D.I.O - CH 309

“Leviathan.”

A gust of wind suddenly blew. City-sized pupils slowly opened and laid their eyes on the world. The pressure exuding from those eyes was so strong that the Masters and everyone else around the world who was watching the scene through their television sets grew terrified.

A heavy sense of intimidation descended upon everyone, as if one was facing up against an immovable mountain. Moreover, there was an intense hatred that seemed to burn within one’s soul.

Everyone who saw those eyes sensed a singular meaning in their mind.

/I…

… despise you all./

The ordinary people who were taking pictures of Tan’s monstrous body with their cameras couldn’t help but collapse onto the ground and relieve themselves. Some even grasped their chest and rolled on the floor before their movements stopped for good.

“His true nature is finally coming out… I can hear the sound of all the image making that he’s done over the past tens of thousands of years going poof and disappearing into thin air. Well, should I at least be glad that he’s not Satan?”

Quiet Heaven shook his head when he heard Ellie click her tongue and comment.

Search bit.ly/3iBfjkV for the original.

“Since this isn’t the end times, that isn’t something he can do even if he wanted to. However, it does seem like he’s been pushed into a corner. For an old dragon like Tan to not be able to control his own emotions…”

Compared to Quiet Heaven and Ellie, who both seemed relatively calm, Wukong was restless.

“Hey, shouldn’t we retreat? No, before that, why is there no news from the Elohim? Are things progressing so quickly that the Noblesse aren’t able to check what’s going on? Have the gods’ brains rotted after being held up on a pedestal for so long?”

“Oh, our great and esteemed Son Wukong… You were always talking so highly of the Celesti, but where are they now?”

“When was I ever praising the Celesti? The only being I respect is the Great Sage Heaven’s Equal!” Contrary to their rugged names, the Stone Monkeys, of which Wukong was a part of, were a species that possessed a lot of power within the Noblesse organization; however, their origin was more closely related to the Elohim, not the Noblesse.

Case in point, Son Wukong, was the great saint of the Great Sage Heaven’s Equal.

Wukong was a renowned Elohim fighter of the highest rank, and his presence, name, and achievements had been engraved in the annals of the [universe]. Thanks to this, even in the subconscious of Earth’s humankind, who existed on the outskirts of the universe, his name was known, which allowed him to carry his name with pride… but in the current situation, his name value was of no use.

“Well, if Great Sage Heaven’s Equal came in-person then I might be a bit impressed,” Quiet Heaven muttered.

“Heck, it doesn’t even have to be Great Sage Heaven’s Equal! No, shouldn’t we at least expect someone at a lower level to mobilize? Everyone’s always making a fuss and crying out for order and justice every day, but where are all those beings now?”

Wukong stopped speaking and raised his head to look up at Tan. The ancient magic dragon, whose size couldn’t be properly discerned if one stood in front of it, stood without any movement.

“It’s pure chaos right now… but why isn’t he making a move?”

Tan didn’t even need to use an ultimate magic spell. Just by kicking off the ground, jumping up, and rolling around on the planet, Tan would cause a global, no, a planetary catastrophe. His overwhelming mass transcended the power of most material weapons.

But before their thoughts could go any further, a voice interrupted them.

“Hey, bird brain.”

“Call me Quiet Heaven.”

“Sure, bird brain. Where’s Merlin?”

“Well… that’s a good question.”

“That bastard, why is he so late to the party!”

Cruze gnashed her teeth while restoring her depleted aura power. Even for her, a largely closeted figure, Arthur was somewhat of a friend. Although they had drifted apart recently, Cruze still felt heartbroken after seeing him die.

However, the current situation was urgent. She couldn’t afford to mourn Arthur’s death. It was because Tan’s body, which was so large that Cruze had to crane her neck and raise her head nearly to its limit to see his head, which was almost more than a kilometer away, was incredibly daunting and powerful.

‘In the end… do I need to use… that? On Earth?’

Among the weapons she had programmed into her arsenal, there were three types of exceptional limited arm weapons that she could call upon. There was Earth Breaker, a strategic weapon of the 4th Stage of Civilization, which controlled the force of attraction and repulsion and manipulated spatial vectors. There was also Infinity Shelter, which was another creation of a 4th Stage of Civilization, that separated time and space to protect everything within a given space.

