CHAPTER 319: THERE’S ALWAYS SOMEONE WHO HAS TO BE SACRIFICED

A gentle breeze swept through Dorian’s hair, making the soft strands around his neck flutter lightly. The fragile sprouts around him seemed to lean closer, whispering secrets only they could hear.

Dorian gazed at the figure above and spoke softly, "Another fragment... I wonder how many of your fragments are still drifting in this universe."

"Enough to make you flee to another world again, my little god," the Outer God mocked.

Hearing that, Dorian lowered his eyes, his voice calm and quiet. "I was simply too weak."

Then, raising his head again to face the Outer God high above, he said softly, "But I’m still here. So don’t you dare threaten my little friends."

The sky suddenly split open. A violent wind tore through the air, whipping the dangling threads and veil-like tendrils of the Outer God’s form. Bolts of lightning ripped across the heavens, revealing a chaotic swirl of red and black inside. The next instant, they turned into countless arrows, filling the sky until it bristled with destruction ready to descend.

Dorian stood amidst it all, his body wrapped in a gentle green light.

The humans nearby were ensnared by massive vines that pulled them away without warning — farther and farther, until from their distant refuge, the two figures before them appeared as nothing more than specks. They had been dragged almost to the edge of the dungeon.

"Dorian!" Fiona cried out in panic.

Around Dorian, countless sprouts began to rise — bursting forth in waves, surging endlessly like a vast green tide. They crowded over him, growing so tall in the blink of an eye that his figure was completely obscured.

At that exact moment, the lightning bolts above finally struck. They spread across a more than fifty-meter radius, yet every sharp point aimed at one target.

"Boom! Crash! Rumble! Crack!"

The deafening lightning roars ripped through the air repeatedly, unceasingly. The sky and earth trembled with each impact.

Amid the storm of lightning, the tree branches surged upward — burning black, yet sprouting anew, again and again. The sprouts tangled together, climbing over the corpses of their own kind, rising higher and higher toward the heavens, piercing through the torrential storm of lightning.

Explosions echoed nonstop. The ground was pocked with craters of all sizes, the earth quaking so violently that even from afar, they could see flashes of light flaring and fading — the explosions blooming like countless mushroom clouds, erupting from both underground and sky.

Then, suddenly — a surge of immense dark energy burst forth from the rift above, enveloping the Outer God’s entire form. It spread outward like a pair of colossal wings, the massive energy condensing between them into a single, blinding sphere of lightning.

It grew — vast and radiant — until it drowned out all else, pressing down with crushing force. The sprouts struggling upward withered almost instantly under its overwhelming might.

Darkness spread, entwining with the lightning bolts — and without warning, the massive sphere of energy tore through everything in its path, hurtling straight toward the ground!

Gigantic branches were cleaved apart on both sides, flames bursting in brief flashes. Everywhere the darkness swept past, the sprouts instantly withered.

The writhing sprouts surged like a colossal serpent twisting in agony, yet in the end, they too were drained of life, reduced to brittle husks beneath the shadow’s advance.

"Boom! Boom!"

The towering branches crashed down, gouging vast trenches into the earth. Amid that cataclysmic scene, the two small figures — beings of unfathomable power — appeared tinier than ever.

When the storm of darkness, thunder, and fire finally subsided, all that remained was an enormous crater stretching outward with a radius of more than thirty meters. The earth around its rim was split open in jagged lines and piled into a rough circular mound. At the center lay only scorched black dust and the broken remnants of branches that could no longer form a shape.

From afar, the humans who had witnessed everything could only stare. The great vines that had shielded them suddenly withered, collapsing heavily over their bodies.

Fiona’s eyes went wide, disbelief flooding her voice. "No way... No way!"

"How... how could this happen..." Alice covered her mouth, her words trembling as tears welled at the corners of her eyes. Austin and Nyx stood silent, their expressions grim.

Could it be... that an actual invasion was about to descend upon their continent?

Outside, the observation teams and countless ordinary humans gazing skyward witnessed the devastation.

Layla muttered blankly, her face pale. "Even... even a god can die?"

But perhaps that wasn’t so surprising. According to their analysis, the war between the gods and the Outer Gods had raged since ancient times — what they were seeing now was merely a shift of the battlefield.

[The Outer God truly intends to erase you! We need to leave, Silvanus!]

Raphael’s voice suddenly echoed in Silvanus’s mind.

[This Outer God isn’t just a single fragment — it’s the fusion of countless others! This form is far stronger than the one we encountered inside the Freedom Dove dungeon!]

He went on frantically: [I should have realized it the moment I saw this form... Silvanus—]

"Leave, and then what?" Silvanus’s voice cut in coldly.

Raphael fell silent for a brief moment before replying, his tone icy.

[We cannot allow you to disappear again, Silvanus.]

"I disappear, and the Outer God disappears with me. In exchange, this world gains peace. Isn’t that the reason I exist in the first place?" Silvanus rose slowly from the ashes as he spoke.

[Do you know what you’re saying right now?]

"You’re the one who doesn’t know what you’re saying, Raphael." Silvanus’s tone was calm, resolute. "I know I won’t die. At worst, I’ll drift somewhere for a while — waiting for you to pull me back again. You know that, too, Raphael."

Most of the Outer God’s fragments were gathered here if he could destroy this being, even temporarily, the Cosmic Tree would have peace — at least for a while.

"That’s enough time for you and Lucifer to restore order to this small world, and to free the others, Raphael. The Cosmic Tree must continue its cycle. Gabriel and Michael must return."

"I promise, I’ll come back. I promise that next time, I’ll open the path back to the God Nation. We’ll go home... but not this time, Raphael."

And you, Silvanus? Raphael wanted to ask — to demand an answer — but he couldn’t bring himself to say another word.

From the outside, all that could be seen was a small, charred figure slowly rising from the crater’s depths.

A faint green radiance began to bloom around him, spreading outward, mending everything in its path. Before the Outer God could react, the entire space suddenly stilled.

It was as if an invisible wall had been drawn between them, sealing off a realm where only the two existed.

The sky twisted and folded, and the gashes in space began to heal. The Outer God hadn’t expected this, but arrogance ran deep in its essence.

"So it’s the same as ever... That, my little god, is the one thing I’ve always respected about you."

As her voice faded, her body suddenly tore apart. Massive shapes erupted outward — like a mass of tentacles bound together, forming a colossal, flattened body that blotted out a great stretch of sky.

At its center was a single enormous eye. Then, all across the flesh, smaller eyes — each just slightly larger than a human’s — snapped open in unison, blinking in waves, packed so densely that anyone with even mild trypophobia would faint at the sight.

Its mouth was a vast, jagged tear. At last, it revealed its proper form — a monstrous being suspended in the air, wreathed in darkness and death, gazing down at existence as though everything beneath it were nothing more than dust.