The Absolute Power Gap
The war in the Otherworld had already been decided, no matter how desperately one fought or how many enemies were annihilated. Even if victory were somehow seized, the desired outcome would never come. Chasing a glorious triumph had only led to dancing exactly as the enemy intended. The Main Divine Realm lay in ruins, yet here he stood—unable to even breach the front gate. It was the worst possible humiliation. There was no greater shame or disgrace he could display.
At this point, he no longer had any business in the Dimensional Divine Realm. The Magic God of Dimensions had proven, in a way no one could deny, that his realm was stronger than the Main Divine Realm. All that remained now were a personal reckoning with the Magic God of Dimensions and the election itself.
No. He had not lost yet. The match would not be settled until he sat upon the seat of glory. The fact that the seat beside the second-ranked Magic God of Dimensions remained empty proved the man had other intentions. He didn’t know the exact thoughts behind it, but that vacant spot spoke volumes.
Once his thoughts were organized, the boiling rage that had threatened to reverse the flow of his blood began to subside. As the excitement faded, strength drained from his body. The full-powered strike he had unleashed with suicidal resolve had been rendered meaningless, plunging his entire being into sudden emptiness.
Paradoxically, the drop in his body’s functions to the level of a mere Creator Candidate had allowed his original power and authorities to regain stability. Though his physical ability had fallen to that of a Candidate, the Incomprehensible Eight Progenitors—optimized for exactly this level—had recovered its full might.
In this state, he was invincible against everyone except the Sage of Omniscience. Right now, he could shatter the Goddess Alliance’s battle goddesses, the Divine Realm Annihilation Fortress, or anything else that stood in his way. The memory of what had actually happened to him was so overwhelming that his thoughts kept drifting back to that direction.
If he had controlled the Incomprehensible Eight Progenitors this freely from the beginning, such a result would never have occurred. But what was done was done. There was no point in lingering on regrets.
With a smooth turn—!
He spun around without the slightest hint of wariness. Completely ignoring Lokina, Hephais, and the mountain-like Jormungandr with its bared fangs, he began walking back the way he had come.
The sight of his relaxed departure slowly transformed Lokina’s eyes into pure shock. Until now, she had thought there might still be a way to win if they played their cards right. But the moment she saw that retreating back, she instinctively understood—this was an existence that must never be touched.
It was strange. A Creator God who had forced his way in while in an excited frenzy had suffered tremendous damage and regained his composure, making everyone feel an overwhelming gap in power. Yet she immediately understood why.
Yet this prediction had to be correct. The suffocating tension that had gripped them earlier was replaced by an eerie silence. The Creator God walked away with an expressionless face, and from his back radiated the relaxed confidence that only those who treat battlefields as daily life and reign with absolute dominance could display.
If anyone dared to intrude upon that, they would have to prepare for a fight to the death. Even the battle goddesses of the Goddess Alliance, who had developed tremendously in this regard, were barely maintaining their Fighting Spirit while deliberately refraining from directing it toward him. That alone proved everything.
This sense of crisis was shared by everyone present. That was why no one dared rush the defenseless back of Almighty Hwi.
However, Hephais, whose main occupation was blacksmithing, had no idea what was happening. The sudden end of the battle left her completely confused. Seeing the enemy leave as if nothing had happened while they stood there like they were seeing him off, she opened her mouth to speak—only for Lokina to desperately clamp both hands over it.
“What the hell are you—mmph—!”
Hephais struggled, her eyes clearly demanding an explanation. Lokina urgently sent her will.
‘What? You said we could win earlier! And let go of me right now. This is annoying!’
She thrashed wildly. The battle goddesses of the Goddess Alliance who had rushed over after roughly grasping the situation joined in, adding more hands to silence her.
‘If you provoke him now, we’re all dead.’
‘Let go of me, all of you—!’
But she quickly realized that no amount of physical strength could overcome Hephais’ Infinite Alchemy. Her raw physical power, which she had barely used properly until now, was the greatest among all the battle goddesses. It was almost ridiculous.
