#754 (Patreon)

God's Will (5)  

The capital of the united kingdom, the center of it all.  

The royal palace area, located at the heart of the capital, glowed brightly in the light of the sunset.  

From afar, it was truly a beautiful sight.  

The sunset descended to the earth, illuminating the sky pierced with holes.  

“Hah… Hah…!”  

However, the people who had been around the area until just now couldn't feel such beauty.  

Instead, they gasped for breath as they tried to escape as far as possible.  

“Hurry! Quickly—!”  

Even a closer look revealed the urgency.  

As the saying goes, life is a comedy when seen from afar, but a tragedy up close.  

With a little closer inspection of the scenery veiled by the beautiful sunset, it was clear why these people were fleeing so desperately.  

Bubbling, bubbling, bubbling.  

Broken steel bars, shattered bricks and cement fragments of buildings, cars, and glass—all the components of the city—were melting away, dyed in the colors of the sunset.  

Even the ground itself was no exception.  

It was reminiscent of a blast furnace made from the city itself, and its heat was overwhelming enough to be felt even beyond the city's outskirts.  

A temperature forbidden to humans.  

It was a staggering and terrifying scene, almost impossible to believe even when seen with one's own eyes.  

Amidst that surreal landscape, two beings collided, raising massive waves of molten lava.  

“You are quite boastful, noble one.”  

***  

Eyes that shone brighter than any fire.  

A mouth cracked open like the fissures in rocks.  

Skin blackened and split like charcoal.  

A rotating halo of fire above the head.  

Wings resembling thunderbolts made of fire and smoke.  

Burnt One leaped through space and threw a punch, speaking.  

“You are quite boastful, noble one.”  

To this, Oliver, who leaped through space with a quarterstaff like Burnt One, replied.  

“I’m being sincere.”  

When Oliver’s quarterstaff collided with Burnt One’s fist, a massive wave of molten lava erupted.  

The wave of lava unleashed an ear-piercing roar, and amidst that roar, Burnt One burst into loud laughter with his own voice.  

“Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!”  

As the demonic laughter resounded, the wave of molten lava crumbled, and the sea of glowing lava churned violently.  

Rumble━━━!  

The waves of lava surged chaotically like a stormy ocean, scattering molten iron droplets that melted flesh and burned bones in all directions.  

It was a scene that seemed to have brought hell to the surface, and in truth, that wasn’t far from the reality.  

This was a realm created by one of the 72 lords who ruled over hell, using their own power.  

“What an amusing joke you tell.”  

Burnt One, who had created a new hell on earth, raised the blade of his charred blackened hand and swung it recklessly.  

Each beast-like movement of his hand caused the molten lava sea to writhe, inducing changes akin to seismic shifts.  

The lava sea seemed to split into several fragments, but unable to withstand the shock, it exploded, resulting in massive waves that momentarily turned the heavens and the earth upside down.  

In the midst of this phenomenon, Oliver remained unscathed.  

Walking on the molten lava sea like Burnt One, Oliver avoided and blocked Burnt One's gestures while maintaining his balance amidst the roiling lava.  

No, even more remarkable was that he could breathe and maintain his form in this extreme heat, where even superhumans, let alone ordinary people, wouldn’t last a moment.  

“Calling someone’s sincerity a joke is quite rude.”  

Amidst the wildly surging lava, Oliver blocked Burnt One’s attack and then lifted one leg, stomping down on the lava with all his might.  

The chaotic lava sea rose into a water column that reached the heavens, and molten iron rain poured down, disrupting the surrounding view.  

Sizzle! Sizzle! Sizzle! Sizzle!  

The molten iron rain, radiating intense heat, fell from the sky, reflecting light off one another.  

The shimmering light and heat distorted the view into a dreamlike scene while simultaneously creating a nightmarish landscape as the molten rain burned and melted the earth.  

A pinnacle of contradiction.  

In the midst of this, Oliver’s figure blurred, appearing and disappearing like a mirage.  

Using the molten rain falling from the sky and the power of space, Oliver sought to deceive Burnt One’s eyes.  

Burnt One’s gaze darted here and there, following Oliver’s movements, before halting on the left.  

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━!  

