"A spiritual blade. The one who swung this sword is physically weak. I would estimate about the strength of five grown men combined, nothing remarkable. Yet the skill behind each swing rivals... no, he is a better swordsman than I am." The three adventurers' eyes widened in shock, hearing the S-rank adventurer's assessment.
"Hope, you must be joking. How could someone so physically weak hope to rival you in skill?" The golden-haired man, named Michael, said in disbelief. Hope was well known throughout the land for her incredible talent. At the age of three, she held a blade for the first time—a simple kitchen knife—and accidentally cut her entire house in half with a single swing.
At the age of four, she was able to cut the sky itself, leaving a scar in the clouds that took hours to fade. At the age of five, she was personally blessed by the gods of war, who recognized her potential. At the age of ten, she killed an S-rank monster with just one thrust of a spear. At the age of fifteen, she became an adventurer to gain real combat experience against worthy opponents. A single year later, she achieved S-rank status, the youngest to ever do so.
Now, she was twenty-one years old, and no one had ever seen her go all out in a fight. She was a master with everything she held in her hands: sword, bow, spear, shield, axe, and anything else. She was a jack of all trades whose skills with weapons had reached such a supernatural level that it looked almost like she was using magic or some special ability, when in truth, it was nothing but her raw, natural skill.
The last time she had even gotten remotely serious in battle was two years ago, when an SS-rank monster appeared and threatened a major city. She had used nothing but a wooden stick that day, and with a single swing, the world itself was cut. That wasn't an exaggeration or a figure of speech. When she swung that stick, the space in front of her was left void of everything, a massive emptiness that sucked in all matter around it. The world itself had to intervene and seal the wound she had created.
She would easily qualify as an SS-rank adventurer, but she was unwilling to accept such a promotion, as it meant serving directly under the royal family. She enjoyed her freedom far too much to give it up for a title.
Hope said nothing in response to Michael's question. A smile spread across her face as she looked up ahead into the deeper parts of the forest. Wasting no time, she shot forward at incredible speed, causing the others to quickly scramble to follow her.
As they ventured deeper into the forest, they began to find more and more traces of battle scattered everywhere. And with those traces were the slain bodies of monsters, ranging in the thousands. Some of the corpses had been piled so high they formed small mountains of flesh and bone.
One slash was all it had taken to kill every monster, no matter the strength of the creature or even its natural resistance to slashing attacks. Even monsters that should have been completely immune to such damage, like slimes, had been killed with a simple sword slash that ignored their properties entirely.
'...Amazing. A sword that cuts what it wants to cut, be it the body, the soul... and more.' Hope thought happily, her excitement building. This was exactly what her master had tried to teach her all those years ago. She had no true control over her blade. Her sword cut everything in its path indiscriminately, and she had no way to focus the cut on a single specific target or aspect.
She had always struggled with sensing the soul and trying to cut only the soul of a target while leaving the body intact. The same difficulty applied when aiming for the mind or other abstract concepts.
These were aspects of swordsmanship she found incredibly hard to master. Yet before her was evidence of a being who could do all of this without any difficulty, almost as easily as breathing.
She soon sensed the presence of battle up ahead, and wasting no time, she burst forward at her full speed, seemingly teleporting away and leaving the three adventurers far behind.
She arrived miles away in an instant, deep in the heart of the forest, where she froze upon seeing a demon floating in the sky above the trees.
'...What is a demon doing here? Was this the monster that disrupted the ecosystem?' She thought, looking up at the demon that hovered in the sky with its massive wings spread wide.
It had a grotesque face embedded in its stomach that was staring down at a handsome black-haired man standing below. The man was just lazily looking up at the demon as if it were nothing special.
"Finally, a worthy battle!" The Demon burst into mad laughter, its voice echoing through the forest. Hope's pupils shrank as she realized this was an SSS-rank being. This wasn't something she was prepared to face, not even close...
"Oh, what's this?" Zenryu asked, his lazy demeanor disappearing as he looked towards Hope, his eyebrow raising as he felt something off about her. Seeing the shift in Zenryu's attention, the Demon grew annoyed at being ignored. Instantly, it let out a thunderous roar, and from its gaping mouth, pure darkness shot out, swallowing its own form completely.
