Chapter 3: A final battle to end all battles

Chapter 3: A final battle to end all battles

Demon lord Lenier waited patiently as all the heroes activated their abilities.

Hero Xavier released his energy, enveloping his entire party with a glowing white light, indicating that they were now under the hero's skill: 'undefeatable' and 'courage.'

This meant that they would infinitely grow stronger and eventually win as long as they stay determined.

Saint Goddess Mary Sue raised her hands and muttered a quick prayer activating her ultimate ability, 'undying will', causing the entire party to become temporarily immortal until the battle was over.

No matter how much damage they take or even if they were to all die, they would revive with all wounds regenerated.

Even if we exclude the other hero's abilities, their victory was already predetermined with these skills alone.

Arch Mage Lumal, Summoner Lora, Elemental Moore and Hex Mania Lyla all worked together to cast an incredible 10th tier spell mass teleportation spell that not only changed their location but warped them to a different dimension: the underworld.

If they fought in the real world, they would've probably destroyed the world itself from the aftermath.

Now that everything was ready, the battle began.

The world shattered.

The heroes all simultaneously launched their attacks at once.

The world was sliced in half, hundreds of thousands of arrows were shot, explosions capable of destroying cities rung out, undead rose up from the ground, eyeballs and tentacles belonging to Cthulhu appear.

Chaos instantly ensued.

Demon lord Lenier didn't move, allowing every attack to critically hit him.

Explosion after explosion burst into his body, causing not even a scratch.

Millions, billions, and trillions of arrows pierced through the smoke and all hit Lenier, tearing his clothes to shred, leaving him completely nude.

As there were 17 different heroes attacking at once, it was pure chaos, yet Lenier stood there unscathed.

And then it happened.

Lenier suddenly felt his body grow heavily. A weird fog loomed over him, draining him of his strength.

"Ten-fold weakening seal."

"Hexening overload."

"Power steal."

Debuff abilities were consecutively placed on Lenier, draining him of all his strength.

The weakening seal casted by Monk Shin would half the victim's strength for each fold seal.

Meaning with a ten-fold seal, it would halve Lenier's strength ten times calculated with (Strength 100%) ÷ 2 ÷ 2÷ 2 ÷ 2÷ 2 ÷ 2÷ 2 ÷ 2 ÷ 2 ÷ 2.

Which means that Lenier is reduced to only 0.09% of his original strength.

Hexening overload casted by Lyla cursed his very soul and existence, causing him immensely bad luck, hyper increased pain, all his attacks will also damage himself, blinding him, deafening him, slowing his regeneration, and restricting all his movements while giving him his greatest fears.

Although it was a curse for most, this was a blessing for Lenier.

Lenier had no fears. Not a single moment in his life, had he ever felt fear. Fear was a foreign concept to him, and as such, he had no greatest fear.

His body throbbed with excitement from all the pain and curses.

Power steal casted by Sage Gruther robbed Lenier of even more of his strength, distributing it evenly between the 17 heroes.

Several extreme buffs, power ups and boosts were casted onto the heroes allowing them to fight even better.

With all this, Lenier was finally starting to take minor damage.

Of course, if he wanted to, he could've destroyed these debuffs, but he didn't since he liked the feeling of being restricted and his objective was pain after all.

As Lenier shivered from the pleasure, assassin Nile teleported behind him slicing apart his throat hundreds of times within the span of a second.

His blade was poisoned with a venom toxic enough to kill a dragon in seconds.

Nile quickly retreated, but before he could get away, an arm reached and grabbed him.

He looked up to see two giant red eyes staring at him with madness.

Lenier was staring directly into Nile's soul.

Nile was a trained assassin who was incapable of feeling pain and felt no fear, so he was not afraid of Lenier…. yet.

Lenier tossed Nile into the ground and stomped downwards, piercing through Nile's stomach with his foot.

Nile tried to struggle away but Lenier's foot was already deeply stuck inside of him, keeping him in place.

