Wasting no time, Carl used the full extent of his body’s speed, but even that wasn’t enough to stop what was happening in time as the heart burst into green flames which consumed the one holding them.

Carl continued regardless, whatever was happening couldn’t be avoided so he reprioritised and formed a barrier over Samael to pull the dead king towards him as he continued onward.

The moment Samael’s corpse reached him, it was broken down into divinity particles and absorbed, then Carl continued to the creature who had slain him and ripped one of its charred arms free before that dissolved as well.

He then, used the being as a springboard to launch himself back at Eckro but the creature somehow beat him to the fallen crown and ripped out his heart as well.

Carl knocked it away and reduced Eckro to divinity particles as well, then noticed the creature trying to open a portal but for some reason, it seemed to be struggling.

‘Carl, I’m doing my best to stall Aeshma, I heard Samael’s entire story. Have your son gather you alongside all the crowns and kill them, it will take too long to explain and I can’t hold him forever.’

The voice belonged to Space and whilst it was unthinkable to him, Carl could sense the creature was even more powerful than Samael had been, in fact it seemed to be mutating in some way as well.

If Carl allowed it to absorb all the crowns, including his grandmother’s then he wasn’t sure he would be able to beat it.

In a painfully long fraction of a second, he made his choice and did as instructed, telling Tiamutael to gather them in Cocytus, so he could also absorb all the remnants of the dragon he had destroyed in the palace.

The moment Carl, Lillim and the crowns of hell were gathered, Carl began explaining to Lillim at telepathically at the speed of thought.

“You better win this fight young man.”

Those were the only words she spoke, then she systematically ripped out the hearts of all the crowns and destroyed them before crushing her own.

Carl broke down their entire bodies and absorbed them, there was only one hope now, that Carl could restore them in a way similar to how he had restored Bakunawa with his memories intact.

But then the very space next to him began to burn away and the one Space had called Aeshma stepped through, roaring with frustration at having been beaten to the others.

Whilst relatively quiet, Carl could also hear Space screaming in pain, but Carl didn’t have time to try and heal him as the fiery being began to rampage in an attempt to reduce Carl to ashes.

the flames burning even his demonic body, Carl cycled through forms, noticing that they had all evolved in their own ways as he did so, but regardless of which he picked they were all capable of being burned.

Then Carl had another thought, one which was honestly a stretch at best and dragging his best friend into the meat grinder at worst.

He took on his Death-flame bird-form and soared away at top speed.

“Tiamutael, in five seconds, put Gillian in front of me for two, then pull him out. Tell him to brace for impact.”

As Carl streaked through the air, his death flames lashing at Aeshma ineffectually, he counted down in his head.

‘Five, four, three, two, one…’ He changed to his human form in an instant as Gillian appeared in front of him.

“Sorry Mate, need your power.” Carl collided with Gillian, he felt both of them suffer broken bones from the impact, then Gillian disappeared leaving behind only an orb of divinity which Carl encased in a barrier as he returned to bird form and got back to top speed.

It was even closer than he thought, this form of his was twice as fast as his demon-form, but despite that Aeshma had caught up enough in those two seconds to reduce his feet to ash.

The moment he got up to speed though, he could finally focus, he produced a divinity sphere for every one of his forms and using the highly malleable structure of Gillian’s Were-Chimera.

With that base, he didn’t need to smash them together as he had been doing, it wanted to absorb them, to evolve beyond the limits of its own being.

The moment Carl produced each of the orbs for his other forms, that of the Were-Chimera bounced into them, but at the slightest sign of resistance it gave up and instead produced a tendril which it then used to inject itself into it and overwrite it from the inside out.

It was terrifying how efficient it was at what it did, how it would happily sacrifice parts of itself in order to fully merge into a perfectly synergised and unified being.

The moment it had absorbed them all, he examined it in comparison to the pursuing sentient inferno, it was hard to say exactly what was about to happen but it was certainly his own version of whatever Aeshma was trying to achieve.

The steadily shrinking gap between them was proof that as the creature mutated it was growing increasingly powerful too.

“Why is it always all or fucking nothing with me!? Failure they said… not going to be very productive they said… If-fucking-only that was the case!”

Carl slammed the fully unified orb into himself and the result was nothing like he imagined.

Upon absorption he was forced back into his human-form, but it immediately changed as it began taking on the traits of his other form.

His flesh turned to the purgatorial fire, which was as if to mimic his usual attire, was in turn wreathed in the black flames of death in certain areas before it was all condensed inwards similar to the solar form of Amaterasu.

From his head sprouted horns similar to the ones that adorned the head of Bahamut on his left and ones more like Tiamat’s on his right.

