Chapter 293

—Hahaha! You dared to run wild in my territory, and now look at you!

With Leonard restoring part of his divinity and authority, Hades joined the fray, pushing the Outer God Balor into a dire predicament.

It was inevitable. The damage left by Simon and Adam Kadmon, the relentless delaying tactics that exhausted Balor’s reserves, and the blade that dug near his heart had led to this. Up until now, Balor had relied solely on the sheer disparity in divinity to dominate his opponents. But now, with an equal-standing god joining the battle, the fragile balance had crumbled.

—■■■■■!!

With a roar filled with agony, fury, and desperation, hellfire erupted in a towering wall of flame. Yet, Hades remained unfazed.

Lifting the bident, which had once again regained its divine artifact status, he charged forward and cleaved through the infernal blaze with a single strike. While Balor’s choice was effective against lesser beings, it was a flawed choice against a being of equal standing.

—You fool! You must have relished toying with mere mortals!

Hades had regained more than just his divinity and power now that he had reclaimed his status as a True God. Fragments of his memories and experience from the old era—when he reigned as the King of the Underworld and stood among the top three Olympian gods—had also returned.

The Titanomachy and the Gigantomachy—the great wars where the King of Gods Kronos clashed against the Titans and where the Monster King Typhon clashed with the Gigantes. In those battles, Hades had slain hundreds of enemies. While Balor’s divinity and authority could possibly be on par with his own, Hades’ skill in battle was far superior.

Splat—!

The bident instantly pierced through Balor eight times, sending arcs of dark blood splattering through the air. The Outer God, once unshakable, now staggered as his massive body struggled to maintain balance.

Though he had barely managed to shield his heart—the area revealed by Areadbhar—the death-infused power within Hades’ weapon was steadily eroding his divine essence.

“Don’t let your guard down! Even if Hades is overwhelming him, one wrong move and we’re dead!”

“Time is on our side now! Balor won’t last much longer!”

With Hades fighting on the front lines, the Demigods, who had barely caught their breath, moved in perfect coordination to press the attack. Individually, their blows were barely enough to count as effective, but against an already faltering Balor, they became a constant and infuriating distraction.

Though Balor’s martial prowess was undoubtedly equal to—or perhaps even superior to—Hades’ spear techniques, there was no way he could triumph while fending off such interference.

Extermination

Audrey swung her backup glaive, unleashing a crescent arc of aura. Her unique trait tore through the infernal flames surrounding Balor, searing away a chunk of his flesh. Unfortunately for Balor, the strike landed on the Achilles tendon—the most important part of the ankle which affected movement.

His balance wavered, if only slightly, and Hades’ bident struck once more during that fleeting moment, painting the battlefield in another spray of blood.

—■■■!! ■■■■■...!?

Victory was slipping away. With a desperate, frenzied fury, Balor rampaged even harder, but it was no use. The wounds riddling him only multiplied.

If only the summoning ritual had been completed flawlessly; if only he had not lost his Eye of Death; if only he had wiped out these pests from the start; if only he had ignored the obstacles and charged forward.

Regrets flickered through his mind. If only one incident had gone differently, he could have won. But now, he couldn’t.

Perhaps it was the realization of imminent defeat that granted Balor a brief moment of clarity. He could feel it—the dimensional passage was closing as Leonard, the Divine Throne’s owner, ascended.

The outer-dimensional force that had been sustaining his form was crumbling. The laws anchoring his manifestation in this plane were unraveling. At this rate, even if he avoided further combat, he would be forcibly ejected from the Middle Realm in less than five minutes.

—Hmm?

Hades was the first to notice the shift.

The beast that had been flailing like a maddened boar suddenly became cautious, retreating into a defensive posture to minimize damage. Was he trying to buy time? No. The situation had already turned against the Outer Gods. They no longer benefited from prolonging the battle.

If Balor had realized that, then he had only one move left.

—Damn it! Stop him now! We have to cut off whatever he’s planning!

For the first time, Hades’ countenance twisted into a grimace.

—He’s going to burn through the last of his power and existence... just to take the Divine Throne’s owner down with him!

Even if Balor was about to be banished and his entire army annihilated, it would still be his victory if he killed Leonard. Balor had reached that conclusion, so he did not hesitate.

If the Divine Throne’s owner fell, then even if he lost today, vengeance would be assured in the near future. He wreathed himself in hellfire, beginning to sacrifice his limbs, his heart, and every last fragment of his existence. He concentrated everything into a single point—his head.

—■■■■■■■■!!

Mocking his enemies’ desperate attempts to breach the wall of flames, he reconstructed his shattered head, though only partially. He didn’t need a fully functioning brain.

Leonard was entirely focused on battling Cenn Cruach. What Balor needed was a weapon capable of eliminating the Divine Throne’s owner. That weapon was none other than the Eye of Death, a weapon possessing a force so absolute that even Balor had affixed it to his own name. It was not only a tool he trusted to annihilate all things but also the ultimate means to bring down the owner of the Divine Throne. It had to be revived.

Absolute Pierce of Parallel Transparency

Balisarda

Demian poured every last ounce of his aura into his final strike. His sword, teetering between reality and illusion, could sever anything—even defenses meant to be absolute. A fine crack spread across the wall of fire.

