D.I.O

Leviathan was continuing to shrink, and its color was also getting redder. It looked like it was on fire.

[Hate it.]

It was Apocalypse, an existence that announced the end of everything in a world that had entered the end stage.

It was Satan.

“Crazy.”

[Why is Apocalypse….]

Tan. Leviathan. Satan.

It was the same being with different faces.

When a world fell into corruption, Tan became Leviathan and presented trials to select the few necessary to reconstruct that world’s civilization. Furthermore, if a world exceeded a certain level of corruption, Tan turned into Satan and brought on the Apocalypse, a complete destruction of that world’s civilization.

Of course, Tan wasn’t the one who decided this. He was just a faithful servant and instrument of the Creator; he operated according to the Rules.

Yet, right now, Tan was breaking away from his restraints and unleashing all his powers without authorization. This sort of scene had never occurred since the creation of the universe.

“What’s going on? Why can’t I understand anything that’s happening anymore?! Isn’t it more apt to ask how this is possible rather than why this situation developed?!”

As the power of Apocalypse manifested, dark clouds gathered and covered the gray sky. A puddle of water on the ground turned red and soon became a puddle of blood.

[Retreat.]

[I agree with that sentiment, but the gate isn’t opening!]

“Requesting support! Initiate an emergency recall! Currently, the situation- Hello? Support? Damn it! What’s wrong with our lines of communication?”

“Wow, I think we’re done for.”

Even the Union’s enemies were terrified by the unfolding scene. There was no other choice. Wasn’t this the worst possibility they could’ve ever imagined?

“Unbelievable. His spiritual powers were nearly extinguished earlier.”

Contrary to its diminishing size, Leviathan’s energy kept increasing. Moreover, the overall scale of its power wasn’t the only aspect that grew. The lofty and mighty divine status it exuded oppressed everyone on the battlefield.

“An Absolute God….”

Even the two Planet Gods watching from afar were surprised and caught off guard. Thus, they started using their authority, but it didn’t work properly. If they had acted a bit earlier, they might have been able to do something, but now, the situation had changed, and it was too late. The power of Satan, descending during the end times, was beyond even a Planet God’s abilities.

“Why can’t we return….”

“Ugh… ugh….”

The alien Irregular, Shen, and the high elf, Chan, found themselves in a dire situation, with the latter having spent thousands of years with Shen. The overwhelming momentum and aura that Satan emanated physically oppressed them. Meanwhile, Volcano wore a stiff expression, and he didn’t appear as though he was planning to protect them.

“Hmm. Since the oppressive force originates from a rank on an entirely different level, it doesn’t seem to matter if one is an Irregular or not,” Merlin commented after looking at Shen’s struggles.

“You little runt! Shut up!” Shen roared.

The magic power that exploded with his roar struck Merlin, which startled the latter as he blocked the attack.

“He’s able to attack me?”

Even the transcendents didn’t dare act hostile towards Merlin, but somehow, a being far below him apparently escaped the thoughts of the Creator God. Surprised, Merlin opened his Rule Book.

By just thinking about what he was searching for, the pertinent Rule and its content popped up.

[You possess authority over those who are qualified.]

“Ah, this….”

With Merlin’s quick wit, he roughly grasped the situation. It seemed that his [Authority] only applied to transcendents or higher.

‘Why are there such restrictions? If someone hasn’t reached the transcendent realm, is it hard for Him to recognize that being’s existence? Is it like an extra in a movie or a fleeting side character in a novel?’

Plop!

As Merlin grumbled to himself, Shen and Chan finally collapsed. They couldn’t overcome the pressure emanating from Satan, who was wielding the powers of an Absolute God.

“What’s happening?” Eunhye asked.

“No, before that, what is that GM title? To think that an ID could appear above one’s head in real life….” Miho followed up.

The surviving party members started to gather around Merlin. Eunhye’s armor was ripped beyond recognition, and her entire body was covered in scars, but compared to the others, she was in relatively good condition. As for Miho, she had mainly faced mental attacks, so she didn’t have any visible injuries. On the other hand, as the weakest amongst the three, Leaf’s entire body was scorched and singed, as she mainly fought Volcano.

Additionally…

Whoosh.

There was Lancelot, who was protecting the entire party.

“Man…” Lancelot exasperatedly stated.

Merlin’s face subtly changed. Lancelot looked different from the other transcendents; it appeared as if he had another image superimposed on him.

Akin to a still life portrait….

“… I feel like I’m going to die.”

After a sharp crackling sound, Merlin was able to see Lancelot clearly. Now fully in Merlin’s field of vision, Dongsoo had a tense expression.

“Are you okay?” Cruze asked Dongsoo.

“I’m fine. I’m okay, so don’t get so emotional. Why are you pretending to be a cute and caring little sister all of a sudden?”

“W-what!? That’s not what I was doing!?”

With her face heating up and turning scarlet red from embarrassment, Cruze screamed, but Lancelot- no, Dongsoo didn’t respond. At this point, Dongsoo no longer needed to manifest to access his powers. Regardless, his lack of reaction was because Satan had almost finished his transformation, and he exuded a nearly unbearable amount of pressure.

