[Tohsaka Rin: "Such an exaggerated number of blessings—I suddenly understand why the Conceptual Armament Construction Guide can cost 990,000!"]
In the chat group, seeing Ryuga surrounded by fifteen sanctuary-level spells, Tohsaka Rin finally deeply understood again the value of Ryuga's products.
That was power capable of crossing the barriers of power scale, enabling battles against higher tiers.
In the Campione world, Verethragna also unconsciously began thinking of countermeasures.
"White Horse's power would be partially offset by Surya, and if using the Bull incarnation..."
The war god's instincts told him that if he didn't go all out, his chances of defeat were very high.
Even though he descended to seek defeat, he didn't want to lose too embarrassingly.
"Fortunately, his magical power has reached its limit. Maintaining the consumption of fifteen sanctuary-level spells isn't easy!"
With a Heretic God's eyesight, Verethragna thought Ryuga had reached his limit.
If it was this level of power, it would be somewhat troublesome for him, but not unchallengeable.
Even if Ryuga could construct other techniques, his magical power wouldn't allow it.
Just as he was thinking this.
"Hum~"
Invisible waves spread throughout the port, golden light particles appeared from all directions, constantly gathering into Ryuga's body.
That was the same power as when the divine beast boar collapsed—power from ley lines, nature, and even the planet itself.
"True Ether!"
With a deity present for comparison, Erica quickly guessed the essence of this power.
This was the power Ryuga had already deduced from the Mana Refinement Method initially—this was the first time using it.
For Verethragna, this power had a more familiar name.
"Divine power! So you've truly completely mastered this power?"
Verethragna had indeed heard Ryuga say he could also master divine power while eavesdropping, but hadn't expected his mastery of divine power to reach a level comparable to Heretic Gods.
Before he could feel surprised, Ryuga, enhanced by True Ether with greatly increased magical power and technique potency, began chanting again.
"Burn the world, Branch of Destruction!"
A destructive flame sword appeared in midair—that was Laevatein from Norse mythology, the divine sword capable of destroying the World Tree.
"By the meteor's oath, pierce through my enemy!"
A curved golden long spear was constructed with True Ether as its foundation—that was Odin's divine spear, Gungnir.
As sanctuary-level conceptual armaments, these two weapons naturally couldn't possess the power of the original divine artifacts, not even half their might.
However, even as imitations, they were absolutely not existences that could be completely ignored.
More terrifyingly, such conceptual armaments were just the beginning.
"Rho Aias!" "Sun Wheel, become armor!" "Lord! Protect me! Those who harm me shall receive sevenfold retribution!" "Heretical fairy, how dare you usurp divine position?!" "Bright god Mithras, grant me the power to defeat Devas!"...
Watching Ryuga continuously, without pause, apply one BUFF after another to himself or the enemy.
Not just the group members, even Verethragna on scene was completely stunned.
Initially, Verethragna was still calculating and analyzing the power Ryuga used.
For him, who possessed the anti-god armament—Golden Sword, Ryuga's mythological techniques weren't hard to deal with. As long as he could discern their origins and create targeted spirit words, he could easily seal them.
However, as Ryuga used more and more techniques covering increasingly obscure ranges, even Verethragna couldn't keep up with his pace.
In the end, he simply gave up thinking altogether.
From Norse mythology to Greek mythology, from Persian mythology to Egyptian mythology, from Incan mythology to Aztec mythology.
The techniques Ryuga used spanned Europe, Asia, Africa, and even included South America.
Whether in terms of mystical degree or quantity, they were already beyond what could be resolved with just the Golden Sword.
Not to mention, besides offensive and defensive techniques, Ryuga had also set up many counter-damage and trap techniques. If one wanted to use offensive Authorities to crush the opponent with pure violence, that would be falling right into the opponent's trap.
These techniques weren't randomly arranged, but interlocking.
Realizing this, Verethragna was completely numb.
Was this guy really human?
Just a few minutes felt like years to him.
"Neighhh..."
Finally, under his summons, the last incarnation—White Horse—came from the horizon, crashed into his body, and merged with Verethragna.
Thus, with ten incarnations complete, Verethragna recovered to his prime.
Hearing the commotion here, Ryuga, who was continuing to set up techniques, glanced at him. After pondering for two seconds, he spoke.
"About enough. How about we start the battle now?"
Hearing his tone of wanting more, seeing the nearly hundred technique lights flickering on his body, Verethragna's eye twitched.
"You mean you could continue preparing?"
"Of course."
Ryuga nodded matter-of-factly.
"However, I've already left enough redundancy. Continuing to prepare would just waste time—this level is fine now."
Fighting a deity for the first time, especially battling such a powerful war god as Verethragna, Ryuga naturally wouldn't take risks. Making extra preparations was normal.
"..."
Verethragna was speechless.
It wasn't that he didn't catch Ryuga's subtext—this level is enough to deal with you—but that he was shocked by Ryuga's abnormal degree.
This world wasn't lacking madmen capable of slaying gods.
But throughout all history, which Campione could face-to-face battle deities in human state?
Even looking through all of history, the man before him was undoubtedly the greatest monster.
As a war god, especially a war god pursuing defeat, facing such a monster, besides shock, he felt more excitement.
Regardless, this was an opponent worth challenging.
—Note: here, he had already positioned himself as a lower-tier existence needing to challenge Ryuga.
However, before gripping the Golden Sword's hilt and swinging at this monster before him, he still had some words he couldn't help but voice.
"Being able to simultaneously operate so many techniques is your advantage—I have no objection to this."
Looking at several familiar light rings around Ryuga, Verethragna tried to suppress his twitching mouth corner and spoke in a complex tone.
"It's just, borrowing power from other pantheons to deal with me is one thing, but why also borrow power from Ahura Mazda-sama and Mithras-sama? You even tried to borrow my own power in front of me... isn't this a bit too malicious?"
Verethragna was a warrior protecting light, subordinate to the light god Mithras, while Ahura was the supreme deity of Zoroastrianism.
Ryuga doing this was equivalent to borrowing power from Verethragna's boss and chairman to deal with him, even trying to borrow Verethragna's own power.
Was this trying to make him beat himself up?
If Ryuga didn't master many techniques and had no choice, that would be one thing.
But with his technique reserves, this was clearly intentional!
"I just wanted to test whether deities could refuse magical rituals involving themselves. Seems like they can indeed."
Ryuga shrugged, giving such an explanation.
"Do you think you have victory in the bag?"
Verethragna let out a cold laugh.
"Isn't that the case?"
Ryuga calmly met his gaze.
"Hmph! Naive! War isn't decided until the last moment—no one knows the outcome! Let me, as a war god, teach you a lesson!"
Looking at Ryuga wrapped in nearly a hundred techniques, the Zoroastrian war god gripped his Golden Sword and charged directly forward.
Seeing the Heretic God's imposing aura, Erica and others couldn't help but worry.
Could it be that the opponent also had some unknown trump card?
Under everyone's extremely tense gazes.
Verethragna charged forward, Verethragna went all out, Verethragna called GG.
One minute later.
"Guh! So I still lost..."
Above the completely ruined port, Verethragna, who had been cut in half after his resurrection mechanism activated and he was defeated again, directly spoke his defeat lines and dissolved into light particles.
"How frustrating—I couldn't even force out your full power!"
The Heretic God Verethragna was hereby officially subjugated.
To be continued…
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