Chapter 51: The Overlooked Thing
"I have a question," Hikigaya looked at the seemingly unscathed Osiris and couldn't help but sigh. "Why the hell are you unkillable?"
The knowledge used to create the Set Beast was definitely not wrong. Water and the sun were the two fundamental attributes of Osiris as a god of nature. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been so successful in breaking through Osiris' Bounty Divine Realm.
Yet, he seemed completely unharmed.
"That's quite a rude question, God-Slayer. But I can answer it." Osiris didn't disappoint Hikigaya's expectations. As expected, being a king of gods, he naturally had to speak with style.
Also known as being obsessed with appearances.
"Because I symbolize all that dies in order to be reborn—whether it's water, earth, air, or sun," the stylish god-king proclaimed. "Even if temporarily driven back, I will leave behind the power to repair nature and restart life from the depths of the earth."
"Sounds quite intriguing. I wonder how exactly you repair things?"
Hikigaya jumped down from the divine beast. With a wave of his hand, the solar beast dissipated, and the remaining magical energy was reabsorbed.
Keeping it any longer was useless.
"As for that... you'll have to experience it yourself, God-Slayer," Osiris smiled slightly. "The power of life comes from death. You are a king among mortals, and I shall personally guide you to that sacred world."
With that, Osiris extended his hand to Hikigaya.
In the next moment, an intense heat radiated from Osiris, spreading in all directions.
Moisture in the air vanished rapidly, and the land grew scorching hot.
A strong sense of danger surged in Hikigaya's heart, yet he also felt confusion.
Though Osiris was the sun, he was supposed to represent the warm aspect of the sun. Heat and dryness should belong to Set.
But soon, he sensed it. A heavy aura was constantly seeping out from the land and into the air.
"God-Slayer, you must understand—I am everything you see," Osiris said. "Earth and air, by my name—Osiris—make this man's soul gloomy and heavy."
Almost as soon as he spoke, Hikigaya felt something enter his body. His senses began to dull, and his mind became clouded.
At the same time, the air solidified, binding his body!
He wanted to resist, but this was the terrifying part—he didn't even know how Osiris was doing all this.
At that moment, his divine powers were nearly reverted to before the battle. He exerted all his power to resist the force invading his body, but he could only resist—no more.
This would only cause him to grow weaker and weaker.
"Looks like you resisted a bit, but it doesn't matter," Osiris looked a bit surprised at Hikigaya's endurance, then smiled. "As long as you are human, you cannot defy me, the supreme one."
At Osiris' feet, the earth had already cracked. Heat continued to be infused into the ground through his legs, but now the air was once again filled with moisture.
"Accept your fate, God-Slayer. Your life shall rot in dampness."
Once again, Hikigaya was invaded by a power he couldn't comprehend. This power was present in the air and infused into his body.
Though his body weakened and his mind grew sluggish, he could still feel a sinister force being nurtured inside him, devouring his life force, making his body increasingly fragile.
In just a few breaths, Hikigaya found himself in a desperate situation. In all his imagined scenarios of battling Osiris' true form, he had never anticipated this—just a few words, and he was already deeply afflicted!
Damn! This Osiris bastard—his true form was way stronger than his divine realm!
What had he missed?! Or was his understanding of Osiris still flawed? Why was his knowledge almost useless when facing the true form?
"Stop resisting. Hand over your heart," Osiris walked forward step by step. Behind him, forty-two enormous shadows emerged. "Under the gaze of the forty-two nomes, I shall judge you personally."
With his proclamation, the moon in the sky cast visible beams of light. Under that glowing veil, the earth trembled—and human corpses began crawling out.
Their attire varied—some were clearly modern, others were obviously not.
Being a god of resurrection, it was natural that Osiris could resurrect more than just himself.
Soon, the area was densely packed with corpses. These resurrected bodies didn't smell rotten; on the contrary, they looked clean, even their clothes were undamaged, and their appearances remained exactly as they had in life—just deathly pale.
He wondered if the Marquis' death servants in this three-dimensional reality looked like this too.
But seriously, where the hell did all these dead people come from…?
"My people, offer me this man's heart," Osiris commanded.
Following his order, the corpse-servants silently surrounded Hikigaya.
That pissed Hikigaya off.
What the hell—Osiris was one thing, but a bunch of dead guys dared come at him too?
Even weakened, he wasn't about to be bullied by trash like this.
"Get lost!"
With a single shout, a violent storm erupted—and a Set Beast appeared.
This was formed from Hikigaya's knowledge of Osiris as the ruler of the underworld. He hadn't been able to block Osiris' previous attacks because he didn't understand what they were—but these corpses... Did they really think all his reading was for nothing? Did they think he didn't know how the godhood of Osiris evolved into the King of the Afterlife?
In the storm, every corpse that approached Hikigaya was shredded, but outside the storm, more bodies continued crawling out of the earth.
Clearly, this was treating the symptom, not the cause. As long as Osiris was present, the corpse horde could endlessly regenerate.
But in his increasingly weakened state, this was all Hikigaya could do for now.
Unless he resolved the attack Osiris had placed on him earlier, he had no chance of victory.
His knowledge had to be correct—because it was enough to resist. Just not enough to eliminate the effect.
So the problem had to lie in the "combination."
The power Osiris was using must still be among the pieces of knowledge Hikigaya possessed. He just hadn't figured out which one yet.
Sure, he could just dump all his knowledge into one big attack—but the previous battle against the Bounty Divine Realm had already proven that this approach was inefficient and a waste of magical energy.
While continuing to summon the Set Beast to clear the endlessly approaching corpse horde, Hikigaya wracked his brain to recall everything he knew about Osiris.
The air had grown humid earlier—that meant the key definitely involved moisture. But since he couldn't eliminate the effect, there had to be another force involved alongside moisture.
There was heat—but it wasn't solar. He had already tried combining solar power, and it had no effect. So that heat had to represent something deeper.
As a god of nature, Osiris symbolized both growth and death in all things. Fertility and resurrection were both parts of his identity as a god of nature. But what, in the eyes of ancient Egyptians, was associated with moisture and fertility?
Lost in thought, Hikigaya felt like his brain was about to explode…
In despair, he looked up at the sky.
There, a bright moon hung suspended.
The moon...
The sun...
The air...
The water...
The earth...
Suddenly, Hikigaya felt something important flash through his mind—something he had overlooked all along!