A Human Who Fights Gods
It was silent.
No one could make a sound.
The intangible power radiating from the Chief God and the Hero was that overwhelming.
Watching the scene from above, Refelt bit her lip hard enough to draw blood.
She was strong, no question about it.
But that existence—like a natural disaster, no... something far beyond one—what in the world was it?
Merely by exerting their will, countless powerhouses were dropping like flies.
Refelt knew all too well that she herself wouldn't last even a single second against it.
She resented her own helplessness, unable to do anything as the man she loved and her lord suffered.
Almiraj felt the exact same self-loathing.
'After losing the Forgotten God's power, to think I have no means of resistance at all.'
Her pride was wounded.
Yet something burned even more desperately than pride.
For someone who had lost all her stats over a single matter of pride and thrown herself into this endless battle, what she desperately wanted—surprisingly even to herself—was to know whether Dre lived or died.
'Hoo...'
Almiraj forcefully circulated her Runar, compelling her body to rise.
"Heya! Kaits, long time no see!! Is this the first time since the third round?"
"......"
Ignoring Nanar's noisy fussing entirely, Kaits looked at Dre collapsed over there.
"Ah... you mean Dre? Nooo~ I was just going to talk, or maybe make a contract, or at best take him with me? I never planned to hurt him from the start!"
Kaits saw it clearly.
Even in that state, Dre was clicking his tongue and shooting him a look of utter disgust.
Kaits let out a snort before he could stop himself.
Dre cursed him with his eyes. Kaits turned his head and looked at Nanar again.
"You're looking healthy."
"Right?! I took such good care of him, didn't I??"
"Then why did you hurt him?"
"Hmm? Umm..."
Nanar scratched his head, then broke into a bright smile.
"Ah... Dre keeps turning me on! Ahahahaha..."
Thwack.
The lower jaw was ripped away.
By the time Nanar registered it, the follow-up strike was already incoming.
It was an unusually violent move for Kaits, and the first time Nanar had felt flustered since descending.
"Whoa? Calm down, calm down. This isn't your character, Kaits—"
In an instant the jaw regenerated. The eyes staring back at Nanar burned with fierce black flames.
"...Wow."
After staring blankly, the impressed Nanar grinned.
"Those eyes. I like them."
Kiiiiing!
The sound of time and causality rewinding.
All kinds of manipulations unfolded once more... only to shatter with a boom.
Baaam!!
A devastating blow landed squarely on the Mad God's face.
Nanar stumbled backward with a choked grunt.
Even Dre, collapsed far away, was stunned by the sheer ferocity of Kaits' rage.
Kaits knew getting angry here accomplished nothing.
This was the moment for negotiation.
But he didn't want to negotiate.
He couldn't explain why.
Seeing Dre in such a miserable state had simply made uncontrollable fury surge through him.
Nanar knew the smart move was to soothe him and send him away, yet he chose to fight.
"Wow... Kaits, you..."
"......"
"How many hundreds of regressions has it been since you last got this angry?"
Flash!
Golden light erupted at the end of his sentence.
But an identical golden light flared from Kaits' body and smothered it.
"I thought all your emotions had dried up long ago."
Thud!
Another fist slammed into his face.
This time the light pushed it away at the last second...
"Kuek."
A knee drove into his solar plexus.
Coughing and staggering, Nanar still wore a delighted grin.
"Our Kaits. You're really furious, aren't you? I'm happy. It means your emotions are still rich..."
Whoooosh.
"Ugh!"
"This is bad!"
Despairing groans poured from the preliminary contestants.
It was understandable—the entire area was growing brighter, yet every ray carried an overwhelming aura of destruction.
It was no different from the attack that had previously torn Dre's limbs apart.
If anything, this technique was even stronger, powerful enough to shatter the world.
But then an anomaly occurred.
Cracks spiderwebbed across the whitening world like a whiteout, and it began to shatter like fragments of glass.
Kaits lowered his raised hand, clenched his fist again, and swung at Nanar.
Kwaaang!!
"Haha..."
He blocked with his arm, but the limb broke horribly in exchange.
Regenerating the shattered arm and licking his lips, Nanar considered the situation.
Even though there had been a reason for it, that technique had finished Dre in a single strike—yet Kaits had dismantled it with ridiculous ease.
"As expected, the current Yeo Deure really isn't on your level~"
"......"
