Chapter 1458: Three Gods

Continuing forward, the golden light on Xia De's body grew brighter and brighter until it spread to places he could no longer see.

"She" whispered softly into Xia De's ear in the wind: 【Are you ready too?】

"Of course."

Xia De squinted, looking toward the distant, spontaneously parted dense forest, at the terrifying figure approaching from opposite him, and said softly in his heart:

"I am you."

"She" laughed. Although she always liked to chuckle softly in Xia De's ear, it seemed that every laugh was the one Xia De liked the most:

【Outlander, you are me.】 Xia De closed his eyes. Ding!

The witches' lowered gazes involuntarily moved uniformly from the ground toward the sky. With a view looking directly upward, they saw the starry river hanging upside down over the River Valley Great Creek Plateau at some unknown time, as well as three bright moons crossing the sky. That holy silver radiance now poured down from the largest silver moon. Only at this moment did everyone realize that there seemed to be a figure within that silver moon.

Silver sky-light descended from the heavens, the silver light illuminating the surprised faces of everyone.

Red Butterflies formed a staircase before the moon. The figure with its back to the silver moon and facing the world could only be seen as a faint outline, but just by looking at that outline, one could feel that it was a god, the ancient Moon God who had once again come to the material world.

The one who closed his eyes was Xia De; the one who opened his eyes before the moon, burning the single drop of divinity, was the God Among Men. A silver robe was draped over his body. From the staircase before the moon, He descended step by step, yet the size of His body outline did not change at all due to such movement.

Holy radiance shone upon the earth. Even though the wind and snow were still mixing, and even though it was still night, the thick darkness had been dispelled, as if the moon had come down to the earth.

Wearing a silver robe with the hood hanging behind, silver phantoms trailed behind Him as He moved, pulling out a series of illusory shadows.

This time burning divinity felt completely different to Xia De from the previous two times. He felt himself closer to that moon, and felt himself more like that moon.

Standing in the air, His own radiance illuminated the world. On the road through the petrified forest, the silent Evil God gave up continuing to move forward with heavy feet, and instead arrived in the air within the sky-light, until He was level with the god in the moonlight.

The Evil God 【Stone Heart Demon】 possessed a stone statue and arrived in the material world in the form of a Saint. At this moment, Xia De, draped in a silver robe, finally saw His appearance in the eyes of mortals: it was actually Hela Orsenfort.

Gods gazed at each other in the air. Six cards of the All-Encompassing Impermanence flew out against the wind from the sleeves of the silver robe, circling Him and faintly emitting light:

"In the name of the Ancient God of Balance, 【The Upside-Down Judge】, we fight. If you win, I will not stop you; if I win, please participate with me in the Feast of the Earth Mother."

His finger lightly tapped the card spinning to the front, and what He received was a question: "Why should I agree to your wager?"

The Evil God 【Stone Heart Demon】 actually had no grudge against Xia De. Xia De had neither obtained divinity from Him nor tried to take anything He left behind in the material world.

Thus, the god draped in the silver robe gave a reason:

"If you do not wager against me, in a moment, you will face not only me."

He did not specify who else was there, but the third god present could only be the one currently holding the God-Calling Ritual in the city's cathedral.

"Agreed."

A hoarse voice replied. At the same time Xia De's finger truly touched 【Origin · Balance】 and this brief agreement was reached, the god extended His hand toward Him.

There was no fluctuation of power, only the gravity imposed by the earth abruptly trying to pull the god draped in the silver robe toward the ground. The god under the upside-down starry river then also extended His hand. The power of 【Balance】 reversed gravity. A dark golden scale flashed briefly behind Him, and then His body slowly rose into the air, before watching 【Stone Heart Demon】 fall toward the ground.

Black luster stained the earth. A newly risen mountain peak lifted the god in the form of Hela Orsenfort upward continuously. But the silver

robe god raised His right hand. He happened to be directly below the moon, and His raised right hand seemed to touch that moon.

And as the god's right hand descended, that moon embedded in the night sky crashed down onto the newly risen mountain peak.

The struggle of gods cannot be directly gazed upon by mortals, but light and sound can still invade their senses. The power of the earth and the silver moon collided. After a silent instant, a deafening boom echoed throughout the entire Lander River Valley region. In another dimension unreachable by the naked eye of mortals, the rule conflict triggered by the power of the two gods erupted in an even more violent form.

Silver light and black light intertwined where the earth met the night sky. Half of the gray snowflakes turned silver, half turned black, accompanied by two styles of completely different holy songs drifting above the Lander River Valley.

