Chapter 348: Mantis Stalks the Cicada I

Kavon - Two Days After The Destruction of the Primordial Humans’ Round Table

Using his Laws and his Stealth skill, Kavon moved into the universe of the Eldritch Terrors, bypassing the large amorphous tentacles of the five Terror gods hovering in the empty space around the portal.

Then, as quietly as he could, he began to take over the local Territory.

Contact with the enemy was never simple, however, and one of the Terrors seemed to notice what he was doing, wasting energy to create a large black cloud of demonic power that flooded over the entire area.

Kavon could no longer hide. So, he had to fight instead.

Summoning out his armor, rune-covered silvery plate made by his mother from God rank materials, and his weapon, a large staff that matched his armor, he launched himself at X’n’yac G’r’nzaw, the mage among the five Terrors, and not the scout who’d noticed him.

Terrors came in five varieties.

Workers were the most common, effectively the base model of the other four types. They looked like three-tentacles coming out of a slime-covered sphere when they were G ranks, usually various shades of dark green in color, and they gained three extra tentacles upon each rank advancement, along with a giant many-toothed mouth upon reaching C rank.

The weakest of the Terrors, there were none amongst their gods, but they were the most numerous.

Warriors were almost exactly like the workers, but twice the size, and they quadrupled their bulk every time they increased in rank, warrior gods roughly the size of small planets.

Physically, they were stronger than almost any other race in the multiverse, but they were incredibly, incredibly stupid, so they were generally the least threatening of the Terror gods.

Scouts were smaller than warriors, only ending up about the size of a small moon upon reaching godhood, but they looked similar, albeit with thinner tentacles, an extra pair of eyestalks near their giant mouths upon advancing to C rank, and colored more in browns and dark reds.

They were smarter. Their senses were the best of all Terror types. And they were usually quite quick as well, despite their bulk, making them the second most dangerous type of Terror.

Then there were the Broodmothers, giant amorphous sacks of slimy brown flesh that started about the size of a small city at G rank and grew to the size of a relatively large star upon advancing to godhood. They were the source of all the other Terror types, the females of the species, and they could usually be found with at least twenty-four male Terrors breeding with them at any time, all at least at the same rank or higher.

They had almost no combat capabilities, but all the other Terrors in an area would go suicidally insane to kill anyone who messed with one.

Finally, the most dangerous of the Terrors were the Mages.

Significantly smaller than the other types, staying roughly the same size throughout every rank advancement, they were generally dark yellow in color and otherwise looked almost exactly like workers, but they could use magic from birth.

X’n’yac G’r’nzaw, for example, was born with an innate control over the space and wind elements, and, upon advancing to godhood, his level of control over his energy had been about the same as Kavon’s own upon advancement. And this was normal for Terror mages.

Thankfully, nearly all their power was innate, so almost no Terror gods ever advanced at all after their apotheosis, and their only exception, their elder god X’r’ak, was a scout, not a mage, so the beasts were still manageable.

Still, a group of three warriors, a scout, and a mage was a powerful unit at the God rank, and Kavon was in for a tough fight if he didn’t take out the mage first, one that might last long enough for other Terror gods in the universe to sense the disturbance and come to help out.

So, Kavon killed X’n’yac G’r’nzaw as quickly as he could, appearing next to the beast with a teleport before the Terror gods could fully grasp if the scout had actually sensed something. Then he charged up the power of yang on one side of his staff and the power of yin on the other and released both in a spiral of white and black energy two meters in diameter that blasted through the mage’s core.

Given mages were the weakest defensively of all Terror types, and X’n’yac G’r’nzaw hadn’t put up any defenses, likely not yet realizing he was in for a fight, he almost instantly died. And then Kavon was by far the best ranged combatant in the area.

Teleporting further away from the portal to the Prime Material, he kept using part of his mind to take over the local Territory, but the rest was purely in combat mode.

Flooding his staff with space element mana, he bent the space around the three warrior gods, creating a contained demiplane about the size of a small sun, and then he started launching yin yang spiral attacks at the scout, aiming each one to take out at least one tentacle on their way to the god’s core.

