201: Battle of Gods (2)
Chapter 201: Battle of Gods (2)
—
Neji rolled his shoulder, grunting softly at the vanishing pain.
At least the pain wasn't permanent.
"So this was the variable that my Future Sight couldn't see." He suddenly said, locking eyes with the smirking Goddess. "Status Cutter, is it? I could see its effects, like how I somehow lost so many thousands of Levels, but for some reason I couldn't see what caused the damage."
Though after experiencing the attack, he now understood why he couldn't see it.
That sword, it was an Anti Gamer item. It even managed to counter his Future Sight, somewhat, as that quirk had been enhanced by his system and this sword's whole ordeal was to destroy and negate anything related to the Gamer System.
In simpler words, that thing was his kryptonite.
Neji silently tried to use «Rewind» on himself to get back the levels, but it seems his Plan-A was a failure. It didn't get him his levels back. Honestly, he would have been disappointed if it could, that would have been too easy.
"Hah, you are quite the blabbermouth." The Goddess looked at him, not very amused. "You somehow dodged my attack. Still, in normal circumstances that small cut should have annihilated you if not for that annoying Cube suppressing this baby." She patted the sword. "But never mind that, the moment I land a Crit, tens of thousands of your levels would be lost, but since you don't have that many levels, you'd still become Wasted!"
…Was she using game terms against the Gamer?
That was rude.
Also, since she mentioned "Cube", was it the Cube Omniverse's Will? If so, he got another name to thank later.
Instead of apologising for the blatant insult, the hot-headed girl rushed to attack again.
However, this time Neji was prepared, although offended.
Neji used Overclock + Time Stasis + Upgrade, so his sense of speed, which was already faster than that of Lightning, became even greater, almost reaching light speed.
He didn't doubt her words when she said the sword can destroy him. Although his Future Sight couldn't clearly see everything in a scenario where that sword was heavily involved, such as this one, he could confirm that he would die if this sword hit him in the vitals, for example, heart or head.
Neji was surprised when he figured that it wasn't that easy to dodge the Goddess' attack even with his newfound speed. Though he did avoid all of her attempted slashes.
As Neji dodged for the next few minutes, trying to gauge out her limits, he chuckled.
She was still very fast, even in this slow world. That, along with her hundreds of subordinates, she almost managed to slash him a few times.
Almost.
"What a bullshit item." Neji chuckled as the Goddess started to laugh aloud.
"Look at you, so scared of this Game breaker baby." The girl laughed, stepping forward and trying to slash Neji. Though Neji couldn't understand where she found 'nervousness' in his chuckle. "Where's your arrogance now, huh? You fucking idiot, retarded horny bastard. You are just like him, that fucker. Always thinking with your dick! You were making a harem when we were preparing your demise? How retarded can you get?"
Neji winced. That hit too close to home.
By then, Hercules, one of the two Tier 20s, and some other physical type Gods had flanked Neji from behind as they tried to stop him from dodging. In fact, he was actually in a tight spot, even as he swung his hamaxe, they all managed to dodge since he couldn't give his all while the goddess was following.
At this rate, he could be slashed again. But luckily, he could always Teleport-
Turned out that he couldn't activate his teleportation quirks, nor his teleportation magic. Why the hell?
"No use, you can't teleport. It's night time." As if to answer him why- he suddenly heard a male voice from somewhere around him. 'Somewhere' that he found soon.
Speaking of the night though, the sun had set and the moon had risen, and that moon was the brightest one he had seen in his whole life. The world almost looked like the day.
"As long as the moon is up, under the night sky, I control everything." The voice said again, falling silent.
But whoever that voice belonged to was lying, he couldn't control shit. Neji would have been dead by now if that person, whichever God it was, could control everything under the night sky. Rather, he could just somehow stop his teleportation, both quirk and magic ones.
However, it turned out he couldn't fully block all his spatial powers either, that liar. His «Wrapgate» quirk worked still, giving him an idea.
Although he was slightly nervous that the sword might phase through the gate, avoiding teleportation, he stopped dodging Fotia's attacks for a moment and created a gate in front of his throat, just as the deadly sword leapt forwards to penetrate his throat, only to slip inside the gate, coming out from another gate in the far.
Behind one of the Gods.
"Gaaughhrr!"
The God, who had just spoken those edgy words a second ago, grunted aloud as he suddenly had a sword coming out of his chest.
