"I see."
Su Mo nodded slightly.
Contained within him now were the mythological chronicles of every pantheon in the Campione! world. It was less that he was the supreme god of various pantheons and more that he was the embodiment of the mythologies they carried.
He wasn't a god, but an existence that reigned over mythology and its history.
Deities like Rama and Michael were only perceiving a fragment of his existence, which was why they mistook him for a supreme god, unable to comprehend that his true nature was far beyond that of gods, or even mythology itself.
But that didn't matter.
"Well, look at you, you've got some manners after all~ And here I was, thinking I'd just dispose of you on the grounds of insolence!" Jibril remarked with some surprise, lowering her hands.
If she was going to compete for favor, then naturally, she had to solve a problem that Athena couldn't.
If Rama hadn't knelt on the spot, he probably would have been reduced to ashes by now.
"...You jest. How would I dare show disrespect to a Great God!"
Sensing Jibril's terrifying aura, a shiver went down Rama's spine, and he lowered his head with even greater reverence.
Others might have thought Jibril was bluffing. How could a mere angel casually dispose of the Last King, a being that even a world-destroying goddess like Athena couldn't handle?
But Rama himself instinctively knew that Jibril truly possessed that power.
That aura of death, potent enough to make even the most resolute Hero of Steel tremble, could easily erase his Undying Body of Steel.
Seeing Rama's attitude, the onlookers were stunned.
It was only then that they realized it wasn't just Su Mo; even one of his attendants commanded such respect.
"You've come to seek an audience to fulfill your mission, I presume?" Su Mo asked, noticing Rama's hesitant expression.
"Your insight is profound, Great God."
Rama nodded immediately.
As the Last King, he bore a commission from the gods—to act as the Hero and eliminate the Godslayers, the Devil Kings who ravaged the land.
From a human perspective, Godslayers might be seen as the only heroes capable of saving humanity from the tyranny of Heretic Gods.
But from the gods' perspective, everything they did to humanity was perfectly natural. Curses and blessings alike were simply the way the world was meant to be.
Therefore, in the harmonious society constructed by gods and men, it was the Godslayers who were the absolute villains, the Devil Kings who must be subjugated.
Based on this principle, the Last King, as the wielder of the holy sword, was bound by a destiny to defeat the Devil Kings.
"I have no desire to fight the great goddess Athena, but the annihilation of the Devil Kings is my ordained fate," Rama explained.
He held a great deal of respect for the goddess Athena as well.
"Hmph!"
Hearing this, Athena's expression soured.
"The Godslayers are the Master's spoils of war. What right does a petty thief like you have to touch them?"
"..."
Rama looked at Su Mo in silence, unable to offer a rebuttal.
This was the core of their conflict. No matter what he said, this pointless struggle could not be resolved.
Seeing the weary look on the Hero of Steel's face, Su Mo spoke slowly.
"As the prototype of the Hero myth, slaying Devil Kings is indeed your mission. But looking at you, it seems you've long grown weary of it, haven't you?"
"...Before a Great God, I cannot lie. Yes, I have."
After a few seconds of silence, Rama nodded.
In his eyes, slaying Devil Kings had once been a righteous cause. It was the reason he had agreed to become the Last King.
However, after countless slaughters, endless destruction, and even having his wife stolen away by a Devil King to fight against him, he had begun to doubt his mission.
That was why he had remained absent for nearly a thousand years, only to be forcibly awakened when the number of Godslayers reached seven.
Although his mission compelled him to oppose Athena, the reason he swung his sword was nothing more than a sense of basic duty. He detested the mission of the Last King itself.
"If that is the case, I can permit you to be free of your identity as the Last King. I can revoke the fate that has been placed upon you and allow you to regain your freedom," Su Mo proposed, seeing his admission. "In exchange, you must fight Athena with every ounce of your being."
"What?"
The request took Rama completely by surprise.
As one of the supreme Trimurti, Su Mo's promise was undoubtedly effective. The identity of the Last King was nothing more than a shackle placed upon him by the three Fates, something a supreme god could remove at will.
He didn't doubt Su Mo's promise for a second; he just didn't understand why Su Mo would make such a condition.
"Fight the great goddess Athena with all my might?"
"That's right."
Su Mo nodded, then looked at Athena beside him.
"This is a trial."
"I understand."
Rama's eyes lit up with understanding.
It was common for gods to bestow blessings or curses by setting trials. While the subjects of such trials were usually mortals, it wasn't unheard of for a supreme god to test a lesser one.
"Master, I will not disappoint you. I will win!"
Athena showed no signs of fear. The Goddess of Victory made her declaration on the spot, her eyes burning with determination.
"A thousand dragons, a thousand serpents, now become one blade!"
