Chapter 1944: Palm Of Eternal Void: Thousand Hands of Avalokiteśvara

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Finally, Brahma reached Shiva and prepared to grab him and flee.

However.

"Ahh... Please, let’s play."

"...?"

He came face to face with a sad-looking clown floating in the empty air, gazing at him with an apologetic smile.

Brahma did not even spare him a second glance. He swiped his hand and obliterated the entity entirely into a gooey mass of pink substance that splattered across his entire body.

"What is this thing? Ugh, disgusting! Shiva, wait, we can’t—Ngh?!"

Brahma suddenly felt an ominous presence.

His eyes widened as he looked behind him but found nothing.

"What...! What was that? Did I..."

He glanced back at his body and clothes. The pink gooey mass was trembling and rapidly assembling into dozens of clown heads and arms.

"Let’s play!"

"I am hungry!"

"The night is here on our world!"

"The carnival is over!!!"

"FLESH! FLESH! REPAY WITH FLESH!"

Suddenly, hundreds of clowns burst from the pink goo, a grotesque mass of monstrous clowns fused together that began to overwhelm Brahma.

"GAAH! What is this?!"

It was not only horrifying. His mind was constantly being eroded by the creatures, as if they were trying to turn him into yet another clown.

"Begone from my body!"

In panic, the great god shook violently. All the clowns vanished and his body was cleansed. He gasped for air.

Only for the remains to gather once more around him.

Now thousands of monstrous, mutated clowns appeared everywhere.

"W-What sort of filthy thing are you?! A demon from another dimension?! How can you not die?!"

"A deal..."

"Deal!"

"We made a deal with Maria."

"She promised flesh."

"Flesh!"

"If we behave and fight for her..."

"The tower is our home after all."

"Without the tower we cannot eat more flesh."

"Made sense to us!"

"So we help each other, as allies, for flesh!"

"YOU HAVE VERY TASTY FLESH, OLD MAN!!!"

"Tsk! You are nothing but small fry that I can crush with a single swipe of my hand! Die!"

Brahma was not wrong. No matter how large and chimeric the clowns grew, they could never match his raw power.

However, they excelled at stalling for time and distracting their foes.

The Clowns of Carnivalis helped contain Brahma until Emeraldine, Oberon, Scarlet, Ernestina, Nia, and Celeste clashed against him once more.

"There you are!" Scarlet roared. Her spears slammed against Brahma’s golden barriers and began shattering them.

"Hey, stop running around and fight us!" Ernestina spread her shadows, summoning hundreds of fire weapons and unleashing them at Brahma.

"You insolent creatures! I am a God of Creation!" Brahma shouted, but he was too occupied to focus. Shiva and Maria’s clash had intensified dramatically.

Shiva kept regenerating his hands to continue fighting, yet Maria’s ascension into a Bodhisattva was nearly complete.

The stars around her gathered to refine her Divine Ascendant Mandala.

Shiva panicked. He screamed and roared as his flames began tearing through reality itself, splitting space and time.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

His technique grew more condensed with his rising rage until golden cracks formed across his body and molten gold began bleeding out.

This molten gold was his own soul, burned to fuel greater power.

Shiva was sacrificing everything...

Just to avenge his consort.

"GAAAAHHHHH!"

With a furious, monstrous roar, he slammed his forehead against the barrier, shattering it.

Crack... crack...!

CRASH!

He reached Maria, his fists destroyed, but his golden "blood" gathered on his last remaining hand.

It hardened into a titanic fist of cosmic gold blazing with golden, purple, blue, and red chaotic flames of divinity.

"DIEEEEEE!!!"

"..."

Maria opened her weeping eyes and stopped crying.

Her face became utterly expressionless.

"It’s done."

"...?!"

BOOOMMM!!!

As Shiva struck, Maria summoned one thousand dark gold hands from her own body.

"{Palm Of Eternal Void: Thousand Hands of Avalokiteśvara}"

The thousand palms pulverized Shiva’s titanic golden fist.

He fought until the very end.

But he could go no further.

The destruction of the Tenfold Realm ended just in time. Maria barely managed to save the worlds.

