diskusbooks Chapter 577 You...were demoted?!
Chapter 577 You...were demoted?!
As the Goddess of Light listened to Grena's sarcastic words and saw his unyielding eyes despite his exhaustion, the humiliation and rage of being hurt by an ant finally overwhelmed the last trace of "tolerance" and "mockery" she possessed as a deity.
He laughed in fury, but the laughter was no longer ethereal; it contained only a chilling killing intent and a trace of... a sense of relief, as if he had survived a catastrophe, which even he himself was unwilling to admit.
“That’s right!” His voice was like ice colliding, carrying a chilling coldness. “I truly did not expect that the meager fortune gathered by you ants could actually harm my holy body!”
His gaze swept over the spot where the Demon King's sword had once stood in Gray's hand, his tone carrying a condescending and cruel "fairness":
"What a pity... what a pity." He seemed to be lamenting for Gray. "If this sword could have carried the demonic fortune for thousands of years and gathered an even more powerful racial will, perhaps... there would have been a real chance for you to achieve that arrogant act of killing a god."
But then, His tone shifted to absolute denial and mockery:
"However, the fact that you were able to forge a vessel capable of bearing such a scale of fortune with the meager materials and laws of the prime plane is already the limit of your wisdom, a miracle that could only be created by exhausting the strength of your entire race! You still want to store more? Create another one? Wishful thinking!"
His voice suddenly rose, carrying a judgmental tone:
"The limits of the souls, creations, and power of beings in the lower realms are already defined from the moment of their birth! You have never truly possessed... the hope of slaying gods!"
These words, like the coldest verdict, attempted to destroy Gray's will to resist at its very core.
Immediately afterwards, the aura around the Goddess of Holy Light, which had been weakened by her injury, began to rise and condense again at an alarming speed.
Although it was not as powerful as in its prime, the undisguised killing intent contained within it was more chilling than ever before!
"As for you, Demon King Grey Brant—" His gaze was like two tangible swords, fixed on Grey, "I previously granted you the chance to live to a ripe old age in order to maintain the cycle of life... Now, that's gone!"
The immense divine power pressed down once again like a mountain collapsing and a tsunami crashing down. This time, it was not meant to intimidate or drive away, but rather to carry the purest, most destructive will!
"Do you think that without you as my 'fuse,' I'm truly helpless?"
The Goddess of Holy Light's voice was icy cold, filled with the resolute determination born of utter rage: "It merely makes maintaining the cycle a little more complicated, requiring me to expend a bit more divine power to personally intervene and reshape the balance!"
"What is this trivial trouble compared to utterly annihilating you, this rebellious scoundrel who dared to harm me?!"
The moment the words fell, the light of the entire temple seemed to be swallowed and concentrated by His killing intent.
A divine light of punishment, far more refined and terrifying than before, imbued with a pure will to annihilate, began to gather at His fingertips.
He would use the most direct and cruel method to completely wipe this audacious demon king, along with the insignificant hero beside him, from this world!
Faced with the undisguised, almost tangible killing intent and the rising divine power of the Goddess of Light, as well as the divine light of punishment emanating a pure aura of annihilation that condensed at Her fingertips, Philippa's heart sank into the abyss.
The Demon King's Sword was destroyed, and Gray was clearly greatly exhausted from that all-out sword strike just now; his aura was far weaker than before.
The enraged god opposite, though severely injured and weakened, still exuded an aura of pressure and killing intent that was like a bottomless abyss, unfathomable and inspiring despair.
'It's over...' A cold thought uncontrollably surfaced, 'I've angered Him...it's really all over now...'
However, even in the face of this seemingly hopeless situation, after a flash of panic in Philippa's eyes, it was replaced by a resolute determination to burn one's bridges.
Without hesitation, she stepped forward and stood shoulder to shoulder with Gray. The remaining light magic in her body began to burn and surge recklessly. Even though she knew it was like a mantis trying to stop a chariot, she was determined to fight Gray to the very end!
However, contrary to her expectations that Gray would be on high alert and ready to fight to the death, Gray's reaction was unusually...calm.
He didn't look at the terrifying divine punishment that was gathering, nor was he distracted by Philippa's resolute posture.
His gaze, like the most precise probe, was fixed on the Goddess of Holy Light, especially on her fingertips where she was gathering the light of divine punishment, and on the seemingly powerful, yet... subtly abnormal, divine power flowing around her.
Gray keenly sensed that the pressure emanating from the Goddess of Holy Light, while still terrifying, seemed to lack the previously harmonious and complete "sense of control" that was so integrated with the entire Celestial Realm.
The upward momentum carried a subtle, almost imperceptible stagnation and superficiality.
Especially when He mobilized His divine power to condense His attack, the resonance and response generated by the surrounding spatial rules seemed to be slightly weaker than before!
A conjecture so bold as to be absurd, yet logically the only one that could explain the current subtle anomaly, flashed through Gray's mind like lightning.
He abruptly raised his head, ignoring the imminent threat of death, his gaze piercing the fiery, icy pupils of the Holy Light Goddess. With an incredulous yet unwavering tone, he demanded in a thunderous voice:
"You... have been demoted?!"
These words, like a thunderclap, not only stunned Philippa, who was preparing to fight to the death, but also caused the Holy Light Goddess, who was gathering destructive power in front of the throne, to show an uncontrollable and intense emotional fluctuation for the first time on her perfect (although she looked disheveled at the moment) face—it was the shock and anger of having her greatest secret completely exposed and... a trace of undisguised horror.
The divine light of punishment that was gathered at His fingertips even froze for an extremely brief but real moment!
You are right!
And the reason that Gray felt this way...
Just before the destructive light of divine punishment was about to erupt, Gray clearly sensed that the divine pressure that enveloped him and tried to crush him completely, although still as heavy as a mountain, had lost the absolute suffocating feeling that prevented him from even having the thought of resistance.
The last time he faced the wrath of the Goddess of Holy Light in this [Celestial Realm], he felt like a mayfly in a storm, every inch of his flesh and every bit of his magic wailing, as if he would be completely erased from existence at any moment.
That is absolute crushing at the level of life, complete domination at the level of rules.
But at this moment, although he was still struggling to move and his magic was sluggish, he was able to straighten his spine under the pressure with his own strength and will, and even had the mental energy to observe carefully and analyze calmly.
This feeling of "being able to bear it" stands in stark contrast to the previous despair of "being unable to resist".
It's like a tiny but real crack appearing on what was originally an impenetrable iron wall.