章 71: The Hero of Shining Skies

As I sparred with everyone and made some spar with the humans and demi-humans, I quickly noticed their incredible growth in power.

Jorogumo was incredibly strong, and even for her big size, she managed to move around the battlefield with masterful techniques, she was able to lift such a heavy Mace as if it were a very light stick, and used several enhancement spells to increase her strength to an absurd degree. She was also able to spit fire and engulf her fists in hot lava, without having to rely on a weapon at all if she desired. Her fighting style was rather wild and reminded me of the Hellhound woman, Erathe.

I made both of them to fight each other, and the results were catastrophic.

Two complete berserkers clashed on the battlefield like mad demons, smiling while receiving countless rains of flaming punches and kicks. As they began to shatter the ground, their hot temperatures started to melt the destroyed rocks, creating a small lava pool where they fought almost to the death. The fight was incredible and I couldn't stop looking at it. In the end, the winner was Jorogumo who barely pulled it off because of her superior techniques.

I quickly healed both, Jorogumo lost four of her spider legs and her left arm was completely broken. While Erathe had six of her ribs completely shattered into dust and her right leg was completely ripped off. These girls were too savage.

Thanks to the advanced healing properties of my blood, I grabbed the girls lost limbs as I attached them back with my threads and gave them around five Blood Fruits to each one, after some seconds, all their wounds were completely healed.

Erathe and Jorogumo thanked me greatly, and both of them became good friends. I just hope that they can hold on to their strength when sparring in the future.

Afterward, I wanted to try on the Dark Squirrels team, so I tried to spar with all of them. However, Yamiyo told me that he wasn't too fond of battling but I insisted telling him that he didn't need to hold back and could freely inflict me with all his curses and Shadow Spells.

To not make him worry for so much, I immediately began to fight with Yamiyo, he was a rather small Squirrel beast-man but was able to move around very quickly, he also had a high Magic Resistance, which made him able to tank most of my weak magic attacks with absolute ease.

His skills were very interesting and some even surpassed what I've accomplished, showing how good of a specialist he was. He was able to create a powerful Corrosion Mist with his Orb that was able to inflict [Debuffing Corrosion], [Magic Absorption] and [Soul Burn] all at the same time. Debuffing Corrosion works like a powerful poison that inflicts damage while debuffing your stats every 1 minute, if he's able to pull this off for a prolonged amount of time, he could easily overpower stronger beings than himself.

Now it was turn for Kuraen, he was a very tall and muscular Squirrel beast-man with a handsome appearance, he was wearing a beautiful white and red armor with a shining white sword, his techniques combined physical damage with magic, and was able to summon what was called a [Fire Domain], an upgraded version of the [Zone] Skills that would follow its user instead of staying in one place. As long as he had his [Fire Domain] active, all his fire skills and power would double, and he quickly turned into a powerful beast in battle, throwing devastating flaming slashes.

Seeing this potential, I found that he was the perfect match for the Half Paladin Lord Demon, Palami. As both had similar fighting styles and would be able to learn from each other even further.

I made them both spar and the fighting was majestic, full of magnificent displays of mastered techniques. Both were equally strong for the most part, but Palami managed to win because of her experience in all these years of being a Paladin, she even showed some techniques that she didn't use with Rimuru, like the ability to summon floating light swords that answered her commands alongside strong Light Beams.

The last Squirrel Demi-Human was the beautiful Kaguya, who had an incredibly dense magic aura. I was really excited about fighting her, as she quickly put herself on a fighting stance and activated her [Wisdom Orb], summoning the power of the Sacred Fire Spirits, which enhanced her speed and covered her body with a flaming Kimono.

Her attacks were explosive highly concentrated Fire Magic, she had such a strong Fire Affinity that my Resistance wasn't able to lower all the damage, and I took some serious burns all around my body, I had to stop holding off on her and activated my [Sacred Spiritual Shield]. Even then, her magic was too strong, she was an incredible specialist, and was even able to penetrate my most powerful magic shield.

When I decided to activate [Flame Body] to become immune to fire, she did something that I didn't expect, and infused her Fire with other elements, being able to surpass my immunity with ease. I never expected that she could do such a thing! As the battle progressed, I became more aggressive and began to attack her with powerful Multi-Elemental Magic Spears, to see how far can she go.

On the entire battle, Kaguya remained calm and composed and evolved her fighting style to accommodate my adjustment in power. Her flames began to take the shape of different monsters she has eaten, like foxes, lizards, and birds. And they were able to fight on their own, protecting her from damage like shields, while sometimes rushing at me just to detonate.

However, the fun didn't last long as, after one hour of intense fighting, Kaguya ran out of MP and became too frail to continue. This was her only downside, but she managed to keep up with me for an hour, which is already incredible.

