Chapter 422: The Beginning Of The End [LXXXIV]

“Everything is done now… finally, ugh…”

Aestrea lay sprawled across his bed as his body relaxed for the first time in weeks.

Every prototype worth testing had been pushed to its limits. Every security measure had been stress-checked, calibrated, broken, and rebuilt again.

According to his calculations, the barriers could endure over a hundred direct strikes from a peak 9✯ True God before even beginning to fracture.

He had even called Olivia in personally to test them.

She, of all people, had looked genuinely impressed.

For something like that to happen… it meant a lot.

Rustle~

Like a lazy cat claiming territory, Olivia crawled onto the bed beside him, then shifted closer until she was half on top of him, her arms wrapping around his torso as she nestled her head against his chest.

A giddy smile appeared on her face.

“Hehe~”

The quiet giggle tickled his senses, and Aestrea let out a faint chuckle of his own, one hand automatically moving to stroke her hair.

Then her expression shifted slightly, as if recalling something she had nearly forgotten.

“Oh, right,” Olivia said casually. “Did you hear? The Eternal Tribunal is preparing to take possession of several lower realms.”

Aestrea cracked one eye open.

“Possession?” he muttered in surprise.

“Do they even have the funds for that?”

To officially dominate a lower realm, it required purchasing the surrounding spatial territory, stabilizing it, and then initiating colonization protocols.

And that space alone was absurdly expensive.

“They seem to have been backed by the Primordial Court, so money shouldn’t be an issue,” she muttered.

Aestrea’s relaxed posture stiffened almost imperceptibly.

“…As long as they don’t set foot near my home planet,” his eyes turned cold for a slight moment.

Olivia lifted her head upon hearing his words, her golden eyes narrowing.

“What’s the name of your planet? I have a list of the planets they are going to start invading forcefully.”

At her words, Aestrea was about to speak when…

“Blurrghh!”

Blood erupted from his lips, splattering across the bedsheets as a crushing, hollow pain detonated in his chest.

It felt as though something vital had been torn apart from the inside, a severed connection screaming in protest.

His eyes snapped wide.

“…Th-the gateway I sealed…”

Aestrea clenched his teeth.

“Fuck.”

“A-Aestrea?” Olivia shot upright, panic flashing across her face.

“W-what’s wrong?!”

His aura exploded outward violently, the air shaking as madness surged unchecked.

“THOSE BASTARDS ARE INVADING MY HOME PLANET!”

Darkness tore through the room as four long, obsidian wings unfurled behind his back, tearing space slightly as they manifested.

Above his head, a corrupted halo ignited, glowing with an ominous, abyssal light.

Olivia’s eyes widened in horror.

“A-Aestrea, you can’t use that form in here!” she cried, grabbing him tightly, pressing herself against him as if anchoring him to reality.

“Please calm down!”

For a split second, it worked.

The madness wasn’t gone, but it simply paused for that single moment.

Aestrea looked down at her trembling form, at the worry etched across her face. The corruption around him flickered.

He leaned down and gently kissed her lips.

“I’ll be back in a few days… at most.”

Fwoop!

His form vanished instantly, leaving only distorted air behind.

Olivia stared at the empty space for several seconds, her arms still slightly raised where he had been.

Slowly… her expression changed.

Her golden eyes turned into a swirl of madness as she realized that there were still forty minutes until her time with Aestrea would end

“…There’s still forty minutes left,” she murmured softly as if emphasizing it.

Her gaze darkened.

“…Primordial Court, huh?”

A crimson glint flashed through her eyes as the swirling gold dulled into something eerily blank.

And at the same time…

BAAAM!

Space cracked as Aestrea arrived.

The sealed gateway loomed before him, its original stabilizing runes already shattered, peeling away like dead skin.

At its center, a purple crack tore through reality, pulsing violently as divinity spilled out in waves.

A dozen figures hovered around it, and all of them were nearing the peak of the 5✯ True God realm.

“…He’s…”

That was as far as the first one got.

Fwoosh!

Aestrea vanished.

No buildup. No warning. No grand declaration.

He reappeared directly inside their formation, Midnight already in motion.

SHRRRK!

The first god was split cleanly from collarbone to hip, body peeling apart before his mind even registered pain.

His upper half slid off at an angle, divinity leaking out like shattered light as his lower body remained hovering for a single, horrifying second, then fell apart.

Blood sprayed.

Chunks of flesh rained through space.

The rest reacted instantly.

“DEFENSIVE!”

It was already too late.

Aestrea pivoted on his feet and horizontally swung the Heaven Swallowing Sword without a shred of hesitation.

FWOOOOOSH!

The air screamed as the blade passed.

Four bodies were bisected in the same motion, torsos separating from legs in perfect parallel lines.

Their divine barriers didn’t even slow the strike as they burst apart like glass struck by a hammer because of the Heaven-Swallowing Sword.

One of them tried to retreat, warping space beneath his feet.

Aestrea’s eyes turned toward him.

『 Bleed 』

The god choked mid-teleport.

SPLURT!

Every wound he had ever sustained, old scars, healed punctures, sealed gashes, ripped open at once.

Flesh tore itself apart from the inside as blood erupted outward in a grotesque halo.

He didn’t even finish screaming as Aestrea was already there, using Midnight, which pierced through his throat and pinned him in midair.

A slight twist.

CRACK.

The head came off.

The remaining gods panicked.

“FALL BACK!”

“FORMATION…! NO, SCATTER RIGHT NOW!!!”

They split in every direction, some ascending, others diving, a few trying desperately to activate long-distance escape techniques.

Aestrea exhaled slowly and crossed his swords crossed.

