Chapter 278: Claudia Part VI

Translator: HunterW

Editor: RED

From the outside, it looked like we were fighting on equal footing, but Claudia and I both knew that I was stronger. I even had the occasional chance to check my surroundings. I noticed that the twenty-nine deities that came with Claudia were gathered together, chattering to each other about something. They were probably thinking of ways to get Claudia out of the battle alive, since I doubted they were planning on abandoning their commander just to save themselves.

“Gah!” Even though we were still trading blows, only Claudia ever cried out in pain. I had to suppress the urge to kill her right then and there. The end was almost here. Besides, it didn’t matter if they sent hundreds or thousands of their people at me just to get Claudia out. I was saving all of my Skills for that moment. It didn’t take long for them to do exactly what I expected.

“Blink!”

“Blink!”

“Teleport!”

“Lightning Step!”

“If you’re fast enough, move! Don’t stop!”

Countless enemy soldiers and deities soon appeared between me and Claudia. A few of them quickly activated their Skills.

“Exude! Blinding Fog!”

“Materialize! Pitch-black Darkness!”

The enemy soldiers knew that I was immune to debilitating status effects, so they used environmental Skills to blind me. It was a pretty decent strategy, but I had too much experience under my belt to be tripped up by that. I didn’t save all of my Skills just to squander away this chance. Before the environmental Skills could fully materialize, I was already high in the air above Claudia and the enemy soldiers, casting Scorching Rage.

“Gah!”

“No!”

Countless enemy soldiers screamed as they were killed or severely hurt by the powerful Skill, but unfortunately for them, I still had more for them.

“Fissure! Titan Stomp!” I shouted as I slammed my spear into the ground.

The ground around Claudia slammed down, forming a crater in the shape of a footprint. The force of the attack drove Claudia to her knees, unable to avoid the splitting ground as Fissure barreled towards her.

“Judge’s Gavel!” I charged at Claudia as I received two level-up messages, each accompanied by three Bortega’s Blessing levels and countless golden ring messages.

==[You have obtained 140,000 golden rings.]==

==[You have obtained 170,000 golden rings.]==

==[You have obtained 97,000,000 golden rings for defeating a powerful enemy.]==

:

:

==[You have obtained 230,000 golden rings.]==

==[You have obtained 310,000 golden rings.]==

==[You have obtained 169,000,000 golden rings for defeating a powerful enemy.]==

The messages told me that I had also killed a few powerful enemies. They were obviously deities, but the amount of golden rings wasn’t enough. Killing Claudia wouldn’t yield just 100 million golden rings. Claudia was still alive!

I quickly Blinked to the crater formed by Titan Stomp, where Fissure was still laying waste to enemy soldiers. Then, I suddenly received another wave of level-up messages.

==[You have gained a level.]==

==[You have gained a level.]==

==[You have gained a level.]==

I had suddenly gained another three levels, but I didn’t have time to pay attention to the Bortega’s Blessing levels as another message appeared.

==[You have obtained 3,495,000,000 golden rings for defeating a powerful enemy.]==

“…” I had just received 2.5 billion more golden rings than when I had killed Angel. That had to mean it came from Claudia!

I felt a bit of energy leave my body. I had killed Croot’s highest ranking deity without even needing to use Judge’s Gavel! I honestly felt a little empty inside. As strong as my three AoE skills were, they didn’t inflict as much damage as Judge’s Gavel. Sure, Scorching Earth inflicted more damage based on my weapon’s Rank, but in the end, it meant that my regular attacks had done the most damage to her.

“I guess I was tricked, too.” From the way Claudia acted, I was tricked into thinking that she was a bit more resilient, when I could have killed her off a lot sooner. Still, I had killed her, so this battle was over.

I shifted my attention to the twenty-something deities standing off in the distance. I still had Judge’s Gavel activated and I didn’t want to waste it on a deva soldier. I also saw them all talking to one specific deity, who was probably Claudia’s second.

“Blink 1.” I Blinked right into the middle of the crowd of deities and could clearly see their horrified expressions. They also knew by now that Claudia was dead. “Don’t worry. I’ll send you all to her soon,” I informed them before attacking.

“Gah!” The first deity was killed with one strike, which I had expected. He obviously wasn’t a melee class.

==[You have gained a level.]==

==[You have gained 3 additional levels from Bortega’s Blessing.]==

==[You have obtained 537,000,000 golden rings for defeating a powerful enemy.]==

Still, five hundred million golden rings was a lot for dying in one hit. The most I had gotten from killing a deity, besides Angel and Claudia, was two hundred million.

“And the rest of you should follow suit,” I said to the other deities, who were all staring at me with their mouths wide open in horror.

“Gah!”

“Run for it!”

“Shit! Claudia and Coby are both dead!”

“It’s all over! Run!”

When I drove my spear into another deity, the others finally snapped back to reality and turned tail as fast as they could. There were too many of them for me to chase them all, but I gave chase anyway, and killed whoever I could catch up to.

