"Otherwise, you'd just be an epic in name only, without the heart to match the power! The process of obtaining source energy is just as important as the result—both are essential."
Muria looked at the two crystal-clear drops of source energy floating in front of him, their alluring glow almost irresistible. Yet his mind was clear, and he expressed his stance calmly, rejecting his grandmother's generous offer.
"I don't want to give up the process of earning my first drop of source energy through my own efforts."
"Good boy!" Alysta smiled brightly upon hearing Muria's choice, and with a flick of her wrist, she put the source energy away, her grin even more radiant than when she had acquired the energy herself.
Muria blinked in surprise at his grandmother's reaction. It seemed that, without realizing it, he had passed a test she had set for him—a test to become an epic.
His mother had made her choice, and he had made the same one. But Muria had no doubt that if both he and his mother had accepted his grandmother's gift, she would have given them the source energy without hesitation. However, an epic achieved in this way would hardly deserve the title. Accepting such charity would mean cutting themselves off from the true path of the epic.
"No epic has ever been made through handouts from others!" That phrase suddenly echoed in Muria's mind, and he thought of the three evil gods captured by the Glorious God. Even combined, those three were worth less than a single medium-sized world in his eyes.
...
"Mika, something big is about to happen." Just after returning to Synapse, Muria went to Cloud City, where he found Mikaela resting, eager to share his recent experience. But just as he was about to tell her about the test his grandmother had given him, he paused. Refusing a gift of source energy and insisting on earning it himself seemed like a basic requirement for beings of their kind—not something worth boasting about.
"What's happened?" Mikaela asked, a bit curious.
"A war, the likes of which has never been seen before, is about to break out," Muria answered after a brief thought.
"Aren't you already leading a war that will go down in Erathia's history as one of the most devastating ever?" Mikaela gave Muria a strange look. Did he not realize how earth-shattering the war he was waging was? A war aimed at exterminating nearly all life on an entire subcontinent was already unprecedented in this world.
"Compared to the war that's coming, this one I'm leading is nothing but a small skirmish."
"Is it because of the epic race chasing your grandmother?" Mikaela quickly pieced together what was happening.
"Exactly. The three evil gods that were tracking her have been captured, and according to their descriptions, if they go missing, their race will soon send even more powerful beings to investigate. War is inevitable."
"Then let them come!" Mikaela said nonchalantly but then sighed with a trace of regret. "If only this war could be delayed for a few hundred years. By then, I would definitely have become an epic, and I could participate."
"That's not possible. Without the secret technique my grandmother brought back, unless you have the same luck as your grandfather, it's impossible to become an epic in just a few hundred years. As for the Titan clan's secret technique, the survival rate is far too low."
"True. Either way, it seems we won't be able to participate in this war. We're not qualified."
"We could technically participate as legendaries," Muria half-joked.
"As cannon fodder, you mean? Do you think our parents would allow that? And would you really be content to join a war in such a capacity, Muria?" Mikaela countered.
"Of course not," Muria shook his head.
...
Time passed slowly, and as Muria had predicted, he never received any further news from the void about the Seraphs and Titans. He didn't even know if his race had already gone to war with the Celestial Demons.
After a brief period of frustration, Muria quickly regained his focus. Since he couldn't be involved in the conflict, there was no point in wasting energy worrying about it. His current task was to focus on his own affairs.
In the following years, Muria set up a specialized detection array aimed at the greatest threat in this extermination war—the avatars of evil gods. When a deity sent an avatar to the battlefield to try and turn the tide, Muria would immediately detect its location and follow.
Typically, after detecting the avatar of an evil god, Muria would personally engage in battle first, enjoying the fight. Once he was satisfied, he would summon a legendary Titan to take over. Of course, he never forgot to charge the 1 million elemental crystals per intelligence fee. This was his rightful earnings for the labor.
By dragon standards, this was perfectly fair. After all, each time he detected an avatar's descent, it inevitably led to heavy losses for the Synapse army.
These were the unavoidable casualties that accompanied every battle with an evil god's avatar, a price that had to be paid in war. Even Muria couldn't predict where the next avatar would appear in advance.
