The Die Is Cast
If the Otherworld—which had once matched the Absolute Realm in scale during the Otherworld War—now possessed forces barely comparable to the Creation Realm of the Main Universe, then the situation was already hopeless. Moreover, if the level of the Transcendents fell short even of the Main Universe, there was no need to examine the details. It was obvious the general gods would be the lowest of the low.
His head had begun to throb at the mere thought of reviving this place, but then he remembered what his future self had said. Just half-ass it. Don't do anything in the Otherworld. When it says there's no more need, come back. Thinking of his future self speaking with such brazen nonchalance, that shameless face telling him not to cause trouble since they were ultimately the same being, made his hands clench on their own. Crack! In short, it meant don't cause trouble and stay quiet. But he couldn't do that.
Don't make me laugh, you suicidal bastard. I've only just begun. If I can't advance, I'll only fall behind. Besides, if I—the Creator God of Light—fail a mission like this, it would be fatal.
The memories of gods continued forever. Just as Jinri, who had scorched the Otherworld fifty billion years ago and hunted the rebels to the very end to annihilate them, remained an object of terror to this day. Therefore, he could not tolerate failure in even a single mission.
Even from the position of a Creator God of the Main Universe, to say nothing of Jinri, he looked at the chief officer who had finished delivering the utterly insignificant combat report and asked,
"The enemy?"
"Pardon?"
The chief officer's dazed reaction to the word "enemy," as if hearing it for the first time despite being a Transcendent, was intolerable when Coa was already in a foul mood thinking about reviving this ruined Otherworld. Whaaack—!
Coa, the Dimension Creator God, immediately manifested the Sword of Ruin and Soul across time and space to smash the chief officer across the head. The impact shook not only the body but the very soul. Though the chief officer desperately held himself back from collapsing in front of his subordinates, he could not hold back the scream that tore from his throat.
"Gaaargh—!"
"You call yourself a Transcendent and don't even know the meaning of 'enemy'? The enemy of the Otherworld! The threatening force that requires you to maintain both Transcendents and an army, doesn't it?"
Who were the enemy forces that required four hundred thousand troops just to hold them back? There was no way they were maintaining a military that consumed a massive budget purely for decoration. Moreover, even with a high-level barrier, ten thousand troops were excessive for merely maintaining a planetary shield. It clearly carried the nature of emergency reserves prepared for some kind of invasion. So just who was their enemy?
The chief officer was more shocked by this insight than by the pain. The Otherworld's inhabitants could never broadly grasp the Current World due to the Otherworld Sealing Barrier. Yet this being had instantly read the entire situation from a single small clue. At the same time, he realized one more thing: if his answer was even slightly delayed, he would be beaten without mercy.
"The traitors' forces number over one and a half million—!"
"There are traitors in the Otherworld? And the enemy's strength exceeds one and a half million? More than three times our numbers?"
"Yes."
"Explain the traitors first."
Woooong—! Coa apparently intended to listen at length. He created a golden glowing chair and sat down comfortably. The chief officer felt resentment at having to stand and report while being beaten, but from everything that had happened so far, he had already figured out that any resistance or protest would be treated as insubordination and lese-majeste. Besides, the faint killing intent lingering in those eyes made it clear only a fool would fail to notice.
"They were originally our kin. Our methods of development differed, so we fought a war fifty billion years ago, divided our territories, and have opposed each other ever since."
"Shut up! What kin? If you fought in the past, killed each other to your hearts' content, and are still fighting, that makes you mortal enemies. Stop spouting that nonsense and tell me the traitors' military strength. I want to see how many targets need to be disposed of."
The chief officer let out a low sigh of admiration at the coldly pragmatic words that severed all emotional attachment toward the enemy, as expected of a Transcendent, and continued his report.
"The traitors possess over one and a half million Transcendents. We have not accurately grasped the numbers of their Creator Gods or Lord Gods. However, judging from the scale of territory they control, we estimate they possess roughly half our strength. We project they hold over twelve million in reserve forces."