"What? T-this is a Demon Lord! What is a Demon Lord doing in this realm?!" Hope cried out in shock, feeling the aura of the demon growing exponentially stronger with each passing second.
"Don't let it finish transforming! Quickly, kill it now!" She shouted desperately at Zenryu, who looked at her with a raised eyebrow. But he ignored her warning entirely, looking back towards the dark orb hovering in the sky.
The orb began cracking from within, fractures spreading across its surface, before it exploded violently. Out from the destruction emerged a massive demon with four muscular arms, its body covered in countless mouths that were all grinning with malicious intent. It had no eyes, no nose, not even ears. An utterly bizarre and terrifying sight.
Hope's pupils shrank in disbelief as, with a flash of movement too fast to follow, Zenryu was sent rocketing away. His body slammed through countless trees in his path, each one shattering on impact. Zenryu quickly flipped mid-air, landing on his feet just in time to raise his guard and block the demon's incoming fist. But a mouth on the fist bit down hungrily, taking a bite out of Zenryu's defense. This caused him to take the full force of the attack even though he had blocked it perfectly.
Zenryu rocketed away like a shooting star streaking across the sky. He quickly activated The Almighty to peer into the future and find a path to victory, only for the mouths covering the demon's body to devour the future itself, nullifying The Almighty's power entirely. This caused Zenryu's eyebrow to raise with genuine interest at such a unique form of eating.
'I should be able to add this concept with Predation...' Zenryu landed on the ground, and with a flash of instinct, he smoothly dodged to the side, narrowly avoiding a mouth that tried to take a bite out of his flesh. But the fact that he had dodged was itself devoured by another mouth, erasing the action from reality. This caused the demon's fist to land squarely across his face as if he had never moved at all, sending him rocketing away once more.
'...I can't dodge his attacks. I can't block his attacks either... interesting. But I dodged his attempt to devour me, yet after devouring my dodge, he instead punched? That's a clear weakness.' Zenryu thought with a smile spreading across his face despite the situation. His injuries began healing at a rapid speed, his flesh knitting back together, only for that healing to be devoured as well, ensuring that he couldn't recover from the damage.
"That's the Prince of Gluttony!" Hope cried out in warning. Her voice annoyed the Prince of Gluttony, who turned one of his massive hands towards her. A mouth opened wide on his palm, aiming to devour her where she stood... but the Prince of Gluttony was shocked when he found he couldn't devour anything. His ability simply refused to work.
"I'm sorry, was I boring you?" Zenryu asked with a look of exaggerated sadness, leaving the Prince of Gluttony stunned. The demon realized in that moment that Zenryu had been holding back this entire time.
"Haha, good! This won't be so boring after all!" With that excited cry, the Prince of Gluttony shifted his full attention back towards Zenryu. All of the mouths covering his grotesque body opened at once, and they began to eat away at Zenryu from every angle. Even from a distance, even with Zenryu standing so far away... everything between them was devoured, leaving nothing in the path between the hungry mouths and their target.
"Let's stop playing around. I will admit, you're stronger than me right now. But I find it hard to truly enjoy a fight when... well, I have to deliberately avoid using some of my abilities just to make the battle entertaining." Zenryu said softly, sighing in genuine disappointment. If he weren't so overpowered, he could have truly savored this battle.
"W-what? How are you not affected?!" The Prince of Gluttony found himself unable to devour Zenryu anymore. The man was completely immune now. Zenryu had adapted to his ability entirely. He would have adapted much faster, but he had held himself back on purpose, wishing with all of his heart to enjoy this rare battle... but inevitably, he had grown immune anyway.
"Isn't it obvious? I could have won this from the very instant we met," Zenryu said while casually walking towards the demon prince, who began to grow genuinely scared for the first time in centuries. Out of pure fear and desperation, the Prince of Gluttony quickly stopped holding back his true power. He began eating himself, devouring his own physical form to unleash something far more dangerous.
