novelraw Chapter 34: Demigod’s Welcome
Chapter 34: Demigod’s Welcome
The sound of the Herald of Dawn imploding was not a crash, but a low frequency groan that reverberated in the marrow of every human within a ten mile radius. It was the sound of divine logic being folded, tucked, and discarded.
In the heart of Shinjuku, the rain hissed against the hot asphalt. Ren Hanshin stood in the center of the intersection, his midnight-black coat draped over his shoulders like a shroud of shadows. The crimson light of his eyes was the only thing illuminating the grey, ash-choked air. Behind him, the surviving S-Rank hunters, the so-called "Pillars of Japan" were huddled like frightened children. Tanaka, the ’Iron Wall’ whose ribs were now a jigsaw of splinters, stared at Ren’s back. To Tanaka, Ren didn’t look like a hero. He looked like a hole in the universe, like a void where the rules of the system went to die.
Around them, the fodder of the Pantheon was closing in. Over fifty Abyssal Hounds, their skin the color of bruised muscle and eyes shimmering with a necrotic purple, slinked over the wreckage of luxury cars. Above them, perched on the ruins of a department store, three Iron War Beasts from the God of War’s fleet tracked Ren with their obsidian eyes. These were creatures that had wiped out Earth’s elite strike teams in seconds.
[System Warning: Hostile Entities are locking on.]
[Aggression Level: High.]
The Hounds moved first. They shrieked, a sound like a violin string snapping in a vacuum. They blurred into streaks of purple shadow, lunging from all sides, their jaws capable of snapping through S-Rank mana reinforced steel. Ren didn’t move his feet. He gripped the Severance of Destiny with a single hand, the crystallized blood blade humming a low, hungry note.
SWISH!
He calmly used the Flow. He let the energy of the Earth’s rotation, the weight of the air, and his own Divine Agility dictate the arc. The blade moved in a perfect, 360-degree horizontal circle. It was too fast for the human eye to track. One moment, the Hounds were in mid air, jaws inches from Ren’s throat. The next moment, fifty purple fleshed heads slid off from the fifty purple fleshed necks in a synchronized display of precision. Their screams were a cacophonous mix of agony and fear.
[Target Eliminated: Abyssal Hound (x52)]
[EXP gained.]
The bodies hit the wet pavement with a series of wet, rhythmic thuds. No blood sprayed. The concept of Severance was so precise that the veins were sealed shut before the heart realized it had been disconnected. Ren looked up at the War Beasts on the rooftop.
"Your turn," he whispered.
The War Beasts didn’t feel fear, but their instincts recognized a threat. They opened their massive, steam-hissing maws, launching twin beams of iron colored mana. The air around the department store began to distort from the sheer heat of the build-up. Ren didn’t wait for them to fire. He activated Divine Agility. To the S-Rank hunters watching, Ren simply vanished, leaving a vacuum behind. The sonic boom that followed his speed shattered the remaining glass in the street, sending a hail of diamonds raining down on the terrified civilians.
Ren appeared fifty feet above the rooftop. He reversed his grip on the scythe, holding it like a spear. He used his strength that made the weight of a mountain feel like a handful of feathers. He hurled the bloody scythe downward. The scythe tore through the atmosphere, a streak of crimson light that ignited the rain into steam. It struck the center of the rooftop, passing through the first War Beast, the second, the third, and then through all seven floors of the department store, embedding itself deep into the Tokyo subway lines beneath the street.
BOOM!!
The building slowly disintegrated. The weight of the strike pulverized the concrete into atoms. The three War Beasts were erased from existence before they could even release their mana. Ren descended slowly, his coat fluttering in the upward draft of the destruction. He landed in the center of the new crater, his hand reaching out. The scythe hissed as it flew back into his palm, reverberating with a satisfied, predatory hum.
[The God of Fate is clutching her chest, her breathing shallow.]
[God of Fate]: Look at them... they are so small. They are ants trying to sting a star. You are beautiful when you hunt, Ren. My heart is beating so fast... can you feel it?
Ren ignored the dual resonance in his skull. He looked at the hunters.
"Tanaka," Ren said, his voice echoing in the sudden silence of the street.
The Iron Wall flinched, his face pale. "Y-Yes?"
"Gather the survivors. Move them toward the Okutama Mountains," Ren commanded. "The city centers are being targeted first. The shrine is protected by a secondary divine ward. It’s the only place Vanguard can’t drop directly."
"But... the whole city is a warzone," Tanaka wheezed, clutching his broken ribs. "We can’t get through the secondary rifts! There are thousands of them!"
Ren looked at the sky. The golden fleet of the God of Light was regrouping, forming a circular formation over Shinjuku. Below them, thousands of Paladins were descending on wings of holy fire, their spears glowing with the intent to purge the impure city.
"I didn’t ask you to fight," Ren said, his eyes shining with a chilling light. "I told you to move. I’ll clear the road."
