I Became A Thief Who Steals Overpowered Skills

### Chapter: 436

In Front of the Opening of the Second Lower World Gate.

Kraush stood still, taking the form of Crad.

Perhaps it was the interruption in the middle, but forget about the gossiping low-tier gods;
Kraush’s attention was solely focused on one deity.

High-tier God Candidate, Verita.

She had thrown a punch at Kraush and continued to watch him closely thereafter.

‘Couldn’t shake off the suspicion, huh?’

It was clearly just her innate personality.
‘But it doesn’t matter.’

She had tested her suspicions, and Kraush had faced them head-on.
He even thought about taking a hit for real.
But since she was linked to a top-tier god, she just stopped right there.

In fact, Kraush had prepared himself to take the beating.

‘The turn has come.’

There were no longer any grounds for him to get stalled by Verita.
He thought, let her just sit back and watch with her fingers in her mouth.

Boom!

The yellow plains began to shake as if an earthquake was hitting.
Soon after, the tremors stretched toward the low-tier gods’ center.

“It’s opening!”

Just as one low-tier god exclaimed,
Crack!

The ground suddenly split apart, revealing the cloudy sky above.
A massive vortex of power swirled within the clouds.

The Lower World Gate.
The gateway that would send low-tier gods to the middle realm had finally opened.

The low-tier gods, with tense expressions, rushed toward the Lower World Gate.
They had only heard rumors about the middle realm but didn’t know it for sure.

The middle realm was a place where mid-tier gods could intervene,
leaving the low-tier gods to feel like they were stepping into an unknown world.

As they reached out to step into that world,
they suddenly realized something was blossoming around their necks.

“Hmm?”
“Eh?”

Different reactions emerged from the low-tier gods.
Around their necks were necklaces made of fire, but when had these been put on them? They looked puzzled.

Suddenly!

Verita, who had been sitting, sprang up from her chair.
However, her reaction was one step behind.

Click—
Kraush’s Star(성운) Sword had already returned to its scabbard.

“Let’s have a look.”

As Kraush spoke those words, flames ignited on the heads and bodies of the low-tier gods all at once.
The searing heat emerging from them was so intense that even Verita could feel it.

Verita came to realize the size of Kraush’s star too late.
She had thought there was only one star.
But now that the size was revealed, it was overwhelmingly large enough to make her swallow her breath.

“Bastard!”

When Verita leaped, Kraush had already launched himself toward the Lower World Gate.
Seeing him get sucked in in an instant, Verita’s eyes widened in shock.

“Verita! No!”

Just as Verita was about to leap into the gate, the mid-tier gods jumped in to hold her back.
“The Lower World Gate has tons of restrictions if you enter as a mid-tier god or higher! It’s exactly what the enemy desires!”

“Are you telling me to just sit here and watch as this happens?”

Verita ground her teeth as she shouted, and the mid-tier gods floundered.
They never expected Kraush would dare enter the Lower World Gate.

“Maios.”

Verita swiftly spat out a name.
“Maios, that mid-tier god, where is he?”

At her question, the mid-tier gods looked around.
Sure enough, Maios had already bolted.

Chomp—
Verita gritted her teeth in fury.
The mid-tier gods trembled before Verita’s rage.

“I don’t know what you plan to do, but…”

Immense divine powers swirled around Verita.
“The price for deceiving me must be paid in full.”

She sat her rear down in front of the Lower World Gate.
As the mid-tier gods pondered over what to do about her actions,
[a voice from above spoke,]
“Seems like something went wrong.”

“Grrr!”

When Verita heard that, she looked up and her face changed.

Of course, there was a familiar face, along with Maios, who had fled earlier.
“Nibeah!”

As she called out that name, a man slowly curled his lips into a smile.
Maios was held by that man, looking miserable.

‘Kraush, we’re done for! You can’t come out of the Lower World Gate!’

—

The Lower World Gate.

Once a channel for the Thief God, now a river and ascension space.
Within it, Kraush began to feel numerous restrictions clinging to him.

His body stretched and compressed, giving him a bizarre sense of bursting.
Inside, he felt like a nail was being driven into him.

‘Is this the restriction?’

These restrictions arose when mid-tier gods or higher attempted to intervene in the middle realm.
Gods had various opinions about these restrictions, but the most credible theory told this story.

