Those crimson, eerie substances—
Even as they raged and dissipated, they still tried to infect Herman. Streams of red energy, like giant serpents searching for prey, seemed drawn to his life force, attempting to latch onto his body.
They were countless, resembling writhing tentacles—without intelligence or form, born purely of malice and corruption. Instinctively, they sought to burrow into the minds of powerful beings. Clearly, this crimson energy was some kind of parasitic substance that could only survive by feeding on a host.
"Disgusting things."
Having long prepared his defenses, Herman didn't allow the swiftly flowing energy to succeed. His white-gold divine power stood as an impenetrable barrier, and the crimson tendrils that touched it were instantly vaporized into foul-smelling gas.
The stench was unbearable.
After Ra, the ancient Egyptian Sun God, was completely destroyed, vast amounts of the crimson substance burst forth. But as they drifted through the void, they could do little more than attempt to reach Herman—and failed completely. Incapable of forming a cohesive attack, the red energy posed no threat to him at all.
Even so, Herman remained deeply wary of it.
A substance capable of corrupting both The Ancient One and Ra was not to be taken lightly. Who knew if it might also bring irreversible harm to him?
Careful and alert, he waited until every trace of the red energy had dissipated—until no sign of that sinister force remained—before finally turning his gaze toward Ra's corpse.
This God-King of Egyptian myth possessed an immensely powerful divine essence, one Herman had coveted for some time.
Though he had already awakened his own God-King power under Ra's pressure—becoming a true God-King standing at the highest mythic tier—Ra's divine core still held tremendous value to him, a perfect source of nourishment for his newly ascended power.
After all, the strength Ra had displayed—elevated to a single-universe level during their battle—was nothing short of astonishing. Even before his outburst, he had already possessed power surpassing that of a Sky Father.
The primordial essence of such a mighty God-King made Herman's eyes gleam with anticipation. He now stood on the brink of reaching that same universal tier himself. All he needed was an opportunity—a final push to propel him across the threshold.
"This is my opportunity."
His gaze locked on Ra's shattered head, where the God-King's essence still shimmered faintly within, pure golden light radiating in the absence of the corrupt red energy.
Just as Herman prepared to step forward and absorb it—
Clatter—
With the battle finally over, the turbulence within the fractured void began to subside. As the crimson energy dispersed, the chaotic currents weakened, and at last, the storm of destruction settled into stillness.
Then it happened.
Herman, along with the unconscious girl Evelyn—still protected by his divine barrier—and Ra's colossal corpse, was suddenly pulled by an unseen force. In an instant, they were drawn out of the void and hurled back into the Marvel Universe.
The City of the Dead had existed within a pocket dimension—not a true, independent universe, but one tethered to the Marvel Universe itself. When such a pocket realm was destroyed, its contents would naturally collapse back into the main reality.
Previously, the ferocity of Herman's battle with Ra had disrupted that process, preventing the Marvel Universe from reclaiming them.
But now, with both deities gone and no clash of divine powers tearing at the fabric of reality, the universe had finally begun restoring order—pulling everything from the ruined dimension back into its fold.
In the endless desert, a massive spatial rift appeared.
Clatter—
Clatter-clatter—
Countless remnants that had once existed within the pocket dimension—those not yet completely annihilated—were expelled through the spatial fissure as if the universe itself were dumping out its garbage.
Since the only remaining intact structure was the grand hall that had served as the seal, the debris scattered across the desert was not enough to blanket the sands entirely.
Fragments of shattered stone and brick fell in disarray, along with pieces of broken statues from the once-glorious hall, now half-buried beneath the rolling dunes.
These things caused little more than a stir of dust. The true impact came from the corpse of the ancient Egyptian Sun God, Ra.
BOOM—
The sound resembled that of a meteorite striking Earth.
Although Ra's body had already shrunk considerably from his peak form—no longer the incomprehensible colossus he once was—his corpse still towered like a mountain. When it fell from the fissure, it struck the ground with devastating force.
Ra's divine body was harder than the strongest steel known to man, and the impact sent an immense wave of sand surging skyward, shrouding the heavens.
The sun vanished behind a storm of golden dust. The desert quaked violently, as if gripped by an enormous earthquake.
