Chapter 140: Chapter 109 Apology

Unlike Gaia, Erebus was very clear on how to target his opponent as much as possible while avoiding destruction to the world.

What use was there in fighting him, when piercing through that layer of ‘skin’ he was clothed in could truly threaten him?

At that time, one side would be Earth’s incarnation, targeted but at least one of their own, and the other side would be the uncontrollable, destructive Outsider. It was glaringly obvious where the present world’s instinct would stand.

Thus, Darkness surged from the fissures of the Earth. At first, it was a mere trickle, but in the span of a breath, it became immeasurable. Twisting and flowing, it reached out towards the towering figure standing upon the Earth, as if to envelop the great deity within.

As long as he could make contact, Erebus could use his authority to unveil the ‘secrets’ hidden beneath and expose them before the present world and the gods.

However, Laine couldn’t possibly be unprepared for this, for as the sovereign of Spirituality, his thoughts were synchronized with his incarnation. Thus, the very next moment, an ephemeral barrier likewise emerged, staunchly blocking the path of the Darkness.

There was no sound, no vision, and even beings below Great Divine Power had yet to notice as the two domains collided in silence.

The present world shook, waves stirred in the Source Sea, and slight tremors occurred in both colliding domains, yet nothing was aware of this. Everything happened without sound nor notice, yet it gestated surging waves of terror.

“What a nuisance.”

In a low murmur within his heart, at this moment, Laine finally felt the pressure, the oppressiveness of a true Primordial God.

There was no probing; the first strike was made with full force. The Dark Overlord’s goal was not to dispose of him, Laine could sense that. The adversary was targeting the nearly nonexistent Divine King’s power that now surrounded him.

So, if he didn’t wish to be unmasked, his options were to counter with equal force or to choose an end.

The former he was doing, but sensing the nearly instant, tiny cracks that surrounded him, Laine knew he was still somewhat behind Erebus.

“Let’s end it here; it’s almost done anyway.”

Looking towards Zeus in the distance, his ‘beloved son’, and then at his nearly exhausted Divine King’s power, Laine finally decided to retreat.

At present, he seemed at ease, one hand suppressing the Earth, the other capturing the Great Sun, even briefly contending against an aggressively approaching Primordial God, but only he knew the tremendous pressure he faced.

The first two were manageable. With his current powerful divine status, although lacking in strength, his essence was far superior to Gaia by an indeterminate degree. A fraction of Divine Power was more than enough to surpass her by tenfold, hence his advantage over Mother Earth was as expected, but Erebus was different.

This Primordial God was in prime condition, his essence intact, even fully rallying his body’s power in total commitment. Laine’s ability to contend with him actually relied on the Spirit Realm itself for balance.

But he was not yet the Great Divine Power, and such actions, manipulating forces of a complete world from beyond its borders, placed severe oppression on his Divine Body.

As personified incarnations, Gaia and Erebus would endure likewise, but their stronger divine force naturally meant they were less affected.

This oppression’s harm wasn’t a problem in the short term, but the longer it lasted, the more serious it became, and his Divine Body would collapse ever more rapidly. Eventually, it could even lead to an uncontrollable avalanche.

Though for Laine, the collapse of his Divine Body wasn’t fatal, recovery would be difficult in the immediate future, and this would inevitably affect the final arrangements of this era.

The main objective of his mission was nearly accomplished, with only the conclusion left. Instead of wasting more time here, it was better to stop.

“Let’s end this era now,” he decided.

Having made up his mind, Laine no longer hesitated. With a light command, an invisible force over the East Sea took hold of the Great Sun.

“Come—”

In the next moment, under his power, the ancient God of Sun was effortlessly taken by the force of space-time and disappeared into the void with a fluctuation.

He had already warned Hyperion: if he dared to trouble him again, Laine would not spare him. Although in Hyperion’s eyes, he was only attacking ‘Cronus’, the outcome would be no different.

Luck is also a part of strength, and in the Chaos World, fate and karma are real. Perhaps in a way, the fate of the Titan god’s downfall was meant to be here.

For such an inconsequential ‘fate’, Laine was happy to go with the flow.

With the God of Sun captured, there was no longer a need to maintain pressure on the Sun. His power could be withdrawn, and so the generation of cracks on his Divine Body slowed.

In the East, the unshackled Sun finally trembled as it rose back into the sky, bursting through the clouds to return to the firmament. Yet, the influence it brought continued to ferment.

In a mere half hour, the waters of the East Sea had dropped by one-third. The thick clouds centered around the Sun’s previous descent covered half the ocean.

Endless waters surged from the other three directions towards the East. Laine could already foresee that for a considerably long period to come, the climate of the present world would become terribly harsh.

Tsunamis tens of thousands of meters high, incessant earthquakes and volcanoes, overflowing floods, decades of unending rainstorms. Some of these effects might even permanently harden into the world, forming insurmountable desolation for future mortals.

