D.I.O

“Basara……”

Basara was a powerful criminal group that even the Union, which ruled over the universe, couldn’t get rid of. With dozens of planets and tens of thousands of ships under their control, the Basara acted as the pirates of the universe. Moreover, the forces of Basara were known as one of the three great adversaries of the Union alongside the mechanized forces of the Legion and the monsters of the Grotesque.

“Dealing with just Leviathan was already a headache…”

While Merlin’s, Arc’s, and Cruze’s pets groaned, the Masters, who had been hunched over during the mythic battle between Apollo and Leviathan, began to gather. This was because Merlin, who had been attacking Leviathan vigorously, was suddenly bound by an unknown energy the moment the new set of enemies appeared.

“What are those guys? Aliens?”

The gathered Masters whispered to each other while taking combat stances.

Among the new enemies, the man and woman had a human form, so they had a familiar appearance. There were also two beings who had the form of beasts. One possessed the head of a whale and the other the head of a dragon. These two also had an appearance that was relatively familiar to the Masters, who had fought all kinds of monsters in DIO. However, the last being, a fish-like being, was a completely foreign existence to them. They had never laid eyes on that type of species before. This last being could be described as looking like a fish, but its scales and half-transparent body resembled a dragon’s carapace, which made one think that it might be a spirit or a divine creature rather than a physical creature.

Yet, Cruze, who was aiming her sniper rifle at the newly appeared group, focused her attention on the whale-headed man that stood behind the fish-like being.

“What… is that?”

Even though there was quite a distance between them, the moment Cruze met the whale-headed man’s eyes, she felt all the hair on her body stand on end. This wasn’t the sort of reaction or feeling a person had just because they sensed that their opponent was strong.

Cruze felt something foreign yet familiar from the whale-headed man. He was a mutant-like existence—something that shouldn’t exist in the world according to normal laws.

“My goodness, that guy…” Cruze, who realized why she was so focused on the whale-headed man, groaned aloud. “Isn’t that… an Irregular…?”

When Cruze murmured that, the whale-headed man turned his head and made eye contact with Cruze.

He said, “Aha, you must be the junior with the least presence out of the three Irregulars.”

“…!!” Cruze instinctively pulled her sniper rifle’s trigger.

Her newly developed plasma rifle could fire a plasma projectile that inflicted shock and heat damage on its target.

The whale-headed man was around three hundred meters away from Cruze when he deflected Cruze’s plasma bullet with his right arm. This was an unbelievable feat considering that the original distance between them was around six hundred meters. In other words, the whale-headed man had rushed toward her right when the bullet was shot off and met the bullet at the halfway point!

Boom!

Suddenly, the space in front of Cruze distorted, then a sound shockwave like that of a bursting balloon struck her. Cruze belatedly returned the plasma rifle to aura power and materialized her twin pistols.

“Wow, that surprised me,” the whale-headed man commented.

With a pale face, Cruze saw the whale-headed man fanning his reddened right hand.

‘Shoot. My reaction time was too slow!’

Her enemy was clearly a step above her in terms of power. She had been maintaining her distance to launch sniping attacks, but her enemy had bound across that distance before she even had the time to react.

“Be careful.” Lancelot had stepped in front of her.

Lancelot was equally perplexed. If it wasn’t for Lancelot’s stabbing, which he’d mastered through trillions of repetitions, it would have been impossible for him to react to the enemy’s attack. The whale-headed man had utilized his quick speed to penetrate the gaps in Lancelot’s consciousness, so Lancelot’s defensive stabbing had actually occurred unconsciously.

Cruze and Lancelot weren’t the only ones surprised though.

“Who are you? You’re not an Irregular… You’re not anything. No, based on what I can sense, you’re just a normal human being, aren’t you? How is a guy who isn’t even qualified to be a part of the main force able to react to my speed?” The whale-headed man looked at Lancelot with a curious expression.

However, that only lasted for a moment.

“Well, I guess it doesn’t really matter who you are.” The whale-headed man, who had fair skin and a height of nearly three meters, gave a wicked smile. “You’ll just be swept up with all the other trash.”

Once he finished speaking, he charged again.

It was the start of a battle, but they weren’t the only ones whose battle had started.

Bang!

“Oh! What is that armor? It can block my Magic Bullet of Erosion?” A girl holding a huge pistol that didn’t match her relatively short height whistled when she saw Arc blocking her bullets.

