A Common Attack Of A Common Man (2)

There is a saying: “If you must die, you will live; if you must live, you will die.”

It’s one of the famous quotes, like Admiral Yi Sun-sin’s line at Myeongnyang, “I still have twelve warships,” when facing 133 Japanese ships.

Why bring this up out of the blue?

Because right now Mors, the god of death, is quoting that saying to me in an attempt to persuade me.

“Think about it. You die and you come back to life anyway. So how about just closing your eyes and dying? Huh?”

“Oh my, Mors. Do you want to die? What nonsense is that?”

Putting aside Mors’s absurd suggestion, as the two goddesses’ noisy argument gave me a headache, I saw Ludicer frowning heavily, the same look as mine.

Do gods get headaches too? She pressed her temples with thin, pale fingers.

“Ludicer? What’s wrong?”

“Ah! Nothing. Just…”

Aetas and Mors, who had been bickering, stopped and stared at Ludicer.

Their looks said it plainly: gods don’t get headaches, so confess at once.

“Well, it seems the gardeners keep searching my name. It’s been bothering me… and there’s no message coming through… I don’t know why.”

“Searching? Continuously?”

“Yes.”

Aetas pondered for a moment, then exchanged glances with the other three gods, and the four goddesses nodded almost imperceptibly.

“That’s… one of the tricks gardeners use to alert us when something urgent happens… As you know, gardeners are His devotees, right? So they have a few tricks. When someone enters the Garden of Gods and they need to urgently pass something to a representative even if it interferes with the meeting between god and representative, they use that trick. So Ludicer, if that’s you… is it Mr. Kim Han?”

The more Aetas explained, the more anxiety rose as the Dark Mae Young-ryeong incident came to mind. But it wasn’t Mae Young-ryeong.

Among their representatives, the one likely to cause trouble was…

“Mors!!”

“Ah, no! Our Naruan is still inside the Garden of Gods!”

Mors bristled.

I sighed in relief that Naruan was still in the Garden of Gods.

I looked at Genesis, but she shook her head too.

So is it one of the newly arrived ones causing trouble…? Damn it, when will this babysitting ever end!

“I’ll go out first. If a gardener is urgently contacting us, it’s probably serious. And wait about two years for the ‘Six Heroes’ Soulstones.’ They’re not ready yet. I hope they won’t have to be used… Ah, Ludicer. Compensation.”

“Yes. I’ve put it in the inventory for you.”

“Alright. I’m going.”

“Be careful.”

With Ludicer’s words of concern,

“Mr. Kim Han, be careful!”

“Be careful.”

“Be careful.”

“Hmph!”

I left the Garden of Gods behind the voices of the four goddesses.

The Garden of Gods where Kim Han had disappeared.

Ludicer seemed to stare into the void, watching the gardener talk to Kim Han.

“Ludicer! We’re curious too. Let us see!”

I tried to ignore whining Aetas, but because the gardener’s explanation of the situation to Kim Han sounded serious, Ludicer had to project the footage into the air.

—What? Who invaded?

—It’s Caelum, the god of the firmament.

—That bastard… how could he…?

—That is probably because…

“Huh? What! Caelum?! That crazy bastard, did he manifest using an ‘Advantage Rule Scroll’? Just to save a representative?”

“It might not be just a representative. A rookie god participating in the Battlefield of the Gods for the first time can make their representative win. Where else is there such an opportunity to raise one’s value?”

Aetas said excitedly, and Spatium assessed the situation coolly and answered.

But Spatium’s expression wasn’t good either.

She also didn’t like the idea that Caelum might have used the extreme method of manifestation via an ‘Advantage Rule Scroll,’ a kind of benefit for rookie gods.

Worry filled Ludicer’s face.

She regretted sending him if it was like this. What if he got noticed by Caelum and got killed for nothing?

As soon as the gardener finished, the sight of Kim Han leaping toward the mansion made my heart drop.

“Ah, then Ludicer, you’ll come too? Are you going?”

“Oh! Right. Ludicer! Want to borrow the dagger I used? It once took the necks of gods, so it should come in handy.”

Genesis produced a blood-red dagger from the air and offered it at Aetas’s suggestion. But Ludicer said nothing.

“Ah…! Is it because you’re afraid Caelum will become a god first and win? Don’t worry, you’re stronger. If anything, I’ll lend you this scythe.”

Mors, looking concerned, spoke to Ludicer and subtly offered something similar to Naruan’s.

“No. I already used one. The ‘Advantage Rule Scroll’…”

“Really?”

“When?!”

“Where did you use it!”

“…Is that so.”

Ludicer couldn’t answer. She only bit her lower lip white with regret.

At this moment, she regretted using the ‘Advantage Rule Scroll’ under the Creator’s command.

“If I’d known, I’d have increased the points a little and saved the ‘Advantage Rule Scroll’… Please be careful.”

Then Spatium’s stern voice rang out.

“I think everyone’s forgotten what kind of beings Kim Han’s masters are… Shouldn’t we be concerned for Caelum’s safety instead?”

The four goddesses all exclaimed at Spatium’s point.

They had shown such frivolous, teasing sides that they’d forgotten — those claiming to be Kim Han’s masters were the ones called Deicide and Destruction.

The four goddesses and Ludicer didn’t take their eyes off the footage showing Kim Han.

As Caelum pondered the sounds from below, Talis, head bowed, gave a twitching shoulder and let out a strange laugh.

