Chapter 199 – Advent of Lesser God (2)

The many Harvestors that devoured the souls of the inhabitants of the city suddenly began to gather at the center of the city. Sungchul instinctively knew that something was about to happen and immediately cast Starlight upon the center of the mass without giving it a moment to think. Many Harvestors gathering at the center were burnt away.

Marakia also put forth an incredible amount of firepower that is difficult to believe came from such a small body, and McRaed who was an accomplished Mage in the past herself also contributed in the effort.

But the seemingly unlimited number of Harvestors were barely culled at all. Despite Sungchul and company’s best efforts, the swarm of Harvestors gathered at the center to create something. Sungchul could see a dark silhouette visible from within the bizarre cloud. The form of a four armed Lesser God beyond the fog.

‘Is that… the Lesser God?!’

The Demonic weapon Cassandra flew out like a snake towards the Lesser God within the mists. One of the four arms grabbed the whip. Sungchul’s eyes widened in surprise. It was because the strength of the arm that grabbed the whip was beyond imagination.

‘Same level as I? Perhaps even stronger.’

Sungchul focused his god-like strength into his arms and pulled hard on Cassandra. But something he did not intend happened.

Snap.

The Demonic weapon which performed admirably through countless battles were broken at the center. Although one could simply dismiss this as a loss of a single weapon, Sungchul was now certain. The Lesser God inside of the black fog was much stronger than any other foe he had ever faced.

“Everyone back away.”

Sungchul said.

Not even Bertelgia was an exception in this case.

“Bertelgia, you too.”

“But…”

“I cannot be certain as to this battle’s outcome.”

It was not a good idea to use Soul Storage at this time. Because the items in the Soul Storage are forever lost upon the user’s death. She would be forever lost in an empty, dry, cold, lonely pocket dimension until the end of time.

Bertelgia didn’t know what to do so she headed to McRaed.

McRaed who became saddled with two bagges in the form of a bird and a book, she looked at Sungchul’s back and carefully asked.

“W…what are you going to do?”

Sungchul lifted up his Fal Garaz as a response and then replied in a calm voice.

“It would be impossible to run from that Lesser God anyway.”

Above Sungchul’s head was a red colored marker clearly visible even in the dark, floating like a type of hologram.

He was being targeted by the Lesser God.

“If running away is not an option, then there is nothing to do but fight.”

The hand grasping Fal Garaz became filled with god-like power. McRaed confirmed Sungchul’s determination and took Bertelgia and Marakia and left the scene.

“Go as far as you can. Even being within sight of those two monsters’ fight could result in death.”

Marakia flapped his wings with soft feathers as he said seriously.

“…You can’t lose!”

Bertelgia looked towards Sungchul who was becoming farther away as she muttered in a small but insistent tone.

Now there was no one left in the center of the ivory colored city aside from Sungchul and the Lesser God Sidmia.

Sungchul estimated the size of Sidmia who was still enveloped in black smoke.

‘His height is about ten meters?’

His size was one thing, but the most threatening part were the four arms. Two of them were palm to palm as if in a prayer, but the reason behind it wouldn’t be revealed until the start of the battle.

Boom.

A heavy thud of a footstep broke the silence. The Lesser God Sidmia was beginning to move. However, it was still surrounded by a black veil, so Sungchul could not see its face.

But that did not matter.

Two different weapons appeared in each of Sidmia’s free hands. One was a type of bladed spear akin to Green Dragon Crescent Blade (1) and the other was a twisted and moving rapier.

The arm behind the two hands clasped in a prayer which held the polearm moved. It was a fast and merciless strike utilizing the absolute advantage in both reach and height. Although the strike using the polearm was highly lethal to almost anyone, Sungchul neither dodged nor hid.

He stood in place and lifted Fal Garaz to block the Lesser God’s attack head on.

The moment their weapons met, a thunderous boom ran out and a shockwave burst out from the contact point. It was a literal earth shaking collision.

Lesser God’s power was astounding.

The earth that Sungchul stood upon became dented and the paving stone nearly went flying out.

Kii Kiii Kii

A strange noise rang out from Fal Garaz where it met the giant polearm.

Not a single being was capable of unleashing a blow of this magnitude against Sungchul until now. If it wasn’t for Fal Garaz which is said to be crafted from fragments of the sky itself, then no weapon could have survived the clash.

‘So I guess that much is expected of a Lesser God?’

But it was withstandable. Sungchul thought to himself. Even if this one strike didn’t contain the full power of the Lesser God, it was still a strike that contained the intention of killing the opponent. Being able to block such an attack proved to him that Sungchul had the qualifications necessary to face a Lesser God.

It was one of the reasons why Sungchul chose not to evade the Lesser God’s attack. There was no faster way to get information on a completely new enemy than to clash weapons.

