As the miniature sun hovering above Helion's head radiated its oppressive light, the bloodflame surrounding the battlefield was visibly suppressed.
The divine beings under his command, feeling the pressure lift slightly, collectively let out a breath of relief.
Even though Orsaga hadn't actively targeted them, the sheer difference in power had rendered them nearly immobilized—every movement like pushing through a mire of molten iron.
Helion glanced at their struggling figures with a slight frown.
He understood perfectly: in a battle at this level, they were little more than spectators.
So he gave a simple order:
"Stay to the side and support when you can. Just focus on keeping yourselves alive."
It wasn't that he didn't want to break through the bloodflame vortex to help the zealot forces below, but with Orsaga looming so close, he couldn't afford the distraction. Not unless he was willing to risk losing them all.
Standing face to face with the towering demon, Helion readied his greatsword.
Despite standing over three meters tall himself, he still appeared dwarfed by Orsaga's forty-meter behemoth frame. The demon's tail alone was bigger than his entire body.
Orsaga's three glowing eyes scanned the sun god's gleaming armor, then shifted to the divine entourage bracing themselves behind him.
"You care quite a bit about your subordinates, don't you?" he asked casually, his tone neither mocking nor kind.
Helion didn't even glance back as he answered while sliding into a combat stance:
"I just don't believe in letting them die pointlessly. If they're going to fall, then at least let it mean something."
Orsaga chuckled, evidently pleased.
"A good answer. Honest. I like that."
He could tell the god wasn't lying, which made it all the more disappointing—he'd briefly considered taking one of the gods hostage, just to cross it off his villain checklist.
But alas, not much point if the other side didn't care enough to trade.
Still, kidnapping a divine being?
Now that would've been high-quality villainy.
The next instant, the bloodflame swirling around Orsaga condensed into thousands of crescent-shaped flame blades—each glowing red-hot and howling toward Helion like a storm of reaping sickles.
At a glance, they seemed like casual attacks—nothing out of the ordinary.
But hidden beneath the surface, Orsaga had silently layered multiple spells and venomous enchantments onto each blade.
These weren't just projectiles—they were carriers of soul-rot, alloy-corrosion, and curse-born entropy.
A direct hit would strip even a god's flesh to the bone.
Helion, however, wasn't an easy target. As one who had ascended through his own strength, wielding the divine mantle of the Sun God, he had survived far worse.
Even without detecting the hexes, his instincts screamed caution.
His golden greatsword moved like a wall of light, smashing through the barrage with pinpoint precision—each swing neutralizing wave after wave before they could close in.
But before he could take a breath—
A chill tore through his spine.
Without hesitation, Helion shifted to the side, ignoring the residual damage from the flame blades in favor of evasive movement.
A moment later, space behind where he'd just been standing silently cracked open—revealing the tapered, venom-laced tip of Orsaga's tail, hidden in ambush.
It had phased through the battlefield undetected, poised to strike like a snake in tall grass.
It was no accident. Orsaga had planned this from the beginning—baiting Helion into focusing on the frontal assault, while his tail weaved through the spatial seams to deliver a fatal blow.
No talk of honor. No pretense of fairness.
Just good old-fashioned demonic treachery.
Snuffing out the lingering bloodflames on his armor, Helion felt the malicious curses trying to take root in his divine essence. He'd managed to brush against them only slightly, but even that was enough to leave a mark.
His expression hardened.
Gold-plated wings of light unfurled behind him, slowly igniting in divine flame. A series of radiant fire-rings rose beneath his feet, spreading invisible ripples across the space around him.
Everything—light, heat, air, even magical distortions—was now being fed back into Helion's senses with pristine clarity.
That's when he detected it: a colorless, odorless poison seeping outward from Orsaga's body.
His response was immediate—armor glowing, barriers layered, and divine resistance surging forth.
This demon… looked like a raging inferno on the outside, but his combat style?
It was poison, curses, ambushes—the toolkit of a shadow-stalking rat.
Helion's eyes narrowed.
Orsaga picked up the glare with ease. He gave a nonchalant shrug.
"What can I say? Old habits die hard. I'm a traditional Abyssal Demon, after all—deception and backstabbing are part of our cultural heritage."
Helion's disdain only deepened.
Without a word, he exploded forward in a streak of golden light—his body breaking the sound barrier dozens of times over. His greatsword flared with sunfire as divine runes ignited along the blade.
This blow?
If unleashed in a normal world, it would've split an entire continent in half.
And because Helion moved faster than light, the visual information hadn't even reached Orsaga's retinas before the god was already in front of him.
An unavoidable strike.
Unblockable for most.
This was the reason why the Sanctuary of White Wings, despite having fewer high-level members than the other two pantheons, still stood as an equal force—Helion himself was considered the strongest being in the Seven Seas realm.
But—
Just as Helion's blade was about to cleave through his target, a massive fist met it head-on.
Orsaga's arm had moved at matching speed, intercepting the sun-blazing sword with a punch whose sheer mass and momentum could've shattered moons.
A heartbeat of stillness—
Then the world collapsed.
BOOM!!!
The resulting shockwave shattered the towering inferno that had been surrounding the battlefield.
In less than a tenth of a second, the energy backlash spread like wildfire across the sky and sea.
The entire island beneath them—spanning hundreds of thousands of square kilometers—was pulverized. Massive tsunamis roared outward in every direction.
Nearly half of all mid- and low-rank combatants were instantly erased by the shockwave.
If not for the isolating barrier surrounding the region, the resulting superstorm would've swept across the entire world, plunging the Seven Seas into a catastrophic flood.
And that?
Was just the first clash.
__
T/N:
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