Spirit Rank devouring.
Generally speaking, this was something that happened after a battle between competitors for an incomplete Spirit Rank had been decided, with one side emerging victorious.
In practical terms, it was somewhat like multiple personality disorder. From what Ryo understood, the phenomenon manifested in an especially cruel way: another version of yourself would be born inside your own body.
In that instant, Ryo finally understood why Amun-Ra had come to ambush Kalki.
Sure, he hadn't exactly lost the struggle for the position of Egypt's supreme god, Ra. But he hadn't won it either. And because of that, another version of himself had already begun to "awaken" within him.
Under those circumstances, Amun had only two choices.
The first was to cut off his own tail to survive. He could abandon his current Spirit Rank and attempt to make a comeback from scratch.
The second was to seize someone else's Spirit Rank.
The first option was naturally the worst.
In Little Garden, where the strong only grew stronger and the weak found it increasingly difficult to rise, falling behind by even one step meant falling further and further behind.
And this time, he would fall straight from Three-Digit all the way down to the Seven-Digit, becoming no different from an ordinary human.
For someone like that, the best they could hope for in Little Garden was to live a quiet, stable life. Without some hidden trump card, becoming stronger would be unbelievably difficult.
The second option, seizing someone else's Spirit Rank, was hardly any easier.
Because doing so almost always came at the cost of the Spirit Rank being downgraded. Someone might fall from Three-Digit to Four-Digit. Even if they successfully survived, their strength would no longer be what it once was. They could also easily become the target of others. Even with all their accumulated experience, rising again would be extremely difficult.
But Amun-Ra was greedy.
Before losing, he wanted to seize Kalki's Spirit Rank.
With Kalki's Another Cosmology, combined with Amun's experience as a God King, he could become a Four-Digit rule-breaker at a speed that would leave even gods and buddhas speechless.
And once someone reached the Four-Digit rule-breaker level, all they had to do was stay hidden in the Lower Layers.
That would give Amun a chance to turn the tables.
And because he would be transforming from an acquired god into an innate god, his chances of making a comeback would actually be quite high. Better yet, he might even have a chance of becoming a Two-Digit himself, or at the very least, gain the support of some Two-Digits who could pass Kalki's Spirit Rank on to him.
If Kalki really had been Kalki, rather than Ryo in disguise, Amun might genuinely have succeeded.
After all, Kalki himself had some serious personality flaws. He was a pessimistic misanthrope with little attachment to life.
But everything had gone up in smoke because Ryo had intervened.
Thinking of this, Ryo paused and silently stared at the "Amun-Ra" standing before him.
The Amun-Ra in front of him was no longer the same person. He had become another God King who had finally emerged victorious in the struggle for Ra's Spirit Rank.
Facing an unfamiliar opponent, Ryo naturally had no intention of rashly starting a battle.
Instead, for the sake of gathering information, he secretly expanded his perception. With everyone watching already perfectly aware of what he was doing, he quietly joined the "group chat."
"Amun actually lost Ra's Spirit Rank? No wonder he went completely crazy! I thought he'd taken some kind of weird medicine." Mata casually broadcast her "voice message" to everyone in the group chat, sounding like she was having the time of her life.
The one who answered her was a God King from the Maya mythology, Kukulkan, known as the Plumed Serpent. "Judging from the aura of the Spirit Rank, did Nephthys win? Could the Egyptian pantheon be about to gain another supreme Sun Goddess?"
"Give me a break. Has any Sun Goddess ever had a good ending? Amaterasu hasn't even been dead for a thousand years."
Mata openly mocked the deceased Amaterasu. Not without reason, either. The other woman's actions had been truly bizarre.
The entire pantheon had sacrificed the Kusanagi no Tsurugi in a blood ritual, hoping to use the victory in that great war to give birth to a Two-Digit existence.
And what happened?
A Two-Digit existence did emerge.
It was a damaged divine sword.
And somehow, it had developed a consciousness of its own.
The funniest part was that the sword itself decided there was no future in following Amaterasu, whose faction had been almost completely wiped out, and defected to Queen Halloween instead.
Now that was funny.
"You still have the energy to laugh?" The Norse God King Odin chuckled darkly. "The Heavenly Army went to capture Kalki and ended up catching a fake. You people certainly made a spectacular fool of yourselves this time! If you want to save face, shouldn't you at least capture that old monster who impersonated Kalki?"
