There was no room for doubt. A seven-headed, ten-horned red dragon—there was only one such being in the entire Little Garden.
If its appearance alone was not enough for a definitive judgment, then the divinities frozen in that instant, the gods falling like rain, and the deities being slaughtered as casually as weak humans were more than enough to prove its identity.
Throughout the entire history of the Little Garden, there were few beings who could slaughter the divine host as easily as killing chickens and dogs.
The strongest God-Eater in history, the first to force the gods of the Little Garden to consider abandoning the current human history and fleeing, the one who had truly sundered an entire era of the Little Garden—the Human Final Trial, the Dystopian Demon Lord, had appeared.
The moment the red dragon appeared, gods began to fall.
Whether by coincidence or not, the very first to die was the god who had attempted to inflict divine punishment on Canary and had remained resentful afterward.
He and the gods huddled around him, those who had wanted to haggle for a higher status, had their divinities sealed the instant the Dystopian Demon Lord appeared.
In the next moment, the red dragon's claws tore them into mangled flesh and blood, devouring them completely.
Having lost their divinity, the gods were like helpless chicks before the Dystopian Demon Lord, crushed with overwhelming and irresistible force.
"How is this possible? Wasn't the Dystopian Demon Lord defeated? Why has it reappeared?"
Indra's face was a mask of horror.
Even an ancient deity like him could not resist the Dystopian Demon Lord's power to suppress divinity.
If the Dystopian Demon Lord had targeted him first, then caught unawares, even an ancient and powerful three-digit rule-breaker like Indra would have been instantly killed.
Fortunately, he and the gods of the Greek pantheon were extremely close to Canary, toward the direction of Arcadia's headquarters, while the Dystopian Demon Lord had landed in the center of the divine host.
Thus, those of the "surrender faction" were still safe.
But safety was a small comfort. The sheer terror inspired by the Dystopian Demon Lord far surpassed the impact of the hundreds of gods who had just fallen; it was enough to trigger PTSD in the entire divine host.
Like the Absolute Evil Demon Lord, this was another genuine exception, a being capable of taking on the entire divine host single-handedly.
"I see..."
In contrast to Indra's utter astonishment, Canary's expression was one of sudden realization upon seeing the Dystopian Demon Lord.
She finally understood why Su Mo had summoned the End Emptiness ahead of schedule.
Another who understood at that same moment was the World-Honored One, who had remained motionless until now.
He had kept his eyes closed and head bowed, tacitly permitting the undercurrents to flow between Indra and the other gods. Only when the Dystopian Demon Lord appeared did he finally open his eyes.
The Buddha's wisdom eye could perceive the entire Three Realms, but he didn't need to. He only had to probe one or two of the outer worlds connected to the Little Garden to find the answer he sought.
"The historical transition period represented by the Black Death has vanished. This means someone has deliberately rewritten the human history of the infinite multiverse, intentionally awakening the Dystopian Demon Lord..."
Few knew the specifics of Canary's gambit back then, but the World-Honored One was one of them.
She had controlled the solar calendar to trigger the historical transition period known as the Black Death, which in turn ushered in the Renaissance and suppressed dystopian ideology.
It wasn't a head-on defeat of the Dystopian Demon Lord, but a suppression of the probability of its birth to a point infinitely close to zero.
The consequence of such a maneuver was that if the historical transition period known as the Black Death were ever erased, the Dystopian Demon Lord would instantly return with a vengeance.
And since the time limit for this Human Final Trial had long since been reached, the mechanism for the End Emptiness's descent was triggered as per the rules.
That was why the jet-black tyrant had descended upon the center of the Little Garden without any warning and begun to devour everything in its path.
The appearances of the two demon lords were inextricably linked.
Upon this realization, the Buddha's eyes did not fill with despair like those of the other deities. Instead, they shone with intense elation.
"To deliberately draw out the Dystopian Demon Lord... Does this mean he truly has the power to overcome the End Emptiness?"
If so, just how confident was Su Mo in his chances of victory to dare detonate this crisis ahead of schedule?
Beyond that, there was an even more important detail.
"Wait! Don't we still hold half of the Sun's Sovereignty? How did Su Mo bypass us to directly interfere with the Akashic Records?!"
A goddess realized the problem a beat too late.
Theoretically, Su Mo shouldn't have possessed the authority to bypass them and rewrite the Akashic Records for the entire infinite multiverse.
So how had he done it?
Just as this question arose in the minds of the three leaders, Indra's roar echoed like thunder.
"World-Honored One, be careful!"
Even before the warning, the Buddha had already sensed the danger. He looked up to see the seven-headed, ten-horned red dragon flapping its menacing wings, its great, fang-filled maw wide open as it charged right at him.
"Another Cosmology—Three Thousand Worlds!"
Almost subconsciously, the Buddha prepared to use his strongest power to face the Human Final Trial.
However, his normally invincible cosmology remained utterly silent, showing no signs of activation.
"Damn it!"
The reason the high and mighty two-digit gods had once been suppressed by a mere Human Final Trial to the point of abandoning the Little Garden was actually quite simple: the Dystopian Demon Lord was a death sentence to any deity, including those at the two-digit level.
This demon lord had once beaten the Son of God, the strongest divine leader of his era, into utter despair. It had beaten the World-Honored One into tacitly accepting the Son of God's move to form a demon lord alliance.
It had even beaten Canary so thoroughly that she could only resort to a cheat-like method to erase it.
And now, it had returned to the Little Garden, as invincible as ever.
At the very least, the World-Honored One was no match for it.
With his divinity nullified, he was still an enlightened one on the level of the Divine Realm, but even that was not enough to face the evil dragon, Satan.
"Do not harm my master!"
A flash of golden flame appeared, positioning itself between the dragon and the World-Honored One.
In that instant, among all the deities who managed to react, only Garuda was capable of fighting back.
Though he too had lost his divinity, the innate abilities of the Golden-Winged Great Peng belonged to the side of Evolutionary Theory and had not been nullified.
The Golden-Winged Great Peng gave his all, moving at divine speed to shield his master. His offensive golden flames could only momentarily stall the evil dragon Satan before they were nearly torn to shreds by an overwhelming, irresistible force.
Just as Garuda was about to be killed on the spot, just as the fangs of the evil dragon Satan were about to touch the Buddha's body and tear the World-Honored One to pieces—
A leisurely voice, one that no god would ever forget, rang out.
"I remember, you're little Kalinga's father, aren't you? Though I hear you two don't get along..."