The Path of the Strong
Being a mercenary god and magic god who originated as a black mage in the Otherworld War was the first title and honor he had ever obtained after being looked down on for specializing in black magic, so he wanted to do it right.
He craved power and influence more desperately than anyone else. He constantly thought about retiring immediately and running away because it was so brutally difficult, yet he still wanted to climb higher. That was why, even after becoming the Main God of an independent divine realm with the absolute authority and autonomy that everyone envied, he had lived even more fiercely and desperately than in his mercenary god days to reach this point. He had even steeled himself for conflict with beings from the Absolute Realm—entities that gods of the Main Universe feared to even approach—and had finally obtained power that meant he no longer needed to fear the gods of the Main Universe.
Once he became the Main God and earned recognition, the gods of the Dimensional Divine Realm stopped challenging him, and order slowly settled in. 'It had been utter chaos from them tearing into each other over past grudges, but it was still an improvement.'
Even though they were mortal enemies, they would never do anything that threatened the divine realm itself. No matter what schemes they hatched or fingers they pointed behind the scenes, they never let it show publicly. They knew all too well—and feared—that the Dimensional Magic God, who had acknowledged their usefulness and granted them most of the power and administrative rights, would never forgive such a transgression.
'In the end, the strength of the Main God of the Divine Realm comes before everything else. When I changed, the world around me changed too. Yes—if the representative is stronger than anyone, no organization or nation will collapse. Jinri showed me that. My life proved it. So I believe.'
At that moment the Authority of Black Flame burning even more fiercely inside him transformed into Exploding Blood, completely shattering the restraints on his body. The backlash nearly reduced his internal organs, blood, and muscles to ash, but he had regained his physical freedom. The Origin's Title and Dimensional Authority activated instantly, restoring him so he could survive once more. However, the blood boiling from the intense internal heat could not be contained.
Cough—!
Psssssssh—!
Red blood that gave off smoke flowed across the floor like lava. With the restraints gone, his body—which had been kneeling on one knee—collapsed forward. Yet defeat and submission before Jinri was an unforgivable crime. Moreover, he could not fall in front of Jinri, so he clenched his right hand into a fist and drove it into the ground.
Thud—!
With his right knee and fist planted firmly, he held up his collapsing body. In that prone position he shouted. His boiling blood and unrestrained body felt as if they would shatter and scatter at any second. His mouth refused to stay closed; he was truly on the verge of losing consciousness. Suppressing pain so intense it felt like his breath would stop at any moment, he spoke.
He had taken consecutive blows that exceeded his limits without even realizing how, and his body was on the verge of death. Clinging to life through the Origin’s Title, his fading consciousness was sustained only by the countless assertions and vows about the strong that had been engraved into his spirit. This was Dimension Creator God Coa.
Even after he had poured out every word in his heart, there was no response for a long time. Then Jinri’s answer came.
“Dimension Creator God Coa, are you ultimately not a ruler, but a Magic God? Instead of dominating the world, will you wager everything to distort a reality you cannot accept and obtain the outcome you desire? An answer truly worthy of a Magic God who seizes only victory by any means. My descendants. Are you relieved now? You have no objections either, correct? For a spiritual being overflowing with such motivation, a slight deficiency in power is no issue. Because he will not surrender to any despair and will eventually overcome it. I shall look forward with amusement to the troubles that arise in the process.”
The nearby members of the Wind Family Origin nodded in silent agreement. They could not fully endorse Dimension Creator God Coa’s view of the strong, yet they were relieved that he could express such an opinion before both Jinri and themselves. Moreover, since Jinri Grandfather was clearly delighted, the situation was one to welcome rather than fear.
“Huhu—! The best a Magic God can offer sounds entertaining. Do not give up.”
What the Truth Deputy needed most was not absolute power but an unyielding will that would never surrender. A life that had been smooth from the start and filled with continuous victories held no emotion or brilliance. Yet Jinri Grandfather had suffered countless defeats in his duel against the First 10 Mainstays before ultimately seizing victory, which made that glory shine all the more brilliantly.
‘Even in that kind of situation in the Otherworld, if he does not give up on himself, he will at least avoid tarnishing Jinri Grandfather’s name. If he actually succeeds in reviving the realm, it will be an extraordinary achievement.’
If a mere spiritual being could overcome such adversity in the Otherworld as Truth Deputy and still succeed, Jinri’s fame would become an immortal honor there as well. Given Dimension Creator God Coa’s abilities and disposition, the odds were extremely low—but the important thing was that the possibility existed. Even if it seemed nearly impossible, if he refused to give up and kept trying endlessly, he would reach success one day. That will to turn the impossible into the possible was the very root of the Wind Family.
Having confirmed such resolve, further worry was unnecessary.
“Then go.”