Crackle…!

His body blurred, space folding instinctively around him as if even reality wanted to get out of his way.

A god on the far left raised his spear….

CLANG!

Midnight smashed the weapon aside, followed instantly by a backhand slash from Heaven Swallowing Sword that caved the god’s chest inward.

Ribs shattered, organs liquefied, and his divine core ruptured with a wet, explosive sound.

Another tried to ambush from behind, but Aestrea ducked under the strike, stepped inside his guard, and drove his elbow upward.

CRACK!

The god’s jaw disintegrated.

Before he could fall, Midnight flashed upward.

The body was separated into three uneven pieces.

Meat, bone, and divinity…

Aestrea stepped on a floating corpse and used it as leverage, launching himself toward the last cluster.

They tried to combine their authorities.

A wall of condensed divinity formed.

Aestrea replied by thrusting both swords forward, causing the wall to collapse as if it had never existed.

He passed through them like a guillotine through parchment.

Fwip, fwip, fwip!

Three clean diagonal cuts.

Three gods fell apart in perfect synchronization, bodies sliding down along identical angles before breaking into ruined heaps of flesh.

The final god managed to scream.

“I’LL SURRENDER!!!”

Aestrea appeared in front of him mid-syllable.

He grabbed the god’s face.

“…Too late.”

He slammed Midnight straight through the god’s skull.

Then activated 『 Bleed 』 for no reason other than finality.

The body convulsed, then burst apart from internal pressure, reduced to scattered chunks drifting uselessly in space.

The last god was dead.

And with this, Aestrea quickly rushed towards the crack…

BOOOOOOOOM!

The sky collapsed.

A massive impact slammed down between him and the crack, the ground rupturing outward in a violent ring as shockwaves tore through the air.

Debris shot upward like shrapnel, divine dust blinding the surroundings for a brief moment.

Aestrea leapt back instinctively, his boots skidding across fractured stone.

His eyes narrowed.

Swish…

He waved his hand once.

The smoke parted unnaturally clean, pushed aside as if afraid to linger.

And there he was.

A man stood at the center of the crater, completely untouched.

Four pristine white wings spread slowly behind his back, feathers glowing faintly with sacred light.

A perfect golden halo hovered above his head, rotating gently, radiating a calm, suffocating pressure that pressed down on the world like a moral verdict.

His face… was terrifyingly familiar.

The resemblance to Olivia was impossible to ignore.

The same sharp features, the same noble structure… just colder. As if every trace of warmth had been carved out and replaced with something rigid and absolute.

And his aura was also very strong… perhaps the strongest that Aestrea would have to fight.

An 8✯ True God.

“…Aren’t you Aestrea? The new rising god?” he tilted his head in surprise.

Aestrea didn’t answer his words.

The man slowly straightened his posture, his wings folding slightly behind him as his gaze swept over the scattered corpses and lingering blood mist.

“How regrettable,” he continued in a tone of probably fake sadness. “So much loss. So much unnecessary slaughter.”

His eyes settled on Aestrea.

“Do you even understand what you’ve done?”

Aestrea’s grip on his swords tightened slightly.

The man took a single step forward, boots touching the ground without a sound.

“You interfered with a lawful reclamation!”

“The Eternal Tribunal was acting under sanctioned authority. Their task was to bring order to a deteriorating lower realm… one already spiraling into instability.”

He raised one hand, palm outward, as if presenting an obvious truth.

“Left unchecked, such worlds collapse. Wars. Extinction events. Irreversible corruption.”

His gaze sharpened.

“We intervene to prevent that.”

A faint golden light pulsed around him.

“Pain is temporary,” he continued. “Control is not cruelty… it is guidance! When lesser beings cannot govern themselves, it becomes our responsibility to do so for them.”

Aestrea finally spoke.

“You call invasion guidance?”

The man didn’t bristle.

Instead, he smiled faintly, pity evident in his eyes.

“Spoken like someone who has watched too much chaos and learned the wrong lesson,” he replied.

“You see tyranny because you refuse to acknowledge the burden of authority.”

He spread his wings slightly.

“We of the higher order must make difficult choices. Sacrifice freedom today to ensure survival tomorrow.”

Aestrea stared at him for a long moment, and then suddenly asked:

“Are you from the Primordial Court?”

The man inclined his head in a small, respectful nod.

“Yes.”

As if that alone should have explained everything.

“I am Seraphel,” he continued smoothly. “God of Balance. I intervene where excess threatens the grand design.”

He looked past Aestrea, toward the sealed crack.

“The Eternal Tribunal overstepped in execution, not in intent. I am here to correct that, and to prevent further unnecessary bloodshed.”

His gaze returned to Aestrea, calm but heavy.

“Stand aside, Aestrea. This matter no longer concerns you.”

For a brief second, the world seemed to grow colder.

At his words, Aestrea’s eyes slowly darkened, his pupils sharpening as his aura dipped, not rising, but condensing into something dense and dangerous.

When he spoke again, his voice was low enough to make space feel brittle.

“Get the fuck out of my way.”

Seraphel blinked once.

Aestrea took a step forward.

“Before you regret it.”

The halo above Seraphel’s head glowed brighter, golden light flaring instinctively as pressure poured outward in response.

“So that is your answer,” Seraphel said quietly, disappointment evident in his voice. “You would oppose the Court itself… for a single insignificant world?”

Aestrea continued walking towards him.

“You people always say that… as if calling it insignificant makes the blood easier to justify.”

He raised Midnight slightly.

“Touch my home… and I’ll show you exactly how insignificant your Court really is.”

At those words, Seraphel’s calm smile instantly disappeared.

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