"...It’s not impossible.”
Nightchaser quickly regained her composure and walked toward , sneering as if she could see straight through my intentions.
"That is, if you’re actually useful to .”
"..."
"If you want to learn the thod, prove your worth. I don't care if you control deep-sea creatures or not. If you can’t reach a level where you’re useful, you’re nothing.”
She wasn’t wrong.
I quietly accepted it, and Nightchaser glanced at the seawater I controlled before speaking coldly.
"What you're making right now are just fragnts. At best, they’re like insects running on instinct.”
“...”
"Create higher life. If you can’t even do that, you have no value.”
Fortunately, the first step wasn’t difficult.
After about 3 days of effort, I created an otter. Nightchaser looked at it, scoffed like it was nothing special, and then took to a strange place.
A sandstorm blew into my eyes, making frown.
It was a desert that stretched on endlessly.
"You’re lacking—and slow, but considering you were just born, I’ll let it slide. If you can create life, then create a world. You said you lived in the Abyssal Sea, right? Recreate that here.”
This ti, I frowned. I didn’t even know where to begin.
"How am I supposed to make a world? The only authority I have is making sothing like this otter.”
"If you created life with your authority, then use that.”
Nightchaser replied while looking at the otter slowly dying in the sand.
"...What?"
"You made that otter with your power, right? Then the more otters there are, the more your authority grows. Try increasing them.”
"You want to make males and females and let them reproduce?”
"That’s for you to figure out. When the sun rises and sets five tis, I’ll co back. By then, turn this desert into an ocean.”
"..."
Leaving those words behind, Nightchaser disappeared.
I blankly stared at the empty space, then tried to create another otter, before realizing that if I relied on reproduction, it would take years just to get two pairs.
'Animals won’t work.’
I broke the otter down back into seawater and thought over what Nightchaser had said.
'If the life I create spreads. Does that an my influence expands with it?’
But that didn’t quite fit. Outer Gods usually just destroyed worlds, not nurtured them.
...Or maybe?
"Oho."
Five days later.
When Nightchaser returned, she widened her eyes in surprise at the desert now filled with shimring water.
"That was fast. I didn’t even tell you how.”
"Was this the right thod?”
To make one’s power multiply on its own.
Perhaps in the very, very distant past, this was how gods originally grew their power.
But in the primordial world that Great Void longed for, not a single god like that, who nurtured and acknowledged life, remained.
What existed there was nothing but hell.
And the reason for that—
"Yeah, that’s right."
Nightchaser nodded casually, affirming my guess.
"This way is far more efficient.”
Instead of increasing living beings as apostles, they turned disasters into their apostles.
More precisely, decay, the deep sea, swamps, fire, and so on. They took the remnants devoured by such forces and reshaped them into their own power.
They weren’t ruling life, but death.
That was far more efficient for growing stronger.
I had done the sa. Everything subrged in my seawater had beco my apostles.
The thod of subjugating everything that had already been ruined was overwhelmingly effective. Just like how I had turned this desert into an ocean in rely five days.
As I mulled over that, I let out a sigh while looking at Nightchaser, who smiled in satisfaction.
"So you were testing .”
"That too.”
She admitted it without hesitation.
She had deliberately made create life, then guided toward letting it reproduce as if that were the correct answer.
Even though she knew that without abandoning that thod, it would be impossible to flood the desert within 5 days.
"But not every god thinks smartly.”
"...”
"Back then, there were actually more who chose the foolish thod. Of course, they were all weeded out. But for soone like you, who was just born, I had to check which type you were.”
Up until now, I had understood the word ‘Outer God' to an ‘a god from outside.’ And that aning was technically correct.
But its aning seems to be closer to ‘fearso beings outside the realm of comprehension.’
If even a single Outer God escaped this Abyssal Sea and reached the surface, the world would instantly beco the kind of hell the god governed.
"If I had just raised otters, what would you have done?”
At my question, Nightchaser smiled quietly with Linl’s beautiful face.
"Do you really want to know?”
"Is there a reason you can’t tell ?”
"If you knew, I don’t think we could stay allies.”
"..."
"Don’t worry. You passed. You’re still lacking, but I’ll make you into a proper Outer God.”
With that, Nightchaser brushed it off and stepped into the gently sloshing sea.
"If there’s anything you want to know, ask. Even if it takes a hundred or thousand years, I’ll answer. “
“...”
“Yeah, raising you definitely seems useful.”
No matter how intently I stared at her face as she said that, I couldn’t read her intentions at all.
Maybe I would never understand an Outer God’s true thoughts, not even if the world itself ended.
"....You—what are you, exactly?”
It didn’t even take a month for to realize that thought was wrong.
Nightchaser was actually the type whose emotions showed on her face more than expected.
*t*t*
There was only one thing I wanted to do with the authority of creation.
'How do I use this to defeat Great Void?’
He might have once been human, but Great Void was now the very consciousness of an Outer God and one that had defeated all the Outer Gods within the Abyssal Sea.
On top of that, the being that God devoured was one that had reached the Heavenly Realm. At this point, he was completely beyond normal standards. Sothing akin to a god among gods.
If I treated him as being on the sa level as these defeated Outer Gods, I’d be in for a rude awakening.
Even these defeated Outer Gods were far beyond .
That was why I aggressively focused on how to use the authority of creation offensively.
"How do fights between Outer Gods actually work?”
"You don’t need to know.”
A week had passed since I started shaping my own sea using the authority of creation.
I had ford a body of water about the size of a lake and was trying to figure out how to control everything subrged within it according to my will. Floating lazily nearby, Nightchaser snorted.
"What? You planning to kill or sothing?”
"I just want to be able to resist when you try to kill .”
"Ahaha, how ambitious.”
