The Hero Returns

Gu-wuwuwu...

Shatter! Bang-

The whole building was shaking around.

The cup resting on the desk tumbled to the floor. The office was turning into a mess. Meanwhile, Lee Ju-ho was staring at the moon outside the window.

'It's begun.'

The shape of the moon had changed visibly.

Although he hadn't reached the S Rank yet, Lee Ju-ho was still a upper tier among the A Rank awakeners. As such, his eyesight was much better than that of a regular person, allowing him to take a closer look at the moon.

And its shape was changing little by little. All those craters on the moon's surface that resembled a rabbit were... increasing in number.

The terrain of a planetary body smaller than Earth was transforming in real time right now.

That's how intense the battle up there was.

"Bro! Just what the hell is going on?"

"Ju-ho!"

Vrrrr, vrrrrr-

What a spookily good timing this was.

Lee Ju-ho checked number on the phone busy ringing in his pocket. The call came from Gordon Rohan. As for the duo opening the door to enter the office, they were Hak-joon and Thomas.

They must've confirmed the events taking place on the moon by themselves, too.

And Lee Ju-ho was the only one who knew what was going on after Su-hyeun had informed him earlier.

"I told you two to get ready, didn't I?"

Hak-joon countered immediately. "But the real trouble isn't happening this side, is it?"

"Something serious is happening right now. Something real bad..."

Thomas's eyesight was among the very best within the awakeners. Maybe, he even got to directly witness the battle unfolding on the distant moon.

Hak-joon's face was pleading to be sent to the moon somehow. No matter how good you were as an awakener, you still didn't have a way to travel to the moon. That's probably why he came here, trying to ask for a favor or some such.

"No." And that's why Lee Ju-ho cut him off ahead of time. "We will leave that side to Su-hyeun. Our job is to stay here."

"Even so...!"

"Don't be stubborn about this. There's nothing we can do that side. It'll already be a relief if we don't get in his way."

What Lee Ju-ho said clamped the mouths of both Hak-joon and Thomas.

A relief if they dodn't get in his way, he said. But it was as he said - that's how immeasurable the gulf between Su-hyeun and them was.

After shutting the duo's mouths, Lee Ju-ho finally got around to answering the phone. The call had briefly ended before starting to ring again.

"Hello?"

-Why weren't you answering the phone?

"Hak-joon and Thomas showed up at the same time, you see."

-Anyway. Kim Su-hyeun... he's been raising a fuss earlier, and I'm guessing this is the reason?

"It seems so."

-Things have already gotten beyond the point of us interfering. But the heads of various countries are yapping about launching nukes or something right now.

Even if awakeners boasted powerful abilities, they still couldn't ignore the firearms designed by humanity. Something like a nuclear weapon held enough destructive power to make any S-Rank awakener look cute in comparison.

The bone-chilling aura gushing out from the moon, and even the hectic battle taking place there, were more than enough to give those leaders an unprecedented level of panic and fear. It was difficult to imagine what could happen if that battle spilled over to Earth.

"Mister Gordon, please stop them from doing such a thing. We can't act like wet blankets from this side, now can we?"

-Even that has a limit, you know. You gotta join me and help out, too. They won't agree or accept a thing without a proper feedback, after all.

"Got it."

The call abruptly ended there. It seemed that Gordon Rohan was also really busy at the moment.

Lee Ju-ho looked back at the moon.

In that brief span of time, its shape had changed slightly once more. The ripples from massive explosions that rocked the ground and heated up the atmosphere remained unchanged, however.

He didn't even believe in any religions, but Lee Ju-ho still brought his hands together to pray.

That's all he could do under the current circumstances.

'I believe in you.'

* * *

Sun Wukong hurriedly regained his wits.

The sense of enervation he felt only a second ago vanished without a trace. Instead of that feeling, he got to witness Vishnu's arm right before his eyes, damaged and torn apart like a rag.

Tap, tap-.

Sun Wukong flung himself back to create some distance, then quickly shifted his gaze over to where that spear had flown in from.

"Little bro?"

Gungnir had returned to Su-hyeun's grip by then.

Vishnu shook his destroyed arm around for a bit. Repairing the torn limb proved to be harder than he thought.