As Burnt One extended his left arm, a roar louder than a dragon’s echoed.  

It was the sound created when Burnt One blocked Oliver’s outstretched right hand.  

When Oliver’s right hand collided with Burnt One’s left hand, a spherical shockwave erupted at the impact point, expanding outward and halting the molten rain.  

Squeeze······!  

Without waiting for a signal, they both clasped each other’s hands tightly.  

“Burn.”  

“Burn.”  

Both Oliver and Burnt One commanded simultaneously.  

Flames erupted from their two arms, charred and cracked like burnt logs, beginning to consume one another.  

Whoosh!  

Flames engulfing each other.  

At a glance, they appeared to be ordinary flames, but as the two fires collided, the surrounding lava boiled even more violently before slowly starting to evaporate.  

The flames were evenly matched, burning and vaporizing even the lava.  

However, the balance of the flames soon tipped to one side.  

“Do you think you can defeat me with the flames I granted you?”  

“Of course not.”  

Oliver, whose firepower and strength were gradually being overwhelmed, responded while clenching his left hand into a fist.  

From the beginning, his right hand had been a decoy.  

Oliver was preparing to strike with his left hand instead.  

The problem was that Burnt One also had a remaining hand.  

As if anticipating this, he clenched his other hand into a fist as well.  

In the fleeting moment when both pulled back their fists, as though distorting time, Burnt One spoke leisurely.  

“This brings back old memories. Back then, I landed a solid hit on you.”  

“I remember. I went flying with just one punch.”  

Recalling the memory of the abandoned mine in the New World, where he was knocked down with a single blow, Oliver added.  

“That’s why I prepared for this… Pierce through.”  

As Oliver commanded, a quarterstaff flew through the air at the speed of light, striking Burnt One’s right shoulder.  

Crunch!

Although it didn’t pierce through Burnt One’s shoulder as Oliver had intended, it managed to momentarily halt his actions.  

A brief opening as fleeting as a blink.  

Oliver didn’t waste this moment and threw his left fist with all his might, slamming it into Burnt One’s abdomen.  

“Fly away.”  

────────────────!  

When Oliver’s fist struck Burnt One’s abdomen, an imperceptible sound reverberated as Burnt One was sent flying backward.  

In the direction opposite to where the people had evacuated.  

Riding the momentum, Oliver extracted his emotions, infused them into the quarterstaff, and immediately hurled it toward Burnt One.  

[Black Javelin]  

“Pierce through.”  

The quarterstaff, imbued with Oliver’s black magic and power, transcended space and appeared right in front of Burnt One.  

But surprisingly, it didn’t pierce him.  

Despite flying chaotically through the air, Burnt One extended his hand and caught Oliver’s thrown weapon.  

A javelin crafted with Oliver’s emotions capable of opening the gates of hell, fused with the power of the prince of hell himself.  

In response, Oliver stretched out his hand and shouted.  

[Targeting]  

A dartboard-like mark appeared on both Oliver’s hand and the quarterstaff.  

With a chant, Oliver instantly maximized the gravitational pull of Targeting.  

[Thunder Transformation]  

Thunder Transformation—the essence of the Mjölnir school, which converts the caster’s body into lightning.  

Oliver’s body became blurry for a moment, disintegrated, and transformed into lightning.  

In that state, using the pull of Targeting, he flew toward the quarterstaff’s location.  

“Shatter.”  

He stomped on Burnt One’s abdomen, who was gripping the quarterstaff to block it.  

Boom──────!

A shockwave of lightning that reached the heavens.  

Oliver looked at Burnt One.  

Although Burnt One’s abdomen did not shatter as Oliver had commanded, the accumulated impact of the attack sent him flying even farther back.  

[Fixation]  

“Freeze.”  

As Burnt One tumbled across the ground from the kick to his abdomen, Oliver allowed no respite and immediately activated his next technique.  

Ice, born of Oliver’s emotions and mana, began to form on Burnt One’s body.  

The ice grew and expanded like barnacles, feeding on Burnt One’s power.  

Sizzle······!  

The ice clinging to Burnt One’s body cooled his heat, releasing steam into the air.  

