When the commotion caused by some soldiers and civilians echoed across the battlefield, the rest looked up at the sky and saw a solitary figure ascending against the massive horde of kami.
However, the way he strolled casually through the air suggested he paid no mind to the kami, radiating an invincible aura, as though he looked down on the world itself.
In the next moment, the communication devices of the guardians connected to the group call.
[Kyuusyou: Who's in the sky? Does anyone know?]
[Senti: I dunno, and I don't have time to find out!]
[Mei: He's someone I just met... a friend. He helped me slay a lot of kami... and I heard... he wants to eliminate all of them.]
[Himiko: What? Take on that many kami alone by himself? Is he nuts?]
[Sirin: He just passed in front of me. I can't tell how strong he really is.]
[Xuanyuan: Interesting... Is he strong?]
[Sakura: All of you, focus on your own battles. Now's not the time to discuss an outsider.]
[Theresa: Sakura's right. Watch your own safety!]
[Wendy: Why can he fly in the sky like me? What Sentinel does he have?]
[Bianka: No idea. Mei and I have only just met him. We don't know much.]
[Azta: He's going to die.]
From the beginning, humanity on Izumo had been slaughtered by the kami like chicks.
It was not until later, when the entire planet's inhabitants combined their strength to kill one particularly powerful kami and then turned its corpse into a weapon, which became the first Sentinel, that they could finally fight back.
Relying on the power of the Sentinel, they gradually slew more kami to light up their uncivilized world of darkness, ultimately creating the strongest twelve Sentinels that the guardians now wielded, establishing cities, and then a kingdom that was illuminated by dazzling neon lights.
Even so, every battle with the kami always led to the loss of countless lives.
Victory was possible, but the price was always steep.
Today, the situation was even more dire than any kami invasion they had faced before, as all the cities were being attacked.
Needless to say, it was the full-scale kami invasion that could never be held off by one person alone.
According to Kyuusyou's calculations, this invasion would claim around one hundred thousand lives before the kami could be repelled, so a single person alone could not possibly affect the outcome—unless a true god descended.
Lucian, who was none other than the talked-about young man, nonchalantly ascended into the high sky, approaching the biggest rift while observing the many cities attacked by the kami from above as if he were strolling in a park.
Seeing a human approach, the kami that had just gotten out of the rifts immediately surged toward him like a giant tide.
"Saving Izumo is one of the script's completion conditions, right...?" Lucian muttered to himself while gazing at the distant planet, then shifted his gaze to the approaching kami. "But Takamagahara is outside my scope, so..."
In the next moment, he bent his knees slightly, forming a strange stance, then lifted his two hands before slowly drawing them to his side—palms cupped, fingers splayed—as if cradling a fragile flame.
"Well, now that I have the power, I always wanna try this at least once..."
As these words fell, the energies of the Path of Abundance and the Path of Elation moved simultaneously toward his hands.
"Ka..."
Shortly after this whisper sounded, the power of the two Paths intertwined, coalescing into a faint glow that began to pulse between his palms.
"Me..."
*Zing—!*
Little by little, the glow intensified, swirling into a brilliant sphere of golden light.
"Ha..."
Along with his whisper, his arms trembled, not from strain, but from the sheer force gathering in his grasp.
"Me..."
Lucian thrust his hands forward in one fluid motion, the energy exploding outward in a roaring golden beam of light.
"HAAA!"
*WHOOSH!*
In an instant, the beam of light tore through the battlefield like a comet, illuminating the gloomy sky with its fury.
Lucian stood firm, arms extended, the wind whipping around him as the beam surged forth—unstoppable, radiant, and pure. Like a laser cannon, the beam tore through the dark sky and pierced the distant planet, now turned pitch black.
*ROOOAAAAAARRR—!!!*
All the kami along its path were instantly reduced to dust—even those nearby were completely obliterated by the overwhelming shockwave unleashed by the beam.
A few seconds later, the people of Izumo clearly saw that Takamagahara, the sister planet of Izumo, was struck directly by the beam, then began to crack before violently exploding, emitting a red glow and appearing like a giant ball of red light.
In that instant, the entire battlefield froze.
Kyuusyou gaped, her mouth wide open, unable to utter even a single word.
Mei looked up at the distant Takamagahara, which had been suspended for countless ages, now blown apart like an ordinary rock before her very eyes.
Bianka, on the other hand, was so shocked that she nearly forgot to breathe.
"D-Did he just... Did he just destroy Takamagahara?"
Sirin, normally cocky and arrogant, was chilled to the bone by Lucian's planetary-level attack.
*WHOOSH!*
Just then, the terrifying shockwave caused by the explosion of Takamagahara finally reached the nearby Izumo, breaking through the clouds and striking the barrier erected by Sirin's Sky.
*Ka-cha—*
Cracks suddenly appeared in the barrier and began to spread.
Such a powerful shockwave—even the guardians would be obliterated, let alone ordinary humans.
"Are you kidding me?! Sky can't hold it!"
As Sirin complained helplessly, pushing Sky to its limits to the point where her chanting of its mantra nearly began to distort, Lucian quietly raised his right hand and then clenched it.
In an instant, an invisible force erupted soundlessly in the sky, and the shockwave from Takamagahara's explosion was swiftly halted before vanishing completely.
Seeing the now calm sky, Lucian glanced toward the ground and then pressed his raised right hand downward.
