The Larte brothers looked even more confused than before.
It was obvious neither of them had ever heard the title "Grand Priestess."
"Who?" Larde asked again.
"The Grand Priestess. The strongest god in all the universes," she answered calmly.
Larte: "..."
Larde: "..."
The brothers were speechless.
They had just run into the strongest God of Destruction in Universe 4.
And now they had somehow run into the strongest god in the entire cosmos too.
Their luck today had to be cursed.
"This is your fault for blowing up that planet too early," Larde grumbled. "You really picked the worst possible day for it."
Larte had no answer to that.
"Come with me," the Grand Priestess said. Her voice was gentle, but there was no refusing it.
The moment she finished speaking, she flickered out of sight and took the lead.
The brothers exchanged a look, nodded to each other, and hurried after her.
A moment later, they spotted a familiar figure in the distance.
It was that rat God of Destruction.
"I've already pinned him in place. You may deal with him however you like," the Grand Priestess said coldly, her eyes as indifferent as ice.
"Damn it! Let me go!" Quitela shouted, his face changing over and over.
"Oh, this is perfect," Larde said with a grin, clenching his fist as he flew toward Quitela. "I didn't think I'd get my revenge this fast."
Larte, however, stayed where he was.
"You're not going?" the Grand Priestess asked softly.
"Larde can handle it," Larte said, shaking his head. "I still prefer beating him through my own efforts."
"So you're a God of Destruction, huh?" Larde said with a cold snort. "You beat my brother and me half to death before. Bet you didn't expect it to end like this."
Without another word, he entered his long-haired pink form and drove a heavy punch straight into Quitela's face.
"Aaagh..."
Quitela cried out as his face visibly caved in.
He was terrified.
This angel had not only restrained his body, she had also sealed away a large part of his divine power.
Otherwise, someone at this level should never have been able to hurt him.
Even in that pink long-haired state, this man could not have been above level 30.
Quitela himself was level 55.
"That all you've got?" Larde said with a laugh. Then he turned to the Grand Priestess and asked, "If I kill him, can I take his place as this universe's God of Destruction?"
"No. You're too weak," she replied, shaking her head.
"What? Grand Priestess? Grand Priestess!" Quitela's pupils shrank. "Y-You... how are you here? You're alive?"
The Grand Priestess showed no reaction at all, as if being recognized meant nothing to her.
"It really is you... Grand Priestess..." Quitela cried out, horrified.
She said nothing. She only stared at him in silence.
"What exactly does a God of Destruction do?" Larde asked.
"Their main duty is to destroy planets and mortals that no longer need to exist," the Grand Priestess replied.
"So that means we can do whatever we want in this universe?" Larde asked. "And the only reason I can't take the title is because I'm too weak?"
"If the two of you worked together, you might be able to hold the office of God of Destruction," she said.
Larde turned to his brother. "Larte, what do you think? Let's kill him and take this universe for ourselves."
"That works for me," Larte said after a moment's thought, nodding seriously.
"Then..." Larde said, placing a hand on Quitela's chest as light gathered in his palm.
Quitela panicked. Despair filled his face.
Was he really about to die here?
He did not want to die.
"Grand Priestess, spare me! I was wrong!" Quitela screamed.
Boom!
Larde's energy blast punched straight through Quitela's chest.
"Aaagh..."
Quitela let out another scream and looked down to see a hole almost four inches wide torn clean through him.
"T-This..." he stammered, his life force already draining away at frightening speed.
Larde showed him no mercy. With one sharp swipe of his hand, he cut Quitela's head clean off.
Quitela's head separated from his body on the spot.
But a God of Destruction's vitality was monstrous. Even with his head separated from his body, he did not die immediately.
Despair filled Quitela's eyes. Then, the instant he realized the restraint on him had been lifted, his severed head turned into a purple-red streak of light and fled at top speed.
"Grand Priest, save me!" he screamed desperately.
Larde's eyes lit up. "Even with only a head left, he can still fly that fast? So that's a God of Destruction?"
"He's already much weaker than before," the Grand Priestess said coldly. "Whether you can kill him and take his title now depends on the two of you."
In the next moment, Larde shot off after him as a streak of rose-colored light.
Even with only a head left, Quitela was still incredibly fast.
As he fled through space, he kept screaming for the Grand Priest to save him.
Larde chased close behind, surrounded by rose-colored light, pushing his speed higher and higher.
"You're not going after him?" the Grand Priestess asked, glancing at Larte.
"Let him do it himself," Larte said slowly, his voice heavy with sorrow. "I don't want to win unfairly."
"He may only have a head left, but your brother still isn't quite enough to beat him alone," she said quietly.
Larte fell silent.
Three seconds later, he made up his mind and shot after them at once.
Larde caught up to Quitela's head quickly.
Quitela's eyes were full of fear. The moment he saw Larde's fist coming, he opened his mouth wide.
Boom!
A stream of purple-red energy burst from his mouth and roared toward Larde.
Larde froze for a split second. He had not expected a severed head to still be able to fire energy blasts.
Staring at the blast rushing toward him, he gritted his teeth and tried to swat it away.