"Why are you trying so desperately to save him? As far as I know, Dre was incredibly insolent toward you. Didn't you ever want to smack him around a few times?"
The gap in power between Dre and Kaits was this vast.
Though his emotions had nearly dried up, Kaits was still human. It would have been natural to grow irritated when someone infinitely weaker acted so arrogantly, yet it seemed affection ran deeper.
"Even if I smack him..."
"Huh?"
"I'll be the one to do it."
Booom!
Crimson flames engulfed the area.
Within the blaze that had pierced the light and scorched Nanar, the Mad God staggered out, regenerating the burned sections.
"Hehe."
Bang bang bang!
Under the continuous barrage of flames, Nanar retreated step by step. In front of the pursuing Kaits, hundreds of millions of magic circles unfolded.
Kaits countered with a single gesture.
That alone shattered every circle.
Nanar let out an admiring whistle, then raised his hand with a clap.
Kaits, who had been letting every attack slide past him, flinched and leaped backward.
Nanar lowered his arm and smiled wryly.
"Your instincts are still sharp."
The Mad God cracked his neck with a series of pops and smiled, attempting conversation.
"Kaits, there's no need for us to fight."
"There is. You're trying to steal my Sword of Light."
"Huh? No no... The Sword of Light isn't your sword, it's mine, isn't it?"
"Stop with the wordplay."
"This is ridiculous."
The conversation wasn't getting through.
Rather, it seemed he wasn't even considering dialogue.
The usual Kaits would have sought advantage through talk, but right now he clearly had no intention of doing so.
Step. Step. Everyone could only watch in astonishment as Kaits closed the distance toward the Chief God without the slightest hesitation.
A fight? To the artifact owners, what had happened earlier wasn't even a fight—it was a one-sided slaughter.
No one could even stand before that Nanar.
Yet look.
That Hero wasn't just making a fight of it—he was actually pushing forward.
Gold, who had collapsed from the shock of losing an arm, sensed an opportunity and struggled to rise. El gnashed her teeth.
That Kaits. That damn Kaits.
The damn Hero who had shown up late and started hanging around Dre.
Though she never said it aloud, El hated him.
While he performed so brilliantly, while Gold had sacrificed an arm for Dre, what was she doing?
Intense emotional upheaval amplified Runar.
The Runar, authorities, and skills unleashed by Kaits and Nanar stimulated El's gifted body.
Her Runar, already exceptionally sensitive and powerful, circulated violently... and began shattering the seal Leor had placed on her.
Crack! Crackle!
El transformed, wrapped in white light.
Watching her, Nanar let out an impressed "Heh."
"You broke through your limits again?"
Srrrng.
Kaits drew his sword in silence.
His beloved blade, engraved with every kind of power and meaning, known as the Holy Sword.
At the same time, space split open behind him and countless weapons slid into view.
Nanar let out a groan of pure disbelief.
Until now it could still be dismissed as 'playing around,' but those weapons were armaments capable of slaying even the Demon King.
Items he had monopolized using knowledge from his past lives.
Their power was so great they could inflict significant damage even on a deity like Nanar.
"Huh? You're seriously going to fight? Against me, your patron god?"
"Is there any reason I can't?"
Nanar blinked, then smirked.
"Actually, there is."
At the end of his words, rainbow-colored sunlight of every hue draped over Kaits' surroundings.
It was very faint, yet Kaits couldn't pierce it immediately and spent considerable time passing through each layer.
In that opening, Nanar reached out and...
Bwoong.
Kaits' figure vanished, then reappeared right in front of Nanar's nose.
"Oh?"
"I can use authorities too."
"I let my guard d—"
Boooom!!
The sound was loud, but there was no actual explosion.
The sword and weapons embedded in his abdomen simply turned into light and slowly seeped into Nanar.
"Hmm? What are you trying to do?"
"Aren't cheap tricks tiring for both sides?"
"...Aha, a seal?"
What Kaits had done was restrict the main body's abilities, preventing the use of power.
In other words, Nanar could no longer summon the strength and authorities of other deities—the right of the Chief God.
At the same time, the Runar spreading from the Hero's body dominated the entire area.
The space that had been overwhelmingly advantageous to Nanar had become a field of equality for everyone.
"Wow... Kaits... You're really serious, huh?"
Meanwhile, El had completed her transformation.
The youthful, childish appearance had vanished, replaced by a girl with a flawless model-like figure and a goddess-like face.