Audrey did not let that moment go to waste, and she surpassed her own limits.

Catastrophe

Though she shattered her backup glaive in the process, Extermination tore through the flames once again, widening the breach left by Balisarda.

Bloodied from overextending her unique trait, Audrey collapsed.

Gritting her teeth, Cruella made a split-second decision. Now was not the time to hesitate over the loss of her undead forces.

“—Go!”

Her tattered Bone Dragon surged forward, crashing into the wall of infernal fire. A deafening hiss filled the air as its bones sizzled and charred.

Even adamantium golems would have disintegrated in such flames, yet the dragon’s skeletal frame endured—if only for a moment.

The crack in the infernal wall from Demian’s and Audrey’s attacks widened further from the Bone Dragon’s surge, and beyond it, Balor came into view, his half-reformed head now fully exposed.

“He’s regenerating...?! No, no! It’s his eye!”

“Is he trying to restore his Evil Eye?!”

“If he regains his sight, he might be able to reach Leonard! We have to stop him!”

Just as they grasped the situation, Balor was desperately struggling, throwing everything he had left into one final effort.

The wall of hellfire, which had been torn down by three consecutive attacks, began to regenerate. Balor needed to be stopped immediately, but the Demigods had already pushed themselves past their limits. They had no strength left to give.

That was why Hades threw his spear with a grimace.

—My bident is not some disposable weapon...!

The bident was a weapon that symbolized the right of the King of the Underworld. Expending his bident meant permanently consuming a part of his divine essence. Unlike when he existed as a Void Deity, the current Hades had fully regained his divinity. The cost of such an act would be even more painful now.

But at least the power behind it was many times greater than when he had been a mere shadow of himself.

Crackle! Crackle! Crack!

The hellfire wall, now impaled by the bident, froze in place, unable to close. Balor’s exposed form was left completely vulnerable.

Now, they only had to attack.

—■, ■■■.

However, Balor’s Evil Eye was nearly restored. From the grotesquely torn and distorted wound, a massive eyelid began to form, twitching as it fused together. The Evil Eye—the fearsome power that had terrorized the old era and could bring death to all things—was moments away from returning.

Shiiiing.

Suddenly, a single beam of light shot through the gap held open by the bident. Balor failed to notice the surprise attack in the briefest of moments when he was fully focused on regenerating his eye.

The attack came from Wade, the Red Dragon Commander. It was a strike from a Demigod Tier knight who had been waiting for this very moment.

Areadbhar

The old knight’s body was breaking apart as he shot forward like a beam of light. Success or failure—death was inevitable.

...When I think about it, it wouldn’t have been strange if I had died three years ago.

In that strangely stretched-out moment of time, Wade recalled the battle during the Demoniac conquest, when he had slain the Demoniac Asmodeus.

He had won by burning half his life force, but for an old warrior like Wade, the price had been steep. Even if he hadn't outlived his natural lifespan like Declan, he had little time left.

That was why, for his final strike, he burned away every last ember of his existence.

Rip. Scraaack.

Balor’s eye opened. Just a fraction of a second before Areadbhar’s sword energy could reach it, the cursed gaze that brought death to all things was revealed. Facing it head-on, Wade immediately understood.

This is death.

An eye imbued with the absolute law of Annihilation, a divine authority that enforced the very concept of extinction. No matter how powerful one was, there was no way to survive after being caught in its gaze.

Well... even if you didn’t kill me, I was going to die anyway.

Wade simply smiled. There was no regret or despair in his smile. Balor’s Evil Eye could only kill and annihilate—it had no power to stop or defend.

And Areadbhar was already upon it. There was no time to raise a hand to block. No time to defend. No limbs left to move. Even as his body and soul were torn apart by the Outer God’s gaze, Wade watched his blade strike its mark.

—————————!!!

Areadbhar, the ultimate technique named after the weapon of the God of Light, repeated history once more—splitting Balor’s eye in two. As the Outer God let out an agonized scream at his final failure, the old knight who had long stood as the second-in-command of the Cardenas family turned to ash and scattered into the air.

Even as his face crumbled, the remnants of his expression bore a triumphant smile—the pride of having fulfilled his duty.

* * *

When Balor wailed and was ejected from this world, Leonard grasped the full extent of the situation. His expression darkened.

“...Commander Wade.”

The others had staked their lives to stop Balor from interfering in his battle with Cenn Cruach. If they hadn't, he could have exposed a fatal opening and suffered a devastating blow.

Unlike Leonard, Cenn Cruach clicked his tongue in irritation.

—What a useless wretch! I brought him here since he was the king of the Fomorians, and yet he let himself be held back by mere insects who have not even touched the realm of gods.

“Insects, is it?” Leonard scoffed in disdain. “A creature born not from its mother’s womb but from a heap of corpses... Wouldn’t that make you the real insect here? A maggot incapable of becoming anything more than a fly, even after being reborn."

—You dare mock me with such trivial taunts?

“Taunts? That would imply I expect a reaction from you. I expect nothing from you anymore.”

Leonard, who had just denied the very existence and worth of Cenn Cruach, delivered his verdict with the cold, unyielding authority befitting a divinity who embodied both sword and man.

“So die, crushed like the insect you are.”