Chapter 30

Chapter 30. NONAME

Three had been wiped out in the blink of an eye.

Something that shouldn't be possible.

Something that shouldn't be allowed.

The War of the Gods.

Since that dark age when the history of Asgard was written in blood, there had never been a stretch where gods were annihilated in such rapid succession.

"......This can't be."

The investigators were aghast.

They moved immediately.

The coordinates: Floors 18, 15, and 12.

The territories of the slain gods.

The scenes they arrived at were not gruesome.

If anything, they were far too clean.

And that made the horror worse.

"There are...... no traces."

Floor 18, the Plague Swamplands.

An investigator reported, his voice shaking.

There were zero signs of battle.

Not even a hint of resistance.

It was as though someone had strolled in, lopped off a head, and vanished.

"They must have been warned?"

Investigation Chief Abdulla furrowed his brow.

After the deaths of Kartal and Caligo, a state of emergency had been declared across all of Asgard.

The Lesser gods had been warned repeatedly.

Strengthen your territorial defenses. Control all entry by outsiders with absolute strictness.

And yet they'd still been hit.

The defensive wards were intact.

The traps hadn't been triggered.

It was as though the culprit had passed through the walls like a ghost and walked right into the bedchamber.

"Chief! Floors 15 and 12 are the same!"

"They've been vaporized! Not even a shard of Divinity remains!"

Reports came flooding in.

Abdulla clenched his fists.

'A god hunter.'

The culprit was a phantom.

Mocking the gods' defensive systems.

That was when it happened.

Ding!

[Grave Tidings.]
[The master of Tower Floor 9, the 'Lesser God of Thorns,' has been slain.]

Another one.

In the middle of the investigation, yet another god had fallen.

A chill ran down Abdulla's spine.

This was not hunting.

This was slaughter.

The culprit was descending floor by floor, erasing gods as if kicking down dojos.

"Why? Why can't they even fight back?"

Abdulla racked his brain.

They were Lesser gods.

No matter how weak, the power of a divine body was nothing to scoff at.

And yet they were dying without so much as a scream?

There was only one explanation.

Their attention had been elsewhere.

"The Game."

Abdulla muttered.

Episode 3 had just begun on Earth.

A time of massive Disasters and the tantalizing reward of runes.

The Lesser gods would have lost their minds over it.

"They took their focus off their true bodies."

It was the chronic ailment of Lesser gods.

They over-immersed in their Avatars.

Runes and Mythic-grade equipment obtained on Earth were attractive enhancement tools even for them.

Especially when a window of opportunity like this opened—they minimized the consciousness devoted to their true bodies and channeled all mental energy into their Avatars.

Just like a gamer who logs in and neglects their physical body.

"Robbing empty houses......"

The culprit had exploited exactly that.

They knew.

That this was when the Lesser gods were at their most vulnerable.

That the most greedy moment was also the most lethal.

"We can't go on like this."

A deputy cried out urgently.

"That's four today alone. We can't keep taking losses without even knowing who the culprit is!"

"......You're right. We must find out."

Abdulla's eyes flashed.

The culprit's method was clear.

They targeted gods whose attention was absorbed in the Game.

That meant the target pool could be narrowed.

The Avatars currently connected to Earth.

They were the next prey.

But there was a problem.

Anonymity.

Gods did not disclose their Avatar identities.

It was the unwritten rule of the Game, and a matter of pride.

Who was where doing what—even the Investigation Team couldn't know.

Without that information, they could neither protect anyone nor set a trap.

"There's no more room to retreat."

Abdulla made his decision.

At this rate, every Lesser god would be wiped out.

Rules didn't matter anymore.

This was a matter of survival.

"I'm petitioning the higher-ups."

He spun around, cloak billowing.

His destination: the Garden of the Gods.

The council chamber where the Supreme Tier gods convened.

"I'm requesting a forced disclosure."

"Ch-Chief? You don't mean......"

"I do. I'm going to make public the Avatar roster of every Lesser god currently participating in the Game."

Abdulla's voice cut like frost.

"The 'god hunter' clearly knows the roster of gods participating in the Game."

There was no other explanation.

Therefore.

"We need to know who is on Earth, where they are, and what names they're using—otherwise we can't catch this killer."

Breaking the taboo.

Even if it meant forcibly exposing the gods' identities, they had to catch this insane hunter's trail.