Soon after, an elf man passed by the pistol-wielding girl.

“Hahaha! Ooh! Ah! Block it as you did before!”

“Uh, uh…? W-What… Did he do something to me…?” Leaf moaned as she felt the powerful divine qi that protected her shake because of an unknown curse.

Looking up, she saw a fish wielding its sword at her while muttering curse spell chants.

‘Ugh! Even though the instructions have been inputted into my mind, they’re so hard to use!’

Leaf was being assisted by a system, which gave her instructions on how to lift the curse that was brought upon by the curse-wielding girl, but the level of the curse inflicted on her was too high to overcome with just information and a set of instructions. She was receiving all sorts of help from the Celesti World, which was equivalent to allowing her to output power at the level of a transcendent… but that did not mean that Leaf was capable of being a transcendent being.

Meanwhile, Merlin was clashing with the dragon-headed being, who wielded a weapon similar to a samurai sword but had a laser as its blade.

Zeng!

“Ugh!!” Merlin gritted his teeth after blocking a blow.

The impact of the blow was transmitted into his body through his right hand and shook his innards. Realizing that his full power was not enough to face the opponent head-on, Merlin quickly summoned another one of his Flame Rubies and placed it over his shoulder, but…

“Oh, dear! Do you think I’d let you wield something terrifying like that!”

Merlin had no choice but to counter the draconic being’s next oncoming slash with his Irrational hand strike. However, Merlin was at a disadvantage. His greatest weapon, amplification of his internal energy, was a one-hit kill type of move, so he couldn’t use it properly against an enemy who was pushing him so much.

‘Dang it! I can’t continue fighting like this!’

The situation was becoming worse for Merlin; the fighting style of his opponent was directly oppositional to Merlin’s strengths in battle. Merlin was skilled in sniping his enemy’s gaps—in other words, landing a one-shot kill move. There wasn’t much he could do against an enemy who clung to him so tenaciously. Moreover, his opponent was clearly stronger than him.

“Ha!”

“Get out of here, fox!”

“What?!” Miho, who had raised her fox fire to create a penetrating fireball that was as sharp as an awl, screamed at the sight of the dragon-headed being easily neutralizing the fox fire. “Fire immunity?!”

“I’m immune to magic, you silly fox!”

Bang!

There was an explosion, and the impact from the explosion sent Miho flying through dozens of surrounding buildings, destroying them in the process before she disappeared into the rubble. Merlin wanted to immediately run and check on her condition, but that was the one of the worst decisions he could currently make.

Instead, Merlin summoned a Flame Ruby and refocused his attention.

Woong!

An enormous amount of energy gushed forth. Its power seemed truly inexhaustible. Even if Merlin gathered all the power he had and amplified that power hundreds or even thousands of times, he wouldn’t be able to amass power that was at all close to that of the Flame Ruby.

However, because the power was so strong, it was rather difficult to use.

“Didn’t you hear what I just said?” the dragon-headed being asked.

His sword, which moved like it was an illusion, descended toward Merlin’s head.

“I can’t let you wield something so terrifying,” the dragon-headed being repeated.

The colossal impact and aftershock from the dragon-headed being sent Merlin flying backward. The good news was that the Merlin was able to prevent the dragon-headed being from snatching his Flame Ruby. However…

‘This isn’t good.’

Merlin let out a groan as he felt blood running down his throat. Although Merlin was able to activate magic of such tremendous power that it drove even a cosmic monster, Leviathan, into a corner and toward death, it was too difficult for him to escape his current situation.

In one sense, this was an obvious result. How could a missile be used to block a sword-wielding opponent?

“I guess… it can’t be helped!”

Merlin swung out with Irrational Hand Strike and pushed the draconic being aside. Surprised by the sudden [amplified] attack, the draconic being was instantly pushed back quite a distance.

“Apollo!”

At Merlin’s shout, the Sun God, who had been trampling on Leviathan while floating high in the sky, looked down at Merlin.

This scene frightened the Basara, who were pressuring Merlin’s party and driving them into a corner.

“Eh?! Surely not, right?”

“Whoa, whoa… Really?”

Regardless, Merlin shouted, “Get rid of these guys first!”

While holding the Flame Ruby and shouting with all his might, Merlin released a huge energy shockwave, which spread in all directions. It was a first-order command that used the same energy as the one used to summon the Olympian god.

