Chapter 326 – The False God

Before Gi-Gyu had shattered Kronos’ time-space and escaped, divine energy light beams were raining down on the Colosseum. The light beams didn’t simply destroy their targets—they obliterated them. And if they missed their targets, they hit the ground, creating massive craters. The numerous craters made it seem like the ground itself was disappearing.

Gi-Gyu’s creatures dodged them as best as they could, aware that a single hit meant death. So far, they had been successful in evading the beams, but they were reaching their limits. Since they were light beams, they didn’t get to think about their evasion approach. They had to move based on their instincts.

The problem was that not all had such a developed instinct and reflex.

El screamed, “Hamiel! Michael!”

The two angels were barely surviving. One of the beams had grazed both of them.

Hamiel replied calmly, “I’m okay.”

But it appeared that Michael was injured badly. He groaned, but the wound on his arm healed instantly. El watched him with a flinch, having mixed feelings about how quickly Michael could heal himself. But she wasn’t upset with what she had seen.

‘

He is becoming stronger.’?

El realized Michael was actually absorbing divine energy from the beams to become more powerful.

‘

Is it because his body originally belonged to Gabriel?’?

El thought as she turned and blocked a beam. El wondered if Gabriel’s physique was helping Michael become stronger each time he came in contact with divine energy. Gabriel had spent a lot of time and effort on Michael’s body, most likely because it belonged to him. She couldn’t understand why Gabriel had given up this body, to begin with. She could tell that Michael was a skilled fighter along with Hamiel, who managed to block the beams from time to time.

Hamiel had a special power that seemed to counter divine energy well, and Michael was also becoming stronger, but the problem was that they would die at this rate.

“This seems never-ending,” Lou muttered as he swung Harmageddon to form half a circle. They had barely been defending themselves, and their attacks had done little to no damage to Gabriel. Soon, they would be too exhausted to defend themselves and die.

The only thing they could hope for was Gi-Gyu’s arrival.

Just then, the beam attack stopped. Was Gabriel ready to unleash an even bigger attack? Or was he going to attack physically now?

Everyone waited quietly.

El suddenly screamed, “No!”

However, she was too late, as Gabriel had already declared, “Holy Land Proclamation.”

The voice that had left Gabriel’s mouth didn’t belong to a human. It rang in the air, its auditory qualities representing his great power. The space around them began shaking.

Realizing what was happening, Lou whispered, “It’s too late.”

Once Gabriel had proclaimed the place a holy land, the area became something like the Vatican. This was now saturated with divine energy and could provide an infinite amount of it. This meant that by just being here, Gabriel got limitless power.

They had planned to make him attack them to weaken him; it was pointless now.

Lou said to El, “It looks like Gabriel obtained the essence of your world. He must have built the Vatican using this same essence.”

Every dimension’s essence held great power. The essences of different dimensions had been used to empower Babel. But El’s world hadn’t lost its essence at the time. And Gabriel had taken that essence to create the Vatican and had most likely used it to descend to Earth.

‘

Just how big is his shell?’?

El wondered. How vast could Gabriel’s shell be to hold both God’s power and an entire dimension’s essence? Gabriel had to be a beast of incredible power.

It was then that they saw something sparkling falling from the sky.

Hamiel yelled, “Those are…!”

The figures coming down from the sky looked familiar. They had large sets of wings on their backs and flew down gracefully. Their wings were black, a mark of their corruption, and the dark color absorbed the light around them.

“How are those angels…?!” Hamiel whispered as he watched the angels, who had been annihilated before, come down looking perfectly alive. There were over a thousand of them.

Lou explained, “Gabriel has a God-like ability now. Although he can’t do it perfectly, it wouldn’t be too hard for him to resurrect his army now.”

“...” A heavy silence fell among them. Indeed, the army of angels didn’t look perfect.

‘

They look like marionettes.’?

Hamiel thought in disgust. One of the angels caught his eyes—Castro, whom he had killed earlier. It looked like all the angels, except for the ones Lou had absorbed, had been resurrected.

