Chapter 39: Chaos Demigod
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 39: Chaos Demigod
A few minutes earlier.
The moment Atoris mutated into a Chaos Demigod, Thanatos had swiftly emerged from the shadows.
Under Cecilia’s bewildered gaze, he sent her down to the ground before returning to the battlefield to help Julius restrain the Chaos Demigod.
Boom!
Julius was slammed into a wall.
From his perspective, he could see Thanatos fighting desperately against the Chaos Demigod.
By now, Thanatos had reverted to his form as the Gray Horse Knight. Relying on his powerful Authority, he was just barely able to keep the Chaos Demigod in check. However, limited by his Tier, his ability to restrain the creature was marginal at best.
Boom!
Under a massive impact, even the towering Thanatos was knocked aside.
"Julius, by all rights, you should have left this place long ago and let the Chaos Demigod run rampant," Thanatos questioned. "Why are you still here, choosing to fight this thing? This doesn't seem like the Chaos Church's style at all."
Faced with Thanatos’s suspicion, Julius spoke with total indifference.
"My mission was originally to goad him into ascending to a Demigod and then leave. However, I made a bet with someone beforehand. I bet that Atoris would accept the power of a Demigod. But now it seems I underestimated the Emperor's resolve. To fulfill my responsibility for losing that bet, I’ve decided to help him resolve this bitter fruit."
Julius paused for a moment.
"At the same time... it is a mark of respect for a noble warrior."
Thanatos remained unconvinced by Julius’s rhetoric.
"Even if you say that, did you never consider the possibility that you can't defeat a Demigod?"
Clang!
Julius wrenched the Pitch-Black Heavy Sword from the wall.
"To be precise, I really didn't consider it. Under normal circumstances, the Emperor would have either died or ascended. This contradictory situation only exists because he held out for so long, allowing the Chaos Seed to take deep root."
Julius gripped the Pitch-Black Heavy Sword tightly. Before the Chaos Demigod could charge again, he immediately swung out three arcs of pitch-black sword qi.
-24.6 Billion
-24.6 Billion
-24.6 Billion
[HP: 819.1 Billion / 819.1 Billion]
After all three arcs hit, the Chaos Demigod’s health dropped significantly, sending it into a frenzied, hideous rage.
Seeing the creature's distorted state, Julius did not relax.
Suddenly, the Chaos Demigod stopped moving.
In the next second, its body began to undergo a frantic, aberrant proliferation. Its health points began to skyrocket.
[HP: 901.0 Billion / 901.0 Billion]
[HP: 991.1 Billion / 991.1 Billion]
[HP: 1,090.2 Billion / 1,090.2 Billion]
...
[Talent: Chaos Aberrant Proliferation]
[When you receive damage, if the damage value is less than your lost HP, or if your current HP is greater than 95%, your body will be infused with Chaos power, triggering aberrant proliferation. This increases your current maximum HP by 10% and restores an equivalent amount of health.]
In an incredibly short span of time, the Chaos Demigod’s health reached a terrifying level.
Watching the creature's body mutate wildly, Thanatos realized something was wrong.
"The Chaos Demigod’s life force is growing exponentially. Julius, your attacks aren't just ineffective—they're being exploited!"
Julius also realized the gravity of the situation as he watched the frantic growth.
"This guy... he actually used my 'Destroyer' trait to complete his proliferation..."
Julius readjusted his stance. He had to find another way.
Against this Chaos Demigod, his "Destroyer" trait had actually become a catalyst for the enemy's growth. Normally, "Destroyer" should have perfectly countered the first trigger condition, but it was as if Julius was being specifically targeted.
The second trigger condition for the proliferation perfectly countered "Destroyer" in reverse.
To put it another way, the second trigger condition of the proliferation actively overcame the reduction of the maximum health limit. This forced anyone fighting it to deal a certain amount of damage to trigger the first condition instead.
It was a very devious talent.
