The Return of the Dimensional Mage God
The interior of the Main God Temple in the Otherworld War had long since been reduced to scorched ruins. It was only thanks to the structural framework of a Highest Creator-class temple that the building still stood at all. Such temples were nearly impossible for a Main God to destroy. The fact that the combatants were focusing solely on anti-personnel authorities rather than wide-area destruction also played a major role.
Even amid the ceaseless roar of explosions and shockwaves from the clash between Hephais and Lokina, Lokina’s mocking voice rang out clearly.
“I exist as myself, so shall you.”
Magic Type: Space-Time Magic, Creation Class, Manifestation
Effect: Creates the form of inanimate matter without consciousness. Attributes are irrelevant; any object can be restored to its optimal state and enhanced. As a Creation-class spell, it consumes the highest amount of mana among 10th-circle magic, so it is rarely used. It was originally developed so that the protagonist could create daily necessities in a communal space lacking supplies.
⟨ I Exist as Myself, So Shall You ⟩
Two gleaming catalysts formed in the air according to the laws of material creation. Then another chant activated them.
“The earth of flames and ice that eternally blaze and collide—Ginnungagap—! Devour everything else into an infinite void of destruction!”
Whoosh—! Shrrrring—!
The moment a sun-like orb of fire and a moon-like mass of ice appeared in the empty air, the faces of the goddesses turned deathly pale. They could never withstand such overwhelming magic on their own, yet the caster was firing it off at will. Worse, Hephais stood in front of them like an immovable wall, swinging her colossal hammer with reckless abandon, making any interference impossible.
And that was only the beginning of the problem.
Behind Lokina, wings of light—now far too familiar—unfurled brilliantly, radiating divine power.
The goddesses, now thoroughly panicked, poured every ounce of their authority into erecting dozens of layered defensive barriers. They knew it was wasteful to block a dimensional leap attack this way, but it was the only method that worked.
“It’s coming again—!”
“Block it from all directions!”
“Granraha—! Deploy a time barrier too! We have to slow it down!”
Crack—! Shatter—!
Magic amplified to the point where it could kill even a Main God slipped beyond perception and vanished into another dimension. The attacks appeared at completely random moments, making them nearly impossible to defend against. Had they not expended every unnecessary defensive authority to intercept them, total annihilation would have come in the blink of an eye.
Rumble—!
Once again, the assault pierced through every spatial defense and time barrier, aiming straight for them. Ordinary barriers could not stop dimensional movement, but they at least helped with detection. The instant the attack was detected, Gaiana moved.
Her light swing carried the racial authority of the Omnipotent Clan—Omniscience—which analyzed and shattered all authorities. One of the supreme racial powers that had elevated the Omnipotent Clan to the highest position among all races connected directly to the sun of flames and the moon of ice, disintegrating them completely.
Shatter—! Whoooosh—!
Yet even as the magic scattered like fireflies and frost flowers, something of incomprehensible mass came swinging through.
Gaiana had no opening to block the downward strike that threatened to crush her entire body. No matter how little burden the racial authority places on activation, it is still a transcendent authority. If I don’t pour everything into it, the original power won’t manifest. Then I won’t be able to stop that magical attack.
Worse, that colossal hammer was a pure mass attack. It was a miraculous technique that compressed mountain-shattering weight into a point smaller than the tip of a needle, focusing all impact into a single point. She had no idea how such weight could be handled with such precision, but it was impossible to receive with authority alone.
As a goddess of the Omnipotent Clan who specialized in authorities, she could not block it with her body. And she had no strength left to activate her full power after using Omniscience.
The one who stepped in to protect her at that critical moment was Torina, who had already activated Storm of Berserker and was rampaging in nothing but her underwear. The other goddesses had no leeway to scold her for such vulgarity.
The only one capable of stopping Hephais, who wielded raw strength beyond even a Main God’s capacity, was Torina in her full divine power deployment state. So, as always, she swung her own enlarged hammer to intercept the blow in Gaiana’s place.
“Damn it all—! Again with this kind of attack? You really are a vicious bastard! Uwaaaaaah—!”
Kwaaaaaaaaang—!
The two enormous hammers collided in midair, sending a heavy shockwave rippling outward. The impact that scattered in every direction shook even the goddesses’ bodies and authorities, forcing them to leap backward in panic and enter a brief lull.
They had repeated this situation countless times. Far from winning, they could not even break through.
“Weakness—! Haven’t you found any weaknesses yet?”
“It’s a combination of absolute-class magic and raw power. There’s no way to break through with normal methods.”
“It’s already been half a day since that wolf and snake left. The primordial war gods alone can’t suppress them. The lower gods aren’t even worth considering. We need to get out there and catch them ourselves.”
“At this rate the entire Divine Realm is going to collapse again. What do we do?”
The wolf god and snake god that the insane Dimensional Mage God Lokina had released were originally called the Divine Realm Annihilation Fortresses. Torina, who knew their true nature, had desperately tried to stop them. The goddesses had immediately tried to capture them, but the two had blocked the entrance.