Lenier bent down and grabbed Nile's poisoned blade.

After kicking away Nile's body, Lenier repeatedly stabbed his shoulder with the blade as if he were a drug addict injecting himself with cocaine.

Lenier's veins bulged and popped, spraying blood all over as a wave of pain spread through him.

The poison was seeping into every part of his body.

"Ah~"

His eyes rolled up, as his tongue slipped out from the intense ecstasy.

An unworldly feeling. Truly a pleasure to die for.

During this time, Arch-Mage Lumal had finished chanting his most powerful 11th tier spell, a conceptual spell that would annihilate someone from reality and deleting their very existence from time itself.

It required a lot of time to cast, so only now was he able to compete it, but once he finished, he had absolute 100% confidence in it.

Hundreds of magic circles appeared under demon lord Lenier as his entire body started glitching out.

"VICTORY!"

Lumal shouted out.

But he celebrated too soon, as with a single swing of his arm, Lenier tore apart the spell as if it were cheese.

"Wha…"

His most powerful 11th tier magic didn't work...?

But it's a conceptual spell! It's physically impossible to block!

The only possible explanation is that… Lenier is of higher authority than even conceptual laws, or maybe something outside the boundaries of reality.

A shiver ran down Lumal's spine as goosebumps appeared over him.

This was the first thought of doubt that appeared in the party of heroes.

The first of many.

Pethnor summoned many chaos orbs around him, launching them at Lenier.

Each one had strength equivalent to a small blackhole, destroying everything in its path, yet with a few simple swipes, they dissipated at Lenier's touch.

'Shit… this is him while he's weakened? Just how fucking strong is he at full strength then?'

Pethnor was the only one here who had fought Lenier before, so he knew that he was weaker than Lenier, but due to how overwhelming he lost, he didn't realize how large the gap was.

"Hey Pethy. Imbue your strongest darkness onto my arrows and buff it, I'll pierce through him!" Hans suggested.

Although annoyed at being called Pethy, he did as was suggested, using his dark energy to strength the archer's arrows.

The air erupted as the archer unleashed a volley of dark ammunitions.

Lines of pure black strung across the air, piercing through Lenier's skin, allowing the abyssal wrath to seep deep into his flesh.

All of Pethnor's dark energy gathered inside of Lenier's body, and exploded at once, blowing him up, inside out and severely messing up his organs.

This explosion metaphorically represented Lenier's mental state, as he was experiencing explosive pleasure bursting throughout his body, mind and soul.

He felt as if his entire body was swimming in delightful paradise.

His body was continuously destroyed by various different powerful attacks and regenerated instantly.

Even with several curses and debuffs, Lenier was still immortal after all. An immortal even among immortals with regenerative abilities capable of healing tears in time space itself.

His body was sliced apart by the combined efforts of sword king and blind fool, dividing Lenier into hundreds of different pieces.

But before any of the body parts could even start falling, his flesh reattached itself and rebuilt his body back to normal within milliseconds.

The summoned Cthulhu sent down its darkness and tentacles, wrapping around Lenier's body.

Madness poured from this cosmic entity, attempting to destroy Lenier's will and drive him to despair.

However, it was Cthulhu who suddenly felt strange.

For some reason, Cthulhu felt a cosmic power inside of Lenier that surpassed anything it had ever seen before.

In shock, Cthulhu launched Lenier several millions of kilometres away, and threw cosmic attacks that tore apart space.

Lenier was ripped to shreds, giving him little time to regenerate.

But the assault was only beginning.

Necromancer Jin summoned a giant grim reaper the size of an entire planet.

It reached down, grabbing hold of Lenier's soul itself and attempted to rip it out of him.

However, Lenier's soul suddenly expanded, covering the entire underworld, consuming and digesting all spiritual entities inside of him.

The grim reaper was the embodiment of death itself.

Yet now, in front of Jin's eyes, he was witnessing death itself screaming out in horror as it was slowly absorbed by an even more frightening entity.

