Bellessia

  “Omorius!”

  Bellessia felt her connection with the Huntsman disappear as the God of War vanished from his seat, teleporting at least several galaxies away, and the table floating over the formerly endless battlefield shook ever so slightly, her emotions trembling to match.

  Her nephew, a god much, much older than her, and with powers far more specialized in combat, had died, the first death of a god since the death of the Yin Yang Sage. And the individual presumably responsible was her own son.

  “Well, it’s nice that overpowered bastard is finally gone, isn’t it?”

  As the words were transmitted to her via mana, Bellessia felt all her contracts with mortals sever in such a way she would start to receive punishments if she didn’t immediately fight the effects with her own control over faith energy. And, at the same time, multiple powerful plagues began to spread across the entire A rank planet housing the endless battlefield, a huge explosion took out the mainframe of the temporary System replacement they’d set up after they truly lost System access, and an expansive seal appeared around the entire planet, one powerful enough to make it difficult for even a god to escape.

  And there, sitting in the God of War’s seat, was Li Mila, the Mistress of Oaths and Deception—or at least an illusory clone of the woman.

  A small God rank knife then appeared out of seemingly nowhere and flew through the back of the only combat-focused god at the table, the God of War’s youngest daughter, Tiaria, the Mistress of Storms. And then a domain settled on all of them as the Heavenly Spark Soul King appeared above the table and began to float down, his azure armor and multicolored draconic wings covered by the black of the concentrated power of vengeful souls.

  From his aura, it was obvious only about half of his thirty-six Laws had reached the high grade Law Dragon level, two grades below Bellessia’s own three True Law level Laws, but this didn’t matter.

  The amount of natural energy and faith energy infused into his power was tremendous, reinforcing his stats to be greater than anyone else present, and his energy without all the enhancements appeared to somehow be at the peak of A rank. Even more important, however, was how all his skills were being reinforced by the power of seemingly trillions of vengeful souls, souls presumably killed by her nephew before his death, souls killed by divine power.

  All the Heavenly Spark Soul King had to do was point at the six other non-combat or weak gods sitting around the table and powerful beams of black energy fired out, killing four of them instantly and giving major injuries to the Lady of the Eternal Flame and the Master of Dextrous Hands.

  As Bellessia summoned her twelve Guardian Treant spirits out of her soul, large living trees made of her elementalized energy, and attempted to use her magic to heal the Mistress of Storms, a large hammer and a pure white needle appeared out of some private spatial storage space. The hammer, with thunderous power, slammed into the head of the Mistress of Storms, completely shattering Bellessia’s healing magic along with her cousin’s head. Meanwhile, the needle, the type of artifact the Master of Dextrous Hands would use in his work, stabbed through the right eye of the god of weaving. And, at the same time the Mistress of Storms and Master of Dextrous Hands died, the Lady of the Eternal Flame also met her end, the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s large violet sword, dyed pure black from the vengeful souls used in his offensive skill, thrust into her chest.

  The knife and needle then disappeared, as did the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s large sword, and the giant hammer teleported into her son’s hand.

  “Goodbye, mother.”

  The Heavenly Spark Soul King activated his offensive weapon skill again, covering the large hammer with a massive amount of energy, and then he swung it down.

  Instead of aiming at her, however, he struck the large floating stone table, the greatest symbol of the Primordial Humans Faction’s power in the Prime Material, and the stone table, older than even Bellessia’s father, cracked, two more hits then breaking it into 83 pieces that all started to fall from the sky.

  Without another word, the Heavenly Spark Soul King then teleported away, taking with him all the corpses of her family members, and the only other animated being around was the illusory clone of the Mistress of Oaths and Deception still sitting on the God of War’s floating chair.

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  “Live for a bit longer, mother-in-law.” The woman’s clone smiled at her in the same way Bellessia had seen Omorius smile at an A rank monster in the past, like a hunter looking at prey. “You should live a little longer to see what your pettiness has wrought.”

  The smile changed to show a little more teeth. “Maybe we’ll kill you tomorrow, maybe in a couple dozen years.”

  And, with that, the illusory clone vanished, leaving Bellessia the only living being on the planet, all the soldiers down below killed by the God ranked diseases.