As it condensed down it took on a form somewhere between that of the royal demon battle-form and Nergal, whilst his wings were a mix of the flawless wings of the demon’s more human appearance and those of the birds.

Each of his eight arms bore the traits of a different donor, on the left were arms inherited from Nergal, Amaterasu, Gillian and Cocytus. On the right he had arms inherited from Gillian, Narcissus and unexpected Eckro and Aeshma.

His legs were a blend of the powerful lycan construction that afforded them their power, but in the physical damage resistant form of the vermillion-bird.

From his lower back, nestled between his lowest set of wings, ten fiery tails splayed out like a flower in full-bloom.

Carl braced to feel the Aeshma’s heat lap at him and prepared to leap away and go back to building distance if he did, but even as the flames bared down onto him they were barely warm.

What he hadn’t realised however was that that was the result of the finer details of his new chimeric form.

Despite being wreathed in fire, as made evident by his arms and the solidity of his wings, he did in fact have a physical body beneath the surface one which was a patch-work mastercraft of powers that would usually contradict one another working in seamless tandem.

His body had changed on a cellular level, producing new kinds of blood cells to offer him adaptable regulation that allowed his body to neutralise external temperature influences.

Depending on the balance of those cells they also imparted situational traits to skin, muscle and bone to stop them being weakened or damage as a result of such influence.

His pupils were stabilised Horbi-stars capable of absorbing and erasing offensive stimuli, whilst his Irises had adopt adopted a crystalline quality more like ice.

As he wondered how best to counter the inferno though, he realised that the charred body at its core was nowhere to be seen and likely the only part susceptible to damage, then he felt his throat constrict in a way it never had before and tried to cough to clear.

Rather than a cough though, he accidentally emitted a the clicking noise of a the pure-blooded vampire form that could be used for echo-location and the piercing cry of a banshee.

The emission created a soundwave that cut through the flames and Carl charged after it, having to hold himself back to an almost painful degree to avoid overtaking it.

As he did though, he heard a voice like hot embers roar a single phrase. “uš!”

The voice was one he had never hear, but still there was something familiar about it. The phrase was one he would never forget, the phrase spoken by Gilgamesh when he attempted to curse Carl to death.

Unlike the last time however, it wasn’t some dramatic event where it burned through an entire barrier and halfway through the second, this time it connected fully and done little beyond stoking the black flames he war as clothes.

“No! Why!? Why!? Why!? Why won’t you just die!? I am the greatest of humanity, not you! I am the one who has been fighting them for thousands of years, not you! This is my right! Their defeat will be my glory!”

Carl didn’t respond, he was done wasting his breath on Gilgamesh, Instead he simply did to him what he had almost done to the outspoken god.

Before Gilgamesh even realised what was happening, Carl had drained his divinity channels dry and pulled their ethereal remains from his body.

He then gripped Gilgamesh in the arms he had inherited, rather poetically, from those he had hunted, hurt and persecuted. At that point Carl decided to finally acknowledge him, if only to make him accountable for his crimes, which whilst far too numerous to count were easily summarised.

“Genocide. Torture. Planetary annihilation. Enslavement. As sick as I am of all this, my only regret here and now, is that I only got to kill you the twice. So please keep coming back, every time you do, I’ll make you pay for the crimes.

Come back stronger, so every time you do, I can show you how pathetic you are.

Keep coming back, so your every failure becomes an endless list of reasons to just get along.

Keep coming back, so when an immortal that isn’t beyond redemption can be persuaded to choose a different path.

Keep coming back, because as much as I hate all the violence and killing, I’ll make an exception for you every time…”

Carl’s head returned to his normal form, a soft satisfied smile resting on his lips.

“…Keep coming back so I can burn the sight of me smiling as you die into you so deeply it is the first thing you see when you’re born.”

Carl then crushed then created an aura around him and poured enough divinity into it to sate an entire generation of immortals, approximately double what he had absorbed when Sis needed to rescue him.

When the light finally dulled, Carl checked around for any trace of him, then returned to his human form as he sank to his knees.

Tears fell from onto the ground, ones he didn’t even understand. “Dammit. I thought I put the waterworks behind me. Come on, Carl. Nearly there, just a couple more levels and its over.”

Carl closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly.

The finish line was in sight, his power beyond anything he ever thought he’d have, but his body started to give out. Ragged, fatigued, pushed to the brink of obliteration, then sent over the edge just to be put back together again.

It hadn’t just happened once, it had happened several times.

No one had realised but that was what had caused his mind to split, no one had realised the truth that he was born immortal but that fact was simply masked due to the lack of divinity he was supplied.

