Chapter 200 – Advent of Lesser God (3)

Something came flying towards Sungchul without any sound or warning. Sungchul channeled his god-like strength into his legs to dodge to the side. The next moment, a giant explosion took place on the spot he had been standing and the building that had been behind him was destroyed.

It was an incredible destructive power.

It was on a level that made even a powerful destruction spell called Explosion seem insignificant. To make matters worse, it was instant without any wind up or preparatory motion.

‘Is this the true power of the Lesser God Sidmia?’

Everything until now was nothing more than a warm up. And as if to prove the point, Sidmia was now ready to bring to bear both of his weapons as well as his collapsed hands into the fight.

The hands pressed palm to palm moved apart slightly and a gap could be seen. A cold chill ran down Sungchul’s back. He once again tumbled to the side.

Boo boom!

Immense explosion leveled all the structures in the vicinity and kicked up a massive cloud of dust. And beyond the dust and debris, Sungchul saw something in the distance flicker.

It was another attack from the Lesser God.

Ivory colored buildings blocked his path to the left and the right. Sungchul once again leapt to dodge, but this time he crashed through the building. Although he had to endure a heavy impact with his body, it was nothing compared to the explosion that took place where he had been standing.

His clothing was torn to shreds and his face was smeared with dust and dirt. It was his first time getting into such a state since obtaining his god-like power.

Sidmia moved quickly to punish Sungchul as if he was trying to get revenge for being hit once.

Boom!

The polearm destroyed the remnants of the collapsed building and the rapier moved like a storm, sifting through the debris in search of Sungchul. Sungchul took a breather under the darkness of the corner of the building as he listened to the Lesser God search for him.

The problem was those hands he held palm to palm. No matter how strong Sungchul was, there was a limit to how sturdy he was. Although his body contained god-like power, the mortal coil that served as a vessel was not immortal. Like other human beings, he had flesh and blood body.

Of course, his body did become sturdy after a lifetime of extreme hardship and diligent improvements which made him essentially invulnerable compared to ordinary people, but even his out-of-bounds defenses were not guaranteed to survive the Lesser God’s catastrophic full-powered attacks.

‘I guess a Lesser God is a Lesser God after all.’

But Sungchul had already landed a blow on the Lesser God. And from watching the Lesser God writhe in agony after being hit by Meteor, Sungchul knew that the Lesser God’s durability wasn’t unlimited.

Problem lay in how to deal with the fantastically destructive and accurate attack coming out of its clasped hands. Sungchul first thought of the most direct solution. Put some distance between them.

Sungchul gathered his god-like strength into his legs. Sungchul memorized all the locations of obstacles in his view before sprinting full speed.

The moment Sungchul appeared in the Lesser God’s vision, he created a gap between his hands.

A pale burst of light resulted in an enormous explosion by Sungchul’s side, but Sungchul was able to just barely dodge the explosion as he escaped towards the urban area of the city.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The Lesser God boasted impressive destructive power, but Sungchul’s ability to escape was also extraordinary.

Each time he took a step, his all-out sprinting caused his feet to sink into the ground and left deep indents. Like a bolt of lightning, Sungchul traversed the empty streets all in one go. In just few moments, there was now over five kilometers of distance between Sungchul and the Lesser God. It was a distance even the Lesser God looked as small as an ant.

Sungchul narrowed his eyes to peer towards Sidmia.

Sidmia’s hands moved apart.

Sungchul felt a chill crawl down his spine as he dodged to the side. But that was a trap.

‘Ah.’

The Lesser God had noticed that Sungchul habitually dodged to the left so it had intentionally aimed a bit to the left to begin with.

Sungchul saw the space in front of him suddenly warp in like a water draining through a pipe, so he hastily pulled something out of the Soul Storage.

Boom!

An unbelievable explosion enveloped Sungchul. Bertelgia was watching this and gave out a cry of despair.

“Ah… No!”