Odin continued in a sarcastic tone, "What? Not confident? Yeah, that monster is at least an elite Three-Digit powerhouse, and it might already be in the Legendary tier. No, wait. With Shiva here, there's obviously nothing to worry about. I just wonder who's going to end up being the dead weight."
"..."
Mata's laughter instantly froze.
Her greatest strengths were her immortality and her ability to fight prolonged battles.
The person who countered her most effectively was someone like Ryo, who could throw out a devastating ultimate attack without warning.
Her greatest advantage was also her greatest weakness. If she could not withstand an enemy's attacks, she was very likely to be the first person eliminated.
But if she could withstand them, even the strongest monster would eventually be worn down by her.
She was essentially the team's "tank."
Shiva, by comparison, was an all-rounder with terrifying attack power, speed, and defense.
No matter how powerful the enemy was, Shiva could always retreat if things went badly. That was why he had suffered relatively little injury when fighting the Absolute Evil Demon Lord, Azi Dahaka.
If Azi Dahaka's Another Cosmology had not been so ridiculously overpowered, Shiva could probably have soloed that evil dragon by himself.
Mata, on the other hand, had survived because she was tough enough, but the injuries she had suffered back then still had not completely healed.
"Okay. Fine. Yeah."
Mata suddenly said those words.
Then she turned around and vanished into the starry sky.
Odin froze for a moment before looking puzzled. "Did someone just send Mata a message? Did any of you feel the fluctuations from a telepathic transmission?"
"I didn't!" Kukulkan answered blankly.
So there was no one nearby who could have sent her a message.
Wait.
Where did Shiva go, too?
At that moment, the watching gods suddenly realized something.
The Heavenly Army, which was supposed to be the protagonist of the next arc and was supposed to begin capturing "Kalki," had vanished.
All of them.
...
..
Meanwhile, having learned the identity of the god standing on the other side, Ryo frowned as he looked at "Amun-Ra" and tentatively asked, "Nephthys?"
The being who appeared to be "Nephthys" glanced at Ryo.
Then she turned around, transformed into a white-and-gold divine bird, and flew toward the continent of Little Garden.
Ryo watched as Nephthys casually exposed her back to him.
After thinking for a moment, he decided not to attack.
Instead, he turned his gaze toward Baphomet and Shammash, who were standing nearby with absolutely no intention of hiding their presence.
"Sigh. What a farce."
Shammash, seated upon his golden throne, let out a quiet sigh before his figure dissolved into light and departed.
Kalki was not actually Kalki, so naturally there was no longer any reason for him to make a move.
And considering the enemy's true position, there was also a high chance of getting dragged into someone else's mess. Leaving was obviously the sensible choice.
On the other side, the goat-headed demon gave a soft chuckle.
He placed one hand before his chest and gave Ryo a slight nod.
Then his entire body sank into space, passing through the Boundary Zone and teleporting away.
From beginning to end, the demon known as the incarnation of Satan had never gotten involved.
It was almost as if he really had just been an innocent bystander who happened to be discovered by Ryo and had no choice but to reveal himself.
With the "participants" leaving, the spectators naturally dispersed as well.
Quite a few people sent invitations to Ryo, hoping to meet him and establish some kind of relationship.
Ryo answered all of them with silence.
By the end, even he could not help feeling that the whole affair had ended rather anticlimactically.
"What a bizarre ambush."
Amun-Ra had been intercepted by someone else, and Ryo was naturally unhappy about that.
But the name Nephthys carried far too much weight.
She was a powerhouse among Three-Digits, where every existence was already Legendary.
Getting into a fight with someone like that over Amun would have been recklessly impulsive.
"What a loss. I didn't get a single thing out of this ambush."
Still annoyed, Ryo concealed his presence.
First, he teleported through the Boundary Zone.
Then he used the unique spatial transmission method of his cosmo.
Along the way, he alternated between Kalki's identity and Rudra, the Vedic Storm God, deliberately creating multiple layers of false trails to shake off any possible pursuit.
After that, he returned to Arcadia's headquarters in the Lower Layer of the East Area.
He pushed open the enormous gates and stepped into the hall.
The moment he entered, his footsteps stopped.
Standing before him was a figure wrapped in the golden flames of divine solar fire, their face impossible to make out.
It was "Nephthys," the very person he had just been confronting.
And standing beside her was Baphomet, bowing respectfully toward him.
For a moment, Ryo's mind went completely blank.
.
.
.