But just before his hand reached it, a savage warning of death exploded in his mind.
Larde's expression changed completely. There was no time to dodge now, so he thrust both hands forward and tried to block the incoming destruction energy head-on.
Smack!
Quitela's destruction energy struck his hands.
Rose-colored light burst from Larde's body as he pushed his power to its limit.
Even so, the force of the blast still sent him hurtling backward through space.
Worse, his hands began to disintegrate before his eyes.
Quitela turned and fled again.
Larde's pupils shrank.
Only a head remained, and he still did this much damage?
Fear flashed through his eyes, but it quickly turned into blazing fury.
I refuse to believe I can't beat a severed head.
"Ahhhh!"
Larde roared at the top of his lungs.
But the destruction energy was just too powerful. It kept driving him backward, and his hands and forearms continued crumbling away inch by inch.
At the critical moment, Larte came tearing in from behind.
"Hah!"
He kicked hard, striking Quitela's destruction energy and knocking it off course.
The blast shot harmlessly away into deep space, trailing a long purple-red tail.
"Larde... your hands..." Larte said, his heart pounding as he saw that only jagged stumps of Larde's arms remained.
"It's fine. He can still fight with only a head left, and I've still got my legs, my head, and most of my arms," Larde said through clenched teeth. "I can still fight too. Now move. Don't let him get away."
"You're really saying that doesn't hurt?" Larte asked, unable to help himself.
"Doesn't hurt!" Larde bared his teeth.
"You call that not hurting?" Larte said, exasperated.
"Stop talking! He's getting away!" Larde snapped.
Without another wasted second, both brothers turned into streaks of light and resumed the chase.
The Grand Priestess watched from afar and sighed inwardly.
"I never expected that little rat to grow into such a powerful God of Destruction after all these tens of millions of years," she murmured coldly. "With their current strength, the two of them are still just a little short of beating even a half-dead one. They'll need a push."
Then she vanished.
In the blink of an eye, she appeared beside the brothers.
They both looked at her in surprise.
"Catch," she said, flicking a hand.
Two green earrings flew through the air.
Larte caught them automatically.
Larde: "..."
Right. And what was he supposed to catch things with? His feet?
His hands were gone.
"What are these?" Larte asked, looking down.
"Potara Earrings," the Grand Priestess answered coolly. "Put one on the left ear of one of you and the other on the right ear of the other, and you'll fuse into a stronger warrior."
"Fuse? How is that different from our normal Fusion?" Larde asked excitedly.
"Fusion requires a sequence of movements. Potara fusion only requires the earrings," she said.
"Which one's stronger?" Larte asked.
"About the same," she replied. Then she added, "He's getting farther away."
"Hurry! Put them on now!" Larde shouted.
Larte nodded. Without hesitation, he put one earring on his left ear.
Then he flicked the second one toward Larde.
Larde stretched out his neck.
Smack!
The earring snapped onto his right ear.
At once, the brothers' bodies overlapped and merged into one.
The fusion was complete in an instant.
The fused warrior's hands had fully returned. He looked much like their earlier fused form, though his outfit had changed slightly.
"Since this is Larte and Larde fused together, and to distinguish myself from Larted... I'll call myself Ladted," he muttered to himself.
Then he became a streak of pink-and-green light and shot after Quitela.
After landing that one lucky attack, Quitela had fled without stopping for a second.
As he ran, he kept screaming into the void, "Grand Priest! Save me!"
His mind was a complete mess.
How had he run into the Grand Priestess here?
This was a nightmare.
Wasn't she supposed to be dead?
And even if she was alive, why did she look different now?
Had she changed her appearance on purpose?
His thoughts spiraled wildly, and with them came memories he had not touched in ages.
Back then, Quitela had still been nothing more than a tiny mouse.
Once, by accident, he wandered into the Grand Priestess's home and chewed through her favorite outfit.
The Grand Priestess had gone into a rage and tried to slap him to death.
But the Grand Priest had seen that the little mouse had unusual spirit, so he spared him.
From then on, the Grand Priest arranged for him to train under Cognac.
Countless years passed after that.
The little mouse eventually grew into an outstanding God of Destruction and took on a proper humanoid form.
It was the Grand Priest himself who gave him the name Quitela.
As time passed, the matter of the Grand Priestess's damaged clothes gradually faded from her mind.
After all, she had long since acquired new ones.
But after becoming a God of Destruction, Quitela once got drunk and let his mouth run wild.
He told the story of what had happened long ago and even bragged that he had chewed up the Grand Priestess's most precious outfit.
That alone would have been bad enough.
But then he added something even worse.
He said chewing on the Grand Priestess's clothes had felt great, like gnawing on pig ear.
A good number of Gods of Destruction were present when he said it.
Naturally, word reached the Grand Priestess.
She was furious.
Back then, sparing a tiny mouse had already been generous enough.
And now that same mouse was publicly bragging about it?
She had wanted Quitela executed on the spot, but once again the Grand Priest had stepped in to stop her.
He argued that Quitela had only misspoken while drunk and asked that he be given one more chance.