The Outer God looked down at what remained of Shiva, his body torn to shreds.

She sighed.

"Okay... I am weak to true love stories like these. I used to read a lot of them back on Earth."

"...What is this monster talking about?"

Shiva felt a throbbing, agonizing headache from her twisted, aberrant words that he could barely comprehend.

Kali appeared within Maria’s open golden and black palms.

"K-Kali...! No...! Leave her alone...! KALI!!!"

Shiva dragged himself forward with no arms or legs, using the last remnants of his life force to reach her.

"You have misunderstood me this entire time, Shiva, but I cannot blame you. I am quite ruthless."

Maria’s "true body" exploded into nothingness, and her actual living body emerged.

"A human...?"

A normal human woman with long black hair and emerald eyes stood before them.

There was no horror or monster.

Shiva was left utterly flabbergasted.

"Shiva, you have been used this entire time. Have you not wondered for even a second why the forces of the Jade Emperor never helped you?"

"What?"

"They wanted the Tenfold Realm destroyed by your rage so they could feed the Heavenly Father. The Administrators likely wanted him stronger when he faces me."

"...?!"

Shiva was stunned.

And what Maria did next puzzled him even more.

With a radiant light of life, she instantly restored the bodies of both Kali and Shiva to full health.

Their many arms and legs regrew, and all their scars vanished.

Kali slowly opened her eyes and realized Shiva was right in front of her, crying.

"K-Kali...! KALI!"

He hugged her tightly, kissing her neck, cheek, and lips many times.

Even though they were always so harsh with each other, they loved one another dearly.

"Shiva...!"

Kali cried as she hugged him back and kissed his lips deeply before finally letting go.

"Are we dead? Is this the afterlife?" Kali wondered. "Maybe... we can reincarnate together?"

"No, this is not the afterlife, Kali..." Shiva sighed, glaring at Maria’s human form. "That woman... saved us after nearly beating us to death, for some reason."

"...?!" Kali finally realized the ordinary-looking human girl before her was actually the Outer God they had been fighting. "W-Wait! You were human?! Huh?"

"This is actually my truest form," Maria said. "Everything you fought and saw earlier were merely manifestations of my many powers."

"No way..." Kali muttered.

"...But why?" Shiva asked. "Why show mercy?"

"Well, as I said earlier, I am weak to love stories," Maria shrugged. "I found the two of you too cute together, and when you fought so fiercely for your beloved Kali, it touched my heart."

"...?" Shiva was surprised. "Does a monster like you even have a heart?"

"Not really, heh," Maria replied, revealing a black hole in her chest. "But I do have a second heart, one made of dreams and hope. My ascension to Bodhisattva could not have completed if you two had not pushed me so hard, so I am also grateful for the great challenge."

"..."

"..."

Kali and Shiva exchanged glances.

Maria, this Outer God...

She was completely undecipherable.

It was as if she acted purely on whims, with no proper reason most of the time.

She had slaughtered many gods, yet she spared these two on a mere whim?

"Don’t worry about the other gods... Aside from the dragons whose flesh I cannot recover because they were already claimed..." Maria said. "I can revive everyone."

"W-What?!" Shiva asked. "What sort of bullshit...!"

And Maria proved it.

Using the vast Cosmic Power she had gained upon her Nirvanic Ascension, hundreds of gods suddenly appeared everywhere.

The war had ended the moment Maria ascended. Brahma and the surviving gods and deities had recognized their defeat once Shiva was slain.

Now they were shocked to see all those they had lost returning to life. As long as most of their bodies remained, Maria could bring them back with ease.

Her essence as an Outer God was so vast that reviving hundreds of gods was not difficult at all.

Vishnu hurriedly tried to close the gate to Purgatory, but the Asuras and Devils had already escaped. They were quickly slaughtered en masse by Olympus’ Titans, Valhalla’s Viking King and his warriors, the Zodiacrons led by Quick Hare, and the Moon Elves.

Even with all these warriors, Maria had only summoned half of her total forces.

"Incredible! What sort of miraculous power is this? She can revive them...?!" Brahma asked in disbelief.

"Hey, why aren’t we getting revived?!" Zhulong’s soul complained.

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