Luckily, the sword wasn't just a Gamer's bane. Although the effects were different from when it cut Neji, it certainly damaged the God when it penetrated him. So much so that….
[You have indirectly caused the death of "Tsukuyomi", a Tier 20 person! You have gained 95 levels!]
[You have reached Level 2895!]
[Your existence becomes more refined!]
…The Shinto God fell on his face, with a huge hole in his chest.
Speaking of the last message though, luckily Neji's existence hadn't become less refined when he lost those levels. Or so he hoped since the system didn't send any message like that. Either way, this meant two top enemies were out of the game.
This immediately put the gods on high alert, learning how dangerous Neji truly was. Neji took their split second surprise to use his Teleportation quirk, which was working again, to teleport into a safe distance. Seeing that, all the Gods all got serious and released their Statuses.
"Divinity- Divine Biceps!"
"Divinity- Ice Sovereignty!"
"Divinity- Godspeed!"
One after another, dozens after dozens, each one of the Gods yelled in unison, a great load of divine pressure all suddenly directed themselves at Neji.
"Oh-ho." Neji grinned. "Is it time to go all out now?"
All the gods ran towards Neji.
However, Neji still looked casual. Because he had the key to this problem.
[Quirk: New Order
Level: 101
Details: In short, allows the user to do Narrative Reality Manipulation. However, it can be resisted if the target is strong enough.
–Also allows the user to set an [Absolute Rule] onto himself, it lasts 5 minutes, but it is absolute. Cooldown- 5 minutes.]
As the Gods ran at him from all directions, making Neji be at the centre of them all, he teleported away once again, easily now that Tsukuyomi wasn't there to interrupt him.
Appearing in the sky, above all their heads, Neji snickered and ordered aloud. "Order- Everyone here will drop dead in a second!"
"Who are you telling to die, fucker!"
However, his command didn't do shit. They kept running at him, jumping in the air to attack him.
It seemed they were strong enough to resist the manipulation.
But Neji didn't look surprised, he had more cards left in his hands.
Dodging an annoyed Fotia again, who had jumped in the sky like a reverse meteorite, he once again used New Order, however this time mixed with Upgrade.
This time, his voice brimmed with authority as he ordered aloud.
"I said drop dead!"
The 5000% boost Upgrade gave his words allowed a reality shattering effect as more than half of the Gods actually… dropped to their face.
Dead.
[You have killed 156 people, starting from Tier 16 to 19!]
[Omitting the useless notifications because of the situation at hand; you have gained 26,500 levels-]
Though Neji was delighted, the system message couldn't finish before he suddenly sensed an instinctual alert behind him.
He immediately tried to teleport, but his teleport wasn't as fast as the danger behind.
Barely turning his head back, he saw the scene that he had seen 16 years ago.
The fire goddess' body was on fire, her eyes pitch black and the inside of her mouth also filled with darkness. With her sword raised in the air, her skin looked like the surface of a volcano as steam rose from her everywhere.
She had jumped to Tier 50 suddenly, clearly a Divinity that allowed her to double her power, and her current power toppled Neji by a huge fold.
She swung her sword at the slow Neji.
The sword simply phrased through his body, slicing through his face and coming out of between his legs. Although no blood came out, numbers started to splatter out of the invisible cut like a fountain of numeric blood.
[You have reached level 29,395-]
His levels were done registering at the same time the attack had taken effect.
[Beep! Beep! Emergency! Unknown critical attack detected! The Gamer's "Status" was severely damaged!]
[28,005 Levels have been destroyed for both you and Kurai!]
[You have devolved to Level 1390!]
[You have lost 60 Quirks! Namely- Future Sight, Blackwhip, Astral Projection, Air Wall, The Tamaranean, Temporal Stasis, Ash Generation….!]
[Most of your other quirks have lost 30 levels each!]
'This fucking goddamn hateful bitch!'
The attack was painful but this woman was more annoying and hateful than that. Luckily, Gamer's mind had entered overclock mode right away and helped him regain control.
The recoil of the slash had caused the Goddess to slow down for a tiny second, Neji used that instance to teleport outside the troposphere, where the purple split in the sky had materialised a few minutes ago but now has long ceased to exist.
However, the Goddess' transformation hadn't stopped and she was rushing back at him again after two seconds.