After what happened with the massive infusion, Ishtar had been too worried about potential overload and decided against it when he showed signs of advanced maturation even before birth, then he was displaced before she could properly examine him for symptoms.

As a result, his body had been perpetually depleted, subconsciously rationing the meagre amount his still mostly damaged channels could produce. It was only when his system tried to install and stirred Sis from her slumber inside him, that he was able to start growing more naturally.

Then came the day of the wyvern attack, the day he died from something other that divinity deficiency, his body so depleted thanks to expending what it had to keep his body moving after being cremated.

His soul and mind-forms should have passed over to the realm beyond the true gate, but they had instinctively moved and clung to Klaire and Squidge, just as his body so obsessively tried to.

In a matter of months, he had endured so much and his body simply couldn’t keep pushing through as his power still continued to build.

It was no different to what had happened to Kitsunoko.

Under certain situations, or as the result of certain racial traits, it was possible for a body to hold far more power than it typically could. There was always a trade-off though, in Kitsunoko’s case she had only tapped into it temporarily, but Carl had spontaneously evolved and then went to war and powered up yet again without any kind of rest.

His veins started to glow once again, just as they had before Sis saved him.

“Damn… No, I can’t disappear yet, not til I bring everyone back at lea-“

Carl was interrupted by the harsh, wet sound of bones breaking and blood spluttering as a strange cylindrical blade punched through him and into the ground, leaving him impaled and staked in place.

He then felt a pair of hands wrap around his neck and begin draining him of divinity.

“If you had killed me instead of rambling on a moment ago, I never would have realised how similar your divinity is to what this trinket I pilfered from Ishtar puts out. I also wouldn’t have realised that you contain all the divinity and essence I need to complete my evolution.

The best part by far though? I have been trying to drain divinity like this weapon of mine for longer than that fox and banshee filth you love has existed, but only after you drained me did I finally figure it out.

So much for all that big talk little boy, but I’ll offer you the same as you offered me and smile as you die in my hands.”

Carl wriggled and writhed, grabbing and tugging at the hands wrapped around his neck, but he could also feel his divinity being drained into the strange cylindrical weapon.

As Gilgamesh drained Carl of both divinity and the essence of the crowns he contained, he slowly completed his transformation, taking on a form similar to, but far less potent or mixed than Carl’s chimera-form.

As he did though, Carl noticed that the glowing veins were starting to fade. Like some cosmic joke with Gilgamesh as the punchline, being drained was actually stopping his body from going into overload and saving his life.

He still felt weak and fatigued, but his head was clearer and his body stabilising. Then he remembered how he always wore several swords at his hip, it was risky, but if they all drained then getting ran through with another would hasten the pace of the drain whilst he converted more still to physical energy and recover the fatigue.

To that end, he suddenly forced himself up and felt another of the cylinders punch through as he had hoped.

“You know, I’ll give you this much. Your tenacity is admirable, if I had found you instead of that half-breed reject, I could have made you an heir I’d be proud of.”

Carl coughed up blood, the crimson staining the pristine ice in front of him. “Enjoy this victory, you finally got a point, but you’ll that’s the only one you’re getting.”

That insult pushed Gilgamesh over the edge and he completely snapped, the idea that he could break the resistance of an entire species, make gods see him as a threat, turn beasts of legend into prey to be hunted, but not make an eighteen year old boy fear him was utterly unacceptable.

Every breath Carl took was an insult, every action Carl took turned him into a joke, every time Carl gained something it was at his expense,

The hero of Mesopotamia and the hero of all humanity, their titles said it all, as long as Carl lived he would be insignificant by comparison.

Gilgamesh ripped the blades out and kicked Carl into the wall at the far side of the cavern, throwing his swords so that as soon as he hit it, they impaled him. “Maybe this will finally break your spirits…”

Gilgamesh took on the new form he had been so desperately trying to complete, It started as the same charred core he had been before, but then his limbs became as disproportionate as Eckro’s, a set of dragon like wings tore through his back and the fire surrounding him turned pitch-black as countless mouths hungrily snapped open and shut within them.

His eyes sealed shut before dozens appeared all over his body as a ring of horns sprouted through his skull to crown him with an icy-flame burning in the centre as more boney protrusions grew from his forearms like sickles.

“…This power feels amazing! Now none wi-“

He was quickly interrupted by hysterical laughter coming from Carl. It was unthinkable, still the boy laughed and the confusion was as evident in his expression as Carl was eager to enlighten him.

“I’m sorry Gilgamesh, but you look like a candle…” Carl laughed more, then stopped to cough up more blood. “…Let’s hope the all powerful Gilgamesh doesn’t need to scratch his head… He’ll fucking blind himself.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep