Following Henry’s challenge, an unprecedented atmosphere set in the God Realm. The overwhelmingly imposing aura of the gods filled the air, causing Henry to get goosebumps.

However, those weren’t goosebumps of fear but of excitement, as Henry was eager to see just how strong these gods were.

During the process of becoming a complete god, Henry had also gained insight into each god, and to his surprise, no matter how much he looked into them, he couldn’t find a god that was stronger than him.

Not even the Demon God, who looked over the entire Demon Realm, could match Henry.

‘Well, the Heavenly God was a bit unexpected.’

Henry had assumed that Heavenly God would have more divine power than him, given that he ruled over all entities in the heavens. But surprisingly enough, Henry’s divine power was more abundant, and the reason for that was simple.

Even though only a third of Eurasia’s population was left following the brutal war against Arthus, there were still more people on the continent than in the heavens.

“Now, which one of you wants to come at me first?” asked Henry while wielding his Colt Sword in his Colt Armor.

The Colt Sword and Armor had started out as his exclusive equipment, and now they were fully-fledged holy relics. Now that their master had become a full god, they had also evolved to be worthy of him.

The Colt Sword, imbued with divine power, flashed a golden light from its tip. It was without a doubt the most threatening blade in the world, so when Henry raised it and directed his cold, piercing gaze at the gods, everyone, including Walmet, gulped nervously.

Ironically, despite being furious with Henry, none of the gods dared to step up and challenge him. They were all afraid they would end up like the Heavenly God.

“Bunch of cowards,” Henry scoffed. He found all of them pathetic, staring at him nervously and not even taking a step toward him. Their murderous aura made it seem like they would tear him apart at any moment, and yet they were too scared to move.

Henry merely shook his head in disappointment. Even though they were terribly outraged by the death of the Heavenly God and sought to punish Henry severely, the gods were all silent.

Seeing them like this reminded Henry of how hypocritical the angels had been, and he quickly came to the conclusion that they were all cut from the same cloth. He felt disgusted by that, and he was also sick and tired of waiting for these statues to do something.

“Get out of the way, you cowards!” snarled Henry, furrowing his brow.

Surprisingly, the gods swiftly made way for Henry, which made him wonder why they had even gathered here to rebuke him in the first place if they were going to let him have it his way.

But at the same time, Henry partly understood their apprehension. After all, if a god died, they wouldn’t go anywhere. There wasn’t an afterlife for them. They would just cease to exist. That fear alone was probably the reason they were too afraid to step up and face him.

All the gods present were well aware of what could happen to them, and dying in vain after experiencing what godhood meant was the last thing they wanted.

However, in contrast to the scared gods, Henry had already experienced death two times, so when thinking that dying was the worst thing that could happen to him, he wasn’t fazed at all. That allowed him to pour his heart and soul into everything he did. It was as if he put his life on the line with every endeavor in order to get what he wanted.

“If I die, I die… What else can happen?” Henry muttered under his breath.

With that, Henry walked resolutely, his sword slung over his shoulder, and with each step he took forward, the gods took one back. Their expressions were still fierce, but Henry knew they wouldn’t do anything, so his confidence was sky-high.

In fact, he didn’t even acknowledge their stares.

But then…

“Ugh, I can’t take it anymore!”

Henry was suddenly stung by a sharp, murderous energy. However, he reacted with lightning speed, stomping on the ground before the energy reached his spine.

Bang! Crack!

Following his stomp, a spider web formed underneath him. At the same time, the air around him vibrated and he no longer felt the murderous presence behind him.

Henry looked behind him to see who had attacked him, but instead of seeing a god, he saw an arrow, halted in mid-air, its tip still scraping against his back. He casually turned around and grabbed it.

“A surprise attack, huh…?”

At this point, Henry actually felt stupid for having thought so highly of these gods. He was quite disappointed that this cheap shot was the best they could do. He never would’ve thought that a god would cowardly try to attack like this from behind.

With the arrow in his hand, Henry shifted his gaze to where the arrow seemed to have come from. He saw a young boy in the distance, holding a horn bow. He knew his name.

Nilvar—the god of shepherds and wind. The young boy had curly ginger hair and green eyes. But of course, Henry knew better than to judge him based on his appearance. He was sure Nilvar had lived for way longer than he had.

Nilvar trembled with his horn bow in his hands. Henry could tell from how his eyes were twitching that he had been holding back his anger for some time now.

“Is this all you have to show?” Henry said wryly.

“Wh-why, you have a problem with that?”

“How pitiful…”

Nilvar’s divine power was so insignificant that Henry didn’t even consider it a threat. Thinking it was his turn to attack, Henry curled his middle finger and pressed it down with his thumb. As he did so, he cast Nilvar a cold gaze as though locking onto him. Then, flicked his finger.

“Bang!”

Zing—!

With that, a sound much sharper than the one Nilvar’s arrow had produced echoed through the God Realm.

Boom!

Before anyone could react, Nilvar went flying and dropped to the ground. His horn was now in pieces, and so had to be a couple of his ribs.

Henry hadn’t killed him; he had done that just to make an example out of him.

“Even though it was a surprise attack, this is my gift for you for being brave enough to step up.”

With that, Henry turned around again and set out. Even though Nilvar wasn’t dead, Henry was sure it would take him some time to recover.

Following his gesture, the tension in the atmosphere quickly subsided. After witnessing Henry incapacitate Nilvar with just a flick of his finger, all the other gods were even more hesitant to attack.

Henry noticed that and cursed at them under his breath. He felt they weren’t even worthy of his Colt Sword, so he dismissed it.

