Gods are transcendent rulers of the world.
They surpass the limits of life, existing like beings from legend, wielding the authority to grant blessings.
Proud deities, relying on their unmatched power, have lived beyond the distant heavens since ancient times.
They would never be harmed, nor would they ever die.
Though mortals did everything they could to seek them out, the gods always remained out of reach.
As though they were worlds apart even when standing right before you.
After becoming gods, They gained supreme power.
But behind that power...
They lost the most basic ability to interact as living beings.
And their emotions.
Such was the price of becoming a god.
———
At last, Uranos's enormous body finally collapsed.
Countless rocks crashed down onto the earth, shattering into sharp fragments, bringing wave after wave of thunderous roars and clouds of dust.
Amid the collapse and the rumbling, Hermes floated in the sky with his head lowered, silently watching as Uranos lost his divine power.
His eyes, shining like golden sand, stared fixedly ahead. Reflected in them was only Uranos's body slowly falling apart.
Watching Uranos collapse completely before him and turn into a pile of rubble, Hermes's pupils trembled.
He... had lost again?
In this contest, he had already lost.
Because Hermes had used a god's power.
He had forcibly kept Uranos alive, making sure Viktor could not execute him.
Even so...
Even after using divine power.
Viktor had still won.
"Again... the Goddess of Justice..."
Thinking of the sword strike that the female knight, carrying justice itself, had brought down, Hermes muttered to himself.
Now, the Calamity of Earth had completely fallen apart.
The countless fallen rocks had even piled up into a massive mountain.
Amid the shock, countless cries from the people in the central plaza slowly reached Hermes's ears.
"My heavens, it finally fell?"
"It looks like a mountain..."
"Did we win?"
Those words were filled with humanity's joy and amazement at Viktory, yet they somehow deepened the humiliation in his heart.
Every sentence sounded like mockery directed at him.
He was clearly the cunning God of Thieves. He could steal anything.
He was clearly the wisest God of Commerce. No one should have been able to defeat him in a battle of wits.
Yet despite possessing countless identities and divine powers, he had still lost to Viktor in every way.
Everything Hermes had personally planned now looked so absurd and laughable, so powerless.
From the very beginning, it seemed every one of his schemes had already been seen through by Viktor.
At the same time, the golden light flowing around him had grown dim and blurred.
His sacred body seemed to turn into a phantom, flickering without end.
But Hermes himself had not noticed the change.
Only in Viktor's eyes did a line of obscure golden text appear.
["Intermittent Illusion" has expired.]
Viktor looked at Uranos, whose body had piled into a mountain beneath him, then at Hermes, who had fallen into madness in midair, and smiled softly again.
Because he had succeeded.
Intermittent Illusion was a unique mechanic that belonged only to Gods.
As long as this mechanic existed, players could not touch a god.
Although they could speak with a god, mortals and gods existed as though they were in different dimensions.
Any attack or touch would be nullified upon reaching a god.
Likewise, gods could not attack players.
Because gods could not touch mortals.
If one wished to fight a god, the most important thing was finding a way to break the Intermittent Illusion mechanic.
Only after breaking it could players confront those gods with extraordinary divine power head-on.
That was also why, in ancient legends, even when gods descended into the mortal world and bestowed blessings and revelations upon humanity, they still remained unreachable in human eyes.
Because humans and gods could not touch one another, the lofty gods became the isolated side.
As time passed, this mysterious, distant image of the gods gradually became one of supreme reverence in the hearts of mankind.
And so humanity began to worship these gods who possessed extraordinary divine power.
Little by little, through that process of contact, the relationship between humans and gods came into being.
Breaking Intermittent Illusion was both difficult and simple.
Even the gods themselves could not deal with it.
Because it was their passive ability.
The only way was to make a god experience intense emotional turmoil.
To pull a god free from emotionless detachment and make them seem more like a living being with feelings.
Then Intermittent Illusion would automatically lose its effect.
Right now, Hermes was still on the brink of a complete emotional collapse.
He had not noticed that he had temporarily lost the blessing of Illusion.
Watching Hermes become more and more tangible, a light suddenly flashed in Viktor's deep black eyes.
