Akuto stood high in the heavens, feeling the War God's somewhat unsteady aura, weakened by the absence of several incarnations. A helpless smile curved his lips.
"You know your incarnations are incomplete, and yet you still want to fight me, Verethragna? Has the madness of a Heretic God already eaten away at your mind?"
"Or do you simply know you are no match for me, so you had no choice but to challenge me before gathering all your incarnations?"
"Hmph! Words are useless!"
The War God barked out a low shout. The incarnation of Strong Wind activated first. Gale-force currents sharp enough to tear steel apart transformed into countless blades and swept down from above.
At the same time, the Boar incarnation let out a sky-shaking roar. Its mountain-like body charged forward with destructive force, crashing straight toward Akuto.
Akuto neither dodged nor retreated. He simply wrapped himself in Heavenly Wheel Battle Aura, a supreme acquired Authority made specifically for close combat.
The next second, Akuto threw a single punch.
Boom!
White spiritual energy exploded into a roaring torrent and forcibly shredded the blades of Strong Wind.
At the same time, Akuto twisted aside to evade the Boar's charge, then struck its flank with a backhand palm. The boar's thick hide split open instantly, and under that terrifying force, it was sent flying more than a thousand meters away.
"That alone will not be enough to defeat me."
Akuto flicked his wrist, his gaze sharp as a blade. He knew this was only the War God's probing prelude. The real battle had only just begun.
To complete his experiment, and to complete the system mission as well, he had to drive his opponent into a corner. Only then could he achieve his true goal: forcing Verethragna into complete Heretic defiance.
...
"Hmph!" Verethragna let out a cold snort as the crests of Gale and Phoenix lit up at the same time.
Realizing that a single incarnation could no longer deal with Akuto, he decisively chose to fuse incarnations.
But the current Verethragna, standing before Akuto, was powerless.
A sharp glint flashed through Akuto's eyes as he spoke at an unhurried pace.
"O radiance of the East, grant me your power!"
"In your name, let miracles be born. Come, answer now the oath of the serpent-slaying warrior!"
"O incarnation of Victory that serves the shining sun, cast down your sword! Bow your head in submission! O eastern sun, grant me your strength and become the hammer that shatters Verethragna!"
This was one of the core Authorities Akuto had stolen from the Heretic Mithra, Perseus. As Verethragna's master, Mithra possessed the great power to seal Verethragna's Authorities.
That was exactly why Akuto had chosen to seize Perseus's Authority before fighting Verethragna.
The moment Akuto's Authority took effect, a powerful invisible restraint descended instantly from the laws of the world themselves and locked precisely onto Verethragna.
The War God's expression changed drastically. He felt an unbreakable barrier forcibly sever the connection between himself and all of his incarnations. Drawing on their power became unbearably sluggish. He could not even maintain their manifested forms.
"So... you really did slay that man?"
Verethragna's face remained calm, but inwardly he felt a deep frustration.
He had already sensed that man's presence on the night Athena restored her trinity. Now it seemed Akuto had truly killed him and taken his Authority.
The only thing Verethragna could not understand was why Akuto had taken the Authority that existed to suppress him.
Normally, one godslaying granted only one Authority, and in most cases it would be either the one most compatible with the godslayer or the one the godslayer desired most.
If that was the case, then what was going on with Akuto?
The Authority he desired most, or the one that fit him best, was actually the one that suppressed Verethragna?
Since Verethragna did not know Akuto possessed the modified Ring of Usurpation, he naturally assumed Akuto could only seize a single Authority.
And by sheer coincidence, the guess Verethragna made from that mistaken premise happened to be correct.
The reason Akuto had summoned Perseus really was to obtain the Authority that suppressed Verethragna.
Because with that, Akuto could suppress Verethragna completely on the level of Authority itself, making it easier to force his total Heretic transformation later and complete the system mission: make Verethragna fully Heretic.
And if Akuto's guess was right, then the reward for making Verethragna completely Heretic would be the full completion of the Ring of Usurpation.
...
"What's wrong? Now that your Authorities are sealed, are you just waiting to be butchered?"
Akuto smiled faintly. In his hand appeared an ancient stone tablet: the Stone Tablet of Prometheus.
"Verethragna, tell me this. Without the use of your Authorities, do you think you can still resist the Stone Tablet of Prometheus?"
The tablet erupted with white brilliance and locked onto Verethragna, whose Authorities were sealed and whose power flow was already in disarray.
The first to go was Strong Wind.
The invisible current swirling around the War God let out a shrill scream, as if seized by some unseen giant hand. It was forcibly peeled away from him, transforming into a streak of green light that was dragged into the tablet.
On the tablet's surface, a cyclone-shaped crest blazed into existence.
Next came the Boy.
Under the tablet's radiance, the pure youthful aura surrounding Verethragna rapidly faded. The brilliance of wisdom and insight seemed to be pulled away by the tablet itself. The clarity in his eyes was replaced by a trace of confusion, and his figure swayed slightly.
