Chapter 378 – Thanatos (8)
Thanatos (8)
This is the story of when I was just born.
The war was prolonged.
The sides of the war had turned.
There were more and more G.o.ds who wanted to be one with the great universe.
The opponents began to decline.
And the G.o.d of Adventure made a decision.
[That’s what happened at the end of the cataclysm. Without some G.o.ds who remember the past, it might have been called the Genesis, not the Cataclysm. Everything that existed before that was destroyed.]
There was an existence that suddenly came to mind.
The G.o.d of Horror.
That is the G.o.d I met when pursuing the G.o.d of Hope.
He knew a lot of things, and thanks to him, I was able to collect miscellaneous information.
The G.o.d of Horror also recognized Kirikiri, who poked her face out from the quest window.
[He is a G.o.d who knows the story of a long time ago. Even those symbolic metaphors that have only been handed down through songs. I don’t know the exact history.]
The destruction of the world.
I never thought about it.
So when the G.o.d of Hope first told the story, I thought it was absurd.
I thought that he must be worrying excessively because of the anxiety that he has been showing.
However, the G.o.d of Hope gave evidence that it had already happened once before.
“How similar is the situation to that time?”
[The G.o.d of Slowness only had a will, but he did not move. In fact, the war was actually a war between its followers and their opponents. The G.o.d of Adventure attacked the G.o.ds by destroying all civilizations. Killed all those G.o.ds, and sealed the G.o.d of Slowness that they were admiring.]
The elimination of the fundamental faith.
Destroy the sources of faith that exist at the bottom of the pyramid, and attack the G.o.ds above it.
He even went up in turn and sealed the G.o.d of Slowness.
[Now that is the G.o.d of Order. Although not admired, numerous G.o.ds are subordinate to the system and devote their faith to order. Same situation.]
Kill all the G.o.ds who are affected by the order of the system, and all the believers who are affected by those G.o.ds.
Thus, weakening the power of the G.o.d of Order.
It was easy to understand.
It was an unacceptable method.
But I couldn’t ignore it.
The G.o.ds have continuity in all their actions and judgments.
If they were normal people, they could use a different method each time, and go over it.
The existence of G.o.ds, they must make the same judgment in the same situations.
The G.o.d of Adventure is not an exception.
[Now let me run away. It’s clear they’ll come for me.]
I guess so.
If they really intend to destroy the world to weaken the G.o.d of Order.
It was unlikely that the G.o.d of Hope, the apostle of the G.o.d of Order, would be left alone.
[If you don’t believe me, look outside.]
The G.o.d of Hope said so.
*
[King, are you alright?]
I heard Grandmother’s voice.
She seemed to have noticed me coming out.
“It’s okay. I’ll go back to Earth and take you out later. Wait there.”
There was no need to get them out of here right now.
Rather, it was better not to do so.
[What happened to the battle? It’s our victory.]
Grandmother’s last words weren’t asking a question.
As expected, it was more of an a.s.sertion.
That’s how much Grandmother believed in our victory.
Like me.
I do not know.
In the clash with the Pantheon, we surely won.
The battle ended, however, the winner was us.
In our outnumbered circ.u.mstances, we have achieved overwhelming records.
However… I’m not sure either.
It wasn’t victory or defeat.
The results weren’t even postponed.
As I came back, Thanatos was like a h.e.l.l of light.
If there is only one difference from my expectations.
It was just that it was worse than I expected.
Everything turned into light.
Thanatos was reconciled with the light and was extinguished by it.
In the distance, I saw the satellite colonies of Thanatos.
Looking at what was happening on the satellite, I was able to guess exactly what was happening in Thanatos.
The stone that was rolling on the side of the road suddenly started to shine.
It emitted intense light outside, and soon exploded as if it couldn’t stand the light.
The body of the person sleeping in the bed began to glow.
Explode.
Light flew out of the dull concrete wall.
Explode.
Everything was flashing and exploding again.
That will be the beginning.
Again, I turned my gaze to Thanatos.
Light was coming up from the ground.
From the asphalt floor, from the dirt floor, and even from the bottom of rivers, lakes, and seas, a strong light was emanating.
The planet of Thanatos was shining.
Like a natural occurrence, this planet will also explode.
The death of a star.
Is there a more effective way to annihilate living things?
… like this?
Do they intend to destroy the world like this?
Some of the Pantheon G.o.ds appear to have fled.
A dimensional pa.s.sage was created that did not exist before I escaped to the subs.p.a.ce
The ability of the G.o.d of Light, which was made into a bomb that self-destructed everything in the world, was certainly great, but it was a method that could not be tried against the G.o.ds.
Because the divinity of the other G.o.ds cannot be ignored.
In a world where everything explodes, the G.o.ds will also suffer damage, but at least they would not explode themselves.
Therefore, it meant that the attack of the G.o.d of Light was not against the Pantheon G.o.ds from the beginning, but against the planet Thanatos and the survivors.
[Isn’t that what I said?]
It was just as the G.o.d of Hope speculated.
The Pantheon G.o.ds were defeated and fled.
Probably scattered to their holy land.
The war is not over.
The G.o.ds of the Hundred G.o.ds Temple were able to navigate the entire universe, avoiding system constraints, in the name of war against the Pantheon.
It would be possible to destroy the world with the excuse of attacking the forces of the Pantheon that occupy most of the universe.
As the G.o.d of Hope said, the reason why the G.o.d of Light and the G.o.d of Sacrifice appeared here was not to deal with the G.o.ds of the Pantheon, but to scatter them apart.
I looked at the universe in the distance.