“This is going to get even harder,” Lou announced while summoning Death and sorcerous energy. He hadn’t used his full power yet, but it was time to bring everything out. His horns grew.

Lou continued, “We really don’t have much time left. We’ll all die at this rate. It’s probably the same situation outside too. I doubt it’s just the Colosseum that became his holy land. And I don’t think Gabriel’s energy is contained only here.”

If things continued like this, the humans outside would die too.

“You all know what to do.” Lou swung his weapon lightly. But the result wasn’t light by any means. A massive wave of darkness rose to attack the middle of the angel army, making the angels drop like flies. However, while they were falling, they healed and flew back up. The only way to kill them was to annihilate their existence with a single attack.

Lou swung Harmageddon again and muttered, “We can only do what we have always done. We wait for our master.”

***

“Good job…” Gi-Gyu said calmly. He had instantly read Lou’s memories, so he knew what had happened so far.

Gi-Gyu had quickly raised a protective wall of sorcerous energy to protect his creatures. The angels swarmed toward the wall like moths to a flame, but they couldn’t get through it.

Lou smirked and replied, “You drive us crazy with your tardiness.”

Lou tried to be playful, but all the very many wounds made him look like a blood faucet. It just showed how difficult the battle he had fought was.

The battle with the angels finally began next. Gabriel remained in the sky with eyes filled with arrogance looking down at and on them. Again, he attacked with his divine energy lasers, and Lou, El, Hamiel, and Michael blocked them as best as they could. Things outside the Colosseum would have gone belly up if not for them.

‘

But it’s still okay in the outside world,’?

Gi-Gyu thought in relief. The place was now Gabriel’s holy land, filled with endlessly overwhelming divine energy, but Gi-Gyu had still managed to contact Eden earlier.

By breaking Kronos’ time-space, Gi-Gyu had grown further. He had also gained a fair understanding of what this place was.

‘

Time stopped in that place,’?

Gi-Gyu had learned that Kronos’ space existed between time and space. Since much more time had passed on Earth than he had anticipated, it stood to reason that the timestream inside that space had been different.

“Open,” Gi-Gyu ordered while blocking the angels.

“Master.”

“Grandmaster…”

“You’re late.”

Now that they had some breathing room, El, Hamiel, and Michael approached Gi-Gyu. All Gi-Gyu had done was open the gate to Eden. Yet, an incredible power from inside hugged them, increasing the healing speed of everyone except Michael, whom the holy land’s divine energy had already healed.

“You guys did well,” Gi-Gyu replied.

-Master! I’ll go to you right now!

Brunheart promised from inside the gate. Gi-Gyu had also suffered injuries when he had stopped his Chaos attack. But Eden helped heal him as well.

Gi-Gyu raised his head and looked at Gabriel, who was looking down at him. Gi-Gyu was a powerful figure, and it looked like Gabriel wanted to know how this situation would turn out.

‘

Is he paralyzed?’?

Gi-Gyu wondered. In Lou’s memory, he had seen that Gabriel hadn’t said much during this battle. Remembering what he had seen in the memories the Tower had given him, he realized Gabriel wasn’t the type to be this quiet.

Instead of Lou, who was panting, El explained, “I think the power is eating him away.”

Gi-Gyu agreed, “I think so too. His shell may be strong enough to hold that much divine power, but still…”

It made sense, as none of the hell king clones had been able to retain their consciousness. It wasn’t because they didn’t have the real hell kings’ memories or because they were clones. It was because they had been manufactured.

“His shell was made by connecting many shells, so it’s no wonder his consciousness isn’t doing well,” Gi-Gyu continued.

A shell was essentially one’s soul and memories. It was possible to form a space big enough to hold an ocean, but that came with an obvious problem.

‘Gabriel’s soul becomes just one of many shells connected to make his shell.’?

That explained why Gabriel couldn’t maintain his personality and consciousness.

“Besides, it’s not like Gabriel can take back his original body. So this is expected,” Gi-Gyu said.