That was bad.
That sword… It was ridiculous. Something like that would annihilate him if it hit him again.
He knew this would happen, he had seen it happen in his Future Sight. That was the "reason" he talked about to his girls when explaining why he didn't leave them inside the Arcane Plane. Since he wasn't sure if that place would survive or not when he, the gamer, was receiving so much damage.
However, Future Sight or not, he had hoped he could turn that future around somehow since so many "outervesal variables" were participating.
But fuck, that Future Sight quirk was goddamn broken, it showed more accurate than before future when it reached so high in the level. But now… with the last attack, that Quirk was gone.
Forever lost.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck fuck-!
Still, if that broken power was to trust, he wouldn't die today, that's for sure. In that case, he must do something about that weapon before he loses too many levels.
Worst-case scenario, he should at least take the weapon down with him so that it wouldn't cause weird complications in the far future. He was sure the Gods couldn't mass produce this weapon, or each one of them would have had one of these each, so taking this one down with him should help him in a future encounter with these Gods, though that's just if they manage to survive.
Thankfully, all hail Lady Luck, his quirk- New Order hadn't lost any levels.
One last chance still remained.
"Die!"
Just as the Goddess reached him, he teleported again, a few kilometres from there.
Then Neji used [Queen Bee - Level 51] to clone himself, making 120 of his copies teleport to the other Gods, ignoring the Goddess. There was a reason he hadn't used this quirk until now. As doing so would have just given the Goddess several targets, targets that would have been immobilised by the other Gods and be easy prey for her. But now that half of those Gods were gone, and Neji was pushed to a corner, he was going to use his final card.
As expected, once the Goddess noticed the Clones, he stopped rushing at the sky and instead rushed back to the ground, since there was more than one target for her there. Though before she left, she gave him a smirk that screamed "what a retard".
But she couldn't be further from wrong.
Retard? He might lose a lot in this fight, but at least he would at the very least leave this shit alive. Unlike a certain someone.
With a stoic face, Neji opened his mouth and used New Order's [Absolute Rule].
"Rule: so long as even a single enemy remains," his voice rippled through the world. "I, Neji Hado, will be the one invincible."
-Bzzt~Crack!
Reality bent around him, the fabric of existence trembling tremendously and just like that, for the next five minutes- invincible he became.
He couldn't set anything as an absolute rule, such as- "As long as I touch someone, they would die." Because the rule would need to affect everyone who touches him too, and so on. That's why Neji had seen the most optimal rule for this scenario using his Future Sight, and had picked this one.
For the next five minutes, his levels, they didn't matter anymore. His stats, that also didn't matter. What mattered was- as long as even a single of these Gods remained, he would be stronger than them, he would be invincible.
Now, it was time for annihilation.
None of his Bees had any quirk, but that's where the thousands of his magic spells came to play.
One Bee attacked a Tiger-looking deity with a huge fireball, hotter than the surface of the sun, as it engulfed him.
He gained 180 levels but just like how adding numbers on infinity didn't change anything, his power level also didn't change.
Dozens of his clones used Time Magic, slowing down the Gods they were fighting. Though they didn't freeze like they should have, as their Divinity resisted the spell, they still became slower. Nejis used that opportunity to form dozens of layered magic circles above the Gods, channelling destructive atomic beams, divine lighting, poison attacks, and etc down at them before they could react.
In a matter of seconds, dozens more gods died, with more joining one after another.
"Everyone! Stop dying!" The goddess yelled, very annoyed at all the Nejis dodging her attacks. "Or I will kill you!"
Neji couldn't be sure if that weapon would work on him or not, even though he should be "invincible". He could make sure of things if he had his Future Sight, but he unfortunately didn't anymore. So he was just avoiding the goddess' attack, though very easily.
Each time she missed once, one God died on the other side. That was getting on her nerves, from the looks of it.
"Fucking hell!" The goddess looked panicked, scared even. That was bliss to Neji's eyes. "Use your limit breaker unless you all want to die! Fuckkk!!"
The remaining Gods, 80 or so, immediately did as she said, and similar to her transformation, they also changed. Some had ice crawling on their skins, some had their muscles bulging out as they grew bigger, while some didn't have any physical change, though their Tiers still increased.
None had their Tiers doubled like the Goddess, but the increase was still a lot.
