Chapter 104: Fourth Round of Battle – King Versus King
Even if annihilation wasn't achievable, their goal was clear: strike a devastating blow against the current pantheon of gods. Once the divine war began again, the gods would be unable to replenish their legions of sacred warriors.
Wouldn't their own gods face the same predicament?
No—there lay no concern on that front. The infertility plaguing the heavenly gods was not mere accident. It was a curse, laid upon them in retaliation for their ancient banishment. A long-forgotten verdict now bearing fruit.
Back to the crux of the matter: if their plan had proceeded smoothly, humanity should have disappointed the gods into despair a thousand years earlier, triggering the great end.
But interference disrupted the course. Among the meddlers was one particularly troublesome entity—a phantom-like assassin who relentlessly beheaded their operatives.
To this day, no one knew his true face. For every witness had ended up without a head.
Still, through fragments of rumor and half-scoured records, they had pieced together a handful of disturbing facts.
The most absurd clue?
He might be... human.
Attempts to identify him through the Akasha system's historical playback yielded nothing. Was infiltration into the Akasha realm so difficult?
Hardly. They had insiders. But each agent who ventured in returned lifeless—more precisely, they didn't return alive at all. Once their consciousness re-entered modern time, their bodies were empty vessels, devoid of breath or soul.
This alone curbed further investigations. Not from fear of the assassin, but from the risk of alerting the current gods. If those gods began combing the Akasha records, they might uncover hidden operatives—or even outlawed deities.
Still, wouldn't the gods notice that someone had died returning from Akasha?
Of course not. They weren't fools. Lookouts retrieved and disposed of the bodies before suspicion could take root.
So how had information about this elusive killer emerged at all?
The answer: sound. A strange, singular bell tone.
Each time someone died, the death bell rang.
Those nearby had heard it.
Through this eerie, repeating phenomenon, they unearthed more intelligence. Rumors spoke of a human assassination cult—a sect devoted to purging human sin.
Their targets? Every one decapitated. Every death heralded by the toll of a bell—the knell of execution.
Ancient texts written by humans had documented this pattern. Oddly enough, the described timeframes aligned with several divine deaths of undercover gods living among mortals.
Preposterous.
Yet the records weren't modern—they were from decades or centuries after the events.
Eventually, they reached out to the cult, whose leadership had changed hands several times over the generations. Corrupted by divine temptations, the group had abandoned its original ideals.
Good news—or so they thought.
Until the entire corrupt leadership was mysteriously beheaded.
Was the original founder still alive?
No one knew. No one had seen any of the executions.
Time and time again, efforts to seduce the cult into downfall ended the same way: clean, silent eradication.
Now, even in this modern age, the assassination cult still endured.
And astonishingly, they had infiltrated the divine headquarters itself.
A brazen move.
"You search that wing! And you—cover the east hall!" barked one of the divine captains.
His expression was grim, bordering on murderous. To allow a lone human assassin into their sacred sanctuary was a humiliation—a slap across his divine pride.
He could not fail again. The assailant must be found and executed with extreme prejudice, or else the great one—the supreme entity—would not be pleased.
His own fate hung in the balance.
"Damn it!"
He stormed into a smaller shrine, only to find over a dozen god-soldiers slaughtered—neatly decapitated, blood still pooling fresh.
The assassin was near.
He spun.
And froze.
Death had arrived.
He reached for his divine weapon, prepared to strike—
—but his vision twisted unnaturally.
Disoriented, he stumbled, saw his own body crumple to the floor... and then noticed his neck—missing its head.
Ah.
He understood now.
He had already been killed.
So that was the reason for his odd visual distortion—his consciousness still lingering as his head flew from his body.
And he saw him.
The assassin.
Not quite the figure he'd imagined.
—King Against King—
The general image of an assassin is simple: a black-clad shadow, hiding in the night, nimble and silent. Armorless. Light. Swift. Lethal.
No heavy weapons. No cumbersome gear. Just speed, precision, and deadly silence.
But this one?
He looked like a fully armored knight—clad in layers of steel, a walking paradox.
Yet before darkness consumed him entirely, the captain noticed something bizarre.
When he'd examined his fallen soldiers, the assassin had already been in his field of view. No disguise. No concealment.
He simply hadn't noticed.
The killer's presence had been imperceptible, like part of the scenery—his existence so dimmed, so unnoticeable, that even conscious attention missed him.
It was a power. A skill. The art of nonexistence.
Even so, he had reached the end.
No reaction. No redemption.
But the captain carried one last secret weapon: a divine relic, gifted by his master, bound to his very soul.
Upon his death, it would activate.
Suddenly, the shrine warped. A transparent, spherical barrier enveloped the space like glass. From the outside, the entire area looked isolated—cut off from this universe.
The relic had triggered a dimensional transfer.
"He's finished," whispered the onlookers. "What arrogance, invading us alone!"
"He won't survive. No one could."
The orb had ejected the assassin beyond the bounds of the cosmos—cast into outer space. A mortal body exposed to the vacuum could not live.
How had he infiltrated the sanctum in the first place?
One theory: the foolish Norse sea god had been tracked.
Even the liaison who received the sacred artifact had been beheaded, and the relic itself stolen.
Minor loss. That item wasn't their focus. They had stronger treasures in mind.
The conversation shifted. The cursed star—the demon star—had released many figures from confinement.
And those people?
They were potential allies.
Possessing intimate knowledge of godly secrets, their aid could tip the balance. The reclaiming of the universe might be closer than ever.
—Meanwhile, in the Akasha Realm...—
"Yalvette, who do you think they'll send for the next round?" asked Grey, a small, sprightly girl—tenth among the thirteen Valkyrie sisters.
"How should I know?" Yalvette replied, rolling her eyes.
Better to ask the eldest sister.
"Hilde, Grey wants to know who's next," said another sister, Herlock.
"Herlock! Don't tattle!" Grey snapped.
She turned toward their scholar-like sister, Regilef, who sipped her red tea and then strode over to Hilde.
Were all thirteen Valkyries gathered?
No. Only the three loli-statured sisters had been summoned. Perhaps the fourth round would require one of them.
Interesting—three petite warriors.
Though Grey insisted she wasn't just a child. She was still growing, unlike her older sisters.
Thunk!
Grey's head took a knock.
"Ow! What was that for, Herlock?"
"Oh please," Herlock smirked. "Your thoughts were irritating."
Grey chuckled nervously.
"Have you decided?" Regilef asked Hilde, who was still weighing options.
Should they keep playing the underdog trick?
Suddenly, her phone vibrated.
The message flashed on screen.
Hilde's eyes widened.
The gods had chosen their fourth round warrior—a heavyweight champion.
She couldn't let that asset go to waste.
Once deployed, the warrior wouldn't return.
"Every match must be fought with everything we've got," she whispered.