Chapter 382 - 382: The God King Takes Action Himself!

It wasn't that Ais and Aphrodite were planning to make some move tonight.

Though the Goddess of Beauty wanted to repay her earlier 'humiliation,' now wasn't the time for that — even a girl-goddess wasn't foolish enough not to know that much.

But still!

Now wasn't the time, but the walk back certainly would be!!

So before that, the most important thing was to plan exactly how to proceed.

In particular, these past few days Aphrodite hadn't just been dragging Ais around the Magic Kingdom to shop and sightsee — the two of them had actually been quite seriously reviewing what went wrong last time.

The Goddess of Beauty believed the main reason for their previous failure was that everyone on their side had been fighting on their own, which was why the dream hadn't gone the way they'd hoped.

That's right.

Aphrodite felt their earlier approach hadn't been wrong — only its execution had been.

Ais's poor judgment alone had done nothing to suppress Isagi's 'battle lust,' which was why so many strange things had happened.

And as for herself, she'd been too busy sparring with that Artemis woman, which was how everything had ended up the way it did.

Mm—

The girl-goddess quickly brought Ais to the moon goddess's room, and to her surprise, Ryuu was there as well.

Now the group meant to gather together and properly discuss how to act going forward, to avoid another accident like before — at the very least, they wouldn't be tripping each other up anymore!

As long as they worked together.

The boy's dream would eventually take the shape they all imagined!

Meanwhile, Asfi, for some inexplicable reason, had followed along in secret and ended up joining this 'war council' as well.

And elsewhere...

...

In his dream, Isagi found himself before a god.

After falling asleep.

That impossibly clear sensation returned, confirming for Isagi that the god before him must have used some power to enter his dream — or perhaps it was Isagi who had entered the god's.

"..."

He said nothing.

He merely ran his hand over a slender white serpent coiled around his arm.

Isagi kept feeling that the god before him looked familiar — ah... he remembered now. It was Baldr, ruler of the Academic District, the God of Light.

Except, though this figure's face closely resembled Baldr's, his hair was black as night, not the warm, sun-golden color of light.

And his skin was pale — a sickly, bloodless pallor, expressionless, like someone already dead.

Naturally, none of Baldr's usual warm, faint smile was present either.

Isagi didn't recognize him.

But had Loki or Freya been there, they would have instantly recognized this fellow god of Asgard — the God of Darkness, Hodr.

He who governed murder, death, cold, and all manner of powers tied to darkness.

By rights, 'Nightmares' shouldn't have had much to do with him, but it seemed they too fell under the domain of 'darkness,' which was why he possessed the power to create this dream.

Or perhaps.

It was because of the little serpent in his hand.

[Jormungandr].

That was a god's 'Nightmare.'

Isagi wasn't a god, so naturally he knew nothing of the legends and horrors surrounding it. As it stood, Hodr's use of Jormungandr's power served only one purpose.

Because of the [Appointed Time] Ouranos, the first great god to descend to the lower world, had sworn, the gods were forbidden from using their Arcanum down here.

Within that rule, though, there were many loopholes.

For instance.

Certain traits inherent to a god's very nature — the wine god brewing Divine Wine, the Martial Gods possessing supreme skill, the Goddess of Beauty able to enchant anyone — all of these were permitted.

And something like the Divine Mirror, a kind of universal 'divine art' at its core, was likewise permitted.

But if a far greater power were unleashed, it would violate the Appointed Time and the god would automatically be sent back to the heavens.

So the gods speculated.

This 'ban on using Arcanum' actually had a threshold — as long as one stayed beneath it, the Appointed Time wouldn't be triggered.

There was also the option of using a [Divine Gift] that had been cast down to the lower world beforehand.

Just as Aphrodite had done before.

But now.

Hodr wasn't cautiously, tentatively testing the limits of his own power, nor was he relying on some [Divine Gift] the way the girl-goddess had.

He was simply letting the little serpent Jormungandr in his hand unleash its power in full.

In the next instant, a pillar of light shot skyward before Isagi's eyes, and at the same moment, another rose from the peak of Arutona — proof that a god had been sent back to the heavens.

But once the pillar of light faded.

Asgard's God of Darkness still remained. Only the little serpent had vanished.