The Middle Realm.
It was a world that nurtured itself on the remnants of dead supreme gods.

Long, long ago, in an age beyond even the wisest of high-tier gods,
one of the gods met his fate, and the essence of that god fed this world – shaping nature and civilization.

When Kraush first heard this story from Maios, he was flabbergasted.
However, as the story unfolded, Kraush’s expression changed.

The talents possessed by humans within the middle realm,
These talents were closely linked to the essence of the dead gods.

This essence was the most coveted thing for gods.
The nourishment from a being greater than a supreme god.
There wasn’t anything better for elevating a god’s status.

So, gods scrambled to grant skills in exchange for that essence.
Some gods wanted to infiltrate the middle realm,
desiring to plant their roots and absorb that essence.

But the middle realm didn’t allow such invasions.
Much like an immune system combating foreign attackers,
it actively thwarted godly invasions under the guise of restrictions.

The greater the god, the more restrictions bound them, preventing any intervention in the middle realm.
Conversely, weaker gods could invade if they tried,
but even then, such weak gods wouldn’t be able to extract any essence from the middle realm.

This hypothesis also explained why world erosion occurred specifically in the middle realm.
‘Because the middle realm possesses the most essence capable of creating worlds.’

The destroyed realm had selected the middle realm for where it would re-establish roots.
And as the world erosion surged, the middle realm weakened from defending against it.

As a result, gods could invade the middle realm more freely.
The reason gods sought to unleash world erosion in the middle realm also stemmed from this logic.

‘And the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are the same.’
Though little is known about them,
the Four Horsemen are almost on the same level as gods.

Their intentions were clearly similar to those of the gods regarding the middle realm’s essence.
‘World erosion, and their deceitful plan is a passage for them to enter the middle realm despite the restrictions.’

It was said that high-tier gods kept the Four Horsemen under wraps.
So why didn’t they restrain them when the floodgate opened?

‘There are two possibilities.’
One being that they couldn’t contain the Four Horsemen anymore, since they had devoured too much of the essence from the middle realm due to world erosion.

‘The second possibility is that when the middle realm could no longer impose restrictions on gods,
they intended to invade it directly.’

Listening to the gods’ hypotheses and comparing them with his own experiences,
Kraush felt a surge of rage.

Whether the middle realm came from some ancient god’s corpse or remnants,
Kraush didn’t care.
He lived here and had grown here.

This realm was Kraush’s world.
And it would continue to be so, as a world for his cherished people.

‘Anyone who dares to covet our world will be burnt to ashes.’
Kraush’s eyes narrowed, and his fists clenched tightly.

The restrictions made his body heavy, hindering his movements.
Kraush had also spent his days in the divine realm nurturing a star, becoming a presence rivaling high-tier gods.

Naturally, from the middle realm’s perspective, he was deemed an invader.
But Kraush needed to let them know.

“G-Great god, and all that, I don’t care!”

He forced his lips to part, and a flame sparked within him, igniting the star inside.
This flame initially burned through divine energy,
but Kraush found he could ignite the star through the other means as well.

“W-Why put restrictions on someone trying to defend this world?”

As he shouted, a force radiated from his being.
The power of the world.
The aura.

Kraush finally understood why the aura resembled the structure of divine energy.
In the end, the aura was simply a force derived from the essence of the god within the middle realm.

To counteract world erosion and divine intervention,
this immune system was created.
That was precisely what the aura represented.

As the aura burst forth from Kraush, it fiercely ignited his star.
Suddenly, the binding restrictions from the middle realm began to shake loose, one by one.

Restrictions, in essence, ultimately shared the same power as the aura.
As long as Kraush could release the aura, he’d find the restrictions meaningless.

Kraush was the most radiant flower that bloomed in the middle realm,
filled with the essence the gods eagerly wished to possess.

“Yeah, gotta recognize my family.”

As Kraush spoke those words, he raised his hand.
From his palm, white light began to emanate.

The immense divine power filling the Lower World Gate.
It was time to devour it all and become a star that swallows galaxies.

Kraush’s gaze turned upward.
“Wait for me, divine realm.”

“Let me show you what a reckless brat from the middle realm can do.”

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