At Jinri’s words, the nearly dead body of Dimension Creator God Coa regained vitality. The instant the chance to survive here appeared, the life force of the Origin’s Title—which had been in an extreme state of alert—unleashed its full power.
Yet when he tried to rise, a bone-crushing roar echoed through him. The restraining force still lingered.
Crrraaack—!
‘Kuuuugh—! Just what suppressed me? Even after the Authority of Black Flame released the restraints, its influence remains? The destructive power of the Authority of Black Flame is the highest among absolute authorities—yet it couldn’t overcome this? Could it be Eternal Authority?’
Nevertheless, the life force and regenerative power of the Origin’s Title displayed peerless strength. On the outside he looked unharmed, but inside, where the Authority of Black Flame had turned into Exploding Blood and rampaged wildly, his body—which had nearly been reduced to ash—recovered in the blink of an eye.
Not wanting to waste this hard-won chance at survival, he desperately opened a spatial gate. The moment he moved toward the only relatively safe Otherworld dimensional coordinate he possessed, Jinri’s voice rang out once more. No—it was a command.
“I, Jinri, command the Otherworld Truth Deputy as Truth.”
“Any being who meets me, Jinri, must receive both reward and punishment. Reward and punishment hold value only when given together, and this is a trial. The lower must overcome the harsh trials bestowed by the higher to become strong. Execute without mercy those weak who cannot pass. Since I am sending you to the Otherworld as my deputy, I grant an exception this once. But remember this above all: you must never compromise with anyone. You must not look back. Do not even glance to the side—look only forward and beyond. Advance by shattering everything that stands in your way. To the strong there is no past regret, no present mercy, no future hesitation—equally toward self and others. This is the shortest path to becoming a true strong one. If you truly wish to become my deputy with all your might, engrave these words in your soul and carry them out.”
“Glory to the strong—! Opportunity to the weak—! Everything according to the will of Truth—!”
Dimension Creator God Coa could no longer endure the oppressive presence of the Eternal Beings. He gave that answer, bowed his head, and instantly moved to the coordinates he had set.
Watching the spot where he had vanished, Jinri added quietly, almost as if speaking to himself.
“And seek enjoyment in life. If you yourself are not happy, you cannot make anyone else happy. If you truly wish to become a ruler, becoming happy yourself first is not a right but a duty. No one sincerely follows an unhappy superior. Always do your best and savor the fruits of your labor. Even if those fruits are failure, as long as you do not give up you will eventually reach the ending you desire. Even if that ending is eternal happiness.”
Those were words he himself had heard countless times in the distant past. ‘They were the words my fathers always gave me, worrying about their son who only trained and remained indifferent to the world.’
The fact that useless old memories were surfacing suggested the rare spectacle of fireworks, accompanied by alcohol, had made him slightly sentimental. Or perhaps the sight of the Dimensional Magic God—who had given the name Dimension Creator God Coa in order to send him to the Otherworld—struggling so fiercely to survive and become strong had reminded him of the past.
“Hut—! Endless stimulation in an eternal life would be nice.”
The desperate struggle and ultimate victory against the First 10 Mainstays, who had wielded all rights of the Absolute Realm through force, was a memory he could never forget. And the current prosperity of the Absolute Realm and the Main Universes was an eternal honor and source of pride befitting an Eternal Being. Though the process had been exceedingly long and arduous.
‘And still, the end is nowhere in sight.’
He lay back on the bench and gazed at the sky. Feeling the startled stares of his descendants at his completely defenseless posture, he looked up at the heavens that still glowed beautifully with lingering traces of the explosion’s aftermath.
Now he spent time like this with his descendants, but in the past he had held such conversations with the First 10 Mainstays while overseeing the premature collapse and reconstruction of stars and galaxies in the Absolute Realm whose lifespans had been exhausted.
“The lifespan of the Absolute Realm is coming to an end. No matter how much we repair it, the end never arrives.”
“Why does a world created by perfect Eternal Beings possess a lifespan?”
“Is the end coming to this world?”
The answer had been the same from both the First Grey Absolute and himself.
“Because Eternal Beings are perfect, the worlds they create must always be imperfect. The perfect cannot create anything greater than themselves, yet they always create the same. Therefore, in the Absolute Realm there exist no perfect authorities or beings besides themselves. Such collapses keep occurring. We minimize the damage, improve where we can, and restore it, but eventually the entire realm will reach its limit. That is the end of this world.”
“Then the Absolute Realm we worked so hard to revive will disappear completely. However, it is a matter of the far distant future, and the harder we strive, the further that end will recede.”
The First 10 Mainstays had already vaguely sensed that their minds were gradually eroding and going mad within the flow of eternal time, and they felt the looming crisis. In the end they had found a definite countermeasure.
