With Kolimon’s suicide, the fragnt of his proto-Divine Realm began to collapse on its own.
The Liastan above did not suffer any effect, but the flat sky beneath Samuel’s feet started to crack bit by bit, web-like fissures appearing, and the scales hidden in the clouds began to shatter one after another.
Rules that could not be healed vanished, and Samuel could finally put that head back where it belonged.
Celt, who had originally fused with Samuel and projected his spirit into Kolimon’s ntal world, reappeared beside Samuel, lifting his head. He looked up with deep, complex eyes at the golden stars above, watching them go out one after another.
But this ti it was not because of death, it was because Kolimon’s ability had lost its effect.
“Nice brain,” Samuel said with a grin, elbowing Celt.
Both physical and ntal injuries could be transferred, and any damage that did not exceed Kolimon’s tolerance would be aningless if inflicted.
But the Angel of Redemption’s ability was not damage — neither in definition nor in manifestation.
Did it wound the mind? No. Did it injure the body? Even less so.
Even if Kolimon’s psyche truly collapsed, it would be because he could not endure the absolute blank solitude of who-knows-how-many years, a breakdown from within, not an external injury.
There is no truly invincible power in this world. Even Kolimon, who could be immune to damage, had reason to fear powers that would make soone desperately unable to die.
Perhaps this was why Kolimon had always feared Ethen.
Although they did not know exactly what Ethen’s Angel of Redemption could do, it certainly would not cause harm to others.
As for the subsequent consequences, that was another matter.
Of course, Samuel and Celt did not know whether this kind of harm born from self-despair and collapse could be transferred.
But that collapse derived entirely from mory; as long as one deleted the mories like Samuel did last ti, he could not escape the breakdown.
Even if he truly passed the despair elsewhere, his long-term mories would trigger another collapse.
He would, in an instant, infect the entire kingdom of Liastan, until no one could transfer the harm.
How long after a person collapses will they die?
Maybe a year, maybe a month, maybe a week, maybe a day.
But it’s always longer than a second.
In a ti ratio of one to four billion, the first to be undone by suicide would inevitably be Kolimon.
And after Kolimon’s death, Samuel and Celt had far too many ways to save ordinary people.
That’s the advantage of two brains: they could fight Kolimon while thinking at the sa ti.
And since their souls were essentially the sa person, as long as the two synchronized, the thought and the conclusion arrived in Samuel’s head without delay.
Celt, nudged twice by Samuel, withdrew his gaze and looked at Samuel.
“Can you please, for once, retract those weird limbs you sprouted? Isn’t that an ominous look?”
Samuel, who had reattached his head, still retained the limbs growing from his head.
Now two legs were stuck to his neck, and there were hands on either side of his head.
“They look great.” The hands on Samuel’s head flexed like they were showing off muscles.
“Your taste is getting weirder by the day…” Celt couldn’t help but retort.
“So what?”
“…”
Before Celt could say more, the flat sky beneath their feet collapsed completely.
The inverted gravity instantly returned to normal.
They began to fall, descending from the heavens.
After a dizzying spin, the two of them landed lightly on the ground, back at the spot where Celt had first been pulled into the proto-Divine Realm.
Then fragnts of the carriage rained down like a shower.
They hadn’t really reached the sky, it turned out; they had simply been in another space overlapping with reality.
Back in reality, Celt ignored Samuel’s earlier question and looked around in silence.
“What are you thinking?” Samuel retracted the limbs from his head and watched Celt.
“I’m thinking…” Celt recalled for a mont, “that scale didn’t seem to do anything, did it?”
“You’re thinking about that?” Samuel pulled the Travel Guide out of his pocket, “I thought you’d be blaming yourself for getting so ordinary people killed.”
“That’s Kolimon’s fault no matter how you slice it, right?” Celt rolled his eyes at him, “What does that have to do with ?”
“Ha, glad you think that. I was worried you’d brood. You really are a lot kinder than .”
Samuel paused and thought back for a mont.
“As for the scales… yeah… it seems so.”
“Transferring harm was the Law Contract’s effect, ignoring defenses was the sword’s effect.”