...
"Muria, any avatars of gods showing up yet?" A familiar voice rang out in the hall. Muria rubbed his temples and forced a smile. "Based on the current intelligence, no divine avatars have descended yet, Father."
The one visiting Muria in the divine detection center was none other than his father, Ansor, who had reached the eighth rank of the legendary tier and was now eligible to be summoned by the epic Titans. He was now capable of fighting avatars of gods.
As a result, Ansor was constantly eager for battle, hoping every day that an avatar would descend so he could fight.
Unfortunately for him, although there were many evil gods, they didn't descend every day. Each time an avatar descended, a god needed to create a powerful body for the avatar, which required significant resources—sometimes even the blood sacrifice of entire cities of believers.
For a god, sending an avatar into battle was like cutting off a piece of their own flesh. Without the support of their avatars, the war on the Synapse subcontinent would have collapsed long ago. Muria might have already flattened this playground of evil gods by now.
...
"Don't you feel that your actions are beneath your dignity?" The evil god's avatar, summoned by the sacrifice of 300,000 lives, glared at the massive Land Emperor Tortoise before him.
"Not at all!" The Land Emperor Tortoise, carrying what looked like a mountain range on its back, lazily responded. This ancient behemoth had, for reasons unknown, formed an agreement with the Titans and migrated to their lands. Now it had arrived on the Synapse subcontinent.
After arriving, it sought out Muria and requested to accompany him whenever he fought an avatar of a god.
It didn't interfere with the battles between Titans and avatars but would fortify the battlefield to prevent excessive damage from disrupting the balance of the land.
Thus, whenever Muria or other Titans battled with evil god avatars, the Land Emperor Tortoise would sit nearby, watching them intently after fortifying the battlefield. Most of the evil gods found this unsettling.
No matter how they looked at it, the Land Emperor Tortoise was on Muria's side. If it decided to intervene during the fight and struck with a paw or used some other special method, the god's avatar might suffer permanent damage. That would be an unacceptable loss.
"You're interfering in the war! This is dereliction of your duties!" The avatar of the evil god snarled at the massive tortoise. Behind it, the Synapse army was retreating.
"How am I derelict? I'm just fortifying the ground. I haven't done anything else," the Land Emperor Tortoise replied innocently, its large eyes blinking at the god's avatar.
"Don't worry, once the Titan arrives, you can fight all you want. I won't interfere. We World Guardian Beasts are the most just and impartial beings. We would never meddle in mundane wars."
"Hmph!" The evil god's avatar, which was of weak divine power, sneered. If it weren't for the fact that the Land Emperor Tortoise was restricting its movements with gravity, allowing the Synapse army to retreat, it might have believed the beast.
From what the evil god knew, the first avatar to descend had been the avatar of the Fear Demon God, who had been torn apart not by a Titan, but by the first World Guardian Beast to arrive—the Wind King Eagle.
Though the Fear Demon God's defeat may have had other reasons, many evil gods suspected that some of the World Guardian Beasts were siding with the Titans.
Currently, four World Guardian Beasts had arrived on the Synapse subcontinent: the Wind King Eagle, the Land Emperor Tortoise, the Sea Emperor Dragon, and the Green Spirit Lian. Among them, the Sea Emperor Dragon was stationed in the coastal areas, purifying the oceans, with no intention of coming ashore.
The Green Spirit Lian, on the other hand, was focused on restoring the land's ecological balance, bringing it in line with other continents. These two were the most neutral of the Guardian Beasts. They hadn't intervened in any battles or attacked any beings.
However, the Wind King Eagle, the first to arrive, and the newly arrived Land Emperor Tortoise both seemed to have suspicious ties with the Titans. And based on their behavior, they were clearly leaning towards the Titan side.
If this were true, there would be no point in continuing the war! World Guardian Beasts were invincible in the material world, and no one
could kill them and still expect to remain in power afterward.
"If you're not interfering, why are you using gravity to suppress me?"
"I'm just using gravity to fortify the battlefield, to prevent you and the Titans from causing too much damage during your fight," the Land Emperor Tortoise replied in a calm, even tone.
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