Hundreds of crimson streaks of light pierced the dark being in less time than it took to blink.
The red spear modeled from the Runes etched into Gungnir's tip, a powerful weapon that replicated the effects of the legendary spear Gae Bolg, annihilated one of the two paired bosses of the strongest dungeon instantly.
Uttering the weapon's name, I threw the red spear at the other boss monster, killing the [Other Dimension Divine Guardian of Order] just as easily.
The 'ping' in my head informed me that all my current buffs, including my Authority over the Divine Lightning that was clad over my body, had been dispelled and along with every other spell used during my dungeon run, was placed on cooldown for 5 minutes as the true final boss of the dungeon arose.
Having cleared this dungeon dozens of times before, I knew what to expect, and had several spells and Authorities on reserve that would achieve the same effects as the buffs I normally used.
Pseudo-Divine Lightning crashed from the skies at the snap of my finger.
Having memorized the sensations of having one's body fused with the concept of divine lightning, I replicated the effect with my immense control over both magical and physical forces, melding the power of lightning into my being.
"I am the victorious ruler of the cosmos, by my supreme might, all who oppose my reign will be cast down and buried under the earth!"
With the help of many others, Zeus defeated the Titans and imprisoned them in Tartarus. With his own power, Zeus overcame Typhon throwing it down into the earth in a fiery crash, then casted it down into Tartarus or imprisoned it under Mount Etna.
By invoking this Authority I invoke Zeus's Divine Strength to bring down the mightiest beings, no matter what manner of god or monster, I will be infused with enough strength to bury them in the dirt where they belong.
Upon amplifying my attributes, the final boss had finally finished transforming and appeared in it's eerily gargantuan form. Looking at the Anti-Spiral like entity wielding such huge weapons always made me feel like an ant.
[Dimensional Gateway's Divine Guardian of Order and Chaos Lvl 100]
Thankfully, I'm an insanely OP ant just like Mereum.
Gae Bolg returned into my hand and I exchanged it with my most powerful spear, Gungnir. With my various skills and absurd stats multiplying the final output of Gungnir's most powerful use as a projectile weapon, throwing the divine spear out in the real world was out of the question as it would have resulted in an equal disaster to Zeus's assault.
I won't need to worry about that within the dungeons, however, and after having just maxed my [Spear Mastery] skill and acquiring its transcendental upgrade I didn't have much reason to hold back anymore.
In less than a hundredth of a second I reappeared above the guardian boss, mustering all my Authority enhanced strength, I threw down the divine spear at the monster's body.
My arm was blown apart the moment the spear left my hand at several times the speed of light!
The monster whose outer skin looked reminiscent of the dark expanse of space and the stars contained in it was utterly torn asunder along with the parts of the dimensional space.
Gungnir returned to my other arm in a split second as the arm that threw it had yet to regenerate, a testament to the sheer speed and destructive ability of my own weapon.
If I had ever used it on Earth or threw it at the sky and into space, there was a good chance of it causing far reaching damage to the point where it becomes irreversible. At least, at its current level.
Had I used it as it was during my encounter with Zeus, the outcome could have went either way so long as he had Aegis with him… if there was even the slightest chance he could block it with Aegis given how long it took for me to throw the spear (to a user with godspeed my charge time would give them more than enough time to react) then the damage he could reflect at me might have instantly killed me.
Putting Gungnir back into my Inventory, I observe the remnants of the final boss struggling to piece themselves together, no doubt as a result of the [Survive at 1 HP] kind of skill that was added in for this iteration. The environments, special rules and perks for dungeon bosses occasionally changed over time.
So anyway, I took out the Master Bolt and started blasting.
"Pew Pew!"
Now, I had super enhanced eyesight, so I didn't miss any of my skyscraper sized lightning bolts.
Upon confirming that I killed it, based on the dungeon reset timer appearing as I checked for the dungeon clear announcement, I descended down to the floor and noted there were two items left on the ground.
Drat. Guess this dungeon's mob monsters had too many distinctive weapons auto-looted into my inventory, clogging up all the available boxes till I had no inventory space available.
It doesn't happen often but it annoys me when it does. I would like to think I resolve the problem ever since I created a dedicated storage space, but alas, the carry limit problem is eternal.
Since attaining my manor in Japan, I had carved up some space deep underground (and installed an elevator too) that I used to store all the loot I gained. All the materials, equipment, consumable items that I wasn't actively using were to be stored there before I go on a dungeon run.
It's a pretty cramped place that required constant expansion, the first expansion round was when I picked up all my low level loot from my many stashes across the world, ever since then it became a constant activity whenever I failed to sacrifice enough items during my uncreative periods.
"Well, it can't be helped then."
Seeing as these weapons were gigantic, I took out several normal sized yet unimpressive (in comparison) mob weapon drops and used my Shrinking spell on them. After that, I inventoried the giant weapons while leaving one free inventory space for the dungeon clear reward.
