Chapter 138

Chapter 138 Even within the realm of perfection, being flawless did not mean every choice was correct. A single wrong decision could offer an opening to an opponent who made the right choice.

This was one such moment.

Tyr had assumed Demian would block with his left arm, but a new attack had come from the direction he hadn’t expected, catching him off guard.

—Hmm...

In terms of combat experience, even the Cardenas family’s Commanders of the Seven Great Orders couldn’t surpass Tyr, the God of War.

Tyr quickly grasped the situation with his green eyes. Instead of Demian’s right arm, which should have been immobilized by the decree, it was his left arm that hung limp. Various conceptual realms could have caused this.

—You transferred the effect of my decree? Or did you switch your right and left arms? Either way, it’s a rare ability.

Leonard thought back to Demian’s technique, agreeing with Tyr's assessment.

The arm moving in the mirror appears opposite to the real one. I remember that some used this cognitive error to treat phantom limb pain from amputations.

For Demian, who controlled the conceptual realm of mirrors, reversing the perceived cognitive error was an easy task. He had managed to catch Tyr off guard by treating his right arm as his left.

However...

The fact remains that Tyr’s decree renders one arm useless.

Though Demian could alternate between his right and left arms by reversing the concepts of left and right, he still wasn’t able to use both arms simultaneously, which significantly reduced his combat power.

“I’m not about to reveal my trick just because I got a scratch on your face. Here I come.”

With a casual demeanor, Demian raised his sword.

—Mmm...

As Demian advanced, Tyr raised his sword. However, just as their swords were about to clash, Demian’s figure suddenly became blurry.

Mirror Blade.

The technique Demian had perfected through his experience as the White Dragon Commander shone brightly.

—Oooh?

Demian multiplied with each step, creating thirty-one clones within five steps. They all slashed at Tyr from various directions, making it impossible to tell which was real and which was an illusion. Not even Leonard, observing with his Dragon Eyes, could tell them apart.

The illusions and reality keep shifting... This isn’t a technique where the real and fake are predetermined!

The thirty-two Demians were both real and fake, capable of alternating between the two states. This technique, close to the speed of a heartbeat, allowed Demian to attack as a solid entity and then turn into an illusion to evade incoming strikes. The way to counter this was deceptively simple yet extremely difficult.

—Truly annoying, o’ warrior!

Despite saying that, Tyr couldn’t hide his smile. He slashed through four clones and kicked another to pieces, but still took several hits.

The Void Deity’s five-meter-tall stature, although possessing enhanced physical abilities, had more blind spots against a smaller, swift opponent like Demian. When he blocked a sword from behind, a horizontal slash from below deeply cut his calf, spilling golden blood.

“Being big isn’t always an advantage.”

—Among the Aesir pantheon, I, Tyr, am considered small!

Tyr joked as he recognized his disadvantage. He stopped fighting with his sword and instead added another decree to the previous one that forbade the use of right arms.

—I declare this now. In this land where the name of a god is not forgotten. All beings, regardless of their status, are forbidden to attack from direction other than the front.

The effect of the decree was immediate. The sword aimed from behind froze in the air, and those slashing from below or the side broke off. The decree forced a frontal confrontation, neutralizing most of Demian’s clones.

Tyr whirled his one-handed sword like a storm.

“Ugh!”

Demian, along with his remaining clones, retreated, shaking from the pain in his hand. Even as a Void Deity, Tyr’s strength was incomparable to a human’s.

—Hmm, you are losing a lot of blood.

Tyr wasn’t in perfect condition either. Although he had regained the upper hand through his decree, he had received numerous cuts in those few seconds, and divine blood was flowing from multiple wounds.

Shallow injuries would not have been concerning during the old era, but now, relying entirely on the Divine Territory, such wounds were dangerous. Tyr could bleed to death like a mortal.

Any warrior who had fought life-or-death battles knew that there were times when they had to gamble with their life. Sometimes, this kind of gamble that made the difference between life and death was unavoidable.

What seemed like a bad move could become a lifesaving one, while the seemingly best move could lead to a deadly trap. Now was time to make the wager. Sёarch* The NovelFire.net* website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

Tyr, confident, flipped his coin.

—I declare this. In this land where the name of a god is not forgotten, regardless of their status, I forbid outsiders from overpowering the master of this land.

Having already issued two decrees, Tyr’s presence diminished significantly with this third, the decree of no precedence. Even within the Divine Territory, Tyr couldn’t use his authority infinitely. The cost of imposing these decrees on a Demigod Tier knight like Demian and a near-Demigod Tier warrior like Leonard was immense. Now, the Void Deity could no longer enforce laws on both of them simultaneously.

Nevertheless, this no precedence decree was exceptionally powerful.

Boom—!

Forced to always act half a beat slower than Tyr, Demian couldn’t fully absorb the impact and was pushed back, his remaining clones shattered long ago. Unable to move faster than the Void Deity, he had no choice but to fight by reacting to his adversary’s moves.