The surrounding space rippled.
A transparent chain shot out from every direction and swiftly wrapped itself around Hermes's pair of pure white wings.
Feeling the powerful restraint, Hermes shuddered. He turned his head and saw his white wings bound by magic.
Although a level of magic like this was something he could easily break free from,
what truly shocked him was why Viktor's magic could touch him at all.
Yet this spell seemed to signal something.
At that moment, a transparent sparrow flapped its wings and flew into the sky.
Then thousands upon thousands of sparrows flooded the heavens, blotting out the sky.
Threads of differently colored magic connected the countless sparrows together, weaving an astonishing heavenly net high above Hermes.
Hermes slowly raised his head, looking at the countless sparrows glowing with strange magical light and the shimmering web of magic suspended in the sky.
Before his stunned gaze, the magical web, large enough to cover half the royal capital, descended from the sky and rushed toward the earth.
"Wh..."
Before he could finish speaking, the descending web of magic embedded itself into the ground and rapidly closed in on him.
The magical web passed harmlessly through the many residents before converging directly on Hermes.
Facing the rapidly shrinking giant net, Hermes's body froze instantly in midair.
Feeling a tremendous force pressing against him, Hermes was wrapped in heavy magical power and pulled down to the ground.
In the end, he was forced onto his stomach on the earth.
Yet the golden light still flowed within his eyes.
Hermes made no attempt to break free of the net.
Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he had never thought of breaking free.
As a god, he had already lost to a human.
The emotional collapse from that defeat left him unwilling to do anything at all.
The surrounding residents all retreated, clearing a large open space for Hermes, who lay in the dust.
They formed a circle around him, staring at the god on the ground with curiosity and anger, pointing at him without stopping.
Feeling the countless gazes gathering around him, Hermes lowered his head, letting his mysterious golden, quicksand-like eyes disappear into the shadows.
But his hands slowly clenched into fists, revealing the dissatisfaction and humiliation in his heart.
To him, this was humiliation unlike anything he had ever experienced.
His dignity as a god had been gravely damaged.
He had been dragged down from the sky by force, stained with filthy mud, stripped of his divine radiance.
Even the mortals around him were examining him with strange looks.
As though they were sizing up a wild animal that had lost its brilliance.
At that moment, Viktor also landed on the ground and gently set Erika down from his arms.
"Can you still stand?"
As Erika felt the solid ground beneath her feet again, she nodded blankly.
At last, she once again felt the reality of standing on the earth.
But she had no idea what had happened during all that time.
She could only stare blankly at Hermes, who had been forced onto the ground, her eyes filled with confusion.
As though sensing Erika's gaze, Hermes slowly raised his head.
The golden eyes seemed to have lost their former divine brilliance.
At that moment, their eyes met.
Erika paused and looked carefully into Hermes's eyes.
She felt as though she had seen that gaze somewhere before.
The words slipped out before she could stop herself.
"Leopold?"
'What!?'
In an instant, a wave of shock swept through the crowd in the central plaza and spread across the entire square.
Everyone gasped and froze in place, studying the god before them even more carefully.
'Leopold!? Wasn't that the head of the Lesser family?'
The crowd gradually recovered from their shock and burst into chatter.
Countless voices of disbelief, speculation, and suspicion poured into Hermes's ears.
Every sentence they discussed made Hermes lower his head a little further.
In their eyes, Hermes was no longer a lofty and mysterious god.
He was nothing more than a wild rooster with broken wings, fallen into the dust.
At last, Hermes raised his golden eyes, as though they had lost all hope, and looked toward Viktor.
Viktor's gaze had not changed in the slightest.
It was as cold as ever.
It seemed he had always been like this.
As though from the very beginning, Viktor had never regarded him as a worthy opponent.
Unwilling to accept it, Hermes spoke with what little dignity he had left.
"Tell me, Viktor Klevenna."
"Where exactly did I lose?"
Hearing Hermes's question, Viktor finally looked at him with a trace more seriousness.
Their eyes met.
Feeling Viktor's icy gaze upon him, the cold, detached voice followed.
"You lost because of your arrogance, Hermes."
"While I knew everything about you."