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They tumbled out of the collapsing pocket dimension and hit the glass plain hard, rolling across the obsidian surface in a tangle of limbs and equipment. The black sky above them looked almost welcoming after the horrors of the mansion.
"Shit, that was close," Henry panted, picking himself up and checking his gear. "Too close."
"Everyone still breathing?" Sarah asked, helping Irene to her feet.
"Define breathing," Old Hans muttered weakly. He was conscious now but still shaking from his ordeal. "I feel like I've been turned inside out and put back together wrong."
"At least you're complaining," Ren said, retracting his tentacles as he stood. "That's a good sign."
Henry grinned despite their exhaustion. "Have to admit, that was kind of fun once I figured out I could just smash everything."
"Fun?" Irene said quietly. "You have a strange definition of fun."
[System Notification]
Your group has destroyed a domain of an Obsidian God!
Body of Pure Horror suppression has been lifted!
Warning: Divine attention remains focused on your location!
Ren felt his power return in full force, the oppressive weight that had been crushing his abilities suddenly gone. His tentacles moved with their full range and strength, and the familiar red interface hummed with renewed energy.
"Wait," Ren said, turning to Old Hans. "That mansion was a domain of an Obsidian God? Do you know anything about that?"
Old Hans struggled to his feet with Sarah's help, his expression growing serious. "The Obsidian God in the records is already dead. It's a god from ancient times, maybe a hundred thousand years ago. We found references to it in some of the historical documents from other gates."
"If it's been dead that long, how did we just fight its domain?" Sarah asked.
"That's the thing," Hans continued, his voice growing stronger as he spoke. "Dead gods cannot be revived, only reborn. And that takes tremendous amounts of time and energy to gather. If they are reborn, they lose all their memories and are born with new names. This place is a tomb of the Skin God. In the ancient records we found, the Skin God and the Obsidian God fought against the God of Plague and God of Famine and lost. The place where they died is likely here, so there shouldn't be any more gods than those two."
"So what was that mansion?" Ren asked.
"For domains," Hans explained, "dead gods leave behind avatars, like their last will. I think the domain was likely one of the avatar's abilities."
"So it's likely that the avatar is still—"
"Don't say it!" Henry screamed, cutting Hans off. "Don't jinx it!"
WRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
The sound wasn't heard so much as felt, a spiritual pressure that crashed down on them like the weight of mountains. It started as a vibration in their bones and grew into something that made their souls scream.
"Holy fucking Christ, great god above," Henry gasped, dropping to one knee.
The sky folded in on itself like paper torn the wrong way. No sound followed, only a pressure that forced every living thing to its knees. Air thickened
From that silence, the Avatar of the Obsidian God appeared. Not summoned, not called—simply there. It stood tall in a shape that was unmistakably humanoid, yet wrong in ways the mind struggled to accept. Its body was carved from obsidian flesh alive with cracks of gold, as if molten light had been sealed within living stone. Every faint pulse of that glow felt like the beat of a buried heart.
Its head was draconic, a beast's visage fused to a man's frame, with horns curving back like weapons meant for war. Emerald eyes glowed from the darkness of its face, sharp and merciless, scanning the world with the weight of centuries. Long white hair spilled down its shoulders, shifting as if moved by a current no one else could feel.
The creature's chest and arms were powerful, sculpted like those of a giant warrior, and its hands ended in talons that shimmered with green light. When one claw brushed the earth, silence deepened. The ground did not break with a crack or a rumble. It simply yielded, as though reality itself had been carved away.
It was man and beast, stone and god, all woven into one figure. No words came. No roar, no threat. The pressure was enough. The Avatar did not need to announce itself—the world already understood: a god had placed its hand here, and everything living would either bow or break.
"Fuck, that's a Master rank being!" Henry screamed at Ren. "Two levels above us!"
The Avatar of the Obsidian God suddenly appeared in front of them. It moved so fast that they couldn't see its movement, like reality had simply skipped a frame.
CLANG! CLANG!
Ren's fourteen tentacles crashed against its right arm while Henry's daggers clashed against its left arm. The force of the impact pushed both S-rank hunters downward, the glass floor cracking into a huge crater beneath their feet.
"Huh, I'm gonna die here," Ren thought, feeling the overwhelming power difference. "I'm so weak. I thought I was strong enough, but it was just my delusion. This is so frustrating."
Desperation flooding through him, Ren activated Fear of the Unknown, condensing his mental attack skill and focusing it directly at the Obsidian God Avatar's head.
"AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
The Avatar's emerald eyes and ears exploded into bloody gore, divine ichor spraying across the glass plain. It jumped away, clutching its ruined face.
But the small victory felt distant because the Avatar was regenerating at a speed visible to the naked eye. Flesh reformed, eyes regrew, and within seconds it was whole again.
"Gather near me!" Henry shouted, pulling something from his pack.
Everyone scrambled to Henry's position, Old Hans limping but moving as fast as he could.
"I don't want to use this—it's so expensive—but now life is more important than money," Henry said, producing a scroll covered in complex runes.
"Touch my shoulder!"
Everyone reached out and placed their hands on Henry's shoulders or arms, forming a tight circle around him.
Henry tore the scroll in half.
"Teleportation!"
Light exploded around them, and the world dissolved into white static. The last thing they saw was the Avatar's regenerated face turning toward them, those emerald eyes filled with ancient rage.
Then they were gone, disappeared from the Avatar's view, leaving only empty glass and the echo of divine fury behind.