“The oppressive force is almost too much to handle. It’s not something physical, either… it’s just from his momentum, but I feel so exhausted.”

Even when the Union’s transcendent enemies felt fear, the party was relatively safe because Dongsoo exerted his power of destruction to counteract and negate Satan’s momentum.

However, if the pressure alone was already this immense, how could anyone face an actual attack from such a being? Lancelot was almost invulnerable, so he’d somehow survive, but that didn’t mean he could overcome the opponent.

“That thing is on a whole different level.”

“Eh, don’t worry. There’s no need to be afraid.”

Merlin raised his right hand as a dumbfounded look came across Dongsoo’s face.

“That thing is just…”

Merlin closed his eyes.

“… a hotheaded mess.”

Originally, Merlin’s No Living World should’ve only allowed him to develop the first and second planets. Yet, it had evolved into an unreasonable amplification system of six planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. This allowed him to amplify his internal energy by two to the 6th power or 64 times the original input amount. If anyone who studied spiritual power heard of this, they would have scoffed and considered such a concept impossible. In other words, no one would believe that this amplification was attainable.

However, Merlin, a non-transcendent, had defeated the transcendent Igniz in one blow, proving the power of his amplified attacks.

Unsurprisingly, there were limits. While No Living World had no particular restriction, Merlin’s physical body conducted the amplification internally and could only withstand so much. In DIO, with his operator authority, he could place the non-destructive settings on himself. In this way, he escaped any negative consequences, but he couldn’t do that in real life.

Even so…

Whoosh!

A hot wind blew. A tremendous amount of energy, an amount so large that it was hard to even quantify, boiled and broiled inside him.

To be sure, Merlin didn’t consume Muspelheim’s core. How could this occur when Muspelheim’s core possessed a spiritual existence that exceeded Merlin’s own level? If he attempted such a foolish thing, far from subjugating and absorbing Muspelheim’s core, Merlin would be consumed and incinerated by its flames.

Therefore, instead of absorbing Muspelheim’s core, Merlin decided to gather thousands of cores together and birth a single being. It was a concept that he had never considered before, but the Hero’s Fate bestowed upon him by the Planet God’s Gaia Blessing gave him the inspiration to make it feasible.

‘This… it would be difficult to call this an exceptional creation…. It’s challenging to imagine that anyone else could make this after me.’

Whoosh!

Merlin’s Jeweled Magic Eye and Forbidden Eye emitted brilliant red and gold lights, respectively. There was still a limit to the amount of energy he could contain in his body, but all his spiritual powers were evolving like crazy from the reverberation of the enormous power he held within him.

Golden Pill Immortal Technique.

Fantasy Skill.

The compression stage was over. Hundreds of thousands of Muspelheim’s cores were combined together to form one existence.

Eternal Sun.

With Eternal Sun in his No Living World, Merlin awakened the inner core of the Golden Pill Immortal Technique in his dantian. The internal energy Merlin could use had increased to a level incomparable to any time before. Eternal Sun’s tremendous bundle of internal energy exceeded ten cycles, and just dealing with the power emanating from it was a considerable challenge.

Merlin inputted all that internal energy into his No Living World planets.

Whoosh!

A huge flame roared in Merlin’s inner world as Eternal Sun started the amplification process. Undoubtedly, Merlin was lucky that Muspelheim and its power of flame matched the image of what he wanted to create, the Eternal Sun. One could say that this was a fortuitous coincidence. If he were working with a different attribute power, it would’ve been difficult to complete the image of the sun.

Woong!

The internal energy moved from Eternal Sun to Mercury. In the past, Merlin had to bear the entire burden of this amplification, but now, the situation was different. This was because Eternal Energy was overwhelmingly more powerful than all his planets combined, so its strong gravitational pull controlled the flow of the amplifying internal energy. Thus, this allowed Merlin to maintain stability in his No Living World system.

As a result, the ten cycles of internal energy turned into 20 after passing through Mercury. Then, as it passed through Venus, Earth, and Mars, it became 40, 80, and 160 cycles.

[According to our master’s wishes…]

[Per master’s order…]

“Oh, they can speak?”

Merlin made a surprised expression after hearing his two spirits, Younghwi and Shining, react. Obviously, this wasn’t an important issue. The critical factor was that the spirits had properly transformed and were functioning as Jupiter and Saturn.

Woong!

The internal energy of 160 cycles soon turned into 320 after passing through Jupiter.

And then, after going through Saturn, the total reached 640 cycles.

“This is crazy.”

[Ah, ah… what the hell is this….]

[Impossible. Impossible. Impossible….]

Everyone was overwhelmed as they sensed a chaotically increasing bundle of energy radiating from Merlin. The scale of this energy didn’t seem to make sense for something that would be outputted in one blow.

Volcano had transcended as an internal energy user, and he spoke with a bewildered expression.