Amidst the thick vapor, Oliver relentlessly pressed forward, throwing punches and kicks imbued with his power to overwhelm Burnt One.  

“Break.”  

Oliver’s fist struck Burnt One’s jaw.  

“Bend.”  

Oliver’s elbow slammed into Burnt One’s neck.  

“Shatter.”  

Oliver’s leg struck Burnt One’s leg.  

“Pierce.”  

Oliver’s knee smashed into Burnt One’s abdomen.  

“Fly away.”  

Once again, Oliver’s left fist pounded Burnt One’s abdomen.  

────────────────!  

This time, however, Burnt One didn’t fly back.  

His wings of fire and flame, flapping like lightning, absorbed the force of Oliver’s punch.  

With a deafening roar that seemed to twist the heavens, Burnt One smirked.  

“Fierce, aren’t you?”  

“That’s what happens when you call someone’s sincerity a joke. Apologize.”  

Oliver brought up his earlier statement, even adding a joke to it.  

Then, he swung his power-infused fist at Burnt One once more.  

“No.”  

Burnt One blocked Oliver’s fist and retaliated with a punch of his own.  

Oliver narrowly dodged the counterattack, striking Burnt One’s arm with his elbow.  

“Break.”  

Amazingly, when Oliver’s elbow connected, part of Burnt One’s arm shattered.  

Though it was only the ice-encrusted portion of his skin, it managed to inflict a small wound on Burnt One’s body.  

Seeing this with his own eyes, Oliver immediately launched another series of attacks.  

Using his fists, elbows, knees, legs, and quarterstaff, he unleashed a relentless barrage of strikes.  

In turn, Burnt One responded with equal ferocity, meeting Oliver’s attacks blow for blow.  

Amidst the shockwaves that tore through space, Burnt One and Oliver clashed fiercely, darting through the ruined land and collapsing buildings.  

The landscape warped, evaporated, melted, and crumbled around them.  

In the midst of this chaos, Burnt One asked a question.  

“Are you all right, noble one?”  

“......”

“It seems you’re the one breaking apart.”  

Oliver, who focused his attacks on the frozen areas, replied.  

Bit by bit, the portions of Burnt One’s body covered in ice were being chipped away.  

By Oliver’s fists.  

In contrast, Oliver remained intact.  

“Using your power to restore your body must come at a great cost.”  

Burnt One saw through Oliver’s secret.  

As he pointed out, Oliver had been continuously using his power to forcibly heal his body.  

Even at this very moment.  

Not even Oliver, who had annihilated the Piper in an instant, could completely withstand the heat generated by Burnt One.  

The heat radiating from his body and the collisions with that body were gradually wearing down Oliver’s own flesh.  

‘So, he’s figured it out?’  

Oliver thought to himself.  

To be honest, he had expected this to some extent.  

Even though Oliver was a prince of hell, Burnt One was one of the lords who ruled over hell.  

Oliver hadn’t placed much faith in being able to deceive his eyes.  

Still, he couldn’t admit it outright, so he deliberately remained silent and intensified his attacks—  

“Cough!”  

In the middle of their exchange of blows, Oliver suddenly coughed.  

Correction. It wasn’t just a cough—it was blood he spat out.  

“A side effect of overusing your power.”  

Burnt One remarked, halting his swinging fist.  

Why he stopped his attack was unclear, but Oliver took the opportunity to create some distance.  

“You may be the son of ‘Him’, but you are still half-human. That was reckless of you.”  

Burnt One spoke in his own voice.  

Perhaps due to the overuse of his power, Oliver felt a deep resonance of pain inside his body as he listened to the demon’s voice.  

Drip, drip······!  

With the pain, blood flowed again from Oliver—not just from his mouth, but also from his eyes and nose.  

As a result, Oliver’s vision turned red, the metallic smell of blood filled his nostrils, and the sticky taste of blood lingered in his mouth.  

It felt as though he was drowning in a pool of blood.  

Oliver staggered, and seeing him like this, Burnt One asked,  

“Are you still all right?”  

“No······problem.”  

“There’s no one watching, so why not drop the act?”  

Burnt One was sincere.  

Alongside other lords of hell, he had watched Oliver.  

Watched as he was born at the highest place and grew up in the lowest.  