Before I realized it, part of the sea I had created had vanished as if a hole had been punched through it.
"You can’t fight . You’re barely a month old, and you think you stand a chance?”
"I see..."
I looked at the chunk of ocean that had been eaten away and nodded as I felt my control destabilize.
"So if you lose the world you control, that counts as defeat.”
"You learn fast.”
An Outer God was essentially a phenonon.
Taking Nightchaser as an example—as long as water surfaces existed, and those surfaces belonged to her, she couldn’t be erased from this world.
However, if soone could eliminate all still water from the world and dry up every lake, then Nightchaser, having lost all her domain, would beco sothing that couldn’t even be called anything anymore.
"Of course, you can’t actually kill an Outer God. After all, one cannot control every water surface forever…”
“...”
"That’s why we get thrown into the Abyssal Sea, where even Outer Gods can’t escape. I’m a bit of a special case, though.”
If the only remaining fla in existence were buried at the very bottom of the Abyssal Sea, then the God of fire would have no choice but to be there as well.
And once they realized it, they were already trapped in this hell that they could never leave.
"That’s why no one could stand against Great Void.”
Nightchaser muttered while looking up at the artificial sky.
"Even if soone defeats them, you can’t just sink the sky into the Abyssal Sea. There’s no way.”
That wasn’t entirely true.
Great Void had once been defeated and sealed within the body of the First Mage.
And as for a way to cover the sky…
"It’s not impossible."
"More importantly, why aren’t there any deep-sea creatures here? It just looks like water.”
"...Look closer.”
I quickly created a few anglerfish.
The more my domain expanded, the more exponentially my capabilities grew.
I could now produce those flying fish that I had painstakingly created before with a simple flick of my finger.
Of course, the more deep-sea creatures I created, the more seawater I consud.
I needed more seawater.
—more space.
"Nightchaser, I’ve completely covered the desert. Is there anywhere else?”
"...What? You’re already done? I thought it would take at least a year.”
"Go look for yourself. What should I do next to make my world stronger?”
"Hmm. Fill up what you have first. This ti upwards.”
The endless desert had completely turned into an ocean, and from there, I slowly increased the depth.
But even that had limits. The sky, which seed so high, was actually quite low. That must be the mid-layer above.
I also increased the number of deep-sea creatures living within it to an enormous degree. In just 2 weeks, it had beco a massive fishery. Nightchaser couldn’t hide her surprise.
"You’re growing way faster than I expected. At this rate, I think it’s about ti I explain the plan…”
"It’s not enough.”
But I wasn’t satisfied.
After swallowing it whole, the desert turned out to be much smaller than I’d thought. At best, it was just a large lake-sized domain. If I wanted to conduct experints to handle Great Void, I needed far more space.
I considered escaping and trying this in the real world, but drawing Great Void’s attention was the last thing I wanted.
If I were going to do this, I had to be sowhere like this place where I wouldn’t have to suffer from any consequences.
"Is there really no other space? It feels like if I push past the boundary, I might be able to expand further.”
"If you want to die, go ahead.”
Nightchaser, who had softened a bit seeing my growth, suddenly spoke sharply.
"That’s Corrosion’s domain. It may be asleep now, having given up on escape, but it once ruled territory so vast even I struggled against it. Be satisfied with what you have.”
"Hmm…”
"Still, good work. Next ti, I'll introduce you to an ally. Stay put and don't do anything. Waking that one takes ti.”
"..."
I didn’t bother answering.
Because I was going to do it anyway.
After that, Nightchaser didn’t show up for about a week.
Then a month passed.
And just monts ago…
"Nightchaser."
"...You."
Nightchaser reappeared, her eyes trembling as she looked at .
Or rather, at the expanded world.
"What did you do?”
"I expanded the space.”
"...What about Corrosion?”
Without a word, I pointed toward the seabed.
There lay the remains of what had once been the domain of the Outer God called Corrosion, now completely subrged beneath my seawater.
Nightchaser stared blankly at the scene, then slowly stepped back.
"You killed it?”
"Not quite. I just made it so it can’t co up from the bottom.”
"What do you an by that?”
"I just tried doing sothing similar to what’s being done to us.”
After swallowing even Corrosion’s world into my sea, I simply crushed the garden beneath it.
Because right now I was capable of manipulating the currents to the point of maintaining pressure over entire spaces rather than on a specific individual.
"I guess the pressure’s too much. It’s trying to get up, but it can’t. I was lucky.”
"..."
After consuming even Corrosion’s domain, I was no longer the sa fledging Outer God who had first arrived here.
I clenched my fist and organized my thoughts.
'At this rate…’
What I had learned in this place was quite simple. My Abyssal Sea possessed an absurd speed when it ca to erosion and expansion.
IF that was the case…
Then there was one way to trap the sky.
—Make it fall.
"Nightchaser.”
"Y-yeah?”
For so reason, she seed shaken as I asked.
"Great Void is the Outer God of the sky, right?”
"...Y-yes.”
"When the sky moves, does he get dragged along with it?”
"I an, yeah—but how are you supposed to move the sky?”
At that, I shifted the depth.
The ground slowly split open, and the deep sea rose upward.
Like a miniature version of the Abyssal Sea we were in, the deep sea now existed above our heads.
"Like this."
"What are you trying to…”
Nightchaser’s expression turned deathly pale.
"...You’re planning to subrge the world?”
"Sothing like that.”
Expand the seawater.
Expand the domain, again and again, until the entire world was covered by the ocean.
However, if only the land were left floating, like how these Outer Gods keep their domains suspended, then a sky would form beneath the Abyssal Sea.
I gritted my teeth as I watched the deep-sea creatures swim beneath the translucent do of the Abyssal Sea.
"Now I can finally reach it.”
It felt like my hand had just brushed the edge of the clouds.
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