Chapter 439: End Game (4)

“How does it feel? I just recreated exactly what you once did to Eos.”

The only difference was that Muldine had injected mana into the bodies of Eos and other lesser gods, while Kai had injected dark magic into Muldine’s body.

Still bound at the wrists, Muldine sat on the floor with his head lowered. Just from seeing his shaking shoulders, it was impossible to tell whether he was crying or laughing.

“Amusing.”

The answer was laughter. When he raised his head, a twisted smile hung on his lips. His eyes were filled with scorn.

“To put one of the only two top-tier gods in the heavens on the same level as the countless lesser gods... That is quite an insult to my pride.” Muldine slowly rose and rolled his neck a few times. “How long do you think it will take for my divine power to purify the dark magic in my body? One hour? Two hours? This will take only thirty minutes!” Muldine bared his teeth and shouted.

“

Oh?

Thirty minutes is enough? What a coincidence. I was thinking thirty minutes would be plenty too.”

In contrast to the growling Muldine, Kai let out a short chuckle.

“

Oh

, and who told you to stand up?”

Thud!

One of Muldine’s knees crashed into the ground. Veins bulged on his temple as he stared at the shattered marble.

“No matter how tough you act, you aren't a top-tier god. At best you have the rank of a lesser god.” At that level, even the power of a Transcendent could inflict damage.

“I wonder if you’ll still be this confident thirty minutes from now.”

“Don’t wonder. You won’t be able to see it anyway.”

Thirty minutes from now, Muldine would no longer exist in this world.

Otherwise I’m in trouble.

If Kai couldn’t finish things before Muldine’s divine power expelled the dark magic, everything would be over.

I need to end this within thirty minutes, no matter what.

This was his only chance now that the gap between him and Muldine had narrowed.

Kai drew the holy sword.

“That divine power, how nostalgic,” Muldine murmured.

It had been a long time since he had seen his younger sister’s divine power with his own eyes.

“It still shines. Almost blinding.”

Then he drew up his own divine power. Unlike the holy power of the Solarian Church, which dispelled all darkness, a dark smoke that smothered everything wrapped around his body. This was the holy power of the evil god Muldine.

I certainly have weakened.

Muldine furrowed his brows, perhaps displeased with the situation. Most of his divine power was currently being used to purify the dark magic inside him. The divine power he could use now was at most half.

Well, that should be enough.

With a snap of his fingers, the Holy Chains around his wrists were easily severed.

“Tear him apart.”

When he snapped his fingers again, the divine darkness clumped together and took the shape of wolves. Hundreds of wolves formed in an instant and charged across the garden toward Kai.

The sword in Kai’s hand began to dance. The ever-shifting trajectories of the sword were beautiful, but the force within it was pure domination. With each swing, a wolf of darkness turned into polygons.

“Trying to buy time with tricks like this?”

“Buy time? Don’t be ridiculous. Who do you think you are?”

Muldine snorted and flicked his index finger. An invisible force lifted Kai into the air.

“Know your place, insect.”

When Muldine moved his finger again, Kai’s body slammed into one of the tall pillars in the garden. Only after breaking through several pillars did Kai stop, and then he vanished from the spot.

“Tricks.”

As Muldine slightly tilted his head slightly, a sword blade shot past the tip of his nose from behind him. Realizing his thrust had failed, Kai shifted it into a downward slash. It was a seamless transition, as if he had intended it from the start.

“

Oh?

” Even Muldine let out admiration at the natural flow.

He has definitely surpassed the level of an ordinary human.

Showing such reflexes in an exchange measured in nanoseconds was enough proof.

But by the time the sword came down, a thick darkness had already covered Muldine’s face, and in the next moment, something pulled Kai from behind. When he turned, it was a massive hand made of darkness. The hand gripping the back of his neck slammed him into the ground.

“

Agh!

”

𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

As Kai grimaced and used Shadow Shift to escape the grip, three spears of darkness flew toward the spot he had moved to as if they had been waiting. One of the three spears fired with a delay and pierced into Kai’s shoulder.

“Does it hurt?”

At Muldine’s question, Kai let out a laugh. “Look behind you.”

At that moment, the solarian clone that still hadn’t disappeared, launched a surprise attack at Muldine’s back.

“A god doesn’t look back.”