"So they have nearly four times our numbers. Yet you only maintain a standoff? Thanks to fortresses or defensive lines blocking their invasions?"
Even humans could capture a fortress called impregnable if they held three times the strength. A weak nation beside such a power would be swallowed immediately. With four times the strength, it was only natural to start a war and conquer them at once. This was strange. Emotional issues like 'kin' or whatever lost all meaning after a war had already occurred. The Otherworld should have been finished long ago.
That meant the Otherworld possessed something that offset such a massive power gap. If they lack Transcendents, they probably have many mechanical gods like the Creator God-level mechanical giant stars, the Antares. Or there must be something else.
But the answer was utterly disappointing.
"We maintain the barrier, but we have no fortresses. There is almost no geographical advantage, yet our Transcendents' quality and the level of our divine artifacts are several times superior. Since we would win in a fight, war does not break out."
To Coa, who had rolled through the worst battle lines as a mercenary god, this was such an absurd statement that he immediately shot back.
"Does getting hit with bare fists not kill you? You're not even a Lord God, yet you talk about qualitative superiority."
"……"
An elite army could defeat several times their number. This was nothing but baseless optimism and empty spiritualism from who knew where. War is ultimately a numbers game, decided by securing superior forces. Maintaining military superiority through the quality of Transcendents or divine artifacts is a fantasy, a lie. In normal combat, even the most elite forces are helpless against an overwhelmingly larger army.
Even higher gods would eventually collapse from vitality exhaustion while fighting endlessly swarming lower gods. No matter how powerful a higher Transcendent was, they could rarely win against four or more Transcendents of the First Circle or below fighting simultaneously. Only beings called Lord Gods, the kings of the gods, could ignore differences in troop numbers. That's why they are specially treated and called Lord Gods.
Besides, while the number of soldiers was difficult to increase, supplementing divine artifacts or training was easy. And once soldiers became insufficient, increasing their numbers again was extremely difficult due to opposition from the general gods. The idea of filling insufficient troops with powerful divine artifacts and elite forces was something only administrators who knew nothing about war would say. The words of administrators who viewed the military were always the same. The military is a monster that devours the budget. So they always reduced the military for reasons of budget shortages or whatever else, making all kinds of excuses.
But as he said again, while building a large army was incredibly difficult, improving the level of divine artifacts or soldiers was relatively easy. The basics of victory or defeat in war is that you must not engage in frontal battle with an enemy who outnumbers you. If you face a numerically superior enemy and their quality improves, you will be annihilated immediately.
Yet if the highest echelons of the military were sincerely saying such things while facing an enemy more than four times their size—with whom they had already fought a war in the past—then the situation was gravely serious.
"You say the standoff continues, so there must be clashes. Who provokes first? Us?"
"The… the traitors, sir."
"As expected of these…"
The Transcendent who had been forced into the position of temporary second-in-command hesitated for a moment, sensing danger, but when he saw the wooden sword in the Dimension Creator God's hand tremble again, he answered immediately. Then he felt pain in his jaw and his consciousness cut off.
"You're looking down on me!"
Though he himself did not hear it, a massive shockwave that shook the very fabric of space exploded simultaneously as his body shot upward. Crack-crack-crack-crack—!
The sight of the chief officer losing consciousness and being sent flying after taking a sincere blow to the jaw from the Sword of Ruin and Soul made the gods of the Otherworld tremble violently. The chief officer absolutely had to be protected, yet the current situation was extremely bizarre. Jinri held the tentative first rank in the Supreme Council. Excluding the Creator, it was the highest position, and even a deputy would naturally stand above the chief officer. Since he was being disciplined during a report to a superior, they could not react.
