While Guinevere was trying to abduct Artoria and raid Su Mo's home base, on the fields outside Rome, the legendary Godslayer, the Northern European Wolf King, Marquis Voban, was already prostrate on the ground.
There were no wounds on his body; from his appearance alone, he looked no different than usual, but he somehow exuded the feeling of a defeated dog.
Like a once-majestic wolf king driven from his pack after growing old and losing his fighting strength, his silver-white hair and jade-green eyes no longer felt mysterious and terrifying, but rather incomparably weak.
The demon king's majesty was gone. If an uninformed person saw this, they might think Su Mo was bullying an old man.
Of course, such a huge change wasn't caused by a simple defeat.
"How is this possible..."
A bewildered voice sounded. Marquis Voban stared at Su Mo with eyes full of complete incomprehension. He couldn't understand. He absolutely could not understand.
It wasn't that Marquis Voban couldn't accept his own defeat, nor would he be greatly affected by a single loss. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to slay so many gods over the past few hundred years.
However, this defeat was undoubtedly the one that affected him the most.
"What on earth did you do?" he demanded.
If he knew the reason for his defeat, knew what weakness had caused him to lose, then there might still be a chance to recover.
Having grown from a mere beggar to the Godslayer demon king he was today, Marquis Voban's character was by no means lacking in resilience.
However, this battle had completely exceeded his expectations.
He didn't know what weapon the other had used, didn't know what he had done, and didn't know how to defend against it.
He hadn't even had time to pull out a second Authority. In the instant that orange-red sword of light appeared, he was unconditionally declared defeated.
Even though Godslayers themselves were beings beyond common sense, this power was far too much so.
If he didn't even know the reason for his defeat, didn't even know how the other attacked, then hadn't he forever lost the possibility of turning the tables?
Faced with Marquis Voban's incomparably shocked questioning, Su Mo just shook his head with a hint of boredom.
"Just like Doni, you couldn't even pass the first judgment."
Although Marquis Voban had many Authorities, most of them were for bullying the weak. He had barely mastered any of the truly crucial ones. He had neither a divine speed Authority nor a defensive-type Authority.
As a result, although his damage output was high, allowing him to not fall behind in the early stages against any Godslayer and even achieve suppression, it was a bit awkward when it came to a true life-or-death battle.
This flashy type was at the biggest disadvantage when facing the Sword of Victory spell.
"Doni..." Hearing Su Mo's words, Marquis Voban's face darkened. He never thought he would be reduced to the same level as that foolish swordsman.
But recalling that he had been taken out in one move, and Doni had likely been taken out in one move as well, he had nothing more to say.
It wasn't that there was no gap between him and Doni, but that the gap between them was meaningless to Su Mo.
Although the new king before him was also a Godslayer, in terms of strength, there was a dimensional-level difference between them.
Realizing this, he no longer dwelled on it, but instead pondered what Su Mo had said.
"The first judgment?"
In other words, the other party didn't unconditionally one-shot him, but could only do so if he met certain judgment criteria?
Realizing this, Marquis Voban's heart lifted. As long as he could figure out the conditions for the other's Authority judgment, he might not be without a chance of turning the tables.
Just as he was feeling uplifted and about to ask for more information, Su Mo suddenly raised his head.
"Another new guest has arrived? It's truly a double blessing."
He wasn't being polite; his tone genuinely contained joy. Because the arrival of the Heretic God before him signaled the acquisition of a crucial divine instrument.
"A new guest?"
Hearing Su Mo's words, Marquis Voban also looked up, following Su Mo's gaze to the sky. Only then did he realize something was wrong.
He had already been defeated, and the effect of his Authority had dissipated. The dark clouds over Rome had long since vanished.
But right above their heads, a thick thundercloud not only hadn't disappeared, but the power of the thunderstorm was even gathering more and more.
As if sensing their gazes and realizing he could no longer hide, a hearty voice suddenly sounded from within the thundercloud.
"Hahaha! Please do not misunderstand. A sneak attack is not the way of a god of war. I was merely gathering power here!"
"Since I have been discovered, it would be too impolite not to show myself. However, Your Excellency's power is too bizarre, and walking to one's death is not the choice of a wise man."
"Therefore, please accept this full-power strike from me, Lancelot du Lac, the Knight of the Lake! Let me witness the strength of the gods' sworn enemy!"
Accompanied by the clear voice, an incomparably terrifying killing intent suddenly descended from the dark clouds above.
BOOM!
White lightning outlined the figure of a white knight on a white horse. The god of war who called himself Lancelot, with an incredibly dazzling divine speed, launched a thrust from the sky at Su Mo on the ground.
From the thunderclouds summoned by Marquis Voban, Lancelot had absorbed enough lightning. Therefore, the speed of his charge had directly reached the realm of divine speed!
A near-light-speed assault was already extremely terrifying, almost impossible to dodge. What was even more terrifying was that Lancelot had also used his most powerful offensive Authority—Chevalier's Onslaught!
It was a charge with the impact of a falling meteor, easily capable of pulverizing the earth within a radius of dozens of kilometers and turning it into a huge crater.