At first they tried to push through with superior numbers, but the pair—whose bodies had recovered to some extent—had grown so powerful that they could no longer be ignored. In fact, it was more accurate to say they had been strengthened by the Dimensional Mage God’s authority support and the Divine Realm’s Creator-class backing to a level surpassing their prime.
Torina, who had once completely overpowered Hephais with brute force, finally exploded in frustration.
“Weren’t you supposed to be nothing but a blacksmith god? Then why do you fight so well? Your strength and combat sense are on a completely different level from when we first fought! You’re telling me you improved this much in such a short time? And you’re saying that’s not a war god? Did your Divine Realm have so much spare combat power during the Main God War that you could afford to hide someone like this?”
When Torina spat those words at Granraha in a fit of rage, Granraha ground her teeth. She’s striking right at the most painful spot. But even she had never expected Hephais to be this strong. Her rate of growth was blindingly fast.
The Torina who had won not long ago was now completely occupied with desperate defense. We never knew because she absolutely refused to step forward as a war god until the Divine Realm was on the brink of destruction. No, I did think something was strange when she refused to heal her injuries. I knew from the moment Zeus panicked and tried to kill her.
Her former partner Zeus had inflicted a fatal wound on Hephais the moment she was born. More precisely, he had used his full power to kill her but failed. When Granraha, sensing something wrong with the Main God of the Divine Realm’s full-powered attack, appeared and opposed him, he had been unable to finish the job. Instead, he had exiled her from the Divine Realm in that injured state. That was when they should have realized what she was—a powerful Main God who would lead the next generation.
By the time she grew up and returned to the Divine Realm on her own as a blacksmith god, the wounds Zeus had given her had become permanent and incurable. A full-powered strike from a Main God had caused permanent damage to a Highest God’s body.
The Divine Realm had been horrified by the sight of a Highest God who limped and possessed an ugly face—something that should have been impossible for a god with a perfect body. When they confirmed that her condition was completely untreatable, Zeus had breathed a sigh of relief. The being who could threaten his position as Main God of the Divine Realm had been rendered permanently irreparable.
Yet as time passed, he began to regret it. Hephais was a direct descendant of the great Sky Clan. The pitiful sight of her forced to live with an ugly appearance forever because of his jealousy and fear stirred more regret as the origin of the clan than obsession as a ruler. Above all, even with her disability, her talent remained outstanding and precious.
Every divine artifact she created as a blacksmith god drew admiration from all the gods. She could have been the decisive factor in solving the Divine Realm’s chronic technological shortcomings. No longer would they have to bow their heads to other divine realms and borrow artifacts.
In the end, to reconcile, even the Main God of the Divine Realm gave up the Goddess of Beauty—whom he himself had coveted—and forcibly made her Hephais’s partner despite fierce opposition and the goddess’s own refusal. It was an offer of peace. But although they became a couple, Hephais never fully opened her heart again. Even when granted vast vitality upon becoming a Main God, she refused healing and remained a blacksmith god. Zeus felt even more relieved at that.
But he never imagined that the Main God War—which would shake the entire order of the gods—would break out soon after.
The battle of the Creator Gods that erupted when the 499th Master Universe entered the Realm of Truth ended in a catastrophic defeat for the existing powers. The ruling class was completely replaced and the ruling ideology changed.
Since even the Creator General had changed, the aftermath was devastating. For the coming battle against the Substitute Gods, stability was abandoned and progress became the supreme directive. The single line written on the order the new Creator General, Lord Sangharama, sent to the war gods was:
Only the victorious strong shall receive blessing.
Lord Sangharama’s blessing, which brought maximum development to the divine race, was limited to the victorious strong. Without losers, there could be no winners. Without defeated divine realms, there could be no victorious ones. The message was clear: if you want support, fight for it.
All the divine realms shuddered at this blatant incitement of war, but they had no choice.
The effect of the title received from the Absolute Realm was beyond words, so it had to be secured at all costs. They would sacrifice any divine realm necessary to become the winner. Moreover, the losers—the weak—faced the Spirit Realm, where everything including their power and bodies would be taken. To the victors went all the planets of the defeated divine realms.
Once one divine realm began an invasion, every realm threw its full strength into total war. It was only natural that the ruling class would shift from stable inheritance to a desperate struggle of survival of the fittest. It was a storm of change and revolution that could neither be refused nor stopped.
After the Main God War that replaced all ruling powers, the verification war involving even the Substitute Gods and Demon Gods broke out. No matter how powerful a faction one possessed, if the Main God of the Divine Realm was weak, they could not endure the continuous wars. In a conflict where retreat was impossible, the full power of a Main God was precious, but because it was unverified skill and potential, they could not be fully trusted until the end.
But having faced her now, they realized she had become a war god powerful enough to turn the tide of the Main God War.
Whiiiiiiiiiir—! Whiiiiiiiiiir—!
Hephais spun a hammer whose mass surpassed that of a mountain between her fingers like a toy. Her eyes showed not a single flicker of doubt. She analyzed them as if forging a divine artifact, searching for openings and striking with perfect accuracy. She also possessed the raw power to send the foremost fighter flying with a single blow, making it impossible for anyone to take the lead alone. That alone completely nullified the advantage of numbers and prevented any advance.
