Chapter 377
“An intruder!”
As a woman with an intellectual appearance and glasses alerted to the presence of the intruder while gazing at the crystal ball, Nergal, who had been warming up nearby, approached her with an intrigued look.
“An intruder! What kind of idiot has broken in here, Margaret?”
‘Hope it’s perfect for warming up!’
As the God of War, he wouldn’t enjoy lurking behind a barrier to watch for an opportunity. Instead, he was eager to engage in a fight with the intruder who had broken into the barrier.
“Well… just one?”
“Too few! Just one!”
‘This is boring. Only one? They should bring a million troops to make this worthwhile!’
“Shut up. Nergal.”
“Such cruelty! Well, I’ll be off!”
“Nergal! Wait…”
Margaret sighed as she watched him dash towards the intruder’s location.
‘I was going to pass on information about the intruder, and he runs off first. That idiot…’
True to his nature as a god of battle, Nergal’s simple-minded actions were a headache for her, but he was someone she couldn’t completely ignore as an ally.
Therefore, she took her steps forward, intending to join him before Nergal crushed the intruder.
“Damn that Nergal, when you come back, I’ll give you a good smack— gah?!”
Before she could finish her sentence, an object the size of a soccer ball whizzed past her side.
“What, what did he do again…?”
Confirming the object that had rolled at her feet, she froze like a statue, staring at it, or rather, at the head.
“Ner…gal?”
What she saw was undeniably the head of Nergal, her ally. His head bore a foolish expression, as if he couldn’t comprehend what had just happened to him.
‘Nergal… was taken down this quickly?’
Although Nergal was foolish, he wasn’t weak enough to have his body and head separated in an instant. In terms of combat power, he should have ranked among the upper echelons of gods.
Margaret blinked in disbelief at the reality that Nergal had been so effortlessly defeated.
“How could this happen…”
“I was wondering who was staring at me, and it turned out to be you.”
“Gah! An intruder…”
‘I need to inform the other gods…’
Her words couldn’t finish as her vocal cords were ripped apart before they could take form. The gray-haired intruder kicked Nergal’s severed head aside and muttered in annoyance.
“I hope you won’t be too much of a hassle.”
Blood dripped down from the head of the shovel he was holding.
Not the blood of an ordinary being, but the blood of a god. The god killer, who had slain the most gods in the world, couldn’t help but chuckle at the increasing energy around him.
“You come to me willingly.”
“What business does the brat of the Quartz family have here?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
He spat out the words as if they were a bother, staring at the gods who were slowly revealing themselves one by one, with the shovel resting on his shoulder.
It was quite a pleasant sight, an array of handsome men and beautiful women, but Johann’s only interest lay in the question, ‘What abilities do those gods have?’
In war, information is most crucial, and the most useful information on this battlefield were the powers held by each god. Thus, Johann aimed his holy light-infused shovel ahead and provoked them.
“Losers. What do you think you’re doing crawling in here? If you want to die, just rip yourselves apart in the gaps!”
“How arrogant for a mere human!”
“Just because you’re a descendant of the Quartz doesn’t mean you’re the real Quartz!”
Several gods reacted to his provocation, their neck veins bulging as they scolded him. The brat of the Quartz family, an arrogant human, a fool who doesn’t know his place… Despite the numerous insults, he simply looked at them with a disdainful expression.
‘What can dying fools say but flail around?’
He had come here to slaughter all the gods. He slowly began to count the number of gods around him, estimating their numbers.
‘About thirty of them.’
He intended to finish this as quickly as possible and return to relax.
Johann bent down slightly and locked eyes with the closest god.
‘Let’s finish this quickly.’
In a one-on-many battle, a prolonged fight could only lead to defeat. Johann kicked off the ground and charged at the giant god wielding a massive sword in front of him.
“You! Relying on some pathetic trick and acting all tough! I’ll set you straight!”
“Whether it’s a pathetic trick or not, your neck will let you know.”
The enormous sword swung down ferociously at the neck of the god killer.
Facing a crisis where not just his neck, but his body might be cleaved in half, Johann smiled and thrust the shovel forward.
