In the dark void of space, a tall and proud kingdom covered in a crimson hue, akin to freshly drawn blood, slowly began to crumble as a monochrome world — of black and white with grey in between the two extremes — slowly covered and tried to replace it whole.
<<Dimensional Encroachment: Inverse World>> [1]
All the participants on this battlefield of epic proportion, or at least all those who were alive, stopped and gazed at the figure of the new arrival.
*Step*
The figure’s presence… slowly advancing toward them, the first thing the demigods noticed about him was how young the intruder was in age.
This wasn’t about how he looked, but the aura of time surrounding him— his existence. Unlike old monsters that adopted a young form but were in reality thousands of years old, the new arrival was truly still nothing but a young cub. His appearance reflected his true age, that of a youngling.
At any other time, they would have mocked him. How could such a young child dare to step on such an important battlefield, consisting of old monsters that challenged the lengths of time itself?
But right here, right now, no one could utter a single laugh. The bloodied cut-off arm dangling in his hand and the vast dimensional power emanating from his very existence were proof of his competence and qualification to stand on this battleground.
“Sol Luxuria…”
Nihil muttered the young intruder’s name, confusion, and disbelief evident in her blue eyes. She knew who Sol was. He was supposed to be Funf's target and it seemed that he had been used as a way to target Tiamat indirectly.
In her memory and from the information Drei gave her, Sol was a very talented young man. Even more talented than the previous king, the hero king— Mars Luxuria. But even then…
“Why…?”
She couldn’t understand what was happening. It wasn’t just because Sol had managed to sneak attack her and cut her arm off without her even being able to do anything about it. It wasn’t even because of how powerful he was currently or how he was, slowly but surely, effortlessly crushing her dimension.
All of this, while hard to explain, was still within the realm of what she could understand. She wouldn’t be surprised if Luxuria herself used the body of the boy. After all, the Blessed were the perfect vessels for the goddesses to take control over.
In fact, with the way Sol’s eyes were blazing golden in the color and power of divinity, she was pretty sure that Luxuria had pulled off something. This was the most logical explanation.
The real problem was…
“Why can’t I heal? What did you just do?”
Everyone, even Tiamat and Anubis were shocked… They had ignored how Nihil had lost an arm until now, but not anymore, not when they learned that she couldn’t heal her arm. Even if they weren’t Divine Beasts, the moment one became a demigod, they would become partial energy beings. Losing a limb or two was just a momentary inconvenience at best.
But now Nihil was saying that Sol inflicted her a wound that could not be healed?
“Heh, are you curious? Of course, you would be. You must be pretty confused too, right? But you see… the thing is… Why should I tell that to you?”
Sol laughed mischievously as he opened a portal and threw the arm there with complete nonchalance.
Meanwhile, Anubis whistled quietly…
“What a nasty little kid.”
He could see more than anyone else present here. After all, what he was looking at, what he could look at, was the very soul— the de facto existence of a being…
The moment that kid tore apart Nihil’s arm, it wasn’t just a mere wound on the physical level. The part of her hand that existed in her soul form, the true form of her existence that manifested on reality, was cut off along too. Essentially, her very existence had been severed and reformed in her current armless state.
It was impossible to heal, to bring back, to reconstruct what did not exist in the first place. Such was the gravity of the wound that Sol had inflicted on Nihil.
And because of this, Anubis immediately understood how absolutely absurd the existence of the boy in front of him was.
‘Hahaha. I need to observe a little bit more but, if it’s really true then this boy is a fucking goldmine of unprecedented potential.’
Tiamat though was excited due to contrastingly different reasons than the king of the underworld.
All of this, this war, this fight, everything that was transpiring right now, started for one simple reason— Sol’s awakening of his Zone.
Feeling Tiamat's gaze on him, Sol’s lips formed a cheerful smile and nodded in her direction.
“It was a success.”
They did something unprecedented— nay, they created the impossible. They had managed to create a power that should not be obtainable by someone at his level, nor any level bar the ones at the very top of existence.
“I can see it. I can see everything.”
A small scar formed on Sol's forehead. Like a wound about to be opened, it cracked and golden blood began to flow from said crack.
It was a mixture of eeriness and absolute wonder.
Surtr moved, seeing that.
His warrior instincts were screaming that he had to stop him from finishing whatever he was about to do.
He was intent on crushing Sol as fast as possible. He wasn’t the only one. Nihil's wings opened wide as she flew towards Sol too. The humiliation and pain of having her arm cut off like that was something she could not accept.
Anubis was not surprised. Only morons would stop and watch the enemy use an ultimate technique. He was about to move too when —
“No need.”
— Tiamat stopped him in his tracks.
“Why?”
He couldn’t understand why she stopped him. Wasn’t the boy related to her? Why did she seem so nonchalant about it?