Jin did not fear death, for he controlled death itself… but what he witnesses was something beyond even death.

"Hey! Snap back to reality!" A voice besides Jin called out.

Looking over, he saw Alchemist Alora.

Alora was in the middle of preparing her most powerful explosives and attack.

She bent down low, activating a massive machine resembling a giant minigun that she propped onto her shoulders.

WHOOMPH!

The device launched a massive orb, containing more energy within it than a hyper condensed star.

As the orb collided with Lenier's skull, it detonated, radiating everything around it causing even Lenier's cells to mutate.

The radiation even broke down the particles and molecular compound of the smallest mass.

It was the most powerful nuclear x atomic explosion to have ever been created.

This weapon was so powerful, it killed several immortal beings before, warping their very being down to the DNA itself.

But Lenier was different.

His cells resisted the change, it took the radiation and nuclear power head on, and transformed the energy into his own.

One can train their own body to adapt to attacks, but training your cells to resist radiation was unheard of. Yet that's what Lenier's cells had done.

Lenier casually took on attacks after attacks after attacks, each one with equivalent strength to the ones shown thus far.

Everything that had happened up until now was within the span of a dozen or so minutes, but within this timeframe, Lenier started… to adapt.

The overwhelming pain he had felt at the beginning was slowly starting to grow dull.

His body grew resistant to the debuffs and curses, and started to overcome.

The damage he took lessened, until the attacks barely inflicted even minor wounds.

Even now, Lenier was still growing. He had yet to reach his peak potential.

After several more minutes of underwhelming attacks and pain, he decided it was time to do something.

And so, Lenier raised both his arm, allowing all his strength to gather into his fists, summoning two crimson gauntlets.

For the first time since the battle began, Lenier attacked.

He threw his fist forward.

There was no noise.

No boom, no explosion, no dramatic effects.

It was simply annihilation.

Instantaneous destruction.

The attack was so powerful, even the sound waves were destroyed causing everything to turn quiet.

Light bended around his attack, causing the world to distort and momentarily go black.

Time and space were momentarily thrown off balance, scattering itself and flowing in all directions.

And almost as quickly as it had happened, time quickly reverted back to normal, once again flowing forward, leaving only the damage in its wake.

Somehow, through all this, none of the heroes died.

Mary Sue had blessed both Paladin and Tanker Billy, boosting their defenses and strength exponentially, using the two as the first shield.

The arch mage and sage worked together to form a powerful 10th level barrier around the party as the second shield.

Necromancer Jin and hex mania Lyla summoned wall of skeletal death blocking the attack as the third shield.

Lora summoned several more immortal cosmic entities to defend and block the attack, acting as the fourth shield.

Alchemist Alora instantly constructed a 1km thick wall of hyper condensed adamantium (hardest known material on the planet) around the entire party as the fifth shield.

Elemental Moore warped the elements of the ground, sky, air, time and space itself to create another layer on top of all these barriers acting as the sixth and final shield.

With these six shields put up by the heroes, it could probably resist even a supernova.

And yet, all six shields were destroyed.

Although most of the initial attack force was depleted to break through what the heroes set up, the remaining power did considerable damage.

All this was done with one singular punch, which do keep in mind, he was still weakened by the various curses and debuffs.

At this point, the title demon lord was unfitting for Lenier, he was on the level of a demon god.

Even the 17 heroes were surprised by how powerful he was.

But they didn't lose hope.

Most of the heroes believed that no matter how strong an individual was, they would still lose against a well-made team of powerful members.

Hero Xavier's courage skill raised the strength of the entire party, as he lunged at Lenier.

The hero swung his sword with enough force to split the heavens but was knocked away by a slap.

However, this created an opportunity for another hero to land a close attack.

Blind fool Niji, with his sword in hand, ready to strike, appeared behind the demon lord.

Blind fool Niji is known as a god like swordsman capable of seeing the future. However, his ability is slightly different from that.