*BOOM!* *BOOM!* *BOOM!* *BOOM!*
*BOOM!* *BOOM!* *BOOM!* *BOOM!*
Countless bursting sounds resounded one after another as all the kami beneath Lucian were crushed on the spot, reduced to black sludge that seeped into the ground.
In one moment, the entire planet of Izumo was filled with bestial roars and screams, but in the next moment, it suddenly fell into absolute silence, appearing like a desolate planet. Only the empty land, the ruined wreckage, and a group of stunned guardians, soldiers, and civilians remained.
"..."
Izumo fell into complete, absolute silence, and time itself seemed to stop as everyone froze as if under a petrification spell, unable to move, even forgetting to breathe.
Several seconds later, someone gasped sharply.
"T-They gone...? All of them?"
A soldier stared at the empty wasteland, his sword clanging to the ground.
"It's him! It's Lord Lucian!"
Another soldier, who had seen Lucian instantly erase the kami in Wagatsuma earlier, excitedly pointed upward and shouted with reverence.
"A god! A god has descended to save us!"
Among the civilians, one of them dropped to his knees, kowtowing in Lucian's direction while shouting fervently.
"A god has finally answered our prayers!"
More and more people realized what had happened, screaming, crying, and laughing in exhilaration.
"We survived!"
""OOOHHHHHHHHHH—!!!""
Cheers quickly spread like wildfire from one city to another, engulfing the entire Izumo Kingdom as people clung to each other, crying tears of relief and celebrating this unbelievable victory.
All twelve guardians witnessed this reality-defying scene with stunned expressions on their faces, still looking completely shaken to their core.
===
In the command room of Shuten Castle, Kyuusyou stared at Lucian's blurred figure on the large screen before her, then at the empty battlefields on the other screens, the decorative monocle on her right eye unable to hide the horror in her eyes.
"I-It's absolutely not the power of a Sentinel..." Kyuusyou muttered, her eyes trembling. "Such power, even the kami crushed helplessly beneath it... No doubt about it, he must be the Savior of Light I've been waiting for..."
===
At the peak of the highest mountain in Soukyuu, Sirin's arrogance vanished completely, her mouth agape wide enough to fit an egg, and she even forgot to pick up the Sky that she had reflexively dropped.
"W-What the hell?!"
Sirin exclaimed in disbelief as she looked up at the sky.
"He destroyed Takamagahara with just one move, and then blocked the shockwave that almost killed me with just a wave of his hand?!"
===
Mei, with Howl still crackling with purple lightning, froze in place, her mind blank.
Yes, she knew Lucian was strong, but not to this absurd degree.
In her eyes, this level of strength was unimaginable, bordering on the divine, clearly not something wielded by a mortal.
===
Suspended in the sky, Wendy kept her eyes closed and held both her hands before her face to defend against the incoming shockwave unleashed by the destroyed Takamagahara, but moments later, feeling that nothing was happening at all, she slowly opened her eyes and carefully lowered her hands.
Seeing the usual gloomy, reddish sky, she blinked her eyes in confusion, then realized that the shockwave had somehow vanished.
"Good grief..."
Wendy muttered tiredly, wiping the sweat from her forehead.
===
"Finally over..."
Inside the crumbling ice dome, Ana stared at the crushed kami outside the dome, then at the frozen remains of the kami for a moment before her legs gave out and she collapsed onto the snowy ground.
"Thank goodness it's over..."
===
Atop the city wall of Wagatsuma, Bianka's ice-blue eyes were fixed on Lucian in the sky above, brimming with utter shock and incomprehension.
"What kind of power is that...?"
===
"Huh?"
Himiko, still maintaining her battle stance with her flames not yet extinguished, looked at the empty ground of lava, her burning gaze turning bewildered as she looked left and right.
"Where the hell are my prey?!"
===
"Great! Someone can finally carry Izumo!"
Senti sheathed Thought and grinned toward the sky.
===
Seeing the endless horde of kami finally stop, bursting like balloons, Azta's taut nerves slowly relaxed.
"He's strong..."
Azta shifted her gaze to the black-clad figure in the sky, her face filled with shock and awe.
===
Xuanyuan stood on the water, her usually composed and imposing expression finally showing intense emotion as she fixed her gaze on the small screen of the device in her hand, which showed a young man standing in the sky.
"With just a hand wave... all the kami died..." Xuanyuan muttered absentmindedly. "I must get his power... No, I can't, that's wrong..."
===
Theresa, seeing all the kami bound by the chains of Bind being crushed to death, sighed in relief, her body shaking slightly under the weight of Bind.
"Just now... was that... him?"
Her small and youthful face was filled with confusion and overwhelming shock as she muttered absentmindedly.
===
On the outskirts of Jakusei, Sakura slowly emerged from the shadows of the woods.
Remaining silent, her eyes behind her fox mask stared intently at the figure on the screen of the device she held in her hand, her fingers gripping Maw's hilt unconsciously tightening and turning white.
===
As the guardians in various locations harbored mixed thoughts about Lucian, they soon received a single order from their leader, Kyuusyou.
[Return to the Castle. We will hold a meeting.]
Mei and Bianka, however, received an additional order.
[Mei, Bianka, bring back the Savior of Light at all costs! Beg, entangle, do whatever it takes—make sure His Excellency returns with you, no matter what!]
===
[A bonus chapter for every 500 Power Stones.]
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