Chapter 468: Star, Identity Establishment (6)

A rain of lightning bolts struck the ground, creating superheated gales that burned up the Divine Class of anyone in the way.

“S-Shit!”

“Run away first!”

Thinking that they would be butchered if they were caught up in the gales, Chang-Sun’s past reincarnations activated their Skills to distance themselves from Chang-Sun.

Stab!

Slash, slash, slash―!

The past reincarnations had only been vigilant against Chang-Sun, so they were helpless before the ambush that suddenly came from behind.

“Keough!”

“Arghhh! W-What in the world... are you doing...?!”

“It’s our tactic for victory, so don’t hold it against us for too long.”

The past reincarnations who had ambushed the others smiled coldly, swinging their swords once again.

Slassh!

Splaaaash―!

Those past reincarnations whose only intent had been to entrap and kill Chang-Sun were powerless. There were a lot of them in the amphitheater right now, so it was hard to distinguish friend from foe. Only several hours prior, all the past reincarnations had been in agreement about taking down Chang-Sun first, but they slaughtered each other in quite a brutal fashion for people who had been on the same side.

On top of that, Chang-Sun’s lightning rain and superheated gales spread like an overwhelming tide; even though all the past reincarnations sharpened their senses, they inevitably ended up screaming as they were caught up in the calamity. Then...

“It’s a mess. Didn’t you people say you were going to attack first? I’ll start if you aren’t going to,” Chang-Sun said, making the past reincarnations turn pale.

Paaah―!

Slash!

Swoosh, swish, woosh―!

The past reincarnation who had been standing closest to Chang-Sun lost his head first. Even before his blood spurted out, he was engulfed in a pillar of fire, turning into a pile of ashes. Meanwhile, Chang-Sun went after his next target.

“Fuuuuuuck!”

In the end, the past reincarnations scattered all over the amphitheater, staying on high alert around each other, but...

[The Authority ‘Avatar’s Descent’ has been activated, putting restrictions on the area!]

“I-I can’t move...!”

The moment Chang-Sun slammed into the ground feet-first, heavy pressure fell upon the next target, not allowing him to budge.

Slasssh―!

Chang-Sun quickly struck his next target with the [Yuchang Sword], which was enveloped in a vast amount of supreme sacred light. The past reincarnations who were standing close to the site became even paler as they tried to stop Chang-Sun from approaching any further, but they were still helpless.

[The Authority ‘Heaven and Earth Great Shift’ has been activated, distorting the area’s coordinates!]

Right before they could swing their spears and swords, they lost their balance, causing the trajectory of their attacks to change.

Stab! Stab! Stab!

Chang-Sun skillfully used the opportunity to attack and ended his next targets’ lives with [Tiamat’s Snaggletooth]. Over a dozen past reincarnations were killed in a row, leaving the survivors in disarray.

Chang-Sun was already in front of them, and the lightning rain and superheated gales were coming for them from either side, while some past reincarnations were holding swords up to ambush them from behind. This place had become a swamp of death where there was nowhere to seek shelter, quickly causing them to sink into despair.

“Don’t come near me! I’ll kill you if you come any closer!”

Due to the extreme nature of the situation, the past reincarnations had no choice but to yell at their friends, who came to them to seek assistance in treating their wounds, to back off. In the end, the past reincarnations all kept their distance from each other. Fortunately for them, the amphitheater was quite big.

Smaaaack!

“This is preposterous...!” Tomte exclaimed, gnashing his teeth as he glared at Chang-Sun after destroying a past reincarnation’s head with his fist for daring to point a sword at him.

Tomte had no idea how in the world the situation had turned out like this. This fight was supposed to be like shooting fish in a barrel, but no one could have imagined that Tomte would be the fish, not Chang-Sun.

“Did the guards give you a heads-up or something...?!” Tomte asked, wondering where his plan had gone awry as he looked at the chaotic battlefield.

Some of the past reincarnations had betrayed Tomte and joined Chang-Sun’s side, meaning they shared a connection that Tomte did not know about. However, from what Tomte knew, Chang-Sun was not close to any past reincarnations aside from Odin, and it was also only his second visit to the subconscious realm.

