Strongest Among the Heavens
Chapter 492: Territory Creation

Chapter 492: Territory Creation

Sun-young did not ask questions.

She never did.

She unsheathed her wooden sword and with a single controlled breath, she slammed it into the ground.

BOOM.

Her sword ruptured the earth, sending a violent shockwave across the Slums. Dust and debris scattered into the air. The nearby shack shook at its foundation, the wooden walls groaning under the sudden impact.

Inside, the cultists froze mid-game.

The door of the shack was flung open.

Figures emerged, their robes swaying as they stepped out, eyes filled with mild confusion, then immediate wariness. They recognized what stood before them.

A woman in Templar white.

An enemy.

Sun-young was already attacking. She lowered her stance, gripping her wooden sword with both hands. Her posture was flawless—stable, powerful, precise. The space around her seemed to bend in response, a mighty power-up of anti-magic.

One cultist reacted too slowly.

She was already in front of him.

A single horizontal swing.

His body folded backward unnaturally, his ribs audibly caving in. He flew into the wall of the shack with a sickening crunch.

That was all it took.

The battle began.

Dasha, hidden in the nearby shadows, watched with sharp eyes.

Sun-young was a warrior through and through. She was not just powerful; she was calculated. She did not overextend. She did not waste movement. Every strike was measured, every block leading into a counterattack. She fought with purpose.

And that purpose, right now, was to make as much noise as possible.

More cultists poured out of the shack, their weapons drawn—curved daggers, rusted swords, even farming tools repurposed for battle. It didn’t matter. Sun-young waded through them like an executioner, her anti-magic sword cleaving through weapons, flesh, and spells alike.

But she wasn’t here to wipe them out. She was here to distract.

And she was doing a damn good job. Once Dasha decided he analyzed enough of her fighting style, he slipped inside the shack, totally invisible.

Only a handful of cultists remained—three in total, all still seated around a single Mehen board. They were focused. Too focused. Dasha narrowed his eyes. ’They’re attempting to warn whoever is inside the Territory.’

His first kill was instant.

A quick, clean hand strike to the throat. The cultist’s neck snapped with a sickening twist, his body slumping forward onto the board.

The other two barely had time to react. The second tried to rise, but Dasha’s index found his heart before he could scream. The last one—an old man, trembling—finally noticed. His eyes widened in shock, mouth opening to call for help.

Dasha’s fingers wrapped around his face. A sharp twist.

Snap.

The shack was silent again. No more marble and no more games.

Dasha was already moving toward the center of the room.

The magic circles beneath the game boards were intricate, layered with glyphs and old, forgotten symbols. His Qi Sense flared, allowing him to feel the energy pulsing beneath them.

Dasha crouched down, pressing a hand to the ground. Every single board game was an anchor point. The gateway between the shack and the Territory. Where he stood, the middle, was where the anchor lay the heaviest and yet without a board.

The problem was simple. This gate could only be activated from the other side. He had to do two things at once. One: Manually force the activation. Two: Ensure that the entrance didn’t collapse the moment he stepped through.

He took a slow breath. He gently ripped up the floor to reveal the hieroglyphics. With the utmost precision, he summoned a Black Card and manipulated its properties from simple destruction to something in between. Typically, he used Fire Finger to create magic circles. It was what he did during his creation of Dream Meth. He learned from Elise Thornton and Viktor Lysenko of Circle Edits. A high-level technique where a magic user focused mana/Qi in their finger or whatever shape they were most comfortable with, whether it be a pen or a quill, and had their mana act as a flexible, malleable ink that connected and edited the magic circle instantly.

Magic circles all had their own elasticity. Some were rigged tightly, impossible to edit, while others were simple. This tended to correlate with the complexity of a magic circle. The greater a circle’s complexity, the harder it was to edit without destroying everything.

By focusing with the black card, using it like a pen and eraser, Dasha started adjusting. It was delicate work. Like untangling a knot without breaking the thread.

Bit by bit, he adjusted the flow of energy, bypassing the standard activation method. His fingers traced over the ancient Egyptian symbols, rewiring their purpose, twisting their function.

There was a click. There was a hum. There was a change.

The Mehen board to his left shimmered and in its place came a portal. A spiraling black void.

Dasha side-eyed and waited until the distortion stabilized. Yes, the Territory opened up properly. He adjusted his sleeves.

His Qi Sense suddenly disappeared again.

