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"Dude, you're so cool. You must have been through a lot of hardships in society." Looking at the impossibly cool Kevin sitting on his throne, Ryn's eyes showed a hint of envy.
But envy was envy. Since you want to fight, then Ryn wouldn't hold back anymore.
Ryn extended a hand towards Kevin and snapped his fingers with a crisp sound.
*Voom—*
In the space all around Kevin, four black holes instantly formed from collapsed space, swallowing him. Just as Ryn was about to detonate the black holes and completely bury Kevin...
A ferocious, grotesque, and barbed arm suddenly shot out from one of the black holes. It slammed down on the ground, and in an instant, ice spread for miles, and sharp icicles sprouted from the ground.
The surrounding temperature instantly dropped to -273.10 degrees Celsius, only 0.05 degrees away from absolute zero. The black holes were frozen solid by Kevin's power, their rotation ceasing.
Kevin grabbed a towering icicle next to him and pulled himself out of the black hole.
After Kevin emerged, the black holes instantly shattered, turning into ice dust and dissipating into the world.
"Compared to that guy from the Previous Era... you're very good."
Kevin shook his barbed arm, and the barbs all retracted. Then, streams of a dark, foreign substance wrapped around him, encasing him in a cocoon.
A wing, devoid of feathers and only a skeleton, with a sharp crack, sliced the cocoon in half from the inside out. Kevin slowly walked out, looking directly at Ryn.
The Kevin that reappeared no longer bore any resemblance to a human.
A strange, dark liquid substance formed his clothes. Two curved, inverted horns grew from his head, and a massive wing was on his left side.
"「Karma Demon」... that's the name they gave my Human-form Collapse. I don't like it, but it fits my current appearance quite well."
Kevin condensed a greatsword out of ice and pointed it at Ryn. Before making his move, he offered Ryn one last choice.
"Join me. Join World Serpent. After the 「Stigmata Project」, I will give you everything you need.
Or, die here, Herrscher."
"Tsk, so you're the 'Lord' they talk about."
Ryn raised his hands and shrugged. The idea of joining Kevin had some appeal, but joining World Serpent was out of the question.
"A bunch of rats who only dare to hide in the shadows. Besides, World Serpent is trying to assassinate our Schicksal personnel. How could I possibly join you?"
Since Ryn refused, Kevin said no more, only sighing silently in his heart. It seemed he would have to find the next 「Herrscher of Human」 to see Elysia's memory construct...
Kevin leaped into the air, looking down at Ryn on the ground. Around him, the moisture in the air condensed into massive icicles, which rained down like a storm, shooting towards Ryn.
"I don't like this. Go back."
Ryn glanced at Kevin, and all the falling icicles, as if heaven and earth had flipped, reversed direction and began to shoot towards Kevin.
Kevin shattered some with three sword strikes, but the sheer number of icicles was too much for him to handle, and he could only use his wing to shield himself from the rest.
At this moment, Ryn split into three smaller Ryns, who charged at Kevin.
Kevin stabbed one, kicked another away, but the last one wrapped its legs around Kevin from behind and grabbed his horns with both hands. Then, flames erupted from Kevin's body, incinerating the small Ryn on his back.
A clone created by the Authority of Death shouldn't be just this. After dealing with the three small Ryns, Kevin remained vigilant, wanting to quickly move away from the clones' bodies.
But it was clear that Ryn was faster.
"Explode!"
*BOOM—*
*Voom—*
The small Ryns' bodies exploded one after another. Kevin quickly encased himself in solid ice to withstand the explosions.
Ryn also hastily constructed a barrier with the power of creation to block his clones' self-destruction.
After the explosion, three singularities appeared simultaneously, devouring and annihilating the nearby space.
Kevin, at the center of the explosion, was also cut into three pieces by the compressed and torn space.
But then, the three pieces of Kevin immediately merged back together, his wounds healing in an instant.
"Son of a bitch, another immortal one!" Ryn, who had been watching Kevin's regeneration from underground, couldn't help but curse loudly.
"What kind of monsters are you World Serpent people? First Hare, now you. How am I supposed to fight this? This is too disgusting!"
"Oh? Hare..."
Kevin's brain stalled for a moment. *Who is Hare?*... But Kevin's own regeneration and immortality came from 「Brahma」. What did Hare rely on?
But that wasn't important. If she had joined World Serpent, it meant she wouldn't oppose his plan.
"A very impressive move, but it's not enough. If you had the ability to control space, you might be able to kill me, but as it is now... you clearly can't."
"Can't do it, but I still have to try!"
Ryn made a clawing motion with both hands towards the airborne Kevin. A gravitational wave of ten million times the normal force bound Kevin in mid-air.
Then, Ryn forcefully clapped his hands together, attempting to crush Kevin. But when that failed, Ryn twisted his wrists, slamming Kevin heavily into the ground.
Kevin emerged unscathed from the cloud of dust, then bent his knees and stomped down hard, creating a massive crater in the ground.
Using the reaction force, Kevin instantly appeared next to Ryn, his hand turning into a claw, and he thrust it towards Ryn, trying to pull out the Death Herrscher Core from his body.
Since Ryn possessed the Authority of Death, he had an immortality even greater than Garuda's. But as long as the core was removed, or Ryn's spirit was destroyed, the immortality of Death was just a joke.
*Squelch—*
Kevin's hands pierced straight through Ryn's body. Ryn's so-called body of steel was no match for Kevin's power as 「Brahma」.
But as Kevin used the power of the Karma Demon to try and suck out the Herrscher Core from within Ryn's body...
At first, Kevin didn't sense Ryn's Herrscher Core, but he thought Ryn had just shielded his perception of it. After all, just from Ryn's aura, he couldn't even tell he was a Herrscher.
But as soon as Ryn used his Authority, his Herrscher aura would leak out, because it was clearly a Herrscher's Authority he was using.
But if that was the case, then where was the core?
Kevin used his power to try and gather it for a long time, but there was no trace of a Herrscher Core... Unconvinced, Kevin groped around, but found nothing but Ryn's internal organs.
"No Herrscher Core...? You're not a Herrscher?" Kevin looked at Ryn in confusion. Had he been mistaken? Then he had killed him for nothing...