Watching Verethragna disappear into particles of light, Ryuga let out a slight sigh of relief in his heart.
Just a little more, and Verethragna would have been able to break through his twentieth layer of defense and reach his final twenty layers of defensive counterattack formations, along with his last ten layers of life-preservation techniques.
That was truly dangerous!
In reality, Verethragna was not a weak opponent at all.
Just as the original protagonist could massacre throughout the Campione world using his Authority, Verethragna possessed not only one of the strongest anti-divine weapons, the Golden Sword, but his other incarnations were also quite absurd in their power.
Whether it was the Bull incarnation representing tremendous strength or the Phoenix incarnation symbolizing speed, their characteristics were all quite troublesome.
If it were merely pure brute force or divine speed, Ryuga could actually handle them relatively well.
As long as he could detect their fixed power limits, he had ways to deal with them.
Whether strengthening himself, weakening the enemy, or predicting and dodging in advance, there was room for manipulation.
But unfortunately, these two incarnations of Verethragna had no fixed numerical values—they operated on a "stronger against the strong, weaker against the weak" principle.
The true effect of these two incarnations was—power greater than the enemy's, speed faster than the enemy's.
In other words, no matter how strong Ryuga's constitution was, no matter how much he enhanced himself, Verethragna could correspondingly strengthen himself to be just a bit stronger in power and just a bit faster in speed.
This level of conceptual ability could not be overcome by most techniques.
When facing the weak, these two incarnations were not very useful, but when facing the strong, they could forcibly create a fifty-fifty situation, providing a band-aid-like effect.
The protagonist in the original work relied precisely on this characteristic to repeatedly clash with powerful enemies and successfully escape danger multiple times.
Not to mention his other incarnations—whether it was the White Horse's firepower, the Camel's close-combat techniques, the Boar's explosive power, or the Goat's thunder—none were easy opponents to deal with.
Verethragna's individual incarnations often rivaled the complete Authorities of many other Heretic Gods in terms of power.
Combined with his martial prowess as a War God and his masterful use of Authority, Ryuga suspected that if he had shown this level of determination from the start, it would have been impossible for him to mutually destroy with the God-King Melqart—he likely would have directly cut down his opponent.
As the War God of mythology who once single-handedly challenged a pantheon of gods without falling into any disadvantage, his advantage against divine beings was simply too great.
Fortunately, Ryuga had prepared thoroughly, and Verethragna's incarnation information was completely transparent to him.
Under complete targeting, the Golden Sword struggled to deal with techniques whose mythological origins were so complex, and his other incarnations all had corresponding attribute-based countermeasures.
In the end, after assessing his opponent's combat style, he directly adopted a defensive counterattack tactical approach, successfully overwhelming the War God before him with a massive array of techniques.
"You actually won so quickly?!"
On the other side, watching Verethragna completely dissipate, Erica could hardly believe her eyes.
As far as she knew, even veteran Campiones typically needed at least a week to successfully hunt a god.
The Ryuga before her clearly had not yet become a Campione—he was clearly still just a human.
Yet he had actually accomplished the feat of directly slaying a Heretic God head-on within a minute?
Even among Campiones, the publicly acknowledged strongest—Marquis Voban and Sect Leader Luo Hao—probably couldn't achieve this level, right?
No!
Rather, they absolutely could not achieve this level!
If she hadn't misheard, Verethragna seemed to regret not being able to force out Ryuga's full power before disappearing.
In other words, even slaying a Heretic God within a minute was accomplished while holding back?
[Tohsaka Rin: "Guh! So this is what a battle between powerhouses looks like?"]
[Tohsaka Rin: "It's like a mythological scene. If Ryuga-sama hadn't shown restraint, the entire island probably would have sunk into the Mediterranean Sea!"]
[Kanae: "I'm suddenly thinking about something."]
[Tohsaka Rin: "What?"]
[Kanae: "An individual who can easily slay gods and achieve miracles that even Heretic Gods cannot accomplish—for us, what difference is there between him and a god?"]
Kanae asked with a dazed expression.
She wasn't flattering—she was expressing her genuine feelings.
If she hadn't joined the chat group and personally witnessed Ryuga's terrifyingly rapid growth, in her eyes there really would be no difference between Ryuga and a god.
Seeing Kanae say this, Tohsaka Rin pondered for a few seconds, then shook her head.
