Chapter 432
Chapter 432
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 432
Chapter Title: Opportunity for Revenge (4)
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The Fifth Heaven, Matei.
The giants, born from the Art of Oneness, realize the Law through a sacred ritual in Jotunheim and return to Matei.
As ‘Keepers of the Law,’ their primary duty was to maintain the peace of Heaven and fight against external forces.
Kariel, accompanied by Uriel, looked up at the colossal castle towering over Matei.
At the appearance of the noble archangel, 15-meter-tall giants who had reached the fourth stage of the Art of Oneness bowed their heads.
They bent their waists as much as they could, but their bodies were so immense that they couldn't even reach the crown of Kariel's head, which stood at two meters and thirty centimeters.
Kariel scoffed and passed through the main gate.
His mood was already foul as it was.
The giant king, Imir, had annihilated the ‘Part’ and entered hibernation, so his absence was understandable.
But at the very least, Legion Commander Girshin should have rushed out barefoot to bow before him.
“These insolent…!”
The current state of Heaven was in utter chaos.
Ever since Shirone, the Light of the 73rd District, had broken the Art of Oneness, the heavenly subjects had begun to doubt Anke La, and everything had changed since then.
He wanted to fly to Purgatory and eliminate the rebels immediately, but in his current state, Kariel couldn't even protect himself without Uriel by his side.
*Just you wait. I'll put an end to this soon enough.*
If the structures of Jevoule were about perfection, the castle of Matei competed solely with its grandeur.
It bore no trace of Mecca, Nor, or Kergo's styles, built purely from natural materials stacked by the giants' strength alone.
One could grasp their way of thinking just by looking at the massive pillars that only giants could carry.
After passing through the hall and ascending the wall-like central staircase, he saw giant royal guards lined up, their heads touching the ceiling.
A military force capable of destroying the world.
But they would never move. Not until an order came from Imir.
“What brings the great archangel to such a humble place?”
A three-meter-tall giant, perhaps the smallest one here, approached, dragging a black cloak.
He wasn't large, but each step he took carried a weight that made the floor tremble.
The giant legion commander, Girshin, who had reached the seventh stage of the Art of Oneness.
If Imir was like a rock in its natural state, he gave the impression of a sword forged a thousand times.
“Legion Commander Girshin greets the archangel.”
Standing before Kariel, Girshin immediately bent one knee and bowed his head.
Even a warrior known to cleave mountains with a single blow could not defy the status ordained by the Law.
Kariel found this displeasing.
As one of the eight archangels with little to boast about in terms of martial prowess, he felt as if he could see right through the inner thoughts of those who worshiped the logic of power.
“Does reaching the seventh stage make your body sluggish? You've only moved a hundred meters in the time it took me to get here.”
Girshin raised one corner of his mouth.
“Giants do not possess the infinite minds of angels. Had you sent word in advance, I would have come out to greet you.”
Girshin's response was certainly different from Imir's.
For a giant who knew how to use his head, quibbling over past matters was nothing but a waste of time.
“I came here myself to give you an order.”
“An order, you say?”
“Lead the giant army and annihilate the rebels at once.”
Girshin's brow furrowed.
He had heard rumors about the conflict of opinion among the angels in Jevoule.
But to ignore La's message forbidding angelic activity and act on his own was tantamount to another rebellion.
“However, La has decreed…”
“That is precisely why I came to you. La's message is only valid for angels. More importantly, the rebels are currently annihilating any giants born from the Art of Oneness on sight. The giant army has more than enough justification to move, does it not?”
Girshin realized he was in a no-win situation.
But he had no intention of mobilizing the giant army.
They followed only Imir.
The only reason they obeyed Anke La's commands was because Imir obeyed them.
“My apologies. I'm afraid I cannot follow your will.”
Kariel's face twisted into a wicked scowl.
The sound of the guards swallowing echoed like a heartbeat, but Girshin's expression remained calm.
“You would refuse? Are you being serious?”
Kariel opened the ‘Great Codex,’ the unique holy relic of the Archangel of Birth.
