The vestige of the old god raised his hammer to the sky, every single fiber of muscle in his arms contracting to support the extraordinary weight. It circulated Divinity to the hammer and swung down, smashing the ground.
Strangely, as big a wind-up as it took, the hammer did not damage the surface it had impacted.
Lucien jumped up, an action solely carried out by his instinct.
Pillars of magma spewed forth from the ground, scorching his boots, almost melting through to his bare foot, even though the gear he had acquired was supposed to boast an immense amount of divinity resistance.
It jumped after Lucien, swinging from the right to crush Lucien like an aluminum can.
He brought his sword to his right side in an attempt to have the blade take the majority of the impact. As soon as the two legendary weapons made contact, the divinity of Farros Aen and Naerathul clashed fiercely. It was enough to warp the empty space around them.
Lucien had already resigned himself to using as much divinity as necessary, but the divinity within the blade had already melded with his, providing him with an immense boost to his divinity.
"Right! Right! Let's do this then!" Lucien shouted as adrenaline started to take over. "Night Walking", "Void Enchant", Unbreakable Night." Lucien chanted in quick succession.
They were Epitaphs Arts created by Lucien himself, meant to decrease the detection radius of the creature he was fighting by using 'Night Walking' on it rather than himself, with the other two Epitaph Arts being simple but incredibly lethal enhancements of his defenses and offenses.
The battle picked up in speed tremendously as the creature matched Lucien's speed in a disturbingly short amount of time.
Using the vast difference in amounts of divinity left in each of their reserves, every single hammer strike Lucien deflected by gathering almost all of the divinity within the weapon at the point of impact, sending shockwaves, cracking the ground, and distorting space.
By all means, it was a battle that would have resulted in cataclysmic after-effects back on Earth.
Each time the sword and hammer met, the sword seemed to change shape. After a point, it became nothing more than a shapeless blurb. It kept its power and durability and yet...
"If I'm right..." Lucien muttered.
With a one-minded dash, Lucien attacked as fast as possible with the intent of striking the hammer as many times as he could. The strain of moving that fast had manifested in the form of shaky, uneven breaths and a rapid drain of the divinity he had just received, but his idea actually seemed to work.
The creature inherited the movement penalties such a physique implied. It could accelerate to a speed many times faster than Lucien, but where his advantage lay was in the speed of its transition between different actions.
By attacking at the right time in an irregular rhythm, he had managed to turn the hammer into an anvil.
At the same time, the blade drained the creature of its divinity through the hammer. Even better than it was, almost taller than itself, there were simply more areas where Lucien could strike.
His divinity was draining at a speed much slower than what he was gaining, but in the end, he was only human. His stamina gave out, as his breaths were so quick it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say he had been hyperventilating.
His hands were heavy and sluggish, and his entire body felt foreign, with all of his stamina drained; every single action grew incredibly slow. Sweat rained down on the ground with force as the two had been battling in the air for the longest time.
Luckily, it seemed like the creature grew sluggish as well, likely due to the stupendous amount of Divinity that was drained out of it.
"W-Wh... Why ain't it doing anything?" Lucien said as he looked down at his right hand, still holding a shapeless blurb of unknown materials.
He had turned off his Epitaph Arts as they became a strain on his system after keeping them active for so long. His look became stuck to the ground as the possible negative outcomes of the current situation floated around inside his mind.
Damn it. I should've known. Chances like that aren't given to people like me... At least...
"At least I put up a good fight," Lucien muttered with a wry smile.
The creature seemed to gloat as it arched backwards, its diaphragm moving up and down as it held its hands on his chest.
"You're laughing at me?" Lucien said, even though he knew it had no way to reply.
The sword in his hand turned soft, almost into a putty consistency. He gave the glorified Play-Doh in his hand a long look before a crazy idea popped into his head.
What if... What if I eat this?
He hesitantly brought his hand up to his mouth, the material in his hand softening even further as the seconds ticked by. With a gulp and a deep breath. He shoved the filthy-looking brown pool of mystery material inside his mouth. It went down his throat as smooth as soup, and to his surprise, it didn't taste like... anything.
The stars in his eyes shone brightly as divinity burst from within him in an unstoppable deluge of power coming out of every single orifice on Lucien's body.
In the back of his mind, he thought that he might have been able to do it then.
Within the heart of darkness, the Divinity Breaker called forth the Black Sun Forge. From the heart of a dark star emerged the weapon he had always wanted, that he had always longed for.
It was a ring made of a metal called Aetherite, only available for the most renowned divine artisans. At its owner's command, it could turn into any weapon with a dark star as its heart.
"I need a shield." Lucien said as he eyed the ring on his finger.
The creature had made full use of the opening and dashed at full speed and with full force towards Lucien, intending to completely remove Lucien from the universe. It's hammer held so much divinity that it was completely possible to delete someone from existence with sheer and absolute power.