Having witnessed hundreds of Lord Gods literally ground to nothing like meat in a grinder by Jinri as he passed through the barrier, they could not dare challenge even a deputy. Beyond that reason, the Otherworld Transcendent radiating terrifying killing intent and fighting spirit before their eyes was truly a fearsome existence. The ability to freely manipulate time and space was already a power they could not dream of opposing, but they had already learned to the bone that they had no idea what he might do when angered.
The fact that he acted and spoke exactly as he pleased regardless of whether one hundred thousand Transcendents were watching was already far from ordinary.
"Kaaaaaaaagh—! These bastards spout lies like they're the truth the moment they open their mouths. The strong provoke by saying 'let's fight.' Have you ever seen the weak provoke first? You always get beaten because you're looked down on as the weak, yet you have the nerve to lie that you're stronger? Next in line, step forward and continue the report—!"
Since the chief officer who had been reporting at the front had been sent flying, the second-in-command naturally stood at the front now. However, it was an extremely hesitant moment to step forward. I'm just one of the senior officers, not the vice-chief. Why am I suddenly second—! Under normal circumstances he would have danced with joy, but seeing the chief officer end up like that for giving an unsatisfactory report, this was absolutely not the case now.
Therefore, it would have been correct for the original vice-chief to step forward and report. It might have been the opportunity of a lifetime for promotion, but having seen the chief officer get beaten half to death and sent flying mercilessly for answering slightly wrong and being a little slow, he had no courage to step forward. Moreover, his senses, honed through long years as a Transcendent, were screaming a serious warning. That is a place of death.
Stagger—! The vice-chief, who had been sending glances to the other officers behind him and protesting why he should be the one standing back there, quickly turned to yield his position, but he was already one step too late.
Step. Step. Step.
At some point, all the Transcendents standing behind him had taken simultaneous steps backward, leaving only him. As a result, he alone had ended up stepping forward. This was an extremely familiar situation. These were the very people who had always been displeased with him as he had crawled up from the bottom of the military to reach this position. These… these bastards only ever unite when shifting responsibility onto someone else!
He was dumbfounded by the perfectly synchronized action of over one hundred thousand Transcendents who usually fought so fiercely claiming they were slightly better than each other. Moreover, the vice-chief who had been in the relatively forward line had already turned his gaze elsewhere and was pretending not to see. The senior officers who had always arrogantly tried to give him orders, claiming to be above him, wouldn't even meet his eyes.
This makes it look like I stepped forward myself!
He had served many headache-inducing superiors. However, this was his first time seeing a tyrant so powerful he could suppress the entire army and act without the slightest restraint in front of his subordinates. Such an unpredictable superior was nothing short of a disaster for those below him. Not knowing when he might be killed or purged made them tremble in fear, so no matter how much they desired promotion, they would decline.
Thuuud—! But as expected, the wooden sword flew at a speed that left no chance to react and smashed into his head.
"If you've stepped forward, then report!"
"Gaaargh—!"
Though he had been hit hundreds of times, it was an attack impossible to adapt to. As the new temporary second-in-command clutched his head and screamed from unbearable pain, an incisive question flew at him.
"Enough! Since you've stepped forward, just answer. Why hasn't the Otherworld been finished by the traitors who possess overwhelmingly superior numbers? If you spout more nonsense, I'll just…."
When hundreds of wooden swords that had suddenly multiplied surrounded him, he nearly jumped out of his skin and answered immediately. Even one hit twists the soul. I have no confidence I could endure being hit by that many at once.
It was something that should have been hidden from the beings of the Void Realm, but it had already become official. Moreover, since he had been dispatched as the Truth Deputy, his highest direct superior was the Transcendent before his eyes. This was why the representative of the forces guarding the Otherworld Sealing Barrier was called the chief officer rather than the commander.
"It is thanks to Lord Jinri—!"
"Hm?"
The wooden swords that had looked ready to beat him at any moment vanished at the sudden mention of Jinri, and he immediately began explaining further.
