The pain was a nostalgic, bitter old friend. For the past sixty days, Ren Hanshin had existed in a state of physiological perfection. The Tears of the Sovereign and his ascended Divine stats had rendered his flesh indestructible. He had forgotten what it felt like to have his bones grind together, what it felt like to have his lungs burn for oxygen, and what it felt like to taste his own warm blood.
He was embedded in the glassy wall of the crater, his vision swimming with dark spots.
[System Warning: Critical Trauma Detected.]
[Host's Mortal Ribs (Left) fractured in three places.]
[Internal Hemorrhaging active. Vitality is critically low.]
Ren forced his eyes open. The world was spinning. He gripped the jagged glass of the crater wall with his bare hands, his muscles screaming in protest, and pulled himself free. He dropped ten feet to the ground, landing on his boots. His knees buckled, and he was forced to catch himself with one hand, coughing up another splatter of blood onto the neon-purple sigil of The Madhouse. He looked at his hands. They were trembling. The humming power of the Demigod was gone. He felt light and fragile.
He felt like he did three years ago, carrying heavy bags for the Azure Dragon Guild while S-Rank hunters laughed at him.
"It's intoxicating, isn't it?" Loki Vance's voice echoed across the crater. The Grand Illusionist was hovering a few inches off the ground, admiring his hands. He clenched his fist, and the sheer, raw force of the movement created a sonic boom that cracked the air. Loki looked down at his purple suit, which was now glowing with the terrifying aura of a Demigod.
"I always assumed raw power was dreadfully boring," Loki mused, doing a slow backflip that cleared a hundred feet of distance in a fraction of a second, landing gracefully. "There's no art to it. No setup. No punchline. You just hit things until they stop moving, but I must admit... the sheer convenience of it is quite seductive."
Loki pointed his finger at a massive golden boulder on the far side of the crater. He just flicked his wrist. The shockwave of his Divine Strength tore through the air, striking the boulder and pulverizing the hundred ton mass of gold into fine dust.
"Oops," Loki smiled, his emerald eyes flashing toward Ren. "I think I broke your toys, Executioner."
The crimson chat box erupted in Ren's vision. The digital interface was bleeding, red pixels dripping down his sightline like tears of homicidal rage.
[WARNING: CONSTELLATION 'GOD OF FATE' IS TEARING AT HER OWN FLESH!]
[God of Fate]: HE STOLE YOUR CROWN! HE STOLE YOUR BLOOD!
[God of Fate]: I WILL NOT LET YOU DIE A MORTAL! I WILL NOT LET A RAT WEAR YOUR SKIN!
[God of Fate]: REN! SURRENDER THE VESSEL! LET ME INCINERATE HIM!
The crimson brand on Ren's chest burned with the heat of a branding iron. The soul synchronization rate flashed in his vision. 37%... 38.2%... 39%...
She was panicking. Without his Divine Vitality, a single clean hit from Loki would turn Ren into mist. The Goddess was trying to force the door open, willing to risk erasing his mind just to keep his heart beating.
Ren gritted his teeth, his jaw locking tight.
"Stay... out..." Ren hissed through the blood in his teeth.
He pushed his mortal willpower to its limit, slamming the mind vault shut. He isolated the burning pain in his chest and forced the brand to recede. He was not going to give up his soul. Not to Loki, and not to the Weaver. Ren reached out his right hand. He attempted to summon the Severance of Destiny. The air shattered, and the massive, crystallized blood scythe formed in his grip. But the moment the weapon fully formed, its weight hit him. It was a Mythic-tier weapon forged from a Sovereign's blood. Wielding it with Divine Strength was like holding a feather. Wielding it with mortal, F-Rank strength was like trying to lift a steel beam with one arm.
The blade immediately dragged Ren's right arm down, the tip of the scythe crashing into the glassy earth. Loki threw his head back and laughed, which was a rich, booming sound enchanted by the stolen demigod lungs.
"Oh, this is too perfect!" Loki cheered, wiping a tear of mirth from his eye. "The Executioner can't even lift his own guillotine! The joke has truly written itself! You are an F-Rank porter holding a God's weapon in a domain that hates you."
Loki vanished. He used Ren's Divine Agility. He broke the sound barrier, appearing in front of Ren, his fist pulled back to deliver a strike that would shatter Ren's skull into a thousand pieces.
Ren didn't have the speed to dodge. But Ren had something Loki Vance, the Grand Illusionist, had never needed in his entire life. Ren had three years of experience being the weakest man in the room.
He knew how an arrogant predator moved when they thought their prey was helpless. He looked at Loki's shoulders. Loki was fast, impossibly fast, but his form was garbage. He was an illusionist swinging a demigod's fist. He telegraphed the punch, putting all of his weight onto his front foot, expecting the sheer speed to guarantee the kill. The mind is a mirror. Do not fight the current. Redirect it.
Ren let go of the handle. As Loki's fist crashed forward, Ren dropped his center of gravity, moving on his left heel and twisting his torso. He let the apocalyptic punch graze his chest, the sheer wind pressure tearing his shirt and slicing a shallow cut across his skin, but the force missed his core. Ren stepped inside Loki's guard. He grabbed Loki's extended wrist with both of his mortal hands.
