With the descent of the Goddess, the surrounding air sank heavily, as if the atmosphere itself had gained mass. It was Divine Majesty—a presence that twisted the very laws of space, an overwhelming pressure that no mortal could ever hope to endure. Standing beside me, Alice Louise of Navarre gasped for breath and instinctively clutched my sleeve. Even her senses, bolstered by my Authority, were screaming as they detected the vortex of pure, unadulterated conflict seething within that expressionless Goddess.
"My King… please, be careful. That is no mere god. She is the manifestation of 'War' itself. Every movement, every breath she takes is crafted for the singular purpose of destruction…!"
I know, you don't have to tell me. Those hollow, mechanical eyes were fixed solely on me. She was peering directly into the core of my existence, dissecting my very essence. Her lips, perfect as if machined, parted as a voice that resonated within the soul echoed once more.
[What exactly are you? You are a most repulsive entity… as if the fragments of a god have been forcibly crammed into a mortal vessel.]
She didn't know the word 'Campione,' but she had correctly perceived my nature. The dissonant aura radiating from one who has slaughtered a god and usurped their power was unmistakable. I let out a weary sigh at this tiresome turn of events and offered a flat response.
“You’d think that smell would be familiar by now. Is the tedious play-acting where we trade names really necessary? You want to kill me, and I’m just annoyed by the whole thing. Isn't that enough for both of us?”
At my provocation, a flicker of change finally touched the expressionless face of the Mountain Spirit-Mysterious Lady of the Nine Heavens. It wasn’t curiosity; it was the cold, clinical wrath of a deity whose concept of 'War' had been insulted. Her tone remained steady, yet the sheer weight behind her words shifted to a completely different dimension.
[Annoyed? Very well. I shall test how long that trivial boredom of yours lasts before me. Within the depths of eternal agony, I will make you regret the words you just spat.]
The moment her sentence ended, the cataclysm began.
CRASH—!
The Goddess took the initiative. The very earth she stood upon roared in subservience. All of Mt. Paektu was her weapon. Dozens of massive stone spears erupted from the ground, shattering the sound barrier as they surged toward me. I countered in the most efficient way possible.
“All who look upon me, all who face me. Be silenced in stone.”
Responding to my will, everything within my field of vision lost its color and began to turn a sickly ash-gray. The stone spears, despite their ferocious momentum, were petrified mid-air and crumbled into dust before they could even graze me.
[Oho, the Authority of an Evil Eye?]
She immediately played her next hand. Nine swords that had been hovering behind her like a halo took flight. Each blade seemed possessed of its own sentience, positioning themselves in the sky to form a Bagua Array. The heavens themselves were transformed into a massive blade formation, seeking to entangle and shred me.
“To all who trespass upon my domain, let the breath of the firmament bar your path!”
At my fingertips, the atmosphere shrieked as it was compressed into a localized singularity. A massive whirlwind rose to form a defensive wall. The ash and dust from the petrified stone spears I had just shattered were sucked into the gale, transforming the simple wind into a grinding vortex of abrasive grit—a conceptual sandpaper that scoured everything it touched. The divine swords of the Bagua Array were repelled with the screeching sound of tortured metal, unable to penetrate the cyclone that blended the power of the sky with the curse of the earth.
Witnessing my consecutive counters, the Lady of the Nine Heavens finally seemed to acknowledge me not as a mere thief, but as a King. She began to draw forth a deeper level of her Authority.
With a single gesture, the sickly purple and black clouds that had blanketed the summit of Mt. Paektu began to condense into a singular, colossal thundercloud. Commanding the atmosphere as the Mountain Spirit and wielding the sky as the Lady of the Nine Heavens, she forged the firmament itself into a weapon.
[You have tricks, Usurper. But did you truly believe your paltry winds could prevail beneath the sky of this mountain!]
RUMBLE—! BOOM!
Dozens of bolts of black lightning struck down toward me like divine harpoons! I didn't dodge. Instead, as if I had been waiting for this exact moment, I reached out toward that overwhelming celestial wrath. That Goddess was about to learn a lesson.
Tāwhirimātea, the god of storms slumbering within me, was also a sovereign of the sky. This wasn't just a collision of raw power; it was a struggle for the 'Sovereign Rights' of the heavens between a King and a God.