‘This fight, it’s doable.’

Sungchul deflected the crescent shaped bladed spear away with his god-like power and the giant weapon much larger than him was knocked away.

The Lesser God within the dark fog stopped as if shocked and stared at Sungchul. But that was only for a brief moment. Another weapon came flying towards him. The rapier that was moving freeform sometimes like a branch and other times like a whip came rushing in his direction. If the attack from the Polearm was a mighty and heavy blow, then the attack from the rapier was a type of screening attack meant to achieve victory through dexterity and speed that could barely be seen with the eye.

Pa pa! Pa pa! Pa pa!

The rapier instantly destroyed things around Sungchul in quick succession to disperse his attention before curving around like a snake and came stabbing at the back of Sungchul’s neck. All of this happened before the first fragments from the destroyed structure even had a chance to hit the floor.

Sungchul realized the Lesser God’s intentions before the blade reached his neck and quickly rolled forward.

“…”

Sungchul’s face became rigid.

This was unfair. For such a large being to possess an attack as rapid and difficult to predict as that. The blade of the rapier pursued Sungchul at a rapid pace like some sort of living predator and left countless cuts on the ground.

Sungchul was forced to continuously throw himself to escape from the pursuit of the rapier. He completely abandoned any thought of attempting a counter strike and wholly focused on evasion. Sungchul’s desperation and confusion from the immense pressure was reflected in his chaotic movements and the fluttering of his coat.

Bertelgia watched from afar while shaking as she muttered.

“You can’t lose… We haven’t even found my body yet…”

Meanwhile, Marakia was watching the scene from a completely different perspective.

‘He’s dodging all of those ridiculous attacks. It looks haphazard and undignified, but a man of that caliber can’t be dodging without any plan.’

As Marakia suspected, Sungchul’s focus was not wholly consumed by his desperate evasion of the Lesser God’s attacks. As he continued to dodge the sword, information necessary to begin anticipating the next attacks were becoming compiled in his mind and body. Although he was now learning magic, he was once a pure warrior who fought using only his own strength and techniques. 

Sungchul had experienced these kinds of fights countless times. It was the same when he was killing the self proclaimed leader of the Followers of Calamity, Grand Mage Balzark and Blademaster Karakardra. He suffered through all sorts of traps and withstood near lethal punishments with his body until he could read through all of the enemy’s available moves to win at the end. Having their curses remain on his status screen was something of a medal Sungchul had awarded himself.

Psk! Psk! Pspsk!

He was becoming better able to see the rapier that had given him great deal of trouble before and was therefore able to observe that there were several patterns the rapier was following in its movements. Sungchul twisted slightly as he backed off.

Pak!

The rapier passed through where Sungchul had stood a moment ago. It collided with the ground with great force. The impact caused fragments and debris to fly through and make holes in Sungchul’s coat, but he did not give it any importance.

‘I can see it now.’

The fact that Sungchul was becoming used to the movement of the rapier must have been known to the Lesser God Sidmia as well. Lesser God soon withdrew his dexterous rapier, right before Sungchul was about to make his counter attack.

The Lesser God changed its stance.

Instead of attacking hastily, Sungchul made some distance between them to observe the Lesser God’s movements. The part that bothered him the most were the two hands clasped together that had not moved apart since the beginning.

‘Is it sealing something?’

It wouldn’t be too late to make a move after finding out the secret hidden in those hands.

Lesser God Sidmia now began to move both hands together. It came forward to put pressure on Sungchul with a slow but immensely powerful crescent bladed polearm in conjunction with the rapid and dexterous rapier. The two weapons followed a carefully calculated path that gave Sungchul no room to breathe.

Sungchul sometimes blocked the heavy polearm with Fal Garaz and others he tumbled forward to dodge the flurry of attacks from the rapier. He was putting up an efficient defense against Sidmia’s combination attacks. Although Sidmia’s attack involving both weapons was arguably different, in the end, it didn’t amount to being more than a variation of the attacks he had been familiarizing himself with until now. The movements of the weapons were already within Sungchul’s ability to predict, and as a direct result, Sungchul was able to find an effective way to defend himself from the attacks.

The more time passed, the more confidence took root in Sungchul’s heart. Transforming his uncertainty to one of possibility. But the power hidden by the two hands held together palm to palm was not yet revealed.

‘Should I make a move?’

While the rapier was causing distractions by destroying all the nearby buildings and structures, the polearm came swinging down diagonally towards him. Sungchul rapidly dodged the coiling rapier, then gathered all of his god-like strength into a full swing to block the incoming polearm head on.

Boom!

The polearm was knocked far away from the unexpected counter strike along with the arm that held the weapon, but alas the Lesser God did not drop the weapon. It had the strength worthy of one with the title of Lesser God.

