Chapter 357

At that very hour in Russia, the prime minister Yuri Orloff was laughing like a madman, bathed in a radiant light. The entire area had already been reduced to ashes, yet how could he not laugh? He was holding his own against the absurdly strong giant that was Thomas Andre.

“Hahaha! Are you seeing this? I’ve truly done it!”

“Done what, exactly?” asked the King of Giants, now the Monarch of Domination.

Just then, he landed a fist straight down onto Yuri’s head. There was an earth-shattering rumble. The ground caved in beneath the King of Giants’ fist, forming a massive crater. The impact drove the earth hundreds of meters deep and sent shockwaves across the land, but even so, Yuri was unharmed. Layers upon layers of S-rank barriers had formed around him, shielding him from the attack.

Yuri chuckled. Of course, each of those barriers was

only

S-rank. Even if S-rank hunters stood out among the humans for their power, they were nothing against the power of a Monarch. Still, Yuri’s laughter grew—because this time, something was different. With both hands raised against the force of Thomas’ attack, Yuri pushed back using his barriers and burst into wild, maddened laughter.

“Hahaha! Now do you see it? This is who I truly am! Project Eternal Fountain is complete!”

At that moment, even greater divine power began to surge from his entire body. A project that had required deceiving even the Apostles of the Outer Gods had been a resounding success. Now, endless reserves of divine energy coursed through him, and he no longer needed to be in the Arctic to access it. Blocking Thomas’ punch hadn’t even depleted his strength. On the contrary, even more divine power now flowed into the space that had been emptied. His Eternal Fountain was well and truly complete.

Having blocked the attack, Yuri leapt high into the air, cloaked in brilliant light. It was time for a counterattack.

“How dare you invade my kingdom!”

Despite the fury in his shout, Yuri’s face was filled with joy. By now, he no longer cared why Thomas Andre had suddenly attacked Russia, or even how he was able to transform into a giant. Only one thing lingered in his mind. He was mildly curious how Thomas Andre could now wield power on par with an Apostle.

“I don’t know how a worm like you gained such overwhelming power!”

Ultimately, it didn’t matter anymore. With a leap, he soared higher, sharpening his multiple barriers into fine blades using his incredible reserves.

“With a target as big as you, your entire body is a weak spot!”

He unleashed them in all directions, slicing mercilessly at Thomas’ massive frame. There was no holding back his amusement now. It was a truly glorious day.

“Hahaha! Let the whole world watch! They will see for themselves. Yuri Orloff has surpassed Thomas Andre! I no longer bow before the Apostles!”

In that moment, his thoughts drifted to the past, to the many humiliations he had suffered when dealing with the Church of the Outer Gods. The Apostles, those mysterious beings, far exceeded humankind in strength. He’d had to flatter them, fake his smiles, and grovel before them. It was disgusting and shameful. He recalled his wretched life of poverty, and how the world had mocked him. All of those moments of disgrace had now become dazzling glory, clutched within his hands.

“Look upon this power! Do you feel it?” he screamed, his voice that of a mad zealot. He drove Thomas back with everything he had, until he himself was out of breath. Every bit of the endless power welling up inside him, he poured out onto the giant before him.

𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

“I have boundless energy at my fingertips! The great divine power of the Itarim has settled within me! I am well and truly... an infinitely powerful Apostle!”

[The Apostle of Infinity]

Yuri’s true goal had always been to become an Apostle with no limit to his power, a goal he had longed for all these years. Now, he had achieved it.

“This world is mine now!”

With that boundless power granted to him, Yuri’s long-suppressed greed began to rise up uncontrollably.

“Not just Russia! I will become the ruler of the entire world! The ruler of the world, the great Yuri—”

Thomas, unable to bear it any longer, clicked his tongue. “Spoken like a child.”

Then, with a look of disdain, he casually deflected Yuri’s frenzied attacks with one hand, as though tearing apart the curtain of some embarrassingly childish and unfunny play.

“I was wondering where you were going with all this nonsense. What’s that? World domination? Ha! You grasp a bit of power and that’s all you can come up with?”

Yuri’s eyes widened in disbelief. Thomas had been taking all his savage blows without dodging, seemingly pushed into a corner. Had it all been a ruse?

Suddenly, a colossal force burst from Thomas’ body and spread all around him. He stood at the center of this immense power, gazing down at Yuri with a look of utter disgust.

“I’ve lost interest in this. You foolish, repulsive old man,” he said.

“Wh-what did you say? How dare you!”

Yuri tried again, gathering divine power and launching another furious attack, but Thomas had had enough.

“Just die.”

Thomas scoffed and took the attack head-on. Then, without hesitation, he raised one massive foot and stomped down hard on the ground where Yuri stood.

Compared to the King of Giants, Yuri was like a mere insect, crushed beneath his heel. The shockwave was tremendous. The surrounding kilometers trembled from the pressure alone. Buildings shook, forests scattered. The air itself seemed to rip apart. Just as before, Yuri deployed layer upon layer of S-Rank barriers to block the overwhelming assault.

This time, however, the result was slightly different. As the mountainous foot of the giant descended, the shadow it cast plunged Yuri’s entire field of view into darkness. Beyond that shadow, Thomas’ mocking laughter rang out.

“Infinite power, huh? Sure. Let’s see if you can keep this up for the rest of your life.”

Thomas did not stop. He raised his foot again and again, stomping down on Yuri. Yuri’s barriers, once as hard as turtle shells, thinned out until they were nothing more than brittle eggshells. Still, Thomas didn’t let up. With each brutal step, Yuri began to feel it. His defenses were cracking. He began to flatten, crushed inside the solid tank he himself had built.

