Chapter 218: #The Emperor Descends

Mad Clown’s head rolled on the bloody floor, still smiling. Ant Emperor licked the blood of his sickle-like arms. He inherited Vampire Count Mosto’s ability, growing stronger with every drop of blood he consumed. However, the blood contained a minuscule amount of divine power, so there was nothing else he could absorb from it.

“Darn it!”

Ssss!

Tentacles burst out from Ant Emperor like a lotus, wriggling fiercely.

Craaaack!

“You...! You deceived me until the end...!”

Ant Emperor gritted his teeth, stomping on the clown mask, squashing it like a watermelon thrown off a high building. Yet, his anger didn’t subside. Five hundred years! It took him five hundred years crawling like an insect to cultivate enough power to tear up the bastard behind that accursed tutorial!

He had fed on and even parasitized humans trapped in the same tutorial to absorb their abilities. He even served hundreds of other demigods, doing everything he could to obtain a fraction of their power—and just when he thought he could settle everything, once and for all...!

“Cowardly bastard! Sending a puppet to deal with me! I know you’re hiding on this planet! I’ll find you and tear you from limb to limb! I’ll drink your blood and rip your flesh apart while you’re still alive, then sacrifice you to my mother!” Ant Emperor threw a maddening fit, trampling on the shattered mask.

Ding!

[War of Carnage and Lunacy stares down at you.]

Crack!

Ant Emperor briefly shuddered before reverently dropping to his knees.

“I’ve shown you great shame, O’ almighty War God.”

Among the gods he had served over five centuries, the Ultimate Malevolent God War of Carnage and Lunacy, who presided over the Gods’ Sacrificial War, was the only god he’d ever respected and worshipped. Naturally, since those weaker than the emperor were either eaten or discarded.

[As per the contract, War of Carnage and Lunacy demands a spectacular war, along with the blood and soul of the young god.]

For some unknown reason, the Top-tier god sought to sacrifice Yu Il-Shin, and Ant Emperor went along with it solely to gain the War God’s blessings—his only means of devouring two High-tier gods.

Tzzz!

Just then, a broken tablet, lying amid the destroyed miniature garden, showed a video.

「—Incredible! Hunter Sasaki Roki! Hunter Sung Mi-Ri has become a great potential winner of the Hunter War after Hunter Yu Il-Shin...」

Yu Il-Shin wasn’t as bad as despair, but he still needed to die.

“Be patient, O’ almighty War God. Soon, I’ll offer the sacrifice you desire.”

Claaaack!

Then, a pair of colorful wings, reminiscent of Buttor’s, sprang from Ant Emperor’s back.

***

“Uncle Sam-Shin, how is it?”

“Des...troy!”

Two children sat eating ice creams while holding hands. Sam-Shin had a black, sweet chocolate cone, and Seong-Yeon had a white, soft-serve cone.

Licking her ice cream, Seong-Yeon looked at him, asking, “Uncle, can I have a bite?”

After pondering for a moment, Sam-Shin held out his cone to her.

Yum—

“Wow, it’s delicious!”

Seong-Yeon blushed, overjoyed. Suddenly, she felt his eyes on her ice cream.

“Uncle, do you want a bite too?”

“Des...troy!” Sam-Shin nodded, opening his mouth.

Chew chew! Gulp!

What just happened? Somehow, only the cone was left. Seong-Yeon became tearful.

“D-Des...troy?” Sam-Shin was flustered. Didn’t she tell him to have a bite?

Before Seong-Yeon burst into tears, a hero appeared at lightning speed.

“I knew this would happen. Seong-Yeon, I brought you another ice cream!”

The cheerful, idol-like Shin-Yoo, offered a giant, seemingly three-story-tall ice cream to Seong-Yeon.

“Get lost, Shin Yoo! Mr. Sword God’s niece will be eating the ice cream

I

got for her!”

In contrast, the sullen Sword demon knelt before Seong-Yeon, offering her a chocolate ice cream.

“C’mon now, Kang Geom. Seong-Yeon prefers this one.”

“

Hmph,

what do you know? Kids usually like chocolate!”

Seong-Yeon stopped crying at the sight of the two bickering adults and finally made her choice. She took both ice creams, smiling widely.

Sam-Shin sighed in relief.

“Des...troy.”

Meanwhile, Zan Le Mang observed them from a distance. After withdrawing from the Hunter War, she was out and about, buying a souvenir for her son when she stumbled upon Sam-Shin. In her opinion, he looked much cuter without his helmet.

“

Ugh,

why do I feel so cold all of a sudden? The chills.”

“

Ack!

I couldn’t breathe! T-this is weird...”

Passersby instinctively avoided Sam-Shin due to the ominous chills.

Zan Le Mang glared at Shin Yoo and Sword Demon while lugging an assortment of ice creams. Her chance to get closer to Sam-Shin was ruined!