He can see the branches in time itself, allowing him to decide his fate from countless different timelines.

You could even say he could control the future to an extent.

As he stepped towards Lenier, a near infinite number of white paths appeared before him, each representing a different future or possibility.

Lenier casually tried to swat away Niji, but Niji weaved his way around the attacks, and effectively struck at all of Lenier's critical locations leaving deep cuts.

Niji's blade slightly vibrated as his magic surged throughout it, piercing deep into flesh, scattering blood.

He had absolute confidence in his sword skills and ability to see time branches.

Niji, Xavier, Paladin Duras and the sword king Ragnar surrounded Lenier from all sides, relentlessly attacking him leaving him no room to counter.

But they underestimated Lenier still.

As Niji swung his blade, following along the paths in his time branch vision, he suddenly felt an ominous feeling.

At first, he didn't notice anything, but then it became apparent…

The white lines in the time branch that he could see was slowly disappearing, one by one.

'What?'

Niji had no idea what was going on.

Why was the number of timelines slowly shrinking?

That's impossible.

Possibilities and fate are endless, they can't shrink!

And yet it did.

Eventually, the number of paths Niji could choose from dropped into the millions. Then the thousands. Then the hundreds. Then the dozens. Then single digits.

Until finally, there was only one path.

One straight path, leading to Lenier.

Sweat rapidly appeared all over Niji, as he for the first time in over 50 years, felt fear.

With no choice, Niji's fate followed the white path to its final destination.

Death.

As Niji swung his sword, Lenier looked over, and with a single flick of the finger, he blasted apart Niji's body into hundreds of different pieces.

Despite seeing their one their comrades die in front of them, none of the other heroes even flinched since they knew he'd just revive as if nothing happened.

However, seconds passed, and nothing happened.

His corpse did not revive.

"Why isn't Niji reviving?!?! Mary Sue!!!! Isn't your undying will suppose to make us immortal!?!" Xavier shouted out.

Up until now, everyone was relying on their ultimate abilities.

They had absolute trust it in, but now, the very core of their beliefs was being shaken.

If Lenier was capable of somehow bypassing their conceptual powers… the heroes shuddered at that thought.

"I don't know!!! This has never happened before!!!!!!"

Saint Goddess Mary Sue had never failed before.

She was the perfect angel. Perfect in everything.

She gathered Niji's body parts and poured all her holy magic into it.

The sweat poured down her face evaporated instantly from the intense energy being released in attempts to revive him.

"Let us help as well!"

While the warriors were fending off Lenier, necromancer Jin, Mary Sue, arch-mage Lumal and sage Gruther all worked together to bringing back Niji.

In the end, it took all their combined efforts to reverse time and heal his soul from oblivion in order to revive him.

"W-wha? What just happened?"

Niji was greatly shaken after his death.

His ability was absolute, what went wrong?

Was that… just a fluke?

Niji oh so dearly hoped it was just a mistake… a blunder perhaps?

But reality slapped Niji in the face harder than a sack of bricks.

When Niji looked around, all he saw was darkness.

He was normally blind so he couldn't see anything, but now he couldn't even see time branches anymore.

Niji frantically stood up and ran around, tripping over a random hole.

Despair filled his heart.

'Where… where are all the time branches? Why can't I see them???'

A feeling that Niji was familiar with slowly grew inside of him and spread throughout him.

A feeling of alienation.

He felt suffocating. Pure black darkness surrounded him.

It reminded him of when he first went blind.

He felt so… trapped and isolated.

Total darkness.

He had once lost everything. He was an amazing swordsman, but without his eyesight, he was nothing.

But then… he gained a skill!

A skill to see the branches in fate itself!

An ability sent down from the heavens itself.

He was overjoyed.

But now, he lost even that.

"SAINT MARYYYYY!!!! REGENERATEEE MY FUCKING EYEEEESSS!!!! NOWWWWW!!!!"

Niji went insane.

"What? I've already regenerated it! There's nothing left to heal!"

