— — — — — —
When Shiroyasha grabbed hold of Ryo and stopped him, Indra, standing across from them, patted his chest in relief.
"Man, you scared the hell out of me. I almost thought I was done for."
He pointed at Ryo and complained loudly. "Hey, kid, were you planning to take me out too?"
Ryo didn't answer. He just stared at Indra, looking utterly speechless.
Putting aside the fact that the one standing here was only an avatar, Indra's true self was a natural god-buddha ranked in the three-digit tier.
Ryo seriously doubted that without burning his Cosmos, he could even break through Indra's defenses.
The jump from four-digit to three-digit wasn't just a step up in power. It was a complete expansion of the divine body. Even gods who once had weak physical forms lost that weakness once they reached the three-digit tier.
That was exactly the flaw Ryo had exploited against Zeus just now, relentlessly pressing the attack until Zeus ended up in such a miserable state.
If Zeus had already ascended to three-digit, Ryo wouldn't have dared show up at his door.
"Haha, don't look at me like that."
Indra rubbed his nose, then glanced at Zeus and spoke in a sincere tone.
"How about giving me some face and ending this here? At this point, both of you have already broken the rules set by the gods. If this keeps going, I'll have to step in as commander of the Heavenly Army and deal with you myself."
Zeus's eyes instantly turned red.
This bastard had just beaten him senseless several times, stepped on his face, poisoned him three separate times, and now Indra was telling him to just forget about it?
If you're going to take sides, at least pretend you're being fair!
On the other side, Ryo let out a cold laugh. "Stop fighting? Heh."
He didn't say anything else, but the threat was obvious.
"Shut it."
Shiroyasha rolled her eyes.
Right now she was in the form of an eighteen-year-old adult, having temporarily shed her restrictions and partially restored her spirit rank.
In terms of raw power, she was firmly at the standard three-digit level, so holding Ryo back was effortless.
"Seriously. You just show up and start beating people without even saying a word. Getting bold, aren't you?"
Her tone sounded like a scolding complaint, yet there wasn't the slightest mention of punishment.
After all, Ryo was a rare four-digit rule-breaker directly under her command, someone not yet bound by the gods' rules. She'd wanted a subordinate like that for ages.
Every two-digit powerhouse in the Little Garden had at least one four-digit freak working under them. Everyone except her.
Now that one had finally appeared, she was absolutely going to protect him. Otherwise Zeus might actually beat him to death.
The Greek king of gods had clearly gone mad. He'd even brought out the authority-divine weapons he'd refined himself, ready to smash Ryo to death with sheer power.
After taking a closer look, Shiroyasha estimated Zeus had at least two thousand authority weapons.
That number was frightening. It was close to the upper limit needed to collect every system in Little Garden and ascend to the two-digit rank.
That sneaky bastard had been hiding in the lower layers all this time just to leap straight past the three-digit boundary and reach two-digit in one step. What a devious plan.
"Indra."
Zeus stared darkly at Ryo, his voice low. "The rule says four-digit rule-breakers aren't allowed to fight in the lower layers. But that refers to gods of the four-digit rank. The one standing in front of me is a human, not a god. That should put him outside the rules, shouldn't it?"
"Oh, give me a break."
Indra rolled his eyes and clapped Zeus on the shoulder. "Anyone with power at the four-digit rule-breaker level isn't allowed to fight freely in the lower layers. If they want to fight, it has to be in a Gift Game arena, and the battle has to be approved by the Heavenly Army."
"There's nothing in the rule saying both sides have to be gods. What you're talking about is just an unwritten assumption."
At that, Indra gave Ryo a meaningful look. "When the rules were written, nobody imagined a human would ever become a four-digit rule-breaker."
"But it's easy enough to deal with. I'm one of the founders of Little Garden, and Lady Shiroyasha here is a two-digit. If the two of us agree, we can simply add a clarification to the rules."
"So…"
With a casual wave of his hand, space shattered. The divine weapons gathering behind Zeus exploded apart before they could be launched.
Indra sneered. "Behave yourself. Were you seriously trying to sneak attack?"
Zeus didn't respond. He simply pushed Indra's hand away, removed his divine armor, and revealed the freshly created robe underneath. Then he snorted at Ryo.
"Looks like you managed to pick your life back up."
"Too bad," Ryo replied with a regretful expression. "I didn't kill you fast enough."
And he meant it.
If he didn't kill Zeus now while he was still in the four-digit tier, while his divine body still had weaknesses, the chances later would only get slimmer.
After today's fight, Zeus would definitely reinforce his physical defenses.
Push him too hard and Zeus might simply ascend to the three-digit level outright.
In truth, Zeus had been capable of that for a long time. He had already gone far along the path of the three-digit domain. Once he completed the ascension, he would head to the upper layers where three-digit beings could unleash their full strength.
At that point, the gap between him and Ryo would be enormous. Killing him would become nearly impossible.
"Good grief. You really were trying to kill him," Indra muttered, clicking his tongue.
He'd never seen someone as ruthless as Ryo.
Showing up and immediately trying to kill Zeus?
Wasn't this supposed to be just a challenge?
Back when he'd been chatting with his colleagues, they'd all assumed it would be a friendly match.
Something like Zeus and Ryo picking a location, sparring a little, Ryo eventually admitting defeat, offering a small apology gift, releasing Hermes and Ares's main avatars, and calling it a day.
But what actually happened?
This guy had secretly infiltrated Mount Olympus and nearly killed the king of the greek gods.
Thinking about it, Indra turned toward Shiroyasha with a questioning look.
Your kid is this savage? You knew that?
Shiroyasha lifted her chin proudly.
Of course. Whose subordinate do you think he is?
While the two exchanged looks, Zeus was still making threats, "Next time, I won't give you another chance."
"The Scorpion Demoness' venom, even the first strange toxin you used. I've already neutralized them all. You're out of tricks now… Hiss!"
Right in the middle of his speech, a bottle filled with red liquid slipped out from Ryo's clothes and clinked onto the ground.
The sheer toxicity radiating from it made even Zeus suck in a breath.
Individually, the poison probably wouldn't kill him.
But if he had already been hit by those three strange toxins earlier and then got hit with this on top of them…
Stack poison on poison like that, and he might actually have died.
Damn it. Did Athena pick this guy because she wanted him to invent a poison capable of killing me?
She really is my dear daughter.
"What kind of blood is that? It's insanely toxic."
Shiroyasha stared wide-eyed at the glass bottle on the ground.
So Ryo had been carrying that thing on him just now… while she had her arm around him?
Uh… that's unsettling.
"As a human who happens to specialize in poison," Ryo said with an awkward laugh, crouching down to pick up the bottle, "it's perfectly normal for me to carry some toxic blood around, right?"
But as he bent down, another purple glass bottle slipped out of his clothes and dropped to the floor.
"..."
For a moment, the entire scene fell into a painfully awkward silence.
.
.
.