Without wasting any time, I created a dark blue spear made of Netherwater—the Netherwater Spear—and hurled it at him.
The spear pierced through Az, and the Netherwater began to corrode him from the inside.
"Ahhhhh! Az is dying!"
I waited patiently, watching closely. I needed to understand why this demon kept dying and reviving again and again.
And then, once more, Az's body began to rebuild itself on its own.
"Impossible… How can this be happening?"
'Shadow Bind.'
Az's shadow extended unnaturally, forming writhing tentacles that twisted around his limbs and body, restraining him completely.
"Az, you're worse than a cockroach, you know that?"
Az tried to respond, but the binding covered even his mouth, muffling any sound.
'Dream Void.'
A small, dark purple sphere materialized in my palm and slowly floated toward Az. When it touched him, he collapsed, falling deep into a swirling sea of nightmares.
"Let's see what this cockroach is hiding behind his resurrection."
I closed my eyes and summoned one of my lesser-used divine aspects—the Divinity of Secrets. It responded.
A vision unfolded before me.
I saw Az performing a forbidden ritual, one that granted him 99 lives—a twisted mockery of immortality.
"Ahhhhh!"
Within the nightmare realm, Az's mind began to crumble. The Dream Void corrupted his sanity beyond repair.
I released the Shadow Bind. I wanted to witness the effect of my spell firsthand.
Once unbound, Az started clawing at his own face, screaming silently, then tore open his chest and stabbed his own heart.
Az died.
"Alright… My main objective is complete. But killing this cockroach 99 times is going to be exhausting."
Az resurrected again.
Without blinking, I unleashed another Netherflame Blitz, incinerating him once more.
Hmm… To kill him completely, I'll need to kill him 94 more times. I need a spell that can end him in one strike permanently.
Az came back yet again, but this time I didn't kill him.
Instead, I bound him once more with Shadow Bind.
I pondered. In this universe, the only known resurrection method required the Resurrection Flame—a flame that only I possessed. Yet Az hadn't used it. So how was he resurrecting?
Half an hour passed. I observed every detail but found no trace of the Resurrection Flame or its energy.
Then an idea struck me.
I killed Az again.
This time, I used all of my divine aspects—Underworld, Soul, Death, Mortality—and began a deep analysis.
And then I found it.
The energy signature was subtle, almost perfectly masked by the violent flare of his dying soul. It took the full focus of my divinity to trace it.
Az wasn't resurrecting in the usual sense.
His soul wasn't dying—only his physical body. Upon death, an unknown energy transported his soul to another dimension, where it rapidly reformed a new body using his own soul energy and sent it back.
I stared at his newly reformed body and re-bound it with shadows.
Now it was time to end this cycle.
Combining my divine powers, I forged a new type of flame—a pale light green fire, forged from the essence of soul destruction itself.
This was Soul Fire, a fire never before seen in this world.
I shaped it into a sphere, then launched it at Az.
The fire did not touch his physical form—it burned his very soul.
Az tried to scream in agony, but the Shadow Bind prevented even that.
The fire consumed him from the inside out, not with heat, but with pure annihilation.
And finally, Az was truly dead.
No resurrection.
No rebuilding.
No revival.
I exhaled deeply and muttered to myself.
"Finally… it ends."
---
I returned to the castle and entered the throne room.
At the far corner, Hecate sat cross-legged in meditation, the arcane softly humming around her like a coiled serpent.
As I seated myself on the obsidian throne, my presence shifted the atmosphere.
Hecate opened her eyes, rose to her feet, and approached with that same careful grace.
"I felt a significant expenditure of power emanating from the western volcanic plains, My Lord," she said, her voice a model of polite reporting. "Enough to incinerate a minor duke. Yet I sense only the ashes of a common goat demon. I trust the… scale of your solution was proportionate to the problem?"
A flicker of understanding passed behind my cold and sharp eyes. Of course. This wasn't mere mockery; it was a probe. She was testing my patience, my ego—seeing if the crown had made me brittle and arrogant. Very well. Let's play this game. But we'll play by my rules. A slow, deliberate smile touched my lips, devoid of warmth but full of intent.
I looked at Hecate as a spark of challenge rose in my voice.
"Hecate, let's play a game."
Her brow arched slightly.
"If I win, you will aid me in dealing with these so-called dukes," I stated, laying out my deal.
"And if I win?" she asked, her voice like the whisper of turning pages in a forbidden library.
My smile vanished, replaced by a gravity that seemed to bend the very light around me.