And at the center of the East Sea, the immense vortex still existed.

“Permanently altering the laws of a place, shaking the current climate, and even the collision of celestial bodies, the collapse of the Mount of the Gods… doing all these should be about enough,”

Withdrawing his gaze, Laine could feel the increasingly severe rejection of the present world. It was not just against himself, but also against Gaia and the other gods who had caused all this.

After all, up to this point, Gaia was still supporting it with all her might. Beneath the clash of powers between the two ancient gods, the earth’s crust was trembling, and the tectonic plates were shifting. New mountains rose while old ones buckled.

Unlike the other deities, Gaia had probably sensed the collision between the Spirit Realm and the Realm of Lightlessness, so her actions were even more intense, but she would still not know who was behind all of this.

Laine had no desire to clear up her confusion. The moment he noticed the issue with the souls of Silver Humanity, he was prepared.

Who said this affair had to be orchestrated by him? Couldn’t it be that Erebus was probing the world’s possibilities and secretly using Cronus as a scout?

After all, the real ‘Cronus’ no longer existed, and even the newly born Lord of the Nine Hells could now only be regarded as a new god with the memories of the former Divine King.

In truth, the ruined tapestry had more claim to the name of Cronus than Asmodeus did.

Shaking his head slightly, in the next moment, Laine withdrew his power and the omnipresent illusion slowly dissipated. In the gaze of the gods, the figure of ‘Cronus’ slowly emerged.

But it was almost visibly apparent that the ‘Divine King’s’ body was rapidly losing power, and even his body seemed somewhat ethereal. However, this time, although the gods had various thoughts, no one dared to approach any longer.

Just moments ago, the God of the Ocean, Oceanus, had passed out amidst painful screams, a sound that still lingered in their ears. In the previous era, Uranus would have considered it a pleasant accompaniment, but to the current gods, it sounded like a death knell.

Deities do not die, but they can be tormented, so no matter the condition of ‘Cronus’ now, they would not be the first to act.

After all, no god would be deceived by the same existence three times in one day.

And perhaps because the Divine Body was carrying the power of the Spirit Realm, although the Divine Power surrounding ‘Cronus’ was now almost imperceptible, and his divine body was gradually deteriorating, an intangible oppression was growing even more intense.

In the eyes of the gods, the current ‘Divine King’ felt to them eerily similar to the will of the present world.

Combined with his now ethereal form, an unfounded conjecture appeared in the minds of a few deities.

Could it be that, in seeking to become the Great Divine Power, an accident occurred and now he is about to ‘merge with the world’?

If interpreted this way, then the previous inconsistencies seemed to have an explanation. The power of the Divine King was indeed waning, but his combat strength became more fearsome, although it is likely he did not succeed. Otherwise, the first post-creation Great Divine Power in the Chaos World would not be so quiet.

This also seemed to fit with fate. If pure power couldn’t defeat him, then let him defeat himself.

“Your Majesty—”

In the eerily tense scene, Zeus’s eyes were shifting, and the other deities each had their own thoughts. But as ‘Cronus’ was about to speak, suddenly, a blue-haired, graceful goddess fell to her knees beside Zeus.

The ‘Divine King’ recognized her. It was Eurybia, daughter of the ancient Sea God Pontus and wife of the God of Meteorology, Crius, symbolizing one aspect of the power of the sea.

As the wife of the God of Meteorology, Eurybia should have stood by the Divine King, but clearly, facing the overwhelming situation before and the fates of legend, this goddess chose easily.

She betrayed the Divine King, stood on the side of Olympus, and then regretted her decision fervently upon witnessing ‘Cronus’s ‘hidden’ true power.

“Your Majesty, I plead for your forgiveness for my earlier foolish actions. It was Zeus’s wife, the cunning Metis, who deceived me!”

“I am willing to accept your punishment, but I beseech you to forgive my previous sin, for the sake of my husband’s honor,”

Eurybia’s voice was somewhat sharp, her appearance a bit disheveled, but inside, many deities actually wanted to take her place.

If possible, they, too, would want to kneel before the Divine King and beg for mercy, but unlike Eurybia, who had some relation to ‘Cronus,’ they couldn’t even find a reason to justify themselves.

But there were also some gods whose expressions remained unchanged on the surface, yet their thoughts were inscrutable.

If things were indeed as they suspected, then perhaps this time, Eurybia had acted prematurely again.

Once the Divine King is replaced, due to her actions today, even in the future Divine Court, the lineage of the ancient Sea God would inevitably face exclusion.

But that did not concern them, and no one would speak out, not even Eurybia’s brother and Pontus’s eldest son, Thalassa, the personification of sea’s gentleness, Nereus.

Conjecture, after all, is just conjecture. Before the laws of the present world shifted with the change of the Divine King, he dared not act precipitately. After all, the dreadful state of the God of the Ocean was not too long ago.