But the attack never came. The swing he had been bracing for, the slash that would have erased him from existence, never materialized. After a few moments of panicked running, the god of war looked back with unease and found that Reinhard had disappeared from where he had been standing.
What he did see, however, was something far more concerning. In the range of ten thousand miles surrounding the capital and the church where the summoned heroes were gathered, a massive barrier had formed—a shimmering wall of divine energy that enclosed the entire region in an impenetrable dome. The barrier hummed with power that the god of war recognized immediately as something far beyond mortal craft.
He looked toward the church and saw that the former saintess had summoned another god—the god of wisdom himself, who floated in the sky above the barrier with an eyepatch over one eye, his single visible eye surveying the aftermath of the battle with an expression of cold, calculating authority.
The god of wisdom looked at the god of war with undisguised disdain, his lip curling slightly at the sight of his fellow deity in such a pathetic state. What the god of war had done was bring shame upon the gods as a whole, and he had done it before mortals, no less—in front of the very beings they were supposed to inspire awe and reverence in.
"The fate of the world is in your hands," Odin said, shifting his attention away from Ares and directing it downward toward the twelve summoned heroes gathered within the church below.
"We can't descend to this mortal world to fight, but you all have our full support!" Odin said, looking down at all of them with an expression that was equal parts encouragement and expectation.
The gods were bound by rules far older than any mortal civilization—rules that prevented them from manifesting their true forms on the mortal plane and directly interfering in its affairs beyond a certain threshold.
Avatars were the most they could send, and even those came with strict limitations. The summoned heroes were the only ones who could fight this battle in its entirety.
"Would the barrier hold? Can't he come through?" A woman with glasses asked with a frown, her arms crossed and her expression skeptical as she looked up at Odin. With everything she had seen—the sky splitting, the earthquake, an attack that circled the entire planet, a god of war fleeing in terror—she had serious doubts that anything could stop Reinhard if he decided he wanted through.
From the looks of things, Reinhard was the strongest being on this planet by a considerable margin, and even the gods themselves feared him. She was one of the summoned heroes, and clearly one who didn't trust people easily, divine or otherwise.
"Yes, I used his blood. From the start, that was the whole point." Odin said calmly, and with those words, the true nature of the god of war's role in this battle became clear. Indeed, Odin had sent Ares to engage Reinhard not with any expectation of victory—that had never been the goal.
The entire purpose of the confrontation was to draw blood from Reinhard, to obtain even a small amount of his biological material so that it could be used as a component in the barrier's construction. And that objective had been accomplished.
Zeus had only been there because he was far too arrogant to sit on the sidelines, refusing to believe that any mortal was worthy of making the gods feel fear. And of course, the fool had been the first to die, his avatar erased from existence by a single swing of a sword that shouldn't have been possible to forge.
Regardless, with the blood obtained and the barrier constructed personally by Odin—the god of wisdom, the greatest strategist among the entire divine pantheon—Reinhard would find it extremely hard to break through. Not impossible, because nothing was truly impossible for Reinhard Pendragon, but hard. Hard enough to buy them the time they desperately needed.
"He would need about 3 minutes if he wishes to break the barrier, and within that time, he can't stop, no matter what, or else he would have to start over," Odin said, then waved his hand through the air. Runes materialized, glowing softly as they arranged themselves into a formation that projected an image—a window showing Reinhard standing outside the barrier in real time.
In the projection, they watched as Reinhard stood before the shimmering wall of divine energy, studying it for a brief moment before acting. He drew his sword and stabbed it into the barrier's surface. With great difficulty, the blade bit into the energy, and slowly, painstakingly, he began cutting an opening within it, dragging the edge of the Sword of Primordial Chaos through the barrier's structure the way one might cut through steel with a dull knife.
As he did, his swordsmanship began growing and evolving in real time, his technique refining itself against this new obstacle, finding more efficient angles and methods of cutting with every passing second. This made Odin sigh, as he had already foreseen this outcome. That was precisely why he had needed Reinhard's blood to construct the barrier in the first place.
The barrier, keyed to Reinhard's own biological signature, began to evolve as well, matching Reinhard's growth and adapting its defenses to counter his improving technique. It was a race between Reinhard's swordsmanship and the barrier's self-reinforcement—both escalating simultaneously, both trying to outpace the other. But clearly, the barrier was not as fast as Reinhard in this arms race.
They hadn't obtained enough blood to give it a decisive advantage. If they had secured a greater quantity, the barrier's evolutionary speed would have been sufficient to match and exceed Reinhard's growth indefinitely, and he would have needed years—perhaps decades—to break through.
Reinhard was suddenly forced to jump backward from the barrier, leaping away just in time as a concentrated beam of energy shot through the barrier from the inside, aimed directly at where he had been standing.
He looked through the barrier's translucent surface, where Ares had appeared on the other side, the god of war now surrounded by glowing runes that hadn't been there before. These runes were buffing his capability significantly—at this moment, his avatar was able to channel and display far more of his true form's power than it normally could.
This included conceptual attacks, strikes that operated on a level beyond the physical, targeting the very concepts that defined a being's existence. That was why Reinhard had jumped backward rather than simply tanking the shot—conceptual attacks were one of the few categories of offense that demanded his respect, even at his current level of defense.