"If you win," I declared, each word a stone dropped into a bottomless well, "I will grant you the one thing you have coveted through all the long, silent aeons of your service. I will sever the ancient bonds that tie you to this realm. I will grant you your freedom."
The silence that followed was not mere absence of sound. It was a physical presence, thick and heavy, pressing down on us. It was the sound of a door, locked for millennia, suddenly swinging open onto a terrifying and unknown abyss.
This was no friendly spar.
I understood the risk with chilling clarity. If I lost, I would not merely be losing a battle. I would be unleashing her. Hecate, unshackled, was not simply a neutral party.
Hecate stood still, her eyes locked on mine.
"…You would risk that much?" she asked, her voice soft but sharp.
"Yes."
She studied me for a long moment.
"…Then I accept," she said finally, a glint of anticipation rising in her tone. "Let's see what you've become."
Together, we left the throne room and descended to the battlefield, the same field where I had once trained alone under the blackened sky.
But this time, I was not fighting with puppets.
I was facing the Witch of the Crossroads herself.
The training grounds were still as death—silenced. No witnesses. No audience. Only two gods preparing to test their fate.
Hecate stood calm and composed. She raised her sage's staff, etched with ancient runes glowing violet, and lit her silver lamp, which floated beside her, humming softly with lunar energy. A quiet storm gathered around her.
I created my weapon—a spear born from darkness, its shaft pulsing like a living vein, the tip shaped to pierce gods and ghosts alike.
Without a word, I created an iron coin, tossing it high into the air.
As it spun, thoughts raced—calculating openings and counters, possibilities branching like trees in our minds.
The moment the coin struck the ground with a hollow ring, I moved.
I unleashed a flurry of Dark Bullets—dozens of rapid-fire projectiles—seeking to test her reflexes and spacing.
She didn't flinch.
In a blink, she teleported into the air above and chanted a sharp incantation. A flash of arcane light burst outward, and from it descended a pair of giant stone golems, their forms groaning as if ripped from ancient mountains.
One raised its colossal arm and smashed downward toward me with surprising speed.
I rose into the sky, dodging with a sharp pivot of my wings.
But Hecate had predicted that.
While I was mid-flight, she had already released hundreds of Fire Lances, each conjured in perfect formation, descending like a divine meteor storm, aimed with surgical precision to deny every path of escape.
I raised a Dark Shield, bracing myself.
The impact was tremendous.
Even with my protection, the concussive force slammed me to the ground, cratering the earth beneath my feet. Before I could recover, the golem brought down its massive hand with brutal weight.
The world shook.
Pain lanced through me, but I gritted my teeth. This wasn't a spar. This wasn't a game. If I couldn't overcome this now, how could I ever earn the loyalty of my future aides?
As the golem prepared another strike, I channeled power into my spear, condensed it, and slashed upward, shattering its arm into a thousand shards. In one motion, I hurled my spear toward Hecate, aiming straight for her chest.
She vanished again—teleportation—just as I expected.
Which was why I was already invisible.
But Hecate wasn't surprised.
Instead, she conjured illusions—dozens of copies of herself spreading across the entire garden. To most eyes, they were indistinguishable.
But I was the God of Secrets and Perception.
I sensed the truth.
I lunged toward the real Hecate, my spear driving forward, but her lips curled into a small smile.
She had been waiting.
The moment I closed in, the air around her shimmered with tiny glowing spores, barely visible until too late.
Fire Spores.
As my spear touched one, the explosion ignited, engulfing the field in searing heat. I shielded myself in time, but the blast pushed me back, forcing me to reset.
She wasn't finished.
A vortex of water surged upward around me, forming a massive water tornado. The pressure pinned me in place, trapping me inside a prison of spiraling current.
And then an inspiration struck.
Why fight her spell… when I could own it?
I called forth the Nether energy from within me. My divine essence corrupted the water, turning it into Netherwater—dark, acidic, and alive. The tornado twisted, condensed, and reshaped at my will, transforming into tens of spiraling Netherwater Spears.
With a roar, I fired it back toward her.
She reacted quickly by summoning dozens of Lunar Wolves, each leaping toward me, coated in moonlight and fangs bared.
I hurled my own spear of corrupted water at them.
The two forces collided midair, darkness and moonlight crashing together in a violent burst, canceling each other out.
Steam hissed. Cracks split the ground.
And for a moment, silence.
We stood at opposite ends of the scorched battlefield, both bruised, breath steady, eyes locked.
I was not the same as I had been months ago. Neither was she.
This was no longer student versus master.
This was a battle between equals.