Chapter 227: Decision

Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav

The frozen earth replaced the collapsing temple. As an enemy of this world— my world—Emordilorcan was currently being attacked by the entire world.

Ice pillars would suddenly appear out of the ground, and blizzards would descend upon him without any warning. Even the rocks he accidentally kicked away would come back and land on his head. This entire world viewed him as an enemy and was acting upon it.

This wasn’t even something intentional. It was simply because, as the creator of this world, I viewed him as an enemy; this world was venting its own rage upon him as well. Although nothing it did was life-threatening for Emordilorcan, being in this world, where even the very environment was literally hostile to him, was inhibiting; he would have to worry about tripping every time he took a step.

My world wasn’t complete yet, and the only elements I could control within it were the ice and snow. Perhaps these attacks were unable to even damage Emordilorcan who was in a class of his own, but the enmity and attacks from my world were sufficient to at least distract his attention.

“Damn it! If you aren’t a coward, then come out of your turtle shell!”

The angry Emordilorcan, who was so famous for having nigh-impenetrable defenses, never imagined that he would one day have to taunt someone else for taking advantage of a high defense. Yet, sometimes, fate was just that ironic. Now, it was time for Emordilorcan, who possessed one of the strongest defenses of all time, to be helpless about his enemy’s defense.

The ice armor that seemed so fragile was covered with that fatal blue flame, which was obviously untouchable. No matter how strong his fists were, Emordilorcan didn’t even know how to go about attacking me.

“Hmph! If you’re not a coward, then come hit me!” I even began to taunt him.

Only now did he begin regretting the fact that he hadn’t worked harder at mastering high-level earth elemental magic. In this abnormal world, he was unable to gather any earth element at all for strong attack spells. Even though he wanted to dig up some earth to toss at me like projectile weapons, he discovered that the ground was nothing but ice, and when he forcefully dug some up, it would strangely instantly melt into water.

Emordilorcan was having a difficult time in this world filled with enmity against him. He had to be careful about every little step, as he could trip over at any instant. The sudden sinking and shaking of the ground was also a bother that kept distracting him.

In this world, I suddenly revealed a strange transformation with angel wings and demon feet and scales. This transformation combined the traits of creatures from both Order and Chaos and was abnormal enough, but my combat strength also multiplied by several folds.

The ice and snow in my hands transformed into stakes of ice, and with just the wave of my hands, the hundreds of ice stakes shot out at Emordilorcan in artillery fashion. This entire world of ice and snow became an icy cannon formation under my control.

However, in Emordilorcan’s eyes, the most dangerous thing of all was still the blinding icy flames that shone with a demonic blue.

Just touching it even a little would require him to dig off another piece of flesh. Meanwhile, I unhesitatingly tossed the random ice sword I had, which was covered in icy flames, at him. It was basically an insult to him who was a Master Monk and an expert in martial arts.

As a veteran Master Monk, knocking away projectiles was the basics of the basics to him. As for Emordilorcan, even if there were several hundred top-level elven archers shooting arrows at him simultaneously, he could confidently knock away every single arrow effortlessly without having a single one land on him. This weapon throwing, which was obviously from a novice, was something he could dodge even with his eyes closed.

“Even if those icy flames are life-threatening, it’s fine as long as I don’t touch them!”

The strange part was that the weapon throw, which shouldn’t have been a threat at all, suddenly seemed to increase its speed when it approached him.

“Damn it! What did you do!?”

There was obviously no outside force affecting the weapon throw, but my thrown swords of ice seemed to sometimes appear slow while at other times appear quick. Just as he felt he was able to dodge one, it would suddenly increase its speed and flick him.

Without even waiting for the ice flames to spread, the furious Emordilorcan would tear off another piece of his flesh and continue to roar angrily at me. But, my only response was to throw even more ice swords. enveloped in icy flames, at him.

In Emordilorcan’s eyes, those swords increased their speeds by several times again. Those increases in speed caused him to lose the confidence to knock the swords away, so he attempted to dodge with a leap. Unfortunately for him, those swords still managed to make contact with him!

