Chapter 29: Raiga vs The Divine Corpse

The final opponent stood before Raiga with a level of divinity far greater than that of the mannequin. The gods had stopped acting through crude instinct and decided to control the puppet themselves. The being facing the Heretic was no longer alive, but a dead body moving through a divine miracle. It was the ultimate proof of how diminished the gods had become, the final obstacle before Discord could be unleashed upon the mortal world.

“Heretic, you will not alter the Divine Order. Your presence in Olympus is a disease that must be purged.” The corpse’s voice sounded unnatural, as though thousands of individuals had fused their voices together to create a single horrifying, inhuman sound.

Even so, Raiga refused to be intimidated. He had come far too close to the end to retreat now.

“What an irony. So I’m the divine virus.” Without wasting another word, the adventurer charged forward with Malakor at maximum speed and unleashed a downward slash toward the deceased avatar’s left shoulder. Draconic mana strengthened his movements, while his armor allowed him to perform feats far beyond mortal limits.

SLASH.

The entity blocked the strike with a silver greatsword. The weapons collided and sent dozens of sparks flying across the battlefield. Raiga did not stop there, continuing his assault with feints, slashes, and thrusts delivered at tremendous speed. Unlike when the avatar had still been alive, however, his opponent no longer fell for any of his tricks. The gods knew every technique in the Heretic’s swordsmanship, including those built around deception.

As a result, none of Raiga’s attacks managed to touch the humanoid’s immaculate armor.

“It is useless. No mortal stands above the gods.” The amalgamation used its wings to rise seven meters into the air, then gathered golden mana along its silver blade and formed a whirlwind that it mercilessly fired toward Raiga.

“Don’t underestimate mortals!” Raiga roared with all his strength. His draconic power dispersed the tornado by disrupting its energy currents. Not satisfied with that, he combined draconic power with the mana of Olympus and, instead of refining it as he had before, simply unleashed it in its raw form. The result was something entirely new: a massive black blast surrounded by crimson lightning.

The purest expression of raw power.

“Unnecessary!” the deceased avatar answered with a golden beam of its own, colliding directly with Raiga’s attack.

“AAAAAAAAH!”

Power against power.

Both techniques possessed enough force to split a continent in half. Had they not been fighting outside the normal plane of existence, the world itself would have suffered irreparable damage. This was the ultimate confrontation between mortals and their desire to be free, and the order established since the beginning of time. A trial by fire that would determine the fate of the universe.

“You will not defeat me!”

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The explosion shook Olympus to its very core. Even Emi, still waiting outside, felt the earthquake and was knocked to the ground.

“R-Raiga, please… come back safely…” Emi whispered, frightened and alone.

She raised her eyes in the middle of her prayers and then saw it.

The sky had turned purple, an unnatural color that defied every law of logic.

Something is happening in there. I’m sure of it. The world is going to change, for better or worse. Raiga, please… be careful.

Emi continued praying from the deepest part of her heart. She firmly believed in the promise Raiga had made before entering the final battle.

I’ll come back to you, and we’ll be happy.

Meanwhile, Jora and his battered army witnessed the phenomenon as well.

The entire world did.

The commander brought all activity in the camp to a halt and stared at the strange color spreading across the sky.

“What does this mean? Do the gods disapprove of the invasion? No… This isn’t something the gods have done or commanded.” The knight brought his right hand to his chin. Even someone as rational as Jora could find no plausible explanation for such a historic phenomenon.

“My lord, what should we do? Do we continue the march?” Gunther asked, the greatsword-wielding soldier who had always supported his decisions. Jora turned toward him and noticed the warrior’s thick eyebrows drawn downward. He looked just as frightened and confused as everyone else, yet maintained a professional facade to keep morale from collapsing.

Before answering, Jora looked around at the few soldiers who had survived the mutiny. He saw no legendary heroes or mighty conquerors, only peasants, commoners, and unfortunate adventurers who had failed to build better lives behind the capital’s walls.

He hated admitting it, but they did not have the slightest chance of victory.

The purple sky did not plant a new doubt in his mind.

It merely confirmed what he had suspected for some time.

The gods had made a mistake.

The campaign itself had been a mistake.

Jora disobeyed the royal orders and, as his first true act of independence from the deities, made his decision.

“Yes, Sergeant. We’re going home…”

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The two attacks neutralized each other once again, bringing the battle to a stalemate.

“It is over. The time has come to restore order.” The winged humanoid took flight and raised both arms, still gripping the white sword in its left hand. Seconds later, two enormous silver spheres, each four meters in diameter, began spinning around their own axes. “Divine Meteors!”

An ultimate technique.

The massive projectiles moved with terrifying speed, leaving trails of death and destruction behind them. Raiga watched them approach at full power. Dodging was useless. Even if he pushed his body to the absolute limit, he would never be able to evade such a spell. The only way to survive and continue fighting was to block the absolute power of the creators themselves.

An impossible feat from every conceivable angle.

Or was it?

Raiga stepped forward and thought about Emi, and about the world that had branded him a plague for all eternity.

Yet he felt no hesitation.

The love he held for that adorable intellectual vastly outweighed every ounce of resentment from his past.

I just have to keep moving forward, one step at a time, without stopping until I create a miracle with my own hands.

He raised Malakor above his head. The intimidating black blade was tremendously powerful, but even it could not compete with the Divine Meteors. Not even draconic power pushed to its limit, combined with Olympus’s mana and the legendary sword, could match a spell of absolute judgment.

The gods were no longer playing.

They intended to end the battle once and for all.

There would be no second chance.

It was all or nothing.

Three seconds.

That was all the time he had to escape an impossible situation.