Given Kavon had formed his divine foundation on the Yin Yang Cosmology cultivation technique, his yin yang combination attacks were far beyond strong enough to penetrate through at least three tentacles on their way to the scout god’s core. Then, given he’d also raised his earth, wind, and space element Laws to the True Law level as well, his created demiplane was flawless, giving the warrior gods nothing to hit but each other, so they were not going to get out. And, given his darkness element True Law could have advanced to middle grade if he were not deliberately holding it back, his stealth was not something even a sensory focused scout god would be able to see through, so he could attack with impunity.

It took him about five minutes, but the scout died, and then he just ignored the three warriors, continuing to take over the Territory.

No longer having to worry about the local Terror gods, he also started setting up a powerful formation around the portal to the Prime Material, and, about three hours later, the portal opened wider and his mother stepped through.

With a wave of her hand, a blast of yin yang power tore into the demiplane he’d created, shattered it into pieces, and completely burnt through the three huge warrior gods, leaving them charred and frozen dead hunks of necrotic and overgrown flesh.

Then she moved forward, her stealth a level above Kavon’s own, and Kavon stayed near the portal to defend their escape route in case something went wrong, his mother’s ancestor and former master, the Silent Shadow, guarding the portal’s other side.

Nothing happened for the first hour or so, but then everything started to go very, very wrong.

“Who exactly is your father?” A mana wave voice Kavon recognized emanated from beside him and Kavon turned to his right and slightly down to see what looked like a small human child standing right next to him in space, plain in appearance with tanned skin, dark hair, and abnormally large brown eyes. “I’ve always wanted to know.”

The Divine Child, Arthur Algebrute, turned to look up at him. “I never did manage to find out.”

Using all his power, Kavon attempted to send a burst of yin yang energy out into the Eldritch Terrors’ universe, the planned signal to tell his mother that they had to retreat, but, as expected, it didn’t work. The elder god of sin and devouring next to him just opened his little mouth and all the energy Kavon had emitted was sucked right in, not able to move more than a few kilometers before being completely devoured.

The small amount of energy he’d sent through the portal, however, did manage to go through, but it was altered somehow while passing through the elder god’s aura, changed in frequency from their signal that another elder god had somehow interfered to the signal to come help.

The Silent Shadow, covered in dark armor with his wings out wide, immediately flew through the portal and Kavon watched in horror as the Divine Child just casually reached out, somehow collapsed the space in between himself and the powerful god, and grabbed Kavon’s ancestor by his right ankle, pulling him close. An evil red flame then formed on the Silent Shadow’s foot and, quicker than Kavon could follow, the ancient god was burning, roasting to death in the fires of karmic sin right in front of him.

“Are you going to answer the question?” The Divine Child looked up at him while reaching out a hand, breaking off one of his ancestor’s charred fingers, and putting the digit in his mouth before starting to chew. “It’s rather rude not to, don’t you think?”

“Um.” Kavon felt his wings, hands, and then his entire body start to shake. “My father was a C rank messenger who never made it to B rank. He bit off more than he could chew by using eight elements to form his core and couldn’t advance his last Law fast enough to reach B rank.”

“Interesting.” Somehow not appearing to move fast to Kavon’s senses, but obviously moving at incredible speed, the Divine Child tore off the second of his ancestor’s wings, crushed it down into a small ball, and then tossed it into his mouth. “Thanks for telling me. I’ve always wanted to know.”

Opening his mouth wider, too wide to be physically possible for a normal human, the Divine Child breathed in, the remaining pieces of the Silent Shadow’s corpse somehow shrinking and entering into his mouth. And then Kavon felt his own body compress, the distance between the atoms that made up his form shrinking, and he flew down the Divine Child’s esophagus to the fiery hellscape that was the elder god’s stomach.

There, unlike his ancestor, he didn’t burn and he didn’t die. Instead, he felt as his body was slowly, ever so slowly, dissolved, and he was wracked by a soul tearing agony as his power was torn away from him bit by bit for what felt like the next hundred thousand years.