I opened the chest to a blinding golden light (my [Blind Resistance] went up by one level again), revealing the rare loot within.
I've been a lot luckier with rare loot since getting the 200 Luck upgrade.
Killing Zeus had brought me up to Level 470 and gave me the respective Level 400, bonus +40 in all stats. The total amount of Hundredth Level bonuses gained me a total increase of 100 Luck, bringing it up to 200 and getting some bonuses to finding 'rare treasures and great wealth'.
It's basically the [Golden Rule] skill. And I am hardly complaining.
[Illusionist's Cape]
Description: Creates an [Illusion] of the target (can self target) under your full control (get good at micro management or else), an [Illusion] cannot use spells and Authorities, but can make full use of your base stats, existing buffs and other skills.
Illusion Damage Dealt: 50%
Illusion Damage Taken: 150%
Duration: 30 Minutes
Cooldown: 30 Minutes
Holy fucking shit, this is just a better version of that Dota 2 item! Who cares if it can't use my spells and authorities, I can start using a double of myself to handle the more mundane tasks like crafting weapons, especially after I force Hephaestus to lend me his crafting Authority… again… as I command almost every single day when I hadn't called for Hestia's home blessings.
And with this power I can also fuck Alice from two different holes at the same time.
… Damn it all, now I have to spend some time getting that image out of my head or I'm never going to stop thinking about her.
Oh, my sweet Alice, so prim and proper on the streets... the act of gradually perverting the girl is perhaps my greatest and least controllable vice. Her affection for me in both a public and private setting was apparent, but all the more so when we're alone.
For a young romantic girl like her, especially after having lived a refined lifestyle, her ability to handle 'bold' acts in public was rather low as expected. Taking her lips and tongue for our mutual pleasure no matter who's watching us is one of the tamest yet satisfying things I love doing to her.
Of course, she made a token protest and complaint every now and again, but they were so half-hearted that it became apparent she liked it a lot.
I punched myself, snapping myself out of the delicious daydreams I was having.
Damn it! I bet I was making a really creepy face, aaaaahhhhh!!! Will, you idiot, why did you have to fall for her so hard!!?
I put on the [Illusionist Cape], activating it to make an [Illusion] of myself, then had it beat me up until I returned to my senses.
"Hoo...boy… that was bad. I'm seriously starting to think I've caught Zeus's horniness or something."
I noted the +1 to my VIT score from the brief beating. My thoughts swiftly drifted to thinking about my status points instead of enjoying my future wife. All in all, my status points were pretty well balanced.
After the many stat bonuses from passing two-hundred level milestones in my latest act of Deicide(s), my DBZ level training over the past months had brought my STR, DEX and AGI all up to over 750 points, gaining me the Demigod series upgrades. As I could train those stats up by intensifying my training (the clone sparring partner makes my initial decision even better), I had spent the 425 remaining status points on INT after using 250 points to bring WIS up to 1000, netting me the low hanging fruit of the 1000 WIS upgraded passive skill, [Sublime Sage Wisdom].
My INT score would be a test to see when the next big threshold for another passive skill upgrade would come to pass. Would it be at the 1500 point mark? Or 2000? Or 2500?
Improving my magical power level is overall, the most optimal decision given that combat between Campiones and Heretic Gods has magical power as a constant deciding factor, and with all my other stats being absurd even without Authorities improving upon them this was the most natural decision I could make.
And also, I really wanted to improve on the bad MP to DMP ratio. Damn it! Spending all my mana just to get 0.4% DMP of that amount back every time takes me several minutes of focus, I would really like to cut that process down as much as I can.
Returning to the real world, I quickly made my way back to my manor's secret underground cavern and emptied out my inventory.
"Haa… rather than a Batcave, this just looks like Smaug's Assorted Treasury, ft. Magical Junk."
I returned to my work desk to begin my usual 'sanity checks' on Daigo's and Maiya's activities while having my clone mix me a nice Chocolate Smoothie. I started to look through the preparations for my 'Warrior's Summit' and some arrangements made for Alice's long term stay, which includes her coming along with some of her long-time servants.
"I should totally have them wear a short french maid outfit. A good old fashion uniform change. Hehehehe…!"
Sensing someone approaching my office door (that wasn't my clone), I called out, "Come on right in Daigo."
Daigo Serizawa came in carrying several colored folders filled with different people's profiles.
"Your majesty."
"Hey. What do you have for me?"
"The resume of every warrior that has sent in a request to participate in the 'tournament arc' that you are hosting. Along with their short 'why you should choose me' message, shortlisted for your perusal, of course."
The proposed tournament was still some months away, around four months after my wedding date, plenty of time for me to make that private island to host my tournament.
Hmm, perhaps I should give that island an ominous name too? Like Hanging Neck Island… nah, that's just plagiarism, I'll think of something else.
