Millennium Witch

Book 3: Chapter 256: The Divine Battle Ends

This was a world of blue and gold. There was no ground here. The sky was an endless azure, and below lay what looked like a boiling, burning sea of liquid gold. Golden flames slithered like serpents along the border where the golden ocean met the blue heavens, making a faint hissing sound.Suspended in the very center of this space was a figure in a long robe of white and gold. The robe was embroidered with intricate sun-disc patterns, and a soft glow flowed along its edges. Behind his head, a radiant golden sun-disc slowly turned, looking at once like a blazing sun and like the wheel of merit in a Buddhist mural.

He was the Sun God.

This was his Sunfire Divine Realm.

If Yvette had appeared here, she would have been shocked to discover that, compared to her grand-disciple Tertia’s divine realm, the Sun God’s realm felt much smaller—its radius seemed to be not even twenty kilometers. Tertia’s divine realm, from one brief glimpse, had felt at least sixty or seventy kilometers across.

That was, of course, a reflection of the difference in raw power—but what is a god, and what is a divine realm, has only limited overlap with strength alone.

Using the link formed by faith, his gaze crossed countless distances and fell upon the wasteland outside Adelock, onto that enormous silver silhouette of a girl. The doubt and wariness in the Sun God’s heart grew ever stronger.

The Sunflame Sect was not like the Academy of Truth, where Archmages were everywhere and high-tier mages were as common as stray dogs. Here, the Pope was the only one at the Saint Realm, and the Council of Seven Priests were the only seven Archmages. Radiant Bishop Ekef, though only a mid-tier mage, was still a deeply valued pillar of the sect. So when his report reached the top, even the Sun God himself would pay attention.

Thus, upon learning of the Silver Witch Church and the Lightning Apostle, the Sun God had directly used a faith spell to cast his gaze toward Adelock.

And then he discovered that the Lightning Apostle named Ezra Yarrow possessed power that was undoubtedly a true divine Benediction, and that the lightning arts he wielded were so alien that even this True God could not comprehend them.

Such unfamiliar power—just who was this deity claiming to be the Silver Witch?

No information had come from the divine kingdom, which meant there had been no new defectors like the All-seeing Eye, the Blood God, or the God of Chaos. The Snow Emperor, the Death God, and the Sea God all had their own domains and left each other alone. As for the Western Continent—perhaps this “god” was an Eldritch God from the Western Continent. That was the most reasonable explanation, though it could also be the work of some mortal divine-realm powerhouse overstepping their bounds.

As for the Silver Witch herself?

He thought, that was absolutely impossible.

The god borrowing the Silver Witch’s honored name could have been any True God or Eldritch God, even an incarnation of a Demon God—but it could not be the Silver Witch herself.

It could not be.

And it absolutely must not be.

Outside on the wasteland, the night sky was torn open by gold and silver light. A cold wind howled, sweeping up dead grass and dust. Ekef and the armor-clad Ezra both stared blankly at the two holy symbols filling half the firmament, not daring to move a muscle.

The moment a god’s will descended, events were no longer in mortal hands. The only thing the two of them could do was quietly wait for the outcome of the conversation between the two gods.

But to everyone’s surprise, no conversation happened. World-boiling holy flame ignited along the Sun God’s emblem. Beneath the heavy clouds, the air twisted; grass and trees withered in an instant; rock began to melt and sag, releasing a stinging stench.

This world-boiling wave of heat turned into golden divine might and surged straight toward Ezra in the Skywolf Armor.

Gazing across the void at that silver girl’s sigil, the Sun God narrowed his eyes slightly; molten gold-red seemed to flow within them.

He still hadn’t figured out who the other party was. He needed a single exchange to gather enough information.

At the same time, not far away, dying Isaac’s eyes were also veiled with a layer of greenish light, his expression gradually becoming calm.

Clearly, the Lord of Sky and Air had also descended his will, but he did not join this probing exchange. He had chosen to stand aside and observe.

The response was a beam of silver light.

It was not domineering or searing like the sun, intent on burning everything, but more like the cool, clear radiance that flows out of moonlight. It looked fragile, yet it interposed itself between the golden divine might and Ezra, blocking all of those holy flames.

The pressure on Ezra’s body vanished all at once. He gulped down deep breaths; though no one could hear it through the helm, he still closed his eyes and muttered devoutly under his breath.

Moonlight poured over the cloud-sea below, smooth and white as set milk. The airship slid through it, and in the quiet VIP suite, Yvette narrowed her eyes slightly, the corners of her lips turned down on both sides. She looked quite displeased.

