City of Sin

Book 8, 20

Servitor Falls

The Goddess of Spring Water sighed at the suggestion to assassinate, “Don’t be silly. He might be in your divine kingdom right now, but what guarantee do you have that he won’t be able to escape? He possesses powerful laws, including one of time that far outstrips any of us. At the very least, he will manage to escape.”

“But out there is the void. He’s only a new legend, how can he survive?” The Goddess of the Hunt was still eager.

“We have no knowledge of his trump cards. Don’t forget that he has weapons capable of harming divine bodies; is it so unthinkable for him to have a teleportation stone? Besides,” she cracked a bitter smile, “what happens when we do kill him? Did you forget Dragon Valley, and all those legends working with him there? Do you forget the terrifying person who can alter the very laws of this plane? What if she alters something related to us in retaliation?”

The other two goddesses shivered, unable to respond. Nothing was more important to a deity than the laws that sustained them. Just a small modification would cause chaos in their divine kingdoms, leading to ruin.

The Goddess of Spring Water continued, “Our goal should be to win this war. As for Richard, we can only hope he fulfils his promises.”

The void went quiet. All they could do now was wait.

......

Back in the shrine of the Forest Goddess, Richard smiled faintly. The trio had still underestimated his capabilities; ever since he had been granted great authority in this divine kingdom, he had been studying the laws that were unknowingly opened up to him. He was already more than half done with the analysis, giving him powerful perception here that allowed him to overhear the discussion completely.

He didn’t particularly mind the thinking of the three; they still wouldn’t dare to betray him after all the power he had displayed. Had they been so bold, they wouldn’t have been pushed to a corner where they had to submit to an invader for the sake of keeping their faith. Right now, most of their worshippers were still under the control of the Crimson Dukedom. Even if the three had come to the false conclusion that they would be able to kill him, they would quickly realise what that meant for their faith in the mortal world and shy away.

A part of the shrine had been specially modified for Richard’s use. Within was an endless pool of spring water that was formed from divine power, a single mouthful capable of replenishing his mana. There weren’t any of the negative side-effects that came with excessive potion use, but this pool couldn’t replenish internal energy or soul force. The Goddess of Spring Water could only replenish one of energy and mana at a time, and soul force was impossible unless she used her divinity.

He stretched and walked towards a stone pillar erected by the spring, intent on carving another line to keep track of the dates. He was taken aback as he realised the row he was currently on was complete with no space left to add another; it had been three full months since he started participating in this war.

Three months but there was hardly any progress? He finally went over the battles again for the first time since he had started, tallying up the warriors and valiant souls that he had killed. The number quickly blew up, and it took a minute before he arrived at an astonishing count: 340,000 divine warriors as well as 5,100 valiant souls. With his ability to steal the souls of those he killed, this was equivalent to anywhere between 1.5 to 2 million casualties if the three goddesses were attacking!

No matter how many worshippers Runai had amassed over the years, she couldn’t have more than a few million warriors. He had effectively destroyed a tenth of her army, an unbearable loss. Seeing this number, he murmured to himself, “So the servitors should be appearing soon.”

......

The war continued ceaselessly, and it wasn’t many days before Richard’s prediction came true. As ever, he looked at the hundreds of thousands of warriors fighting to the death before moving to join the fray. Battle had become an instinct at this point, with the number of deaths at his hand in the last three months alone exceeding the sum over the rest of his life.

This time, the earth shook before he could take part in the battle. One of the three most powerful servitors who had been taking care of Runai finally walked down the divine mountain to the battlefield, the stride alone making his target clear.

“You shall go no further, mortal!” the servitor’s voice shook every inch of the divine kingdom. Every step of his covered a hundred metres, allowing him to appear before Richard in the blink of an eye.

Only when directly facing this false deity could one truly appreciate the fifty-metre height. Richard was barely at his ankle, forcing the servitor to stoop down to look at him. The sky darkened as his fist pounded down, carrying a hundred tonnes of force.

Richard remained motionless until the servitor stepped into the area of contested divinity. Timeforce suddenly flooded out from his body, forming a dark gold beam of light that shot straight up. A loud explosion rang out in the ears of everyone present, sounding as though something had shattered right beside them.

Even the valiant souls present looked around in confusion, only the servitor looking up at the barrier meant to protect the divine kingdom. His eyes narrowed as he saw the depths of a void; a fist-sized hole had been opened up in the crystal walls, allowing the energy storms of the void to rush in.

The servitor lowered his gaze to the beam of light that continued to coalesce, slowly materialising an enormous illusion of a rotating hourglass. Runai’s divine insignia was an hourglass as well, but this false deity knew that her timeforce couldn’t even begin to compare to what this illusion depicted.

Shocked, he looked back down at Richard. The mortal didn’t have the expected fear or adulation of facing a deity; only a cold, indifferent stare. It was an expression of someone looking at the dead.

The servitor was immediately overcome by humiliation and rage. An insignificant mortal ant dared to look at him like that?! Did the fool really think he could kill a deity just because of a few warriors and valiant souls?

Of course, Richard didn’t care. Three faces materialised around him in a moment, the angelic one launching an attack of pure vitality while the demon sent out an orb of destructive heat. The servitor’s chest suddenly pulsed and swelled up in the form of a tumour, and although it was destroyed immediately by the destructive force the power continued nibbling into his body. His defences were broken in an instant.

However, this was not the end. The elegant face that looked strangely devilish finally finished its own short chant, a pale grey ripple immediately shooting towards the wound that had just opened up. The servitor’s body froze and he slowly lowered his head, staring in disbelief at the mere metre-wide wound that inexplicably left him unable to move. His back suddenly exploded, shattered flesh and divine blood spurting out for a hundred metres.

“This... is not the end!” the servitor roared, but his voice was filled with panic and fear. As a servant of Runai in her divine kingdom, his body could recover to its normal state within mere minutes so long as he had enough divine force. However, he realised he couldn’t interact with her power at all; Richard’s own energy was intertwined with all of his injuries, actually blocking her divinity!

“This... law...” Unable to even finish the sentence, the servitor fell to the ground with a loud thud. Incidentally, his fall crushed a dozen divine warriors belonging to the three goddesses; that was the extent of his impact on the battlefield.

Richard leapt up to the fallen deity’s head, Moonlight effortlessly retrieving a divine crystal from within. Just a second later, the body would vanish and the crystal would lose effectiveness. He looked down at the divine blood flowing on the ground and tutted, “Such a waste.”

Divine blood was a precious material, but the power of his truename was truly tyrannical and rendered it useless. Even the divine crystal he had extracted wasn’t nearly as potent as he could be owing to the destructive capabilities of Dizmason.

...

Back in her shrine, Runai stood up from her throne but could only stare at Richard with indignance. Her divine kingdom had grown increasingly unstable with each defeat she suffered, forcing her to use the majority of her power to keep it from falling to ruin. She didn’t have the capacity to duel Richard at all, a sorrowful reality for any true deity; an attack on the divine kingdom was just as good as an attack on the deity’s body.

No longer bloodthirsty, Richard left the divine kingdom rather early for the day. Still, this battle had inflicted heavy losses and forced the war forward another decade. The Goddess of Time snorted at his departure and returned to her throne, but even recovering her dignified bearing her thoughts were no longer on the divine war. Her gaze instead pierced through the void, landing on the ancestral plains of the barbarians in Faelor down below.