D.I.O

*** Intruders ***

In the ancient past that was so long ago that it was difficult to quantify the years since then, there were violent beings that no one could do anything about. These beings were more human-like than their own kind and more emotional and violent than humans, yet these beings possessed godly power.

They were the Olympian gods. The laws of the universe and the duties of a god had no particular meaning to them. They were born with the power of gods and lived among other gods, so their outlooks on life and the world were no different from those of ordinary humans.

Their numbers increased unrestrainedly, and they often interfered with the flow of fate without any hesitation. Before the Apocalypse, the Olympus Divine Realm boasted tremendous power that was enough to rule over the entire universe, and there were dozens of beings whose [names] were engraved in the annals of the universe.

However, even though they possessed tremendous power—no, it was precisely because they possessed so much power that… the Creator’s gavel fell in the end.

So, they perished. There were over ten major gods, hundreds of minor gods, and innumerable deities below them. Yet, all these Olympian gods, who terrified the entire universe, disappeared overnight.

The presence they left behind was forever engraved on the [universe], but these gods, who were supposed to be immortal, became Lost Gods. They lost their power and were thrown to the other side of the universe. This process was so brutally thorough that the number of surviving gods numbered fewer than five.

- Ah…

Right at this moment…

- Amazing.

One of the Lost Gods, who had lost their power a long time ago and disappeared from the universe, opened their eyes.

“Wow, my goodness… I’ve heard a lot of wild rumors about Irregulars, but this seems a bit much.”

The girl sitting on the bridge of Tan’s nose looked at the burning man who was floating in front of Tan’s face. In front of Tan, who was as tall as a mountain range, the burning man was nothing more than a speck of dust, but even so, he wasn’t an existence that could be ignored.

This was because of the power that the burning man exuded. It was the power of a tremendous storm.

[The Sun God.]

- It’s been a while since I saw you, Apocalypse. It would have been nice to converse with you … but it doesn’t seem like that’s possible.

Hearing the god’s low voice, even Tan couldn’t help but be in awe after feeling the god’s presence. The sensation he felt made Tan want to curl up his large body into a ball.

[Oh, shit.]

However, before Tan could do so, the body of Apollo—the man exuding waves of heat—exploded. A sun rose in the gray world, and its light turned into a storm of attacks. The swirls of light started striking Tan’s body with terrifying force.

“Ah!!”

The gray clouds that had covered the sky evaporated and disappeared altogether. However, that wasn’t all. Leviathan, who had been standing like an immovable mountain range, was sent flying to one side after being hit with an enormous explosion. The explosion was so intense that it seemed as if the heavens and earth were collapsing. Just standing in that space would cause a person’s perception and senses to become distorted. Nevertheless, Tan, in his true Leviathan true body that was as large as a mountain range, stood up soon after.

“Wow, look at that power. Crazy,” the girl commented.

[Isn’t this at the level of a Ten Class? One would think a Demon King has descended.]

The power of the enormous explosion, which had been created from simple physical force, was equal to that of several dozen nuclear bombs. So, humankind could actually reproduce such an output of power if it had to, but Leviathan, which had been born with a mighty divine status, couldn’t be touched or damaged by lower-level energy explosions like these. Even if Leviathan were sucked into a black hole, it would be able to escape without any damage, let alone being struck by a nuclear bomb. This was what the existence of the Demon Dragon of the Apocalypse was like.

However, right now…

[You dare… You dare…] Tan began.

Leviathan’s body was a mess. Its whole body was glowing red like an iron that was just taken out of a hot furnace, and its huge back was bent as if it had been hit by a huge hammer. Unquenchable flames burned all over Tan’s body. Although those areas looked small in proportion to his large frame, the actual size of the area that the flames covered was comparable to that of most forest fires.

Tan continued, [You dare… take my Muspelheim and…!]

It wasn’t necessary to enter the transcendent realm to use ultimate magic spells; there were shortcuts in the world for this. If a person were to turn the history of the universe upside down, they would find an infinitely large number of cases where talented beings demonstrated abilities beyond their level.