Yes, she had blocked the Sun God’s holy flame with a force-field spell—but that didn’t mean she could just let this slide.

She thought, no matter how you looked at it, this was a conflict between their respective chosen. Did they really have to escalate it to the point of gods personally stepping in?

Seriously, this was way too much.

The truth was, she still had no idea what the Sun God’s real purpose in descending had been, nor the probing intent hidden in his strike.

She only felt that the Sun God probably hadn’t considered her a being on his own level at all—that was why he’d acted so high-handed and arrogant, with the Lord of Sky and Air cheerfully joining in to bully her.

How did it go again? Better to throw one heavy punch now than suffer a hundred later. Since she had some capacity for self-defense, Yvette had to at least try to give a response—in other words, to “end the war by fighting.”

And one crucial element of that response was proving that she, too, was a god.

How to prove it?

With Aberrant Mana, of course.

Since Aberrant Mana was power from the divine realm, all she had to do was use her specialty, Shadowtouch, as her counterattack. That would be enough to prove she also possessed a divine realm. As for why she didn’t have a visible divine realm, that wasn’t important—her opponent had no way to know.

So how much Aberrant Mana should she invest in this counterstrike?

She had stored 500,000 units of Aberrant Mana in the flesh-and-blood marker core on Ish Island, and her main body still held 1,700,000.

But she had no intention of going all-out. She decided to start by investing 5,000 points of Aberrant Mana to give the Sun God a small warning.

The Sunfire Divine Realm.

Seeing the silver radiance form a wall and block his holy flame, the Sun God’s brows drew together without him realizing it. A grave look slowly settled into his gold-red eyes.

His holy flame was magic he had grasped himself upon sensing the laws during his ascent to godhood. It was nothing like the simple, structured spell-forms used in the mortal world. It was so abstruse that even he could not fully articulate it, and because it was unique to him, it was called a divine spell.

That silver light was clearly divine magic as well; the arrangement of its runes was just as intricate and unfathomable as his holy flame. He could not understand it, and it was terrifyingly strong.

With divine magic of such power, whether the other party was an Eldritch God from the Western Continent or a mortal divine-realm powerhouse masquerading as a god, their strength was probably not beneath his own.

As he pondered, he suddenly noticed the girl-profile emblem twist. From it, a patch of pitch-black ink surged out. It moved so quickly he didn’t even notice that it was a tentacle—his first instinct was that it was some sort of shadow-aspected divine spell.

Unlike the Sun God’s probing strike, which had been aimed at the other god’s chosen, this long streak of black drove straight toward the center of the Sun God’s emblem, toward the spatial conduit invisible to mortal eyes.

In that instant, a sense of danger rose in his heart. The Sun God had not expected this unknown deity to have such a violent temper, bypassing the chosen entirely and instead using the temporary faith channel to attack the deity himself within his divine realm!

It all happened too fast. By the time he tried to bring his divine spells to bear, that massive black shadow—like a column piercing sky and earth—had already reached the very front of the Sun God’s emblem. What shocked him even more was that, at the same time, he felt countless unknown disruptions, interfering with his maintenance of the faith spell so that he couldn’t even close the spatial conduit in time!

If a hacker from the Origin Civilization had been here, they would probably have recognized the methods: a high-frequency DDoS-style “Rune Overload Technique,” an SQL-injection-style “Rune Interference Technique,” and virus-like malicious rune packages. Most of the methods were fairly straightforward, but against the Sun God’s faith spell, which lacked anything resembling a firewall, they were more than enough to work—easily buying a few extra seconds.

As long as the Sun God didn’t yank the power cable too quickly.

At the same time, because Yvette had added Aberrant Mana support during the interference, the Sun God’s spatial conduit ended up being reinforced instead, allowing an even larger amount of power to pass through.

In a flash, the Sun God watched that jet-black shadow slam into the spatial conduit and surge toward his Sunfire Divine Realm.

A powerful sense of crisis flooded him. The Sun God immediately sealed the entry point within his realm, hoping to shut this attack out.

In the next second, there was no deafening explosion—only a wave of annihilating elemental turbulence that echoed madly through the divine realm.

The Sun God saw a massive dent appear suddenly in the curved edge of his realm’s outer shell. In its wake, a web of cracks erupted, branching like forked lightning along the blue arc of the divine realm’s sky, spreading rapidly outward until they covered most of his field of view.