After asking her about her Skills, she explained to me that she received the Blessing of the Goddess of Sun; Amaterasu. This blessing granted her a powerful fixed bonus on her flames, and this is why she was able to penetrate my defenses so easily.

The power that a God Blessing grants are incredible in many ways, these can make weaknesses become advantages, or make people that only specialize in one element be able to fight against Omni elemental masters like me.

Lastly was Ganjo, the powerful Giant Alligator Lizardman, who was as big as Nesiphae and a had towering muscular body with powerful rocky skin. Because of Ganjo raw power, I had to activate one of my armors to be able to live his hits.

The battle was incredibly chaotic, although Ganjo was big, he wasn't slow at all, as he rushed around surrounding me with powerful floating Rock Walls, and attacking me with countless Rock Meteors. He was able to quickly adapt to almost anything. He was able to summon his own Rock Sword that could even split a mountain, and also had powerful Rock Shield innate to himself.

His defenses were unparalleled and most of my attacks weren't able to penetrate his rocky skin, so I ultimately ended up using the Demon Sword Ollathir to fight him, we clashed several times as we exchanged attacks.

After understanding Ganjo true strength, I called Truhan and made them spar. These two were rather similar in various things, being total powerhouses on their own, and having almost giant sizes.

Of course, Truhan wasn't that much of a giant, only being 5 meters tall. But he had a skill that transformed him into a Titan Oni with incredibly sturdy flaming muscles. Their fight was destructive and I had to make a small Solidified Magic Dome to protect the rest of my people.

Truhan really didn't want to give in as he fought with all his power and bravely, Ganjo also used all his skills and techniques, and both began to laugh as they fought each other.

Ultimately, Truhan managed to pull off a victory by knocking down Ganjo with a powerful flaming Axe slash, this slash temperature was so hot that it had Ganjo Rocky Skin melt into lava. I had to quickly heal him before he died.

The two muscle brains became good friends afterward.

There was still some time before dinner so I made the Humans fight again with the Demi-Humans, so they can polish their strength and techniques.

Meanwhile, I trained the Archer and the Protector girls, teaching them the basics of swords and axe techniques. The Archer woman discovered that she was rather talented with long swords, while the Protector girl found out she was able to lift Axes with ease.

The two were quick to learn, as they memorized the techniques, I taught to them in some hours. I made both of them fight afterward, so they can acknowledge each other weaknesses and refine their new fighting styles. Although being a Tank and an Archer was fine, they still needed to find a way to adapt to any situation, unless you have the blessing of a God, specializing in only one thing may become something that could prevent from reaching your full potential.

As the two fought bravely, I watched over the other three humans. The Amazon woman loved to spar with the demi-humans and learn their techniques and wild fighting styles, she especially liked to fight with Jorogumo and the Hellhound Erathe, as they all had similar fighting styles were she could learn new things.

The Black-Haired Dual Swordsman polished his techniques with Palami and Kizuato, the two were constantly putting him into a sticky situation, to force him to evolve his fighting style and come out with ways to win even when the odds were against him. Kizuato ended up being a very good teacher, and the veteran human ended up learning tons of things from him, growing attached to the monkey and even calling him "Teacher". While Kizuato was a fiercer swordsman, Palami was proficient in refined sword and magic techniques, teaching the man various forms to counter stabbing attacks and slashes while gracefully moving on the battlefield.

Lastly, the Blond Boy was very talented in almost any sword technique and even had some magic to go with it. Wanting to use his talent to the fullest while he was still young, I made him master other types of weapons, being lances, axes, and even maces. The boy had quite a hard time but just as I suspected, he was able to get the hold of each weapon with some time. He had already learned several techniques of each weapon and was now sparring with Gaby, fiercely exchanging weapons and evading Gaby's destructive attacks.

While he was fighting bravely, I kept having this weird feeling that this boy had something hidden inside of him, so once again I tried to Appraise his status.

[NAME: Evan Godfrey

[CLASS: Resplendent Knight

[RACE: Human (Noble)

[LEVEL 37/999 EXP 12730/37000 STATUS: FINE

[HP: 092/141 MP: 146/252 STAMINA: 72/110

[STRENGTH: 211 (+20)

[DEFENCE: 130 (+30)

[MAGIC: 145

[RESISTANCE: 131 (+30)

[SPEED: 158

[CHARISMA: 100

[LUCK: 20

[SKILLS]

[Blessing of the God of Light: Apollo (Sealed)] [Apollo's Divine Protection (Sealed)]

[Glorious Epic of Evan Godfrey: The Hero of Shining Skies (Sealed)] [Hero's Seed (Sealed)]

[Hero's Virtue (Sealed)] [True Shining Awakening (Sealed)] [Noble's Blessing]

[Gift of Training] [Tireless Rookie] [Shining Heart]

[Basic Sword Techniques: 5] [Basic Light Magic: 3] [Shining Shield] [Pain Tolerance]

[Advanced Shining Sword Technique: 10] [Advanced Light Protection Magic: 4]

[Self-Stamina Recovery] [Shining Determination]

Those skills… I don't remember seeing those Sealed skills before… I can see them because I recently enhanced my Appraisal?