It seemed they were all using their last resort, as well. Unfortunately, no matter what they do, Neji wasn't going to give them the luxury of winning.
All the Nejis moved, now outnumbering the Gods, as he went to destroy them again. Stronger than before, they were. But invincible? That they were not.
Neji Prime was in the air, watching the scene below from a birdview to have a better control over the battle as his puppets moved according to him.
Though they were still losing, the Gods were surprisingly holding onto themselves better than before. None had died yet since their transformation.
"At least until now."
Neji used his quirk- «Copy - Level 54» to send out copies of both «Upgrade - Level 63» and «Eyes of the Lord - Level 76» to all his clones.
Unlike before, Copy couldn't just copy quirks, it could give quirks to others by copying from its Host too. And Neji could do so just by his eyes meeting with his target. Also because it was very high levelled, the copied quirks' time limit was in hours, so Upgrade and EL could be used for quite a long time.
Once they received EL, all the Nejis copied their enemies' transformations, earning grunts of horror and anger from all of the Gods as they were attacked by their own powers, but stronger variants since Upgrade was boosting them all.
In other words, they were fighting themselves, albeit who were much stronger.
As minutes passed, the 80 or so Gods were almost cleared up, with only a dozen or two remaining. The hundred of Nejis had surrounded each one of those Gods like a hound group, making it an impossible match for them, and even Fotia was being attacked.
Though Neji was being extra careful to avoid her blade, she was indeed receiving a lot of damage since all the Bees she was fighting had copied her transformation using EL and were basically manhandling her.
Now, only a few seconds remained of his Invincibility, but Neji wasn't worried. He had levelled up thousands of times, though his Bees' level was the same as when they were created, his own Level was over the top now.
Now, it was time to finish this battle.
"Oh no, you won't! Not when I am still alive!"
Suddenly, a titan-like yell seemed to shatter reality. Looking down, Neji found the God, Hercules growing in size, inch by inch, feet by feet, metre by metre, as he grew so big that Neji Prime was in his hand's reach.
And his Tier, it was growing each each second, one by one.
This was most certainly very temporary and would cost the God a lot afterwards, but it made him a danger nonetheless.
So Neji's Bees changed targets and all attacked Hercules, but their attacks were useless to the Titan as his invincibility had run out.
Frowning, Neji immediately called back his clones as he feared Fotia would harm them without the invincibility. Meanwhile, his prime self wielded Thor's hamaxe, channelling his lightning quirk and then dozens of lightning magic spells before swinging it at Hercules.
The titan matched the weapon with his titanic fist.
Suddenly, Neji felt an ominous chill down his spine.
This was a trap.
Hercules was just a bait, the real enemy was using the lack of his attention to pull off something frightening.
As Neji clashed, gazing to the side, the Gods below had finished doing something weird. Divine energies of many different colours left each of their bodies, leaping at Fotia and penetrating her.
It was too late by the time Neji noticed as Fotia's body grew hotter, hotter, and hotter. He wouldn't bet, but she might be hotter than the core of the sun, hot enough to make him feel uncomfortable, even as strong as he was now.
Neji swiftly teleported from in front of Hercules' hands, as overpowering him in strength in this form was hard, and reappeared behind his neck before swiftly severing his neck in two with the hamaxe.
While Neji levelled up again, feeling his existence grow more refined, the headless body and severed head fell down in unison, but Fotia reached Neji even before they could touch the ground.
"So fucking annoying!" The woman yelled something hypocritical, her voice sounding like the crisp of burning woods.
The blade in her hand was hot as well, but only Fotia's heat was so very unbearable.
The reason was simple.
[Fotia - Goddess of Fire - Tier 99]
She had regained part of her original power, somehow using the other Gods' help.
Normally, this level of power would destroy the entire universe, but the Omniverse's Will was doing a pretty good job containing the damage.
Laughing at his frown, Fotia swung her sword.
Neji dodged the attack at the last moment, buffing his speed with dozen magic spells and boosting his sense of time, however, it was time for Neji to grow more surprised as another Fotia appeared from where he had teleported to.
'Fuck, clones!'
Her tiers did not increase for show, she had received the divinity of those Gods and could use it. Now she was using it to clone herself.
She was growing stronger each second, and this situation was getting out of hand each second.
Should he already use that…?
'No. Not yet. The risk is too great.'
That's his last resort.
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