Abdulla was certain.

The culprit was inside the Tower.

And from somewhere very close, they might be enjoying this very situation.

'Just you wait, god hunter.'

GRIND!

Abdulla ground his teeth.

If the culprit wasn't found, the Investigation Team's credibility would plummet.

The reputation painstakingly built over the years would be reduced to scrap.

The Investigation Team could not afford to let this go unchecked.

'Whoever you are, I will find you and tear you to shreds.'

***

Just as expected.

The golden rune on my right hand was vibrating like mad.

Pointing directions like a compass.

The positions of Avatars generating Disasters were being pinpointed in real time.

I didn't hesitate.

Episode 3, the prologue of the Great Calamity.

I exploited the chaos and began the hunt.

First, the earthquake in Gangnam.

Second, the tsunami at Haeundae.

Third, the wildfire on Seoraksan.

And finally, the collapse in Daejeon.

Four Avatars, hunted in sequence.

They'd had their guards down.

So absorbed in engineering the Great Calamity, they hadn't noticed the Grim Reaper standing behind them.

The hunt had been easy.

No—almost anticlimactic.

I cut their throats and absorbed their Divinity.

The Authorities inside me stirred.

Earthquake, tsunami, flame, collapse.

New powers were stacking up, layer by layer.

But it wasn't over yet.

One more line remained.

And it was a thick, vivid, intensely golden one.

The final puzzle piece.

The one who would crown the Great Calamity at its apex.

GROOOOAN!

The sky above Seoul was torn apart.

The Demonic Beast of Black Greed descended.

At the same time, the golden line guiding me snapped.

The Authority usage had ceased the moment the Great Calamity was completed.

I could no longer pinpoint the location.

'Damn it.'

I bit my lip.

Had I lost them?

No—that couldn't be.

They had to be nearby.

They'd come to hunt their own creation, the Demonic Beast of Black Greed.

They'd try to hoard the runes.

I leaped onto a building rooftop.

I looked down at the battlefield.

It was pandemonium.

Buildings were crumbling under the black lightning the beast spewed.

People screamed and ran. The military was helpless.

And within that chaos, one figure stood out.

"Kahahahaha! It's mine!"

A laugh drenched in madness.

A man charged headlong at the Demonic Beast.

In his hand was a bottle filled with golden liquid.

Nectar.

And not just any—a high-purity, genuine article overflowing with sacred energy.

'Lunatic.'

Drinking Nectar out in the open?

It meant he had no intention of hiding what he was.

Or was it that he was that confident?

An arrogance that said no one could stop him.

The man tipped the Nectar back.

WHOOSH!

Crimson flames erupted from his body.

This was no simple fire magic.

It was a Disaster itself, imbued with divine might.

I looked at his face.

And the breath caught in my throat.

"......Choi Taemin."

He was familiar.

A face I knew all too well.

A friend of ten years.

The one who had put an arm around my shoulder at my parents' funeral and wept with me.

The only companion who had stayed by my side during my darkest hour.

And the comrade who had later joined the Final Strike Force, climbed the Tower, and gone missing.

'You too?'

Betrayal surged through me.

First Kim Insu, now Choi Taemin.

The people who had been at every critical juncture of my life had, in truth, been gods' Avatars.

No—that wasn't right.

Choi Taemin wasn't an Avatar.

He had been a real human being.

The memories of drinking together, sharing our troubles—those remained.

Then there was only one answer.

'Possession.'

A god had seized his body.

It had consumed Choi Taemin's soul and taken its place.

'Since when?'

I couldn't know.

But one thing was certain: the man inside that inferno was not my friend Choi Taemin.

'Damn it all.'

I clenched my fists.

My nails broke the skin.

A monster wearing my friend's face.

A god trampling on someone precious to me, savoring the Game.

Unforgivable.

He couldn't be allowed to live.

But if I devoured his Divinity, Choi Taemin's body would die too.

Just as it had with Kim Insu.

Rapid aging, followed by death.

And yet, if I let him live, he'd continue to deceive humanity.

He'd only become harder to catch later.

He'd become everyone's hero, steadily amassing power.

By then, reclaiming Choi Taemin's body would be next to impossible.

No—it might already be too late.

But I couldn't not try.

I clamped down on my lip.

The taste of blood.

The hesitation was long, but the decision was instant.