Ren didn't try to stop the demigod's momentum. He added to it. Using Jubei's perfect leverage, Ren pulled Loki forward while sweeping his own leg behind Loki's ankles. Loki's eyes widened in shock. The Grand Illusionist, unaccustomed to fighting in close-quarters melee, couldn't adjust his balance in time. The immense, divine energy he had poured into his own punch was redirected. Loki flew forward, crashing face first into the neon purple glass of his own domain with the force of a meteor.
BOOM!
The crater shook. The glass shattered, sending jagged shards flying into the air. Ren used his momentum to roll over Loki's back, grabbing the handle of the embedded scythe as he moved. With a massive, agonizing heave of his mortal muscles, he yanked the scythe out of the ground and brought the blunt handle crashing down on the back of Loki's knee joint. Loki let out a grunt of surprise, his leg buckling.
Ren leaped back, panting heavily, his broken ribs screaming in agony. Loki slowly pushed himself up from the shattered glass. He rubbed his chin. The sheer humiliation of being tripped by a mortal was evident in his emerald eyes.
"Aikido," Loki murmured, genuinely impressed. "Using my stolen stats against me. You really are a martial arts prodigy, Ren. If I didn't have your vitality, that might have hurt."
Loki cracked his knuckles, the sound echoing like thunderclaps. "But tricks only work once, Executioner, and you cannot redirect an ocean."
Loki raised both hands. He just unleashed a wild, untamed wave of Divine Mana. The raw energy burst outward in a massive shockwave of pure concussive force. There was no form to redirect. No punch to slip. It was an earthquake. The shockwave slammed into Ren. The Embrace of the Weaver absorbed the magic of the attack, but the force hit him like a bullet train.
Ren was thrown backward, tumbling across the jagged glass. He crashed into a pile of ruined armor from the Golden Valley army, his left arm snapping at an unnatural angle. Ren screamed, the pain piercing through his adrenaline.
[WARNING: Left Ulna and Radius fractured.]
[The host is entering Hypovolemic shock.]
"Get up, Executioner!" Loki mocked, slowly walking forward, kicking a shattered Paladin shield out of his way. "Where is the terrifying anomaly? Where is the Blood-Soaked Tyrant? You're just a fragile little boy who got lucky with a Constellation's contract!"
[God of Fate]: LET ME KILL HIM! LET ME KILL HIM! LET ME KILL HIM!
The red text filled Ren's vision, blocking out the sky. Ren clutched his broken arm, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the dirt. He forced himself to his knees, his right hand gripping the handle of the scythe like a crutch.
'He's right,' Ren thought, his vision blurring. 'I can't redirect raw power, and I can't lift the scythe fast enough to cut him. My stats are gone.'
But as Ren looked at the neon, purple sigil of The Madhouse shimmering on the ground beneath him, a desperate, insane thought crossed his mind. 'Loki had stolen his physical stats. His Strength, Agility, and Vitality, but a Domain wasn't fueled by physical stats. A Domain was the reflection of the soul. Loki's Paradox of the Fool had inverted their physical bodies, but the system couldn't invert a soul.'
Ren still had his Demigod Mana Core. It was just trapped inside a mortal, broken vessel.
"Hey, Fool," Ren rasped, his voice barely above a whisper.
Loki stopped ten feet away, tilting his head. "Any final words for the audience, Ren? The Pantheon is watching. Give them a good punchline."
"You stole my strength," Ren wheezed, looking up, his crimson eyes burning with an intensity through the blood covering his face. "But you forgot to steal my cage."
Ren left it buried in the dirt. He raised his unbroken right hand, pointing his index and middle fingers toward the sky. He closed his eyes and reached into the center of his chest, grabbing the massive, overflowing flow of his Divine Mana. To cast an Active Domain as a Demigod required physical fortitude to withstand the pressure of one's own soul expanding into reality. To cast it with a mortal, broken body was akin to detonating a bomb inside a paper bag. But Ren didn't care.
"Domain Activation," Ren whispered, blood pouring from his lips.
Loki's emerald eyes widened in sudden, stark terror. "Wait—"
"The Executioner's Block."
The blood sphere erupted from Ren's frail body. The physical backlash was agonizing. Ren's blood crawled from his nose and eyes as his mortal vessel struggled to contain the authority of the law. But the Domain manifested perfectly.
The red sphere collided with the neon-purple sigil of The Madhouse.
[SYSTEM ERROR!]
[Domain Overlap Detected. Physics Engine Override.]
[Creating 'Paradox Zone'.]
[Collab Stream initiated. Both Conceptual Laws are now simultaneously active.]
The world descended into glitching chaos. Loki's Paradox of the Fool was still active, keeping Ren's physical stats suppressed. But Ren's Executioner's Block was now enforcing thirty times normal gravity inside the crater. Loki, who was possessing Ren's Divine Strength and Divine Vitality, was slammed to his knees. The demigod stats allowed him to survive the crushing pressure without his organs rupturing, but the sheer, suffocating weight of the gravity pinned the Grand Illusionist to the floor.