“I’m going to lose my mind. My greatest output is only 1,000 years of internal energy….”

Six hundred and forty cycles…

Thirty-eight thousand and four hundred years of internal energy…

Almost 40,000 years of internal energy…. At this point in time, the spiritual power of internal energy had a long and rich history in the universe, as countless years had passed since its founding. Yet, no one had ever dealt with such a considerable amount of internal energy before. No one.

Nevertheless, what did it matter if no one had dealt with such a large amount before?

“Ack!”

[Error. Shock. Emergency.]

[Oh… my god.]

Groans and screams erupted all over the battlefield. Smoke billowed from M-4, which was floating in the air, and it soon found itself rolling on the ground. Despite protecting himself with strong qi, even Volcano collapsed with a groan. Furthermore, Sadness and Happiness plopped down and started vomiting blood.

All of this... was just from the internal energy exuding from Merlin.

[… So absurd.]

A calm voice rang out. Was it due to shock? The madness and anger audible just moments ago were completely absent.

[To think that a mere mortal martial artist could pierce through the Creator’s authority.]

Satan lowered his head and looked down at his chest. Even though he had compressed his enormous body, he was still hundreds of meters tall. When he looked down, he saw a colossal palm mark engraved on his chest. And soon…

Crack!

A massive crack formed on Satan’s back, who had spread his red wings wide.

Rumble.

As the dimensional field twisted and cracked behind Satan, one could faintly make out a different world beyond it. Users could typically materialize mana from Level 10, and the mana in Merlin’s attack had seemingly grown endlessly before it landed on Satan. The aftershocks of the blow started to distort and tear apart the current dimension. If the strike had targeted the ground, it probably would have destroyed the entire planet.

[How… did you…]

Satan looked at Merlin with a questioning gaze. There was no sense of anger or hatred in his voice, just confusion.

[Why… why me…]

Whoosh!

Satan’s chest hollowed out and began to suck in everything around him. Merlin was quite familiar with this kind of energy.

“Arthur.”

Ascalon, embedded in Satan’s heart, parasitically utilized his organ as a fuel source, which caused Satan’s body, soul, and divinity to slowly unravel. So, when Satan stepped across a threshold with Ascalon still stuck in his chest, as Satan was [engraved] in the world, he couldn’t stop the inevitable.

[Why are you looking at me like that….]

The energy that was exuded faded. And then, Satan’s body crumpled before disappearing.

Pss…

The Beast of the Apocalypse, which existed since the beginning of the universe, was no more.

“…”

Merlin silently looked at the spot where Satan had disappeared. He didn’t feel much pleasure from this victory. Actually, Merlin felt a sense of loss and emptiness.

‘He didn’t know that he was just an existence residing in the [outside].’

Satan also must’ve had the power of an Absolute God, but his role was as a tool, a kind of system application that gave civilizations trials and announced their end… an existence that always caused resentment and played the role of something that needed to be defeated.

“It’s a bit pitiful that, as such a powerful being, his final conclusion was based on species superiority.”

Merlin sighed; his gaze had not moved. Ascalon had merged with Satan’s soul to bring about this end, and it was nowhere to be seen.

‘I don’t know if they disappeared together or if they fell into a twisted dimension….’

Rumble….

As the dark clouds scattered overhead, the gray world was restored. The demons and demonic Beasts originally filling the world were swept away by the aftermath of the prolonged battle.

“Ah, I thought I was going to die.”

Miho had a tired expression as she approached Merlin. Arc was already standing on Merlin’s right, and Leaf watched them for a while before sighing and plopping on the ground.

[I guess you’ve become a being who’s beyond my reach now.]

Jiang Ziya had been assisting in the battle through Leaf, and he smiled at Merlin before disappearing. Even though his existence and participation were so unexpected that it threw the entire Celesti world into a state of emergency, Jiang Ziya had a rather refreshing look on his face as he left.

“Yongno.”

Merlin turned his head when he heard Eunhye.

Eunhye soon asked, “Is it all over?”

“Is it over…”

Merlin’s expression darkened. Of course, the situation on Earth was over. He’d probably rapidly pass the lower rank and rise to the level of intermediate-rank transcendence. Who would dare come to a planet where a near-immortal, Dongsoo, and a being empowered by the Creator God’s authority, Merlin, were together?

However…

‘Things are changing.’

Four hundred years ago, when [He] retrieved his other side Asura, the entire universe erupted into chaos and went through a tumultuous war because the conflict and resentment that had been forcibly suppressed by Asura’s oppression had exploded outward.

The only reason the universe was still safe even after that giant, ferocious war was because the beings who moved according to the Creator’s Rule maintained the minimum line for survival.

But if the Rules were being loosely interpreted and followed right now…

‘Perhaps there’ll be Planet Gods who’ll want to reign as gods of their own planet. No, more importantly, the trend and movement of the Nether World pose a greater issue.’

Merlin shook his head after feeling his thoughts grow grimmer and more abstract.

“This is just the beginning.”

As he spoke in a low voice, the world shook.

One war was coming to an end.