Compared to the massive sword that could split a cow in half with a single swing, the shovel’s size was almost laughable.
Another god of battle, Marduk, scoffed at Johann’s reckless counterattack and poured more strength into his arm. Although the power the intruder possessed was stronger than expected, he had no intention of backing down as a god of war.
‘If I get taken down by some brat, I’ll lose face!’
Marduk flexed his arms like logs, absolutely certain that the shovel would break hopelessly upon impact. Only a handful of gods could withstand his strike.
Confronting the god of war head-on was nearly akin to a suicide mission, even for deities.
They were battle-crazed beings who thought only of fighting, so battling them wasn’t a sane thing to do.
Surely.
It should have been so.
“It’s over.”
“It’s over!”
Johann and Marduk exchanged smirks, victorious grins.
And the moment Marduk felt a sense of unease in that smile was when their weapons clashed directly.
‘My weapon is being pushed back by a mere shovel?’
Not even a weapon, but a tool like a shovel is forcing back a godly weapon? He couldn’t help but let out a bewildered laugh when he witnessed his sword sliding harmlessly off the shovel.
He had never imagined such a usage, and he couldn’t even retrieve his sword as his arm was lost in the process, just managing to escape with his life.
“This is absurd…! Bringing such a tool to a battlefield…!”
“The tool is intact, but the guy who lost his left arm is the one babbling.”
“Hahahahaha! That’s right!”
His eyes burned with competitive spirit.
‘This is going to be a very entertaining rival, just as it is…’
Marduk relished the presence of an opponent he hadn’t seen in hundreds of years, carefully hiding his joyous emotions. Getting excited before a fight was poor judgment.
“This is going to be fun! Really fun!”
“That sounds like your last words.”
“What?”
“Crafting.”
From beneath the sand emerged the World Tree’s wooden branches, self-targeting him. Marduk, being the experienced god he was, dodged the ambush swiftly, but he couldn’t prevent Johann, armed with the shovel, from approaching.
Johann’s shovel swung horizontally, aiming for Marduk’s neck. With his one remaining arm, Marduk raised his great sword to defend, but with just one arm, he couldn’t block the shovel wielded by the god killer. He was pushed back, narrowly avoiding Johann’s strike.
Although he didn’t get completely away and ended up with a cut on his neck, at least he wasn’t completely severed.
He roared, filled with the boiling excitement of a long-awaited battle.
“So you’re that Quartz family’s god killer!”
“I don’t know how foolish you can be. There’s no way humans other than me would come to attack you.”
“That’s true! But it doesn’t mean anything! You’re going to die here today!”
As soon as Marduk finished speaking, a torrential downpour of magic and divine powers poured down as if waiting for the cue.
Meteorites, storms of wind, countless hailstones, and lightning.
All sorts of natural phenomena rained down solely to kill a single god killer.
‘A complete set of natural disasters.’
And not just any ordinary disasters, but ones crafted by gods pooling their powers to kill one individual. He read the intentions of the gods aiming to attack him from a distance and scoffed.
“You might as well have just run away.”
“No matter how strong you are, crawling into certain death like this won’t be easy!”
“That’s something I should be saying. You idiots who can’t even defeat a single god are the ones who should have quietly returned without ending up here.”
“You’re arrogant! But if you can prove that, it’ll be your victory!”
Marduk aimed his giant sword at Johann once more. The god who was directly countering him and the gods attacking him from a distance posed a troublesome setup, making him click his tongue.
‘So this is how it’s going to be.’
Since he had anticipated this to some extent, he summoned the power of the Quartz family. It would be difficult to handle opponents responding cowardly with numbers using just the strength of the World Tree and the Phoenix.
“…I’m quite busy. I’ll take care of this shortly, so think of your last words.”
“Hah! What a funny…”
Before Marduk could finish his sentence, with a deafening explosion, his head flew into the air.
“Marduk!”
“Marduk… just like that?”
The gods stared at him in horror and disbelief.
No one had thought Marduk would be taken so easily. Fear surfaced on the faces of the non-combat gods, who had intended to support from a distance.
Regardless, Johann shook off Marduk’s blood from the shovel blade and opened his mouth.
“Twenty-seven.”