’s basically forcefully activating him without even her divine soul within it. Cynthia won’t be able to utilize her true full powers, and Gaar’s physical body will collapse before long…”
“Karwenz! You set another pitfall for me!”
At this moment, I understood everything. Since Cynthia knew that she was about to die here, of course she would try everything she possibly could to fight back and resist. Activating her backup physical body to come and save her soul would be a certainty.
Karwenz absolutely knew that this would happen, yet he didn’t tell me about it. Instead, he casually cooked fish soup here, which meant that he was obviously intending on waiting for that d.a.m.ned hunk of meat to be activated by Cynthia and drag us into another battle.
I had happily wanted Karwenz to become my fighter, yet now he had fooled me into becoming his fighter. Naturally, this made me rather displeased and ruined my mood.
“It’s just what you were trying to do with me. Ha, I’m actually quite happy that I get to have one final battle together with you as allies before we start fighting.”
Yet Karwenz was laughing quite happily, as if he was quite proud of himself for having set this pitfall for me. But, I felt that he was even happier that he now had a proper opponent that he could vent on.
But right now, I didn’t want to waste any more time with him. I opened up a teleportation portal and instantly kicked him into it.
My Wumianzhe Roland physical body had now been regenerated to the point where I could barely manage to use it. I sent over all the combat strength I possibly could as I didn’t have any idiotic tendencies to allow my enemy to finish their transformation without interruptions like anime villains would.