Entire dunes collapsed in succession, and countless creatures of the desert fled in blind terror. But the sandstorm that erupted from Ra's corpse was beyond anything nature had ever birthed. Even the creatures born to this wasteland could not endure it.
Some were swept high into the air and smashed into the ground as mangled pulp. Others choked to death, suffocating on the endless clouds of sand.
The devastation was unimaginable.
It was like witnessing an apocalyptic sandstorm—one that would put even the most catastrophic ninjutsu from Naruto to shame. From Ra's fallen corpse, waves of storm energy spread outward in all directions, far more violent than any human spell or technique, their towering walls of sand rising higher than skyscrapers.
The sky was blotted out.
The world itself seemed to vanish beneath a storm of ruin.
For the desert's living beings, it was the very embodiment of the world's end. Those farther away were the fortunate ones, consumed by sand only as they fled. But the creatures closest to the spatial fissure met far crueler fates.
Many were torn apart by the raging winds. It was a disaster beyond nature's wrath—merely the byproduct of a god's deathly fall. Truly, when gods clash, mortals are the ones who suffer.
Even distant Egyptian cities were affected. Buildings that lacked proper foundations collapsed instantly under the shockwaves.
Screams filled the streets as panic swept through the population. No one understood what had happened—only that some unimaginable calamity had descended upon the world.
"Run! The gods are angry!"
"This is divine punishment from the heavens!"
"My home! My wife and children!"
...
Many nearby cities had fallen into turmoil.
Chaos reigned everywhere. Countless lives were lost in the disaster. In the face of such devastation, all life on Earth proved equally fragile. Even humankind—so confident in its conquest of nature—was no exception.
If just the fall of a god's corpse could unleash such destruction, it was terrifying to imagine what would have happened had Herman's battle with Ra, the ancient Egyptian Sun God, taken place on Earth. The planet would have been reduced to ruin, leaving no survivors.
Of course, if Herman ever found himself in a similar situation, he would have found a way to move the battlefield elsewhere. After all, this Earth's timeline was closely tied to his own future.
If he accidentally destroyed this version of Earth, he might never be able to return to the future that belonged to him.
"To cause no effect at all... that's already impossible. I can only hope it doesn't change too much of what's to come."
Descending slowly from the spatial rift, Herman raised his left hand. Floating above it was Evelyn, still enveloped in his divine protection.
He gently set her down on the ground before walking toward the corpse of Ra. Extending his hand, he released his divine power, enveloping the shattered remains of Ra's head to stabilize the rapidly fading essence of the God-King.
"Looking at him now, there's not a trace of that grotesque form left. That red energy really was something strange."
On Ra's corpse, Herman saw no sign of the strange patterns that had once marked the Sun God's body—not even the faintest trace of their existence.
The remnants of that eerie crimson energy were gone without a trace. Now, Ra's body radiated only a profound and majestic aura. If any other transcendent beings were to witness it, they would never guess the horrors that had once taken hold of the Egyptian God-King.
They would only stand in awe of his divine remains, marveling that even in death, the body still exuded such overwhelming pressure.
"Even in death, this presence is more than ordinary people could ever bear," Herman murmured as he gazed at the fallen god he had slain with his own hands.
Ra's massive body—once filled with explosive power—still struck a commanding image. Though lifeless and cold as stone, his form gleamed faintly, as if cast from divine metal.
As Herman had said—
Even now, the corpse of Ra, the ancient Egyptian Sun God, would be unbearable for mortals to behold. Anyone without divine protection would likely be crushed by the sheer weight of its lingering might. Evelyn had only survived the battle with Seth, the War God, because she'd been under Herman's protection.
A God-King who did not restrain his own power—no ordinary life could endure his presence.
It wasn't only beings like Cthulhu, the eldritch gods, who possessed the trait of being unseeable and unapproachable. This quality applied to all higher life forms. Even a conservative estimate suggested that Ra's corpse would continue radiating divine pressure for at least fifty thousand years.
Of course, a divine body of such magnitude could easily become the source of regional catastrophe. Yet for some beings, it might also be an opportunity.
After all, the energy contained within the corpse of a higher life form was unimaginably vast.
To Herman, it might not mean much. But for lesser beings, it was a chance—an opportunity to evolve beyond their limits.