—

“Claudia’s dead!”

“Coby… he killed Coby, too!”

“The other deities are running away!”

“Fuck! Fuck them for leaving us and saving themselves! I’m running for it too!”

“Me too. If Claudia’s dead, I’m not risking my life any longer!”

“It was over when Severed Time didn’t work. We lost!”

“Hey! Wait for me! I don’t want to die here either!”

—

The enemy soldiers scrambled over one another to run away from the battlefield. It was absolute chaos; all that was left to do was to clean up.

It seemed the Empire’s officers were thinking the same thing.

“Commander Lee has killed the enemy commander!”

“Don’t let a single fleeing enemy soldier escape! Chase them to the end!”

“The enemy is broken! Attack! Kill them all!”

“Yes sir!”

“Charge!”

——

Outside of the Empire’s base of operations at Section 3…

Dunia was locked in a fierce battle against Lagus Aman. As he fought against Lagus, he was surprised at how strong Lagus was for a deva. Dunia may have been imprisoned by Claudia for several years, unable to spend that time growing stronger, but he could still say confidently that he was one of Croot’s strongest devas.

But Lagus was a lot stronger than Dunia had expected. In fact, Dunia was actually getting pushed back. Right about then, a message appeared before Dunia that did not bode well at all.

==[All of your stolen time has been returned.]==

“Huh?” The time that had been stolen from him was suddenly returned to him. That could only mean one thing: Claudia had let go of the time she had stolen from him, something he knew she would never willingly do.

So, Dunia wanted to know why Claudia had done that and what was happening at the battle in the middle of the Judge’s Continent. What he wanted to know, he learned quickly…

—

“…” Croot had completely and utterly lost the battle because Claudia was dead. Croot’s strongest deity, the woman who could control Time, was dead. So was Coby, Claudia’s right hand man, and ten other deities!

“Uh…” Dunia just stood there in shock, even as Lagus stabbed cleanly through his gut. Dunia had been 100% sure that Claudia was going to win. As strong as Lee Jiwon was, Dunia had believed that Claudia was stronger.

“We… Croot… might just lose the war…” Dunia looked over at the battle that was taking place around him. They were evenly matched, but Dunia couldn’t pay attention to the battle for long. This battle was useless with Claudia’s death. The Empire’s main force was going to return soon to clean up the traitor guilds.

Dunia quickly turned away from Lagus and slipped away. The one thing Dunia was second to none at was running away.

As strong as Lagus was, he couldn’t keep track of Dunia when Dunia vanished from sight. With Dunia gone, the tide of the battle turned completely in favor of Lagus’s army. Lagus was, after all, the Demon Lord who once seeded fear into the hearts of deities.

——

Section 133…

Croot’s strongest deities and devas all shared a similar experience; they had all had time stolen away by Claudia. As a result, they could never usurp her rule over Croot. They didn’t want to be imprisoned in time like Dunia.

One of them was Adora the Monster, who had ruled Croot before Claudia. That same Adora was keeping close tabs on the battle between Earth and Croot, even though he was sure Claudia would win. He was also suddenly greeted with an unexpected message.

==[All of your stolen time has been returned.]==

Adora’s time had been helplessly stolen from him when he was trapped inside Claudia’s Severed Time. Claudia had then blackmailed Adora with that stolen time and taken away his throne, and Adora had no choice but to give it up.

When Adora learned that his time had been returned to him, he froze in place, thinking something had gone wrong. He would have stayed like that, if it weren’t for Navana, who had also had his time stolen from him.

“It… would seem Claudia was killed by Lee Jiwon, along with Coby and ten other deities!”

“….” Adora almost scoffed at what Navana had said. There was no way that could happen. But when Adora realized that Navana was telling the truth, he felt conflicted. He was glad that the woman who had stolen his time and his throne was finally dead, but the man who had killed Claudia was also his enemy!

“Bring me a recording of Lee Jiwon’s and Claudia’s fight, along with Claudia’s surviving deities.”

“Yes, sir.”

Eighteen of Claudia’s deities had survived the battle. If Claudia was still alive, he wouldn’t be able to order them around, but now that she was dead. Adora needed to know what they knew about Lee Jiwon, and just how exactly Claudia had lost.

“Haa… did we just lose the war?” Adora had first thought of the Judge’s Continent as Croot’s playground. He had so many strong deities by his side, and there were over two billion Croot devas on the Continent.

But Angle and Claudia were both dead. Skyla had lost so many soldiers that she was pretty much rendered useless. Croot was on the verge of defeat. Adora didn’t know what to think.

“Lee Jiwon… just what in the hell are you?” The source of all of Croot’s problems was Lee Jiwon. As Adora tried to figure out Lee Jiwon’s existence, he got up from his seat and went outside.

He was the only one still standing in Lee Jiwon’s way.

“Hahahaha! So why am I laughing like this?” Adora continued to laugh for a while. In the end, he was finally free of his shackles, and he just needed to kill Lee Jiwon. He knew he could. He was always powerful, after all…

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