"This isn’t real! It’s all fake!" Vincent screamed, voice cracking with panic.
"This city is Forever City. This is our home. Steel will burn bright again right here!"
Veins stood out on Bradley’s temples. Revenge burned in his eyes. Lightning washed over him, a pair of violet elemental wings unfurling from his back.
Before the assembled God-adventurers even moved, he had already stepped into their intent.
A razor-thin streak of violet flashed and vanished.
It wasn’t even that fast, but a thousand eyes snapped to it all the same. Bradley slid past a God-adventurer without a glance. Thɪs chapter is updated by novel-fire.net
A heartbeat later, a head dangled from his fist.
Blood pattered across the main avenue to the pantheon. The man he had one-shot stared in blank disbelief, eyeballs still straining to roll toward the body that had fallen beside him.
"Galehowl World... one of the rare mortal prodigies of the century, cut down like that?" Hobilazi whispered, stunned.
He had served gods for ten thousand years as a living weapon. He knew exactly how strong the dead man had been and how many legends he’d carved. The name had spread across worlds.
He hadn’t survived a single exchange. Now Hobilazi understood how terrifying this man became when he stopped holding back.
"This is the Godslayer champion who dared lock horns with gods?" Even he felt the question in his bones.
"He’s touching time-space principles. We’re not his match," another veteran said, putting a hand out to stop a companion from throwing a domain up and going head-to-head. None of them had climbed from the multitudes by being fools.
If this place weren’t a holy landing for the gods, the lynchpin of their multiworld union, none of these old foxes would take the risk of crossing blades with Bradley here.
"When Caelenor revives, we’ll settle accounts with these Godslayer remnants," a red-bearded brute rumbled.
"Revives? You mean this?"
A lazy, amused voice drifted over. The group turned, frowning, and saw a young mage dressed like any Infinite Dimensions NPC smiling at them.
On the dead man’s chest, white light lifted. His soul ripped free and shot toward his world’s tree.
Orson’s smile thinned. He flicked two fingers. The soul screamed.
Scalp-prickling terror rippled over the gathered elites as the young man snapped his fingers.
The system prompt fired in their minds. Rules had changed. The soul unraveled to ash.
"Unknown attributes... power gap too great?" the red-beard muttered, eyes popping. For the first time he wondered if he really was a God-adventurer standing a step below gods. He couldn’t read a single thing about the man.
"My lord," Hobilazi said at once, guessing who this odd, unassuming mage really was. He bowed low. "Vent your grief. But please... mind the line. Friction is inevitable when civilizations merge, but all of this is to overthrow the old goddess."
The other offworld elites jolted like they’d been shocked. This was the one. The nobody who had killed the reaper’s daughter and boxed up Belenor like cargo.
"Don’t you dare dress it up as ’merging’ when you slaughter my brothers and sisters and butcher Earth’s people," Bradley roared, chasing down a stag-bodied archer with a human head. He smashed the bow to splinters with one hew and the creature bolted, hooves scrambling, only for lightning to lash tight around his limbs.
"Awakening, God-Piercing Longbow!"
The archer coughed blood and loosed an arrow that sang.
Dark cloud split and the shaft tore space into a net of thin black cracks. The power behind it was obscene.
"Slaughter that animal!"
"Desecrate our city, harm our people—die!"
Hate boiled over. Hobilazi’s circle surged to strike, ready to bury Bradley where he stood.
The arrow was too fast. There would be no "reaction," no clean defense. Bradley’s domain let him see it coming—knowing and moving are different things.
The shaft hit clean. His body blew out in a red mist. Lightning dragon plate wept blood as both he and Velorith took the hit and reeled. With one wing half gone, Bradley steadied himself in the air, half his torso erased, health on a sliver.
"You’re not helping? Your friend looks half dead," Bellara said dryly, throwing in a barbed old joke just because she could.
"You fools are done," Vincent crowed, his groveling gone in a blink. He sounded like a gambler who’d found a hidden ace at the last second. He stared up at Orson and then pivoted to soak in the looks from the "great gods" of other worlds. "Bow to the divine. God’s will rules the multitude."
"He talks too much," Bellara murmured, fingers flexing as she prepared to send the idiot on his way.
"In a rotting world, there are always worms like him—feeding on the blood of their own, preying on their kind," Orson said, shaking his head. "Leave him. He’ll summon his ’councilors’ and ’lords’ for me. I want a clean sweep."
"Titan Realm, Limb Rebirth."
Up above, Bradley’s eyes went cold. Golden filaments stitched from the wound like silk, racing to weave him whole. A shoulder regrew. An arm budded and formed. Elemental light roared back up.
"Titan Realm, Rapid Recovery."
His mana bottomed out, his HP bar rocketed upward, and then another one appeared behind it.
Nine bars. Nine lives.
Each time a bar got erased, all stats rose by ten, twenty, thirty... up to ninety percent.
He couldn’t use skills while the Titan arts were active. He didn’t need to. He could not be crippled, and no matter how savage the burst that hit him, it could only ever clear one bar at a time.
This was why he dared go to war with a Lower God.
"You’re just going to watch?" the archer—Zhe Lang—shrieked at Hobilazi’s circle.
Hobilazi’s jaw flexed. He knew exactly how this went. The next man to make a move would be the next to die.
"Give my brothers back."
Bradley’s voice came out low. He lifted his wrist. A string of amber beads flickered into being.
Effect: Capture an enemy’s actions from the last one to ten seconds and force the enemy to repeat those movements or skills. Cooldown 30 seconds.
"What is he doing..." Hobilazi whispered as Zhe Lang suddenly lifted his bow again.
Another God-Piercing Longbow howled out. The shaft punched through the central tower of the city.
"An S-rank awakening on no cooldown. See that? That’s a true favorite of the gods!"
"You think you matter?"
Vincent’s eyes shone. He was practically prancing as he screamed at Orson.
Bradley’s wings snapped wide and he was on Zhe Lang in a blink. "I’ll light the Legion banners with you."
Forced to repeat his last move, the archer’s body locked in unavoidable stiffness.
Bradley didn’t waste a breath. Elemental force snarled along his blade and he cut Zhe Lang clean in half.
The same crisp finger-click rang. The same result. No revival. Soul snuffed.
"They’re precious property," Hobilazi said at last, every word heavy. Every God-adventurer dead meant one less sword to swing at Demon Gods.
"No," Orson said, smiling slightly. "You aren’t nearly as valuable as you think. You’re here for one purpose—so my brother can vent. God-weapons? I’m not impressed."