Ren didn’t wait for an answer. He turned his back on the humans and began to walk toward the main Shinjuku thoroughfare, where hundreds of divine tier soldiers were landing. He walked with the heavy, rhythmic tread of an executioner approaching the block.
A group of twelve Paladins, seeing a solitary man in a black coat, leveled their sun-fire spears. "Anomaly detected! The target is the Executioner! For the glory of the—"
Ren didn’t let them finish.
[Divine Mana: 150]
He tapped the ground with the blunt end of his scythe.
"Domain Activation: The Executioner’s Block," Ren whispered.
He created a line. A narrow corridor of 45x gravity. The amount of gravity multiplied in his domain is increased after the Draft. The effect was horrific. The twelve Paladins were flattened. Their holy platinum armor was crushed into thin sheets of metal, their bones turned to powder, and their bodies pressed into the asphalt until they were less than an inch thick. The road itself buckled, a rectangular trench appearing in the street as if the hand of a God had pressed a giant stamp into the earth. Ren walked down the center of the gravity trench, the blood-red mana of his domain swirling around his boots like a mist. Every time a group of monsters or divine soldiers entered the street, they were met with the same cold erasure. He simply walked, and the world beneath his feet submitted. He was a demigod, but he wasn’t fighting like one. He was fighting like the F-Rank porter he used to be, fighting with a cold, survivalist instinct that prioritized the kill over the spectacle.
[Target Eliminated: Holy Vanguard (x12)]
[Target Eliminated: Abyssal Thrall (x40)]
[Target Eliminated: Iron Legionnaire (x15)]
The system notifications were a scrolling blur at the edge of his vision, but Ren’s focus was elsewhere. He was tracking the mana signs in the upper atmosphere. The Sovereigns were angry. He could feel it. The God of Light was pulsing with a blinding fury. The God of War was shaking with the need for a true battle. They were realizing that their foot soldiers were nothing more than fodder for the Anomaly. Ren stopped in the middle of a bridge, looking at the thousands of civilians fleeing below. He saw a father carrying his daughter, their faces masked with a terror so profound it made Ren’s chest tighten.
[Synchronization: 49%.]
He felt the Goddess’s heart pulse within his own. She felt the father and child too, but to her, they were nothing but dirt. She wanted Ren to stop looking at the ground. She wanted him to look at her.
[God of Fate]: Why do you look at them, Ren? They are fragile. They are broken. They will die in a hundred years even if the Gods leave them alone. You are eternal. Look at me... only at me.
"They are my people," Ren muttered into the wind, "and you are the one who broke their sky."
[The God of Fate flinches, her presence in his mind growing sharp and cold.]
[God of Fate]: I did it for you! I did it so you would have a stage! I did it so you could prove you are a God!
"I don’t want to be a god," Ren said, his grip on the scythe tightening until the metal groaned. "I just want to be left alone."
Ren looked up. The golden fleet above Shinjuku was parting. A massive, star shaped vessel, thrice the size of the one Ren had just crushed, was descending. It was armored in a solidified holy light. On the prow of the ship, a figure stood.
It was a Seraph, a true divine entity, far above the rank of a Paladin or a Captain. It had four wings made of white plasma and carried a sword that burned with the heat of a collapsed star.
[System Warning: SSS-Rank Divine Entity ’The Hand of Judgment’ has appeared.]
[This entity possesses a Conceptual Law: ’Domain of Purity’.]
The Seraph raised its sword. It simply released a wave of white hot fire that covered the entire Shinjuku district. The fire was designed to burn away anything that the God of Light deemed impure. The buildings, the cars, the fleeing civilians, everything was about to be turned into holy ash.
Ren’s crimson eyes flared. The "Domain of Purity" law would evade all his standard defenses. Ren slammed the scythe into the bridge, the shockwave cracking the stone.
"Domain Activation," Ren roared, his voice carrying the dual-resonance of a Sovereign. "The Executioner’s Block"
He pushed the gravity upward now. A blood red hemisphere of gravity erupted from Ren, expanding until it covered the entire district. He solidified the air. He created a ceiling of dense mana that acted as a physical shield against the holy fire. The white-hot flames slammed into the red gravity shield.
BOOM!!
The sky over Tokyo turned into a hellscape of white and red. The heat was so intense that the rain evaporated before it could reach the ground, creating a steam filled void. Ren stood in the center of the bridge, his coat burning, his boots melting into the asphalt. His Divine Mana was being drained at a terrifying rate. He was holding back the judgment of a god with nothing but his own willpower and a cracked soul.
High above, the Seraph narrowed its shining eyes. It had never seen a mortal survive the "Hand of Judgment." Ren looked up through the steam, his crimson eyes watching the divine entity.
"Is that it?" Ren rasped, a drop of blood trickling from his nose as the 49% synchronization throbbed in his skull. "Is that all the ’Light’ has to offer?"
He didn’t wait for a response. Ren pulled the scythe from the bridge and launched himself upward, a crimson streak of defiance cutting through the white holy fire. Now, the execution was beginning.