  * * *

  Halius

  Halius, humanity’s God of War, hadn’t been so angry in many, many billions of years, and, as he caught up with what he assumed was the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s clone, about to flee through what seemed like a temporary B rank portal to one of the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s known universes, he was going to take out his aggression on the one responsible, spreading out his power of stability to the surrounding several dozen light years to freeze space and lock the clone in place as he approached.

  But, before he could completely seal its power, the clone moved some of its energy and the power of trillions of angry souls ripped the clone’s soul apart, to the point of almost complete disintegration.

  No longer would Halius be able to seal the clone and use it as a focus to completely kill the B rank who’d murdered his son, and, while the Heavenly Spark Soul King would almost certainly be injured by the clone’s loss, the young B rank would fully recover in time and, until then, he and his wife would likely turtle up and hide.

  “Next time.” Halius made a promise as he stood there in empty space, the portal the clone had been aiming for shaking and then collapsing. “Next time, I’ll kill you.”

  Then Halius teleported back to the Endless Battlefield and found all the dead soldiers, the destroyed table, and the missing gods, including his other two living children, a shocked looking Bellessia the only living being on the entire planet.

  “What happened here?” He almost growled the words as he teleported to the sky next to his youngest sister.

  “You left. Then my son came to kill us, leaving me alive so I can experience fear for a little longer.” Bellessia’s eyes were hollow and her aura showed a mix of horror and resigned acceptance, like she’d almost lost her soul, and Halius couldn’t bring himself to blame her.

  The entire thing had been a deliberate stratagem.

  Trapping Gustavius and Antonia in the Heavenly Soul Universe so they’d be down two of their strongest combatants. Making their universes easy to find so Lacarmus and many of the Primordial Humans’ other combat-capable gods would be busy invading. Likely even whatever had happened with Carlos and Sophia, putting them all even more on edge.

  It had all been to make sure only he and his children would be left to guard their weaker gods.

  Then, in addition, there were the deadline, the curses, and the destruction of all undead in the Prime Material. The first two were designed to scare their subordinates into surrendering, something he and his siblings were almost certain to take revenge for, while the last was to deprive them of their System privileges, making them slow to respond to things that would have otherwise been obvious.

  Like an idiot, Halius had sent his son to show the might of the gods to the puny mortals, and the Heavenly Spark Soul King and his wife had shown him just what consequences thinking of mortals as puny could have.

  Killing all those mortals is what had allowed for this catastrophe, and the deaths of his children and the others were almost certainly at least in part a message to him, to his father, and to the other gods of the Prime Material just what could happen if they were to kill the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s followers.

  Both the Heavenly Spark Soul King and his wife now had divine classes, so of course they wanted to keep their believers alive. It was an absolute requirement for them to advance in the future.

  Halius just hadn’t thought they’d be capable of such power, the Aura stat required to wield the strength of that many souls and the level of control over faith energy and charm magic required to have those souls all want revenge against not just Omorius but the other gods of the Primordial Humans as well was ridiculous. And Halius had made the same mistake his siblings had in the past, underestimating the Heavenly Spark Soul King and the Mistress of Oaths and Deception.

  But not again.

  From now on, Halius was going to treat the two B ranks like they’d achieved the maximum possible level of power he could think of, and then he’d add another 20% on top along with every even theoretically possible ability.

  He closed his eyes and forced himself to take two deep breaths. “Let’s go, Bellessia.”

  “Where?” The fear in his sister’s eyes, the fear of her child and the fear of him, almost made Halius want to hit her. But he held himself back.

  The mistakes his sister had made were less than his own, so he was not going to take his rage and grief out on her. Instead, he would go destroy the possessions of those actually responsible.

  “We’re going to go free Twilight and Hellwater, and then we’re going to go take over your son’s universes one by one.”

  Bellessia’s face and aura both showed shock and she looked down at the battlefield. “But what about the undead?”

  “What about them?” Halius took her right hand and teleported them to Earth, where he spread his aura out to scare all the other gods there. “Our Territory in the Prime Material has already been compromised and taken over by vultures, so why should we protect the property of others?”