Brunheart left Eden and said, “Master! Just as you said, I opened a door outside too!”

“Then…”

“Yup! Paimon is working on it!”

Her reassurance relieved Gi-Gyu; he could also sense the players outside slowly leaving. The monsters they had killed revived and started fighting the players again. To keep Rome safe, many players decided to stay, while the non-players were transferred to Eden.

Brunheart explained, “Just as you ordered, Paimon took his army there, so you don’t have to worry!”

The mention of Paimon’s army made Gi-Gyu, Lou, and El feel much better.

Just then, Hamiel yelled, “Grandmaster!”

Dun dun dun dun.

The protective dome-like wall Gi-Gyu had built for protection was shaking.

“Gabriel…” Gi-Gyu saw that Gabriel was glaring at them, ready for a battle. Gi-Gyu suspected that Gabriel had realized what was about to happen.

“Brun! Let’s hurry.” Since he didn’t have to worry about the outside, he felt he could take action more freely now.

“Okay!” Brun appeared on Gi-Gyu’s chest and transformed into the Dragon Hunter. Meanwhile, Gabriel summoned his divine energy to prepare for his next big attack.

“Can you guys all continue?” asked Gi-Gyu, now fully in his Dragon Hunter armor. His face was also covered, but everyone could hear his voice clearly. He had asked this question despite knowing the answer.

“Are you crazy?” Lou muttered. “I am at my limit. Just being here hurts my Root. I barely managed to recover my power, so this won’t do. I gotta go and get healed up first.”

Lou was a demon and the former hell king. Being in an area filled with divine energy was toxic to him, so it was a surprise that he lasted this long.

‘

If it were Botis or the other demons, they would have melted away. The divine energy here is just so dense,’?

Gi-Gyu thought with a nod.

“Grandmaster…” It looked like Hamiel wanted to stay and fight, but Gi-Gyu shook his head.

“No, you need to rest,” said Gi-Gyu. Before Michael could even offer, Gi-Gyu turned toward him and added, “You too, Michael.”

Michael looked unhappy, but he didn’t argue. No one could deny that Gi-Gyu’s creatures needed to rest. They had been only defending themselves, but they were essentially fighting a god. Gi-Gyu was proud of them for surviving this long.

“Thank you for your good work. You can all go now and rest.” Gi-Gyu turned toward Gabriel, who seemed ready to fight. Gabriel was still in the sky, and the angels, who had been smashing into Gi-Gyu’s wall, were flying around him.

In front of Gabriel, a ring-like light glowed, ready to unleash a blast of divine power.

Gi-Gyu began his countdown silently, ‘Three.’

“El,” he called out. Without Lou, Gi-Gyu couldn’t use his berserk mode. In addition, he would lose consciousness if he went berserk, which meant this wasn’t the right time to use it.

‘

Two,’?

Gi-Gyu counted.

“I’m ready,” El replied. It appeared that she had read his mind. El smiled and waited.

‘

One.’?

El disappeared and reappeared in Gi-Gyu’s hand, and a bright light exploded around him. Gabriel’s attack would be like a giant firework announcing the beginning of their epic

Gabriel still hadn’t attacked because all of this had happened in less than a second.

[Dragon Hunter…]

Gaia’s voice was heard.

[Your Saint Mode has been activated.]

Fwoosh!

Suddenly, the protective wall Gi-Gyu had constructed disappeared as Gabriel’s light ring exploded with a bright glow. Kronos had said that Gabriel had God’s power, and it would be difficult to defeat him. Kronos had insinuated that Gi-Gyu would die trying.

But Gi-Gyu grinned. ‘

He’s wrong.’?

It was obvious Kronos didn’t understand him very well. Gi-Gyu knew he was strong.

‘

And I’m becoming more powerful.’?

This was the power of the sync.

The light was so bright that the others couldn’t see anything, but crashing and clashing sounds began. And between these loud noises, Gi-Gyu’s clear voice announced.

-Landmark Proclamation.