"What are you standing here for? Go help!" A stern voice rang out beside him. The man looked up in confusion at the giant standing before him, who was only a head taller than him.
He glanced around, his eyes growing even more bewildered. Surrounding him were giants dragging the carcasses of beasts, cleaning up the battlefield. However, what struck him as odd was that these giants seemed much smaller than he remembered.
But he quickly realized it wasn't the giants who had shrunk—it was him who had grown larger. Everything around him seemed smaller now.
"Huh? What are you still staring at?" The stern voice came again, this time from the giant in front of him. "Why aren't you following my orders?"
"I…" The man opened his mouth to respond but was stunned to find he couldn't reply.
The giant before him, clad in tattered heavy armor and exuding a fierce aura, was speaking a language he had never heard before. It was definitely not a human language.
Yet, strangely, he could understand it. However, replying in the same language was beyond him.
Unable to respond verbally, the man decided to act instead. It was clear what the giant, who seemed to hold a special status, wanted him to do—help transport the remains of the fallen beasts.
"What exactly happened?" the man wondered as he dragged a beast carcass, following the other giants heading in the same direction.
Unlike the other giants who moved in groups, the man walked alone, standing out slightly among the crowd.
But he didn't care about that now. He was too busy trying to figure out what had happened to him. He searched his memories and found they stopped at the moment the divine weapon had mutated.
From that point until now, there was a large gap in his memory. He had no recollection of what had transpired, which was clearly abnormal.
He remembered the weapon mutating during the heat of battle—dragons clashing with flying beasts in the sky, giants advancing in formation on the ground, blood raining down from above…
And now, when he came to his senses, the battle was already over. The dragons had vanished from the sky, and the giants were cleaning up the battlefield.
What had happened in between? He had no idea. It was as if some unknown entity had taken over his body and suppressed his consciousness.
"My body…" The man examined his now vastly different physique and fell silent.
The power surging through his body was astonishing. He felt as though he could destroy an entire base city with a single movement. But this immense power felt foreign and terrifying to him.
It had come too suddenly. He had no preparation for this transformation, and now even the giants treated him as one of their own.
"This change must have been caused by the divine weapon. But how could the weapon have such an effect?"
The man quickly attributed his transformation to the custom divine weapon he had wielded. But he couldn't understand how the weapon could have done this. It made no sense.
If the weapon could truly turn a human into a giant, humanity would have long since used it to transform their entire race. No one would refuse such power.
The man was utterly perplexed. But no matter how confused he was, he had to accept the fact that he had become a giant and quickly adapt to this new identity.
He didn't know how the real giants would react if they discovered he was a fake. After all, his transformation into a giant hadn't been a pleasant process.
"But where is the divine weapon?" The man suddenly stopped in his tracks. He realized the source of his transformation had disappeared.
As this thought crossed his mind, he felt a strange change within his body. Then, he stared in shock as a sword hilt, perfectly sized for his hands, slowly emerged from his chest.
The sight was so shocking that he stood frozen for a while. It wasn't until he noticed the giants passing by him and giving him curious looks that he snapped out of it.
"Go back!" The man willed it, and to his amazement, the metallic hilt slowly retracted into his chest.
"What is going on? How has the divine weapon fused with my body?"
Still bewildered, the man dragged the beast carcass and followed the giants. Before long, they reached their destination.
He looked up in awe at a towering mountain, so high he couldn't see its peak. It was a mountain made entirely of beast carcasses.
Blood flowed down the mountain, forming several rivers of blood that spread out in all directions. However, these highly corrosive rivers didn't flow far before being contained by an invisible force.
The man was stunned by the sight for a while. After regaining his composure, he threw the carcass he was dragging onto the pile and turned back to fetch more. Now wasn't the time to study the changes in his body.
…
"This should be enough."
Muria looked down at the growing mountain of carcasses and nodded in satisfaction.
To the world, the remains of the evil god's minions were like toxins in a body. While they could eventually be broken down over time, the process would turn the surrounding area into a lifeless wasteland.
But this wasn't a problem for Muria. He happened to possess an Eternal Tree of Life, born from a sapling of the World Tree, capable of purifying large-scale corruption.
"Almost all of the evil god's minions have been cleared out. Even if a few remain, they're insignificant."
Under Mikaela's watchful gaze, Muria began summoning his demiplane once more. This time, as the demiplane's shadow appeared in the sky, the thunder that accompanied it was far weaker than before. This indicated the world's resistance to Muria had drastically decreased.
"Muria, once you successfully merge your demiplane with this world, your power will undergo another leap. Your chances of victory against the evil god will increase."
As Muria made his second attempt to merge his demiplane with the world, Mikaela spoke calmly.
She didn't deny feeling a hint of envy at her husband's gains. After all, merging with a small world, even one as broken and on the verge of collapse as this one, was enough to bring about a significant transformation for someone like Muria. Once the fusion was complete, he would touch upon the second realm of the epic—World Simulation.
But after the initial envy, Mikaela regained her composure. While Muria's rapid progress was impressive, his method was somewhat opportunistic and not the conventional path for an epic's advancement.
Normally, an epic who had just stepped into the first realm, Source Fusion, would need to continuously gather source power and observe the operational laws of various worlds. Once they had accumulated enough source power and understanding of the laws, they would begin creating their own world, gaining the world's power and undergoing a complete transformation.
Epics at this level were almost omniscient and omnipotent to mortals. They could answer and grant any mortal's desires, though this was only relative to mortals.
Still, it was an astonishing feat. It meant that epics who reached the World Simulation realm had almost no weaknesses.
Muria, however, was still far from this level. He had only touched the threshold of World Simulation in terms of raw power.
In terms of understanding the laws, he couldn't compare to a true World Simulation epic. If he were to clash with one, regardless of their race, he would likely be crushed.
"Greater chances of victory? Can't you say I'll definitely win?" Muria asked with a laugh, effortlessly summoning his demiplane.
Although Muria didn't know the exact level, form, or powers of the opponent his grandfather had chosen for him, he could make a rough estimation based on the current state of this world.
This world was a low-tier small world. Any evil god interested in such a world couldn't be too powerful—at most, they would be at the World Simulation level, but more likely at Source Fusion.
"You don't even know what your opponent is like, and you're already claiming victory? Have two big gains in a row gone to your head, Muria?" Mikaela's gaze was stern.
"I'm just joking. I'm preparing for this war every moment."
Muria chuckled awkwardly. Behind him, the shadow of his demiplane was almost fully materialized. The sporadic lightning in the sky was merely a symbolic struggle, not even a real resistance. The world was ready to be merged.
"This is my first battle against an epic. No matter how much I prepare, it won't be enough."
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