He drew upon all the mana in Olympus, along with his draconic power and Malakor’s energy, storing every ounce of it between his dragon armor and the weapon. He compressed the energy currents as tightly as possible, hoping to create an even greater effect the moment he struck.

Two seconds.

Raiga reached for the one power the gods feared and could never wield, something that had been there from the very beginning but that he had never called upon until now:

Discord.

Although the deities had used nearly all their strength to keep it chained, they had been forced to loosen their grip in order to unleash their final technique. It was a fleeting opening, imperceptible to ordinary humans, but not to someone whose senses had been pushed as far as Raiga’s.

His body filled with a new power unlike anything he had ever experienced.

Something only mortals like him could wield.

I see now. Discord is made from human thoughts. Love, hatred, greed, kindness… Every single emotion we feel exists within this new power that will either revolutionize the world or destroy it. It’s beautiful and terrifying, good and evil at the same time—a living contradiction that perfectly reflects our humanity.

For someone who had spent fourteen years outside the Divine Order, accepting Discord felt as natural as breathing.

He had lived without the gods’ guidance or protection.

Exactly as a human being should.

The Heretic finally understood everything.

He understood why the gods feared it.

And at the same time, he understood the potential that every mortal being might someday achieve.

Inside his body existed not only his own power, but the infinite possibilities mortals could reach one way or another.

An eternal kaleidoscope that would never find an ending.

One second.

With his newfound power charged and ready, Raiga leaped directly toward the two spheres. He moved faster than sound and, with two slashes, destroyed the ultimate projectiles.

He cut them cleanly apart.

He did not even allow them to explode and injure him.

The divine currents stored within them simply vanished, leaving the Divine Corpse speechless.

“N-No! Impossible! Discord… How did you use it?! We’re holding it back! It shouldn’t be able to escape!” For the first time since the battle began, the gods retreated and assumed a defensive stance.

“It’s inevitable. You belong to the past. We’re taking our destiny back! The age of mortals has arrived!”

Raiga charged forward with all his renewed strength, unleashing a series of faster, more precise, and more brutal slashes and thrusts against the winged humanoid. The deceased avatar struggled to block his attacks. The roles in the duel had reversed.

Now it was the one defending itself instead of obliterating the Heretic with its overwhelming power.

Malakor and the divine sword collided more than twenty times. In terms of swordsmanship, they remained evenly matched, and the balance had yet to fully tip toward either side. Yet the armored mortal grew more confident with every passing second.

“You’ve been suppressing our potential for far too long.” Raiga broke through the winged humanoid’s defense with a thrust that struck directly in the center of its breastplate. He failed to pierce it, but left a dangerous dent that forced the deceased avatar to retreat and use its wings to rise higher into the air.

“Mortals will destroy the world! It is only a matter of time! Perhaps not now, but in several thousand years!” The Divine Corpse fired a dozen golden beams at maximum speed. It was no longer holding anything back. Panic and genuine fear of defeat had replaced its earlier confidence that the duel would end in its favor.

“If that’s our fate, then so be it!” Raiga deflected every beam with Malakor, one after another, sending them flying in opposite directions. He even had the audacity to redirect the final blast back toward the sacred puppet at twice its original power. The gods used the corpse’s wings to block the attack, but doing so left the feathered limbs scorched and unable to sustain flight. “You’re mine!”

Raiga charged at maximum speed, moving like a banshee as he mercilessly unleashed a brutal slash meant to cut the plummeting Divine Corpse in half. But he failed. The entity blocked the attack with its own sword, twisted its body in midair, and saved itself by sheer miracle.

We cannot lose! The Divine Order is absolute!

SLASH, SLASH, SLASH.

Before they even touched the ground, their blades had already kissed seven more times.

And once they landed, they did not stop.

Raiga immediately resumed the offensive, using feints again, along with slashes, thrusts, and even attacks with the rest of his body—his legs, head, and elbows. The humanoid with scorched wings could barely keep pace. It squeezed every last drop of divinity from itself just to remain on equal footing with mortal Discord.

The gods truly gave everything they had.

They even stopped restraining themselves completely in an attempt to match the infinite potential of mortals.

But it was useless.

“The Gods are never wrong!” the Divine Corpse shouted as it retreated with a tremendous leap and once again prepared a massive white sphere overflowing with divine energy. “Divine Meteor!”

The Divine Corpse and the gods controlling it launched their final attack. Instead of firing two spinning projectiles, they fused them into one overwhelming strike powerful enough to split the earth itself in half.

It was the final act of the earthly deities.

They placed everything on one last attack and wished with all their hearts for the existing order to remain exactly as it was.

No change.

No progress.

Only slow stagnation that, in the long run, would bring nothing good beyond stability.

“And that’s exactly why you never progressed!” Raiga wanted to end this as well.

Instead of attempting to flee or defend himself, he charged directly toward the divine sphere with Malakor in his hands.

He moved faster than sound.

And with a single motion, he cut through not only the Divine Corpse’s technique, but the humanoid itself.

His legendary sword traced a beautiful downward slash that split his final opponent in two.

“W-Wait…”

It could say nothing more.

The dead body stopped receiving mana, and with nothing left to sustain it, vanished without leaving any trace that it had ever existed.

The battle was over.

Raiga stared into the emptiness as Discord spread across the world, leaving Olympus behind and filling the mortal realm with its presence. Beneath his feet, a tiny crystal fragment appeared.

It was the final remnant of divinity to survive the battle.

Raiga picked it up between his gloved fingers and looked at it with a hint of sadness.

“There’s still one thing left to do.”

And as his final act, Raiga raised his left hand toward the sky in victory.

The Heretic had defeated the Gods.