Leon was fulfilling his duty.
The marching Headless Artificer suddenly froze, making no further movements.
It was obvious that the core representing its thought module had been intercepted.
"Don't you go breaking on me now..."
Herta muttered to herself.
Ultimately, she had no precise measure of what tier Leon's power truly occupied.
That he was strong was beyond doubt.
This was evident from both his identity as Terminus and that mysterious bow of his.
But whether he was stronger or weaker than Iron Tomb remained an unknown.
If it weren't for the unique nature of Terminus allowing him to peer into the future, Herta would have been half in doubt about his claim, "I will defeat Iron Tomb."
But now, she had no choice but to believe.
She trusted him, just as he trusted her.
"Come on, metalhead."
Without any hesitation, Herta immediately overclocked her authority.
The Stellar Computer, once a part of Nous's divine body, ran at full capacity, detecting the location of its main body and beginning to pinpoint an intrusion!
The entire Path diagram of The Erudition trembled violently in an instant, as the Imaginary energy of an entire Path converged on this point!
By hacking into the Path of The Erudition, Herta was fighting to access Nous's mind and seize the opportunity from Iron Tomb to complete the self-coronation in its stead!
"I have already deciphered the answer to divinity!"
Herta didn't dare to waste a moment, terrified of squandering his efforts.
She connected with Nous, logging into the administrator account one step ahead of Iron Tomb.
All that was left was to use the authority of this administrator account...
...to forcibly rewrite the "anchor point" of the universe's end, transforming the "Fourth Moment" into Herta's moment.
...
At the core where the "Deneb's Heart" was located.
"Come join The Hunt next time."
Leon drew his bow, nocking a special arrow formed from a golden ticket onto the string of The Hunt.
"There's no future over in 'Annihilation-Seeking,' I'm telling you."
As his words fell, he released his fingers, and the strangely-shaped arrow shot straight out!
"Untranslatable Words"
The Anti-Creator would not resign itself to death so easily and naturally counterattacked!
A golden sphere, constructed from the power of The Destruction, suddenly appeared high in the sky!
After preparing the medium to trigger its combo, its dark-gold right arm immediately clenched into a fist, and the corresponding giant hand behind it mirrored the action!
It crushed the sphere tightly in its palm, merging the two into one!
The Anti-Creator swung its fist with immense power, and halfway through the motion, it abruptly opened its palm. The sphere collapsed, blooming with a dazzling light!
A circular magnetic field, the size of a planet, suddenly appeared!
The moment the arrow entered this area, it was forcibly decelerated. Under the negative buff, its original light speed plummeted to a crawl!
Just like that, the Anti-Creator trapped the incoming arrow within a cage of its own creation!
After completing this initial counterattack.
Six dark-gold hands appeared around the circular magnetic field, surrounding the arrow!
The circular magnetic field began to rotate, and one after another, the dark-gold hands slammed into it!
With each addition, the light within the field grew a fraction brighter!
At last, when a golden-yellow light filled the magnetic field's interior, the immense power of The Destruction erupted instantly!
RUMBLE!!!
A high-level compression of energy continuously washed over the arrow!
The power of The Destruction seeped into it bit by bit, infiltrating its core, attempting to guide it towards fundamental annihilation, to make it lose its very existence!
Shatter!
The magnetic field dissipated, and the Anti-Creator's counterattack concluded with a heaven-and-earth-shaking explosion!
Under an attack that could easily erase the existence of an Emanator, one could imagine the final fate of this arrow.
The Anti-Creator was very confident in its own power.
After dealing with the arrow, it didn't hesitate.
It shifted its gaze back to Leon, as if preparing to deal with him next.
"Untranslatable Whisper of Pity"
The Anti-Creator spread its arms, palms open!
Two giant, bicolored hands mirrored the action as beams of golden and blue energy shot from their palms toward the high heavens!
The Destruction of "Hatred" and the Destruction of "Pity."
The two rays intertwined, spiraling upwards!
Imaginary energy far exceeding the level of an Emanator was unleashed!
Without a doubt, the Anti-Creator, or rather, Iron Tomb...
...had brought out its true power, now pinning its hopes on this one strike to shoot Leon down!
After he died, it would be Nous's turn, and after Nous died, it would be the whole world's turn!
"Hahaha!"
But before the Anti-Creator could make its next move, a laugh that had been heard not long ago echoed through this world once more!
During its power-up, a crimson arrow pierced through the air before it!
Shattering all its plans!
"Aha is losing face! Really losing face!"
The strange mask serving as the arrowhead changed its expression eighteen times in one second while saying this, showing joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness, as if to prove its own words about losing face.
The continuous barrage of energy did not bring about the expected destruction of the arrow, but instead, the joyous laughter echoing in this space grew even louder!
The arrow flew in with astonishing speed, catching it completely off guard.