“Kuh, kk-kek, kekekekekeke.”

“…W-what.”

As if the earlier show had been a lie, the shabby old man before him exuded a swelling presence that soon covered the entire mansion.

An overwhelming killing intent and a terrifying grip on mana choked the air.

Caelum tried to rally his will, but his mana didn’t budge. Even trying to overcome it with divine speech did nothing.

“Move! Move! Surge! Burst!! No, this can’t be! A mortal!!”

Caelum wondered if he’d been hit by a terrible illusion. But that didn’t make sense either.

Why had the anti-magic field cast by the five tower masters of the magic tower become useless?

Mages who handle mana inherently possess magic resistance.

But depending on that magic resistance and the opponent’s level, sometimes a spell, even if it hits, has no effect. This is called a ‘probabilistic resistance roll.’

And the spells of mortals typically cannot reach gods who possess divinity.

In effect, a ‘probabilistic resistance roll’ turns into ‘magic immunity’ simply by possessing divinity.

That’s why the mages’ spells did no harm to Caelum.

But now, in front of him, the aura’s mastery of mana was overpowering even him, a god.

He could barely move about a meter from his center, and that range was shrinking.

Panicked, Caelum formed seals and recited spells for the first time since becoming a god.

“Destruction!!”

But there was still insufficient movable mana, and Caelum ended up flaring alone.

“Tsk tsk. You fool, I’m the old man who once vied with Serpens for mana control. I thought a green kid might be creative, but there’s less creativity than what I made twenty thousand years ago. Ugh, ruined my appetite. Ptooey!”

The spit Talis spat hung suspended in the air — a sign it wasn’t ordinary saliva.

And Caelum knew better than anyone what it was.

“Death Ray…”

The spell he cast condensed into a clump of mana and was discarded like trash, slowly dispersing.

Only then did Caelum begin to understand the meaning of what the other old man had said below.

‘Stop eating it.’

The monstrous old man before him had ‘eaten’ his magic.

“Now, is it my turn? Let’s at least say hello. Shall I start with a ‘Chaos Missile Barrage’?”

Talis didn’t cast, but what he mentioned as if in conversation manifested: hundreds of magic arrows rose into the air.

“Damn! Projectile immunity. Spell immunity—!”

The magic arrows slammed into the defensive spell he’d barely activated.

They looked like typical novice magic missiles, but each burned with ominous black flames.

As expected, the arrows’ impacts on Caelum’s defenses were extraordinary.

With each heavy impact, strangely, the defense spell’s mana steadily dwindled.

It wasn’t the kind of depletion caused by spell-versus-spell collisions.

And as the defense weakened, Talis’s control only grew stronger — maddeningly so.

Yet regardless of Caelum’s desperate feelings, the barrage showed no end.

Clenching his teeth, Caelum focused on defense and drew power up from the depths.

“Damn, now I don’t know either. The Void of the Sky.”

With the start of the Battlefield of the Gods, a divine power manifested above Exorsus for the first time.

A deep, black abyss-like space sat to the north of Exorsus. Just looking at it drained a mortal’s strength.

The firmament. A sky god can wield powers resembling the sky.

The easiest and most representative is weather manipulation, which earns them the reverence of many mortals.

And the firmament god’s greatest weapon is this: the Void. The power to summon a space that accepts anything.

Like the vast sky, it’s a space that absorbs enemy attacks without limit. That was the Void of the Sky used by firmament gods.

Of course, with such power comes a flaw: its capacity varies greatly depending on the god using it.

Caelum didn’t believe he could defeat that monstrosity with this power.

He didn’t know the mortal’s identity, but he accepted that he couldn’t win even at full strength.

What Caelum hoped the Void of the Sky would buy him was time to heal his representative and escape.

“Hoo, a Void I haven’t seen in a while. That ignorant old fool, get rid of that.”

Talis didn’t attack the Void of the Sky. Destruction and the Void share similar properties and don’t have good affinity.

But he didn’t stand idle either. He’s a mage — he pursued a more efficient method.

One-on-one duel? What’s that?

At Talis’s request, Biosis’s attack began as if on cue.

Boom—!

The training ground trembled under Biosis’s earth-shaking strike.

If Talis’s magic was an ominous black, Biosis’s force was a destructive black.

The same black, but one that inspires fear at a glance.

Vast force was sharply honed and hurled toward the Void of the Sky.

Startled by the force descending from below, Caelum halted the top-tier healing spell he’d been preparing and stepped back, mouth agape at the scene before him.

“…Impossible.”

The Void of the Sky was split exactly in half — neatly cleaved into two.

It was enough to make him wonder if it was an illusion or a dream.

He’d heard of attacks that neutralized a Void of the Sky by overwhelming it, but he’d never seen one cleave it in two like this.

He liked firmament gods because they could obtain a Void that synergized well with mages like him.

He preferred firmament gods who always looked down from above.

“That was the case…”

The cleaved Void began to fade. Even pouring power into it changed nothing.

He launched the unfinished healing spell toward where his representative was and prepared to flee.

Guarding against the enemy’s magic, he used the firmament god’s power to ascend into the sky.

Caelum, the firmament god, was fleeing, using his power and running flat out.

But Caelum soon felt something blocking him and had to give up fleeing, gripped by fear as he realized Talis was looking down at him from above, apparently having followed him.