Chapter 419 - 418 - Substitute for God

No creature or living being should survive in the ecosystem of a destroyed world.

Life simply was not supported.

That was the rule Rygar and Aisha had defined after many tests. Not even they could live there without protection.

Not even the vigorous Immortal Demons, famous for surviving absurd wounds and conditions that would kill almost any other race, would withstand the ecosystem of a dead face.

But the Six-Faced World had never followed only conventional rules.

From the beginning, there had been unexpected instabilities. Beings were randomly teleported between worlds. Anomalous creatures appeared at different points in history, monstrosities with no clear equivalents among common races and monsters.

There were many accounts of this: a voracious Cyclops, capable of firing destructive beams of light and enchanting living beings; a seven-headed Hydra, immune to magical attacks and capable of spitting fire; even a Chimera with three heads, one of a lion, one of a goat, and one of a snake, capable of spitting poison and acid.

Their danger varied, but the pattern was always similar. They were monsters different from the others, endowed with especially dangerous abilities.

Normally, life was impossible in a destroyed world.

But for a rule, there was almost always an exception.

Aisha was calmly inscribing an enormous magic circle onto a platform. She was shaping the inscriptions directly into the surface with Earth Magic.

Every detail needed to be perfect. For that reason, she constantly consulted the notes in a notebook she held with one hand before continuing.

Her senses were very good.

Over the last few years, Aisha had not stopped training. At present, she had already mastered three of the Five Secret Techniques of the Water God Style, which meant that, in theory, she could already contend for the title of Water God with Reida.

Not that she would do that, of course. Aisha had no interest in disputing a title merely for prestige, especially when her current work was far more important.

Even so, it said a great deal about her level.

Although the Water God Style was not a perception technique in itself, its foundation was understanding and perceiving the opponent.

With the exception of the Beast God Style, which possessed literal tracking techniques, it was one of the best styles for improving instincts, reading movement, and reacting against surprise attacks. Aisha already had naturally sharp senses, and her training had only expanded them.

Even so, she did not notice the being approaching.

And it was not even trying to hide.

Its body resembled that of a serpent, but its scales were transparent and, at the same time, very visible, seeming to reflect space. Instead of slithering across the ground, it slithered through the skies.

But it did not seem to be flying. It was more as if there were an invisible surface, something only it could see and touch, allowing its body to undulate naturally through the air.

As it approached, its size became more obvious.

It was a monstrosity more than a kilometer long. Compared to Aisha, it looked like a skyscraper. Its head resembled that of a dragon more than a serpent, although it had no arms or wings.

Its eyes were the only part of its body that was not transparent. They looked like amber orbs, marked by two narrow slits.

Despite being enormous and clearly visible to anyone who looked directly at it, Aisha did not notice it.

That monster was not ordinary.

Standard senses could not perceive it in any way. It had no smell, made no sound, and its presence did not even alter the environment.

There was no wind or atmosphere to react to its movement. Besides, Aisha did not expect to be attacked in that desolate place. By the rules she and Rygar had confirmed, nothing should be alive there.

The monster approached through the sky, curious.

The more it observed that small being, the more its hunger emerged.

It was not hunger for flesh. It was hunger for the enormous amount of mana stored inside that tiny body.

That was its first and only instinct as an animal. It had never experienced satisfying its own hunger. It had never eaten anything. Even so, that feeling had never left it.

Slowly, it coiled in the sky and prepared to swallow Aisha in a single motion.

"Phew... honestly, when all this is over, I’m going to take a very long vacation."

Aisha finally finished the magic circle and stretched, looking toward the horizon.

Only then did she see Rygar for a fraction of a second.

He was flying toward her like a missile.

"Ah? What is it this time?"

The black armor formed around Rygar’s body almost completely, but he did not summon Doomsday. Aisha followed him with her eyes, watching him come suspiciously close, extremely fast.

In the next second, he collided with his target.

While Aisha stood still in the middle of the equipment and preparations, Rygar struck a violent punch against a colossal transparent snake that she only noticed at that moment, despite the monster being less than a hundred meters away from her.

For an instant, Aisha froze.

Wind did not propagate in that world, so there was no shockwave. There were also no stable natural laws that would allow the monster to be thrown away the way it would in a living world.

But when Rygar struck its jaw, the part that was hit was temporarily subjected to the laws of the Magical Isolation around him.

The transparent scales cracked.

For the first time in its entire existence, that creature felt pain.

Its gigantic body was pushed by the impact, and a concept that had never existed for it became real. Its jaw hurt, and it had no reference with which to interpret that.

Fortunately for the creature, Rygar’s barrier did not have enough range to envelop a considerable part of its body. The effect only reached the region of the scales touched by the blow. Even so, it was not something that could be underestimated.

Rygar possessed the Laplace Factor. His natural strength was already comparable to that of monsters, and added to the strengthening of Touki, a direct blow from his fist would be enough to destroy absurdly resilient bodies.

Rygar observed the strange monster cautiously.

He knew the blow had not fully connected because of the creature’s immense size. That monster was so strange that Rygar did not even know whether he would be able to hit it with ordinary magic.