But soon, he realized something weird…
With how fast Surtr and Nihil were, reaching Sol should have been faster than a snap of a finger. Why then were they still so far from him?
Tiamat smiled, clearing him of his doubts, “His Dimension lacks a direct attack method but is incredibly nasty in its own way. At this moment, the distance separating them is basically infinite.”
Anubis' eyebrows shot up in incredulity before his lips formed a lopsided smirk, a sliver of a laugh escaped his mouth as he voiced his impressions, “Truly nasty.”
This was fun. This boy was becoming more pleasing to the eye.
“Though, you do know that his current state is temporary, right?”
Tiamat nodded, she was happy to see that Sol had managed to obtain a powerful Zone, even though she didn’t know what it exactly was. But, this didn’t change the fact that the power he was currently emanating did not belong to him.
She suspected that the source of that divine power was the goddess Luxuria herself, but the source did not matter. What mattered was that once Sol went back to the Duke level, no matter how strong his zone or dimension were, he would get utterly crushed.
“While he can hold on, let’s deal with the small fries. You can keep half of their souls.”
“Doing business with you is always a pleasure.”
Anubis and Tiamat’s gaze settled on the remaining demigods as if they were sheep waiting to be butchered.
After all, now that Nihil and Surtr were busy, it was the ideal moment to kill as many of these puny beings as possible.
———
Over to the battle between Sol and the demigods— Nihil was using her dimension to slowly offset the effects of Sol’s own.
This caused him to sigh in lament. After all, while he was overpowering her at the moment, his skills as a dimensional mage were of course inferior to that of this woman.
Be it Nihil or Tiamat, they were all wrong about the source of his current power.
Sol did not know why he suddenly tapped into such a large amount of divine energy. But he was sure that it was not from Luxuria.
But it didn’t matter. For now, he could only use it to deal with the situation.
‘I don’t have much time left.’
However, it was more than enough to finish this battle.
When Surtr and Nihil reached him, it was already too late for them to stop him.
It finally opened.
A blue jewel, that looked like a third eye appeared from between the crack on his forehead.
In an instant, from his perspective, everything seemed to have stopped. The golden color of his eyes was replaced by a rainbow hue of myriad colors.
Time stood still as Sol finally witnessed the very Truth of this broken World.
<<Divine Weapon: Eye of Akasha>>
(AN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxLsI5AKLpE&ab_channel=max20091Official )
Then he realized.
The world was really ugly.
Threads everywhere his eyes could witness.
Threads that connected people, things, and even the concepts holding reality together.
The threads of the illusive Fate were laid bare for Sol to witness.
The world was controlled by these thin threads that would probably break with the most minuscule of force. How ironic it was, that such a frail-looking aspect dictated the reality, the truth of this broken world.
It was Fate— the controller of everyone’s destiny.
The invisible threads of Fate moving the world and the people inside.
This was the result of Theresa using Blaze's core and horns as well as the jewel soaking and absorbing the blood from the Dragon Pool.
Even then this could only be considered a miracle, at best.
The amount of information rushing toward his brain was simply impossible to calculate.
He could see it all.
He could see everything, therefore, in essence, could see nothing at the same time.
A huge amount of information was clustering in his mind.
There was a reason why each of the sisters of Norn had a specific power. There was a limit to how much a mortal could comprehend.
By opening this eye, Sol had officially stepped into the realm of the gods.
He could not simply see the future, past, and present. What he could see went much further than that.
He could see the very existence of Causality itself.
‘Theresa has truly created something great.’
He wanted to laugh. This godmother of his was truly something else.
Of course, this divine weapon was sorely limited in a way.
Sol could only see. The weapon itself could process the huge amount of information partially but that was all.
If this stopped here, then Sol would have simply been an Observer.
However, that was not where his limits lay.
Ever since he realized how small and helpless he was in this world, Sol always had one wish.
To be able to control his own Fate rather than letting it be in the hands of others.
Today, right here, right now.
He finally realized his wish and for the first time acted upon it with the fulfillment of his zone.
<<Zone: Deus Ex Machina>>
He would not simply observe Fate.
He would change it to fit his whims, shaping his own path ahead.
[1]: Reverse world or Inverse World, which one sounds better? Please comment about that.
(AN: Haha, to change Fate you need to control it. This is pretty broken. But the true MVP here is Theresa. Man, the events of Volume 5 seem so long ago now. What do you think? The weapon created during the event of the War in Lustburg was finally used for the War in Dragon Realm. Hehe. I have really struggled to write this chapter. I think I could make it even more epic. I feel like there is too much ‘Telling’ and not enough ‘Showing’. What do you guys think? I will try to have more of this ‘Showing’ in the .)
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