The answer had been decided from the start.

'I kill him.'

First, the god dies.

***

Choi Taemin wiped his mouth.

He tossed the empty bottle in his hand to the ground.

CLINK.

Glass shards scattered.

"Hoo......"

A scorching breath.

His veins bulged and writhed.

High-concentration Nectar.

An amount that would have burst an ordinary Avatar apart.

But he absorbed it.

Because his true form—the high-ranking fire god—was greedy.

'This time, I win.'

Choi Taemin's eyes smoldered.

The humiliation of Episode 2.

A fourth-place finish had scratched the pride of a god.

Unacceptable.

Being overtaken by some nobody called 'NONAME,' some unidentifiable wretch—it infuriated him.

'First place in the Hall of Fame.'

That seat was his.

It should have been his all along.

CRASH—!

Flames erupted from his body.

The fire of a Calamity, imbued with Divinity.

He began to walk.

Into the eye of the storm where black lightning raged.

ZZT! POP!

Streetlights burst.

The electronic billboard went dark.

Inside the Great Calamity.

It was a zone where civilization was rejected.

All electronics went dead. Communications were severed.

An impenetrable darkness where human eyes couldn't see an inch ahead.

But Choi Taemin could see.

Because his eyes were a god's eyes.

"Found you."

Far ahead.

Between the husks of collapsed buildings.

A massive shadow writhed.

The Demonic Beast of Black Greed.

The star of this episode—and a treasure chest packed with runes.

"Heh heh heh......"

Laughter seeped out.

No one else was here.

The other Avatars would be floundering outside the barrier.

The only one who could penetrate this dense concentration of Calamity was himself, bolstered by high-grade Nectar.

'All mine.'

Kill that monster, and the runes were his.

With that power, he'd strengthen his true body and raise his Avatar's caliber.

Then he could crush NONAME and everyone else underfoot.

A flawless scenario.

Choi Taemin extended his hand.

He was about to conjure a massive fireball.

SHHK!

A spine-chilling sound of rupture.

It wasn't the sound of parting wind.

It was the sound of space being torn.

"......!"

He jerked his head aside on pure instinct.

If he hadn't, his head would have been taken clean off.

A cold sensation grazed his cheek.

Followed by a hot liquid trickling down.

Blood.

"......What?"

Choi Taemin touched his cheek, dazed.

The wound wasn't deep.

But something was wrong.

It wasn't healing.

He had consumed Nectar. His Divinity was active.

A scratch like this should have regenerated in an instant.

And yet the wound burned as though smoldering, and the bleeding wouldn't stop.

'Sacred energy?'

He turned his head.

The object that had grazed his cheek.

It was embedded in the ground, humming.

A sword.

A noble Holy Sword, radiating a blinding white light.

"A Holy Sword......?"

It made no sense.

At this point in time, there shouldn't be an Avatar wielding a Holy Sword.

A Holy Sword was an object housing an Archangel.

One that followed a mere Avatar rather than a god's true body was virtually unheard of.

"Who's there."

Choi Taemin growled.

He raised his gaze.

He traced the trajectory from which the blade had flown.

A collapsed building's rooftop.

Someone was standing there.

A man clad in black armor.

His face was hidden behind a helm.

But the aura could be felt.

The energy pouring off him.

'Divinity.'

He was certain.

The man smelled the same as him.

No—perhaps a Divinity even denser and more savage.

'An Avatar?'

Choi Taemin's mind raced.

Had that one also guzzled Nectar?

Was that how he'd gotten inside the barrier?

If so, he was a competitor.

A hyena who had come for the beast.

But there was one thing he couldn't understand.

The man's killing intent.

It was aimed not at the beast, but squarely at him.

'Why me?'

If the man wanted runes, he should attack the beast.

There was no reason to pick a fight with a fellow Avatar—especially one augmented with Nectar.

The risk was too great.

And yet that man had hurled a Holy Sword without hesitation.

As though he had come to kill him from the very start.

"Don't tell me......"

A name flickered through his mind.

The overwhelming point gap.

The unnamed first place.

If it was a Holy Sword wielder, it all added up.

No one without a Holy Sword could have achieved such a score.

A bitter smile settled on Choi Taemin's lips.

At the same time, his gaze turned savage.

"......It's you."

He ignited flames in his hand.

"Are you NONAME?"