"Blade that splits the planet, reveal the light of salvation!"
The Salvation Blade and the Black Blade rose from the ground simultaneously. A platinum morning star and a pitch-black singularity faced off, thunder and storms crashing against each other.
The very heavens and earth trembled.
Witnessing the return of this apocalyptic scene, Sayanomiya Kaoru, Mariya Yuri, and the others, still prostrated on the ground, felt their hearts go cold.
But in Su Mo's presence, they had neither the right nor the courage to speak.
They could only watch as doom descended.
On the battlefield, one fought for freedom, the other for mastery over her power.
The planet-splitting blade born from the earth clashed with the black blade representing the chaos of the primordial earth.
Without a doubt, the Salvation Blade, representing the attribute of steel, completely countered the Black Blade, which represented the power of the earth.
However, under the Primordial Mother Creation Mythic Thaumaturgy, Athena drew power from the entire planet, unleashing a force that could completely overwhelm the Last King.
It was only because the Salvation Blade could, in turn, draw power from the Black Blade that he barely managed to hold his ground.
Seeing the battle was about to devolve into the same stalemate as before, Athena glanced at Su Mo, and in an instant, her aura intensified several times over.
"Mother of Creation!"
With her clear cry, the phantom of a colossal black dragon thousands of meters long appeared, quickly solidifying into a physical form.
It was the most primitive form of an Earth Mother goddess, the divine body of the primordial goddess, Gaia.
The massive black dragon coiled behind Athena, its head wrapped around the dark star. It opened its maw and unleashed a torrent of impossibly hot flames.
"Hm?"
The Last King was taken aback.
The Undying Body of Steel's greatest weakness was high-temperature attacks. He had assumed Athena's move was meant to incinerate him, but to his surprise, the dark star absorbed all of the flames.
What is she doing?
Under the scorching heat, the black-hole-like star gradually heated up.
A fierce gale blew, fanning the flames to their most intense state. Soon, the dark star began to glow with the color of magma, of the sun itself.
Then, billions of tons of seawater from the Tokyo metropolitan area surged backward, cooling the blazing star.
Finally, the once-dark star shrank to a tenth of its original size, revealing a metallic luster like that of forged steel.
"Is this... quenching? Alchemy?"
The Last King finally realized what Athena was doing.
The sun as father, the moon as mother, nurtured by the wind, sustained by the earth.
By scorching the earth with fire, intensifying it with wind, and cooling it with water, what else would one get but the most primitive form of steel?
If she, an Earth Mother goddess, could accomplish this, hadn't she just mastered the entire process from earth to steel?
Did that mean... she had used the power of an Earth Mother to grasp the [Sword of Origin]?
As if to confirm his suspicions, after personally forging the steel star, Athena opened her eyes and pressed her hand against the silvery-white sphere.
"The [Sword of Origin] is also a gift of the Mother!"
The instant her words fell, the scales on the crown of the black dragon's head behind her suddenly turned a metallic silver-white. The silvery texture spread rapidly, transforming the entire black dragon into a body of silver steel.
After Su Mo had pointed out the crucial detail, she had easily overcome the shackles of dualism and integrated the attributes of the [Sword of Origin].
Finally, the Black Blade in her hand transformed, taking on the same sacred appearance as the Salvation Blade.
"I see... This is the complete Primordial Mother Creation. This... is the complete me!"
Feeling the power within her, Athena murmured in a daze. She then casually tossed aside the sword in her hand, and the phantom of the steel dragon behind her vanished.
After completely mastering the power of her nemesis, she finally understood Su Mo's meaning.
Her greatest gain from this was by no means the mastery of the so-called power of steel.
The point wasn't the steel attribute itself, but that by completing it, she had grasped the complete concept of creation.
Therefore—
"Mother Star! Bear all things!"
At the silver-haired goddess's call, the reflection of a sapphire-blue planet appeared behind her.
Then, before the Last King's incredulous eyes, the phantom of the Earth descended, crashing down with a force that could destroy all of creation.
In a strike that made the planet itself tremble, the all-encompassing chaos reduced the Salvation Blade to its base elements—earth, water, wind, and fire—before it subsided into elemental turbulence.
With the Salvation Blade itself utterly destroyed, the Last King, Rama, needless to say, was defeated on the spot. He returned to myth, finally obtaining the freedom he so desired.
After securing her victory, the petite, silver-haired goddess immediately returned to Su Mo's side, looking at him with an expression that begged for praise.
"To have mastered this thaumaturgy so quickly... not bad."
Su Mo patted the goddess's head, a hint of anticipation in his eyes.
"It seems you truly do have the qualifications to become an Celestial Spirit."