He walked toward the stairs resolutely, and when he was in front of the first step, he turned around to get a final look at the gods. Even though there were dozens of them, not a single one had come forward to stop him. He clicked his tongue at how pathetic they were before facing the steps again.

As he took his first step, Henry heard a soft splashing sound and saw a ripple form underneath his foot as though he had just stepped on a puddle. He was bemused by this, and he eagerly took another step to see what would happen.

But just as he did so, his surroundings turned from pink to pitch black.

“Hmm.”

In fact, his surroundings weren’t exactly pitch black, but navy blue, akin to a night sky illuminated by a few stars.

At this, Henry turned around, and he noticed that all the gods and the surface they had been standing on had disappeared. He tentatively took a step back to see if the scenery would change back, but nothing happened.

‘Are you looking for me?’

Henry knew that the King of Gods was at the end of the stairs, but he hadn’t been aware that the scenery would change as he ascended. Seeing that his surroundings stayed the same, he knew there was no going back.

He took this as an invitation from the King of Gods.

‘Well, I’m glad he’s not picky like the Heavenly God.’

For some reason, Henry felt somewhat optimistic and at ease. He thought that maybe, just maybe, the King of Gods wouldn’t be like those spineless gods back there. Maybe he was worthy of being called a god.

Henry went up the flight of stairs resolutely, taking light steps as he thought that he would finally reach his destination and meet the one he should’ve looked for all this time.

He walked slowly as though he were on an afternoon stroll. The flight of stairs was quite long, but Henry could go up a thousand steps without panting.

He knew it would take him some time before he reached the top of the stairs, so he took this chance to reorganize his thoughts. Thus, he purposely didn’t use any magic. He also thought it would be rather disrespectful to the King of Gods to do that.

‘The King of Gods, huh…’

Even though Henry had learned everything about the gods through his death, he didn’t actually know much about the King of Gods. One thing he knew for sure was that the King of Gods went by many other titles, among which being the Lord of Gods and the God of Gods.

However, Henry had no idea what his actual name was, which stirred up his curiosity quite a bit. He couldn’t help wondering what the origin of the King of Gods was and what made him so powerful that he looked over every realm out there.

Henry’s passion as a wizard burned fiercely with each step; he was more than eager to get the answers to his questions.

‘But wait a minute… I’m not here to satisfy my curiosity. I should be thinking about other things.’

Henry chuckled, thinking he was being silly. He thought he was perhaps taking it too easy, now that he finally had a moment of peace.

Eventually, Henry looked up and realized that he was almost at the end of the flight of stairs. It had taken him quite a bit to get here, but he had been so absorbed in his thoughts that he hadn’t even noticed how many steps he had gone up.

With a few more steps, Henry spotted a door with simple decorations at the end of the stairs. He picked up the pace and quickly found himself right in front of it. He twisted the golden doorknob and slowly pushed the door, which made the generic creaking sound of an old wooden door.

After opening the door fully, Henry could see nothing but pitch-black darkness. Once he stepped inside, the door closed by itself and disappeared. Surprisingly, this all felt very familiar to Henry.

“Light…”

Henry summoned a small sphere of light, which revealed an ordinary room that a woodcutter would live in. There were utensils and household items scattered across the room, and it looked like someone had used them recently. In the center of the room stood a large wooden table, which seemed like it was used for a variety of purposes.

There was a large glass bottle capped with a cork on the table, containing some strange black liquid that Henry couldn’t identify. Given the fairly rusty and worn-out appearance of the room, this glass bottle stood out quite a bit.

Henry chuckled at this disparity.

“Isn’t this… too obvious?”

Henry couldn’t help but wonder if the King of Gods was shy or something. So far, all his messages, ever since Henry had started going up the stairs, had been subtle.

If someone dim-witted and clueless had found themselves here instead of Henry, they would’ve had no idea as to what the King of Gods wanted them to do.

Thankfully, Henry’s wits were among his strongest weapons, so he went ahead and responded to the King of Gods. He picked up the bottle with one hand, but to his surprise, it was way heavier than it looked.

He brought the bottle to his ear and proceeded to shake it. The liquid made an ordinary sloshing sound, but as he kept shaking, Henry felt a very faint divine power from the surface of the glass bottle.

‘I knew it.’

Just as he had expected, the glass bottle was a hint of some sort. At this, Henry wondered if the King of Gods had a sensitive side to him.

Knowing what he had to do next, Henry opened the bottle without hesitation.

Pop—!

And right after the cork flew out of the bottle…

- Kieee!!!

An ear-piercing, bizarre scream erupted from the bottle, shaking the room violently as though thunder had struck right next to it. The bottle was also shaking as though it were a caged beast struggling to get out, but Henry held tightly onto it.

𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

Soon, black fog escaped the bottle, and the black liquid inside of it lessened. Then, the fog solidified and turned into a thick sludge on the wooden floor that looked like tar. The inky blob soon turned into slime, and then into something else.

A hand came out of the slime, and then a forearm, and then a shoulder, then a chest, then a neck, and finally, a head. The face that emerged from the black slime had an elongated snout.

‘A bird?’

Henry stared at the creature while keeping his guard up. He initially assumed it was some kind of bird, but he quickly realized that its snout was too blunt to be a beak.

The creature poked out its head even more, the angular snout curving to meet the skull, forming a somewhat triangular shape. Seeing this, Henry couldn’t help but think of…

“A dog?”

It was indeed a dog’s head, and this wasn’t the first time Henry had seen a creature with a human body and a dog’s head.

Just as Henry was trying to think of whom this creature reminded him of, the fully-formed dog head screamed at him.

- Yooouuu!

The entity that screamed at Henry was none other than Janus, the god of night and death of Shahatra.