Ever since Duanmu Huai learned that the Horned Rat had noticed him, he decided it would be his next target.
The reason was simple — the Horned Rat was the kind of creature that was both weak and vile.
Of course, for mortals, the Horned Rat was still an unassailable god. But among gods, its strength was roughly on par with Duanmu Huai, the current God of Destruction.
In Star Sea Online, divine power was measured very simply — by numbers.
Whoever had more believers and a broader sphere of influence was stronger. Crude, perhaps, but true.
The Chaos Gods were beings born from the collective dreams and emotions of every sentient creature in the galaxy. The Horned Rat was similar — a god worshiped by the rats of a single planet. In short, the more rats and ratmen that lived, the stronger the Horned Rat became. Fewer rats meant a weaker god.
But not all souls were equal.
If they were, the Chaos Gods would have been replaced long ago by a mighty Cockroach God, annihilating all.
Rats were weak by nature. In terms of faith energy, it took about fifty rats to equal the devotion of one human being. Worse yet, for all its boasting, the Horned Rat was nothing more than a local deity.
Yes — it was merely the "rat god" of this little tutorial-zone planet. If it had ruled all the rats in the galaxy, Duanmu Huai wouldn't even dare to imagine its strength. But since it only governed one world's worth of vermin… well, that was manageable.
Most importantly, their divine domains opposed each other.
Duanmu Huai was now a god of destruction and death, bearer of the Rune of Death—which he had refined into the Law of Death. That made him the natural enemy of all living beings. His "death" was not the peaceful cycle of reincarnation, but absolute obliteration.
From that alone, he was also the natural nemesis of pestilence gods. His domain represented true extinction—an end to all existence, not just undeath or corruption. Every soul, every atom—gone.
Even among death gods, meanings differed.
The Empire's god of death, for instance, was merely a psychopomp—one who guided human souls to the underworld.
But Duanmu Huai's death was the death that left nothing behind. Total erasure.
If it weren't for his self-control, that kind of theology would sound exactly like the doomsday cult of some world-ending sect.
Still, while his power hadn't yet reached such a level, it was more than enough for one Horned Rat.
When Duanmu Huai descended from the heavens like a flaming meteor, the Horned Rat instantly felt the crushing presence of death. For a god of plague, deceit, and filth, it took only one glance to realize how bad things had become.
With a shriek, the Horned Rat tried to retreat, attempting to flee back to its divine domain—
—but Duanmu Huai had been waiting for that!
Killing the Horned Rat's physical projection meant nothing. To destroy it, he had to follow it into its realm and burn it out from within.
The moment the Horned Rat's form vanished, Duanmu Huai slammed his hammer into the ground.
BOOM!
Black flames erupted in all directions. A single patch of air shimmered, cracked, and burst open as plague winds and choking fumes poured out.
There it is!
Seeing that vortex of pestilent air, Duanmu Huai's eyes flashed. He leapt forward and plunged straight in.
In the blink of an eye, he stood within the Ruined Kingdom, the Horned Rat's realm within the Warp—a world of endless decay.
The landscape mirrored the city he'd glimpsed before: ruins, bones, and the stench of death. This was where the souls of dead ratmen gathered to serve their god as slaves and disease-lords.
Normally, finding a god in its own domain was nearly impossible. But Duanmu Huai didn't need to find it.
He would simply burn everything.
If he set the god's realm ablaze, that rat would have no choice but to crawl out and fight.
That was his plan — no scheming, no traps, no deceit. The Horned Rat could play at conspiracies all it liked, but once forced into a head-on fight, Duanmu Huai would crush it.
The Horned Rat could have a thousand holes to hide in—but what good was that if the temple itself was burning?
If you can't catch the monk, then burn the monastery.
Let's see where you get your faith when it's all ash.
In Star Sea Online, players had long debated whether the god or the domain came first—like the old "chicken or egg" riddle. But later experiments proved something simple: if you killed a god, it could respawn within its domain. If you destroyed the domain itself, the god vanished entirely.
That led to the conclusion that divine realms were projections of collective faith and thought—spiritual energy that condensed until it birthed a consciousness: the god.
Like how the Warp's density had once given rise to the Chaos Gods.
In other words, the domain was a receiver for faith. Destroy the receiver, and no matter how much belief poured in, it would never reach the god again.
Once Duanmu Huai understood that, the plan was obvious.
Burn. The. Domain.
"Die!"
He roared, raising his hammer high and slamming it into the earth.
BOOM!
The ground convulsed. Black flames erupted outward, devouring the ruins, the withered trees, the shattered stone, and even the scattered bones. Everything ignited like oil, cloaked in smoke before collapsing into ash.
"Burn it all!"
He felt divine energy surge through him as destruction fed on destruction. The more he annihilated, the stronger he became.
…Why does this sound more and more like I'm the final boss?
Whatever. If it worked, it worked.
Under his command, the black fire grew ever stronger, spreading through the entire realm. Because this was the Horned Rat's domain, every inch of it burned away the god's own essence—like setting fire to its flesh.
To the Horned Rat, this was torture beyond imagining.
"Squeee! Intruder! Bad intruder! Kill it!"
Countless ratmen materialized, led by plague-lords who shrieked orders. Swarms rushed at Duanmu Huai from all directions.
But all they accomplished was to feed the flames further.
Their squeals turned to crackles as their bodies burst into embers, their essence fueling the black conflagration. Against the Law of Death, their resistance meant nothing.
That was the terror of the power of Destruction—unless you had greater strength, your struggle only made it burn brighter.
And that was exactly why Duanmu Huai had chosen this target. He wasn't strong enough yet to challenge the Chaos Gods, but a rat god? That, he could handle.
The ratmen charged bravely and died pointlessly, their devotion turning to ash beneath his hammer. The black fire advanced, slow and inexorable, consuming everything in its path.
This was the Destined Death born of the Rune—utter annihilation, the inevitable fate of all things.
Total destruction.
"ROOOAAAR——!!"
A thunderous roar shook the skies. Duanmu Huai looked up to see a colossal ratman with curling horns emerging from the clouds, glaring at him in fury. The Horned Rat thrust down its clawed hand to crush him.
Heh. Knew you couldn't sit still.
Duanmu Huai's eyes gleamed. He lifted his warhammer, and the black fire gathered around it, swirling tighter and tighter until it became a single solid mass of darkness.
Then, locking onto the descending hand, Duanmu Huai brought the hammer down with all his might.
(End of Chapter)