Despite her screams, the Lesser God was merciless. Once it saw that the explosion was a direct hit on Sungchul, it relentlessly opened its hands in quick succession to completely level and raze the surrounding area. Nothing remained of the large building that had been there before. The onlookers could do nothing but watch and wait while filled with fear and worry as the dust slowly settled in the crater that resulted.

Soon, Marakias eyes opened wide.

“He’s alive!”

The moment he spoke, a hand broke the ground and emerged from below. It was Sungchul’s fist.

He pulled himself out of the ground and stood again on his two feet. On his left arm was a strange looking shield. Bertelgia got a bad premonition as she muttered to herself.

“What’s… that?”

Sungchul who protected himself with the shield was without any serious injuries. Although it did not save his clothes from being ripped apart or small scratches. But there was an injury only Sungchul knew of. Blood poured out of both of his ears. Although he was able to defend himself from the continuous chain of explosions, his ear drums could not withstand it and burst.

“…”

Sungchul opened his Soul Storage to retrieve an elixir and drank it. His ringing ears regained their normal functions. Sungchul tasted the sweet silence that returned to him as he turned to calmly read the words that appeared before him.

[Debt to Gorgot: Life and a half]

[Interest rate: 10%]

The words originated from none other than the shield he was holding. The identity of the shield was Gorgot, one of the seven weapons of Calamity. It was a blasphemous object sometimes called the shield of high interest loan-shark from hell. Although it had an absolute defense capable of nullifying any attack, the compensation it demanded was the life force of the user itself. Of course along with interest.

If the debt repayment through life energy collection ritual isn’t performed in time or if the debt owed to Gorgot exceeds what is possible to repay, then the user’s soul is dragged off to the abyss. Sungchul who knew this all too well avoided using this shield when possible. But using it this time was unavoidable. If he didn’t use it, then he would have died without having left an identifiable corpse. 

However, Sungchul was able to learn one thing from the previous attack. It had to do with the nature of how the attack is performed.

‘There is a projectile.’

Although it was not at a speed that could be seen with the naked eye, the Lesser God’s lethal explosion was caused by something that was fired out of the Lesser God’s closed palms.

Sungchul was able to detect a tiny discrepancy in the timing of the explosions between when he was within melee distance of the Lesser God and when he was a great distance away. And while he was hiding under ground, he was able to become confident in his conclusion.

Now all of the Lesser God’s hands were revealed.

Sungchul’s brains began to go into turbo. How many years has it been since the last battle of life and death? Sungchul was beginning to enjoy this fight before he knew it.

Many options came to mind for Sungchul.

And as if to prove he wasn’t going to wait for Sungchul to strategize, the Lesser God sent another explosion to Sungchul’s way. Sungchul dodged to the side as he protected himself from the explosion and began to drink mana recovery potions from his Soul Storage.

Clack. Clack. Clack.

Now that his magic power was higher, the amount of Mana he had to replenish had increased, which led to him needing to drink several bottles of potions.

‘Although it’s not my hobby to litter.’

As he felt his mana replenish within him, he began to charge towards Sidmia in a zig zag. Fal Garaz in one hand and Gorgot in the other. And along the way, countless explosions went off. And as if this wasn’t enough, the Lesser God revealed another method of attack. Instead of only opening the gap between his hands slightly, he completely separated them wide open.

“…?!”

Sungchul braced his shield as he leapt back with all his strength.

His vision was filled with a intense burst of light and an explosion on a completely different scale from the ones before went off close to Sungchul.

The shockwave greatly disoriented Sungchul as the explosion burnt away all the oxygen in the area. The debris were swept up into a whirlwind in the wake of the merciless explosion and were sprayed in all directions which were now barren. The debris fell onto the empty land like rain. Luckily, Sungchul was standing slightly outside of the explosion’s kill zone so he was able to narrowly avoid death.

‘Incredible.’