“An error in judgement? Every possible increase in speed will always have some type of indication, and I can’t make such an error in judgement. In that case, it isn’t that the projectiles that became faster; I’m the one who became slower! Just what did you do?!”

The angrily roaring Emordilorcan actually seemed rather hilarious to me at the moment. By the time his angry shouts reached my ears, it sounded like “I’m… the… one… who… became… slower! Just… what… did… you… do!”

It wasn’t only his voice; his movements were also like what you would see in an old movie shown by an almost broken-down projector. They were sometimes quick and sometimes slow, always jerky. At this time, he was already “poisoned” quite deeply, as part of his very Concept and existence had been “zeroed.”

Absolute zero. From a certain standpoint, this was a concept that was only in my original world. At this temperature, even the atoms that made up matter would stop their movements, and every form of energy or power would be “zeroed,” which was why it was called absolute zero.

But in this world, the basic particles of matter weren’t atoms, protons, electrons, and so on, but rather elemental particles. As for that so-called -273 degrees Celsius which was supposed to be absolute zero, it wasn’t a difficult task for any high-level ice mage, and there were even some creatures that lived just fine in environments of under -500 degrees Celsius.

But Divine Sins were simply abnormal. This power wasn’t merely creating a low temperature—it had the ability to zero the basic elemental particles of an individual’s body and reach the theoretical state that shouldn’t have been possible—the state where everything would “stop.” In this world of Eich were there wasn’t even a concept of “absolute zero,” this type of power should never have been born in the first place.

“…Frigid Nightmares live symbiotically with their hosts’ souls, so did he obtain this concept from me?”

Every Divine Sin could be considered an error of the world. If any such “error” spread out and caused chain reactions, they would likely cause the entire system of the world to die and collapse. This was why Divine Sins were viewed as the greatest enemy and threat of the Gods.

Obviously, directly using these icy flames in the mortal plane was nothing more than suicidal as it would attract the attention of the True Gods. Yet I found another method to use this type of power.

“Less, even less—so little that it’s undetectable, and envelop it in normal ice to dilute it. Afterwards, slowly have it pour out, just like milk that’s been added to coffee.”

After my ability evolved into “Death Chill,” with this additional modification, it further evolved into its apex.

[Hibernation Chill: This effect is added to all of your ice attribute attacks and spells. Every single attack or spell will decrease your opponent’s speed by 1%. This effect is stackable, and can’t be resisted. This effect will automatically disappear if not stacked for ten minutes.]

It seemed like a useless ability that was at the bottom of the barrel, but only by actually trying it out did I discover its true fearsomeness.

This slowing effect was actually the method for leading my enemy to the state of “absolute zero.” My enemy wouldn’t notice this effect one bit, but it would already take place and begin to slow my opponent. It would decrease their speed more and more imperceptibly, thrusting them outside the axis of time.

“Senses and reactions will all be slowed. For a warrior, a slowed reaction of 0.1 seconds is already fatal; misjudging a blade by 0.1 seconds is plenty for death. Not to mention that stacking it as much as you have already, you’ve probably lost over 50% of your speed. Right now, you’re probably feeling like time is passing by in alternating bursts of quickness and slowness, which means that your body’s sensory mechanisms for time have all been completely messed up—no—I should say that you’re now living in your own time.”

Although I said this out loud, Emordilorcan still had a confused look. This final test of mine confirmed that he was poisoned quite deeply. Perhaps my words sounded like only a rapid-fire incomprehensible chatter to him now.

“What… did… you… do? What… are… you… saying?!”

I laughed at this. If it could be said that the explosive power of “Ice Calamity” was a vicious poison that would instantly kill someone, then this “Hibernation Chill” was a slow, toxic poison that would make people imperceptibly fall into a hibernation state and was usable in the mortal plane.

As long as my enemy was hit even one time by any of my ice attacks, his senses would be affected. For a Master Monk like Emordilorcan who definitely had a strong sense of the flow of battle, one second slower or quicker was definitely fatal. He was even foolish enough to try to knock away my projectiles with his empty hands, which was a type of action where even a single misstep wasn’t allowed.