It was a clear threat, meaning the next words uttered would have to be backed by his life.
“As you know, Kariel, the giant army cannot move without an order from King Imir…”
“Aaaargh! You insignificant giant!”
Closing the Great Codex, Kariel began to madly smash it against the crown of Girshin's head.
As he screamed and swung his arms, his face held none of the dignity of an angel.
*Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!*
No matter how weakened he was, the blows wielded by an archangel were not to be ignored.
Blood trickled down the forehead of Girshin, who simply endured it with his mouth shut.
Uriel, watching with his arms crossed, thought about the sudden transformation of the angel he had known from the very beginning.
*This isn't like you, Kariel.*
Kariel, the Archangel of Birth. He was smashing Girshin's head with the Great Codex.
*Do you hate humans that much? No, you must know by now. Your current state is just like…*
Uriel snapped out of his thoughts.
A terrifying killing intent was rising from the royal guards lined up on both sides.
Their status under the Law might be lower, but the pride of their species was no less than that of the angels.
So, it was only natural for indignation to well up as their legion commander suffered humiliating violence in front of his subordinates.
*Thump.*
As one giant stepped forward, preparing to intervene, Uriel's holy light body expanded into a halo.
Realizing this, Girshin's calm expression broke, and he glared fiercely back at his subordinate.
“Ugh…”
Overwhelmed by the commander's gaze, the guard sheepishly returned to his position as if it had been a mistake.
With each strike of the Great Codex, cracks formed in the floor and the ground began to sink, but Girshin took no action.
*Now is not the time to act. Even if we all attack at once, we cannot defeat Uriel, the Archangel of Destruction.*
The incarnation of destruction, whose combat prowess alone was said to rival Ikael's in his prime.
*I must endure. Until our king, Lord Imir, arrives.*
Kariel stepped back, his exhausted hands trembling.
His holy light body flickered, and he felt as if his thought processes were melting away.
“Hah, hah.”
Girshin said nothing, merely staring at his blood dripping onto the floor.
To Kariel, who yearned for creation, it was a disgusting sight.
“Let's go!”
As Kariel turned and walked away, Uriel finally showed a hint of emotion and glanced back at the giants.
The presence of an angel, as defined by the Law, made the mountain-like giants' legs tremble.
“Restrain yourself, Girshin. You are not Imir.”
Spreading his wings of light, Uriel's body rose beautifully before turning into a flash of light and flying toward the main gate.
***
Gaold's face, his hair turned completely white, was twisted into a fearsome, demonic mask.
A powerful Air Gun spread like buckshot, piercing all forty Grim Reapers.
Then, the ice field suddenly vibrated, and the Grim Reapers' forms dissolved into smoke like raging flames.
*Wooooooooooooo!*
Their hoods vanished, revealing hideous skulls.
An unearthly shriek erupted, so soul-shattering that the guide collapsed, clutching his head.
“Aaaaaaaargh!”
He never should have come here in the first place.
The Black Elixir, a life of luxury—such things were mere delusions to one who heard this sound.
“P-please… stoooooop!”
Taking the guide's cry as a signal, Kangnan kicked off the ground and dashed forward.
Her expression was still grim. The incident from ten years ago resurfaced, paralyzing her thoughts.
*That idiot!*
A Grim Reaper, emanating a vivid, light purple aura, swung its great scythe wildly at Kangnan.
Every slash surpassed the speed of sound.
They too were composed of some kind of ‘matter,’ but they seemed to operate under a mechanism entirely different from the existing physical world.
Dodging the attacks with movements as nimble as a bouncing ping-pong ball, Kangnan rushed toward the dark steed's leg and delivered a kick.
The steed's thick leg snapped with a crunch, and thick black smoke billowed up as if it had caught fire.
*Screeeeeeeeeeeech!*
The steed's scream pierced her eardrums, but Kangnan gritted her teeth and endured it.
She scanned her surroundings for Gaold, but with the dark steeds rampaging, it felt as if the world was shrouded in a black curtain.
“I can't take this!”
As Kangnan crouched and pushed her power, the thigh section of her stockings ripped open, creating a polka-dot pattern of holes.