Numerous offerings, enormous goods, or special materials… Evil warlocks could makeoffer sacrifices—numerous offerings of enormous goods or special materials— to cast powerful spells beyond their level of ability. Scenes like this were n’t considered uncommon. Moreover, there had been many times in the history of emperors and kings of empires where consuming astronomical amounts of manpower and goods were consumed to unleash great magic on a grand scale.

The method Merlin was using now was one such case. He had cast a spell beyond his means by sacrificing a special material. In other words, Merlin had consumed Muspelheim to launch that powerful attack.

[Hahaha!! Hot damn. You’re sure a crazy one—consuming a Transcendent Weapon to cast one magic spell!] the penguin said.

While floating next to the penguin, the girl proceeded to speak, and the penguin nodded its head while fluttering its palm-sized wings. As Planet Gods, the girl and the penguin possessed the power of omniscience, and the two also knew of Merlin’s true identity even before he attacked.

The girl said, “Certainly, such an act is crazy and unimaginable. Tan isn’t trying to destroy the Earth; he’s just trying to dominate it. Yet, to deal with Tan, Merlinhe used up an entire Transcendent Weapon—a priceless item that wouldn’t be obtainable even by selling off five or six planets.”

A nuclear bomb was a powerful weapon. Needless to say, the tides of war would change even if only one nuclear bomb were used. However, what if a nuclear bomb with the power to blow up a city cost $9,000,000,000 US dollars? Was there any country that would seriously consider using a nuclear bomb in that case?

Yet, Merlin made that illogical choice. It was a wildly imbalanced exchange wherein the value of the output wasn’t anywhere as high as the value of the input.

“If this happens, Tan will never forgive him no matter how important a piece of ‘property’ Tan sees him as. Wow, this is going to be bloody.”

[Ah, I’m curious about what’s ahead, but my foreseeing ability is being blocked by that damn Demon Dragon.]

The Planet Gods laughed and joked around. They had no intention of interfering with the battle. In their eyes, this battle was nothing more than a private war between two parties. It didn’t matter to them who owned DIO; they just needed to maintain the rules. Although these Planet Gods were called the mothers of civilization, they were not very caring figures.

“So, roughly, what do you think will happen?”

[What do you mean what will happen? Of course, in the end, Tan will prevail. That human’s last attack was extremely powerful… and it may have made a difference if Tan were still in his human form, but it’s impossible to kill Tan now since he’s brought out his true body.]

“But can that really be called a victory for Tan?”

[Well, you have a point.]

Tan’s main body—Leviathan, which Tan hadn’t revealed for thousands of years—had the same durability as the body of a Demon Lord, even with the level-reduction penalty in place. Leviathan was a completely different concept from Tan’s manifestation in human form, which might have been possible for the users to defeat.

Nonetheless, if this was the case, why hadn’t Tan invaded Earth in Leviathan from the beginning?

“It’ll be a battle in which both sides will lose in the end. Perhaps Tan’s downfall begins today.”

[It’s a pity that a Demon Dragon existence will soon become an existence that’s only talked about in the annals of history.]

As the two conversed, they looked up at Leviathan, who had quickly risen up like upward lightning. Such a movement caused the Earth’s crust to distort, triggering a major earthquake. Tan straightened his back, causing the appearance of a mountain range that he’d formed with his back to disappear’s mountain-range-like back was instantly flattened as he straightened his back.

[Merlin!!! Arthur!!! You damn bugs!!!]

Tan’s angry roar rumbled through the entire space. It was so powerful that even the Masters couldn’t stand the pressure and collapsed or crouched down on the ground. This roar was proof that the Demon Dragon of the Apocalypse, which had existed since the beginning of time, was extremely angry.

‘Come to think of it, what was Arthur thinking? Why did he embed Ascalon, the dragon-slaying sword, into Tan’s heart instead of his head?’

If Arthur had embedded Ascalon into Tan’s head instead of his heart, Tan’s human-form manifestation would have died as it wouldn’t have been able to endure such a blow. Of course, even if Tan’s human-form manifestation had been killed, he would have eventually recovered within three to ten years. Nevertheless, wouldn’t Arthur still have at least been able to put out an urgent fire?

In any case, Arthur had embedded Ascalon into Tan’s dragon heart, and because of that…

[…What?]