With that arrogant line, thorns of darkness surged from the ground and pierced the clone’s body.

[The solarian clone has been destroyed.]

“Feeling proud of yourself?

Argh

...” Kai muttered as he pulled the spear from his shoulder and tossed it to the ground.

With his hands behind his back, Muldine asked, “Didn’t you say last time that you would teach me freedom?”

“Why? Do you want to know?”

“Not really. But I am curious about what an insect like you thinks freedom is.”

“The freedom I pursue is simple.” Kai brushed back his hair soaked in sweat and said, “To act however my heart wants, but within the boundaries of rules that must be kept.”

“That is a contradiction. Freedom means being bound by nothing. Yet following set rules? Then it is no longer freedom. The meaning of the word becomes tarnished.”

Kai smirked at Muldine’s words. “That’s strange. Didn’t you always say the small must be sacrificed for the greater good?”

“Exactly.”

“If one person refuses to follow rules and acts recklessly, the majority will have their own freedom infringed upon. In that case, isn't the greater sacrificing for the smaller?”

At a loss for words, Muldine frowned and only spoke again after a pause. “The freedom of the strong naturally has the right to ignore the freedom of the weak.”

“See? In the end, it’s just the law of the jungle.”

It was only wrapped in the frame of freedom, but in the end the core was that power decided everything.

“After I talked with you last time, I gave it some thought.”

Kai had placed the conviction of freedom into his sword, yet hadn’t truly understood freedom.

“How could I create a relic without even knowing my own conviction?”

Countless thoughts had roamed through Kai’s mind one after another. What was freedom? Was everything permissible in the name of freedom like in Muldine’s logic? If that were true, then in modern society freedom would be closer to evil than to good. After long thought, Kai reached one conclusion.

“Freedom is not something an individual can own or control.”

Rather, it was something everyone had the right to enjoy, and had to enjoy.

“That is freedom.”

Muldine kept his mouth shut and remained silent at Kai’s words.

“Interesting...” Muldine showed a look of genuine amusement. “How can you think that way? Technically, you too have stepped into the realm of the strong... Yet you still say you will respect the insects.”

“Did you not hear me? Freedom isn’t something an individual can own.”

“Then your freedom is different from mine.”

Muldine raised his hand. At the same time, sharp spears emerged densely from the waves of darkness around his body.

“Words will get us nowhere, so I’ll have to prove it with power.”

“Power. I like that.”

As Kai looked at the hundreds of spears Muldine launched, he lightly traced his finger through the air. With that simple gesture, the hundreds of spears twisted and fell to the ground.

“That technique again...”

Unable to grasp the principle of the Formless Sword, Muldine showed discomfort.

“When I said I would teach you freedom, it wasn’t an empty promise.” Kai slowly stepped forward.

At the same time, strands of the vast holy power dormant in his body began to stretch out. The holy power of the Solarian Church turned into hundreds of thousands of fine threads, covering the entire island. Up, down, front, back, left, right. Wherever one looked, there was only a perfect white space of holy threads. In that place, the only ones with color were Kai and Muldine.

“Uselss.”

Muldine waved his hand with an uninterested expression. The dark divine power erupting from his body struck the white space. However, the white space didn’t budge.

Kai slowly approached Muldine, who was taken aback.

“Helik once said that a relic is nothing more than a vessel that holds conviction for a moment.”

The pauldron containing Shimizu’s conviction of protection, the ring holding Cherantia’s rest, and even Patrick’s holy sword containing his will for the eradication of evil. All of them were nothing more than vessels holding conviction for a time; they weren’t conviction itself.

“I kept asking myself what kind of object could hold the conviction of freedom.”

And the answer he always got from himself was the same. There was no vessel in this world that could contain freedom because freedom was being bound or restrained by nothing.

“Even a space like this cannot hold freedom. At best it can only keep it for a moment.”

Kai looked around with a calm expression and slowly closed his eyes. The white space slowly began to crumble. At the same time, the holy power within Kai’s body began to harden.

“

Hm?

” Then Muldine suddenly screamed, “Y-you bastard! What have you...?!”

Just as Kai’s holy power remained still like stone, the same phenomenon occurred within Muldine’s body.

“I told you earlier, didn’t I? One side taking all the loss is not freedom.”

