NOVEL WEB Chapter 79: Jibril: That's It?
Faced with Jibril's bait, the innocent Madoka and Rin immediately took the hook.
Madoka Kaname: It's the Dimensional Chat Group! A place where everyone from different worlds can chat!
Rin Tohsaka: And not just that! The chat group has a shop function. If you have enough points, you can buy some really powerful items!
Rin Tohsaka: Although everyone's powers can be useful, Lord Su Mo's items are the top recommendation here.
Madoka Kaname: That's right. If it's from Lord Su Mo, it's guaranteed to be top-quality.
Hearing their enthusiastic explanations, Jibril immediately found the shop interface and saw a dazzling array of items.
At first, she hadn't quite trusted their words, thinking they might be shills for this "Su Mo" person. But after looking through the shop, she immediately understood that their recommendation was probably sound.
The vast majority of the most-contributed and highest-priced items in the shop were provided by Su Mo. In such a monopolistic environment, there was no competition to speak of.
More importantly, although she didn't understand much about the items, she could glean a few things from their names.
Divinity Fusion Technique… Fundamentals of Mythological Art Construction… Authority Deconstruction Guide…
All of these items were related to the power of gods!
In Jibril's world, the gods were the undisputed strongest race. Although the term "Old Deus" didn't exist yet, their power was still unquestionable. Even excluding the world's strongest, Artosh, the weakest of the gods was still leagues beyond a single Flügel.
Aside from the Dragonia, almost no race was worthy of being compared to the gods.
Based on this impression, a being who could research the power of gods was naturally on a level beyond imagination.
Even though the current Jibril had yet to grasp the truth that knowledge is power, her inherent respect for the gods forced her to pay attention to this Su Mo, who could analyze their abilities.
To think I'd find a power related to, and even surpassing, the gods so quickly!
Jibril's gaze grew more fervent as she scrolled through the item descriptions.
"Guhehehe~ If these powers are real, doesn't that mean I can use these items to gain the power to slay a god?"
"If that's the case, won't Azriel come and lick my feet? Even Senior Raphael will have to look up to me!"
The Flügel were the only race besides the gods themselves who had achieved the miracle of slaying a god. However, to accomplish this feat, they had lost nearly two full squads, paying an enormous price.
Most of the elite, first-generation Flügel had died, and even Raphael had sacrificed half her wings just to survive.
But even with such a cost, slaying a god remained the Flügel's most prized medal of honor.
And now, Jibril had stumbled upon an opportunity to analyze the power of the gods.
If she could master this power and achieve the feat of slaying a god all by herself…
If I do that, then Lord Artosh won't have to keep wearing that suicidal expression all the time!
Tilting her head, a motivated Jibril immediately followed up with more questions.
Jibril: Lord Su Mo? I see his name. He seems to be a group member. Excuse me, is this Lord very powerful?
Seeing her polite demeanor, even Kanae was momentarily fooled.
Kanae Kocho: Yes! Lord Su Mo is the strongest person in our group.
Rin Tohsaka: That's right. Lord Su Mo's power needs no explanation.
Rin Tohsaka: Actually, you're in luck. You've arrived right on time. Do you see the live stream? Lord Su Mo is fighting a god right now. This is a battle of mythological proportions!
Jibril's tone was so perfectly that of a newbie that no one suspected a thing. They all subconsciously assumed she was just an ordinary person.
Jibril: A battle of gods!
Jibril: Wonderful! Thank you, seniors! This is exactly what I wanted to see!
Hearing Rin's words, Jibril grew excited. To think she could witness a battle on the level of the gods right after joining the group.
In her world, aside from her own creator god, the gods were incredibly rare. Jibril hadn't even been created when Azriel and Raphael led the Flügel to slay a god, so she had missed that grand spectacle. To this day, she had never seen a god other than Artosh, let alone a battle between them.
Rin Tohsaka: You're welcome. To be honest, we haven't seen it many times either.
Rin Tohsaka: Ah! It's starting!
Seeing movement in the live stream, the group stopped talking and focused their attention on the screen.
---||---
On the island of Sardinia, in the Godslayer world.
The silver-haired loli, who looked no older than twelve or thirteen, raised the Gorgoneion high and began to chant the words of the triple goddess.
"I sing, sing the paean of the triple goddess. Uniting sky, earth, and darkness is the cycle of wisdom."
"I sing, sing the song of the debased goddess. A queen deemed a forbidden serpent—this is the queen's lament."
"I sing, sing the poem of the goddess torn in body and soul. Violated by a noble father—this is the mother's humiliation. My name is Athena, daughter of Zeus, guardian of Athens, the eternal virgin."
"In the past, I was the Earth Mother who birthed all things! In the past, I was the Lord of the Underworld who ruled the darkness! In the past, I was the Queen of Wisdom who knew the heavens and scattered knowledge! I swear, Athena shall return to the primordial Athena!"
Through her chant, the three Divinities of Medusa, Metis, and Athena merged perfectly, restoring her to her ancient state—the state she was in before being defeated and diminished by the Heroic Gods of Steel.