He turned.

Sun-young stood at the shack’s entrance, blood splattered across her armor. She glanced at him. Then at the portal.

"You did it," she stated.

"I do my best."

"Let’s go."

Without hesitation, she hopped in. Dasha followed. The darkness swallowed them both.

...

...

...

Dasha’s feet landed on cold, polished stone. A castle. Territory Creation could create anything. The god responsible chose a castle.

The architecture was old, impossibly old—a gothic monstrosity of spires and archways that stretched beyond his vision. The ceilings were high, vaulted, with chandeliers hanging from iron chains, dripping wax from long-dead candles. The air stank of incense and decay.

The floor moved.

The entire castle shuddered.

The stone itself groaned like a living beast, and in that instant, everything fell apart.

Sun-young was suddenly below him, plummeting as the ground beneath her split open.

Dasha barely had time to react before the wall to his side juttedoutward like a piston, forcinghimtojump. His body twisted in midair, moving purely on instinct, landing him on a narrowstonehallway above the crumbling chamber.

A trap.

This entire castle was alive.

Dasha narrowed his eyes, but he did not panic. He merely exhaled and observed.

Sun-young was gone, lost somewhere in the lower levels.

And he—

His Qi Sense flared to life. From the dark recesses of the hallway, from the cracks in the walls and the spaces between the stones...

Snakes.

Hundreds of them.

They slithered forth in a hissing tide, their bodies unnaturally long, black as night, their scales reflecting dim candlelight. Some were small, no thicker than a finger. Others were massive, coiled and waiting, their fangs glistening.

They did not strike immediately.

Instead, they watched.

Dasha’s fingers curled slightly, his stance shifting ever so subtly. A thought flickered through his mind.

The fact that they aren’t attacking means something is wrong.

This was Mehen’s Territory.

A god’s domain was absolute. There was no reason for hesitation. If the creator of this Territory made this alone, Dasha should already be dead. It would be a Class 6 or 7 entity he would be dealing with.

Yet the unknown creator had not struck.

The snakes continued to watch.

Dasha’s lips parted slightly.

"Mehen," he called into the darkness. His voice was steady. "You are here, aren’t you?"

For a moment, nothing.

A laugh.

A deep, echoing chuckle that reverberated through the very stone.

"You speak my name so casually," the voice slithered, the tone both ancient and bitter. "You know of me, yet you do not kneel."

Dasha did not move. From the moment he saw the board games, he understood what the cult and what this Territory was truly about.

"I do not kneel to weak gods."

That was he did not negotiate.

The castle groaned again.

The hallway stretched, warped unnaturally, twisting into an impossible corridor that extended infinitely in both directions. The snakes around him stirred, their hissing growing in volume.

From the far end of the corridor, something massive began to move.

Dasha’s pupils contracted.

A head.

A serpent’s head, impossibly large, its eyes glowing like molten gold. The body of the snake filled the entire width of the corridor, its coils endless, layered upon one another, pressing against the walls.

Mehen.

The god of the underworld’s passage.

The guardian of Ra’s journey.

A deity forgotten and discarded.

His presence was suffocating, pressing down like the weight of the abyss itself. But Dasha noticed something strange.

Mehen’s body was faded at the edges, almost translucent.

Weak.

"Your power is failing," he stated.

Mehen’s golden eyes narrowed.

"My power wanes, but do not mistake my weakness for mercy."

The snakes surged forward.

A sea of black scales and fangs, striking from all angles at once.

Dasha’s Qi Sense told him everything he needed to know.

His body twisted, dodging with inhuman precision, his every motion controlled, his mind processing attacks before they fully formed. He grabbed a lunging serpent mid-air, twisting its head and snapping its spine in one fluid motion.

Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam!

So many strikes. Too many.

A twentieth snake struck from below. Dasha pivoted, his hand slamming downward...

"Thunder Clap Palm."

Sending a precise shockwave of Qi through the ground. The force ruptured the floor and several of the creatures itself.

He landed lightly, his breath even.

The snakes hesitated.

Dasha exhaled. "You don’t have enough power to kill me," he muttered. "That’s why you haven’t."

Mehen’s golden eyes flickered.

Dasha continued, stepping forward, unfazed.

"Your Territory is crumbling. Your power is fractured."

Mehen hissed. "And yet, you are trapped in my domain."

Dasha stopped.

"Am I? Or are you trapped in here with me?"

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