The place where the G.o.d of Light was, was surrounded by light from a strong explosion.
Thanatos was tough, but it wasn’t a match to that.
[Zit Pop!]
[Zit Pop!]
The G.o.d of Light was raging with Zit Pops.
The heatwave kept its round shape and spread in all directions.
That technique is very difficult to keep round.
Because it uses friction of force, it was common for the spraying to be more to one side rather than an even circle.
However, the G.o.d of Light was showing a Zit Pop, which was close to the perfect prototype.
I could see that he didn’t practice and study it just once or twice.
It wasn’t as perfect as mine.
[Zit Pop!]
As if boasting, the G.o.d of Light was showing the same technique over and over again.
It was clearly to show me.
There was no one who could see that other than me.
The G.o.ds of the Pantheon have fled, and all of the humans in Thanatos have become ashes or are in the process of becoming bombs.
[Zit Pop!]
It looked like a flower of fire blooming in outer s.p.a.ce.
Like a round and colorful red chrysanthemum.
[Zit-Pop!]
It was artistic.
I was able to understand because I knew the effort and agony necessary to bring out that form.
But it didn’t look beautiful.
[Don’t do that. Run away.]
The G.o.d of Hope whispered.
[Please.]
I ignored that eagerness.
Holding Seregia in my hand, I flew toward the G.o.d of Light.
There were still survivors left on the satellite planet of Thanatos.
They too were turning into bio-bombs, but they didn’t know there might be a way to save them.
There was no way for me, but the G.o.d of Light may have it.
With that thought, I flew toward the G.o.d of Light.
Until I met their two eyes.
“Hi?”
They were clearly flying at a fast pace.
In the meantime, our faces appeared close enough to touch each other’s nose tips, and I tried to pull back.
But my body didn’t move.
Two large round eyes filled my field of view.
Their eyes were unnatural and heterogeneous, as if a child had painted black crayons on a drawing paper.
“Hihing, you must have been surprised.”
The eyes slowly moved away.
Only then could I recognize the owner of the eyes.
Kirikiri.
“It’s been a long time. Aren’t you upset that I didn’t contact you?”
*
I couldn’t understand.
Given the speed at which I was moving, it was impossible to stop without any reaction.
And the fact that Kirikiri could appear in front of me without any warning.
“Don’t think it’s too weird. It just felt like I appeared suddenly because I’ve stopped you for four hours.”
That was even stranger.
You got involved in my time?
It was impossible.
It wasn’t a matter of Kirikiri’s ability.
I was a G.o.d.
It was a confirmed fact.
No G.o.d could intervene in the realm of another.
There was one thing that came to mind.
Guards were stopped by a time containment in the shrine of the sage who I visited in the realm of the G.o.d of the Sky.
The divine power that ignores other’s divine power.
There was only one hypothesis that I could think of.
‘The G.o.d of Slowness.’
Kirikiri read my thoughts and replied.
“Cowwect. I’m using it little by little.”
Kirikiri said refreshingly.
Then she showed me the stone she held in her hand.
“Hihing.”
It was strangely familiar, but I couldn’t figure out what that stone was.
Kirikiri took turns looking at the direction I was moving in and said to me.
“It’s not so good to face the G.o.d of Light. As I said before, the G.o.d of Light is as irrelevant as possible.”
Well.
Now Kirikiri felt more dangerous than the G.o.d of Light.
The G.o.d of Light was very excited that it was causing a series of explosions.
Do you think that I approached so I could watch the explosions up close?
I felt the excitement of the G.o.d of Light in the bursting frantic explosions.
However, the G.o.d of Light did not care about Kirikiri’s existence.
Even though she was blocking my view between the G.o.d of Light and the explosions.
There was no change in Kirikiri’s appearance .
“I’m sorry, but I want you to wait for a while like this. If you interfere more than this, I’ll be in trouble too.”
Kirikiri said in a cautious voice, as if asking a really sorry favor.
It was polite for a request to completely suppress the opponent’s movement.
My body was completely overpowered, so I had to communicate my intentions through thoughts.
It was very uncomfortable to be able to read my thoughts, but sometimes it was convenient.
“Yes, I will destroy it all. To stop the G.o.d of Order.”
Kirikiri answered my question calmly.
I was rather fed up with the calmness.
“It’s an unavoidable choice.”
‘No, it’s not.’
I denied it.
If I were in her position, would I have made the same choices as her?
I won’t.
“You speak like the G.o.d of the Sky. The G.o.d of the Sky said that it is a choice that neither side can be chosen. But I have no intention of putting off my choice and destroying the world.”
It has always been like that.
The G.o.d of Adventure has always valued the process.
So there was a time when I thought that the G.o.d of Adventure was a G.o.d who didn’t care much about the outcome if the process was sufficient.
However, considering how obsessively the G.o.ds are bound to their divinity, I can see how ambiguous the word “important” is.
The process was more or less a matter of preference.
Even in retrospect, the G.o.d of Adventure always respected and cheered me on whenever I made a painful choice.
Kirikiri really intended to destroy the world.
‘It would be better for the G.o.d of Order to become a transcendent G.o.d than for the world to perish.’
The perished world and the sanctified world of the G.o.d of Order.
It was obvious which side was better.
In the latter, survival is viable
“It’s an illusion. The world where a transcendent G.o.d exists is not a world governed by some divine law. In that world, there is only the will of the transcendent G.o.d.”
Kirikiri said.
“Both sides are scheduled for destruction. So I just chose to destroy it. At least so that we can rebuild the world.”
Kirikiri curled up her little body, speaking in a similarly small voice.