"To the traitors, we are known as the personal guard under Jinri. We are also officially organized as being under Lord Jinri. It is publicly known that if the Current World faces a crisis of destruction, Lord Jinri—the head of the Supreme Council—will lead the forces of the Absolute Realm and us to provide salvation. That is why the traitors only strengthen their forces and provoke us but cannot start a large-scale war."
"Hoh?"
Of course, to any being who knew even the slightest bit about Jinri, this was complete nonsense. Jinri only protects those strong beings who hold value. To useless weaklings like these, far from bestowing protection, Jinri would strike them down with the iron hammer and tell them to die quickly. If this ridiculously weak Otherworld compared to the Absolute Realm were to perish and begged for help, Jinri would find it annoying and dispose of them personally.
Even by his own assessment, the reason the unstable Truth Deputy like himself had been sent was likely for that very reason. Otherwise, why would my future self have warned me to half-ass it or do nothing? It is proof that Jinri thinks very poorly of the Otherworld. And would Jinri, who is busy creating and developing a better Main Universe for eternal happiness, personally step forward to save a world inferior to even the Creation Realm? The Creator of the Absolute Realm personally helping to save a world on the brink of destruction instead of disposing of it as useless and remaking it? What fairy tale is this?
However, he learned an even more absurd fact than this ridiculous answer. They created the barrier sealing the Wind Family's main house and the Absolute Realm, yet they claim to be Jinri's personal guard? Such nonsense actually works?
It was absurd, but he had to grasp the situation. No matter how he thought about it, this was even worse than the worst-case scenario he had assumed.
"Do the traitors truly believe that? More importantly, why would Jinri save a world like this that's already ruined? Wouldn't it be better to use that time to create one more Main Universe? Above all, Jinri pays no attention to the weak. And by Absolute Realm standards, you are the lowest, most useless weaklings. Jinri wouldn't even use you as insects on Wind Star, let alone recycle you."
Coa, the Dimension Creator God, had personally experienced the Eternal Judgment—failing to achieve complete victory after fully opening his title when he lacked the ability, and being dragged to Wind Star as an insect. And knowing the level of the Absolute Realm and the Ten Centers clans, the assessment that they were worse than insects was extremely reasonable, but to the listeners it was a statement that made their blood boil.
However, the Otherworld Transcendent who had stepped forward as the second-in-command was slightly different. He instead explained more proactively, as if throwing himself into the task.
"Though Lord Jinri does not attend, Jinri is the head of the Supreme Council. Therefore, the mere possibility that Jinri might participate in the war was enough."
"I can understand that."
Though it was the distant past of fifty billion years ago, the memories of gods were eternal and undying. If any beings who had fought Jinri directly back then still existed, they could not possibly be unaware of Jinri's absolute power and disposition. Moreover, if they had all been personally smashed and only released after offering their territories as compensation, it would be utterly terrifying.
Even Coa himself would never start a war if there was even the slightest chance of Jinri getting involved. Therefore, there was no force in this weakened Otherworld that would risk Jinri starting another scorched-earth war.
However, the current situation was extremely amusing.
"Haha—! So while maintaining a barrier that seals entry to the Absolute Realm, you claim to the traitors that you're Jinri's personal guard? That's why that half-baked chief officer was so obedient when giving the current status report. So in the end, I, the Truth Deputy, am your official direct superior. You are also officially Jinri's personal guard. It's just on paper, but it doesn't matter. Thanks to that, I can shorten things considerably."
When a chilling smile rose to the lips of the Dimension Creator God Coa, the face of the Otherworld Transcendent who had been forcibly pushed forward as second-in-command turned deathly pale. His long-honed senses were sending urgent signals of mortal danger.
And as expected, a voice carrying a terrifying meaning rang throughout space.
"There was a saying like this in the Otherworld. The die is cast."
Coa spoke with a bright smile to the Otherworld Transcendents who could not understand the meaning at all.
"We cross the river. Right now—!"