The bigger problem was the magical attacks she unleashed at will through complete chanting while they were pinned down. Every single spell bypassed the walls of space and time to strike indiscriminately. There was no more troublesome opponent.
Thanks to this, they finally understood why the Flipside Lord God authority—activated by reinforcing the Main God of the Divine Realm’s power—was considered a transcendent authority. They also understood just how powerful the Dimensional Mage God truly was.
The one who suffered the most from it was herself. The authority of the sky was the highest authority of time and space, closest to dimensional authority. Because she had been forced to defend almost constantly, she had taken the full brunt of the damage. If Gaiana had not supported them with her Omniscience, the majority of the goddesses would have already fallen in defeat.
He was a Main God whose power they had never witnessed even during the Main God War.
“Your divine realm—! With an authority like that Flipside Lord God, it’s as if you had two Main Gods of the Divine Realm. If we include you, that’s three or more. What divine realm could possibly defeat that? Just how the hell did you lose? It would be harder to lose on purpose!”
“Haaah… ugh… that painful past…”
Torina hung her head. Back then she had been confident after nearly conquering all the surrounding divine realms. With three beings powerful enough to become Main Gods of the Divine Realm, there was no way an ordinary divine realm could win.
After defeating even the final alliance of the surrounding realms and declaring that the tiresome war was finally over, they had been enjoying a victory banquet while mopping up the remnants.
But she truly had not known that Odin and the ruling class, overcome by fear of Lokina—who had even become a dark mage for the sake of victory—would attempt to purge her. Nor could she have imagined they would fail so pathetically and let her escape.
She could not bring herself to say that Lokina, driven mad by rage, had gathered the remnants of the surrounding realms and dragged them all down together. After that, she had barely managed to protect her territory by leading the remaining forces into the Goddess Alliance. She was fully aware that her own responsibility for failing to prevent such a tragedy could not be ignored.
But at the time, Lokina had not been this strong, so she could not understand why Odin and the ruling class had feared her so much. Now that she faced her as an enemy once more, she realized the Flipside Lord God authority fully supported by the Main God of the Divine Realm was truly terrifying. Moreover, with a war god to protect her completely, the fully amplified power of her magic surpassed the goddesses and only reached parity when Gaiana assisted.
She could now clearly understand why Odin and the ruling class had been so afraid. To her, Lokina had been nothing more than a troublesome ally. To them, she had been a rival for power—a completely different meaning.
But we must break through these two no matter what. She knew the true power of the colossal wolf god and snake god that Lokina had released from control half a day ago. They were not opponents that primordial war gods who had only just entered the Main God realm could handle. Even if they could somehow win, the Divine Realm would be completely destroyed in the process.
They were not called Divine Realm Annihilation Fortresses for nothing. Yet the iron wall named Hephais standing before them could not be passed. The novices who had once relied solely on strength and body were gone. Her raw power, body control, and use of divine artifacts had all reached a level where one could believe she was an absolute-class war god among Main Gods.
On top of that, the knowledge that the Divine Realm was being torn apart made it impossible for them to respond with full effectiveness.
Then they saw a robed figure sprinting toward them. The moment that sprinting figure leaped into the space between them and Hephais, both sides—who had been in a standoff—unleashed their attacks at the intruder. Whether friend or foe, any dangerous element had to be eliminated. It was an automatic reaction.
But the interloper simply thrust both hands forward in annoyance toward the hammers descending from left and right. Naturally, his hands should have been crushed by the divine artifacts. Instead, an anomaly occurred.
Black flames briefly bloomed in his palms.
Crash—! Craaaaaack—!
The divine artifact in Torina’s hand and Hephais’s colossal hammer both shattered into pieces and scattered. Only then did they see the main gate of the Main God Temple, which had been smashed apart as if it were an illusion.
Even for them, destroying a temple of the Creation Realm was difficult, and divine artifacts infused with concentrated divine power were even harder to break. Yet the raw power that had shattered them like cookies was almost impossible to believe.
Lokina, recognizing who the opponent was, stopped her chanting and took a step back. The full authority support granted to her remained intact. Moreover, she knew better than anyone the power of the Dimensional Mage God who had grown even stronger through the Flipside Lord God authority.
The Main God of the Divine Realm who possesses unchanging trust and strength toward her—the same dark mage and Flipside Lord God—has returned. Now that he has returned, continuing the battle is meaningless.
If he withdrew his trust, they would have no power left to fight those goddesses. Hephais, having lost her divine artifact, hurriedly retreated and bowed her head. The authority and body that had partially reached absolute class were warning her. The instant he approached, it would be over.
When the two of them stepped back and bowed, the battle naturally came to an end.
“You have all been eliminated. A Main God who could not protect their own divine realm has no qualification to participate in the Main God Championship.”
The body of the Dimensional Mage God, who delivered the cold verdict, immediately shot toward the Sage of Omniscience and the spirit gods of the Otherworld, who were engaged in a chaotic melee before the seat of glory.