"I CAN'T FUCKING SEE YOU BITCH! YOU CALL YOURSELF AN GODDESS BUT YOU'RE JUST A USELESS BITCH WHO CAN'T EVEN HEAL MY FUCKING EYES!!!"

Niji started randomly swinging his sword around randomly, until he finally accepted his reality, and dropped onto his knees.

His despair effected not only himself, but all the other heroes.

This struck fear into all their hearts.

Demon lord Lenier's attack caused damage that even absolute regenerate and reversal of causality couldn't even repair.

"Don't lose hope Niji!" Xavier shouted out as his body was being torn apart. "As long as we don't give up, my skill won't allow us to lose!!! KEEP FIGHTING!!!!!"

It was at that moment Hero Xavier unlocked a new ability: Adapt and overcome.

This is a hidden heroic ability activated only when certain conditions are met, that is when the heroes faces against an enemy with a significant strength gap and the hero is determined to win at all the cost.

This ability will double the power of entire hero's party power every ten seconds that passes with no limits until they defeat their foe. 

Power surged throughout the entire party unlike anything they've every felt before, and they'd continue exponentially growing stronger too.

Although the hero's confident in their absolute skills were slightly shaken, they still had hope.

Their hope came from the fact that they were completely unaware Lenier was nowhere near seriously fighting.

The heroes now focused on stalling, since the more time that passes, the stronger they'll become.

As such they wasted time, blocking instead of attacking.

Lenier noticed this as he wasn't feeling any more pain.

He frowned.

He wasn't sure why the heroes weren't attacking him, but if they weren't, he'd just have to force them to fight back.

Lenier stretched forth his arms, swirling all his magic in the area, causing the entire world to rumble.

The heroes had no idea what was going on, but they knew it wasn't good.

The entire surroundings were engulfed in a dense black fog made from pure energy obstructing all light from passing through.

KAZAMMM!!!

Suddenly, the sound of thunder and explosions echoed all around them, unleashing waves upon waves of magic.

Arch Mage Lumal instantly recognized this spell, it was a powerful 9th tier ability by the name of Chao Storm.

Although Lumal was capable of using 10th and 11th tier magic, 9th tier magic was still incredible difficult to use. The number of people in the entire world who could use 9th tier magic was in the single digits, and these are all people who've dedicated their entire lives to studying magic.

Yet Lenier, someone who wasn't a wizard and hadn't studies magic a day in his life, could use 9th tier magic as if it were nothing.

Not only that, but the scale and intensity of the ability was beyond anything 9th tier magic was capable of and reached even the strength of 10th level magic.

Lenier's chaos storm shook the entire dimension itself causing tears in space.

As Lumal quickly got to work, trying to calm the storm using his own spell, Mary Sue shouted out: "Everyone! Try not to die! You'll regenerate if you die, but I can't guarantee there won't be permanent damage considering Lenier was able to blind Niji…"

Speaking of Niji, he stood up and started fighting again as well.

Although he had lost the one ability he trusted most, he was still a powerful swordsman who could sense the world around him.

He naively believed that if he defeated Lenier, his visions would return to him.

A minute had passed by now so Xavier's Adapt and Overcome ability had double the party's strength 6 times for a 6400% power boost (100 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2).

They'd only continue to exponentially grow.

With this new overflowing energy bursting throughout his body, Niji slashed apart the chaos storm.

However, no matter how much it sliced apart and cut, the chaos storm would just reform itself.

Elemental Moore tried to manipulate the chaos element and tried to calm it down, but this was a severe mistake as it just caused an imbalance in the energy making it even more powerful.

The chaos energy seeped into Moore's body causing his limbs to swell up until finally they popped, squirting blood and guts everywhere.

His head also swelled and eventually imploded which killed him.

"Tch! It's no use! To destroy the chaos storm, we must completely eliminate all the chaos energy, which is impossible since it covers the entire underworld! Take out Lenier instead and stop the flow of energy!" Lumal shouted out while simultaneously shooting forth thunder.