Swhooooosh-

Pow-!

Another spear came hurtling in once more.

Vishnu thought he had definitely dodged it, yet the spear was actually flying in towards where he had dodged.

This time, his shoulder was impaled.

"...Is it Foresight?"

Vishnu quickly detected the change that happened to Su-hyeun.

The latter's blue eyes of Insight had a layer of purple cast on top.

The 'Foresight.' The power to peek into the future, an ability that only an extreme few among the gods who had acquired Insight could awaken.

The only gods to actually unlock this ability was Apollo, the Bull Demon King, and Master Subhuti - only about that many. However, it hadn't even been a few years since Su-hyeun had awakened Insight, yet he was already using this ability like a pro.

Despite figuring it all out, though, Vishnu didn't find this situation strange at all.

"Unsurprising. Since you're half of Brahma."

That's because it was Vishnu who had granted the powers of Insight and Foresight to Brahma in the first place.

Brahma was born with the Godhood of Creation. This ability was meant to give birth to everything in existence, and Brahma used it as the foundation to create universes.

Before he did that, though, Brahma had to 'plan' for what the universes would be like. And that was through the powers of Foresight.

With that ability, Brahma looked at dozens, hundreds, thousands, billions of years into the future. Not only that, but he was also looking at the vast expanse of the entire universe itself. As such, it wasn't far-fetched to think that Brahma could manipulate the entire universe according to his will.

Su-hyeun was 'half' of Brahma capable of such feats, so it was only obvious that he'd be able to use Foresight, too.

Vishnu muttered. "How irritating this has become."

"That won't be the only thing to irritate you today."

Fwhoooosh-

The black smoke spread near the ground suddenly shot up at once to create a huge black hand.

This hand pounced on Vishnu and grabbed hold of his entire figure. He began frowning at the sensation of his skin decaying and being erased from existence.

"This piffling little thing...!"

Vishnu didn't see Shiva's ability as all that threatening to him.

The power of destruction was more than capable of erasing Vishnu out of existence, but even such a power could be made to disappear as long as the Primordial God willed it.

"My power might dissipate soon, but..."

Pazzzzzik-

Creeeeak-

Zeus's Thunder Dragon and Hercules's arrow were pointing straight at Vishnu right at that moment.

Su-hyeun was almost finished getting into the spear throwing posture. Sun Wukong was about to extend his half-broken Ruyi Jingu Bang, while the Bull Demon King was gathering storm winds with the Palm Leaf Sword, borrowed from Su-hyeun just now.

"But, that 'soon' is more than enough."

"Descend-!"

"Expand-!"

"Blow away-!"

In that brief moment...

FLASH-!

The light flashed blindingly bright on the moon's surface as a mighty explosion went off to swallow up all surrounding noises.

* * *

Gu-wuwuwu...

The half of the moon had vanished.

Zeus's Thunder Dragon, Hercules's arrow, Sun Wukong's Ruyi Jingu Bang, the Bull Demon King's Palm Leaf and Su-hyeun's Gungnir combined to create this spectacle.

Plop-

After firing his arrow, Hercules plopped down on the spot.

His body wasn't in a good state after taking on Zeus's Thunder Dragon earlier along with Vishnu. Even in such a state, he still summoned all of his strength to fire that arrow, so it was unsurprising that he'd falter like this.

"I'm beginning to feel tired, too."

It was a similar story for the Bull Demon King as well.

While trying to restrain Vishnu, he overexerted himself and endured the Primordial God's attacks. Injuries from then still remained on various parts of his body to continuously torment him.

"It's over, right?"

"Although that's a possibility... I don't believe it is." Zeus replied with a shake of his head at Sun Wukong's question.

He was implying that even he couldn't be sure. On one hand, he wished for it to be true.

If Vishnu managed to survive despite the strength of their combined attacks, Zeus and the others would not be able to figure out how to kill the Primordial God off for good.

While everyone was focusing their attention to where Vishnu might be, Su-hyeun turned his head and glanced at Shiva.

Shiva's face displayed a certain type of grim determination. It was as if only he was sure of this fight not being over yet despite everyone else wishing otherwise.

'Right. It's not over yet.'