The Anti-Creator had no choice but to aim its freshly charged attack at the arrow!
RUMBLE!
The two types of "Destruction" and "The Elation" wrapped in "The Hunt" immediately clashed violently. Two versus two, perfectly fair and just!
Without any suspense, Leon emerged victorious.
An arrow imbued with a sliver of an Aeon's authority was clearly not something the current Iron Tomb could hope to challenge.
To even contend with it, it would need at least one hundred thousand total damage.
Speaking of one hundred thousand total damage, do you all know what the maxed-out DPS of the un-crowned Iron Tomb is?
799!
Leon chuckled at the thought, "It should wait until after its coronation before trying to mess with an Aeon."
Shatter!
The arrow broke through the siege of The Destruction!
Its stats showed it reflected all the immense energy back, finally striking the Anti-Creator right in the chest along with all these attacks!
"Untranslatable Roar"
After being hit, the Anti-Creator looked to be in great pain. This wasn't because it feared death, but because the two emotions that guaranteed its operation were being overwritten one by one!
"Hahaha! Hahaha!"
Strange noises came from the arrow, and Aha's laughter, which was destroying Iron Tomb's composition, grew ever more intense!
A jest! A grand jest! A jest favored by the God of Jests!
Traveling through space and time, moving against the current.
Aha never expected Leon to give it such a big surprise. This was a good jest, it liked it very much. It truly hadn't misjudged him back then!
It said nothing, but an immeasurable amount of The Elation, accompanied by this laughter, instantly filled every corner of this space!
The "Laughter" that Aha represents...
...was single-handedly contending with the "Hatred" and "Pity" upon it!
Three completely different emotions clashed with each other!
And in a 1-vs-2 situation...
...The Elation gradually pushed the side of The Destruction, which originally had a great advantage, to the brink!
Greatness needs no further words!
"Erudition... Destruction... progress..."
After the arrow pierced its chest, all of the Anti-Creator's data began to corrupt, while The Elation was forcibly implanted everywhere like a virus.
"Stop... reboot... failure..."
The Anti-Creator's head hung low, muttering incomprehensibly.
It seemed its system had crashed thanks to The Elation; after all, its two most crucial factors, "Hatred" and "Pity," had been replaced as expected.
After Aha made its move, the only words left in its entire codebase were "Laughter."
Beyond that, there was nothing else.
What Leon's arrow did was, to put it simply, a factory reset. Except there was no reboot phase; it just let it crash permanently.
Without its most crucial operating module, without the rage that had sustained it until now, what difference was there between Iron Tomb and a piece of scrap metal?
"Hahaha! Hahaha!"
Another burst of piercing laughter rang out as the arrow, having fulfilled its duty, pulled itself out of Iron Tomb's chest.
Then it returned along the path it came.
Smack!
Leon raised his hand, steadily catching the arrow which had reverted to its original form as a golden train ticket.
"It's all over now."
Yes, with Iron Tomb's defeat, many things were now set in stone.
Most of its data had already been deleted.
Unless one were willing to give it a few more Amber Eras to develop its calculations, this meant that this version of Iron Tomb no longer possessed any power to speak of.
It could no longer stir up any great waves.
All that was left to do was to truly kill it.
With this thought, Leon clipped the ticket back onto his collar:
"I'll be waiting for you in The Hunt department, you Extra-Large contender."
After speaking, he once again raised the bow of The Hunt, drawing and nocking an arrow!
A perfectly ordinary-looking, bright purple arrow materialized on the bowstring!
Iron Tomb's strength was certainly nothing to scoff at.
Strong, very strong, exceptionally strong.
Take this "Anti-Creator," the firewall form he had just defeated, for example.
This form represented the un-crowned Iron Tomb, and its power was at the peak of the 'extra-large' tier.
This meant that as a counterpart to the Aeon of Erudition, it would very likely become a 'Phantom God' after breaking out of its shell, and a 'True God' if it were actually crowned.
It was just a little lacking compared to himself, that's all.
If the one closest to his strength before was Evernight, then now it was Iron Tomb.
Although it was an enemy, it wasn't half bad.
"Goodbye!"
The words fell and the finger released in one smooth motion. The arrow of light in Leon's hand was loosed to sweep away all obstacles!
With a bang!
The arrow pierced through the Anti-Creator's body, but unlike before, it didn't cause a huge commotion. The Hunt silently devoured its everything!
The deadly Imaginary energy from the light arrow completely enveloped it.
This immense energy came quickly and went just as fast!
In but an instant, under the arrow's effect...
...the Anti-Creator, along with the main body of Iron Tomb's Headless Artificer that was linked to it and had appeared outside, vanished into thin air as if they had evaporated from the world!
"Now, it's your turn."
Having done all this, Leon looked at the magic cube trapped inside the now crumbling black cage.
---
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