[Tohsaka Rin: "No, there's definitely a difference."]
[Kanae: "What difference?"]
[Tohsaka Rin: "A god's power has its limits, but Ryuga-sama's speed of becoming stronger has no limits."]
[Tohsaka Rin: "Comparing Ryuga-sama to a god might actually be belittling him."]
If it were before, they absolutely couldn't have imagined that the word "god" could be considered derogatory.
But now, hearing Tohsaka Rin's description, no one raised objections.
[Madoka: "Rin-neesan is right!"]
[Madoka: "After watching big brother's battle scene, I suddenly feel like magical girls seem kind of weak."]
[Tohsaka Rin: "To be honest, they really are."]
[Tohsaka Rin: "After all, it's for kids to watch!"]
Tohsaka Rin, who didn't yet know that magical girls actually existed, casually agreed with Madoka's opinion.
Seeing this, Ryuga raised an eyebrow with a somewhat strange expression.
Magical girls are weak?
No, no, no. He didn't know about other magical girls, but Madoka's side was definitely not weak.
Never mind gods—even if you added everyone in the Campione world together, they wouldn't be enough for Goddess Madoka to defeat with one finger.
A multiversal-level existence—even in the entire heavens and myriad worlds, there weren't many like that.
[Ryuga: "No need to worry. Power is not the core of magical girls, and the power of magical girls may not necessarily lose to gods."]
[Madoka: "That's right!"]
[Madoka: "Thank you for the reminder, Ryuga-niisan! Compared to power, hope and love are the real reasons I like magical girls."]
Like having wisdom poured into her, under Ryuga's reminder, Madoka strengthened her original intentions.
At this moment, Erica suddenly thought of something and immediately asked:
"Speaking of which, since Ryuga-sama successfully slayed a god, do you feel any urge to sleep?"
"No."
Ryuga shook his head, his spirit platform completely clear.
"Hmm, according to past intelligence, Campiones are often in a near-death coma state when they first slay a god, and only after reawakening do they reincarnate as Campiones and gradually master their Authorities... Ryuga-sama is the first to complete the god-slaying feat completely unharmed. How will you become a Campione at this rate?"
Erica was somewhat confused.
Faced with Ryuga, this unprecedented special case, past experience seemed completely inapplicable.
Hearing this, Ryuga finally understood what Erica was thinking, and he immediately shook his head.
"Don't worry. The Campione reincarnation ritual hasn't started yet. Someone will definitely come to summon me afterward. Just wait a moment."
"Is that so?"
Hearing Ryuga's words, Erica felt much more at ease.
As long as it didn't affect Ryuga-sama becoming a Campione... but why was Ryuga-sama so familiar with the Campione process?
Before she could ask further, suddenly Ryuga stood up directly.
"The ritual has begun. I'll go over for a moment."
As he spoke, a spatial crack immediately appeared before him. Ryuga stepped through it, and his figure disappeared instantly.
"This aura—is it a spatial passage leading to the Netherworld?"
With Ryuga's instructions, Erica wasn't anxious, just somewhat surprised by Ryuga's destination.
Could it be that the Campione reincarnation ritual actually took place in the Netherworld?
In the chat group, hearing the conversation between the two, the others finally remembered that in the Campione world, killing gods had special significance.
[Tohsaka Rin: "Speaking of which, Ryuga-sama should become a Campione soon, right?"]
[Erica: "That's right!"]
[Erica: "Though what Ryuga-sama accomplished was hunting rather than slaying."]
One word different, but the meaning was completely different.
[Tohsaka Rin: "I remember you saying that Campiones are nation-destroying level existences."]
[Tohsaka Rin: "So Ryuga-sama is about to become a Third-Order powerhouse?"]
[Erica: "Yes! Rather, in terms of actual combat power, Ryuga-sama already has Third-Order level strength, right?"]
[Tohsaka Rin: "Of course I know that!"]
[Tohsaka Rin: "What I want to say is—today is only Ryuga-sama's first day of contact with magic power!"]
With a long sigh, young Rin made this observation.
With these words, the entire chat group fell silent.
Yes, it had only been one day since Ryuga first came into contact with magic power, yet he had already transformed from a Zero-Order ordinary person to a Third-Order powerhouse.
Comparing this to their own time since joining the group, everyone's expressions became complex.
Comparing people really could drive one to death!
To be continued...