I became a little bit intimidated by this boy, he will become a Hero in the future, and will probably become my enemy, and even swear to kill me. For a moment, I seriously considered killing him right away.

As my bloodlust aura began to exude from my body, a strange system message popped in my mind.

Ding!

[Evan Godfrey: [Apollo's Divine Protection] has been unsealed]

[Apollo's Divine Protection] Prevents you from attacking it's protected]

[If you dare kill [Evan Godfrey], before the event [Realm War for Supremacy] is activated, disasters and horrible luck will befall upon you]

"Oh? So, I can't kill him, or horrible things will happen? These gods are certainly playing a game with all of us, aren't they?"

Well, the strange thing is that the [Divine Protection] didn't trigger when I enslaved him, so perhaps he was destined to be at my side?

I don't fear whatever catastrophe these "Gods" throws at me, but I don't think that my people can handle them. I don't want to put my beloved family in danger over my stupidity or ignorance.

"Very well, Apollo. I will pretend to have never seen that…"

Ding!

"Huh?"

[God of Light: Apollo has noticed your determination]

[Congratulations! Apollo's has taken a liking over you]

[Apollo's has given you his blessing alongside [Evan Godfrey] Epic ownership]

[Apollo's expect great things from you!]

"What is this bullshit?!"

After yelling this, all of my servants stopped training as they looked over me.

[You obtained a new Title]

[Blessed by the God of Light: Apollo]

[You learned the following Skill]

[Blessing of the God of Light: Apollo]

[Evan Godfrey] Epic has been devoured by your own [Epic of Caterpillar]

[Both of your destinies are entangled]

[You can now decide whenever you want [Evan Godfrey] to awaken his [Hero of Shining Skies] status]

[Whenever you come across a member of [Evan Godfrey] [Legendary Team], they will automatically belong to you]

[Awaiting Team Members: [Sacred Emissary (Awakened)], [Oceanic Warrior Lady (Sealed)], [Poisonous Tongue Assassin (Sealed), [Golden Flame Wyvern Prince (Awakened)]

"…"

The Archer and the Protector girl were close to me while training, so they began to worry and asked what was going on.

"M-Miss Kireina?"

"Lady Kireina, are you okay?"

"I-I'm fine… And what are you doing? Keep training! Everyone! Stop looking at me!"

All of my servants obediently resumed their trainings and pretended that nothing happened.

Most of the time, getting a God's Blessing would be something good, and I even managed to devour this boy [Epic], but something deep inside of me is telling me that the more these Gods are watching me, the worse things will get…

I don't even know what they want, what they desire? Do they want to play with us? Are we mere toys for them? Is this whole world a show for them? A book they're reading? I… I fear deep inside of me that things will become even worse in the future. To the point that I won't be able to handle all of it.

As my mind was getting all messed up, Rimuru, Nesiphae, Brontes, and Gaby came to my side and hugged me.

"Huh?"

It seems that they were able to tell my sudden uneasiness and came to assist me.

"Mastaa?"

"M-Master, relax…"

"Big sister?"

"Master, are you fine? We could feel your worried aura from meters away…"

Seeing their worried expression, something deep inside of my heart awakened.

We need to get stronger.

Stronger than anyone.

I will devour anything that gets in my way.

I looked at my wife's eyes as I gave them my most beautiful smile.

"There is nothing to worry about! Let's train and get stronger!"

My wives looked at each other with surprise over my sudden change. However, they also smiled at me while nodding

"Yes!"

In a world when you can get killed and devoured by the strong at any moment, there is little time to worry about a future that is yet to happen, for now, I must focus on the present and grow with my people, as fast as we can.

I continued fighting with the Archer woman and the Protector girl, polishing their skills. They began to be more friendly with me and didn't hold as much fear as before.

They told me that this training alone was more enlightening than their years of training with humans and that they liked the family atmosphere of my kingdom, saying that it was the complete opposite of humans who used to despise each other daily.

They really changed their view on us quite fast, but I still detect some fear and uneasiness in them, it will take more time for them to grow accustomed to all of us.

I thought about training the Blond Boy personally, now that he is my belonging and he's a future Hero, I may as well polish him as much as I can. The next days, he will go through an even worse training, I will make him so tired he won't even be able to move an inch. He will have to break all his limits before I allow him to awaken as a Hero.