He also did not want to risk spatial or gravitational magic there, since that would put the area and the many pieces of equipment around them in immediate danger.

That was also why he did not use Doomsday.

This battle would be complicated.

Or so he thought.

The enormous monster stared at him with a confused look.

Then it retreated.

The creature crossed the distance with inconceivable speed. Since there was no air resistance, it moved as fast as its body allowed, crossing kilometers in a single second. Then it hid among the spatial rifts and instabilities of its natural environment.

It did not know what those beings were, but it did not like pain at all.

Pain was bad. That thing had caused it pain. That thing was dangerous.

From the instinct to prey on Aisha, the instinct to flee before another potentially dangerous predator was also born.

It quickly disappeared from Aisha and Rygar’s sight, as visible as it had been from the beginning. Aisha, who had merely watched everything from start to finish, finally spoke, still shocked.

"What the hell was that?"

Her thoughts were racing. The simple possibility that monsters existed there completely changed the operation.

Rygar began descending and looked at Aisha, checking if she was all right.

"Well... that was a little dangerous?"

Aisha looked at him.

"A little? A little?!"

Rygar dismissed it with his hand while smiling.

"Don’t worry so much. I came here immediately when I felt that something seemed wrong. That means that thing can still be perceived by the Sixth Sense."

Then he looked at Aisha with a slightly less carefree smile.

"Although, for you, it really is dangerous."

Aisha calmed down a little, but furrowed her brows.

"Wouldn’t it be better to kill it at once?"

Rygar was checking the equipment when he raised an eyebrow.

"What? You think I didn’t try?"

Aisha immediately retorted:

"But that’s even worse. It is in its natural environment, and you cannot fight with full strength here. Wouldn’t it be better to hunt it down at once, before it comes back?"

Rygar shook his head.

"I could feel the creature’s fear. I don’t know what kind of life it has had, because it doesn’t seem to feel much, but it won’t return anytime soon. Not before it understands what we are."

Aisha stared at him for a moment.

As much as she had known Rygar since forever, there were still occasions when she seriously wondered how he could feel the emotions of such a strange monster. That was a truly broken ability.

She sighed.

"At least the machines weren’t damaged. Either way, we are finishing up. Stay nearby just in case."

Rygar sat on a stone covered in magical circuits and smiled provocatively.

"Of course. I’ll stay and take care of you, my defenseless princess."

A vein popped on Aisha’s forehead.

She decided to ignore him.

In that situation, in fact, she had no guarantee she could face such a strange monster alone. So she turned around and continued working.

After some time, Rygar, who seemed to be thinking about something else, suddenly said:

"Hey, we discovered a new species, didn’t we?"

Aisha looked at him suspiciously.

"I think so. I mean, it seems like a monster a little too unique to be considered a species, but... I suppose so."

"That means we can name it, right?"

Aisha let out a long sigh.

"Haaah... yes, we can. Do you have an idea, dear?"

Rygar looked enthusiastic.

"I mean, just look at it. An enormous serpent that blends into the night sky. From now on, its name will be Apophis."

Aisha merely nodded.

She had already heard about the gods of Egyptian mythology from Earth.

Rygar, however, was disappointed by the lack of recognition for his genius idea.

Meanwhile, the newly named Apophis continued down to the depths of that world and remained there, hiding as much as it could among the spatial distortions. It tried to process the new sensations in the best way its existence allowed.

First came pain and fear.

Then anger and, finally, recognition.

For a being that had never experienced anything, that single interaction gave it an unimaginable stimulus. And even with the momentary pain, Apophis was eager to understand that feeling even more.

The remaining days passed quickly.

The creature did not return. Rygar and Aisha did not go after it either. With time, the entire structure was completed.

There were pillars assembled over a wide area, located at specific points and occupying about ten kilometers of extension. The protection circles were aligned, the secondary mechanisms responded correctly, and the mana lines had already been stabilized for the initial activation.

All that remained now was the conduit. The foundation of that research required divine energy, and at present, they could obtain it in four ways.

The first was the False Divine Core of the Sköllvindr Armor.

The second was the Five Sacred Artifacts, built by Laplace using a Divine Core, of which they possessed only four.

The third was Hitogami’s Divine Core, which might or might not be obtained after his death.

The fourth was hunting demigods, such as Orsted and Kishirika, who possessed divine energy in their blood.

In that small test, covering only ten kilometers, not much was necessary. For that reason, the Armor alone would serve as a temporary conduit, contributing a fraction of energy.

The objective was to make the system of pillars absorb and transform the divine energy through assimilation, gradually unifying that energy with the atmosphere itself.

For a time, the pillars and the magical structure as a whole would function as substitutes for that world’s God.

While the process was still incomplete, they would be extremely necessary for sustaining the stabilized area, and their destruction would also result in the destruction of the stability created.

But the further the assimilation advanced, the less necessary they would become.

In the end, if the theory was correct, the world would become capable of sustaining itself on its own, generating its own divine energy without depending on an external god.

With one final confirmation from Aisha, Rygar began the test.

He infused his mana on a large scale, gradually activating the mechanisms and magical circuits of the pillars.

This was the moment of truth.

----

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