At this moment, Melqart could be said to have played all his trump cards.
The two divine weapons that erupted at the end were actually the first to approach Ryuga. In the blink of an eye, they would be able to hit this extremely arrogant Campione head-on.
Just as Melqart revealed a pleased expression, as if he could personally witness the arrogant Campione being completely shattered.
The expression on Ryuga's face finally was no longer calm as water.
However, what replaced it was not fear, but a slight realization, as if he had finally found some answer.
Noticing this, Melqart suddenly felt a strong uneasiness.
But he couldn't understand the source of this uneasiness.
It had already reached this critical moment of deciding victory or defeat. Even if he figured something out, so what? This little time wasn't even enough to set up a technique. Did he still have a chance to counterattack?
Even if Verethragna himself were standing here, under this attack that locked down all space in all directions, there would be no room to avoid it, right?
In the midst of such confusion, Melqart suddenly felt a dazzling light illumination - that was the brilliance of the sun.
The White Stallion incarnation?
Hah! So what if it was!
It was just one incarnation. Could it defeat his four authorities?
Having once dealt with this power before, Melqart instinctively showed a contemptuous expression. But at this very moment, something he had never imagined happened.
The blazing sun overhead suddenly exploded.
Golden sword blades and the scorching sunlight merged, forming platinum-colored sword blades.
A massive number of platinum long swords fell at divine speed like meteors.
The strongest god-slaying weapon, the Golden Sword, at this moment overlapped with the light speed of the White Stallion. The divine-speed light swords struck first despite being launched later, almost instantly penetrating the entire battlefield.
The locusts and underworld warriors imbued with Melqart's divine power were directly melted instantly like accumulated snow under the rain of light swords.
Any power containing divine force had no room to resist before the War God's Golden Sword.
The two divine weapons that had erupted at high speed were also directly nailed to the ground by the divine-speed platinum sword rain, even their divine cores sealed.
When Erica arrived, this was the scene she witnessed.
Whether it was the massive locust plague, the underworld warriors, the roaring thunder, or the great sea sweeping across the sky - including the two terrifying divine weapons - all elements that constituted a deadly desperate situation were completely torn apart by this golden sword rain in the same instant.
Like a sharp cutting knife slicing the world into two pieces, under the light swords, all beings were equal.
Even Melqart himself could not dodge this sword rain from the divine speed domain, and was pierced through the chest by dozens of light swords on the spot.
Only after all the dust settled did he hear Ryuga's belated spirit words chant.
"A thousand lights, a thousand swords!"
"How is this possible?!"
With his divine core pierced and his divine power gradually dissipating, even his body gradually turning into light particles, Melqart still wore an expression of shock and bewilderment even in death.
He had spent several hours setting up these killing moves, but Ryuga had completely destroyed them in less than a second.
"How could there be such a huge difference?!"
He could accept defeat, but found it hard to accept such an inexplicable defeat.
Two divine weapons, the eruption of four authorities - why were they defeated by just one authority?
"Perhaps it's because your understanding of power is too superficial!"
Ryuga casually answered.
"——!"
Melqart didn't reply and directly dissipated on the spot.
Whether he was angered to death or not was unclear.
Regarding this result, Erica wasn't surprised at all.
"As expected of my lord! Ordinary Heretic Gods can't even withstand one move from you."
"It's just because Verethragna's authority is rather convenient."
Ryuga shook his head, not thinking it was anything special.
Using the White Stallion incarnation and Warrior incarnation in combination was a combination method that had already appeared in the original work, worthy of being called an official cheat.
The Golden Sword of god-slaying was already powerful in effect, essentially a special anti-god weapon. The biggest shortcoming of this incarnation was that it must hit the enemy to seal their divine core.
When combined with the White Stallion incarnation, the Golden Sword would gain sub-light speed divine velocity and erupt in the form of sword rain, unleashing thousands upon thousands of sword blades.
Like Melqart's defeat, those without divine speed-type authorities couldn't possibly dodge this sub-light speed sword rain.
With Ryuga's comprehension, he had mastered this combination technique when he first got the authority.
After some optimization, it became the technique he had just used.
That's why he hadn't taken Melqart's trap seriously. In the face of a divine speed-level killing technique, all arrangements were futile.
Compared to this battle that had no suspense from the very beginning, Ryuga was more concerned with what he had just comprehended.
At the moment when Melqart unleashed his final trump card, Ryuga keenly perceived what the "true power" that Verethragna had spoken of really was.
[Tohsaka Rin: "Ryuga-sama is really too modest!"]
[Tohsaka Rin: "Didn't these two Heretic Gods fight once before? If this War God was really that amazing, he would have instantly killed his opponent like Ryuga-sama did long ago. How could they have ended up mutually wounded?"]
[Madoka: "That makes sense!"]
[Madoka: "Big brother really is more amazing after all!"]
Not knowing what an official cheat was, they didn't think the battle result just now was a matter of authorities.
Otherwise, why couldn't Verethragna himself accomplish this?
Actually, Ryuga had the same question about this point.
For some reason, in the Campione world, those who liked to play fancy tricks with authorities were generally the Campiones.
Heretic Gods seemed to be rather conservative in their use of authorities. Incarnation stacking techniques like this - even Verethragna, the War God himself, truly couldn't do it.
[Kanae: "Seeing the scene of a divine lord being instantly killed, I feel somehow complicated."]
[Madoka: "What's wrong?"]
[Kanae: "Does anyone still remember that Ryuga-sama actually just advanced to Tier 3?"]
In the Taisho era, although Kanae wasn't a Shinto believer, she naturally had a certain reverence.
But now, after seeing Ryuga kill gods more easily than killing chickens, she suddenly found it hard to feel reverence for those divine lords.
So the divine lords also have limits!
[Tohsaka Rin: "I understand your feelings. However, when Ryuga-sama was Tier 2, he could already kill Tier 3 gods. After advancing to Tier 3, being able to instantly kill divine lords isn't strange, right?"]
[Kanae: "It's not strange... Rather, no matter what Ryuga-sama accomplishes now, I find it hard to feel surprised."]
[Tohsaka Rin: "Seconded."]
[Madoka: "Seconded."]
Watching the group members' worldviews gradually being reshaped into Ryuga's form, Erica nodded with deep understanding.
Just then, she suddenly felt an odd spatial fluctuation.
Erica immediately became alert.
The next second, a familiar spatial passage opened in front of Ryuga - it was the path to the Netherworld.
"Erica, I'm going to the Netherworld for a bit. It might take some time, so you go back first."
After casually giving instructions, Ryuga directly stepped in.
Generally speaking, except for the first god-slaying, other times of god-slaying didn't require going to the Netherworld - authorities could be obtained directly.
However, Ryuga happened to belong to the unusual category.
To lift the restriction of only being able to obtain one authority per god-slaying and seize the complete divine core of Heretic Gods currently still required his personal operation.
To be continued…