"You gained some balls now that there is a wall between us," Reinhard said calmly while sheathing his sword, the blade clicking back into its scabbard.
His words enraged Ares, the god of war's face twisting with fury behind the barrier's protective veil, but he said nothing in response. He had already humiliated himself by fleeing from Reinhard in open terror, and he refused to compound that shame by engaging in a verbal exchange he knew he would also lose.
Reinhard said nothing more either. The barrier was something he couldn't break today—not with the time pressure of three uninterrupted minutes required, and not with Ares positioned on the other side to interrupt his progress with attacks every time he got close.
The barrier also hindered his ability to adapt to anything within its boundaries, cutting off his passive adaptation from analyzing and evolving against the threats sheltered inside. It was a well-designed trap, one crafted specifically to exploit the few limitations he actually possessed.
So, he turned and left without looking back, already planning his next move. He was going to focus his attention on his ability Disaster. He wanted to push it to reach a conceptual level—to take the curse that made injuries unhealable and evolve it until it could operate on the very concept of existence itself. He would be his own test subject, using his conceptual armor as both the obstacle and the teaching tool.
"You're just going to give up?" Ares called out from behind the barrier, his voice carrying a challenge that would have been far more convincing if he hadn't been standing behind ten thousand miles of divine protection while issuing it.
"Train them while you have the time, pretty soon this barrier will be destroyed by my hands," Reinhard said, and with a flash, he disappeared from the spot, arriving within his city in the blink of an eye.
Yes, even with the vast territory the barrier covered, its range didn't encompass the entire human domain. Reinhard's city, built in the Howling Forest far from the capital, sat well outside the barrier's reach.
"My lord, are you okay?" As Reinhard appeared within the city limits, he was immediately stormed by his people, dozens of them rushing toward him with worry etched into every face.
They had all felt the connection between themselves and Reinhard sever when the debuffs went up, the link provided by their blessings going dark for the first time since they had been granted.
Although the connection had since returned the moment Reinhard was hit by the spear through the shoulder, the fear of that sudden disconnection still lingered. And now, seeing Reinhard return with his shoulder covered in blood—the first time any of them had ever seen him injured—their concern was palpable.
"Yes… Let's move quickly. I want to save all of the slaves outside the barrier as soon as possible. Those who have the strength to, and want to go, gather." Reinhard said, wasting no time on reassurances beyond that single word of confirmation. His people responded instantly, and in no time at all, thousands of them had assembled before him, all of them standing ready and willing to rush into whatever lay ahead.
"Then, free the slaves. Free the people from the suppression of the nobles. You're not going to fight, but to save people. I will do the fighting." Reinhard said while reaching out to the world for new blessings to support what was about to come. The world, as always, answered without hesitation.
[The Blessing of Ambush] — He becomes difficult to find or notice, his presence concealed from being detected by others through any conventional or magical means. However, sounds and smells produced by his actions are not concealed by this blessing.
[The Blessing of Insensitivity] — He cannot be interfered with by any outside influences, whether it be magical enhancement or impairment. No external force can alter his state without his permission.
[The Blessing of Lightning Step] — Allows him to move at the speed of lightning at the cost of a significant amount of mana. Someone else using this ability might suffer from tunnel vision if their senses were not sufficiently strengthened to keep pace with the movement speed.
[The Blessing of the Speed of Light] — Permits him to move at the true speed of light, and bypasses the requirement of infinite energy that physics would normally demand. This is the genuine speed of light, where time itself stops around the user. Unlike others who warped time and space to simulate this speed, this blessing granted the real thing. But the energy requirement, while not infinite, was still vast.
[The Blessing of Beyond Beyond Speed Limits] — Permits him to exceed the speed of light entirely, allowing him to move so fast that time around him flows backward. It also reduces the energy requirement for such speeds down from beyond an infinite amount, though the cost remains extraordinarily high.
At blinding speed, all of them disappeared from the city—thousands of Reinhard's followers scattering across the land in every direction, moving toward every settlement, every estate, every slave market that existed outside the barrier's protection. Reinhard moved as well, appearing at the entrance of a distant city in an instant.
The people inside grew uneasy the moment they sensed his aura washing over them, a pressure that settled over the city like the shadow of a storm cloud. Reinhard had just broken through to the ninth rank, and his power was only growing stronger by the second, his adaptation working overtime now that it had a fresh wave of stimuli to process and evolve against. The strongest being in the world had just gotten stronger, and he was standing at their gates.
[A/N: MC is adapting to the weakness of someone using his blood to fight against him. MC is also adapting to the barrier's ability to adapt to his growth, but this would take some time since the barrier isn't harming him.
The fact that the heroes are still alive is kind of the MC's fault. He sees the gods as more of a danger than the hero, so even though he could break through the barrier in less than a few seconds and rush inside, he keeps his true capability hidden.
Remember, MC can pretty much increase the lethal dose of something; he can just increase the lethal dose of power on the barrier. But MC's authority of adaptability is MC's ultimate trump card, and he doesn't want to reveal his cards too early against enemies whose cards he knows nothing of yet.]