Chapter 220: Divine Battle (Part Seven)
Changes?
What changes…
After hearing the dancer’s words, I momentarily froze, my first reaction was to raise a hand, lower my head, and look at my own palms and arms.
What I saw were filthy hands, caked with bl**d, and on my arms, bright red lines like veins flickered and coiled, breathing life from my forearms up to my biceps, spreading to my shoulders exposed by tattered clothes, with the stomach, calves, and ankles faintly glowing with scarlet light.
Unlike before, where the flicker was fleeting, I stared at my arms for quite a while and these mysterious lines showed no sign of disappearing. The bright red glow shone even more intensely, pulsing like a breath. The once dormant massive fiery energy in my body stirred again, flowing like a stream from my lower abdomen and gradually spreading throughout my body.
Strength…
It was definitely coming back…
Not just the strength of Infernal Fire…this feeling, it was like…
I clenched my fists in front of me.
A fiery wind carried the flying ashes and gently brushed against the few strands of hair by my temple, floating into my view and tickling my nose, bright like moonlight.
Hoo—
Crack crack crack crack crack…
Scarlet flames and azure frost erupted from my fists the moment I tried to summon my power, rapidly enveloping my small fists and sweeping toward my arms.
The emergence of strength, while I was focused entirely on the remains, caught me off guard at that moment. It felt like a deep-sea beast bursting free from its shackles, swirling amidst towering waves, quietly exploding within me, no longer restrained.
“The restrictions are gone…”
I lifted my head, letting the flames and frost dance along my arms, crimson eyes fixed on the dancer, joy shining in my gaze.
The restrictions had lifted.
Beneath my feet, the swirling black mist slowly ascended, feeling unprecedentedly fluid. That discomforting sensation, as if I couldn’t control my own body—this strange feeling of “incompatibility” and “lack of synergy”—had completely vanished without me noticing, maybe during my unconscious phase.
In its place was an extraordinary lightness and ease.
I had never felt this good before.
Never.
It wasn’t a false ease from shedding a heavy burden; I could genuinely feel in control of my power—whether it was chaos, sin, or order—compared to before entering the Land of Dragons, I had already made a qualitative leap. It wasn’t like gaining a sudden increase in strength; it was a tangible ascent on some level.
I couldn’t really express this feeling.
I wasn’t even sure if it was an illusion.
I just felt, in a daze, like something within me had been liberated.
“Hoo—”
I let out a long breath.
Ahead, the mist gathered like clouds, ashes floating down like confetti, rolling stones in the distance, the roaring fiery winds in my ears, the remains suspended at the mountain’s peak, hot dark bl**d trickling down like rain onto black rocks, making a hissing sound. In the near distance, the dancer, drenched in bl**d, looked back at me with scarlet eyes reflecting my filthy and awkward figure, and all of this…
Was clearer in my perception than ever before.
Hoo—
I actively dispelled the entwining and intensifying powers around my arms and suddenly waved at the dancer. The next moment, a plume of black smoke floated from her chest and disappeared into my body in the blink of an eye.
“You just saved me; I don’t want to owe you anything. This is repayment.”
I whispered, and the woman turned, looked down, and let go of her hand that was covering her chest. Through the hole in her clothing, I could see the formerly rotten skin on her chest, the golden light swirling above it dissipating as the red glow brightened, quickly healing the blackened wound.
With the Dead Smoke’s attachment and erosion gone, and the power of Infernal Fire restored, the woman’s wound was instantly healed.
“Thank you,” she said, her tone equally calm.
I waved my hand at her.
“You don’t need to thank me—we won’t have any friendship; we’ll always be enemies. If it weren’t for—”
I nodded toward the remains on the distant cliff: “If it weren’t for that thing, you’d be dead in my hands right now.”
“Has your power returned?”
the dancer asked. I nodded lightly.
“Sure, you know more than I do. I can’t do anything to that thing—even now, my chances of victory aren’t even fifty percent… not thirty. But since you just said those words, it means you must have thought of something. Spill it! Is it feasible?”
“Do you believe what I say?”
“Now’s not the time for that.”
“…Fine!”
The dancer suddenly burst into laughter.
She turned around; raging flames erupted around her body, the fierce fire leaping from her feet to the surrounding rocks, the heat washing over me. The woman leaped into the flames, transforming into a fireball and shot toward the towering broken stone front. I quickly followed, black mist solidifying into fiery wings unfolding from my back, soaring into the air, landing beside her.
One tall, one short, two dirty yet beautiful figures stood on the slanted black rocks, gazing toward the distant lava flows, the booming volcanoes shaking beneath divine might atop the trembling mountains.
“After the divine egg shatters, the bl**d flowing from it is being transformed into the power of sin by the deity body. Its abilities are also restoring. Silvya, we must act quickly… I’ll be the bait, and you’ll go in for the attack. What we need to do next is to completely destroy the enormous heart in its chest.”