During that paradoxical journey, the noble one had lost emotions like confidence, pride, and self-love.  

Because of that, despite being blessed with talent beyond all others, he neither believed in himself nor affirmed his abilities.  

To a pitiful degree.  

And yet, he’s truly trying to take him down? It was obviously just bravado.  

The reason behind such reckless bravado was easy to guess, but...  

As Oliver’s quiet breaths echoed, he opened his mouth.  

“Why do you think I’m bluffing? Are you so confident in your own strength?”  

“Because my presence here is the will of God. Noble one, as you must now know, a demon appearing in the mortal world, let alone the apocalypse, cannot happen without God’s permission.”  

It was true.  

For a demon to descend into the mortal realm, a human had to summon them, and the demon had to respond.  

But before even that, divine permission was required.  

If God did not permit it, no matter how much humans called, or how much the demon wanted to answer, it was impossible.  

This meant that all these events were ultimately permitted by God.  

“I don’t think so,” Oliver declared firmly.  

“Do you have proof?”  

“I’m still standing here.”  

At Oliver’s statement, Burnt One faltered.  

The idea that his presence here was the will of God—such arrogance was something even demons would hesitate to claim.  

Even he had barely managed to say it, having descended with sufficient conditions despite his warped form.  

But Oliver said it without hesitation.  

And Burnt One could not refute him.  

Whatever the truth, Oliver bore the blood of ‘Him’.  

The first son most beloved by God, so exceptional that he left his father’s side and descended to hell to become its king.  

Regardless of the balance of power, as ‘His’ son, Oliver might have had the right to make such a statement.  

“Does silence mean agreement?”  

Oliver joked again.  

“Well, I suppose I should confirm it myself—whether it’s arrogance or the truth.”  

The tone was ominous.  

Oliver could feel the massive energy stirring again.  

The lava that had been deliberately separated from Burnt One rose, forming a towering tidal wave approaching them.  

The molten wave, both beautiful like a sunset and ominous with its intense heat, loomed over them, ready to engulf them.  

With trembling hands, still suffering from the side effects of his powers, Oliver gripped his quarterstaff tightly and swung it upward.  

“Split.”  

Shrrk!  

The massive lava wave, crafted with demonic power, split in two and crashed to the ground, creating a violent whirlpool of molten rock.  

“Try stopping this.”  

As Oliver turned to face the wave, he heard Burnt One’s voice behind him.  

It was close.  

Burnt One had emerged from the molten sea, shaking off the ice clinging to his body, and was about to swing a fist at Oliver.  

His fist, charged with molten lava, glowed as if it could incinerate everything.  

“Kneel.”  

Oliver activated his power against Burnt One.  

A massive, invisible force pressed down on him, causing Burnt One to hesitate.  

One of his knees and his head tilted ever so slightly downward.  

Fwooshhhhh───!  

The pressure restraining Burnt One burned away and disappeared.  

Regaining control of his body, Burnt One prepared to attack again.  

“Pierce.”  

Oliver gripped his quarterstaff with one hand and thrust it into Burnt One’s abdomen.  

Thanks to his persistent attacks on the abdomen from the beginning until now, it was a successful strike.  

As Oliver prepared for his next move—  

“Let’s see if you can endure this as well.”  

Ziiiiiiing──────!!

The ring above Burnt One’s head began spinning rapidly, and flames seeped through the cracks in his body, emitting intense heat.  

The heat alone was enough to incinerate and vaporize everything around him.  

As proof, the magma around him sizzled and leapt like boiling oil, evaporating once more, while Oliver’s body began to burn.  

The cracked shell of Oliver’s body—  

Until now, it had been restrained. Just like back in the New World.  

“Not much has changed since tha—”  

Thwack!

A wet, stabbing sound interrupted him.  

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!  

Again and again.  

Oliver had drawn a dagger from his waist and stabbed Burnt One’s side relentlessly.  

The wounds he inflicted in rapid succession connected into one massive gash.  

Oliver then grabbed both the quarterstaff lodged in Burnt One’s abdomen and the dagger, pulling them together to tear away a large chunk of flesh from Burnt One’s side.  

“Not much… what, exactly?”