Chapter 520
And when his position inverted, head below and feet above, his snow-white hair flowing against gravity like a waterfall cascading upward, the foot now at the highest point swung down, struck, and obliterated fifty of Theo's clones that had attempted to attack him from behind all at once.
The fifty clones did not vanish like bursting bubbles, but like candles whose flames had been quietly extinguished, without a sound, without resistance, leaving behind nothing except air that suddenly felt thinner where they had once stood.
The youngest landed, or rather, his left palm touched the ground first, for his body was still upside down, still suspended in a position impossible for any creature whose bones had not already been shattered by reversed gravity.
And the moment his left palm made contact with the ground, something happened.
Not an explosion.
Not a shockwave.
But a sudden silence, followed by flames that emerged not from the earth, but from the air, from space itself, from reality itself, as though existence had grown so unbearably weary that it decided to burn away everything unnecessary.
And every remaining one of Theo's clones, all 99,050 of them, was consumed within the very same second.
They did not scream.
They did not resist.
They had no chance to flee or create more clones, because those flames did not burn flesh, bone, or hair.
They burned existence itself.
They burned the very concept of "being" from every clone until each one disappeared like morning mist forgotten by the sun.
"Ha... ha... ha..." the youngest laughed from his still-inverted position.
The laughter rose from his chest into the air that remained warm from the flames that had only just faded, laughter shared only with himself, for there was no other god laughing beside him this time.
"Ninety-nine thousand one hundred clones," he said.
His voice sounded strange as he spoke with his head hanging downward, causing every word to fall toward the earth before echoing back into a ceiling that did not exist.
"And not a single one of them touched me. Not one came within a single centimeter of my skin. You know, Theo, for someone who's never held a sword, you're surprisingly... creative. But creativity, like courage, like curiosity, like every beautiful thing possessed by creatures destined to die, is useless before—"
He stopped.
Out of the corner of his inverted vision, he noticed something.
The real Theo.
The Theo who had never moved from the very beginning.
The Theo who stood exactly where he had always been, one hand in his pocket, his eyes half-closed, his expression unchanged by even a single millimeter since his clones had begun their assault.
He was casually flicking his left hand.
The motion was slow.
Far too slow for someone who had just lost one hundred thousand clones in a single second.
Far too relaxed to be considered the response of a man facing an enemy still standing upside down, his laughter lingering in the air.
Theo flicked his left hand as though brushing dust from a table after guests had left.
As though shaking water from his fingers after washing dishes.
As though performing the most ordinary gesture in the world amid the most extraordinary chaos imaginable.
And as he flicked that hand, his fingers began to wither.
They did not all fall away at once.
Instead, they decayed slowly.
Painfully slowly.
His little finger curled inward like a leaf dying beneath an endless drought, while his ring finger blackened at its tips like wood burning from the inside.
His middle finger snapped across two joints at once without making a sound.
His index finger blistered and peeled away like the discarded skin of a snake shedding itself, except there was no new skin beneath it.
And his thumb, the thickest, strongest, most unmistakably finger-like of them all, merely cracked.
One tiny fracture spread across the center of its nail before it too followed its four siblings, falling to the ground one after another.
No one heard them hit the earth.
Within the chaotic Land of the Gods, no one heard the sound of fingers touching the ground except the youngest, whose head remained lowered.
His eyes were no longer gray.
They had turned crimson.
Crimson like the sky after the oldest of storms.
Crimson like the flames that had devoured the clones moments ago.
Yet darker.
Hungrier.
Thirstier.
The first beat of the seven counterattacks arrived like an invisible gust of wind.
Yet Theo felt it.
A thin crimson line blossomed across his left cheek just beneath the cheekbone, and blood slowly trickled downward as though reluctant to abandon his face.
The youngest remained upside down, his left palm pressed firmly against the ground.
Yet his right leg had already spun into a pale arc of light that swept through the space between them.
"You know," Theo said as he touched the wound with fingertips that had already begun losing two of their joints.
"Wounds like this usually hurt a lot more when I still have intact nerves."
He let out a quiet laugh.
His voice was as calm as a lake without a ripple.
Meanwhile, three new clones quietly sprouted from his own shadow.
Not to attack.
Only to stand beside him like old friends accompanying someone suffering from a terminal illness.
The second attack descended from above.
The youngest leaped into the air, twisting his body in a movement that resembled a dance gone terribly wrong before bringing his heel crashing down toward Theo's right shoulder.
Something cracked.
Perhaps his collarbone.
Perhaps one of his upper ribs.
Yet Theo merely shook his head as though refusing the diagnosis delivered by pain itself.
"I once fell from a cliff over a thousand meters high," he said while wiping blood from the corner of his mouth.
"In a world where gravity was three times stronger than it is here. This wound... feels like being bitten by an ant having a very frustrating day."
Three fingers from his right hand had now fallen away, striking the ground with tiny sounds like grains of sand.
Yet Theo remained standing perfectly upright.
Not even his feet shifted a single centimeter from where they had first been planted.
The youngest frowned.
An unusual expression for the face of a god that was usually as emotionless as a ceremonial mask.
The third, fourth, and fifth attacks came within a single breath.
One kick swept across Theo's left knee until the ligaments stretched far beyond their limits.
One punch drove straight into his solar plexus, forcing the air from his lungs with the slow hiss of a leaking balloon.
And the fifth...
A palm pressed firmly against Theo's forehead, releasing waves of vibration powerful enough to pulverize a brain from within its own skull.
Yet Theo merely blinked.
Twice.
Then grinned through teeth already stained with blood.
"Hey, little god," he called.
His tone sounded like someone ordering coffee on a lazy morning.
"I think there's something you should know. The man who never bathed for a thousand years wasn't me. I'm just the guy who came through the eastern gate. Remember?"
He raised his left hand, now reduced to a single remaining finger, then pointed toward the youngest with a gesture that was almost comical.
The youngest took half a step backward.
Not out of fear.
But because, for the very first time, he experienced genuine confusion.
The sixth attack was different.
This time, the youngest did not attack Theo's body.
He attacked the space surrounding him.
The air solidified, transforming into invisible walls of glass before contracting like the throat of a colossal beast preparing to swallow its prey.
Trapped within it, Theo felt his bones begin to groan.
His ribs cracked.
His spine bent in the wrong direction.
Both of his eyes grew clouded with red as blood vessels burst beneath them.
Yet in the middle of it all, he was still able to whistle.
A short melody.
An unfamiliar tune drifted from lips split open at their corners.
"Do you remember," he whispered.
His voice sounded like dry leaves rustling in the wind.
"Erietta once said that gods like you are afraid of one thing."
To be continued…