The situation was about to devolve into another internal fight, so Lokina hurriedly added an explanation.
‘Huh? Isn’t that talking about our Main God? So that’s why you said we could handle him if we worked together?’
Their Main God of the Divine Realm, the Magic God of Dimensions, possessed various authorities. With the Fighting Spirit granted by Jinri, the title of Origin that granted infinite vitality, and the dimensional authority he wielded as a powerful dark mage, plus wide-area destruction authority that let him manipulate planets at will—he was a battle god whose power surpassed Transcendent Authority with just one of those abilities.
However, there was one massive problem. His lack of talent and potential meant he couldn’t master any of them perfectly. Learning so many different things naturally lowered his proficiency in each. And when linking them or launching all-out attacks, the resulting openings were a fatal flaw.
At first they hadn’t noticed, but now even they could occasionally see the glaring weaknesses. There was no way Lokina or the battle goddesses of the Goddess Alliance would miss such massive openings. Against an opponent like that, there should be nothing to fear—yet they couldn’t understand why he was letting them go so meekly after attacking the Divine Realm.
In the end, watching Hephais thrash about, refusing to accept defeat, Lokina couldn’t hide her frustrated expression and screamed internally.
When that Creator God had turned and started walking away, a chill had run down her spine and refused to leave. The former Main God of the Divine Realm, the Sword God, had been impressive, but the refined killing intent and Fighting Spirit he emitted was on a completely different level from the gods during the Divine War. Provoking him was genuinely dangerous, yet she kept trying to do exactly that.
In the end, she had no choice but to explain it in a way even this foolish blacksmith could understand.
Gaiana, who had been sighing in relief as Almighty Hwi obediently withdrew, also sent her will.
But Hephais’ reply made everyone feel as if their blood had frozen solid.
At Hephais’ sudden and extremely dangerous remark, the faces of every battle goddess of the Goddess Alliance, Lokina, and even Gaiana turned deathly pale.
The Shuddering March was not only a top-tier demon but a super demon who could simultaneously operate two Transcendent Authorities belonging to her race. She could easily be considered above a Demon God King. Moreover, her authorities—Shudder and March—had terrifying synergy with the Incomprehensible Eight Progenitors, which was an absolute counterattack ability.
Shudder was a wide-area authority that refused direct attacks or counters and simply erased the opponent’s existence. March created countless clones with power equal to the main body. For close-combat specialists, these were natural enemies. Even if one tried to attack, finding the real body was nearly impossible. If one blocked an attack and tried to counter, the clones would simply self-destruct, leaving almost no solution. On top of that, she herself was an exceptionally skilled close-combat demon with almost no openings.
Simply fighting the Shuddering March gradually drained one’s divine power and physical strength, and stopping it required enormous amounts of divine power. One had to battle endlessly regenerating top-tier demons in a domain where even breathing consumed massive divine power. Since they were racial authorities, she herself expended almost no magic power and could maintain them indefinitely. It was nothing short of a disaster.
Only someone on the level of the Sage of Omniscience could fight like that. Ordinary battle gods or demons couldn’t even stand against her. The fact that the Sage of Omniscience could fight the Shuddering March alone in close combat proved just how extraordinary she was.
When they simulated the battle in their minds, they reached the horrifying conclusion that the entire Divine Realm would be finished in half a day. After that, they had all agreed never to provoke her if at all possible—yet here Hephais was saying such things.
If those words reached the wrong ears, it would be grounds for an immediate duel.
The battle goddesses of the Goddess Alliance all shook their heads. Having witnessed the battle that had half-destroyed the Divine Realm, they had all come to understand exactly what kind of beings the Shuddering March and the Sage of Omniscience were. They still couldn’t understand how it had ended in a draw, but since the Magic God of Dimensions had personally and politely requested they treat the visitors as honored guests, they were restraining themselves.
Even though they were lower-ranked gods, he was still the Main God of the Divine Realm. Above all, the Acting Representative of the Main God of the Divine Realm was Gaiana of the Almighty Race, so they seemed to be showing restraint. It was truly fortunate that they cared about their public image.
