"You didn't flee, which shows you have some martial courage, worthy of being personally buried by me!"
On the mountain, the giant-like Heretic God spoke thus.
In those eyes filled with divine king majesty, terrifying light flashed.
Even Melqart himself was surprised by how smoothly his plan was proceeding.
Everything was exactly as Melqart had planned.
Ryuga had indeed followed his divine might's trail to arrive in the mountain valley he had carefully designed.
This terrain looked ordinary, but probably no one knew that beneath the seemingly flat ground lay completely transformed underworld territory.
Together with locusts, tsunami, and heavenly thunder, four authorities' power tightly surrounded Ryuga's location. As long as he willed it, he could use his authorities to completely submerge the present human.
Besides this, seemingly due to his provocation working, Ryuga still showed no intention of deploying techniques right up to now.
In an undefended state, whether Heretic God or Campione, none could resist authority's power.
It had to be said, Melqart was almost completely satisfied with the current situation.
If there was anything that made him dissatisfied, it was that Ryuga was far too unguarded.
From a rational standpoint, this was absolutely good for him, but emotionally, Melqart had strong objections.
"Since you know your opponent is me, why not go all out?"
The voice containing divine wrath rang out, Melqart's gaze extremely sharp.
"Did defeating Verethragna make you lose basic vigilance? Or do you think I'm easier to deal with than Verethragna?"
At this point, the god king's displeasure condensed into substance.
Tactically, he indeed hoped Ryuga would be careless and underestimate enemies, allowing him to take down this Campione in one stroke.
But his divine king pride made him feel that Ryuga's performance was completely looking down on him.
Being so cautious against Verethragna, yet so careless against himself—what did this mean?
For him, face was more important than life.
"..."
Faced with the god king's questioning, Ryuga completely ignored it.
Melqart noticed that although the opponent's gaze was directed at him, he clearly hadn't focused attention on himself, but seemed to be contemplating something.
Facing a god king of his level, this newly born Campione actually looked somewhat absent-minded?
Only silence is the greatest contempt.
Melqart himself was accustomed to not taking human existence seriously; he never expected to one day experience this treatment himself.
Thus, he became furious.
"Arrogant son of folly! It seems I must grind you into the mud before you understand what divine king majesty means!"
No need for further testing—he wanted to see just how capable Ryuga really was.
"Wind! Rain! Thunder! By Melqart's true name Baal Hadad I call! Storm, heed the cloud rider's summons and swiftly come!"
Accompanied by sacred spirit word invocations, the thunder clouds that had continued over Sardinia for half a day immediately released thousands of lightning rays, rolling heavenly thunder condensing into thousand-meter diameter thunder orbs, rumbling down toward Ryuga.
And this was merely a feint to draw attention!
The moment the thunderstorm descended, countless locusts poured from the mountain cave behind Melqart, like world-covering black fog, eroding toward Ryuga's direction.
Visibly, these locusts devoured everything in their path—whether plant life or magical power dissipated in the air—completely consumed by these insects.
As god of harvest and waste, Melqart possessed agricultural god attributes, able to both grant earth abundance and decree heavenly punishment upon land.
Simultaneously, the earth beneath Ryuga's feet began trembling, dark swamps swallowing surrounding soil completely, thousands of skeleton warriors rising from the darkness emanating underworld aura.
Mountains shook, seawater reversed, towering waves directly crossed mountain ranges, crashing into the valley, seemingly intent on sweeping away everything on the battlefield.
Thunderstorm, tsunami, underworld, locust plague... four long-prepared authorities erupted simultaneously, turning Ryuga's location into a complete deathtrap.
After unleashing his four carefully prepared authorities all at once, Melqart stared intently at Ryuga, trying to predict his movements.
However, contrary to his expectations, even facing such a desperate situation, Ryuga still made no moves.
Not to mention using authority—he hadn't even activated spell techniques.
What was going on? Had he already given up?
Just as Melqart was puzzled, Ryuga finally took action.
He surveyed the dense, almost inescapable authority encirclement from all directions, lightly shook his head, and finally spoke his first words.
"Still not enough?"
What did that mean, what wasn't enough?
Why was there no fear on his face, but what seemed like disappointment instead?
Melqart couldn't understand Ryuga's reaction at all.
But soon, Ryuga's next words made him understand the opponent's meaning.
After disappointedly scanning his surroundings, Ryuga merely glanced at Melqart and asked as if talking to himself.
"Is it because you're too weak?"
Needless to say, it was clear who he was referring to.
"Insolent!"
Melqart instantly felt rage rushing straight to his brain.
As a god king, being looked down upon by a mere Campione—if he couldn't teach him a lesson, where would divine king majesty stand?
"Come forth, Chaser (Yagrush)! Banisher (Aymur)! Swiftly slay the Campione before us!"
In his fury, he directly brought out his hidden greatest trump card.
Those were the godhood weapons that had helped him slay dragons and ascend to the god king position, also the mythical armaments that had once shattered Verethragna into ten pieces.
Exploding all his divine power at once, from the forest behind Ryuga, two massive clubs wrapped in wind and thunder suddenly shot out, aimed directly at Ryuga's back.
Compared to the elaborate deathtrap formed by the four authorities, these two weapons were actually Melqart's most trusted killing move!
He had originally planned to use this killing blow after Ryuga struggled against the previous four authorities, but now, already enraged, he naturally couldn't care about much else and decided to unleash all his power at once to completely crush Ryuga.
To be continued...
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