"You're insane!" Loki screamed, trying to push himself up, his stolen muscles straining against the red gravity. "Your mortal body can't survive this pressure! Your own domain is going to crush your broken ribs into dust!"
Loki was right. Ren was kneeling in the center of the Paradox Zone, his mortal body screaming in agony as the thirty-fold gravity pressed down on him. Without his Divine Vitality, he was dying. His bones were cracking under the weight of his own spell. But Ren smiled. A bloody, horrific, beautiful smile.
"I know," Ren whispered.
Because Ren had lived in a mortal body for twenty years. He knew how much pain a human could endure before the brain shut down. He was accustomed to the agony. Loki, the pampered Grand Illusionist, had never felt the crushing weight of suffering in his life. Even with demigod stats protecting his organs, the psychological panic of being paralyzed by gravity was shattering Loki's focus. Ren forced his unbroken right hand to move through the suffocating gravity. Every inch felt like lifting a mountain. He reached for his left hand. The dull silver band of the Ring of the Silent King caught the blood-red light of the Domain.
"Nullify," Ren commanded, pouring his mana into the Relic.
The S-Rank Relic activated. A sphere of silence expanded, enveloping Loki. The Grand Illusionist, panicking from the gravity, suddenly found himself plunged into a sensory void. He couldn't hear the hum of the magic. He couldn't hear Ren's breathing. He couldn't hear his own heart beating. The sensory deprivation, combined with the crushing physical weight, triggered primal terror in the Avatar of Mischief. Loki thrashed wildly, his stolen demigod strength cracking the floor, but he was swinging blindly, his focus broken. Ren gritted his teeth, his vision going black at the edges. He had three seconds before his mortal heart gave out under the gravity. He gripped the handle of the Severance of Destiny.
Ren pushed his remaining strength into the blade, weaponizing the gravity of his own domain to act as the force. He angled the scythe, treating it like a lever, and let the crushing weight of the Executioner's Block push the blade downward.
"Sever," Ren thought, unable to find the breath to speak. The crimson crescent of light shot forward across the ground. It evaded Loki's thrashing, demigod body wholly. The blade struck the shimmering Joker card, the anchor of The Madhouse that had fallen from Loki's pocket when the gravity hit.
SHATTER!!
The concept of the Paradox of the Fool was cleanly decapitated. The neon-purple sigil exploded. The swirling sky vanished. In a fraction of a second, the stat inversion broke. Ren's Divine Vitality, Divine Agility, and Divine Strength rushed back into his broken body like a tidal wave. His fractured arm snapped back into place, the bones knitting together. His shattered ribs healed. The overwhelming, crushing weight of his own gravity Domain ceased to affect him.
Loki Vance, stripped of the demigod stats and still trapped under the thirty-fold gravity of The Executioner's Block, hit the floor with a sickening, wet crunch. The Avatar of Mischief let out a silent, agonizing scream inside the sphere of silence. His mortal ribs shattered. His suit was soaked in his own blood. Ren stood up, skewering over the broken Illusionist. He deactivated the Ring of Silence, allowing sound to return to the crater.
Loki was gasping, coughing up copious amounts of blood, his emerald eyes wide with the terror of a man who understood the punchline.
"You... you killed yourself... just to pin me down..." Loki wheezed, staring up at the anomaly.
Ren dismissed his Domain. The red sphere collapsed, releasing Loki from the crushing pressure, but the Illusionist was too broken to move.
Ren raised the Severance of Destiny. The blade hummed with a cold finality.
"I told you," Ren said softly. "I know how to take a beating better than anyone."
Ren swung the scythe down, burying the crimson blade deep into the Avatar of Mischief's chest, cleanly severing his Mana Core.
Loki let out a soft sigh, his emerald eyes slowly losing their light. A faint smile touched his lips before his body vanished into a chaotic flurry of playing cards and white doves, carried away by the wind.
[Target Eliminated: Legendary Avatar 'Loki Vance'.]
[The God of Mischief remains silent.]
The moment the cards scattered, the sky above the Savage Lands tore open. A massive pillar of golden light crashed down from the heavens, illuminating the continent.
[GLOBAL ANNOUNCEMENT!]
[The Final Avatar has fallen.]
[The Sovereign's Draft has concluded.]
[Victor: Ren Hanshin (The Blood-Soaked Tyrant)]
In the center of the golden pillar, descending slowly from the heavens, was a hovering cushion of white velvet. Resting atop it was the ultimate prize.
The Crown of the Zenith.
Ren dismissed his scythe. He stood alone in the ruins of the continent, the blood and ash washing away in the golden light. He had won. He had survived the Pantheon's execution block.
But as he walked toward the descending crown, the crimson chat box overrode the golden system notifications.
[The God of Fate is standing before her throne, her eyes burning with an obsessive, apocalyptic fire.]
[God of Fate]: They thought they could kill my King. They thought they could take what was mine.
[God of Fate]: Claim the Crown, Ren. Claim your Divinity.
[God of Fate]: And then, I will show them what happens when they touch my property.