Displaying beauty so stunning it stole everyone's breath, El swept her hair back and declared coldly.
"You. I'll make you regret laying a hand on my Dre."
Puhahat. Nanar burst out laughing.
"What are you even saying, El? Dre belongs to me, though."
"He doesn't belong to anyone."
Fed up with the incomprehensible exchange, Kaits swung his sword.
Grinning, the light gathered in Nanar's hand transformed into a blade and tried to slice through both sword and wielder, but Kaits' holy sword morphed into a warhammer and shattered the light into pieces.
El didn't join the fray. She watched with sharp eyes, waiting for her chance.
Simple attacks wouldn't work at all.
Just like with Poseid, Nanar existed on a completely different level. A small amount of divine power could inflict no damage whatsoever.
'Focus... and end it in one strike.'
"Elysia."
As if reading her mind, Kaits spoke.
"I've taken control of the area. Attacks should connect now."
Before he even finished speaking, a massive orb of light slammed into Nanar.
"Oof."
Buried beneath the onslaught of light, Nanar flailed, fell over, then cried out in an exaggerated voice, "Uwaaaa! It hurts!!"
But unlike before, El sensed that the attack had actually landed.
"Ah. It works."
"......"
"What?"
"Nothing."
He couldn't say it had been a long time since he'd seen El this furious.
That was knowledge from a past only Kaits remembered.
At that moment, a massive shadow fell over Nanar from behind.
A giant hand twisted around his neck and... the giant rabbit executed a suplex, slamming him into the ground with a thunderous crash.
The instant the rabbit—Almiraj—rose and retreated, arrows of light chased after her, striking papapak.
Retreating all the way to the safest spot beside Kaits, Almiraj growled.
"Almiraj."
"Magic. Do you still remember it?"
She understood what he meant.
Almiraj... had originally been a mage.
She had only become a warrior after the gods 'confiscated' her magic.
Though she had tried to forget, the resentment in her heart had burned even hotter, etching both the magic she once loved and even the spells she had never learned clearly into her memory.
Among all the Strangers, she was the one who had studied real spell formulas rather than mere skills, achieving remarkable success in true magic.
She answered at once.
"Good. Prepare when I give the signal."
Kaits scanned the surroundings.
He issued several instructions through telepathy and checked on the fallen.
Nanar did the same, surveying the area.
There were a few more who could still move... but in the end, the only ones capable of fighting were those three.
The problem was that Kaits was one of them.
Nanar muttered to himself, then cracked his neck.
Then he smiled brightly.
"Let's stop!"
He spread both arms in a gesture of surrender.
El blinked in momentary shock, but the other two didn't lower their guard.
"Kaits, you're too strong. It's difficult to win with the output available in the mortal realm."
It wasn't praise or provocation—it was simply fact.
Even if a deity descended fully into the mortal realm, the 'stages' of Runar severely limited the power they could use.
Kaits, who was half god himself, faced the same restriction. Even with his power drastically reduced, Nanar still possessed enough strength to destroy the world with ease.
But Kaits had the ability to block all of it.
"So you're backing off?"
"Yeah. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. I'll take Dre and head back now. So let's calm down~"
"Bullshit!!"
El ground her teeth and raised a sphere of light.
Its size had grown to match the one Leor had used earlier.
"I heard enough! Hero! Kill that bastard right now and let's heal Dre!"
Kaits opened his mouth, then closed it again.
The moment El felt suspicion, Nanar sneered.
"I can't heal him."
"...What?"
Looking at Dre, who had lost all his limbs, Nanar gave him an oddly gentle gaze.
"If it's lower in rank than my true self in the divine realm... that is, the real me, then it's absolutely impossible to heal. I guarantee it. Even the Saintess with the strongest holy power couldn't do it."
"......"
"So I'm going to take him. That's fine, right?"
"Nonsense."
Kaits took one step forward.
"The person himself doesn't want that, does he?"
Just as he said, Dre—though so weakened he could barely speak—was frowning with every ounce of strength he had left.
He had even created an arm and was shakily giving them the middle finger.
'He can still do that?'
Nanar's light was practically poison to hostile opponents.
By now both his body and his Runar should have been in chaos, uncontrollable, yet...
'He's just too tempting...'
While Nanar chuckled to himself, Kaits' sword shifted into a sharper form.