The thunder, despite being a high 9th tier spell and having a 6400% buff, barely even left a few burns to Lenier's skin.

But after Lumal finished his attack, assassin Nile once again appeared behind Lenier.

Nile concentrated all his energy into his dual daggers, and unleashed his special combo slashes, the same move that once took down a god.

Nile swung his blade.

1 slash.

2 slashes.

4 slashes.

8 slashes.

16 slashes.

32 slashes… 64 slashe… 128 slash… 256 slas… 512 sla… 1,024 sl… 2,048 s… 4,096… 8,192… 16,384… 32,768… 65,536… 131,072… 262,144… 524,288…

The veins on Nile's arms exploded from the sheer speed and force that he was swinging his blades at, but he didn't care for he could feel no pain. He kept going, reaching heights he'd never reached before.

1 million slashes.

Within the span of a single second, he swung his dual blades 1 million times, tearing apart Lenier's flesh.

Nile's previous record was only a mere 128 slashes in a single second, however the boost in strength from all the buffs made him break that limit by over 8000 times.

Since Nile had attacked from behind, Lenier's head and skull was sliced open as globs of his brain started dripping out from the back end.

From the back wounds, one was able to see the entirety of Lenier's insides and organs.

Lenier turned towards Nile and smiled.

He casually plucked a single strand of hair off his own head and held it in the air like a blade.

He swung the strand of hair.

1 slash. 2 slashes. 8 slashes. 64 slashes. 1,024 slashes. 32,768 slashes. 2,097,152 slashes. 268,435,456 slashes. 68,719,476,736 slashes…

Within a single second, Lenier had swung his blade a countless number of times.

He moved so fast, even Nile who was able to perceive the speed of light, could no longer see Lenier's movements.

It could only be assumed that Lenier had swung his blade a number of times closest to infinity. Or perhaps, Lenier had already reached a level where he could swing infinite times within a single second.

Who knows.

Nile definitely didn't know though, since he was cut so many times, every single cell in his body was sliced apart and had literally disintegrated him into nothingness.

Even with his death, the battle continued.

Since Nile was killed so thoroughly and Lenier's magic slowed the resurrection, it took a few minutes before Nile was resurrected.

However, when he did respawn… Nile suddenly started screaming, startling all the other heroes.

Since the beginning of the battle, Nile had not uttered a single noise no matter how much damage he took.

And yet now, here he was screaming.

"What's wrong Nile?!?"

"I… I DON'T KNOW! BUT IT HURTTTSSSSS!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"

Tears rolled down his face, and he fell to the ground, grabbing at his own body.

Since birth, Nile has had congenital analgesia. A disorder where one is incapable of feeling physical pain.

He had never been able to feel pain.

In fact, he didn't feel anything.

This is what allowed him to train and to become one of the strongest people.

No matter what he tried, no matter what pain was inflicted on him, he couldn't feel it.

But now, for the first time in his life, he felt sensation.

Even if he weren't currently fighting a battle, he would still feel immense discomfort and pain from suddenly gaining the ability to feel for the first time in his life.

Even a small breeze or the prick of a leaf would cause a strong reaction from him.

But the fact he was in battle and had wounds all over caused immense pain to him.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"

Even if he was physically able to fight, the pain he felt rendered him completely useless.

Lenier looked over at Nile who was writhing in pain on the ground, and felt jealousy fill his heart.

Oh, how he wished that he could take Nile's place and feel that pain in his stead.

It's been way too long since he felt a gut-wrenching pain that forced him unto his knees.

However, seeing Nile like that motivated Lenier even further.

He was even more determined now to experience an even greater pain.

Lenier closed his eyes, trying to imagine an unimaginable pain, and when he opened his eyes again, there was an invisible transparent blade inside of his hand.

Lenier had never seen this blade in his life, but he instinctively knew that it had manifested from his tremendous deep desire for pain.

