Chapter 302: Disboard's Current State! The Gods and Pseudo-Gods of the Sixteen Races!
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Tsukuyo Inaba didn't offer a single word in response. She simply closed her right hand firmly around the hilt of her katana.
"Yagyu Shinkage-ryu... Unyo... Shunko!"
Swish, swish, swish—!
There wasn't a single visible trace of her blade leaving its scabbard!
Only the faint, whistling sound of overlapping vacuum blades tearing through the atmosphere echoed across the plaza.
Up in the clouds, the massive black dragon seemed to instinctively sense a sudden, mortal danger. But before it could even process the threat, its colossal draconic head slowly and smoothly began to slide straight off its massive neck!
The flesh at its throat had been cleanly severed, leaving behind an incredibly smooth, flawless cut.
And finally...!
Under the direct, wide-eyed gaze of the entire capital city!
The massive corpse of the black dragon plummeted helplessly from the heavens, crashing heavily into the ground below!
A scene of this magnitude left every single onlooker utterly paralyzed with disbelief.
"This... this is..."
Over by the palace courtyard, Stephanie and the other two captive maidens stared blankly, their minds entirely short-circuiting. They hadn't expected that a white-haired L*li as minuscule and delicate as Tsukuyo Inaba could literally obliterate a legendary black dragon in a single, effortless strike!
This outcome completely shattered every single one of their baseline expectations!
Meanwhile, right outside the grand entrance of the Elkian Library...
Jibril felt a profound wave of sheer incredulity wash over her!
The Dragonia were universally recognized as the 4th-ranked race among the Exceed! Setting aside their strategic intellect, their pure, raw destructive capacity during the ancient Great War was legendary! Yet, a towering titan of such a fearsome race had been effortlessly put down by Tsukuyo Inaba in a single flash!
Jibril felt her entire scalp go numb. While she was a creature who absolutely lived for the thrill of combat and harbored an insatiable curiosity for knowledge, she was by no means an idiot.
Originally, she had been idly contemplating approaching these extra-dimensional invaders to trade for information, or simply using raw physical force to strip it from them by power.
But now...
Shuddering violently from a sudden wave of genuine terror, Jibril instantly concluded that it would be in her absolute best interest to lay low and stay entirely out of sight!
On the other side of the courtyard...
Tsukuyo Inaba turned around with her characteristic expressionless composure, calmly stepping back into the grand royal palace.
Standing nearby, Stephanie, Chlammy, and Fiel fell into a heavy, complicated silence.
"Their... their rule over this kingdom will probably be far better than mine ever was," Stephanie murmured, her voice thoroughly laced with a lack of self-confidence.
She was incredibly weak. Leaving her lack of physical power aside, her strategic intellect couldn't even begin to match up to the sheer perfection demonstrated by these outsiders. The terrifying display of absolute dominance Tsukuyo Inaba had just showcased completely severed any lingering hope she had of ever reclaiming her family's throne.
"Don't overthink it," Chlammy stated, her face entirely blank. "At the very least... they are still humans!"
In Chlammy's eyes, as long as the sovereign entities ruling over them were human, it didn't matter in the slightest whether they originated from an alternate reality or not—they were fully qualified to claim the throne!
The current state of affairs was by no means worse than what they had faced previously. After all, the forces of the Snezhnaya Empire possessed supernatural, reality-defying capabilities. Furthermore, while their military ruthlessly executed anyone who dared to actively rebel, they hadn't subjected the ordinary civilian populace to any form of tyranny or oppression.
Because of this, Chlammy truly didn't harbor any deep resentment.
Hearing her pragmatic analysis, Stephanie remained completely quiet.
Meanwhile, inside the grand throne room of the royal palace.
Tsukuyo Inaba walked up to stand directly behind Kirukiru Amou, reporting in her soft, monotone voice, "The target has been successfully neutralized."
"Excellent work!" Kirukiru Amou let out a sharp, highly satisfied grin.
It was at this precise moment that Shiro broke the silence, her soft voice cutting through the hall. "Let us first review the exact structural layout and situational data regarding the sixteen races of this gaming planet."
Hearing her prompt, the remaining Harbingers and executives immediately turned their attention toward her.
"Disboard is governed by the Sixteen Races of the Exceed. We can temporarily overlook the lower-tier entities, but the absolute top two rankings must remain our primary, unwavering focus!"
The moment those words fell, the expressions of everyone present turned thoroughly serious.
Prior to their formal deployment into Disboard, Seito had gathered the collective leadership of the Snezhnaya Empire to provide a comprehensive, highly detailed breakdown regarding the nature of this world.
Among the Sixteen Races of the Exceed:
The 1st-ranked race was the Old Deus! Every single member of this race was an ascended, true deity-tier entity.
The 2nd-ranked race was the Phantasma! The vast majority of them possessed capabilities equivalent to pseudo-gods, with a selective one or two powerhouses sitting comfortably at the true deity level.