Su-hyeun turned his head away. Just like Shiva, he also knew that, too.

Vishnu wouldn't have been killed by an attack of that scale. This judgement was based on his instincts rather than some kind of a physical evidence.

"Great Sage who Pacifies Heaven." When Shiva called him out, the Bull Demon King glanced back. Shiva continued on. "You feeling tired, right?"

"Although I'd like to say no... I am."

"In that case, exchange your position with Kim Su-hyeun. As for you, you know how to use a spear in close-quarter battles, right? Not just knowing how to chuck it around, I mean."

Su-hyeun nodded. "I fought a lot with spears in the past, actually."

Quite a few of his past lives wielded spears. Honestly speaking, he couldn't even count them all. And unsurprisingly, many of those lives used high-level close-quarter spearmanship instead of simply throwing them around.

"Vishnu might not be dead, but he should be pretty exhausted by now, too. He might be the creator and the origin of everything, whatever. But we were created with Vishnu as the basis, so like us, he has flesh and blood. His stamina is not infinite. Meaning, he's not truly invincible."

The moment Shiva finished saying that, a massive explosion went off to get rid of the smoke, revealing Vishnu's figure.

Even though his limping, Vishnu was still slowly walking forward. With the exception of his chest where Gungnir had punched a hole through, most of his other injuries seemed to have recovered to some degree. More notably, though, his blackened eyes and expression were distorted greatly in sheer rage.

Zeus tutted unhappily at Vishnu's current appearance. "Looking at him, it's hard to believe what you're saying, Shiva."

It seemed that Vishnu was truly angry.

His previous calm demeanor was nowhere to be found. If his initial appearance gave off an impression of 'good god', then the current him was without a doubt, the 'evil god'.

Shu-wuwuwu...

With him in the center, the ground all around him began to get erased. It was as if a black hole had opened up there.

Shiva muttered again. "It's begun, I see."

"What has?"

"The destruction. This is the power given to me. Although, this one seems much more destructive than mine."

For sure, the aura currently being emitted felt similar to the power Shiva wielded. The aura starting off from one point began spreading around to swallow up everything before erasing them without leaving behind a single trace.

'With that speed, it probably...'

The extinction starting from under Vishnu's feet gradually sped up. It seemed slow in the beginning, but its rate sped up exponentially in a short span of time.

'Probably less than half a day before the moon is gone for good.'

No, maybe it'd be quicker than that.

Shiva said something else next. "This is for the better, actually."

Su-hyeun stared at Shiva, wondering what on earth he was even talking about. It was the same story for the others, too.

"Unable to control his anger and focusing his energy in that ability means he won't be able to exercise the similar level of power as before. That guy, he's gone completely off the rails right now."

"Aha..."

"So it seems."

That seemed about right.

Vishnu was basically the same as Su-hyeun or Sun Wukong in that they enjoyed an infinite energy reserve. The amount of energy they could use might be infinite, but the amount that could be used at any given time was still limited.

And Vishnu was currently using the same aura as Shiva's, the power of 'apocalypse'. Although it was unknown how much energy was required to use this power, by wasting his energy like this, Vishnu was bound to get weaker in other areas.

"Nothing's changed for us. No, this development is better for us. That's why..." Shiva glanced at Su-hyeun. "Don't hold back and go wild."

Su-hyeun smirked at that.

It felt like something clogging his chest tightly had suddenly come undone just now.

"What you said just now? I think it's the best thing you've said after all this time."

Shu-wuwuwu...

Pitch-black energy began swirling on Gungnir gripped in Su-hyeun's hand.

But it wasn't the Death Aura, nor was it the power taken from Osiris, either.

More correctly, it wasn't even a type of energy, to begin with. It was simply some color visible to naked eyes. Even so, everyone excluding Shiva all took a step back at this strange haze rising up from the tip of Su-hyeun's spear.

It was all because of this instinctive repulsion they felt.

The power that directly interfered with a living individual's soul to harm them...

The power that could distort the natural order of the cycle of reincarnation before utterly shattering it...

['Six Paths – Soul of the Dead' is now activating.]

It was none other than the fifth ability of Su-hyeun's Six Paths.