One attempt, two attempts, several dozen attempts later, and Emordilorcan was now a pincushion. It was somewhat impressive how vicious he was even towards himself, as he dug out every afflicted piece of flesh. He no longer had a single even patch on him all over.

However, although he protected himself this way against the Ice Calamity’s instant-death effect, the Hibernation Chill effect had stacked even more upon him.

By now, his time perception was probably slower than a normal person’s by at least three times or more. Basically, three seconds for me was one second for him.

This was already thanks to his astonishingly high magic resistance. However, since he had already reached this state, the rest would be simple.

I spread my wings. I had prepared this transformation for so long; it gave me the power to face him. Now that the vicious tiger had entered the cage, what remained was to execute him.

*Snap* With a snap of my fingers, the icy flames on my ice armor disappeared, gathering instead on my magic Ice Calamity Sword.

While this ice armor made Emordilorcan utterly unable to attack me, it also gave me an enormous amount of pressure. With the [Coldest Ice] covering my body, I had lost a lot of blood, plus I had a weakened body from my injuries while fighting him. My body temperature was dropping precipitously, and I could no longer feel any of my limbs. The loss of temperature and energy caused me to be dizzy and have a major headache, and perhaps having frostbite all over would be the best possible result if I canceled the ice armor right now.

What gave me the biggest pressure wasn’t even that—it was the icy flames on my ice armor.

After all, it was only the [Coldest Ice], not the [Hardest Ice], as I was unable to create such a hard ice. If Emordilorcan had been willing to sacrifice everything and risk his own life to take me down with him, the ice would have definitely shattered with a single blow.

It still would have been fine if it just shattered, but if some of the icy flames touched my body after my ice armor shattered… probably nothing in the world could have cured me.

This seeming total suppression was actually nothing more than a gamble. I gambled that Emordilorcan’s mastery of elemental magic wasn’t high enough to forcefully control the earth element in my world that lacked elemental power. I gambled that Emordilorcan’s personality was cautious to the point that he would never risk his very life unless he was forced to the utter brink, and I gambled that the power I displayed to him scared him to the point that he no longer had the confidence to be able to kill me in a single blow.

I couldn’t help but gamble. The difference in our powers was just too massive. Even if I used every single plot I could think of, with such a large difference in power, I still had to gamble to fill in the last piece of the puzzle.

“It seems that I won my gamble.”

Emordilorcan hesitated, attempted to dodge and find some way to strike back, but that was what I hoped for. In order for the Hibernation Chill to stack up, I needed time. It was just like how fires were obviously dangerous but rarely killed people, while water, which seemed so gentle, contained the countless bones of people who knew how to swim.

The moment he decided against risking his own life to kill me at all costs, he had already lost his only chance at winning. Now that it had arrived at this, I wouldn’t possibly give him any chance where he could risk his own life to take my own.

I took a deep breath and shattered my ice armor into water droplets. It would otherwise interfere with the next stage of the battle I had planned.

I spread my wings, approached him, and wielded my sword. There was no clash of sword and fist this time. He was definitely not one who would wait around and let me kill him freely, and his reactions from predicting my movements were actually quicker than my movements by two seconds. Yet being too quick had the same result as being too slow. His fists met nothing but air, while my Ice Calamity longsword viciously sliced into his only remaining left arm, causing the familiar blue color to spread on his arm again.

*Snap!*

Despair flashed in Emordilorcan’s eyes. That guy sure was tough and vicious; he actually bit off his own left arm. But now that it had come to this, when I placed my blue sword of ice against his neck, he knew that it was all over for him.

And just as I was about to execute him, that “brave and fearless” Emordilorcan suddenly spoke up.