Silver light and black light in the air collided head-on. The shockwave sweeping across the earth directly created a small plain of only scorched earth within the rugged terrain of the River Valley Great Creek Plateau near the mountains. Even though Xia De intentionally made the battle location deviate from that open space by the Elron River, the power of the shockwave caused by spirit and energy was still quite terrifying.

"Mythlock—Ode to the Glorious Golden Stage!"

The Guardian's power blocked the impact of the smallest aftershock. Then, the witch, holding 【Night Watchman】 left by Xia De, hastily deployed the Mythlock to block the subsequent power.

And at this moment, in the distant sky, the two lights in close contact had already revealed the figures of the gods.

As the figure holding a pitch-black scythe flashed behind the silver-robed god, the falling scythe severed the black mud surging from the scorched earth on a conceptual level. The figures of the gods separated, and then, accompanied by an earthquake, the mountain peak rising again from the ground lifted the female-shaped god up toward the starry night sky.

【Origin · Knowledge】 flashed in Xia De's hand. Beneath the feet of the silver-robed god who had learned the technique just used by the Evil God 【Stone Heart Demon】, a rising mountain peak also lifted Him up toward that night sky.

The two gods gazed at each other across the mountain. The silver-robed god jumped toward the sky first, then held both hands horizontally to his sides, and gradually adjusted his body into an upside-down posture before that moon, which had somehow become enormous.

Amidst the crumbling sound of the mountain collapse, stones peeled off the surface of the mountain peak beneath 【Stone Heart Demon】's feet. A stone giant angel with a halo on its head and wings on its back emerged from the mountain peak. The angel beneath the god's feet plunged its hands into the ground soil. The filth mud extracted turned into stone spears in its hands. Before the silver-robed god, upside down before the silver moon, kicked out that kick, the angel threw out the pitch-black stone spear attached with the earth's origin and the god's mighty power.

The stone spear flew toward the moon; its essence was the Evil God's full-power strike. This strike pierced through time and space, and even the starry river became dim at this moment.

It pierced through the figure clad in the silver robe, but that unnaturally large moon and that figure disappeared together like an illusion.

The pitch-black stone spear entered the curtain of night, then the curtain opened before the angel, and that pitch-black spear pierced through the stone giant angel's chest.

At the same time, behind the Evil God standing on the stone giant angel's shoulder, the night was similarly lifted open like a curtain. An arm from the sleeve of the silver robe, holding the pitch-black dagger 【Soul-Sucking Demon Blade】, passed through the curtain and pierced the Evil God's heart from behind.

Crack!

Cracks appeared on the surface of the Relic almost in the next instant. Then, every inch of matter constituting the Relic crumbled into flying ash because it could not withstand the god's mighty power.

But this was enough. 【Origin · Knowledge】 floated before the silver-robed god. He lifted the curtain learned from the Old Gods in 【Eternal Night City】 and stepped out from the night. Golden light connected from the Evil God's chest to His right hand, which had just held the dagger. That drained power was irreversibly usurped.

Fortunately, this was a story between gods; this was not blasphemy. "I won."

The silver-robed god whispered softly. While the female-shaped Evil God still wanted to say something, in the distance, a pillar of holy white light finally pierced through the dark clouds in the sky above the city, which had been almost scattered by the shockwave, and arrived in the material world. The holy song was loud, and another existence incomprehensible to mortals descended upon this land. Without a process, in the next moment of continuous time, an old gentleman carrying an antique kerosene lamp with a kind smile on his face had already appeared above that scorched earth.

Fang.

"Yes, He won."

The old man said with a smile. The restrained, frenzied, scorching light radiated from the oil lamp in His hand. That light was the midday sun.

Since the Outlander came to this world, "The God of Sun and Earth · The Old Man with the Lantern," one of the five True Gods of this era, appeared before Him for the first time.

Without suspicion or contradiction, the silver-robed god and the True God nodded to each other. And as the stone giant angel crumbled, the True God's power pressed down with overwhelming force. The female-shaped god made no attempt and no longer had

any desire to fight (Note).

He knew there was no chance this time.

They all fell back to the ground. As the three gods' feet touched the ground, green grass and fresh flowers grew on that scorched earth at a speed visible to the naked eye, emitting a soft light in the night and spreading outward. Dawn had not yet arrived, but light had already appeared.

Like chapters in an ancient fairy tale, like an epic in a lost legend, tonight was the myth itself.

In this night, deep within that dense forest, Red Butterfly and golden light points scattered like stars drifted with them. The gods draped in robes walked toward the people together.

The earth rejoiced at their arrival; "dead" soil regained vitality. Unlike when the Evil God came, spreading petrifying power to the world, at this moment, flowers and green grass bloomed behind them.