Bell was a little surprised. His last strike had been so clean that no one should've noticed anything. How did this man know?
"And then?"
Bell casually slipped one hand behind his back, smiling with apparent curiosity at the man before him.
The man clenched his teeth hard. His heart seethed with frustration. His ancestor's lifelong wish had been so close to being fulfilled in his generation, only to be ruined completely by someone like this.
"Oh~ that look. So full of resentment. Compared to you, that other guy was far more clear-headed. Even though he did plenty of things I couldn't stand, at least he came to his senses right before he died."
"But it seems you've inherited Daedalus's wish instead."
From those eyes filled with hatred, sorrow, and despair, Bell was almost certain this man was a completely different type of person from "Dix Perdix."
Dix had treated Daedalus's wish as a curse.
But the man before him embraced that same wish as his own.
Bell, however, wasn't particularly interested.
The man suddenly roared, as if someone had stabbed straight into an open wound.
"So what!?"
"To build an artificial Dungeon that rivals the real one—that was my ancestor's wish, and it's mine as well!"
Bell only let out a light, careless laugh.
"Heh~ Then I suppose Daedalus should be happy."
"His curse plagued his descendants, yet among them was one who actually accepted his sorrow. A descendant who tirelessly helped perfect the artificial Dungeon he dreamed of. I imagine he'd be thrilled if he knew."
Seeing Bell's indifferent smile—not praise, just casual mockery—the man's jaw nearly cracked from how hard he was biting down.
He knew the man before him was taunting him on purpose, but there was nothing he could do.
Just as his eyes told him, he wasn't Bell's opponent.
"Dong!"
A sudden, inexplicable chime echoed through the secret chamber.
"!?"
A chill rushed up the man's spine.
Because he saw a white light flare up behind Bell.
"Eh…"
But even reacting as fast as he could, he was still too late. In an instant, the world turned black and white. Everything froze—everything except Bell, the only being still in full color, the only one able to move.
"Too slow."
Bell spoke the two words calmly. His glowing right hand grasped the hilt of a blade extending out from four-dimensional space.
White light spread over its entire length.
Bell's outline began to blur as he delivered a horizontal slash across the man's abdomen.
The next strike came immediately—a vertical cut descending from the top of the man's head.
The final blow was a diagonal slice from his right shoulder toward his left flank.
The world snapped back into color.
All three slashes bloomed at once.
"Sssht!"
The blade carved through the man's body, leaving only three lines of blood.
Yet those three cuts were enough to take his life completely.
Bell showed no satisfaction at all. He simply returned the blade to four-dimensional space, as if he had done nothing out of the ordinary.
Without another word, Bell turned and walked away.
"Pfft!!"
The moment he left the room, blood burst from the three gashes.
But the man no longer felt pain or fear. In that instant, death had already wrapped around him completely.
A cold scythe gave a light pull, taking his soul and severing him entirely—both body and spirit.
On the other side of the Projection screen, gods and mortals alike lost the ability to speak.
The gods meeting atop the Tower of Babel all stared with their mouths hanging open, disbelief written across their faces.
Ordinary children might not have seen it, but the gods witnessed every detail of that moment with absolute clarity.
"What… what… what was that!?"
For a moment, the entire world seemed frozen. The only thing the gods could move were their eyes; their bodies were completely immobilized, and even their divine power lost all ability to sense anything.
Absurd. Completely absurd.
Hermes was just as stunned by the technique.
'What the… Bell was hiding something like that???'
For that instant, space and time truly felt frozen. Anyone who saw it could sense it clearly.
"It's the manipulation of space and time."
"By controlling his breath, he twisted space and time completely, creating a perfectly frozen world for an instant. After swinging those three strikes, the distortion snapped back to normal, but that caused the three attacks, made at different moments, to bloom at the same time."
After thinking for a moment, Takemikazuchi gave this explanation.
The gods quietly replayed the scene in their minds, then nodded as understanding settled in.
But even then, the shock in their eyes didn't fade—if anything, it grew stronger.
The explanation sounded simple, but actually twisting space and time in an instant was something even gods struggled to accomplish, given the nature of those dimensions.
Takemikazuchi, who offered the explanation, had cold sweat soaking his hair.
"And he didn't use any authority or magic. It was done purely through technique."
As a War God, Takemikazuchi was deeply versed in combat technique. He could tell clearly that the child hadn't used anything beyond pure skill.
And the fact that the child achieved something normally requiring divine authority with technique alone only made the chill running through Takemikazuchi even stronger.
"!?"
His words jolted the other gods.
They all stared blankly at the projection of the child walking down the corridor, their breathing gradually quickening.
"This… this child's talent isn't inferior to Alfia at all!"
Many of them had held doubts even after learning who the child was.
Because even if his aunt was Alfia, that didn't necessarily mean he would be just as exceptional.
But now they understood completely how wrong that idea had been.
This child wasn't inferior to Alfia. If anything, his talent didn't lose to Alfia in the slightest.
...
If you'd like to support my work and unlock advanced chapters, you can follow me on p-@-treon.
[email protected]/PinkSnake (100 Chapters Ahead).
You can also follow as a free member to read a few advanced chapters.