The penguin’s fluttering pair of wings fell still as a rush of intense foreknowledge flooded his mind. The surroundings had come to a complete halt; everything was as still as a picture.

The girl floating next to the penguin groaned as if she had gained the same foreknowledge and felt the same sensation as the penguin.

“What is that?”

However, the Planet Gods weren’t the most shocked among all the beings in the area. Tan, who was enraged and had raised his magic power to strike a blow, felt an emotion close to a surge of fear when he laid his eyes on Merlin.

Merlin pulled back on his bow once more and said, “Howling Spell.”

There was a [new arrow] notched on his bow.

He added, “Apollon.”

Bang!

A red ray of light passed through the air and distorted the space. Tan struggled with spasms when he saw such an unprecedented force flying toward his head once again. Nevertheless, he ultimately planted his feet firmly on the ground and moved his head to avoid the red ray of light.

Rumble!

When Tan’s head, which was huge, moved like a whip to avoid the oncoming ray of light, a storm raged in its wake. Arc, who seemed unperturbed, protected the Magic Tower and the surrounding Masters from the storm that swept away all the surrounding buildings before rising into the sky.

“Hurricane,” Arc said.

An unbelievably large amount of power gathered in Arc’s hands. It quickly took the form of a whirlpool, wrapping around the Magic Tower and the Masters to protect them from the storm. Arc’s spell was unbelievably powerful for something that didn’t have a pre-chant, but Tan couldn’t afford to divide his attention for such trivial details.

Bam!

The red ray of light barely passed Tan’s head before disappearing into the distant sky. Considering that Merlin’s arrows moved at about half the speed of light, Tan’s evasion ability was unbelievably good.

Yet, before Tan had a chance to catch his breath, the red ray of light that had disappeared behind him reappeared right in front of his eyes.

Boom!

[Ack!]

When the arrow reappeared right in front of him and struck him, Tan screamed and tumbled backward over several tens of kilometers. He was pushed back so much that he smashed up against the Taebaek Mountains and destroyed nearly three-quarters of the mountain range. Moreover, one of his legs and his head fell into the East Sea.

“The arrow circled the Earth once.”

[No, wait. The fact that the arrow circled around the Earth isn’t what’s important right now, right? The more important point is how was he able to shoot out two such shots?!]

Those who had the power of omniscience understood. Merlin’s great magic—which brought back the Lost God Apollon, who was a supernatural being close to a Ten Class, into the material world—was a miracle that could only be possible if Merlin had consumed a considerably valuablee resource. In Merlin’s case, that considerablye valuable resource was Muspelheim. Such an act would have made the gods sick as they would have considered this exchange too wasteful.

Nevertheless, the incongruence here was that Merlin should have only been able to bring out the miracle once since he had already ‘wasted’ his Transcendent Weapon.

“Could it be that he somehow increased the energy efficiency in a way that we don’t know of?”

[Nonsense. There’s no way something like that could be possible, and even if it were, there’s no way our omniscience wouldn’t have picked up on it!] The penguin shook its head after hearing the girl’s question.

However, the girl continued, “But you saw what just happened… He issued the same attack twice, didn’t he? There’s no way some crazy being would have provided another fire-type Transcendent Weapon to him during this heated battle, right?”

[That’s true, but in a magic system of that scale, it would have to be a Flame Dragon to achieve twice the level of efficiency, right? But that kid, who hasn’t even transcended yet, is able do such a thing…? That doesn’t make sense.]

The two Planet Gods were perplexed and confused. The foreknowledge that they were receiving from their omniscience seemed incongruent with the current situation.

Whoosh!

A red ruby appeared on Merlin’s shoulder along with a rush of magic power.

“…What?” the girl uttered.

[Nonsense. This doesn’t make any sense.]

Even the Planet Gods—who were considered omnipotent forces that roamed the vast cosmos as Untouchables and were beings no one dared to go up against due to their overwhelming power—were lost for words. The Demon Dragon of the Apocalypse—Tan, who had existed since the beginning of time—also made a confused expression as if he had seen something incomprehensible.

However, without caring about any of this…

“Howling Spell.”

Merlin nocked a [new] arrow in his bow.

“Apollon.”