He named it 'pain bringer' because hopefully, it would bring him all the pain he wanted.

And then he swung it.

All the heroes died.

Not a single one survived.

There was no blood, no gore, just poof, they all disappeared.

Lenier sat down, crisscrossed, waiting for the heroes to resurrect. He knew that they would since they were the mighty heroes after all who would slay him.

Sure enough, a couple lumps of flesh growing out of the ground, which slowly grew and grew until it formed into the 17 individual heroes.

"Good. You're back. Let's continue."

From this point on, their hope disappeared.

Everything they tried failed.

Lumal casted an 11th tier spell which involved a huge amount of magic to disrupt the normal flow of time and space to achieve a temporary limbo state cut off from the rest of time.

The spell basically just pauses time.

Even the other 16 heroes were affected as time itself came to a halt and everything aside from Lumal froze.

Lumal was able to move due to a secondary 11th spell that he had to cast beforehand which infinitely accelerated his flow of time to avoid being frozen.

However, all this complicated casting was for naught as the fabrics in space started to tear around Lenier.

Lenier was able to move at speeds faster than the speed of light itself, so time didn't affect him.

He tore apart the time stasis resuming the normal flow of time.

Lumal had already expected this, but he had no idea what else to do.

Necromancer Jin summoned Lenier's dead parents in attempts to create an opening.

This was actually surprisingly effective.

Lenier momentarily stopped, giving the heroes an opening to strike.

Lenier loved his mother, but after living with the old man, he learned that his mother never loved him.

He was grateful to the heroes for allowing him to see his mother one last time, so he was satisfied, but he needed to put his mother down.

"Thank you, mother... and father who I've never met."

And then he swung his sword again, killing half the party of heroes along with his parents.

Much time had passed resulting in the heroes growing strong enough where they didn't all die in a single swing anymore.

Every time the heroes died, they would just respawn due to Mary Sue's absolute undying will resurrection, and continued growing stronger with each passing second.

Of course, Lenier could've easily stopped the resurrection if he so desired, but doing that would go against everything he wanted, so obviously he didn't.

So the battle continued.

And The heroes continued to die. Over.

And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over.

They lost count of how many times they died.

It came to a point, where they received injuries where even absolute regeneration and resurrection couldn't heal.

Paladin Duras was the first of them to receive a permanent physical wound.

He had died the most times, and due to his noble nature, he fought close combat and rarely dodged. Due to this, Lenier's magic affected him most.

After a countless number of deaths, one of arms stopped healing.

Moore, Lyla, Mary, Alora, Jin and Shin all tried to heal and bring back his severed arm, but Lenier's powers had seeped too far deep into his very essence and caused permanent damage to his physical state.

This was inevitable.

Lenier was able to cause damage to the heroes absolute abilities and skills, so it was only a matter of time before he caused permanent physical damage.

They would still revive when killed, but every time these heroes died, they would get more and more permanent physical disabilities.

It was this point where not only did they lose all hope, they felt despair. Pure, utter, despair.

There were real consequences.

They could actually permanently… die.

All the heroes felt something grow in them.

Fear.

The battle of courage and determination to save the world had changed into a battle of a fear of dying, doing whatever it takes to not die.

It was that moment that Hero Xavier once again unlocked a new ability: Cowardly Hero.

Cowardly Hero is a very insulting skill, that replaces all the other heroic skills he had, but in exchange, will exponentially increase the hero's party powers according to the amount of fear they felt.

It's similar to his Adapt and Overcome ability, but on a much steeper scale.

They continued to grow stronger.

They continued to die.

They continued to slowly inflict more wounds in between in each death.

In fact, the heroes grew so powerful due to Xavier's Cowardly Hero skill that they even managed to kill Lenier a few times.

He did instantly revive as well though.

With both sides being immortals with unlimited regeneration, it almost seemed like this would never end.

But no matter how powerful the individuals are, a battle cannot last forever.