“Speaking of which, that scale never showed any use since it was taken out.”
The two of them thought it through carefully, rembering that the scale had been balanced most of the ti. Even when Kolimon and Samuel were close combat, the scale oddly remained level, no matter how Kolimon shook it.
Only at rare monts did the left or right side rise slightly.
“Co to think of it, his setup was basically the Justice Goddess combo,” Samuel said, “one hand a scale, the other a sword.”
“Mismatch of gender, so he’s an evil male god?” Celt replied.
“Ah, that’s where you’re wrong.” Samuel wagged a finger, “Why assu his gender? What if he’s a Walmart plastic bag?”
“No no no, his proto-Divine Realm lets us go to the sky, so he’s actually an attack helicopter.” Celt shook his head in denial.
At that mont, the falling wood debris made quite a racket, and a nearby coachman soon ca running over.
He had gone to buy pies at his employer’s request, and when he returned he found his carriage gone.
He thought the horses had been spooked and run off, so he searched along the road, only for the “corpse” of his carriage to suddenly fall from the sky.
“This… this…” The coachman stared at the wreckage, eyes wide, speechless for a long ti.
The carriage was rented; now it was destroyed, and the horses were dead.
He would likely lose his job, and the compensation he owed would be impossible to earn back in a few years even if he kept working.
Not to ntion he would probably lose his job soon.
If he beca a defaulter, he wouldn’t find new work, couldn’t repay debts.
Then he wouldn’t be able to pay rent, eat, support his wife and children; he would lose everything and his whole family would beco vagrants…
For a mont he saw the world drain of color, reduced to black, white, gray, and a stack of colorful bills stamped with the king’s face.
“Huh?” The coachman snapped back to reality, looking at several ten-yur notes Celt handed him.
“This is one hundred yur. Your carriage and horses aren’t the finest; after paying the fines you should still have so left,” Celt said. “If you lose your job, co find . I’ll arrange sothing for you.”
“!”
The coachman felt like he had seen an angel.
He imagined Celt spreading layer after layer of wings, radiating pure holy light.
Samuel rolled his eyes at Celt’s self-made effect and walked to the side, flipping open the Travel Guide.
In the next second, Evina appeared before him.
“So?” Samuel asked. “Are you going back to Liant Town?”
“Since I’m already out, I’m definitely not going back.” Evina tossed her hair.
Her answer was exactly what Samuel expected.
Samuel, Celt, and Evina all disliked Liant Town. They hated places full of puppets; those places reminded them of their forr selves and made them feel sick.
Being detached from one’s past is one thing; feeling disgusted by it is another entirely, and not contradictory.
“Fine, then I’ll head back on my own.”
“After joining the ga, might as well play to the end.” Samuel gestured.
“Alright.” Evina’s eyepatch twitched; Samuel could tell she’d winked, “You figure out an excuse to explain to them.”
She ant Falson and the others.
“Okay.” Samuel nodded.
Then he watched her walk over to Celt, and saw the coachman who had been admiring the “angel” instantly shift his worshipful stare to her in less than 0.1 seconds.
This coachman had probably just discovered a new “angel.”
Samuel smiled, snapped the Travel Guide shut with a clap, and disappeared where he stood, returning to Liant Town.
……
Inside the two colliding proto-Divine Realms.
At this mont, the two colliding proto-Divine Realms had completely transford.
Orovic·Damocles stood in the center of the field, still holding that person-height greatsword in one hand.
His armor bore several exaggerated cracks, slowly nding.
Yet plants sprouted from the fissures, slowing the restoration of his armor and body.
In stark contrast to Ethen’s situation—where injuries healed faster than damage—the wounds on Orovic looked difficult to recover from.
His massive body stood there, chest heaving violently, head bowed; even Ethen could not see his face under the helt.
The greatsword in Orovic’s hand was planted into a huge creature.
It looked like a giant white monkey, but it had two necks, four arms, deer antlers, fish gills, talons, a scorpion tail, wings, and beneath its fur were rows of human faces.
At the mont, the two necks carried only one brain; the other head lay on the ground.
