Or mortals who have gained great power... essentially have not transcended the true level of mortality.
Hearing this, Hen, who already knew about Karl's special characteristics, remained calm.
Triss and Keira were stunned, as if struck by a silent lightning bolt.
Triss's face instantly paled. She dropped all pretense, her pale green eyes filled with shock and disbelief at the impossibility of accepting it.
Her slender fingers slightly clenched, her palms unconsciously tightened, and her nails nearly dug into them.
She looked at Karl silently and intently, as if seeing him for the first time.
After a long silence, Triss gritted her teeth, her chest noticeably heaving from strong emotions.
She raised her head, looked directly at Karl, and asked, her voice trembling almost imperceptibly, word by word.
"So... you... you are that... the god described in those absurd, ridiculous myths?"
"They won't get sick like us, won't age... and certainly won't die?"
Her eyes held a mixture of shock, disbelief, and a slight vulnerability that dreaded confirmation.
She desperately wanted Karl to deny it, even just as a joke.
Karl looked into Triss's eyes, where hope and fear mingled, and sighed softly to himself. He understood Triss's anxieties and fears perfectly.
She was not afraid of his power, but of the fathomless abyss that this power represented.
His practically infinite lifespan stands in stark contrast to the fleeting, firefly-like lives of ordinary people.
This disparity can cast a heavy shadow over any close relationship.
Because the ending was predetermined from the beginning: one side will exist forever, while the other will eventually turn to dust.
He slowly shook his head, shattering the last spark of hope in Triss: "What you said is not entirely true."
First, he denied the most blatant assertion, but his next words made Triss's heart clench again.
"To be precise, I am now a demigod. I still have a long way to go before becoming the near-omnipotent god you understand."
Karlton paused, then said with confidence: "But the truth is, we will not get sick and... we will not age naturally."
He saw the faint glimmer of hope that had just sparked in Triss's eyes quickly fade, and added:
"Death... even true gods are not immortal; they can be killed too."
"At least, in this world, even gods... can fall."
Even though Triss had heard of the death of gods, her mood did not improve at all.
She understood perfectly well that the "death" of a deity likely occurred on such long timescales that she could not fathom them even with the richest imagination.
It was a number she had to match, a number that made her feel suffocated.
She was overwhelmed by a wave of immense disappointment and helplessness, from which a chill ran through her body.
Karl stood directly before her, so close, almost within arm's reach.
But in a daze, she felt there was an invisible but insurmountable chasm between them.
He became more and more distant, like a phantom, becoming truly unattainable.
At that moment, Hen, who had been silently observing, quietly coughed, breaking the heavy, suffocating atmosphere.
His gaze swept over Triss, pale and nearly despairing, then he turned to Karl and said softly: "Alright, Karl."
"Triss is not like me, an old man who has lived for hundreds of years and is already accustomed to the passage of time and life."
"She is still young, and her heart cannot bear the repeated torment of your harsh words."
"Since you know so much about so-called gods and have even been to their domain, surely... you have other ways to solve the problems of lifespan and aging for mortals, don't you?"
Finally, with a hint of teasing, Hen winked at Karl, and this look clearly hinted at something.
Karl had used that strange golden energy to restore his youth from old age and illness.
Hearing Hen's harsh words, Triss, whose mood had completely soured, suddenly looked up, and a new hope flickered in her eyes.
She immediately understood that yes, Karl possessed incredible power.
Solving the problem of lifespan might be a perfectly achievable task for him.
I was just obsessively thinking about the difference between gods and mortals.
Seeing the situation, she couldn't help but cast a glance at Karl, one filled with annoyance and grievance.
She understood that this guy had only said half of what he meant, intentionally trying to see her worried and anxious expression.
When Hen pointed this out and received a reproachful look from Triss in return, Karl awkwardly scratched the back of his head, a helpless but apologetic smile appearing on his face.
"Alright, alright, Triss, don't be such a pessimist." He shrugged, his tone becoming much calmer.
"Firstly, even without any additional means, it's not difficult for a sorcerer to live to nearly five hundred years, or even over five hundred years."
"As Hen said, solutions exist, but what's more important..."
He paused, his gaze sweeping over Triss and Keira, who were listening intently.
"Don't let the boundaries between 'gods' and 'mortals' constrain your thinking. Who said mortals cannot become gods?"
...…
Around noon that day, on that desolate land that had been repeatedly devastated and whose original landscape was almost unrecognizable,
Karl hovered in the air, his body emitting a faint golden aura.
Before him, the Spitfire Demon let out a fading, weak hiss.
Karl summoned it for the fifth time, and for the fifth time, it was mercilessly beaten within an inch of its life.
The demon's body was covered in a mixture of old and new wounds, its carapace shattered, and pale green blood had nearly completely soaked the ground beneath it.
The savagery and bloodthirst that had once filled its complex eyes, as if ready to destroy everything around it, had now almost completely disappeared.
Instead, there was a nearly numbed pain and... a deeply ingrained fear.
It struggled to lift its broken head, but in the end, under the gaze of those calm and majestic eyes...
All will to resist completely disappeared, accompanied by a quiet, submissive click, like a sigh...
The Spitfire Demon's head finally collapsed completely, crashing heavily onto the ravaged ground, never to rise again.
It curled up, adopting a posture of submission.
Seeing this, Karl slowly landed before the Spitfire Demon's small, platform-like head, and his gaze swept over the ferocious beast that had finally been tamed.