The Grand Priestess had agreed, but she had been far from pleased.
And that was not the only matter on which she and the Grand Priest had clashed.
There had been many.
Later still, rumors spread that the Grand Priestess had left. No one knew where she had gone.
Some said the place she went was extremely dangerous, dangerous enough that she might have died there.
When Quitela first heard that rumor, he was so delighted he could barely sleep for days.
He had never imagined he would one day provoke such a terrifying angel.
Still, from then on, he had lived in peace.
As far as he was concerned, the Grand Priestess was dead.
And even if she somehow wasn't, she would never return to this world.
But now she had returned after all.
And she was colder than ever, with no hint of mercy left.
Quitela was truly panicking now.
He had lived for close to one hundred million years.
He had climbed from a yellow-furred little mouse to a God of Destruction through more hardships than anyone could count.
He did not want to die.
As a God of Destruction, he held supreme power.
He could do almost anything he pleased in his universe, and so long as he did not break certain rules, he could live forever.
So even in panic, he did not flee blindly.
He headed straight for the God of Destruction Realm.
"Cognac! Can you hear me? Contact me now!" Quitela shouted.
When he got no response from the Grand Priest, he started screaming for Cognac instead.
Unfortunately, because only his head remained, his communicator had been destroyed. He had no way to contact Cognac through it.
And Cognac clearly was not hearing him either.
"Damn it! Why is no one around when I actually need them?" Quitela cried in despair.
At the same time, he could sense a powerful presence closing in from behind.
It felt like the brothers had used Fusion again.
He risked a glance backward.
No... not Fusion. This looked more like Potara fusion.
In his fused state, Ladted's speed had risen sharply, and he was closing the gap fast.
Quitela's despair was now visible at a glance.
It was over.
This was the end.
And this was only the attack of two mortals.
The Grand Priestess herself had not even made a second move yet.
If she did...
Then only the Grand Priest could save him.
Still, judging by her attitude, she probably could not even be bothered to strike a second time.
If he could just escape these two, maybe she would let him go.
That was the only hope he had left.
Quitela twisted his head around again, opened his mouth, and fired another stream of purple-red energy.
Ladted dodged in a flash.
"You won't hit me again," he said with a snort, accelerating once more.
Another twenty seconds passed before Ladted finally caught him.
"Die, little rat!" Ladted shouted, kicking Quitela's head.
"Owwww!"
Quitela's severed head shot tumbling through space, his vision spinning wildly.
In the next instant, Ladted flashed forward again and punted his head a second time.
Quitela's head tore through the starry sky once more.
Then, with a heavy crash, it slammed into the surface of a nearby planet and buried itself deep underground.
Ladted dropped from the sky, plunged into the planet's crust, and quickly found Quitela's head.
After all those kicks, and with so much of his energy already leaking away from being reduced to only a head, Quitela was barely conscious now.
Ladted grabbed him one-handed like a basketball.
"You're not dead yet, right?" he said with a laugh, slapping Quitela across the face twice.
Quitela's dim eyes were filled with despair.
"Don't worry. You won't be in pain much longer," Ladted said.
Then he shot back into outer space with Quitela's head in hand and returned to the Grand Priestess.
She remained expressionless, merely looking at Quitela.
"Grand Priestess... spare me... I think I can still be saved..." Quitela said weakly.
Ladted snorted and tightened his grip.
Boom!
Quitela's head exploded into a cloud of blood.
He was dead.
This time, it was final.
With even his head gone, there was no more chance of regeneration.
Ladted clapped his bloodied hands together and grinned proudly.
Then suddenly, his body split apart.
In the next moment, he had reverted back into Larte and Larde.
"Huh? We split?" Larde said, blinking.
The brothers looked at each other in surprise.
"Potara Earrings are meant for Supreme Kais," the Grand Priestess explained. "When mortals use them, the fusion is temporary. And the more power they use, the faster the fusion ends."
The brothers scratched their heads, only half understanding.
The Grand Priestess said nothing more. She stepped forward and healed Larde with her staff.
In an instant, his lost hands fully regrew.
"My hands are back! That's incredible!" Larde said excitedly.
"If you want to become the God of Destruction of this universe, you still have a great deal of training ahead of you," the Grand Priestess said. "At your current level, even if I gave you the title, you still wouldn't be a match for the other Gods of Destruction."
"We'll train properly," Larte said with a nod. "But before that, there's something I need to do."
"What is it?" she asked.
"My heart is always full of sorrow. I don't know why," Larte said in a low voice. "That little rat said there's something called the Dragon Balls in Universe 7. Collect all seven, and you can grant any wish. Can you take me there? I want to make my heart stop hurting like this."
"Come with me," the Grand Priestess said. "Universe 7 isn't the only place with Dragon Balls. Universe 6 has them too."
"So you're from Universe 6?" Larde asked, finally realizing it.
The Grand Priestess let out a faint sigh. "As for your wish..."
Larte blinked. "What about my wish?"
"Nothing. Come with me first," she said.
Then she swept her staff through the air. A wave of invisible angel power wrapped around both brothers, and in the next instant she used Instant Transmission and vanished with them.
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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