Chapter 35: A child, captured

The voice of a divine being is not something meant to be tolerated by mere mortals.

However strong, trained, or developed an individual may be, they are never strong enough to face a divine being without themselves possessing transcendental powers.

"Ugh..."

There was a protective barrier around them which Barn had deployed just in time to lessen the effects of the ’true voice’ of the divinity.

The effects of the barrier protected them for the time being, but they knew this would not be a fair fight by any means.

They were mortals and the one they were facing, even as only a fragment, was a god.

[ "Oh? runeTech? Are you those so-called explorers? Helldivers who found gold of the fallen civilization?" ]

They could understand what the voice was saying because it was using the true voice, something that used a lot more power than the divine being was letting out.

They were using much of their power just to scare them off. If it was someone who had no knowledge of the true powers of the divine beings, then they would have backed off from this alone.

At the very least, the voice would have made them unconscious by now.

But the party knew of the wicked tricks of these divine ’gods’.

Once the barrier was deployed, the divine being already understood the voice alone would be of no use to them.

So, they called up each and every remaining monster from the area in this place.

Even if they had found the boy as well as this place, if they don’t make out of this place, then there would be no problem.

At the end of the day, they were only a handful of mortals, and the divine being knew well how to toy with them.

-Oooooooooong!

"Be careful. They will use an illusion-." Andrew was just about to warn them when he heard the certain sound which spread across them.

He wasn’t too late.

Still, before he could finish his words, he found himself trapped inside a red fog, something that they had anticipated when they figured out the divine’s presence.

They also shifted their plans at that time.

< "Status?" >

While the king and the red mage were on their own right now, the rest of them were connected through their mind link.

They were seeing strange illusions inside of the fog, things that they wanted, things that they had longed for, things that they had achieved and then lost, things that they knew they will never have, and things that they wished to never possess in their lifetime.

The illusions were a nightmare, but they had fought against worse nightmares.

< "I’ll need two minutes to disable this." >

Spot was already working to decipher the barrier illusion while Barn was setting up different items inside the fog, having memorised the entire structure of this place already.

She knew the divine being wasn’t paying attention to them anymore.

They are arrogant as always. They think them weak, feeble, unworthy of their attention.

The only reason they were so interested in the prince was because of this special mind and body. They had no use of the boy himself.

All they wanted was to turn him into a vessel they can use to excerpt their powers onto the world. And, by this logic alone, it was certain that they weren’t one of the divines associated with the pantheon.

If that were the case, they would not have come to harm the boy who was protected under the household gods of Mayn.

It would be the same as declaring war on a different divinity. But, what happens if they make the prince their vessel?

The gods won’t be able to do anything. They would be helpless. And if they were to come at them for any bad intentions, then they would have to hurt the future of the Mayn kingdom.

They could not afford something like this. For them, it would be a better choice to let him go.

But then again, there’s no way the divinities would leave this one if they failed after coming this far.

[ "If we can’t have him, none shall!" ]

A thunderous voice, laughter perhaps, filled the entire place.

The monsters had surrounded them, they were still trapped inside the illusions, and now that they had discovered them, all they needed to do was to erase all traces of them and take the boy far away from here.

It’d take quite some time to recover the energy and powers they have lost, so they’ll have to rest for a while.

At least, that’s what they wanted to do.

-Zaaaa...!

There was a strange reaction from the red fog, followed by a stranger sound of glass shattering.

-Crack.

As they watched with wider eyes than ever before, they saw their power, not magic, not a spell, but the power of a divine being shattering right before their eyes.

Furthermore, when the fog cleared up, they were seeing something worse. There were several ’hearts’ scattered around the ground.

Colorful orbs of power filled with different kinds of energy set in a certain formation that the divine being recognised at a single glance.

"It’s a bad day for you, lowGod."

Andrew summoned his red dagger as he walked forward, his eyes looking at not one or two, but each and every one of the eyes present around him at once.

It scared the ’God’.

They could not understand what he was doing or how he was doing it. But the way the spiritual hearts were placed in the shape of the Tree of Life signaled something deeper.

Something the presence of the Red artifact confirmed.

[ "You... you’re a..." ]

Fear.

There was fear in the voice of a divine being. Fear induced by a mortal, a mere mortal.

"You cannot have that child."

The red eyes behind his reaping mask started glowing, this time, with a distinct orange light.

The third magic circle on the red dagger was shaped like a triangle rune, not a demonic or holy spell, but something that went beyond that.

It was one of the three core spells of the dagger along with the red spell at the top and the blue spell on the hilt.

It was a power meant to be used specifically against beings such as the one they were facing right now, a power that the creators of the weapon intended to use against the demons, but at the end, this power became a death sentence to the divine themselves.

"Death knocks on your door today."

The red scythe glowed orange as it took the shape of a moonCurved scythe.

"And its name isn’t divine."

The God was going to die today.