Chapter 1547: Against a Horde of Devils
Arad dug the planet’s surface and stared down at the new abyss, seeing trails of Euri’s magic inside, far too muffled by the devils’ oppressive curses.
Arad had to be wary of one thing: Euri’s curse.
Euri can get stronger or weaker based on how much he hates and is hated. If Arad hated him, Euri would get stronger, and Arad would become weaker.
This fight can easily turn around. Euri’s main advantage is that he killed the parents of one of Arad’s wives, garnering his loathing. This immediately makes Arad’s situation difficult, and that’s why he brought Diana and Mathilde on standby.
They don’t have any emotions toward Euri; they barely knew Tyal, and while they could be made, to them, it was easier to forget and ignore, making them a perfect weapon against Euri.
But from what Arad learned from Diana herself, the only one who could completely obliterate such a curse is Death herself, the emotionless reaper of souls.
But Arad wants to be the one to break Euri’s bones and turn him inside out; that’s why he had to find a way to rip his emotions apart from himself. Taking a bit of time eating this whole universe also served the purpose of giving Arad enough time to think and come up with a plan, and he had managed to achieve something.
Arad’s plan was simple but complicated. He had to consult the only curse expert that he knew, Doma, the Queen of curses.
Doma looked through Arad’s eyes, a mouth opening on his neck as she giggled. "{Oh my, my. Now that’s one powerful curse.}"
According to Doma, in this situation, there are two types of curses that Arad should consider. Natural and artificial curses.
When Doma herself makes a curse, when any witch makes a curse through magic, it is an artificial curse, something made by people, not naturally coming into existence.
But the curses, devils, and half-devils are born with are natural curses; they are formed with them at birth.
In most cases, natural curses are stronger than artificial ones, but that only extends to the strength. Artificial curses are usually more stable, better constructed, and have fewer loopholes to exploit, which more than makes up for the lack of raw power.
Euri’s curse was powerful, stupidly powerful to a point where it was funny. Based on the hate he gets or feels, his strength would multiply, making him tens of times stronger than he should be.
It was a curse that makes you stronger the more the world hates you, which in turn puts you in more danger.
That was a deadly power, but it was also the curse’s downfall.
There were two main problems with Euri’s curse. The first was that it relied on Euri’s own power as a baseline, making him its limiter.
The second was that it relied on hatred, the last emotion Doma would want to make a curse based upon.
Hatred was unstable, volatile, and ever-changing. Many people mistake hatred for anger, but the two are completely different emotions.
You can hate someone, but it’s not necessary to be angry at them. Hatred makes it easier to get angry, but it isn’t as powerful.
There was a stark difference between a curse powered by spite and one fueled by rage.
"{Euri is family, and he has done nothing wrong. He simply played by the Titans’ traditions and executed his father’s family because they cheated against Zeus.}" Doma giggled.
"{You can be disappointed that he didn’t play along. You can be angry at what he did, but you don’t have to hate him for having a different opinion and acting upon it.}"
Arad jumped down, watching as the light of the outside faded away and got replaced by the humming red glow of fire and boiling magma. As he fell, Diana and Mathilde were right behind him, descending upon the darkness like two beacons of radiant light.
As the sparks of flame flew past him, Arad soon saw the bottom of the endless pit he had dug. An endless and expansive mineshaft akin to an armored ant colony, each tunnel being at least several hundred meters wide, enough to house titans and devils.
He landed with a boom, immediately finding himself surrounded by thousands of armed devils, all ready to attack and kill him where he stood.
Arad lifted his hand, summoning the small black hole he had stored inside his stomach. Using his authority over the void, he then forced that black hole to change shape into a long blade, with the accretion disk being the hand guard.
He pointed the sword at the ground, standing with his arms wide open as he looked forward with a passive face, his eyes burning purple. "Get out of my way."
The devils threw glances at each other, then looked at Diana and Mathilde, who floated right above Arad. The two didn’t seem interested in fighting them, so this colony of devils had one goal: to slay Arad first and then deal with them later on.
"Do you really think!" A devil growled, "That we’re going to sit and let someone who destroyed our whole world live to see another day?" Fire started burning from his back, "You bastard, what is left out there? Where are everyone else?"
Arad looked at him and then spoke in a passive tone, "Back in hell where they belong."
The devil instantly lunged at Arad, burning with rage. His spear flew across the air like a flash, immediately getting blocked by Arad’s sword, "Fucker! Give them back!"
As Arad blocked the devil’s spear, his expression never changed. "I’m sending you all to them. You already festered a bed for the abominations, so I’m not here to play games with you all."
Using his powerful arms, Arad pushed the sword forward, deflecting the spear away, and then with a single downward swing, he slashed the devil in half with ease.
As the devil’s two halves fell to the ground and evaporated into nothing, consumed by Arad’s black hole sword, the devils all glared at him, raging at once.
Hundreds and thousands of blades all flew at Arad at once, and from each and every direction, a storm of swords, a rain of spears, and a flood of fire and curses washed over him.
Arad moved like a machine, his arms swung rapidly, and his sword faded into a blur. None of those devils were weak; they were all too powerful, archdevils and even stronger fiends, and even Arad could feel the power behind their attacks.
They were all empowered by Euri’s curse.
But what made the fight even harder was that each and every one of them had a powerful curse as well, making each one of them need a different strategy to kill.
One of the devils could greatly increase his speed, but in exchange for accelerating his time, he grew older with each move. Arad didn’t need to do much for those devils to die, but for a few seconds, the bastard matched Arad’s speed and gave him a scare.
Another devilish woman was both slow and weak, but for some reason, she was always at the right spot and time to survive Arad’s attack and even hit him back. It took a while for Arad to realise she was a seer, seeing the future and acting upon it before anything could happen.
At first, Arad was at a loss, but then realised that the more the devilish woman used her power, the more she bled from every hole. He wanted to wait for her to fall down, but at one point, she stopped fighting.
While all the devils kept fighting Arad with their teeth and nails, with their lives on the line, that devilish seer walked toward Mathilde in the back, knelt down, and kissed her foot, begging to be put down.
Mathilde just smiled and lifted the devilish woman, refusing to kill her and instead asked Diana to send her to Kali.
Diana didn’t understand what Mathilde wanted, but she did it anyway.
Sadly, Arad didn’t have time to ask questions and was instead swarmed by many more devils. One danced through shadows, one flew around him like a lightning bolt, and one even tried seducing him.
Arad slashed left and right, cutting hordes of devils with each swing, his blade never spared them, and if any devil survived an attack, it was either due to their luck or skill.
Soon, Arad faced many more seers like the first one, and they all acted the same, fighting him for a while, abusing their power to the limit, then heading to Mathilde.
Even the devils started to notice that something was utterly wrong for their seers to switch sides like this. What no one knew, besides Mathilde and the seers, was the truth that they saw.
The seers use the strands of fate to sense and see the future. But when looking too much into Arad’s fate, they noticed that it transcended the nature of fate itself, and when they tried to look deeper, the triplets of fate cut their path short, warning them not to stare at the void.
That only meant that Arad was above the fates, and there was only one being that could surpass them, AO, the First Overgod.
Once the seers realised that Arad was the overgod, and saw that out of all possible futures, begging Mathilde specifically would grant them the best outcome, they all switched sides and went to her.