"Thank you, I've been trying to arrange a time to get Alice away from her work for when I expect the Netherworld Phone to be ready, her schedule is particularly busy during this period for some reason. Anyways, I know I haven't been on top of this particular project of mine, so your efforts are appreciated."
"Perhaps you would like to judge my selection first before heaping so much praise on me?"
"Of course, of course! Let's see… ooh, that's a lot of muscle, gotta add him in so that he can be fodder…"
"Uhh…"
"A female knight? Nice… maybe I should make an Orc-type magical golem for the preliminary rounds… or tentacle monsters."
"Please don't. It will make future recruitment of beautiful knights all the more difficult."
"I know. And I really shouldn't do it when the trope hasn't been popularized yet. Oh what is this? This Korean pretty boy looks fucking badass. And this sob story about wanting his mother healed for his prize… definitely main character potential. Maybe I can also throw in some strong magical weapons and see if I can sponsor him to become a Campione."
According to his resume, he also shot up from the weakest magic warrior in his organization to one of the strongest in a short span of time, which means he's probably a MC-tier magic knight equivalent. I wouldn't mind hiring that sort of person and seeing how far I can push him to greater heights as an experiment for starting my own group of elite warriors.
"That's the same as telling someone to go die. Again, you cannot just hand over powerful divine-like weapons and expect them to kill a Heretic God."
"It worked out for me."
"Then I stand corrected. I suppose that you are the perfect specimen of a normal human being with normal human physiology that dies when you rip out your own heart to dodge an undodgeable attack. Surely that will apply to everyone else."
Now that he mentioned it, I think all the gods I've met called me a monster or an abomination or something like that, at least the ones I allowed to speak.
"Look, I really need to advertise my magical equipment okay? How else can I justify giving away so many pieces of magical equipment?"
"Just say they're prototypes and that you would be happy if they could give you feedback on your items."
"Mmm… that's a good idea Daigo. Nice one. Now, next person… hey, why is there a twelve year old Hime-Miko signing up for this battle tourney? And her message… she writes and speaks in the third person? Does she think she's one of the main heroines or something?"
"S-she's part of the Four Families and has already beaten men twice her age."
"100% approved."
I put my stamp of approval on the girl's profile in spite of my initial misgivings, she was clearly one of those genius fighter characters which means I get to watch some of the arrogant fighters getting their ass beat by a little girl.
The best part is that I get to laugh at them while headpatting a victorious loli telling her how proud I am of her success and all that jazz.
Oh yeah, it's all coming together now.
"Approved! Approved! Oh, whew, this bitch is hot let's put her in too! Standard old mentor appearance oooh that's a definite 'yes'... and… why is this guy's resume so short?"
I hadn't even opened this folder and yet I could see most of it was blank, other than the multiple letters the guy sent over containing some short sentences.
Daigo coughed into his fist, "That is, taking into consideration your ability to lower yourself to your opponents level, I can think of no better swordsman for you to face to improve your own skill."
"... That's high praise. Though, it looks like he's a failed magic knight…"
I froze when I saw the man's name and face.
Daigo continued on as he graciously ignored my expression, "He has a disability that prevents him from storing magical energy within his body. As a Magic Knight needs to be strong in both the Sword and Magic, by default, he has failed to become a failed Knight Templar. But…"
"You speak highly of him."
I said evenly even as I debated the pros and cons in my head over potentially messing things up, although after further thought, my appearance in this world has already changed a number of things so I may as well try to take advantage of it and hope I can reap further rewards in the future if certain canon rails stay the same.
"I have stumbled upon him training against his fellows once during my old job… Seeing his application made me watch the recordings of your own training fights. After slowing things down further on video, I may not be a swordsman myself but if I may offer my thoughts truthfully."
I really didn't like the nervous, fearful feeling I got from my right-hand man. Then again, it can't be helped, he was speaking about my sword skills, a particular skill that I took an unhealthy amount of pride in. It was only natural for him to fear my reaction.
"If I were to take offense at any truths about me being thought of or spoken of by others I would have already wiped out humanity and remade the world in my image, a world filled with hot women that would suck my cock and praise me with nothing but empty lies. I have you here to speak the hard truths to me, so do your duty."
I cannot say I was fond of speaking like this, but sometimes I have to act like a King in order to have those I consider my friends to treat my words with the utmost seriousness.
"I feel his movements and his skill with the blade surpasses yours."
"He's better than me?"
"Far better."
"And what does he ask for? Let's see… "Hey, when I win you'll fix up my disability okay?" Next message, "If you don't feel like it then we can just fight!" and the other ones… oh man, I never thought someone would treat my prizes like an afterthought."
Neither did I think my blood could boil so much at the prospect of matching blades with a mortal until now.
I stamped my approval for Salvatore Doni's application.