But this was not the end of Sungchul’s attack. The Lesser God who had been pressing the attack on Sungchul by alternating between his two weapons was interrupted by Sungchul’s sudden counter, which created a small opening. Sungchul didn’t let this moment slip by by using his secret weapon; Magic.

The four Soul Stones that were now under his command were given their instructions, and each of them began to channel magic.

1st, Fly

2nd, Meteor

3rd, Meteor

4th, Meteor

An all-in attack using Meteor spell. But their casting time and targets were all different from one another.

When the Lesser God Sidmia moved to fix its stance from within the black fog, Sungchul used Fly to fly up as fast as he can towards the torso of the Lesser God. The Lesser God’s rapier danced in the air and seemed to blossom into countless flowers of death. But Sungchul had already become accustomed to the speed of the rapier. Fal Garaz began to dance in response.

Clang! Clang!

Fal Garaz deflected the various snake-like guillotine attacks of the rapier as Sungchul continued to penetrate deeper into the black fog.

From within the fog, another one of the Lesser God’s arms moved. The arm holding the polearm had been resting for a moment so that it could be brought to bear against Sungchul to finish him off at the right time.

Sungchul watched not the polearm itself, but the arm holding the polearm. And once he noticed the muscles clench on the left shoulder, he changed his trajectory and dodged upwards.

Woosh~

The blade of the polearm gave a mighty roar as it cut through the air and passed under Sungchul’s feet. When the polearm missed and sliced through only air, the rapier came flying towards him as if in revenge, but Sungchul deactivated Fly and quickly landed on the ground and sprinted around to the side of the Lesser God to its flank.

It was when the Lesser God turned its body. One by one, three magic formations appeared in the sky above. The incantation for Cosmomancy’s most famous attack, Meteor, was finished. The Carbuncles of the Soul stones came to ask Sungchul where they should aim the attacks.

The biggest advantage of Sajator’s Soul stones were that they were linked to his mind and could be used as an extension of his limbs. Sungchul indicated the next points of attacks in a split second in his mind before increasing his speed towards the Lesser God’s flank.

The Lesser God, who was following Sungchul with his eyes, was now looking in the opposite direction from when Sungchul began. Therefore, it could not see the glowing magic formation floating over its head. This was what Sungchul was aiming for.

Sungchul stopped running to its flank and lifted up Fal Garaz into a battle ready stance to which the Lesser God responded in kind and fixed its grip on the two weapons to prepare another round of attack.

The first meteor fell towards the back of the Lesser God Sidmia at that moment. Sidmia was about to swing it’s rapier when he realized there was a meteor coming his way and turned his head and swung his rapier.

Befitting his title of a Lesser God, the meteor that was enveloped in red flames was destroyed mid-air by the coiling snake-like rapier. But Sungchul had the secret techniques of Sajators. 

Meteors came flying towards the Lesser God from different directions one by one and Sungchul charged forward to match their advance. His advance was slow but carried an explosive weight.

A sudden three pronged attack.

The Lesser God used the rapier to keep Sungchul at bay as it used the polearm to deflect a meteor on one side, but it was not able to deflect the meteor coming from the other side.

Boobooboom!

The mighty Meteor, said to be capable of annihilating a whole company of knights in a single blow, landed on the Lesser God.

“Guaah~”

The Lesser God uttered its first unholy sound since its arrival in the world. Then, a gap formed between the two hands clasped together in the center. Sungchul’s eyes became filled with horror.

In its palm were pure white energy that seemed to swallow everything.

‘This one is dangerous.’

In the next moment, something in the Lesser God’s hands flashed and gave off a powerful burst of white light as it came attacking Sungchul.

---

Note:

Green Dragon Crescent Blade is a legendary Guandao (a type of chinese polearm with a crescent moon shaped blade, and this is one of the largest weapons used by Shaolin) that was used by Guan Yu in the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. However, it didn’t actually exist because Guandao wasn’t even invented until 500 years later. It was a pop culture insert by the author of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms to emphasize Guan Yu’s power and ability (Guan Yu is often used as the standard for measuring the strength of heroes, such as fabricating a fight between Guan Yu and Huang Zhong to emphasize and draw parallel the strength and heroic qualities of Huang Zhong to Guan Yu to say they are equals). Recall that Romance of the Three Kingdom wasn’t even written until the 14th century but is set during the 2nd century. Earlier records of the historical period do not make mention of any weapon like the Green Dragon Crescent Blade being used by anyone, especially not for actual combat.

I’m a big Romance of the Three Kingdoms fan myself (the book, not the total war game, although I am quite partial to Koei’s series) and I was quite saddened when I realized this weapon is purely mythological. In fact, a disappointing number of weapons in the Romance series are not real by the virtue of not having been invented for a few hundred years after the historical event.

Book- https://amzn.to/2Zwx9Ki

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