However…

- Hahaha, this guy.

The being Merlin was speaking with…

- Do you think…

Wasn’t a normal being…

- … you can order me around?

Apollo wasn’t a normal summoned ‘being’.

Thud!

The wind qi dwelling in Apollo’s spiritual words alone forced Merlin’s knees to bend violently. Fortunately, this phenomenon wasn’t just restricted to Merlin and the Masters but also to all the alien pirates.

Whoosh!

Everyone looked up at Apollo with a terror-filled expression. He emanated an absolute divine status!

Despite having descended to the material world through Merlin… Apollo wasn’t an ordinary summoned creature. Even if he were to lose everything he possessed right now, his power as the god of the highest and most brilliant sun wouldn’t actually disappear.

‘Damn it!’

Under the tremendous pressure that Apollo exuded, Merlin gnashed his teeth.

‘I miscalculated!’

He had acted too rashly. Merlin had used his Howling Spell as a power source to recharge and maintain Apollo’s summoning, but he had momentarily forgotten why he had specifically chosen that approach.

It was an undeniable fact that the Data Copy loophole he discovered was a miracle—an error of the world, something that even the gods hadn’t even considered or thought of. Taking advantage of this loophole, Merlin could perform miracles that neither gods nor Demon Kings could do.

Nevertheless, that didn’t mean his overall ability and power would change. This was an obvious fact. How could Merlin freely use magic at the Demon King level—Ten Class—when he had not risen to the level of transcendence, let alone pseudo-transcendence? Even Muspelheim—which Merlin had acquired after killing its original owner, Igniz—wasn’t recognizing him as its owner, so it was only natural that there would be limitations in dealing with such a powerful summoning. Because of this, Merlin turned to creating a flame attribute vessel that Apollo could descend into, instead of personally creating and controlling the magic power and its system.

This workaround was effective. Coincidentally, all of the Howling Spells he used utilized the names of the gods of Olympus, so the great miracle of advent succeeded without a hitch. However, this didn’t mean Merlin had full control over the descended god.

- I am very grateful to you. I am very happy now. It’s been hundreds—no, a thousand times more exciting than being in that beggarly nothingness.

Seeing Apollo look down at him, Merlin felt a tinge of regret. Of course, he could make excuses for himself. When Apollo was first summoned, he moved according to Merlin’s will, so there was plenty of room for misunderstanding.

‘But I guess he wasn’t truly listening to my orders,’ Merlin realized.

Apollo hadn’t been following the [order] contained in Merlin’s spell. It was just that Apollo had a grudge against Leviathan, so he took this opportunity to unleash his anger toward Leviathan.

He continued speaking, - It’s not like you can summon me for a thousand or tens of thousands of years, so you’re not qualified to give me orders.

Apollo’s eyes were full of madness. Actually, it would be rather strange if they were serene, seeing as he had once been a being who occupied the top position and ruled the entire universe until the time he lost everything in vain.

Just then, Merlin thought, ‘I think I can maintain the summoning…’

Apollo assumed that ‘there had to be a limit to this source of energy’. However, if Merlin desired to do so, he could [copy] Muspelheim over and over again as much as he wanted. Moreover, his Pathway to Hell didn’t have any durability issues, and there were countless wicked beings in the world.

‘But…’

At this moment, Merlin couldn’t say this aloud. The sense of madness he felt from Apollo made him hesitate.

What would happen to him if he announced that he had the power to maintain Apollo’s presence here? Would Apollo be grateful and follow his orders? Would Apollo, with his strength and pride as a god, lower himself and be subservient to Merlin?

What if Apollo revealed his greed instead?

‘If that happens… I would be creating for myself, with my own two hands, an enemy more terrifying than Leviathan.’

- Be careful. Don’t overstep.

Merlin was glad when Apollo returned his focus to Leviathan and stopped intimidating Merlin. It seemed that Apollo was clearly aware of the fact that his summoner was Merlin. The problem was that when this happened, Merlin was back to square one; the situation hadn’t changed. No, to be precise, it hadn’t even returned back to square one.

Woong! Woong!

The space shuddered, and an eerie sensation pressed in from all around him. It was a precursor to the interference of two new forces, who had decided to take action after being convinced that Apollo wouldn’t help Merlin.