Strongest Among the Heavens
Chapter 468: Oblivion

Chapter 468: Oblivion

Yomi belonged to Izanami. It was her Territory. Hers to control and shape. Yet this human manipulated the very darkness she controlled. Not just that but he wielded that darkness against her. The goddess of death, the queen of her own realm, whose origins lay in the beginnings of time—had lost control to a measly human.

The world was black. So black that light could not pierce through. There was Kazi, there was the sky and Izanami, and there was Primordial Darkness.

"WhAt...In the WoRlD are YoU...?"

Pure confusion rang in the goddess’ voice. A single nail, the tiniest fraction of her power was out there. She did not wish to admit, but with only this tiny fraction, perhaps she would have to concede some small amount to this mortal—

Shiiiing!

The world of black gained a crack. A crack that turned red, darkened, and then exploded. A beam of red light that had escaped, conformed into a humanoid shape, and then settled in the air.

"My armour...was not for my own sake, human. It was to contain my power; to weaken me so that I may enter this Tower."

Stripped of his armour and bare to the world was a divine scarlet entity. His beaming white eyes were the same. His mouth was of the same colour and stormy nature too. He spoke with pride and exhilaration. "I did not think I would rid myself of this armour. I thank you, mortal."

Waka-ikazuchi and Kazi Hossain.

Red lightning and Primordial Darkness.

His heart collapsed in of itself.

The barrier between Class Five and Six was infamous. It was a gap that was rarely ever crossed. Players or natives, it did not matter. Class Six was a dream.

"..."

A brief burst of laughter.

Red clashed against black. Sonic booms everywhere. The ground of shadows bending in a way it was not supposed. A whole city’s worth of territory bending like it was a child’s play thing. This was what it meant to be Class Six.

This was what it meant to be a true god.

Kazi felt amazing. This laughter, this power—it was all too amazing. The red creature of lightning blasted at him with the might of a hundred phoenixes and Kazi caught him with his two hands. A clone bloomed from his shoulder and hammered Waka-ikazuchi down.

Like a haunting ghost, he disappeared and reappeared and bounced the kami around.

"Hrnnngh!"

Waka-ikazuchi stopped himself mid-air and incinerated everything once again with his natural form of fire, expanding akin to a nuclear bomb. The explosions, the booms, all of it was natural at this stage of power.

Waka-ikazuchi also understood that Kazi himself was not here among the clones.

He had been down on the ground, arms crossed and observing. Standing there, posturing and studying him like he was some animal. This human had not lost control of himself at all. He was the same.

"How can he possess such darkly divine energy—as though...he is one of us!’

That left eye of his was the sole exception to the darkness consuming him. A tiny beam of blue light that winked.

What was he...?

No, he wasn’t just studying. He was peering into the future! He had—

"I see through you, motal!"

Waka-ikazuchi was indeed faster than Kazi. Faster in reaction time, in striking, in thinking. He was a young lightning kami and his existence and the life he led reflected that. He reacted exactly as he should have, exactly as the deity was taught.

Human ingenuity was renowned to threaten the gods. Athena had been jealous of Arachne’s weaving. Aphrodite envious of Psyche’s looks. Enlil, the Mesopotiam god of storm, sent down droughts and floods when he believed humanity became too "loud".

Excuses. All of them excuses.

When Waka-ikazuchi attempted to deliver punishment, his arm was lobbed off in turn. When he attempted to regrow the arm with his own divine energy, it did not work. When he raged and attempted to blast everything away, two dozen clones rammed into him from every direction and dissolved into Primordial Darkness.

The explosion was muffled and absorbed.

Several more clones appeared. In his haste, he retreated.

Where he slipped into the blade of the real Kazi. He gasped, he froze, and he realized his very essence was being swallowed up.

"Gargantua..."

"NO—!"

"Oblivion."

The Kami of Thunder had never experienced fear. He was young and greedy and obedient and did not experience outside that. Against this mortal, against this...thing, he experienced fear. He experienced what it meant to be losing.

Everything from Kazi to the Waka-ikazuchi to the realm of Yomi was swallowed by darkness.

...

...

...

They were back.

They were back to Matsue. The castle was back. The buildings and smell of fish freshly hung in the air.

Except...nobody was here. Not a soul.

Kazi Hossain dropped to one knee, panting. He whipped his head up. The sky...

It was still split open. The realm had changed and yet that mark stayed. If that was the case....

’Where is Izanami?’

She Who Invited.

She Who Created.

The divine mother who sculpted the lands of Japan from the endless void. Betrayed by fate, swallowed by death, she died birthing fire itself, her body torn asunder by the flames of Kagutsuchi. Her soul plummeted into Yomi, the land of the dead, where her beauty withered, and her love turned to wrath. When her husband, Izanagi, dared to seek her in the abyss, dared to look upon her decayed form, dared to flee in horror, she became a nightmare or so they say.

"There’s something wrong," he muttered. "I’m back but...I don’t hear the people. My eyes...my ears...I don’t feel a lick of humanity in this place. It’s...blank."

No hustle or bustle. No nighttime. It was a day of unnatural silence.

Suddenly, he remembered the people turning to dust. Literal specks that blew into the wind.

"No..."

"It appears your Primordial Darkness worked together with the Heavenly Tower to repel me."

The disembodied voice of a woman echoed from nowhere and everywhere. Kazi rose to his full height and witnessed as a crack emerged in the space in front of him. The crack spread, grew, and rippled, until a pale hand gripped onto the edges and pulled a slender woman through.

It was the only sound in this empty Matsue. The only indicator of life, the whir and crack of space-time. Bare feet planted into the ground. The woman herself did not breath and had to crack her bones into place.

Her hair was a demonic shade of purple and her eyes and cheeks were stained with black tears. She was smiling without an equal, without a speck of fear or danger.

This was a Shinigami.

This was Izanami.

This was...

’Pauline.’

"Get out of her body. Now." His eyes blackened, save for his left eye which pulsed dark hue of blue.

Pauline’s smile did not fade. Her long, transformed hair had adjusted in texture too. Curlier, more beautiful. The golden earrings and the purple kimono she now wore, everything about her had a sweet, demonic tint. A light seduction and a horrific scent.

"She is dead."

This was her corpse Izanami had seized. Although beautiful as ever, Pauline had lost that spark of life and in its place came a rotting stench.

"She was the first of my victims and so I left her here in case of an emergency. I am...so glad." She raised a finger, the nail touching his chin. "It seems you will not attack me so readily."

"..."

Her smile remained that way. It did not grow into a smirk or laughter. Izanami’s finger trails up his face and to his left eye. "Odin’s Eye...you possess Odin’s Eye. I had noticed before. I could not see. The Heavenly Tower is....truly a marvel, to be capable of blocking out the might of I even while weak. I doubt a feeble mortal like you understands how great the Heavenly Tower is. How it is a realm of realms like no other."

Her nail stopped and cupped his cheek. She was deathly cold. If she wanted to, she could melt his bones and drag him to Yomi.

"Or perhaps you do. After all, I can see that Odin’s Eye has not taken over in the slightest. You have utterly tamed it in your own way. With such a dense amount of mana from a Supreme God like Odin, you should be a demigod. But you are not. You are still human, no matter what form you take."

Kazi stared at her. A Supreme God, that was what she was. Izanami sat at the top of the hierarchy of power. It wasn’t solely her might, it was those around her. The Lightning Kami, the Yakusa-no-ikazuchi-no-kami, and the shikome. All hers. All deeply under her control.

Kazi had no choice but to listen. Her youngest son had drained him of the darkness in him. Her other, more powerful children would...