A crest of a young boy holding a scroll emerged on the tablet.
Then came the Bull.
The incarnation symbolizing monstrous strength gave voice to an unwilling roar. Its phantom form struggled behind the War God, but it could not resist the tablet's suction. The power of the earth was stripped away, and the ground beneath the War God's feet no longer fed him its strength. The Bull's crest condensed upon the tablet, heavy and imposing.
Very soon, the Ram, symbol of life, also approached its end.
The Ram was the incarnation of healing and resurrection, yet its gentle glow flickered like a dying candle in the wind before finally going dark. The minor wounds Verethragna had sustained in battle instantly lost any chance of rapid recovery. At the same time, the Ram's crest lit up on the tablet.
The Phoenix, incarnation of divine speed, let out a mournful cry as well.
The fire incarnation released one final clear note before its blazing divine power was forcibly drawn into the tablet, becoming a crimson streak of flame. Every last remnant of fiery aura around the War God vanished completely. The Phoenix's crest ignited upon the tablet, vivid and lifelike.
The last to resist was the Boar.
As the most violent of the incarnations, the Boar released a furious, heaven-shaking roar filled with rage and unwillingness. Its massive phantom struggled madly, trying to break through both the Authority seal and the tablet's twin restraints.
But under the full force of the tablet as Akuto drove it with all his strength, even that final resistance was meaningless. The Boar incarnation was forcibly torn apart, compressed, and turned into a violent stream of light before being devoured entirely by the tablet.
At last, a savage Boar crest took shape on the tablet's surface, radiating brutality.
Once all of Verethragna's incarnations had been gathered, the wheel engraved across the tablet's face became completely whole.
Well, they were only gold-rank incarnations, but meat is meat. And gold-rank Authorities can hardly be called scraps.
Bzzzt.
As the modified Ring of Usurpation activated, Akuto gained ten more gold-rank Authorities.
He had already possessed the red-rank Camel Authority. Now he had obtained one more gold-rank Camel as well. It was still far from reaching a rainbow rank, but compared to before, it was still a meaningful increase.
...
In only a few brief moments, Verethragna's remaining six great incarnations had been forcibly plundered by Akuto like a bandit, using Mithra's Authority Sealing in tandem with the Stone Tablet of Prometheus.
The divine radiance around the War God dimmed to its lowest point. His aura plummeted, leaving only the most fundamental divine power to support his unsteady body.
The white-robed boy dropped to one knee, his eyes filled with disbelief, humiliation, fury, and... a trace of madness that had been completely ignited.
The victorious War God, stripped of all his Authorities by a godslayer wielding a stone tablet. The whole thing was almost absurdly laughable.
"Heh... hehehe..."
Verethragna lowered his head and let out a low, repressed laugh. The sound gradually grew louder until it became wild laughter that echoed through heaven and earth.
"HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! HAHAHAHA!!!"
Along with that laughter, a divine might far more terrifying, more pure, and more insane than at any previous moment erupted like a volcano that had lain dormant for billions upon billions of years.
The sky was instantly dyed into a field of pure gold. The earth shook violently and split apart. The invisible pressure was so overwhelming that magi throughout all of Italy, and even across Europe, felt their bodies go weak. Even breathing became extraordinarily difficult.
Verethragna slowly straightened to his feet. As he did, his aura underwent a heaven-and-earth transformation.
The Verethragna from just moments ago had already fallen below the level of a transcendent Demon King, but now he surged back in a single breath to the level of a Chief God.
Early-stage Chief God. Mid-stage Chief God. High-stage Chief God. Peak Chief God.
Akuto had clearly devoured Verethragna's Authorities, and yet the War God still exploded with terrifying power as if creating it from nothing.
This was what it meant to be a Heretic God. As long as the madness in his heart remained, as long as he remained absolutely unwavering in his sense of self, he could unleash power enough to destroy heaven and earth.
...
The ten incarnations Akuto had stolen had already become Akuto's Authorities. There was no possibility of returning them.
But now, even more violent and more powerful incarnations broke through the restraints of Perseus's words of power and reappeared around Verethragna.
The White Horse strode through world-burning flames. The Camel stirred up a sandstorm of annihilation. The Warrior raised a sword of words and power. The Goat rode upon apocalyptic lightning.
Not only had the power of all ten incarnations been fully restored, but under the madness of total Heretic defiance, they resonated with one another, fused with one another, and erupted with strength far beyond anything they had possessed before.
At this moment, Verethragna was no longer the War God who pursued victory. He had completely broken free from the restraints of myth itself and turned his entire reason for existence into battle alone: a monster of total Heretic defiance.
Under the catalytic madness and the perfect resonance of all ten incarnations, his divine power smashed through the boundary of the transcendent Demon King class and reached the very peak of the Chief God realm. The sheer force of his pressure was so overwhelming that even the defensive spell formation Akuto had just set up groaned under the strain, on the verge of collapse.
The fully Heretic Verethragna had returned.
(End of Chapter)
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