And then, there was…

“Genocider.”

Genocider was a product of the 3rd Stage of Civilization. Of course, such a weapon easily surpassed the level of Earth’s technology, which was in the 2nd Stage of Civilization, but unlike Earth Breaker and Infinity Shelter, two advanced tech weapons that modern Earth scientists couldn’t even understand even if the tech was presented right in front of them, Genocider was within the range that humankind could understand with its current knowledge and tech base.

Considering that there was a limit to the total amount of energy output that Cruze could produce due to the nature of materialization… Genocider was the most effective and efficient amongst the three limited arm weapon options at Cruze’s disposal.

“You’re thinking of using an anti-matter cannon?”

Cruze gritted her teeth after hearing Lancelot’s words.

“Do we have any other option besides that? Look at the size of that thing… that monster is at least 100 kilometers in diameter. Do you think any other attack will work against that thing? Even if you stab its eyes with your spear, you probably won’t even be able to penetrate its cornea.”

When antimatter, which operated under the opposite concept of matter, combined with matter, it annihilated the object at that moment and converted matter into energy.

The energy emitted by antimatter was the combined mass of the matter and antimatter, and in theory, when antimatter annihilated in pairs, energy equal to 43 billion times the input mass. In other words, just 1 gram of antimatter had the explosive power of 43,000 tons of TNT, which meant that it could exert more power than a nuclear bomb.

Even Cruze wasn’t sure what kind of damage the destructive power of an antimatter cannon would have on Earth if she decided to use Genocider. At the very least, the people living in South Korea, Japan, and parts of China would probably be affected by it.

“That’s not what I meant.”

However, Lancelot continued speaking in a calm voice.

“I’m asking if you’re okay.”

“Oh…”

Cruze’s body staggered. In truth, she had nearly reached her limit. She had been keeping a transcendent, Tan, in check for a while, and she had recently materialized Earth Breaker to its time limit, so she had expended a tremendous amount of her stamina and will power.

Additionally, this wasn’t only the case for Cruze.

“Darian’s Mercy…”

“Body, Virtuous Gate (5th Gate), open.”

“Damn it… I can’t seem to recover even if I eat…”

The number of Masters who were healing each other’s injuries and recovering their won consumed spiritual powers had decreased to an incomparably small number. The battle had been fierce and contentious up to a certain point, but then, Soul Extinction happened.

“Did you check?”

A white man in a suit answered Bruce Wayne’s question.

“Yes. The IDs and accounts of those who perished have all been deleted… their real-life bodies are also confirmed to be in a state of coma.”

“Damn it…”

Even though he wasn’t an expert, Wayne had studied spiritual power studies, so he knew about the connection between one’s body and one’s soul. Even if one’s physical body was alive, if the soul was gone, the being was, for all intents and purposes, a dead existence.

Although a soulless person may look like a person in a vegetative coma state… their condition was far worse than a person suffering under a normal coma. Strictly speaking, being soulless was worse than suffering a normal death. If one’s soul was annihilated, one wouldn’t even be able to naturally flow to the Nether world and reenter the circle of life.

‘Our side’s force has decreased tremendously. Should I at least be glad that I kept my distance at that critical time?’

Bruce Wayne frowned and checked the status of the remaining Masters. The number was less than thirty. Just in case, Bruce Wayne had his underlings check the status of the Masters who were caught up in Tan’s [expansion], so when he found out that those individuals had their existence annihilated as well, he knew the situation was grave and serious.

Moreover, most of the remaining Masters were wounded.

“Adol! Adol, are you okay?”

“Ugh… I’m okay… ugh.”

Coughing up blood, Adol made an expression that the divine power cleric, who was emitting divine power to heal Adol’s wounds, couldn’t understand.

“Your condition isn’t improving! I don’t understand… on the surface, it doesn’t seem like a serious injury!”

“That’s… to be expected. I should have been dead, so it’s actually abnormal that I’m alive.”