Let us first analyze the known hierarchy of the Old Deus:
The Goddess of Doubt, Holou! She was the primordial creator of the 10th-ranked race, the Ex-Machina, and possessed a baseline combat strength equivalent to the Early-stage Deity realm.
The God of the Forest, Kainas! He was the supreme creator of the 7th-ranked race, the Elves, wielding a power level residing at the Early-stage Deity realm.
The God of Smithing, Okein! He was the divine architect behind the 11th-ranked race, the Dwarves, with a power structure stabilized at the Early-stage Deity realm.
The God of War, Artosh! He was the undisputed creator of the 6th-ranked race, the Flugel, holding an incredibly lethal baseline capability at the Early-stage Deity realm.
These were the prominent members of the Old Deus that Seito possessed explicit records on. As for any hidden deities outside this list, the parameters remained unknown.
However... regarding the foundational lore of this world, there lay a critical explanation behind Tet's true origin.
Strictly speaking, Tet was considered the final, youngest member of the Old Deus. However, during the ancient era, he was by no means the absolute Overlord of Disboard.
During the ancient Great War, before the supreme Suniaster had ever been claimed by a living soul, a massive cascade of true deities systematically perished due to the intricate tactical calculations engineered by Riku and Schwi.
In the aftermath of that cataclysm, Tet was left as the sole surviving God of Play. Because he was the final remaining deity and the undisputed winner of the conflict, he naturally assumed the mantle of the world's One True God, utilizing the limitless authority of the Suniaster to entirely restructure the fundamental laws of the planet.
What exactly was the Suniaster? It was a God-King tier artifact! A God-King possessed the raw, reality-warping capacity required to systematically obliterate entire star systems, let alone manipulating a localized planet. Therefore, utilizing the dual authority of the Suniaster and the core permissions of Disboard to resurrect the fallen deities of the Old Deus would be an incredibly straightforward task for Tet.
Furthermore, whether those ancient gods had truly perished down to their fundamental souls was something no mortal could definitively confirm. Now that this grand Divine War had formally been initiated, those ancient deities would undoubtedly manifest themselves on the battlefield! After all, a playful entity like Tet would never engage in a high-stakes gamble without securing absolute, ironclad assurances beforehand.
Having detailed the Old Deus, we must look into the 2nd-ranked race, the Phantasma. While their collective power lay just a fraction below the baseline of the true gods, they remained extraordinarily devastating entities.
First was the Vanguard Envoy of the War God, Avant Heim! This entity wasn't a biological organism, but rather the massive, sentient flying island that served as the primary homeland of the Flugel race. Its tier: Pseudo-God!
Next was the "Mist of Death," Insein-Nibia. A roaming environmental catastrophe capable of threatening the absolute survival of multiple high-tier races simultaneously. Its tier: Early-stage Deity realm!
Then there was the "Cloud of Will," Cloud Vortex, the primordial creator of the 9th-ranked race, the Fairies. Its tier: Early-stage Deity realm!
These three represented the absolute strongest Phantasmas within the 2nd-ranked tier. Outside of these entities, there lay the 4th-ranked Dragonia race, which boasted Three Grand Dragon Kings whose individual destructive capacities fully reached the Pseudo-God tier.
The 5th-ranked race was the Gigant. While historical records regarding this race were sparse, it was definitively confirmed that they maintained a permanent military alliance with the Dwarves.
The 8th-ranked race was the Dhamphir, a species that survived by consuming blood, though they didn't possess any exceptionally overwhelming traits on their own.
The 11th-ranked race was the Demonia, a monstrous species engineered by an exceedingly powerful, ancient Phantasma that took the form of a gargantuan caterpillar. While detailed records on its identity were locked, its combat strength was estimated to reside at the Pseudo-God tier.
The 13th-ranked race was the Lunamana, a highly mysterious species suspected to have been engineered by an undisclosed, ancient deity. While the specific nature of their creator remained shrouded in mystery, the deity's power level was confirmed to reside at the Early-stage Deity realm.
The 14th-ranked race was the Warbeast, a formidable species possessing the unique evolutionary trait known as "Blood Destruction"—a physical enhancement state that allowed them to temporarily bypass the absolute physical boundaries of the mortal realm. Their raw combat strength was exceptional, and they were strongly suspected to be the creations of a hidden deity.
The 15th-ranked race was the Seiren, an aquatic species residing deep within the world's oceans, sharing a close structural similarity to mermaids. They were explicitly engineered by a member of the Old Deus whose baseline power sat comfortably at the Early-stage Deity realm.
Logically speaking, aside from Imanity—who had naturally manifested from the environmental evolution of the wilderness—every single other race within the Exceed was a specialized species explicitly engineered by the supreme hands of either the Old Deus or the Phantasma!
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Thank you for reading.