Below, the golden ocean roiled violently, sending up towering tsunamis. The drifting divine fires began to flicker like dying mayflies. The entire Sunfire Divine Realm was shrouded in an apocalyptic tableau.

The Sun God could barely believe what he was seeing.

His divine realm… had cracked.

But—

How could a divine realm be shattered?

At that same moment, back in the quiet, peaceful airship suite, Yvette’s brows drew together, and a deep heaviness appeared in her eyes.

Her attack had been blocked!

In just a few seconds, the Sun God had realized something was wrong, cut off the supply of faith-essence and divine power, and so she’d only had time to drive her Shadowtouch through and land a heavy punch—and then… nothing.

She had felt her Shadowtouch slam into an exceptionally solid wall. It had left a shallow dent, yes, but it clearly hadn’t broken all the way through.

What was that?

Some kind of defensive magic belonging to the Sun God?

Or a defensive-type divine artifact?

Because it had ended so quickly and she’d gained so little information, Yvette’s unease toward the gods deepened. She even felt a faint chill of fear. If the Sun God had decided to fight her to the bitter end, she wasn’t at all sure she could keep up the Silver Witch’s “godly mystique” in front of her chosen.

Still, things had gone fairly well. She hadn’t exposed the fact that she lacked a divine realm.

And after that one strike, the Sun God’s emblem had vanished; his descent had ended. That showed her warning strike had worked—she’d convinced him she was a being on his level, and he had backed off.

That had been close.

Both sides felt they had just survived a thrilling, knife-edge battle. After seeing the Sun God’s holy emblem disappear first, the silver light brightening the skies faded away as well.

The clouds scattered by the aftermath of the divine clash did not gather again. Clear moonlight spilled down unimpeded, illuminating the ravaged earth below.

All color had drained from Ekef’s face. He didn’t know how the divine battle had ended, but it was obvious the other side’s “false god” had won, and the Sun God had chosen to abandon him—the Radiant Bishop—and retreat first. The blow to his faith was immense.

Ezra was still a bit dazed. Everything that had happened tonight was overwhelming for someone still just a youth. But one thing was clear: the Goddess had personally struck out for his sake, blocking the Sun God’s descent. That realization filled him with an intense, tearful gratitude toward her.

The only regret was that after a Divine Descent like this, he probably couldn’t go and finish off the two attackers any more—after all, their gods’ wills had just descended. If he refused to give them that face and insisted on killing Ekef and Isaac, wouldn’t the consequences be rather serious?

So once everything had calmed down, he gave one last look at the stunned, motionless Ekef, then left the area at once, disappearing into the boundless night.

He didn’t know how much time had passed when, accompanied by golden holy light, the cracks in the Sunfire Divine Realm gradually began to mend. The apocalyptic scene slowly returned to normal.

Yet as he looked upon it all, the Sun God’s gold-red eyes held not only the relief of someone who had narrowly escaped disaster, but also deep frustration.

Because upon close inspection, one would notice that once all the cracks had been patched, the radius of the Sunfire Divine Realm was slightly smaller than before.

That was the price of repairing a divine realm.

——

Not long after, a request for entry arrived. The Sun God gathered his emotions and opened the door. A bird-headed figure in pale blue-and-white armor stepped inside. Its head was that of a real eagle, its bare feet ending in talons, and dark feathers could be seen faintly beneath its sleeves.

This was a member of the ancient birdfolk that, according to legend, had only existed during the Era of Withering—and also the True God of the Cloudpeak Sect, the Lord of Sky and Air.

“Gorgon,” the Lord of Sky and Air said bluntly. “What happened? Why did you suddenly end your descent?”

The Sun God glanced at him, was silent for a long moment, then gave an answer that didn’t quite match the question. In a low voice, he said, “Let me ask you something, Aetherius. If she is real—what would you do?”

“Who’s real?” the Lord of Sky and Air asked.

“The Silver Witch,” the Sun God said.

At that answer, the Lord of Sky and Air fell silent. He stared at the Sun God’s unreadable face for a long time before saying coldly, “What exactly did you run into?”

“It’s only a hypothesis. Perhaps… a new True God has appeared,” the Sun God said.

“That’s impossible.”

“Yes. You know it’s impossible.”

A thicker silence settled over the two True Gods. At last, the Lord of Sky and Air said expressionlessly, “If it is truly her… then hide in your divine realm and wait for the next God of Truth and Magic to appear.”

He paused, then added with a sigh, “What else could we even do?”