Of course, Hodr had done all this on Odin's orders, and the purpose was, naturally, simple enough — a 'trial.'

This would be the final one.

The one-eyed old god himself was coming to confirm the boy's true strength.

[Fight me].

No more pretense now.

In the dream, within that absolute darkness, thunder suddenly cracked and rolled down from above.

Odin was the King of the Gods of Asgard.

He governed 'kingship,' 'prophecy,' 'wisdom,' 'magic,' 'war,' and 'death.'

The god-king astride his steed was, without question, a god of war.

Or rather, most of the gods of Asgard shared similar traits — Freya, the Goddess of Beauty, was in fact also a war goddess.

That was simply the style over there.

Only Loki seemed to be the outlier, or so Isagi had once heard from Demeter and Goddess Astrea's gossip.

And now.

What he saw before him was a god descending from the sky, riding an eight-legged steed, clad in armor, spear in hand.

For the sake of this battle.

Odin had gone so far as to use [Jormungandr] to create 'the gods' Nightmare' — this wasn't Isagi dreaming of Odin, but Odin dreaming of Isagi, dreaming of a challenge from a [Hero] of the lower world.

Would this count as a 'Nightmare,' though?

Perhaps. After all, for a god-king, the sudden appearance of a [Hero] who defied all his expectations, unforeseen by any prophecy, coming to challenge him — that was clearly some kind of unknown omen.

Isagi didn't much care about any of that. He was simply thinking that, at his current Lv.9 strength, if he really came to blows with a god, he probably still wouldn't win.

His self-awareness on that front was quite clear.

After all, if the numbers weren't there, there was nothing to be done about it — not to mention he still had room left to grow.

And besides.

He'd actually discussed this very topic seriously with Goddess Astrea before.

And the goddess's answer had been.

Even the Hera Familia's [Empress], back at Lv.9, had only been 'infinitely approaching godhood.'

That 'infinitely approaching' was subtle, because 'approaching' meant 'not yet there' — meaning she still wasn't a match for a true god.

Of course.

Some gods were skilled fighters, and some weren't.

But the Odin standing before him was clearly 'extremely skilled in battle' — possibly even the strongest among all the gods of Asgard.

Isagi figured that if he really wanted to fight this one for real, he'd probably need to wait until he hit Lv.10.

Mm—

Odin, of course, understood this as well.

And even having used [Jormungandr] to create 'the god's Nightmare,' he still couldn't unleash his full power here.

But a dream was a convenient thing.

Here.

The god-king's strength and the boy's were, absolutely, made 'equal.'

Only pure fairness could give the trial any meaning. In fact, Odin didn't expect the boy to defeat him, or even to wound him.

He simply wanted to witness, with his own eyes, how the boy fought. That was all.

This was a 'trial' from the King of Asgard.

And it was also, for a [Hero], the purest, simplest trial there was.

"Come."

The King of the Gods spoke, indifferent.

That figure astride the steed looked, to Isagi's eyes, nearly ten meters tall — this guy was basically a giant.

Just the sight of him carried overwhelming pressure.

Frost, thunder, molten fire, howling wind — elements of every kind swirled around the god, coalescing into countless intricate 'divine runes.'

Isagi stretched his limbs slightly, and [Dragon's Feast] began, quite naturally, to wrap around his body. A moment later, having become his steel dragon-man form, he'd closed at least some of the gap in sheer size with the towering god before him.

But that was about it.

Isagi drew his star-moon greatsword, considering where to test the waters with his first strike against the god-king before him.

For his part.

The one-eyed old god simply waited.

The single golden eye glinting beneath that helm was, for the moment, utterly calm and indifferent.

This was the god-king's composure — he disdained to strike first at a mere mortal of the lower world, and that, in turn, gave Isagi time.

The boy even circled the god a few times.

Taking his time.

He studied the god's attire carefully, along with the eight-legged steed beneath him — pretty cool, actually. Maybe he should get himself a mount too?

As he thought this.

The moonlight greatsword in Isagi's hand blazed with brilliant light.

And in Odin's eyes, the world suddenly twisted and warped — he could no longer make out the true shape of anything in his field of vision. The lines outlining all things began to tangle together like balls of yarn, dazzling and disorienting, making it impossible to identify anything with certainty.

