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Chapter 613: It\'s time

“Lady Doji, we need to leave this instant. A fight between two demigods could level the entire battlefield.”

One soldier spoke to her with a worried frown. The earlier fight had been an incredible sight, no doubt about that, but the clashing individuals had avoided the rallying armies during their clash, whether consciously or unconsciously as the subtle action may be.

However, the fight that was about to transpire at the moment was in a whole different realm than anything they had witnessed and could dare to witness.

“I know.”

Shuten Doji took a deep breath as she lowered the now-destroyed binoculars in her hands. Initially, she had joined the battlefield more out of morbid curiosity than anything else, wondering how the fight would dish out with the King of Wratharis.

What she saw, however, went beyond her expectations or even any of her wildest imaginations. Four Dukes had made history by beating a King on their own. Lupus\' state did not factor in the slightest in how incredible the feat they had achieved had been. The sheer ludicrousness of the feat was enough for people to remember them for ages. They would surely be added to the pages of history for what they had achieved.

Well, that should have been the case… if not for the intruders butting in at the end of the battle.

She has changed a lot.

She was taller, far stronger than before. Her hair had also changed into a beautiful golden and her horns were seemingly covered in a metallic sheen.

Shuten gnashed her teeth with a complicated expression on her face as she thought about the woman who followed the man named Eins.

Ibuki Doji. The previous leader of the Oni tribe as well as Shuten Doji’s mother. There were only very few people in existence who Shuten hated more than her mother— Ibuki. The vile woman was a selfish, egotistical monster who completely gave up on her tribe and even her family, forsaking them to fend for themselves, just for the sake of fighting more powerful individuals to fuel her battle lust. She didn’t even let her family tie her down from fulfilling this selfish goal of hers.

If that had been the length of her misdeeds then her actions could have simply been chalked up as the whims of an eccentric with too much zeal and no social cues whatsoever.

However, she did not just stop there. Far from it, in fact. Not only did she leave them but she even betrayed their faith and joined up with a terrorist organization that wanted to destroy all the realms!

The fact had been unknown by most individuals and even Shuten, Ibuki’s own flesh and blood, had been in the dark about this matter… until now that is. With her appearance on the battlefield at this juncture, Shuten had no doubt that people wouldn’t be able to make the connection and identify the woman as Ibuki.

“Let\'s go.”

Turning around, she walked away from the vantage point, intent on erasing even the sight of the woman from her memory.

She needed to start working on keeping the reputation of her clan intact since the news of her mother’s arrival, and eventual betrayal would soon spread throughout the continent.

“Yes!”

The soldiers who served as her guards let out a sigh of relief. It was clear for anyone to see that they weren’t exactly keen on witnessing the battle between two demigods.

Unlike them, however, Doji\'s head was cold and composed even amid the precarious situation. In her mind, she couldn’t help but wonder about one fact.

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What is the prince doing?

One of the biggest factors of Lupus’ demise had been undoubtedly the loss of his divine weapon early on in the battle. Shuten Doji was close to Kiku and she had a great understanding of how much a divine weapon affected a Blessed. The amount of special power that had to be sacrificed to use the weapon’s powers couldn’t be described in words.

While absent for a major part of the battle, it was undeniable that the victory of the Four Dukes was only possible due to Sol’s actions.

But this begged the question… where was he now?

And more importantly, would his presence or absence change anything in the upcoming clash?

After all— for everything he had accomplished, the prince was only but a Duke.

———

In a different dimension, hovering in the air with a spear still stuck in his stomach and his wounds refusing to close, Sol had been observing the past and present events with a focused expression. The Divine Weapon was not to be taken lightly, given its continuous attempts to erode both his body and mana and slowly, painfully drive him to death’s embrace. Any other Duke in his place would have either died to the first strike alone or would have died soon after without exception.

His fists were bleeding as he had to continuously clench them and force himself to not intervene in the fight between the girls and Lupus. The only thing that stopped him from acting was his belief in the girls to manage to pull it off one way or another, and they did more than just pull off their weights. They had gone way beyond his expectations, overcoming all limits and boundaries to win the fight.

The growth the fight brought was necessary for both Setsuna and Lilin. Unlike the other two, they were newly appointed Dukes and had to attune to their powers and stablize their realms.

Now that they won, however,

“I knew that someone would intervene in the end.” Sol couldn’t help but mutter under his breath as Camelia started the goddess descent and brought down power beyond what her mortal body could bear. The divine descent was a time-limited skill that a Supreme Daughter could only use once in their entire lives. After all, the only outcome for a mortal body that housed the power of a Goddess was either death or living the rest of their life as a cripple without any power.

Most Supreme Daughters didn’t have the connection to the respective goddesses they served, or even the power necessary to house their divinity in their bodies. In the past, Castitas had refused to descend into Camelia’s body when Nihil attacked Lustburg.

The only reason they had even accepted the request for the descent at this moment was quite clear to Sol. The goddesses were starting to get worried. It seemed like in their minds, Nihil, the leader of the Wings of Freedom, was less of a threat than Eins, her close second.

Sol sighed, erasing all thoughts about the upcoming clash. From the tears and numerous voids sprawled about in his dimension, he could feel that Lilith’s fight had also come to an end with her as the final victor. Sun Wukong was not dead, but he seemed content in staying down and not moving, despite having lost an arm and being almost cleaved in two by Lilith’s sword.

“Lilith, go help them.”

His voice traveled directly to her ears, and he opened a portal to help her descend to the battlefield.

While Lilith was quite a bit tired from the battle, he had no choice but to send her to keep Zwei in check and avoid situations where she hurt the girls who were all but depleted after their fight against Lupus. Thankfully, with the intervention of the Wings of Freedom, this was not a war between Wratharis and Lustburg anymore so Isis was able to use her undead without thinking of any repercussions that may come her way.

Now I need to focus on myself.

Taking a deep breath, he focused on the feeling of divinity that the spear piercing through his stomach emanated. This spear was a true work of art and a powerful weapon to boot. And Sol could only flee endless glee at having obtained the spear to devour as he wished.

He had been troubled about what he could do to catch a big fish this time around but Lupus had been very helpful. More than he could ever imagine.

“Thanks for the dinner.”

『 Inverted Dimension -::- Inverted Causality 』

Sol had not stayed idle during his stay at the dimension. He had been studying and analyzing the flow within the divine weapon. Thanks to his intimate relations with Setsuna and having seen Ira in person, Sol was able to complete his analysis with ease and minuscule waste.

As for the control… compared to the divine power he used in the past to temporarily reach the Demigod realm, the current level of divine power was far too weak to even be compared.

The flow of divine power that was trying to harm him and erode him stopped briefly before subtly reversing altogether. This was no different from how he changed the flow of the Witch’s curse, only at a much higher level.

Thanks to Milia and Echidna’s teachings, he was finally able to devour all the divinity that the weapon housed. All of his seven main chakra pathways filled to the brim with the power of divinity. The divine power flew along his veins, giving him the feeling of being bloated but never stretched. Sol nearly laughed out loud with the glee he felt. Divine power was euphoric, and it made him think of all he could do with that power, even though it was not enough to make him become a demigod.

However, he didn’t need to become a demigod this time around. After all, his wish wasn’t to acquire a temporary power-up like last time.

“It’s time.”

Sol sat up and pulled out the now dim spear devoid of divine power from his stomach before tossing it away like garbage.

Indeed, it was time.

The time to become…

A King.