The moment a Grim Reaper's scythe plunged downward, her body shot twenty meters into the air as if escaping the pull of gravity.
She saw Gaold, buried among countless Grim Reapers. Each time a Reaper's form dispersed into smoke, a steel-colored flash would flare up and claw at Gaold's position.
The magic currently protecting Gaold was nothing more than an Air Shield that even a novice could cast, yet no attack could penetrate the spherical barrier he had deployed.
“Grrrrrr!”
As Gaold's face began to contort like a goblin's, Kangnan's heart sank.
“No!”
The atmospheric pressure around Gaold suddenly skyrocketed.
Pain Sense x100,000—Air Pressing.
*Ruuuuuumble!*
The ice field trembled as if an earthquake had struck, and the Grim Reapers' black, smoky bodies were flattened like rubber.
“Hwooooooo!”
Gaold puffed out his cheeks and exhaled sharply.
Meanwhile, the crushed Grim Reapers slithered away along the ground and reformed at a distance.
Giving them even the slightest opening allowed them to regenerate in an instant; that was the nature of Niflheim.
Kangnan, who had entered the Grim Reapers' encirclement, quickened her pace angrily and shouted.
“Are you crazy?! Do you have a death wish…?!”
Gaold, his eyes unfocused, faintly stretched his lips into a grin.
Faced with that expression, Kangnan couldn't bring herself to scold him.
The very fact that he could smile was unbelievable.
“I told you not to come. Because of you, I couldn't finish them off.”
“Don't be ridiculous. Don't you know everything ends if you die here?”
“Don't worry. It's different from ten years ago.”
Kangnan couldn't hold back and screamed.
“That was dangerous just now!”
Self-Redeeming Mutation.
It was the name of the affliction Gaold had acquired on the Day of 20 Judgments.
A creature's functional limits are inevitably bound by its environment.
Humans burn because they are born in a place without fire, and salamanders do not burn because they are born in fire.
If the environment is what defines a creature's limits, then Gaold, through horrific asceticism, had severed the link between himself and his environment.
Because his environment no longer existed for him, the limits of the mutation that occurred at the stem cell level also ceased to exist.
Even in daily life, Gaold's nervous system was at least a thousand times more sensitive than a normal person's; his world was completely different from the one experienced by all other humans.
Literally, hell.
Simply breathing felt like inhaling glass powder, and the mere touch of the wind felt like it was tearing his skin.
But the price he paid had granted him an unmatchable self-discipline and a mental fortitude beyond imagination.
“You know it gets incredibly dangerous starting from Pain Sense times ten thousand! Your hair is already white and your memories are fading! If you go any higher, you'll really die!”
“I won't die.”
Gaold turned away coldly and walked off.
“I will never die from something like pain.”
Kangnan clenched her fists and bit her lip.
But in the end, she lowered her head in resignation and slowly backed away.
In truth, she knew.
He wasn't dying because of the pain; he was suffering because he couldn't die.
She didn't know why such a curse had fallen upon Gaold.
One thing was certain: he was the only person who could annihilate forty of the strongest evil spirits in a single moment.
The vacant look in Gaold's eyes gradually returned to normal.
A smile returning to his face, he beckoned with his finger, taunting the Grim Reapers.
“Come on, you half-witted boneheads.”
*Wooooooooooooo!*
It was unlikely they understood human speech, but as if on cue, all the Grim Reapers expanded their auras.
The screams of countless vengeful spirits shook the snowy landscape, and the light purple auras swirled into a vortex.
The vortex soon transformed into thousands of skulls, which were all shot toward Gaold.
The sky was consumed by darkness, obscuring the sun, and from within that gloom, thousands of skull bombs descended upon Gaold.
“Hehe. Hehehehe!”
Gaold gritted his teeth and lowered his stance.
A wicked grin spread across his face, and the pupils vanished from his eyes.
Pain Sense x100,000—Air Pressing.
*BOOOOOOOOOOOM!*
Everything came crashing down, and the vast darkness was crushed with a deafening roar.