In the end, a god was simply a life form of a higher order.
And the remains of such a being could serve as a bridge—a ladder for those below to climb toward greater power.
"It's like... the creatures beneath the earth."
Herman's gaze pierced through the layers of golden sand, seeing deep into the ground below.
On the shattered skull of Ra, the ancient Egyptian Sun God, a few drops of brilliant divine blood still trickled down, lingering even after returning to the Marvel Universe.
Each drop of that radiant blood fell heavily to the earth—tiny and insignificant in appearance, yet each one weighed as much as a mountain. For Ra's colossal body, it was nothing, but on the ground, every drop spread into a glowing pool that quickly seeped into the rolling sands around it.
When the chaos finally subsided, the desert for several kilometers around had been stained with a dazzling golden hue. From afar, it looked like a vast ocean of gold.
These sands had clearly transformed into something extraordinary—treasures of immense value, at least for ordinary lifeforms and humans.
No one could predict what effect this transformed desert might have in the future. After some thought, Herman decided to store most of it in his dimensional space. The only thing he couldn't completely handle in time were the subterranean rivers deep beneath the ground.
The divine blood's contamination didn't just spread outward—it seeped downward as well, reaching the underground streams. By the time Herman focused his vision through the earth, the blood's divine influence had already spread far and wide. It wasn't like a drop of ink slowly diffusing through water—it was far faster.
Though not at the speed of light, divine energy spread at a frightening pace, and through water, it diffused over an area far greater than through sand.
Unless Herman destroyed every underground river beneath Egypt, tracking every living thing touched by the blood would be an impossible task. The contamination had already reached the smallest fish and plankton, their bodies faintly shimmering with golden light—a sign of subtle evolution at the level of life itself.
"The fish and shrimp at the lowest depths are affected the most. The further away they are, the less benefit they gain."
After a moment's thought, Herman extended his divine power, gathering all the affected aquatic life directly beneath him into his dimensional space.
The alternate dimension granted to him by the [Raven Emissary] identity was, in essence, a nascent Divine Realm. In the past, he had merely used it as a storage space—but now that he had awakened his God-King power, it was time to begin shaping it into what it was meant to be.
Unlike the [Realm of the Dead], this Divine Realm within his dimension was something Herman knew he would rely on frequently. After awakening his God-King power, this space had gained an extraordinary new property.
In battle, Herman could project his Divine Realm, overlaying it atop existing space and pulling his enemies inside. Within this realm, his power would grow stronger while his enemies' strength would weaken. The resulting imbalance would be devastating—an ability as powerful as it was broken.
"My Divine Realm—their hell."
Herman was more than satisfied with the new ability. After collecting the gold-tinged fish and shrimp from underground, he turned his gaze once more toward Ra's corpse.
He could easily throw the body into his dimensional space to serve as nourishment, but there was something far more important he needed to do first.
"Even sealed by my divine power... the essence is still leaking."
Herman needed to act quickly to absorb Ra's God-King essence.
This kind of essence, after a deity's death, would gradually return to the universe under the influence of cosmic will—like energy returning to the source in a grand act of conservation.
Of course, Herman wasn't about to let that happen.
Letting such precious essence drift back into the cosmos would be no different from buying a few rare, high-grade tuna at the market only to toss them back into the ocean. With both hands, he smashed open the skull of the ancient Egyptian Sun God.
"If I ascend here, the disturbance will definitely be..."
He paused for a moment in thought, then wrapped his divine power around Ra's God-King core and shot into the heavens—vanishing from Earth in an instant as he soared into the endless void of space.
"I hope you don't disappoint me."
Suspended within the sea of stars, Herman began to absorb and devour the divine essence in his hands. Immediately, the immense power of Ra surged through his body, and the ancient, sacred force of cosmic law began to fuse with his own.
His divine fire blazed higher, refining everything within him. His strength skyrocketed at an alarming rate. As his very existence ascended, the platinum light behind him gathered and intertwined, forming a vast, intricate sigil that pulsed with divine complexity.
In mere moments, the pattern spread across the surrounding starfield, glowing with an aura of supreme majesty and cosmic authority.
It was the aura... of a Universal-level being.
...
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