So if one seals the other’s divine power, it was only natural to seal their own as well.

“Well, it'll probably last only about five minutes anyway,” Kai muttered indifferently as he slowly walked toward Muldine. “How unfortunate for you.”

This likely wasn’t the kind of fight Muldine would have wanted. Even if his rank had fallen, he was still a top-tier god. He would have wanted a world-shaking battle that split mountains and seas and tore the sky apart.

“Still, I don’t particularly feel sorry.”

“

Argh!

”

When Kai reached out his hand, Muldine flung himself backward, but Kai was a monster with over 5,000 in Strength even without his Holiness stat. Muldine, whose holy power was sealed, could never win in close combat.

Dragging Muldine like a sack toward the edge of the island, Kai said, “This will hurt a little.”

In the clear sky, high above where the clouds looked down, Kai slowly lifted Muldine.

“

H-hah!

You think I will die from... this?” Muldine, with his neck gripped, continued with difficulty, “I will live... and tear you apart... and Helik...”

Kai didn’t even wait for him to finish and simply let go. Losing its support, Muldine’s body rapidly plummeted. Looking down at the shrinking figure, Kai snapped his fingers.

“Mimic.”

Mimic, who was summoned on the ground, quickly climbed up Kai’s body and sat on his shoulder.

Kai gently tickled it with his finger and commanded, “Crush him flat, with maximum weight.”

At Kai’s command, Mimic instantly transformed into a wyvern. Its sharp talons cut through the wind and sank into Muldine’s chest as he fell.

At that moment, Kai used a skill on Mimic.

“Gravity Field.”

The gravity on Mimic increased twentyfold. It became so heavy it could no longer even flap its wings. So Mimic instead folded its wings to minimize air resistance. Its vertical drop toward the ground soon broke the sound barrier.

“Damn it!” Muldine, pierced with Mimic’s talons, showed his irritation.

Normally, he could have killed such a lowly creature without lifting a finger, but now, the dark magic injected into his body was rampaging wildly. To make matters worse, his divine power was also sealed. In short, there was nothing he could do in his current state.

The continent...

As he plummeted toward the ground, a small dot appeared in Muldine’s vision. That dot quickly grew in size. It was the continent commonly called the Middle Realm.

Even through the wind that cut into his flesh, Muldine could see the land clearly. Battles were raging across the entire continent. The army the Church of Muldine had raised in the shadows for centuries had emerged, and humans and demi-humans fought back against them.

He could also see dozens of dragons flying through the skies. Seeing them made his insides twist once more. The reality that the plan he had worked on for 10,000 years had failed hit him. According to his plan, they should have completely destroyed the Solarian Church, but now it was the opposite. They were slaughtering the forces of the Church of Muldine instead.

I’m gonna hit the ground soon.

The moment Muldine closed his eyes to brace for the impact, Mimic suddenly changed its form. Among the many forms it could take, it chose the largest—the giant creature of the Church of Muldine whose size rivaled a city’s. Zatan revealed its majesty high above the clear sky.

Compressed under Zatan’s belly, Muldine let out rough breaths. It felt like a mountain was pressing down on him.

Dang it...!

At the same moment a warning blared in his head, Zatan burst through several clouds in a row and plunged downward. A massive crater formed where they landed. The ground inside the deep hole boiled as if a meteor had struck. Perhaps due to the sheer force of the impact, even Mimic with its high HP was instantly unsummoned.

Of course, Muldine was no exception. In fact, having been crushed under Zatan and slammed into the ground, his case was even worse. He vividly felt his bones and organs being crushed to pieces.

Most living beings screamed when they felt pain, but there existed a pain that couldn’t be described with words. It was what happened when pain beyond the sensation of pain itself was inflicted. Muldine was exactly in that state now. His bones were shattered without a trace and his organs all burst, blood gushing out from every opening in his body.

Because of this, the brain that should have been processing his thoughts momentarily stopped functioning. Faced with pain so extreme it was beyond reason, he abandoned the act of thinking altogether.

However, even with dark magic running through his body, Muldine still possessed immense divine power. The divine power of an evil god, condensed in darkness. The divine power that had been frozen by Kai’s will began to move slowly, restoring his body. For a Transcendent like Kai, this much time was the limit for sealing Muldine’s holy power.