That head was a monkey’s skull with six eyes and huge fangs.
A few hundred ters ahead of Orovic, Ethen stood with a gentle expression, still looking relaxed.
In this “ancient city” nearly swallowed by “forest,” there were more “animals.”
There were giant serpents a kiloter long with wings and human faces across their skin; whales so huge they blocked the sky, leading schools of fish and flickering through the cloud sea; unknown creatures swimming beneath vegetation-covered ground, occasionally shaking the earth as they moved…
“Do you want to continue?” Ethen stood on a branch of a giant tree covered in faces and asked gently.
He still wore a pristine white clerical robe, a wreath on his head, not a speck of dust on him.
Of course, the lack of dust was probably because he had just been chopped to pieces and then restored a short while ago.
Orovic slowly shook his head.
“I didn’t expect you to have co that far.”
His voice was low and hoarse.
Ethen answered humbly.
“There’s still quite a distance before becoming a Law Carver.”
Orovic raised his head to look at Ethen and, after a long while, said nothing.
“You don’t seem very eager to break through my defenses.”
Saying this, Orovic pulled the greatsword from the corpse in front of him, planted it into the ground behind him with the blade facing up, and leaned his back against the edge of the blade.
Ethen shook his head gently and did not reply, but his eyes said it all.
Orovic fell silent.
He no longer had a chance of victory.
Against Ethen, if he could not kill him in a single instant, Ethen would adapt.
Not only him; the plants and animals here would do the sa.
Moreover, once an enemy’s attack was adapted to by one creature, other flora and fauna would obtain the corresponding information, and they would all begin to evolve new abilities to deal with that “predator.”
In the Perpetual Arboretum, it was survival of the fittest.
But their adaptability was outrageously extre.
The most important point was that Ethen could resurrect.
Even if you killed him in a single strike, he could revive and then adapt to the enemy’s power.
To truly kill Ethen would require at least tens of thousands of instant-death thods.
And each would need to work independently, with no interrelation between them.
Otherwise, after adapting to one, he might inadvertently adapt to part of another.
For example, if you killed Ethen once with a punch, blunt weapon attacks might beco less effective.
The only bit of good news was that the Perpetual Arboretum would not permanently retain that “adaptation.” If it did not face long-term “predator” attacks, the adaptation would disappear after about a month.
So, if one could kill Ethen tens of thousands of tis within a month using continuously different, mutually unrelated thods—averaging about five kills per minute—then he could be truly eliminated.
Thinking that way, it might not be completely impossible.
Hmm… one more prerequisite: you would have to find a way to seal Ethen’s ability to restore the number of resurrected lives in the first place.
Otherwise you might find that your killing speed can’t outpace his revival rate.
Ethen, having already adapted to death, could probably recover over a thousand lives in about a second.
Orovic shook his head, indicating he was at the end of his rope, with no new tricks left.
In struggles between Law Inscribers, destroying the center of the opponent’s proto-Divine Realm was undeniably the most crucial tactic.
That would easily dismantle most of the opponent’s trump cards.
This included suppressing or even nullifying Ethen’s resurrection and adaptation.
Orovic·Damocles’ choice was:
He fused the center of his proto-Divine Realm with himself, forging himself into the sharpest sword, the Sword of Judgnt hanging above all.
To destroy his proto-Divine Realm’s center, one would have to destroy him personally. In an evenly matched contest, the best way to destroy him was to destroy the center of his proto-Divine Realm.
Of course, if it wasn’t evenly matched, or if the opponent hadn’t yet opened a proto-Divine Realm, then whether his core was placed here or there wouldn’t make much difference.
Which was the case now.
Calling it a battle was really just prolonging the inevitable.
He remained alive largely because Ethen hadn’t intended to kill him.
There was, however, another reason.
Ethen glanced up at the sky.
“If this keeps going… it’s going to co down.”
He offered the warning kindly.
“Mm, I know.” Orovic nodded in reply.
“…”
“Sigh…”
He dispelled his proto-Divine Realm, slowly rose, sheathed the greatsword, and turned to leave.
Ethen did not stop him.
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