Aside from the issue with "Destroyer," Julius had to face an even more troublesome problem: the damage couldn't be too low.
If the damage dealt was less than the health it had already lost, it would also trigger the aberrant proliferation, causing the maximum HP to balloon and restoring the same amount of health.
Under these complex circumstances, Julius’s next attack had to exceed 5% of the creature's total health. Otherwise, the Chaos Demigod’s HP would quickly approach 1.2 trillion.
Furthermore, even if the first attack pushed the health below 95%, every subsequent attack would have to exceed the total damage of all previous attacks combined to avoid triggering the effect again.
If that condition couldn't be met, then at the very least, every single attack had to exceed 10% of the creature's current maximum HP.
Otherwise, the enemy's health would only increase as the fight went on, until it grew into a monster with a suffocating amount of HP.
Currently, the Chaos Demigod’s health had already surpassed one trillion. If Julius wanted to defeat this monster, his next attack would need to deal over fifty billion damage. And that damage requirement would only get higher and higher, growing faster and faster.
Clearly, neither Julius nor Thanatos was capable of meeting that requirement right now.
"It seems the only way is to stall until its Demigod status is completely eroded by the world's rules," Julius concluded after some thought.
However, stalling the Chaos Demigod was easier said than done.
[Talent: Chaos Aberrant Power]
[After being infused with Chaos power, your Strength will also increase. The increase is equal to 1% of your current maximum HP.]
As its health exploded, the Chaos Demigod’s strength was also increasing at a mad pace.
At this moment, with one trillion HP, the Chaos Demigod’s Strength stat had reached a staggering ten billion. And that wasn't even accounting for the high-multiplier skills it possessed.
If not for Thanatos’s Death Amnesty, Julius would have been ground into dust by a single blow long ago.
Even Thanatos, who was using his Authority of Death to tank the damage, wasn't faring much better.
Boom!
The two of them were sent flying hundreds of meters by a single strike.
Simultaneously, the interior of the Golden Dragon was torn open, a massive tunnel carved through its hull by the shockwave. From the outside, the entire airship looked precarious, as if it might plummet from the sky at any moment.
Their situation was grim.
Thanatos’s Death Amnesty had only a dozen seconds left, and his personal condition was terrible. His over-reliance on the Authority of Death was making him weaker by the second; even the gray horse beneath him seemed unable to bear the burden.
"Julius, as much as I’d like to say we’re out of time, I have to tell you something even worse."
"What?"
"This ship is about to crash."
Thanatos pointed toward the distant power core.
Julius looked over and saw that eighty percent of it had been destroyed by the aftershocks of their battle. In just a few minutes, the ship would lose all power and plummet toward the city below.
When that happened, the Chaos Demigod wouldn't even need to lift a finger. The entirety of Carlos Lilanka would be swallowed by the explosion of the crashing ship.
Thanatos suddenly turned to Julius.
"Julius, since you said you're fighting to ensure Atoris's death, let me tell you this: once this ship falls, the entire city will perish. The Chaos Demigod will waste the rest of its life in the ruins until the world's rules kill it. Under these circumstances, you are free to leave. Or... do you choose to stay? Will you try to pilot this ship elsewhere before the power fails completely, so you can duel that Chaos Demigod in a safe place?"
Faced with Thanatos’s sudden question, Julius found himself at a loss for words.
"I..."
Just as Julius struggled to answer, a clear, crisp voice rang out from the side.
"Thanatos, don't trouble him with such tricky questions. If he wanted to leave, wouldn't he have gone already?"
Along with the voice, a lock of snow-white hair entered Julius’s field of vision.
A petite young girl had appeared abruptly in the center of the battlefield.
"Alright, leave the rest to me."
Then, under Julius’s incredulous gaze, the girl raised a massive scythe and gave it a gentle swing.
In an instant, space was torn open into a gargantuan rift, swallowing the entire airship.