Amazement soon became fear, and fear soon became excitement. Sungchul charged towards the street that was still raining debris. The form of four-armed giant clad in dark fog soon came within view. When it noticed that Sungchul was approaching, it took up a battle stance with its rapier and polearm. Sungchul initiated the incantations for magic within the Lesser God’s view. It was his most powerful spell, Starlight.

A magic formation rose from Sungchul’s frame like a flower. And at the same time, he exchanged thoughts with the Soul Stones. A bold and reckless suggestion was made by Sungchul and the other Soul  Stones expressed their reservations on the idea. But just one of the Soul Stones expressed the possibility of the success of the plan. Once the split second communication was complete, Sungchul gave commands to his Soul Stones.

1st Glare
2nd Meteor
3rd Meteor
4th Starlight

An arrangement of spells for an all-out attack was made. The key to the success of this plan lay not in the one casting Starlight nor the Meteor, but the one casting Glare.

‘I believe in you, Cabung.’

Sidmia was the first one to attack. It opened its hands slightly towards the charging Sungchul. But he was used to this by now.

Sungchul detected the movement of the projectile that was fired out of the hands at nearly the speed of light and dodged to the side and headed ever closer to the Lesser God.

The rapier whipped around to attack Sungchul and the polearm constantly sought an opening. Sungchul’s Fal Garaz kept the Lesser God’s rapier at bay as he recklessly assaulted the Lesser God head on. There was no way the polearm would allow him to do so without contest. The Lesser God tried to knock Sungchul away but even that was deflected with Fal Garaz.

Boom!

Another collision between two mighty beings. It became a fierce contest of strength.

And behind it, the Lesser God prepared to bring its rapier and the clasped hands to bear and Sungchul’s spells were nearing completion.

The moment the attack was stopped, god-like strength flowed through Sungchul’s body as he knocked away the polearm and once again dashed to the flank of the Lesser God.

But the Lesser God wasn’t about to fall for the same trick twice. The rapier and the polearm disappeared  and in their stead, two gigantic shields appeared to protect the Lesser God from both sides.

It was an unexpected move. But Sungchul followed through with the plan he had originally come up with. He went around the Lesser God as he perceived that his incantations were all but finished. He took out a staff and pointed it towards the Lesser God.

‘Starlight.’

Although it was not nearly as powerful as the Lesser God’s explosion, a powerful beam of light was fired towards the Lesser God. Upon seeing Starlight being fired, the Lesser God immediately pulled its clasped hands apart to form strange mudras with its hands. The white luminous object in its palm flickered at the moment the starlight reached the Lesser God.

Within the blinding spectacle of light that ensued, Sungchul witnessed something unbelievable. With the two hands as its center, a formless screen appeared between the hands that dissipated the light of Starlight.

‘I guess it’s both an offensive and defensive weapon.’

There were those who were watching him from afar. It was Vestiare who was under a large pile of corpses of servants who looked like her.

She barely survived through everything and was watching the battle between Sungchul and Sidmia with one hazy eye.

Even as she lay dying, surprise was palpable in her eyes. It was because Sungchul was using her secret technique. Echo.

Sungchul was orbiting around the Lesser God as he used magic that appeared to be Echo to chain cast many rounds of Starlight to attack from various angle at once. But every attack he made was nullified by the formless barrier the Lesser God wielded. Vestiare gave a faint grin as she whispered to herself.

“The Lesser God Sidmia… even among the Lesser Gods of the other realm is a powerful being… No matter how close you are in terms of power to the Lesser Gods, it is impossible for someone with the limitations of a mortal to defeat a being like him.”

And as she had predicted, Sungchul was in grave danger.

The Starlight that he had casted along with three other Starlights that were fired in addition from Echo were nullified without doing any meaningful damage, and the meteors he had the Soul Stones cast were all deflected by the shields. Sidmia in a defensive stance was all but impervious.

Sungchul was at a loss as he waited for the Lesser God’s inevitable counterattack.

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Bad cliffhanger right? Dont worry next chapter will be out tomorrow! Also this is 200, well technically 201 including prologue but this is 200. Thank you for sticking with us!

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