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"You've grown stronger."
Once she saw that Anos had finished, Ophis stopped maintaining Forbidden Spell Paradise and came over to his side.
She had not expected that, with a body like this, he would actually be able to kill a god.
As expected, her judgment had not been wrong.
This time, she might really have found the person she had been looking for.
"Ophis, if a contract is made, then seeing it through is only natural, isn't it?"
Anos replied with a smile.
"I suppose that's true."
Ophis nodded thoughtfully.
She felt that something about him had changed.
It was extremely faint, but compared to before, there was now something on him that did not belong to him. It felt as though this world itself had forcibly attached it to him.
"There seems to be something extra on you."
Ophis was not the sort to leave a question unasked, so she brought it up directly.
"That's right, there is, Something that is going to cause a great deal of trouble."
Anos let out a sigh.
The will of the world had actually managed to cast part of its attention onto him through Forbidden Spell Paradise. It was faint, but with Ophis's power and insight, she could still detect it easily.
As for the gods of this world, there was no need to even mention them. In matters like this, they were far more sensitive than Ophis.
"It's the mark that man left on you..."
Ophis narrowed her eyes slightly.
"Ophis, lend me your power a little longer."
Anos sighed and spoke to her with complete seriousness.
"All right... go on..."
Ophis agreed without hesitation.
That was because she had already seen proof of his sincerity. Unlike Cao Cao, who was always talking about ambitions and grand goals, Anos had produced actual results.
Whether it was his ability to cross worlds or his ability to kill a god in such a short time, everything about it satisfied her.
...
Not long after that, Anos returned to Hestia Familia.
Hestia was the first to notice him. She reacted even before Ryuu, who by all logic should have had sharper senses. Perhaps that was because there was some special bond between Hestia and Anos.
"Anos?"
There was a trace of surprise in Hestia's voice, because she did not see on him the thing she had fully expected, and feared, she might.
"Yeah... I'm back. Didn't I tell you? It was just a small matter."
Anos answered with a smile.
"You feel a little strange right now..."
Hestia voiced the first impression that hit her the moment she saw him. It felt almost as though she might be separated from him at any moment.
This was not just her imagination.
At that moment, Ophis was maintaining Forbidden Spell Paradise from within the World Dragon's jewel.
Anos had engraved Forbidden Spell Paradise directly into his own body.
And he had activated it at maximum output.
That amount of energy would have drained him dry in an instant. Only Ophis could sustain it. It was practically equivalent to outputting the power of several transcendents at once.
Only by doing that could he shut the will of the world out of his body.
But because of that, Hestia could also sense a growing disconnect between herself and Anos, as though he might vanish from her reach at any moment.
"Strange? Yeah, I guess I am a little strange."
Anos gave a casual-looking smile.
"Hestia, can you come with me for a moment? There's something I need to talk to you about."
Though he sounded relaxed, Hestia immediately sensed something different beneath the surface. The unease in her heart only grew stronger.
"O... okay."
As Anos turned and headed toward his room, Hestia hurried after him.
"It feels like something happened."
Ryuu watched the two of them with concern. She, too, had a bad feeling.
...
"Anos, what is it? Is there something important you need to tell me?"
The moment they entered his room, Hestia asked the question with unusual seriousness.
"Hestia..."
Anos started to speak, then stopped.
He wanted to say it, but halfway through, the words would not come.
Ophis's power was only a kind of pseudo-infinity. It could not sustain this state forever. Even if the output at night was lower than during the day, it still could not be maintained indefinitely.
After all, Forbidden Spell Paradise was something the God of the Bible should have used at the height of his full strength.
The fact that Ophis could keep up this level of full power output for sixteen hours at a time was already incredible.
Based on Ophis's power, Anos had already judged the limit for maintaining Forbidden Spell Paradise at full daytime output.
Half a month.
That meant that, at most, after half a month, he would no longer be able to appear before the gods. Ophis's energy would run out by then.
For his own sake, and for Ophis's, he could not let that happen. Which meant that before then, he would have to stop drawing on Ophis's power to maintain Forbidden Spell Paradise.
Of course, there were other solutions. For example, Ophis could simply crush every god head-on.
It was not as though there was zero chance of winning.
But the odds were not good enough for Anos to risk everything and go to war against the entire divine world.
And that was not the only reason.
For now, he still did not want to abandon everything he had built here. He had worked too hard to establish it all, and throwing it away now would be too great a loss.
Conflict.
That was the state Anos was in now.
"Hestia, I..."
He tried again, but once more stopped halfway.
"Is this about Apollo?"
Hestia asked with a gentle smile.
She had long since prepared herself for what he wanted to say.
"Apollo has already returned to this world, hasn't he?"
Reaching out, Hestia lightly touched Anos's hand as she asked the question in a soft voice.
"Yes."
Anos gave a helpless smile.
He truly had not expected Apollo to get the better of him in this way.
"Anos... you really are my Anos, You actually managed to do even that so easily."
Hestia had expected it, but hearing him confirm it with his own mouth still left her shaken.
How exactly had he managed to kill a god without leaving behind a god's dying will on himself?
The blessing she had given him had been the last safeguard she could offer.
It was small and fragile, but if only one god saw it instead of an entire pantheon, then perhaps they would still give her face enough to hesitate.
In that case, she would still have a chance to take Anos away, rather than watching him be executed the moment he was discovered.
And yet now there was no trace of a god's dying will on him at all.
How had he done that?
By all logic, even if Apollo had been killed instantly, he still should have been able to leave something behind.
But in a way, that was a relief.
If Anos truly bore nothing of that kind, then he could stay with her forever.
And then Anos said the next sentence, and Hestia froze.
"Hestia, do you know what this is?"
Anos had his eyes closed, but when he opened them again, Ophis had already loosened her hold over Forbidden Spell Paradise.
And then Hestia saw the very thing she had prayed never to see.
"Anos... you..."
Hestia understood immediately.
A god had perished.
And Anos now carried the fate of a godslayer.
There was no more extreme form of blasphemy against the gods than killing one of them, Apart from the few gods who were personally close to Anos, the overwhelming majority would place him on their kill list without hesitation.
"That's right... I really didn't expect to get trapped like this."
Anos sighed. There was something almost bitterly ironic about it.
"Anos, from now on, you absolutely must not go outside when the sun is up. Do you understand?"
Hestia immediately offered the answer.
It was the same solution Anos had spent a long time judging his way toward, yet Hestia understood it from the very beginning.
"I know But it can't stay like this forever."
Anos smiled helplessly.
He had just finished judging the same thing himself.
There was only one possible solution among the many possible complete solutions that truly counted as an answer.
To become a god.
If he could break through Level 10 and ascend in this world, then his own will would be enough to cancel out Apollo's.
The world had branded its will onto him because he was not a god.
Once he became one, he would naturally gain the right to erase that will from himself.
But that goal was still unimaginably far away. Even though killing Apollo had earned Anos enough great deeds to raise him to Level 5, that was still nowhere near reaching Level 10.
"..."
After hearing him say that, Hestia also let out a quiet sigh.
At that point, even she did not know what to do.
There was only one thing she knew for certain.
Anos's safety had to be protected.
No matter which god tried to move against him, they would have to go through her first.
Hestia knew Anos would never act without confidence, which was why she had allowed him to move freely before and only given him something that would protect his life.
But now the original problem had been solved.
Only for another problem to appear in its place.
Not so large that it crushed everything.
But not so small that it could be ignored, either.
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