“

Kugh

...

Ugh...

”

Only after his body was instantly restored did Muldine open his mouth. The pain, intense enough to burn his brain, still stimulated his senses.

“

Urgh

...”

Muldine’s entire body trembled like a leaf in the wind. This was the first pain he had felt since the world was made and the Supreme God had made him. Yet, its level far surpassed the limits of any living creature. Muldine, who had no tolerance for pain, was nearly incapable of enduring it. It was like meeting the final boss at the very start of the game. As he squirmed and rolled around like a bug, particles of light gathered beside him.

“Does it hurt?” Unlike Muldine, Kai comfortably descended using Shadow Shift and looked up at the sky as he said, “Well, I suppose it would hurt.”

There was no way it wouldn’t hurt after falling from a height beyond sight.

Kai quietly looked down at Muldine, whose body trembled as he tried to stand. Like a newborn deer falling dozens of times before standing, Muldine could not even hold himself upright.

Staring at him intently, Kai felt no sympathy. Rather, he felt the opposite.

Perfect condition.

The weak presence being before him was his prey. A weak and vulnerable prey was only an opportunity for the hunter.

Kai’s fist slammed into Muldine’s face. With his nose crushed, Muldine’s head was driven into the ground. Kai simply stared at him as he twitched in silence like a dead mouse.

“Let’s finish this.”

Sensing the threat to his life, Muldine instinctively flailed his arms. Responding to his will, divine power burst out and surged toward Kai like a wave. However, Kai’s sword cut through the air and flew toward Muldine.

Formless Sword.

His sword had no color, no scent, and not even a shape.

Then, the sharp sound of slashing, one heard thousands or tens of thousands of times in the game was heard.

A hollow voice spilled out from Muldine as a large hole opened in his chest. “N-no... this can’t... be...”

The ambition and arrogance that filled his eyes just minutes earlier had long vanished. Only the desire to live still burned fiercely in his gaze. A final flare before death. Like a candle about to go out, even that brightly burning light slowly died away.

Muldine reached with clawed hands toward the divine power leaking from his open chest. However, one cannot grasp the wind with fingers. The dark holy power slipped out through each joint of his fingers like grains of sand.

Kai kept his eyes fixed on the spot where Muldine had vanished into dust in case he might revive, and because he could hardly believe his own victory. It was only when a notification rang in his ear that he finally lifted his head and looked up at the sky.

Ding!

[You have defeated the God of Destruction and Darkness, Muldine.]

[Acquired special title: Reaper of Darkness.]

[The Solarian God Helik is currently sealed.]

[Benevolence stats will not be awarded.]

[The Supreme God Ramus is watching you intently.]

[Ramus wishes to speak with you. However, your rank is insufficient to visit the Supreme God’s dwelling.]

[Ramus expresses regret over this.]

[Level increased.]

[Level increased.]

[Level increased.]

.

.

.

[Acquired 350 stat points.]

[With Muldine’s death, Main Episode: God of Darkness activation requirements have disappeared.]

[God of Darkness episode no longer exists.]

[52,135 related quests no longer exist.]

[The Church of Muldine has been completely eradicated due to Muldine’s death.]

[13 job classes related to the Church of Muldine have been permanently deleted.]

[244 items related to the Church of Muldine have lost their power.]

It was finally over. Kai, who was staring at the sky, read through the messages over and over. Again and again.

“The Supreme God Ramus.”

Dr. Jim Lewis’s creation, the super A.I. Ramus. It managed all the systems and servers of

MID Online

, creating most of the quests and even the history of the continent.

It wants to speak with me but I can’t visit because my rank is too low?

Mulling over that phrase, Kai slowly said, “Title book.”

He opened the title book that appeared before him and stopped at one page.

[Episode Conquerer]

Rank: Special

Description: A title given to one who defeats the boss of the main episode.

Effect: Using the spirit of a hero, allows a one-time private meeting with any NPC without any conditions.

He had earned two special titles after defeating Zatan. Disaster Destroyer and Episode Conqueror.

Without any conditions.

After confirming the title’s effect once more, Kai nodded.

“Use Episode Conqueror.”

Ding!

[Please designate the NPC you wish to meet privately.]

There was no need to think twice.

“Supreme God Ramus.”

Kai’s vision slowly faded black.