But afterward, the Shuddering March had endlessly provoked the other with words. The Shuddering March had countered every provocation with even colder sarcasm and mockery, and the two had glared at each other as if ready to kill. It had been so tense that no one dared approach.
“Now that I look at it, the Incomprehensible Eight Progenitors isn’t all that great, is it? Or maybe the one who learned it is just mediocre? The Origin of the Almighty Race can’t even handle a few Main Gods and ends up like this? The future of the Almighty Tribe looks quite bright.”
“It’s better than relying on a single mutant. Do you even know how pathetic things became after you disappeared and the successor you appointed became a top-tier demon? The two factions split and were on the verge of war, you know?”
“Really? Thanks for the information. I expected as much, but now that I’ve returned, things will be different.”
“You’re currently in the position of a summoned god. Do you really think you can talk your way out of this? It’ll only make the situation worse. If you politely bow your head and ask me, I might be willing to mediate for you?”
“Does the Almighty Race even have the capacity to help other tribes? You only have one Main God—the Acting Representative of the Main God of the Divine Realm—yet you talk so boldly. How long do you think it will take for a tribe that was nearly destroyed by your hands to recover? Looking at you now, it seems you can barely take care of yourselves. Ohohohohot—!”
“Ohohohohot—! After your tribes went to war and were completely ruined, you can still laugh like that?”
It was a killing-intent-filled verbal battle between the Shuddering March, who sat in the first seat of glory in the Divine War, and the Sage of Omniscience, who had taken the seat created beside her.
The Spirit Lords and the Origins of the 500th Master Universe around them had stopped their own confrontation, tightly sealed their lips, and avoided each other’s eyes. The moment the two demons who had rushed in right after the round table’s all-out attack realized the situation, they began radiating Fighting Spirit and killing intent at each other. The difference in level was so vast that no one could possibly intervene.
The Origins and Main Gods had pushed their personal feelings aside, knowing full well what would happen if they tried to stop those two demons.
And so Almighty Hwi, his face completely expressionless, arrived at the moon. He stared silently at the massive army of Lower Gods blocking his path, never slowing his advance.
The Transcendents watching the steadily approaching Almighty Hwi remained tense. Then, suddenly, a sound like thunder exploded in everyone’s ears.
Crack—!
Although their time alive was short, the Hero God and his comrades had spent their entire lives fighting Demon Kings. They had risked their lives countless times against higher beings, but this kind of pressure was a first. They were barely enduring a terror they had never experienced before when the sound rang out, causing them to flinch violently.
A groan that sounded almost like a scream escaped from the Magic God’s mouth.
“That’s the sound of a fist clenching. What kind of power is that? It’s… horrifying.”
“That’s outside the moon—! There’s no air—! There’s no way sound could travel! What the hell is that sound—!”
Before the Magic God could finish his bewildered words, Almighty Hwi landed on the moon’s surface. What had looked slow was actually an incredible speed; the Lower Gods’ senses couldn’t even react in time.
Thud—!
Having landed effortlessly on the lunar surface, Almighty Hwi swept his gaze over the Transcendents. A faint smile rose to his lips.
No—it was a self-mocking laugh.
“Heh… So this was the trick. The army blocking the path wasn’t made of normal Lower Gods. You dressed up 7th Circle Transcendents with divine artifacts and turned them into hastily made scarecrows. If I fall for something like this, I can’t even get angry.”
Even so, each of them was a Transcendent or powerhouse of their respective race. None of them dared to protest or show anger at being labeled as mere scarecrows. A million Transcendents had been completely overwhelmed by a single individual. At a glance, they instinctively realized this was not an opponent they could overwhelm with numbers.
If not for the Hero God’s Indomitable authority, they might all have been on their knees begging by now. Most of all, despite his expression remaining completely calm, the sound of his tightly clenched fist cracking continued to echo loudly, revealing just how furious he truly was.
Therefore, everyone’s desperate gazes naturally turned toward the Hero God, silently pleading for him to do something. Fortunately, it seemed he had a plan. He bravely drew his sword and stepped forward without hesitation.