“What if an imperfect Eternal Being repeatedly attempted to create a perfect world? Even if it failed at first, if it kept trying in different ways and improved with each attempt, wouldn’t slightly better results emerge each time until eventually a perfect world appeared?”
It was an utterly preposterous idea—an imperfect creator endlessly supplementing and refining the world to produce perfection—yet a faint possibility existed. Imperfection, after all, could produce unexpected outcomes.
‘If it repeated the process endlessly while changing methods and developing, a perfect world might one day emerge. But only the possibility existed.’
Even for them—the rulers of the Absolute Realm whose bodies and power surpassed those of the Eternal Beings—it was a task demanding such astronomical time and effort that it was almost unbearable. Above all, to delay the end and maintain the present, the sacrifice of the First 10 Mainstays was required. Nevertheless, at the decision of the Grey Absolute, this reckless plan was set in motion.
‘It meant concentrating all the powers and possibilities of the First 10 Mainstays to create an imperfect Eternal Being that possessed absolute power and developmental potential far beyond common sense, yet also possessed an unstable mind and emotions.’
There had been himself, who from birth had been infinitely close to an Eternal Being thanks to the influence of his father—the strongest in personal martial might through endless training, a being who had surpassed even the Eternal Beings. Moreover, since he had originally been human and a transcendent, his potential for growth and unpredictability were of the highest order. Naturally the plan had centered on him; without him it could not have been established at all.
Thus the Second Absolute Great War had erupted, and already five hundred billion years had passed since their narrow victory. He now existed as Jinri, an imperfect Eternal Being, exactly as they had intended. It was the outcome they had desired.
‘With the Eight Wheels Seal that imprisoned the bodies of the First 10 Mainstays and as long as I exist, the Absolute Realm will not meet its end. Yet a perfect world is still too far away. They couldn’t achieve it themselves yet placed far too heavy a burden on me. I repaid the grace I received by leaving their names behind, so that should suffice.’
He had expanded and reinforced the existing Absolute Realm by more than a hundred times and distributed it among the strong who inherited the names of the 10 Mainstays. The names of the overwhelmingly powerful 10 Mainstays had become honors that even the Eternal Beings could not touch.
In that way he had repaid his teachers, the fathers who had given him life, and the fathers who had raised him. He had also continued creating while supplementing a thousand Main Universes at the scale of the original Absolute Realm. He did not know when, but he labored to create a perfect world and achieve eternal happiness. All to fulfill the ‘eternal happiness’ that had become his purpose.
‘Of course I know that creating a perfect world does not automatically bring eternal happiness.’
While Jinri was lost in long-forgotten memories and sentimentality, Dimension Creator God Coa ground his teeth and drew the Sword of Ruin and Soul.
“Kuuuuuuuugh—! I survived, but now I remember everything. This is all because of these bastards.”
The only safe dimensional coordinate he knew in the Otherworld was precisely the core of the sealing barrier he had been repelled from earlier. Seeing the Otherworld gods who had blocked his path and demanded a pass now regaining their senses and groaning, his rage exploded.
“You fucking bastards—! How many times did I almost die? Yet a god who cannot forget had his memories blown away in an instant from shock? Is that even possible? Because of you lot I ended up making a report I never needed to make, and this is the result? Immediately drawing the Sword of Ruin and Soul he had received from Jinri, he charged forward and began mercilessly beating every last one of the Otherworld gods.
He wanted to kill them all, but he could not. ‘This is still inside the domain of Wind Star, and the Origin of the Mage God is definitely watching.’
A magic god seizes victory by any means necessary, but he is still a god of light. Moreover, if he committed a forbidden act while the Wind Family’s Mage God Origin was watching directly, his head would literally fly off. Therefore, since he could not kill defenseless weaklings and absorb their vitality, the only option was to repay them in exactly the same manner.
“You rotten pieces of shit—! Do you have any idea what kind of hell I just went through because of you? Simply killing you nicely won’t relieve my anger at all—! You bastards get beaten by the Sword of Ruin and Soul just like me and see how it feels since you can’t die—!”
“Waack—!”
“Keuk—!”
“What the—! Aaaack—!”
Using Dimensional Authority, he erased all spatial and temporal restrictions from hundreds of thousands of Otherworld gods and began beating them all at once. The screams of Otherworld gods being pummeled without knowing why echoed throughout the void of space for a long time.
“You lot get your memories blown away from getting beaten too. But you pathetic weaklings—! How is there not a single one of you who can even block properly, let alone counterattack? Are you really the elite combat gods? If you’re the best combat gods of the Otherworld then at least put up some resistance! It’s so one-sided that I look like the villain again, damn it? By the way, why are these combat gods so ridiculously weak? Argh—! I really can’t stand the sight of you—!”
Of course it was Dimension Creator God Coa whose voice rang out far louder than their screams.