Chapter 311

Before the Godslayer was born.

[Looooord—]

It almost seemed as though a voice were calling from somewhere.

[Did you forget meeeee—?]

For thousands of years, Lord had deliberately ignored it.

***

Two thousand years before Adamas appeared before the gods.

‘Human?’

A lesser being roaming the surface caught Lord’s eye.

Back when he had been the one and only god, he had created countless mortals.

Yet he had no memory of creating a species called humans.

‘Did Crea make them?’

Among the countless lesser beings, humans possessed no particular physical advantages.

They were not numerous, nor were they especially fertile.

They survived by hunting creatures larger than themselves in groups and sharing the meat among everyone.

They were intelligent enough to fashion crude weapons from wood, but even that was nothing remarkable.

Like some other mortals, they possessed the potential to build a civilization, but for now, they first had to solve the problem of simple survival.

Lord asked the god who possessed the power of creation in his stead.

[Humans? I didn’t create that species.]

[Then were they born through interbreeding between different species?]

Lesser beings sometimes crossed the boundaries of species to mate and conceive life.

Depending on the degree of mixing, the hybrids born from such unions could easily become distinct enough to be considered an entirely new species.

[Maybe.]

[…….]

At Crea’s exhausted response, Lord stopped questioning her.

The duty bestowed upon her was to create life.

If he followed his heart, he would have told her to stop carrying out that duty for a while and rest.

‘But that would upset the balance.’

Lesser beings were constantly dying because of the gods’ violent behavior.

Had she not continued creating new species without pause, there was no telling how the Laws of the World might already have changed.

And no one understood that fact better than Crea herself.

[You don’t have to look at me like that, Lord.]

She said this was the life she had accepted the moment she was born from Creation.

[Spend that time stopping our brothers from acting however they please instead.]

Lord nodded beneath Crea’s trusting gaze.

[I will.]

He left Crea to immerse herself in creation and moved on.

‘The Laws of the World are holding me back.’

In the beginning, when he alone bore hundreds of Authorities, balance had not been necessary.

There had been nothing particularly unusual about the world he wandered alone.

The flow of the world began to change from the moment he started separating his Authorities.

He noticed the change only after splitting off those classified as high-ranking gods.

One day, Styx spoke.

[Something is trying to cross over from beyond the Boundary.]

The Anomaly was the only existence beyond the Boundary.

‘It shouldn’t be able to leave that place.’

Thousands of years had passed since he had met it.

‘Did something change in the meantime?’

Neither he nor the other gods could use Radiance yet.

[Can’t even the power of the Boundary stop it?]

[That’s the problem, Lord.]

Styx continued with an awkward tone.

[The Boundary is weakening.]

[……?]

[Degradation is occurring. Murus seems to be experiencing something similar.]

[…….]

Similar phenomena were occurring throughout the world.

Then who was weakening the gods’ divinity?

He wandered the world in search of the cause.

This time, he did not simply walk aimlessly as he had before.

Using the Authority of Space, one of the Authorities he had never separated, he searched every corner of the world.

One by one, he met the brothers who had scattered far and wide and were indulging in idle lives.

Perhaps a thousand years passed.

[How surprising.]

Lord realized that the world they inhabited was one enormous box.

It seemed to stretch endlessly, yet its edges ultimately met. It was not infinite.

And the passage out of the box led beyond the Boundary.

It was a truth known only to him.

He deliberately kept it from the other gods.

Instead, he used one of the few Authorities still remaining within him.

With the Authority of Space, he crossed the Boundary.

The place beyond was no longer dark.

WHOOSH—

It was bright, as though darkness had never existed there at all.

How long had he walked?

Before him stood the source of all light.

An existence radiating Radiance.

[Looooord.]

Just as it had thousands of years ago, the creature spoke in a drawn-out voice.

Even though it could speak normally whenever it wished.

[You still insist on using that irritating way of speaking, Anomaly.]

[You took too loooooong.]

[Many things happened.]

He did not voice the fact that he had not wanted to come here.

Nor that spending his time building his own paradise outside had been far more enjoyable.

He simply asked what he wanted to know.

[Where does this place lead?]

[Wheeeeere?]

[I already know enough to have come here. There is no need to deceive me.]

He told the Anomaly the truth he had discovered while traveling the world.

[Is there anyone else here besides you?]

[Nooooo.]

[Then where did you come from?]

[Don’t knooooow.]

[You are still impossible to converse with.]

At that moment, the Anomaly took his form once more.

[I told you not to take that appearance.]

It radiated Radiance in his likeness.

It was the form Lord himself had possessed in the beginning.

Judging by appearances alone, it was convincing enough to deceive even him.

Then.

[Law.]

All it had done was change its form, yet the Anomaly’s voice became far more composed.

It grew rational and intelligent, just as it had been when he first encountered it.

[The Laws of the World.]

The moment it said those words.

[…….]

Something flowed into Lord’s mind.

The Anomaly’s thoughts began to reach him.

[I see.]

He learned that the space inhabited by the Anomaly was called the Abyss, and that this place was the entrance to it.

[You are the keeper of this world.]

[My world.]

And then.

[Your world.]

The Anomaly’s chilling voice continued its explanation.

By setting foot in the Abyss, Lord had caused a new law to begin acting upon what had once been an untainted world.

And the cause was the Transcendents who failed to perform their duties.

‘Had I been any later, many more of my brothers would have had their divinity affected.’