Adol responded as calmly as possible even though he was suffering from a tremendous sense of loss and physical pain. Bruce Wayne, who was watching him, expressed his confusion.

“What do you mean that you should have died?” Bruce Wayne asked Adol.

“I was caught up in Tan’s Soul Extinction. But… my Master Skill, Oath of Chivalry, had the effect of instantly strengthening my soul, so I was able to somehow endure his spell.”

Adol had lost more than 30% of his soul. Luckily, Adol didn’t suffer any loss of memory, since his body, to be exact, his brain, had not suffered any damage; however, the loss of his soul had a devastating effect on his ego. That wasn’t all; Adol would have to live a life of struggle, as he would have to continue to endure a sense of endless loss and pain forever.

“Black, is it possible to cure him?”

At Bruce Wayne’s question, the Black Unicorn that Bruce Wayne was atop of snorted.

“Brr! A cure? Cure a lost soul? Maybe if you had some sort of infinite revival spell?! Are you mad?”

“Do you want to starve to death?”

“… If an esteemed high-level transcendent were to step in, he may be healed, master.”

“For example?”

“The most realistic possibility is Darian, who is known for being benevolent. By the way, that user is a follower of Darian, so if he serves Darian for a long time, he will be blessed and will have a very high probability of regaining parts of his missing soul.”

“So, what is the specific probability?”

“It’s a high probability. About 1 in 10 billion.”

“…”

In the end, after excluding the Masters who were unable to fight, including Adol, the actual number of available Masters was only about twenty. However, even those who remained weren’t in a fit state due to repeated deaths during their prolonged battle against Tan.

“We’re in a pretty desperate state, but it’s a bit bizarre…”

Bruce Wayne looked around him. The whole place was filled with heavy silence. There were quite a few Masters who were talking here and there, but they were all whispering.

The sight reminded Bruce Wayne of the cause of this tension.

“No, wait. Black.”

“Brr! Yes, master?”

“How come… How come that guy isn’t moving? Based on the mood and momentum he exuded earlier, he seemed like he was about to run out of control, no?”

“Brr! You call that a question? The reason is simple.”

Bruce Wayne’s pet, Black, looked up at Tan.

“It’s because…”

Black spoke up to that point before shutting its mouth. It was because Black realized that the situation in which Tan, who had been madly furious just ten minutes ago, was just standing still was definitely not normal.

“… wait… what’s wrong with him?”

***

Tan, the being that was on everyone’s mind, spoke in a calm tone of voice using spiritual speech.

[This was an accident.]

[No. This wasn’t an accident. Since I’ve been observing from the sidelines, you must be thinking that I’m just a dumb scarecrow.]

Standing on the bridge of Tan’s nose, which was large enough to be able to erect dozens of buildings on it, a cute-looking penguin spoke in a cold spiritual speech voice.

[I’ve kept quiet and just watched all this time, so you must take me for a dumb mute now, huh?]

[I…]

Tan cleared his mind and settled his temper. His anger rose to the point of dizziness, but he knew that now was not the time to increase his enemies.

[Don’t push it… I might lose my cool and fall off the deep end.]

[Oh, so you’re resorting to threats now.]

[Do you really want to see what a threat is? Shall we put an end to everything?]

The cute looking penguin giggled after hearing Tan’s growl. The penguin’s two short wings fluttered.

[Hahaha! Wow, you’re really mad right now, aren’t you? I didn’t know you could still exert such emotion at your advanced age.]

[Stop. Anyway, you and I are both bound by law and preset rules, so let’s negotiate. You already know that I have no intention of causing great harm and damage to this planet, right?]

Of course, the number of casualties already caused by Tan’s actions weren’t negligible, but in the first place, the existence of the Planet God, the penguin in this case, was to manage [civilization] itself, not to value every single life.

Earth’s Planet God was a powerful untouchable existence with a high divine position, so the word omnipotence was the most apt descriptive term to describe its powers. If the Earth Planet God had a love for humanity and valued every single life, humankind would have had to live under absolute rule, where no war or murder could ever exist.

[That’s true, but… let’s hear what you have to say first. What do you want?]