Thomas thought he heard a faint, pitiful scream come from within the barrier, but he paid it no mind. He couldn’t even see the speck of a man beneath his foot. All he could see were the shockwaves rippling out from his every stomp, the visual traces of the King of Giants’ unmatched power.

In the end, at last, Yuri Orloff was dead. His body was broken beyond recognition, nothing more than a soupy mass inside the shattered defense he had so trusted. As the foot lifted, his gruesome remains came into view.

Thomas clicked his tongue. “Tch! Is he dead? That’s all it took?”

He felt a little disappointed. The scum of the human race who had betrayed his own kind and partnered with the invaders from the outer universes without anyone’s knowledge... was underwhelming at best.

Yuri’s pulverized corpse suddenly rose into the air.

“Hmm...?” Thomas murmured, confused.

From the utterly flattened body, no longer even recognizable as human, golden divine energy was still flowing. What happened next was even more shocking.

A voice, cold and toneless, began to emerge from the pulp that had once been Yuri.

“O great Itarim... Bless us...”

The words echoed the chants of the fanatics in the Arctic base.

As Thomas watched, stunned, Yuri’s broken form glowed even brighter. His flesh and blood, which had become little more than slurry, began to rapidly regenerate into a human shape, though not by Yuri’s will. The result was anything but human.

Thomas’ eyes went wide.

The powerful divine barrier that had surrounded Yuri’s body, fueled by endless divine power, was reconstructing itself into a human form. Something that had been reduced to pulp was now reconstituting into a grotesque, horrifying mass, like a tank full of living mud.

Then, it opened its mouth and continued to chant in that same cold, emotionless voice, “O great Itarim... We offer ourselves as a sacrifice...”

It was a prayer and a spell offered to a mysterious god, both a curse and a blessing.

“A sacrifice?” Thomas said.

As a Monarch himself with the primordial darkness inside of him, he immediately realized the hidden truth.

“Don’t tell me he was only a sacrifice?”

It was an instinct of sorts, a truth awakened through the primordial darkness he now carried. How could he not know? Even the other Monarchs had received their primordial darkness in a similar way. It was nothing other than a ritual. There was prayer, longing, a vessel, and a sacrifice.

“Are you hearing this, Suho?” Thomas called out, hoping that one of Suho’s shadow soldiers was listening nearby and would relay the message. “Yuri was only a sacrifice! His goal is clearly...”

A summoning, or...

“O Itarim! Descend upon this earth.”

Or their descent onto this planet.

Yuri’s form was smiling now. Even in that grotesquely transformed state, in the end, he had succeeded in his plan. Yuri had been hard at work creating a passageway that led directly to the dimension of the Outer Gods. The point was to fill himself with the boundless energy of the outer universes, and he got what he wanted—for the most part.

However, the Itarim were not beings so merciful that they would heed the prayers of some unimportant created being. While Yuri succeeded in his plan, he inadvertently gave the Outer Gods exactly what they wanted as well. The moment he died, his body overwhelmed by divine power far beyond his limits, he became a perfect, completed sacrifice. The reserves of divine power, now without an owner, returned to their origin with devastating consequences—at least for the human race. Now, even with just a single eye, the Itarim could exert their influence over Earth in a far more direct manner.

It was at this moment that the roving eye, deep within the heart of the hidden Arctic base, turned its gaze toward Suho.

“Ah.”

The voice pierced directly into Suho’s consciousness.

“Interesting...”

There was more meaning in that word than might appear on the surface. The Itarim were absolute beings who had lived for unbounded millennia. They had watched universes form and crumble into dust, and found nearly everything within them to be unbearably dull. Their very existence was a continuation of meaninglessness.

But every so often, something happened in the vast expanse that piqued their interest. In those rare moments, the Outer Gods would devote their full attention and power to that single, intriguing thing. The moment the eye beheld Suho, that focus fell entirely on him. It was exceedingly rare for the Outer Gods to even utter the phrase “interesting.” That word itself carried power.

There was a flash, and in that moment, the eye of the Outer Gods gazed past Suho, taking in the entire planet Earth. The power manifested itself without delay. Yuri Orloff, having become the perfect sacrifice, had opened the door.

***

He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster.

And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

— Friedrich Nietzsche,

Beyond Good and Evil

***

“Wh-what the hell is that?”

As humanity watched, the skies opened up. Like a massive pane of glass starting to crack, black lines split the once blue and peaceful sky. Gradually, the cracks widened, and the sky itself began to split apart. Through each gap in the fractured sky, a view of a far-off dimension beyond the universe unfolded. It was the dimension ruled by the gods of the outer universes, a place nothing short of a living hell.

Even the colors were wrong. Where Earth’s hues were soft, blue, and warm, this place burned with violent reds and purples in a sickening, unnatural landscape. Dark rain fell endlessly in the beyond, only it wasn’t water. It was a sticky, vivid liquid, dripping down like droplets of blood.

“Ugh!”

“What the hell...?”

People began to retch at the sight. Simply laying eyes on it filled them with a visceral, primal dread.

It was merely looking down at the earth, but that alone forced every mortal to return the gaze and look upon the distant dimension ruled by foreign gods. They could now see what writhed and crawled across the strange, alien terrain. They were monsters, far more grotesque and foreign than any magical beast that had ever come to Earth.

Centipedes the size of mountain ranges slithered across the land. Spiders even larger spun vast webs, and upon those webs hung countless bodies. None of them were human.

As they watched those feeding on the corpses, a few of the planet’s defenders began to recognize what they were seeing.

“My god.”

“Are those all...?”

“Apostles?”

The dimension was teeming with Apostles who had invaded Earth—more than could possibly be counted.