"Oh?" Zenryu paused with renewed interest as a black hole appeared where the demon had stood. It began devouring everything around it, and even started drawing in all matter and energy into its endless darkness.
Zenryu was pulled in, swallowed by the void of absolute darkness. He could have easily stopped this from happening, but he felt something waiting for him within that darkness. Something that called to him. So, he allowed himself to be taken in to see what awaited him.
Meanwhile, Hope barely escaped the range of the black hole, running for her life until she was clear. Horror filled her eyes as she turned to look back at what remained. The world behind her was simply... empty.
The land for miles in every direction was gone. The devouring had taken the air, the light, everything. Be it the laws of the world, the concept of life and death itself—all of it had been consumed. It was a void of pure nothingness, a void of absolute darkness where nothing could exist. Space, time, and all such concepts no longer had meaning in that place.
"...Why?" She said softly, her voice trembling. She was shaken to her core, having witnessed how Zenryu had just allowed all of this to happen without resistance. Was this the curse of overwhelming strength?
She had heard stories about how truly powerful beings eventually lost the will to live. Living at the top for too long, cursed with power that nothing could challenge, leading them to seek death as the only remaining thrill.
"Haha! Bastard, you thought you could stop me?!" The Prince of Gluttony laughed with mad joy, believing he had won. With a twisted grin, it turned its attention towards Hope, who stood alone now. After a long moment of hesitation, she gritted her teeth and summoned her sword, facing the demon head-on.
'...All I have to do is hold it off. The empire's strongest beings will arrive soon after sensing its aura.' She thought, steeling herself for the fight of her life… hopefully the gods would sense this and act. Demons shouldn't be here.
***
Meanwhile, Zenryu floated in a void of absolute darkness. There was nothing around him in any direction—no light, no sound, no sensation of any kind. He looked around with genuine interest at this empty space, before his gaze settled on the woman floating before him.
She appeared to be a woman made of pure darkness, as if the void itself had condensed and formed a body... well, that would be what a normal person would have perceived.
Zenryu saw her true form with his enhanced senses. She was a breathtakingly beautiful woman, with hair as dark as the deepest void. Her beauty rivaled even the World Tree's human form. But her beauty was far more deadly, a beauty that could enchant the soul of souls and bend the will of gods... and Zenryu naturally wasn't immune to such lethal charm.
"So, what did you want with me?" Zenryu asked while forcing himself to look away from her, genuinely scared that he would let the beauty before him take control of his mind if he stared too long.
The sound of chains rattling echoed through the darkness, drawing Zenryu's attention back to the woman who was now walking towards him. Her legs and arms were bound in heavy chains, the links stretching far into the endless darkness, reaching somewhere Zenryu's eyes couldn't perceive no matter how hard he tried.
"I want to strike a deal with you." She said, stopping directly before Zenryu. Her smile was far too deadly, far too enchanting, forcing Zenryu to look away once more for his own safety. But she gently held his chin with her soft fingers and turned his face back towards her.
"I deem you worthy of being my husband... and with that..." She didn't even give Zenryu a chance to refuse or say no. She simply kissed him.
At first, Zenryu wanted to reject her advance. He still had to deal with the matter of his ex-wife and his new wife Yggdrasil... but her kiss was too wonderful, too intoxicating. His willpower wasn't capable of withstanding such a perfect kiss.
[Congratulations, you have gained the Kiss of Nyx. You have become the husband of Nyx.]
[Husband of Nyx] — As the Husband of Nyx, you have unrivaled authority over darkness itself. You shall be immortal, for death would naturally bring you to your loving wife's embrace. The primordial darkness itself is your wife, and as her husband, she would naturally bend to your wishes. Just don't overdo it. Remember: Happy Wife, Happy Life.
Nyx looked at Zenryu with satisfaction in her eyes, only to freeze when a chain shot out from the darkness behind her. It wrapped tightly around her neck and began to pull her away with tremendous force.
Her eyes widened in shock as she struggled for air, clawing at the chain. Naturally, she didn't actually need to breathe—this was something conceptual, something difficult for mortals to understand.