"Whoa, whoa. Let's not fight between a patron god and his contractor, yeah?"
"......"
His resolve not to step aside looked ironclad.
Nanar cackled.
"Right. If I leave Dre here and go back, do you think he'll be able to fight properly in the future?"
"We'll attach prosthetic limbs."
"Sure, Dre would probably get stronger anyway... but every single day would be hell, wouldn't it?"
Crackle.
Dre drew something in the air using Runar.
Both Kaits and Nanar ignored it.
"I'm not asking for it for free, Kaits. You want Dre for the sake of your own goal, don't you?"
"Goal?"
Almiraj and El sent him suspicious looks.
"What exactly is my goal?"
"World peace."
"......"
That was an undeniable truth.
And...
"While it's hard for me to remove the biggest obstacle to that... I can at least help you with it."
"What?"
Nanar laughed.
That smile was more covetous than ever before, and for that reason it made him seem almost human.
"I swear on my names as the Chief God, the Light God, and also the Mad God that I will cooperate with everything I have to kill the True Demon King."
Kaits' eyes flew wide open.
His pupils trembled.
Watching that reaction, Nanar smiled with satisfaction.
"What you want from Dre is the possibility that he can defeat the True Demon King, right? If there's a Dre who can become as strong as you, the situation might be completely different from before..."
"......"
"Besides, Kaits. Realistically it's difficult for you to stop me. That wound you received from Gaia not long ago hasn't healed yet, has it? And it looks like you've consumed several authorities in the process."
"You..."
The Mad God didn't give him time to ask how he knew.
"That's not all. You know how thorough I am, right? Behind me, several of my subordinate deities are waiting on standby. They can't intervene directly in the mortal realm... but they can take my 'wounds' in my place. You understand what that means, don't you?"
Kaits didn't answer.
He was simply shocked that Nanar had gone to such lengths for this day.
"Even without that, you know I haven't used my full strength at all, right? You haven't gone all out either yet... Kaits. There's no need for us to take any risks."
He pointed at Kaits, then at Dre.
"Just yield him to me. Then you can fulfill your long-cherished wish. Let's make the same win-win deal as always."
"......"
"Hey! Hero! Why are you even listening to that crap?!"
El knew perfectly well that this standoff was only possible because of Kaits' presence.
That's why she felt so desperate.
One wrong move and they might lose Dre forever.
'Dre is suffering even now...!'
El ground her teeth again in the face of her own powerless helplessness.
Without sparing her a glance, Nanar continued his persuasion.
"Even if you miraculously defeat me, it's still a loss. I'll use every possible method to torment you. Not just this life—the next one and the one after that. On and on and on."
"......"
"Or would you rather die by my hand right here?"
Woooong.
Light wriggled like snakes in both of his hands.
"I can end your long journey of regression right here, Kaits."
There was still no answer.
Kaits' gaze suddenly shifted toward the Scholar, who knelt in agony, then to Raeband and Mari.
His eyes looked troubled.
"Hey! Hero!"
"I quite like you, Elysia."
Nanar's voice remained bright, yet somehow it had grown cold.
"But right now you're a little too noisy."
Flash!
The moment the view brightened, the light shot forward.
The unguarded Elysia let out an "Ah..." and Kaits' eyes widened.
"Dodge it, Elysia!"
"Yep~ Too late~"
That took care of one.
The instant he muttered those words blankly...
Tap. Something sprang forward.
It was...
"Yeo Deure?"
Nanar muttered in confusion and...
Slash! Crunch!
"......?"
The sound of something being sliced rang out.
Nanar lowered his head blankly and saw a long gash across his chest.
"...Hmm."
A bewildered expression.
What had just happened?
'Did he... cut me? With what?'
In the first place, he hadn't sensed any Runar at all.
It meant he hadn't even created a Runar body to leap with.
"How did he jump... huh?"
What the Chief God's eyes saw was the rigidly erect penis between Dre's legs.
He had supported his body with it, then it bent slightly.
"Gyaaaak!"
Dre screamed and rolled across the ground.
"Fuck! My dick!!"
Completely out of place for the situation, Nanar burst into uncontrollable laughter.
"Did you seriously just jump using your penis?!?! Ahahahahahaha!!"
At that moment.
Kwaaak.
Five-colored Runar surged up around Nanar.
"Huh..."
"Now. Almiraj."
Kaits' voice sank coldly.