Demian’s arm was already chained and was forced to fight a frontal battle. And now, he couldn't depend on timing to gain the upper hand. The combined effects of the decrees had turned the tide of the battle against him.

What an incredibly troublesome ability. If I were in Demian’s shoes, how would I counter something that could bind my limbs and control my actions?

Neither the Northern God Style nor the Southern God Style had a solution for that authority. Leonard needed to find an answer within the still incomplete Eastern God Style or Western God Style.

His eyes instinctively followed Demian. In the realm of martial arts, one often understood their shortcomings by learning from those more skilled. Demian did not disappoint in this regard.

“You’re going all out, huh? Using decrees of this level must deplete almost all of your divinity, right?”

—To defeat you, this much is necessary.

“Well, your judgment wasn’t bad...But if that’s your best, it’s far from enough!” Demian exclaimed with a grin.

Following the rule of no precedence, Demian, who could only act after Tyr did, flipped his coin.

Mirror Blade

Demian raised his sword vertically with one hand, clearly intending to deliver a downward slash. It seemed too simple to call it a finishing move, but Tyr and Leonard realized how frightening Demian’s swing truly was, both freezing in place. They couldn’t help it.

No way...?!

Both the Dragon Eye bearer and the god witnessed something they shouldn’t have, forced to confront a terror they could have avoided. They saw an infinite array of swords; just like mirrors reflecting each other endlessly, Demian’s sword had transformed into something more.

The principle behind the technique was simple, allowing Leonard to immediately grasp its frightening essence.

Demian, a Demigod Tier swordsman, was combining the force of a thousand full-power strikes into a single blow. Leonard might be able to destroy a small mountain by swinging his sword a hundred times, and as such, he could barely even imagine the devastation that Demian could inflict with a thousand strikes.

Tyr’s face turned pale as he shouted urgently.

—I-I declare...! In this land where the name of a god is not forgotten, I forbid anyone to inflict any kind of injury regardless of their rank or status—!

“It’s useless.”

Perhaps it would have been different if Tyr had tried to prevent Demian from unleashing his technique in the first place, but now it was too late.

Holding an attack capable of splitting a mountain, Demian calmly declared the god’s demise, “Return to nothingness, relic of the old era.”

The ultimate strike created by the Mirror Blade fell.

Parallel Infinite Fatal Strike

One of Thousand

Tyr desperately tried to retreat, but Demian wasn’t going to allow it. His technique not only amplified the attack’s power by a thousand-fold, but it also extended its range by the same extent. Unless time itself stopped, escaping this attack was impossible.

A force capable of splitting even Mount Tai struck Tyr’s head faster than lightning.

CLANG—!

Tyr’s reflexive attempt to block the strike resulted in his sword breaking in two. It was only natural for the clash to be one-sided. After all, Tyr had tried to block the force of a thousand strikes with one blade.

—...Impressive, warrior. That’s more frightening than Frey’s attacks.

Tyr’s body had been perfectly sliced from crown to crotch, the Void Deity’s presence fading quickly. Divine blood streamed from his bisected form.

“Tch, even at maximum power, I still can’t kill or make you disappear.” Demian sheathed his sword.

One of Thousand was among his strongest techniques in terms of destructive power, but it had no conceptual weight against immortality. As such, it wouldn’t have been effective against a demon capable of regenerating from a scrap of flesh.

Fortunately, Tyr didn’t possess such regeneration abilities.

—Haha, it’s an innate ability. I’d love to willingly accept my defeat and die, but it’s not that simple.

Accepting his defeat, the giant Tyr slumped onto his throne. It looked like his body would collapse if he relaxed even for a second. Without the unique immortality of a god, he would have died instantly. The Void Deity would need more than a century to recover from this kind of damage, but Demian had no intention of letting it end there.

Demian scaled the steps that were too large for a human only with a few leaps. Standing before Tyr, he asked, “Any last words?”

Realizing this was the end, Tyr closed his eyes for a moment, then made a response.

—I already perished at the end of Ragnarok. What you face now is merely a remnant. Warrior, claim your right as the victor.

Demian’s expression became unusually solemn as he touched Tyr. “If only all of your kind were as reasonable.”

As Demian made contact, Tyr’s body grew translucent and began to fade. Having exhausted most of his divinity after declaring three decrees, he had no strength left to resist Demian’s reversal. Immortality could forcibly retain life but it couldn’t anchor existence itself. Being critically injured, Tyr could not prevent himself from becoming nothing.

—I wish you luck, warrior.

With a final farewell, Tyr disappeared completely.

“Phew, I used more power than expected,” Demian grumbled as he descended from the Divine Throne. What was supposed to be a lower-rank Void Deity turned out to be mid-rank or higher, and using his ultimate technique had taken a toll on him.

However, his eyes soon gleamed with interest as he spotted Leonard at a distance from the battlefield.

“Oh? Is this for real?”

Around Leonard, who was sitting in a lotus position, a significant amount of mana was swirling—a sign of enlightenment.