It was only a matter of time before the heroes gained power equivalent to Lenier himself through Xavier's endlessly growing 'Cowardly Hero' ability.

And indeed, it happened.

After a full month, the 17 heroes could feel their fear being converted into pure raw overwhelming strength.

All their fears and desire to live had manifested in their attacks against Lenier, who took them all head on.

Xavier swung his blade, severing Lenier into several pieces.

Hero Xavier's overwhelming energy (buffed by his one month of having his 'cowardly hero' ability activated) permeated deep into Lenier's soul itself, corroding and stopping Lenier's ability to regenerate and revive from the dead.

Saint Goddess Mary Sue summoned an infinite number of holy spears, so divine and holy that if unleashed without restrain could destroy the solar system, which all flew and pierces into Lenier, burning his both his mind and body.

During this one-month period, Lumal had a breakthrough and with all the increase of power, he had finally achieved the unachievable of creating a 12th tier spell, killing Lenier in all timelines and severed any possibility of his survival.

Former demon lord Pethnor, Archer Hans and Alchemist Alora acted as long ranged support, blasting Lenier apart into smithereens that would make even the modern world cower from the destructive firepower.

Hex Mania Lyla, Sage Gruther, Sword King Ragnar and Elemental Moore all worked together to restrain and weaken Lenier as much as possible. By the end, Lenier was cursed and debuffed to the point where he could only use up to 0.000000000000000000000… (the 0s continue on) …01% of his powers. Not only that, but the severity of the curses that were put on him inflicted incredibly excruciating agony to his body and mind that would tear apart even a strong-willed god.

Necromancer Jin, Summoner Lora and Tank Billy worked together and protected the entire party, blocking all of Lenier's attacks using Billy's shield and various undeads and summons.

Assassin Nile, Blind Fool Niji, Monk Shin and Paladin Duras all fought together alongside Hero Xavier closed ranged, utterly destroying Lenier's body to the point where he didn't even look like a living creature anymore.

Lenier's body was mutilated beyond recognition.

His bones were repeatedly shattered.

His blood and organs were torn out from his body like the candy spewing out of a broken piñata.

His limbs… well, at this point, he didn't have any more limbs.

Even after Lenier stopped fighting back, the heroes didn't stop.

In fear he might come back, they continued their rampage, killing Lenier again and again and again.

After who knows how long, the heroes finally became exhausted.

Xavier's 'cowardly hero' ability suddenly deactivated as all the heroes felt their powers completely disappear and revert to how they were before.

The fact that the cowardly hero ability deactivated could only mean one thing: the battle was over.

They had won.

Before they could even celebrate though, Lenier started to regenerate once more.

Everyone looked over with pure dread and despair on their faces.

They were no longer buffed by 'cowardly hero' and had no more strength to fight on.

Lenier had revived once more.

But this time, it was different.

Lenier didn't exude any power. His energy was gone. He only had a soft smile on his face as he laid on the rubble.

Lenier let out a quiet moan, before he started speaking.

"Heroes… t-thank you… It… it has been… ah~… my p-pleasure~… fighting you… as you guys can a-already tell… I'm not ahh~… normal… I'm… a masochist. I… have never felt so good~ before."

As he said this, he raised his hand, releasing an absurd amount of energy that surpassed anything that he had shown before.

It had only shown the heroes that Lenier had indeed not been serious even once during the battle.

After releasing his energy, Lenier plopped his arm back down.

A sigil mark suddenly appeared on all of the 17 hero's bodies in various locations.

The heroes were obviously shocked and didn't know what it was.

"D-don't… worry… mnmm~… it's my… thank you gift. For allowing~… me to experience… something… so….. so...….. so...…... amazing~."

It was at this moment, that Lenier had ejaculated for the first time in his life. It was also his last.

As Lenier sprayed his seeds all over the 17 heroes, he closed his eyes with a smile on his face.

Lenier was dead.

The battle… was finally over.

The heroes had won.

The world was saved.

Evil had been defeated.