[Rin: "So… so… so handsome!!!"]
Rin wasn't the only one stunned—Kanae and Erica were also shaken by Lucas's presence and the fact that he still hadn't gone all out.
Whitebeard muttered under his breath that Lucas was being flashy and should've finished the job earlier—though even he had to admit it looked impressive.
Verethragna stared at Lucas's stance, his expression twisting into obsessive excitement.
"Good! Very good, human!" he shouted, thrilled by the "surprise," and declared he would decide the victor here and now.
Verethragna raised the golden sword and charged up at Lucas, thrusting straight for him.
Lucas met him head-on, flames coiling around his fist as he drove forward.
Fist and blade collided—an explosion of magic and divine power shredded the island's trees and tore open the ground.
The shock was so violent that the island's long-silent volcano erupted, scorching magma blasting skyward.
Verethragna roared as he poured more divine power into the sword.
Lucas flooded his hand with magic and spoke coldly: "Shatter."
Cracks spread across the golden sword.
Verethragna froze in disbelief—then the blade broke apart completely.
He stared at the fragments, stunned that a weapon meant to cleave divinity could be destroyed.
In that split second, Lucas's arm enlarged, and a crushing strike slammed Verethragna downward like a cannonball.
He hit the ground like a falling meteor, the impact wave annihilating everything it touched.
Lucas raised his index and middle fingers, and eighteen magic circles arranged themselves around his hand in every direction.
A strand of flame rose at the center, compressed into a semi-solid sphere, then began to expand.
It didn't look like a fireball anymore—it looked like a miniature sun.
When it swelled to about a meter wide, the heat withered the island's vegetation and rapidly boiled the surrounding sea.
Space around it warped as if reality itself was being scorched.
Verethragna's face changed, but he couldn't move—Lucas's blow had shattered nearly all his bones, and even with regeneration, recovery required time.
Lucas gave him none.
"Verethragna," Lucas said calmly, "that was a good fight—so I'll send you off with my strongest spell."
"Dragon God: Merciless Sun!"
He hurled the miniature sun down toward Verethragna.
Watching it fall closer, Verethragna stopped struggling and smiled.
"So this is defeat… I sought it for so long, yet never imagined I'd fall to a human," he said, acknowledging Lucas's victory.
He vowed to return from legend and challenge Lucas again, warning him not to lose to anyone else first.
The impact detonated like a true doomsday blast, a hemispherical shockwave of fire erasing everything—life, stone, and earth—into ash.
The sea was vaporized into a massive hollow, then collapsed back as towering waves rolled outward for hundreds of meters.
Only after a long while did the world fall quiet again.
[Rin: "The island… it's gone!!!"]
Kanae could only whisper that the spell's power was terrifying beyond comprehension.
Everyone finally understood what that extremely high-priced magic in the group truly meant when unleashed at full force.
Whitebeard stared wide-eyed, feeling that Lucas's strength was becoming absurd for someone so young.
Erica was left speechless—Verethragna, the mighty war god, had truly been slain.
Lucas didn't react to the chat at all, because new words appeared in his mind: Verethragna had been slain, and the system recognized Lucas as a Godslayer.
A new Authority manifested within him: War God of the East.
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