The clear, stern words rolled from the dancer’s mouth, her speech rapid: “The current deity body, apart from being physically incomplete, has an even more important point. It hasn’t merged with the Divine Soul, meaning the Divine Spirit, nor even established contact. This means it almost possesses no cognitive abilities—just instincts left over from the body.”
“No thinking, lacking awareness, incapable of making effective judgments based on the current situation, won’t anticipate our next moves, doesn’t understand what we’re planning to do… just a hollow shell that has divine power. I didn’t expect it to be like this, but this will become its most fatal weakness.”
“…You want to attract its attention with your actions to disrupt it, giving me the chance to exploit its vulnerability and deliver a killing blow?”
I asked, and the dancer nodded quickly.
“Exactly.”
Scarlet fire spread and burned around her, evaporating the tainted bl**d. Silver strands swept back from the woman’s head, her stunning beauty revitalized, bright eyes reflecting poise and calm.
“The power of my Infernal Fire comes from the goddess’s fire seed, and its essence shares the same source as the deity body’s power but is far inferior. I can’t inflict effective damage on it; I’ve already tried using divine miracles, but that failed too. Getting even close is quite difficult. Even if its divine power is only restored to less than ten percent, it’s not something you and I can challenge head-on—not at all; it’s beyond human capability.”
“But your Chaotic Fire, however, is derived from the Mother Deity’s destruction power; you are different from me. If that power is sufficiently immense, it can deal a certain amount of damage to the deity body, and inflicting serious injury isn’t out of the question. And even gods, fundamentally, are life forms bound by the basic laws of existence. Such flesh must have a central part that drives its actions… my deduction is that huge heart.”
“That’s the first part of the body to recover. Before it even hatched from the divine egg, I could already hear the sound of its heartbeat, and thus deduce that as long as we can destroy that heart, we can incapacitate the deity body, or even destroy it entirely.”
“Sounds interesting…”
I bit my nails, my mind racing as I recalled the shield I slammed into earlier, and immediately posed a question to the dancer: “But even if you can attract it, the deity body is protected by the Sin Barrier; I can’t get into the skeletal chest to destroy its heart!”
“So that’s our gamble. We’ll bet that the degree of the deity body’s power restoration isn’t enough to maintain the Sin Barrier continuously, at least not for too long. The tears of the goddess have been destroyed by you, and the divine egg has already shattered; it has lost the continued conditions for absorbing power. At least in this world, the energy consumed by the deity body cannot be replenished through its own strength.”
The dancer paused.
“Its power is only restored to that extent because it lacks the Divine Soul. It’s just an empty shell following instinctive actions. But even an empty shell is a divine body. So, what we’re gambling on is which side falls first, whether it’s it or the two of us.”
“That doesn’t sound like a great plan. Silvya, we’re facing a deity body—there are no good plans, just plans that aren’t plans, taking it one step at a time. But this is our only chance… In order to battle a deity with human power, we will have to stake our lives and put everything on the line to gain even a slim opportunity.”
“Su—”
I took a deep breath: “I understand.”
Dead Smoke swirled around me, a slight burning sensation from the lines on my skin. Power coursed frantically through my body, an ache in the shoulder blade area made it sting weirdly, and my b*tt—likely my coccyx—felt the same. My head throbbed with pain, dizziness creeping in.
I realized that after the power restrictions were lifted, my body seemed to be undergoing some unknown changes, which would likely intensify as time passed. I might not have much time left… perhaps.
“Then next, I’ll lead the attack against the deity body. Silvya, you stay hidden for now, waiting for a chance to strike… Don’t miss any opportunity. Remember, it has no consciousness, no thought process. You can test it as much as you want, as long as we’re still alive.”
The dancer stepped forward, flames swirling around her, the scarlet fire dancing wildly. She walked to the edge of the broken stone, without looking back, she took a few deep breaths, then delivered her final reminder to me.
“I will do everything I can to attract its attention. But once the divine battle begins, what will happen next and what unexpected situations may arise, I don’t know or can predict. If… I mean if.”
“If the power of the deity body is far beyond what you and I imagined, if I quickly d*e without any chance to resist… then Silvya, you stay here, and even if it costs your life, it will likely be in vain. Just take that white branch and leave.”
“Leave here, go to the Eastern Continent, find a town named Mase in Eborista, and say you’re from Miss Ailna. When you mention my name, the townsfolk will believe you. Have them take you to my cellar… there’s a part of the truth of the world hidden inside.”
Boom—
Flames erupted in front of me. The dancer in her red dress didn’t hesitate; after finishing this speech, she leaped into the air, transforming into a blazing fireball and darting into the gray sky, disappearing from view like a star shooting back toward the far-off crumpled divinity.