I recited the Incantation of Usurpation, piercing the very heart of the conflict.
“O Heavens, obey me—the one who swallowed the Father of Storms!”
In an instant, the black lightning raining toward me jerked and halted in mid-air. Like hunting hounds who had lost their master, their fierce momentum wavered, flickering dangerously between black and blue light. My Authority was challenging her dominance head-on, forcibly seizing ownership of the lightning.
[You…!]
A note of genuine bewilderment colored her voice for the first time. But she was no minor deity. Just before the command of the lightning was completely stripped away, she abandoned the bolts without hesitation and recalled the nine blades she had discarded.
THUNDERCRACK!
As the bolts of black lightning lost their target and crashed down indiscriminately, she spread her massive blades like an umbrella, perfectly shielding herself from the rain of electricity that was now falling upon her.
[Stealing my power and turning it against me. A thought process befitting a common thief.]
Realizing the battle in the air had reached a stalemate, the Lady of the Nine Heavens shifted the battlefield instantly. Her gaze dropped toward the basin of the evaporated Heaven Lake.
RUMBLE…!
It wasn't water. From the very floor of the crater, the primordial essence of the earth that had been sleeping in the deepest roots of Mt. Paektu—the lava—responded to her call. Violent magma erupted from the fissures in the earth, coalescing into the shape of a massive dragon that roared, ready to swallow me whole. In the sky, the nine blades were poised to strike again, while on the ground, the lava dragon bared its teeth. It was an overwhelming display of divine power that moved heaven and earth simultaneously.
“Seriously… what a pain in the neck.”
I let out a dry, hollow laugh. If this continued, I’d be ground down in a war of attrition. There was only one answer. I had to meet her with a power so immense it would shatter all her tricks in a single blow. I extended my right hand into the void. Then, I whispered the Incantation to summon the Holy Sword of Steel, the blade that promised the most sacred of victories.
“Stars fall from the heavens to become the King’s blade, a vow of the end that signals the conclusion of all strife. As the King who shoulders the weight of triumph, I pledge victory here and now—”
“Excalibur!”
Answering my call, a blinding golden light poured down from the heavens. As the light took shape in my hand, a Holy Sword, more noble and radiant than any other blade in the world, manifested into reality.
Sensing the shift, the Lady of the Nine Heavens began to focus her entire existence into a single point. The Bagua array in the sky and the lava dragon from the earth were reduced back into particles of light and fire, converging in front of her. Her nine blades merged into one, and hellish flames wrapped around it, transforming the weapon into a gargantuan Great Katana that held a darkness deeper than the night sky.
“If that is the extent of your strength,”
I adjusted my grip on Excalibur and delivered my verdict.
“Then be shattered. Excalibur!”
We moved at the exact same moment.
SHREEEEEEE—!
The golden slash, carrying the weight of the stars, stretched out like a river of light and collided with the pitch-black strike. In that instant, sound died first. The friction of two conflicting existences—the 'Victory' of the Holy Sword which sought to purify all, and the 'Absolute' laws of the Goddess which sought to shake heaven and earth—tore through the fabric of space. Then, a flash of light so brilliant it threatened to erase the world swallowed everything.
When the light finally receded, the Goddess and I were standing dozens of meters apart, thrown back by the impact. Between where I stood and where she stood, the summit of Mt. Paektu had been split down the middle like a canyon. Not a single drop of what remained of Heaven Lake was left; it had been vaporized completely.
Excalibur was dissolving in my hands, its particles of light scattering into the air. The Lady of the Nine Heavens' Great Katana had split back into nine blades, but several of them were marred by visible, jagged cracks.
“Huff… huff…”
My breath came in ragged bursts. The recoil from the clash of Authorities weighed down on my entire body. Even the Goddess had a slight crack in her expressionless facade for the first time.
This wasn't the end.
[…You are quite something, Usurper.]
There was a hint of ecstasy in her voice.
“I could say the same to you. I hope that wasn't all you had. It gets boring when the prologue is too long.”
I wiped a smear of blood from the corner of my mouth and grinned. The real fight was just beginning.
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