If this blow were to land, even though this was the outskirts of Rome, the aftershocks of the power would be enough to destroy more than half the city.
In the original story, even one as strong as Athena was unable to deal with the war god's thrust upon their first meeting and was directly pierced.
And now, faced with such a ferocious offensive, Su Mo just raised his hand slightly. The orange-red sword of light flowed in Su Mo's hand, the law of victory confirmed in his palm.
Although Lancelot was merely a human knight in the myths, in terms of combat power as a Heretic God, he surpassed the chief goddess Athena and was much stronger than the average Heretic God.
As a Steel Hero God close to the origin of Steel, he not only possessed a divine speed Authority, but also a Steel-attribute defensive Authority, and had divine-level martial arts.
He was not lacking in any of the crucial divine words.
Even for the Sword of Victory spell, Lancelot was, to date, the opponent who could pass the most judgments.
However, no matter how many judgments he could pass, as long as there was one he couldn't, his final fate would be the same as Voban's—defeat.
Right now, if Su Mo wanted to activate the effect of the Mythical Thaumaturgy, the Sword of Victory, in a single thought, Lancelot would be instantly killed, with no room for maneuver.
But he thought about it and decided not to. Victory was a simple matter for him, with or without the Sword of Victory. Since that was the case, he might as well take this opportunity to test the power he had just mastered.
It was a power he had only managed to master after greatly increasing his understanding of Divinities in the Astral (Underworld) Plane last time, through the Authority of Vulcan, the god of fire and the forge, and through research and experiments on various other Divinities.
"Conceptual Armament, Divinity Simulation: Aegis Shield."
A Divinity Simulation, as the name implied, was a counterfeit of a true Divinity.
After research, Su Mo discovered that Vulcan's Authority, the Forge of Olympus, could not help him forge an exact replica of a divine instrument.
If it could, Su Mo alone would be able to forge all mythological armaments. Unfortunately, it couldn't.
However, although it couldn't forge a true divine weapon, it was sufficient to forge a substitute.
In the previous battle, the divine instruments that Vulcan had created but hadn't had time to use were all simulated Divine Armaments.
The disadvantage of a Divinity Simulation was that the created armaments were consumables. If the materials used were good enough, the lifespan would be longer. If the materials were poor, the lifespan would be shorter.
The advantage of a Divinity Simulation was that, at the cost of its lifespan, it gained power equal to that of a true Divinity.
Right now, the shield Su Mo had created was a simulated Divine Armament.
Although it was named the Aegis Shield, this was not the Aegis Shield from the myths made from Medusa's head, nor was it the shield forged by the god of the forge, Hephaestus, for Athena.
It was the ultimate shield created by the king of the gods, Zeus, from the hide of the she-goat Amalthea.
Legend had it that this shield could repel all evil and disasters, and that not even Zeus's lightning could harm it in the slightest.
BOOM!
A sound like the collapse of a mountain range rang out.
The speeding war god crashed head-on into the Shield of the King of Gods that Su Mo had temporarily created.
The impact, capable of shattering the earth, was fully absorbed by the shield. Even the aftershocks of the impact were enough to kick up a storm.
But the Aegis Shield, the target of the impact, remained unshaken, without a single crack.
"The Shield of the King of Gods? A troublesome power!"
After his Authority was completely nullified, Lancelot could no longer maintain his charging mode and hovered in the air on his white horse.
"Not even this Authority can break through your defense. It seems we are truly ill-matched." The war god, whose opening move had failed, sounded slightly resigned.
"Ill-matched?" Hearing this, Su Mo shook his head.
Lancelot seemed to have misunderstood something.
It wasn't that he happened to have an Authority that countered the other's charge, but that he had happened to choose an Authority that could counter the other's attack.
The difference between the two was not to be measured in inches.
If he simply wanted to defend against the other's attack, he only needed to take out Artoria's Avalon scabbard. An ordinary Authority could hardly break through Avalon's 6D dimensional-level defense.
As her Master, while sharing the Authorities of the Heretic Arthur and Gawain with Artoria, all of Artoria's powers had also been opened up to him.
In other words, if Su Mo wanted to, he could pull out an Excalibur or an Avalon at any time.
The reason he hadn't done so was just to conduct an experiment.
"The effect of a Divinity Simulation, besides having a limited lifespan and constantly consuming one's Spirit Origin, is indeed no different from a normal divine weapon."
Su Mo was very satisfied with the results of the experiment.
Of course, since it was an experiment, conducting it only once would be too unscientific. More samples were needed to reach an accurate conclusion.
Therefore—
"If it's a Steel Hero God, then let's try this!"
As Su Mo's words fell, a sharp sword wreathed in black and red flames appeared in mid-air.
The destructive black flames, like a tenacious disease, quietly burned everything between heaven and earth, causing even Lancelot, who possessed a body of steel, to feel a terrifying palpitation in his heart.
Conceptual Armament, Divinity Simulation: The Flaming Magic Sword, Lævateinn!
In the myths, it was a destructive divine instrument that had once burned the world and achieved the feat of world destruction.