As the ancient Earth Mother Goddess returned to her full power, the entire island of Sardinia and the nearby sea began to tremble.
The sky and earth warped. Though it was daytime, an intangible night enveloped the entire island.
The triple Athena was a goddess of wisdom, of victory, of monsters, of the earth, and of the underworld. In her current state, her power surpassed that of a typical God-King. Even among the Heretic Gods, she was in the upper echelon.
If she wished it, she could sink the island beneath her feet into the sea at any moment.
Watching this scene unfold, Su Mo felt not a single ripple in his heart.
So even the triple Athena can only do this much with the divine power of a Heretic God.
Athena's Authorities were numerous and powerful, and her current state was among the strongest. Yet even so, her power was only slightly above that of a first-rate Heretic God; she hadn't achieved a qualitative leap.
The key problem was energy.
As stated before, the Authorities of the gods in the Godslayer world were well-developed and quite effective. However, the scale of a Heretic God's divine power and a Godslayer's magical energy limited the full expression of those Authorities.
One only had to look at the Last King to know that with enough energy, any Heretic God could be elevated to the Tier 4 Continent-Sinking level. The more exceptional among them could become top-tier even at that level, capable of scouring the surface of the planet.
In fact, with a sufficient energy supply, the power of a Divinity could even support them to a Star-Busting level.
Unfortunately, most Godslayers and Heretic Gods lacked access to a massive supply of energy, so their output was limited.
To others, Godslayers and Heretic Gods might seem to wield their power extravagantly, as if they had energy to waste. But in Su Mo's eyes, their skills were greater than their power reserves, which made them a bit stingy with their magical energy in battle.
No Heretic God fought without calculating the consumption of their divine power, and that fact alone was proof of their generally insufficient energy supply.
That was why an item like the Arcane Holy Grail was so important in this world.
With my current strength, even without using Mythical Thaumaturgy, just by borrowing the magical energy from the Grail, I could easily reach the Tier 4 Continent-Sinking level, couldn't I? Su Mo estimated internally.
If he included his Mythical Thaumaturgy, or even went all out, using the Grail could allow him to scour the planet's surface, perhaps even touch the edge of Star-Busting power.
But even if he could, there was no need.
Getting stronger wasn't about climbing a ranked ladder, and there were currently no enemies that required him to reach a higher tier. What Su Mo pursued was not just an increase in combat power, but a grasp of the essence of power—an essential improvement.
Compared to the foolish method of getting stronger just by having more energy, his goal was more difficult, but the rewards would be far greater.
Therefore…
"Are you ready?" Su Mo asked calmly, facing the triple Athena.
"To be so composed at a time like this… should I call you arrogant, or say you're underestimating me?"
Athena, who had grown from a twelve-year-old loli to a sixteen-year-old young woman, did not get angry at Su Mo's attitude. However, the divine power within her began to surge.
No more words were needed. As they had agreed, the outcome of their battle would do the talking.
"Go, my fangs! Crush the Rakshasa King before you into pulp!"
At Athena's words, nine massive hydras, each dozens of meters long, erupted from the earth behind her, each one possessing the might of a dragon.
At the same time, the ground quaked and split open, and from the chasms crawled hundreds of black pythons over ten meters long, each one nearing the power of a divine beast.
The earth tore asunder, the sky changed color, and countless divine beasts filled the battlefield. The nine colossal hydras stood like nine towering mountains, capable of destroying peaks with ease.
The aura of the underworld enveloped everything, and the entire island shook under the god's might, on the verge of collapse.
Seeing this mythological scene once again, the members of the chat group couldn't help but express their awe.
Rin Tohsaka: The power of a god is always so shocking, no matter how many times you see it.
Kanae Kocho: It is. Even the weakest of those divine beasts could clear my entire world.
Erica Blandelli: What does the newcomer think?
After their initial awe, the group grew curious about the newcomer's reaction. They remembered how they had been stunned speechless the first time they witnessed a mythological battlefield.
If Su Mo hadn't been so ridiculously overpowered, they wouldn't have even known how to react.
The scene Athena had created, while perhaps less grand in scale than the God-King Melqart's battle, was certainly no less dangerous. The nine hydras exerted a pressure like that of a collapsing mountain.
For an ordinary person from an ordinary world, it would be enough to frighten them into a stupor.
Just as they expected, after seeing the battle scene, the newcomer was silent for over ten seconds before finally speaking.
Jibril: This is a god-level battle?
Rin Tohsaka: That's right. Isn't it shocking?
Kanae Kocho: It's a bit far removed from us ordinary people, but it's nice to watch as if it were a myth. Don't feel too pressured.
Madoka Kaname: Mmm. As long as we keep checking in and training, we'll all get stronger eventually.
From the newcomer's tone, they could sense her existential crisis and immediately offered words of comfort.
They never expected that her thoughts were completely different from theirs.
Jibril: No, you misunderstand. That's not what I mean.
Jibril: What I mean is, this so-called mythological-level battle…
Jibril: That's it?!
The moment she said it, the entire chat group fell silent.