In that case, there was only one possible answer: Chang-Sun and the guards had made some sort of deal. In fact, the guards were superior to Tomte and the others in some ways, even though they did not choose to sit on thrones, and had many followers of their own. However...

“Heads-up, my ass.” Chang-Sun sneered at Tomte. “I am them, so why would I need that?”

“Bullsh...!” Tomte began, but stopped yelling angrily as a thought suddenly came to mind. His face darkened as he asked, “W-Wait... Are you the guard, not Lee Chang-Sun?”

“What if I am?”

“Which one are you? Is it the red one or the blue one? No, how in the world did you absorb Lee Chang-Sun? I can’t believe it! You acted as if you had zero interest in becoming the main personality, but you’ve been making a plan of your own all along!” Tomte shouted in fury, as if he had been betrayed by a trusted friend.

Chang-Sun was dumbfounded by Tomte’s gift for entertaining delusions. He replied, “I’m all three of them.”

“Three...?”

“Wait...” Chang-Sun counted with his fingers for a moment, then faintly smiled as he continued, “Sixty-two, to be precise.”

“...Then you aren’t one of the guards, but rather harmonized with them...?” Tomte murmured, looking as if he had been hit in the back of his head with a blunt object.

He realized that sixty-two was the total of the past reincarnations that had been killed in battle, including Balor. Just then, Chang-Sun’s face fragmented, revealing different faces one by one. Balor, the red lightning guard, the blue lightning guard... A total of sixty-two faces appeared, and all of them spoke as one; only the Inferno Sight in one eye continued to blaze in the same place.

“I’m here to recover my complete self, so they aren’t dead,” the sixty-two voices said, becoming one. When Chang-Sun’s appearance returned to his original self, his [Gnostic Eye] gleamed as he continued, “They just came back to me.”

Tap!

Paaah―!

Chang-Sun leaped high into the air and flew at Tomte, leaving a long trail of sunset-colored lightning sparks and hot wind. He continued, “So come back too, Tomte.”

“Shiiiittttt!” Tomte exclaimed as he clapped loudly, looking desperate to run away from Chang-Sun; he was becoming overwhelmed with the fear of death.

Booooom!

Whoosh, whoosh, swoosh...!

Tomte’s clap echoed like thunder and created—no, it would have created a storm, if not for a sudden interruption.

[The Authority ‘Avatar’s Descent’ has been activated, imposing restrictions on the area!]

Chang-Sun’s first move was to dominate the space where Tomte was trying to start a storm, stopping it from spreading halfway through.

[The Authority ‘Heaven and Earth Great Shift’ has been activated, distorting the area to cancel the Skill activation!]

Chang-Sun’s second move was to distort space, tearing apart the storm. The forced cancellation of Tomte’s Skill activation caused his divine power to rebound, making him stagger for a moment, which Chang-Sun used to close in on him.

[The Authority 'Dream-Eating Beast’ has been activated, crossing their fang and claw!]

The [Yuchang Sword] became a claw that flew through the air horizontally, and [Tiamat’s Snaggletooth] became a piercing fang that traveled vertically. When the supreme sacred light and in the weapons met, a sunset-colored lightning bolt manifested, slashing Tomte’s upper body.

Thuuud!

“Arrrghhhh!” Tomte was catapulted away, his arms butchered. His top half was an unrecognizable, bloody mess.

Swoooosh―!

Chang-Sun chased after Tomte. Perkwunos was not present at the moment, leaving Tomte as the leader. Taking Tomte down first was essential to winning this fight, but going after him was still not easy.

“Die!”

“Now!”

Taking advantage of the fact that Chang-Sun was focused on taking down Tomte, the past reincarnations ambushed him from his blind spots. Chang-Sun had already fought the two guards, creating an incessant rain of lightning bolts and superheated gales to dominate the battlefield. That was why the past reincarnations had concluded that Chang-Sun had to be almost out of divine power, and that he was actually growing fatigued, leading him to try to take down Tomte first.

Wasting more time in this fight could endanger Chang-Sun, but the problem was that the past reincarnations had noticed his strategy too. They were also experienced warriors who had wandered from battlefield to battlefield, but Chang-Sun had made the mistake of not taking their experience into account.

𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Clang, clang, clang!

Chang-Sun turned his torso to deflect the incoming attacks. After pushing away a spear which was aimed at his head, he blocked a sword that was about to stab him in the chest, going after the enemy’s nape instead. Using a mix of [Avatar’s Descent] and [Heaven and Earth Great Shift] at the right times, he restricted their movements, then focused on deflecting and using their attacks to counterattack instead.

Boom, boom, boom―!

Rummmble!

The amphitheater shook violently.

“Sir Tomte!”

“Sir Tomte. Are you okay?”

Meanwhile, Tomte finally got to his feet again thanks to his loyal followers’ help, but his head was still spinning, making him unable to see straight. The attack from earlier had to have impacted him so greatly that his Divine Class was destabilized.

‘A mere boy is humiliating me...!’

Tomte thought as he gnashed his teeth, trying very hard to recover his senses.

Compared to how long Tomte had lived, Chang-Sun was as inexperienced as a mayfly; and yet, that ‘mayfly’ had managed to leave him a complete mess, infuriating him. Nevertheless, Tomte’s chance of victory was zero. Perhaps it would be possible to run away, but there was a limit to fleeing in the subconscious realm, which meant he would eventually be captured by Chang-Sun for sure. In the end, Tomte’s only choice was to bring down Chang-Sun here and now, but he had nothing to turn the tide of the battle in his favor... No, wait!

As an idea came to his mind, Tomte felt reinvigorated and smiled wickedly; he had a feeling that he had a possible solution.

“How loyal are you to me?” Tomte asked the follower who was helping him walk.

The follower pounded his chest and confidently said, “You know I would give my life for you. The fact that you gave me a chance like this is enough for me to be grate...!”

“Is that so?” Tomte replied with a grin, and...

Staaaab!

...pierced his follower’s left chest with a knife-hand strike.

In disbelief, the follower looked back and forth between Tomte and his own chest, murmuring, “...Huh?”

“You said that you would give your life for me, didn’t you? So give your life to me—no, we’re the same person, so we’re just returning to our original self.”

“Crazy... basta...!”

“You talk too much,” Tomte said, plucking out the follower’s heart and immediately putting it in his mouth.

Splaaash!

Munch, munch, munch!

“Sir Tomte! What in the world are you doing?!”

“Damn it! He’s gone insane too now!”

“Run!”

It had been known for a long time that the heart was where one’s soul rested, so eating a heart meant that the consumer was extorting the entire existence of the heart’s owner. The sense of crisis that came from knowing they could die at any moment led the past reincarnation to flee.

Meanwhile, Tomte finished undertaking Celestial Cannibalism and glared at Chang-Sun. At the same time, his wounds recovered quickly, and his [Gnostic Eye] blazed more fiercely than ever. After his Divine Class stabilized again, he unleashed vast divine power.

“...This isn’t enough,” Tomte murmured.

With his clearer [Gnostic Eye], Tomte was able to have an objective assessment of Chang-Sun’s martial prowess, which was that of a Demi-Outer Celestial. Half of Chang-Sun was already harmonized with Nyx, gradually becoming free from the law of causality. His other half was midway through becoming a Celestial King, reaching one of the most supreme levels that could be reached in Eros.

Chang-Sun was Mephistopheles’ student; he had made Bestla’s his own, been blessed by , and become a . He was not only transforming into an unprecedented being, but also adjusting to his power very quickly. He was the one and only individual of his kind, and there would be no one like him in the future.

Tomte had no means of turning the tide of battle with his current level, leaving him with a pressing need to obtain more power, karma, experiences, and personalities. Returning to their soul’s original nature seemed to be the only way to fight equally against Chang-Sun.

His eyes gleaming with madness, Tomte quickly moved in search of his next prey. However, just then...

『Do you want my help?』

A voice came from high up in the sky, so Tomte came to his senses and quickly looked up, shouting “Perkwunos! Where the hell are...!”

Tomte’s eyes widened, because a huge hole opened up in the sky that was filled with dark clouds, and a tremendous amount of fire poured out onto the ground like a waterfall.