[Interesting magic].

What Isagi conjured through the moonlight greatsword was, of course, magic in its own right.

So.

The god-king merely spoke lightly, still in that 'language of the gods' incomprehensible to mortals of the lower world. He began to chant, and after the briefest instant, a sudden gust of wind and snow blew forth, freezing everything around it solid.

Isagi retreated fast.

Just as he'd tried to disrupt Odin's sight and launch his first attack, the god-king's magic had already arrived before him.

He hadn't even managed to raise his greatsword yet.

That fast? Had Odin predicted his move?

Or else—

Odin's frost magic swept through, freezing all the magic in the surrounding air along with it, and then a spreading 'assimilation' followed — frost was cold, capable of freezing everything, even time itself, while also possessing the power to turn all things into itself, painting the whole world snow-white.

This was the 'nature' of the magic made manifest.

At this moment.

Around the god-king, no other magic remained at all — replaced instead by countless tiny ice crystals floating in midair.

The moonlight greatsword's practically broken ability to disrupt others' perception and sight had just been undone, just like that.

But that wasn't even the important part!

Just now.

Isagi realized Odin's magic had come out at an almost unbelievable speed, and right as he'd been forced back by that magic—

Suddenly, amid all that swirling frost and snow, the god-king's massive spear was already right in front of him.

His weapon moved faster than Isagi's own body.

To be precise, before Isagi had even finished retreating and coming to a stop, that massive spear had already thrust forward.

Had he stayed put where he was, he'd have been run straight through.

So.

Isagi had no choice but to forcibly twist his body in midair, altering the trajectory of his next movement.

But even so, the god-king's spear kept finding his landing spot with pinpoint accuracy every single time, waiting there for him with near-absolute certainty, before he even arrived.

There was no doubt — this was the power of a god who governed 'prophecy.'

No matter what Isagi tried to do next, the god-king could already prepare the perfect response in advance, then strike at exactly the right moment.

And he couldn't even manage to create distance between them.

This guy could just as easily predict Isagi's attempts to fall back and intercept them ahead of time too.

And the worst part—

This guy wasn't just a 'knight.' He was also a 'sorcerer'!

Fire and lightning rained down from above; Isagi had to stay constantly alert for sudden strikes from overhead.

At the same time.

The ground beneath his feet could turn into spikes, quicksand, or bottomless pits at any moment, and dense fog was gathering on every side, making it impossible to be sure of his surroundings at all.

Just how much 'magic' did Odin actually command?

The god-king commanded the very concept of 'magic' itself — which meant, in theory, he possessed every magic that existed in this world.

Magic Isagi knew, magic he didn't; magic he'd seen with his own eyes, and magic he never had.

Every kind of magic imaginable came pouring down alongside that massive spear, leaving him almost no room to breathe.

In that moment.

All Isagi could think was how nice it would be if Ais or Alfia were here — that ability to 'nullify any magic' would come in real handy right about now, though he had no idea whether Odin, as the god-king who governed 'magic' itself, also possessed 'magic that could nullify the nullification of magic.'

Hm...

Turned out he did.

Because the instant Isagi tried to use his own magic, he found that the magic power around him simply refused to coalesce into any shape at all — he couldn't even summon Teardrop Big Bro. Meanwhile, the god-king seemed entirely unaffected on his end.

He'd been completely 'silenced' of magic.

Cheater!

No wonder they call him the god-king!!

But.

That just meant Isagi would have to use his own cheat ability too, then.

"!"

Suddenly, the massive spear passed straight through Isagi's body without the slightest resistance. Beyond the fog, the god astride the eight-legged steed furrowed his brow slightly, seemingly puzzled by this.

Then, in the next instant, he watched the boy's body scatter into countless points of golden light, only to reassemble itself moments later.

The life force that had seemingly vanished burst forth once more.

[Interesting.]

An undying man.

That was a power even the gods themselves envied.

A god could only be resurrected — he could not simply refuse to die in the first place.

Excellent!

The massive spear crashed down once more toward where the boy stood, and the god-king finally seemed to show a flicker of real interest.

"An undying fellow, hm? Well then, that means we can fight to our hearts' content, doesn't it?"

____

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