[Is there a way to escape the laws?]

[No.]

According to the Anomaly, the Laws of the World were not something Lord could forcibly alter.

He and his brothers would have to adapt.

‘Until I learn how to change the laws, we have no choice but to obey them.’

He had obtained what he wanted, so he would have to pay a price.

It did not take long to learn what that price would be.

[What do you intend to take this time?]

[Curses.]

[…….]

The Authority of Curses was one he had deliberately left undivided.

That Authority alone possessed enough power to give birth to a high-ranking god, but if war ever broke out among the gods, it could place all of them in danger.

He did not want his brothers to fight until he was alone once again.

‘The Anomaly cannot leave this place.’

Even if it somehow found a way out, Styx was there to stop it.

In practice, Lord alone could come into contact with it because he possessed the Authority of Space.

[Take it.]

[Thank yoooou.]

Leaving the Anomaly’s drawn-out voice behind, Lord departed.

He did not pass through the Boundary itself, but crossed it using the Authority of Space.

Styx did not seem to notice.

Lord began visiting the scattered gods.

[This world has laws.]

They, the gods, could stand outside countless laws.

[But only while the world remains in balance.]

The method of maintaining that balance was simple.

[Perform your respective duties.]

The Authorities he had once contained within himself.

Death and Creation. Domination and Life.

Hundreds of other duties besides them had to remain in balance.

[We are immortal.]

He reinforced what had previously been little more than nominal duties.

[Duties, you say.]

[Lord. If those are your words.]

[Then I will obey.]

The gods had been born with immense power and regarded him as their parent, so they followed him.

But their minds had remained those of children.

Perhaps because, regardless of the thousands of years they had lived, they had never endured hardship.

They had never had the chance to experience the loneliness of being alone, nor the multitude of emotions born from it.

At most, amusement and pleasure born of boredom were the full extent of what they felt.

[Be careful about harming the lesser beings as well. You may upset the balance if you go too far.]

That was why, although they listened to his words, their actions failed to follow.

At first, Lord took no particular measures against them either.

His brothers mattered more to him than the lesser beings.

Those who possessed divinity were the only beings capable of easing his emptiness. If the deaths of lesser beings brought them joy and their joy eased that emptiness, then that was enough.

Fortunately, Crea’s acts of creation compensated for the gods’ whims.

Lord believed that even if the gods acted capriciously, Crea would simply create new life afterward, and all would remain well.

But before the balance truly collapsed, he had to discover a way to change the Laws of the World.

How much time passed while he thought this way?

“Humans are not toys.”

Everything changed with the birth of the Godslayer.

***

He was a mortal, yet he possessed the Presence of Transcendence.

Even with eyes that could no longer see the future, Lord could identify the source of the power radiating from him.

Mana Heart.

His presence surged with blue Mana, so immense that he would not have seemed out of place among Lord’s own brothers.

[…….]

A mere creation had attained a presence equal to its creators?

For the first time since encountering the Anomaly, displeasure surged within Lord.

He was not the only one who felt that way.

[A mere lesser being.]

A lower god who rushed at Adamas while boasting of his immortality was hunted down once again.

[The power he possesses is roughly that of a mid-ranking god. But given time, he may even reach the level of a high-ranking god.]

Cronis, who had looked into the future, spoke calmly.

[That is troublesome.]

The Godslayer had no place in the future Lord envisioned.

It would have been easy for Lord to step forward and dispose of him personally.

No matter how far Adamas had elevated mere techniques until they approached the level of Authorities, he was still only equivalent to a mid-ranking god.

Lord could erase him without difficulty with a single gesture.

However, there was a future even Cronis had failed to see.

‘The Laws of the World have begun to change.’

It was a change only Lord, the first existence, could perceive.

A future he could sense because a god created by splitting off one of his Authorities had been destroyed.

If he killed the human called Adamas now, the laws would begin to affect the gods’ divinity directly.

‘I must not kill him.’

Sealing him was the only option.

[Cronis. Gather our brothers.]

Adamas was sealed inside a blade forged personally by the God of Steel.

Together with the primordial gods, Lord created the Divine Realm.

It was a space free from the Laws of the World, where divinity could recover.

To distinguish it from the Divine Realm, the space inhabited by mortals was named the Middle Realm.

The blade was cast down into the Middle Realm as though to symbolize the Godslayer’s end.

With the Godslayer’s appearance, the duties imposed upon the gods grew stricter.

Gods who failed to carry out their duties suffered Degradation as a penalty.

[I’m tired of all of this now.]

Unable to accept the changing laws, some gods returned to the Divine Realm of their own accord.

More would do the same as time passed.

[Cronis, how much time remains?]

[Ten thousand years. After that, not a single god will remain in the Middle Realm.]

[…….]

Only after a storm swept through their paradise did Lord finally understand.

‘A divided god cannot be perfect.’

An imperfect god could not remain free from the Laws of the World forever.

Eventually, his brothers would be devoured by the mortals he had created.

And in the end, the Laws of the World would reach him as well.

[Will I choose coexistence with the lesser beings?]

Or mutual destruction alongside his brothers?

[…….]

He did not deliberate for long.

Lord crossed the Boundary once more.

[You came back?]

A space that belonged to neither the Divine Realm nor the Middle Realm, filled entirely with Radiance.

The Anomaly welcomed him.

And then.

[I will free you from this place.]