As she racked her brain on how to best approach Sam-Shin, the MC’s excited scream reverberated from the screen outside the colosseum.

「The most shocking twist in Hunter War history! The three-time defending champion and Earth's strongest Hunter, SSS-rank Royce, has fallen to her knees for the first time!」

Troubling wind was blowing through the Hunter War.

***

The audience fell silent. The legendary and enigmatic Royce fell to an Asian youth barely twenty.

Sasaki wiped the blood off his blade. "

Ha!

So this is all an SS-rank Hunter’s got?"

In the stands, Ares snorted in excitement. “Igis, did you see that?! Royce clearly dodged, but his sword teleported and slashed her anyway! Where did he get such an awesome sword?! I’ve never seen it in the Hunter Shop!”

He was preparing for the upcoming individual matches. Without his golden armor, he looked like a simple country boy. However, his team member didn’t reply—no, she probably couldn’t.

W-why? I don’t feel her anymore...

Igis could no longer sense the great god who granted her Petrifying Gaze. She first heard the god’s voice during Hunter War preparations.

-So, you’re the girl who shares my divine blood. Rejoice, for I shall share my power with you!

Ohoho,

but in return, you must do something for me when the time comes. It’s a very simple task.

Igis never consented to it. She recalled her great-grandmother saying their family had served ancient Greek gods as priests, but she never imagined it was true. Nevertheless, the Petrifying Gaze was so powerful, so much so that she could probably defeat an SSS-rank Hunter with it. Once the government and the Hunter Association learned of her power, they gave her their full support.

“As long as you win, we won’t spare any efforts in aiding you!”

They even sold national treasures to buy gear from the Hunter Shop, hoping for a butterfly effect to revive the economy—an impulsive act bordering on insanity, akin to Brazil throwing everything at the World Cup in the past. The results were disastrous, and Greece was eliminated in the end.

Igis could use Petrifying Gaze thrice, two of which were used on Yu Il-Shin. If she had used it then, the match's outcome would have been different.

Hiss!

However, since gaining power, she had felt the god's ravenous gaze, watching her like prey. Like opening a Pandora’s box, she instinctively knew she’d be doomed if she used the last shot. In the end, she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

I’m not hallucinating. She really disappeared, gone, as if she never existed...

But now, she could no longer feel the god’s terrifying gaze, which was even more unsettling, like the calm before a storm.

「Hunter Royce is standing up! Were her injuries not as serious as we thought?」

Royce pushed herself off the ground with her double swords. Her abdominal gash was so deep that her intestines spilled out.

Sasaki smirked. “Why don’t you surrender? You’ll die at this rate.”

Instead of answering, Royce pressed the white sword against her wound.

Ssss!

Her injury began healing rapidly.

Sasaki frowned, grumbling, “What? That’s foul play!”

Wordlessly, Royce’s clear, glassy eyes stared at Sasaki’s longsword, which exuded a tar-like black aura, as if it were alive.

“You borrowed that power from a malevolent god—Beast of Deceit and Rapacity, I presume?” Her voice was dripping with disgust. “How foolish. Selling your soul for power.”

Royce crossed her black and white swords, pointing them at Sasaki.

“Behead evil.”

Roooooar!

A shuddering pulse of bloodlust erupted from her twin swords. Sasaki flinched briefly, realizing his secret was out. Gritting his teeth, he tightened his grip on his sword.

“Interesting! Come at me! I’ll rip your throat without fail!”

Tzzz!

“

Hyaaa!”

Their swords emitted dense bloodlust, extending to take each other’s lives.

Swoosh!

Something flew through the sky at tremendous speed and fell between them.

Baaam!

“

Argh!”

Royce and Sasaki stagger backward in surprise.

Sasaki muttered in confusion, “A-an insect?”

It was a tiny creature no bigger than his sword, with colorful moth wings.

Tucking Buttor’s wings, Ant Emperor glanced around. “A dark lot of them.”

He wasn’t referring to the humans, but the stirring of gods among the crowd.

Like a swarm of worms, the crowd was infested with gods’ powers, some familiar to him.

Igis, who went pale and shuddered in horror, possessed Ruler of Abyssal Swamp’s power. Meanwhile, Sasaki’s longsword was imbued with Beast of Deceit and Rapacity’s power.

What were those two thinking? Were they planning to use these humans to sabotage his Sacrificial War with Yu Il-Shin? But there was no way to know now, nor did he care in the slightest.

“That’s what you get for investing your divine power on petty tricks,” mocked Ant Emperor.

-I’ll ask you.

“

Ugh!”

“Kyaaa!”

Even though his voice was as small as a worm, it rang loud enough to tear the eardrums of all one million people in the colosseum.

-Where is Yu Il-Shin, my arch enemy?