[Operating rights of DIO and Muspelheim. Even though what I’m doing right now is beyond what I’m allowed to do, you probably know why I’m taking such extreme actions. Both DIO and Muspelheim were originally mine.]

[Hmm, your explanation is a bit different from what I know.]

Although the Planet God was an independent being that didn’t have any connection with the [outside] universe, it knew the general situation due to its omniscience, which was one of its famous and powerful powers. Since more than 80% of DIO’s system was made possible by Jenica, the Empress of Magic, Tan, who essentially robbed Jenica, had little ground to claim ownership over DIO. Of course, Tan’s intention and meaning was to use his previous ownership of DIO as the basis for his claim, but if that was the case, shouldn’t Merlin, the outstanding talent who currently [owned and operated] DIO, have just as strong of a claim?

[It’s just a transitory change in ownership. DIO belongs to me.]

[It’s hard for me to agree with your claim. Well, at least in the case of Muspelheim, I might be able to understand… Huh?]

The Planet God, the penguin, suddenly stopped speaking. The penguin was so surprised and taken aback that it clasped its beaks together unconsciously and let out a large snapping sound.

[What? What about Muspelheim?]

[Muspelheim is… Hahaha! Oh my God. Cheeky! Hahaha!]

Seeing and hearing the penguin’s annoying laughter, Tan grew restless. The penguin acted in this manner because its [omniscience] characteristic had conveyed new information to it.

[What is it?]

[Hahaha! Oh my! This is why humans shouldn’t be overlooked!]

Tan frowned as he saw the penguin burst out into another fit of maniacal laughter.

[What’s going on?]

[As for what happened, it doesn’t seem like you’ll ever be getting Muspelheim back.]

Saying so, the Planet God fluttered its two short wings. And at that moment the world turned gray…

“What is it? What the hell did you bring over to my planet?”

An Asian girl with a slightly cute impression appeared without any warning, as if she had been there from the beginning. Tan frowned at the sight, but the penguin chuckled.

[Ah, sorry. I have some possible good news for you. Didn’t you say that you were worried because demons kept crossing over and coming to your planet?]

“So, you brought me this lump?”

[Ah, don’t be angry~ It’s an opportunity to deal with your problem without having to do any heavy lifting. Just the aftershock of the upcoming battle will be enough to chase away all the demons that have been troubling you.]

At the penguin’s words, the girl furrowed her eyebrows.

“Chasing away all the demons just from the aftershock of battle… Your humans are that strong? You don’t even have a proper transcendent in your human population, no?”

With an anxious feeling, Tan looked at the two Planet Gods that were conversing on the bridge of his nose. As long as he could get his hands on Merlin, his primary goal, and the Magic Tower, it wasn’t a problem to be dragged along by these Planet Gods, but his intuition sounded a warning. Something about their conversation seemed off.

[You guys… what are you discussing? Do you intend not to negotiate?]

Since a Planet God was an entity that managed a civilization, it always operated and moved from a macroscopic perspective. Even if hundreds of thousands of war refugees died every day, even if the entire Earth was shaken to the core by the attack of extraterrestrial beings, the Planet God would only bring down sanctions based on a set of predetermined [rules].

Knowing this, Tan firmly believed that, even if Earth’s Planet God was angry at his actions, it wouldn’t immediately react with an extreme decision. Above all, Tan possessed a wide range of resources and experience to [negotiate].

However, the Earth’s Planet God, which was in charge of the planet where DIO existed, that is, the penguin, just laughed as if it was having loads of fun.

[I don’t think negotiations are necessary.]

[What? What are you talking about…]

Rumble!

In an instant, a gale blew around them. It was because Tan’s neck, which was taller than a modern skyscraper, larger than a city, larger than a mountain range, had turned.

[Oh my, oh dear…] The penguin commented.

The Magic Tower, which seemed firmly embedded on the ground, came into Tan’s field of vision. The tower was quite large, but from his point of view, the tower was the size of a toothpick.

However, Tan clearly recognized the small presence inside the collapsed wall of the tower.

Merlin.

He was holding up a bow.

And soon, a red line extended towards Tan.

Tan, who grasped the identity of all things occurring within the space with his transcendent perception, screamed out.

[You crazy son of a bitch!]