“Don’t… kill… me. (the rest has been sped up for convenience) I’m willing to serve you as my master. I can become your most loyal servant. My accumulated wealth can make even the richest human emperor seem like a pauper. I know countless secrets and knowledge about the world, and even the greatest grandmasters of magic don’t know as much as I do. And even if I lose my position as the Earth Elemental God, I’m still the strongest Earth Elemental Lord, as my power is definitely significant. As long as you give me time, I can become even stronger. There are no benefits in killing me while accepting me as your servant can bring you endless wealth!”

It was quite a test of my patience to finish listening to him beg for his life because of the slow speed of his words, but I finished listening to it all, and even laughed out loud at the end.

Conquering an Elemental God? That sounded rather majestic.

Obtaining an Elemental God’s endless amounts of treasure hoarded over the years? That sounded like a good deal.

Having an Elemental God as a personal servant and fighter? That sounded great and beneficial.

Killing him was only to vent my grudge while making him into my slave would give me endless benefits. This seemed like an incredible deal, so it seemed that I, who was well known for calculating benefits, had already made my decision.

I laughed, and when he saw that I laughed, he also smiled.

“No.”

This caused him to instantly become pale.

“You want to live? Everybody wants to live, but do you know how many people died because of that one earthquake of yours? Or just how many people died in the end because of the war you started?”

Emordilorcan’s eyes showed that he was rather confused, as if he didn’t understand why I was suddenly bringing up this topic.

“That earthquake killed 376,452 people, and this war killed well over 2 million, so, I understand that you want to live, but right now I want to ask you a question. Did you ever ask them if they wanted to live or not?!”

“How can ants be compared with me…”

Emordilorcan still wanted to defend himself, but I had lost my patience. Just cleaning up the rubble left behind from the battle as well as all the corpses had taken an entire month. I could still hear all those unearthly wails of the relatives that were left alive as if it was yesterday, and right now, the main perpetrator was right at the mercy of my sword and still dared to view my People of the Mist as ants. How could I possibly control my emotions?

“Ants? Ha! Indeed, we may not be as strong as you Gods. You are strong because you are undying, while we are weak due to our short lives. Why—why is it that you damned bastards can’t just let us be in peace? Why is it that even though you’re all so strong, your battles among Gods always have to drag us mortals into your affairs as the cannon fodder?”

“We People of the Mist only want to live in peace, so why do you Gods always have to repeatedly destroy our homes? Three hundred years ago, two hundred years ago, and this year as well, forcing our country to the brink and disrupting our citizens’ lives. Did we People of the Mist offend you Gods in any way? You so-called venerated existences, why not just do some good deeds and go fight your own wars if you want to fight? Can’t you stop dragging us into things and bringing catastrophes upon us?”

“Why can’t you just give us a break!”

“Why don’t you Gods go fight that damned Holy War by yourselves!”

“Why do you foolish existences even have the right to be called Gods!”

“Why is it that even now, you don’t have a speck of regret? Are mortals truly just a bunch of ants that you can step on as you please? Let me tell you—we are humans, not ants!”

My angry roaring kept echoing within this space and got louder and louder with each echo. Blizzards blew and the icy mountains seemed to roar, with the icy plains following suit as well. Their anger represented the will of my world, and all the sounds angrily questioned Emordilorcan, but he still didn’t have one shred of regret in him.

“As long as you let me live, I will compensate you. I can understand your anger at the loss of your property, but as long as you let me live, I shall compensate you ten times for what you lost. And, besides, mortals have high rates of reproduction, they’ll soon…”

Yep, in their eyes, mortal humans were just a bunch of ants that could speedily reproduce. Dying for the sake of a God’s war was supposed to be the highest form of glory, so what did it matter to them if some mortals died?

And, so, I laughed, out of extreme anger.

And, so, I swung down my sword. With a flash of light, that venerated head of a God flew through the air.

Emordilorcan’s eyes were still filled with disbelief by the time it hit the ground. I lifted up his head that was currently transforming into nothing but a rock and made a declaration to the entire world. I had fulfilled my own oath.

“I, Roland Mist, swear that no matter who you are or how venerated your status is, as long as you dare to enter my tribe’s land and kill my people, no matter where you hide, I shall find you and kill you!”

“Forgive? Never!”

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