With another swift, sharp, and steady slash, the sword once again cut through half of the Hundred-Form Monster's body.
Cid followed with a flying kick to the Hundred-Form Monster's chest. The sheer force instantly blasted a huge hole through the point of impact, and with a heavy thud, the Hundred-Form Monster was sent hurtling away.
Before it could even hit the ground, a towering pillar of Magical Power descended with enough force to crush everything in its path, striking the Hundred-Form Monster head-on and instantly turning its body into a heap of dust.
"Boom, boom, boom…"
Holding the Purple and Blue Twin Swords, the purple giant slowly advanced toward the Hundred-Form Monster, which had already reformed from the dust on the ground. As the giant's crossed steps landed on the earth, Itogami Island trembled faintly.
"Wait, Shadow. We don't actually need to fight each other. We can work together."
Staring in terror at the War God Giant slowly approaching, the Hundred-Form Monster's legs gave out and it collapsed to the ground. Its tentacles kept dragging it backward, one hand raised defensively in front of itself as it tried to make peace in a trembling voice.
"A man who lost himself to power, yet trembles before an even greater power in the end. You really are weak."
Seeing the Hundred-Form Monster in such a pathetic state, Cid let out a sigh and shook his head, half regretful, half exasperated.
How had something like this managed to gather such enormous faith and become a Chief God?
Setting aside its appearance, just this kind of spirit was enough to make it unbelievable that two people would willingly sacrifice their own divine status in exchange for giving it two resurrections.
"Use every ounce of your strength to entertain me. A true strong one does not lose the courage to fight because of fear."
Cid raised the Amethyst Sword and pointed it at the Hundred-Form Monster. His voice gradually rose, and powerful violet-blue Magical Power surged out of the giant's body and shot into the heavens, dyeing the entire sky above Itogami Island violet-blue.
A crushing pressure spread out from the purple giant... no, from Cid himself. The ruins left by their battle were blown away, clearing out a wide open space around them.
Aside from the ground beneath Cid's feet, even the surrounding earth began to split apart.
Locked under that terrifying pressure, the Hundred-Form Monster felt as though its throat had been seized. Its beastly instincts were warning it of death.
Under that life-and-death threat, the violent power of the Beast God's faith kept affecting the Hundred-Form Monster, and the clarity in its eyes grew more and more muddled.
No... this won't do!
But in the end, when it thought about the consequences of acting now, its fear of death still won out, and the Hundred-Form Monster forcibly suppressed the frenzied battle intent inside the Beast God's divine seat.
"Shadow, I admit I'm afraid of death, but that doesn't mean I don't have the courage to fight you to the death.
I still have more than a hundred subordinate Gods. There's no way you can succeed a hundred times without making a single mistake. Let me go, and I'll owe you a favor. I promise I won't make a move against you again in the future."
Cid said nothing. He only looked at the Hundred-Form Monster before him and let out a cold sneer, mockingly watching the two-headed creature sprawled on the ground. One was a lion head filled with fear, the other a tiger head burning with savage battle intent.
"Need to kill you a hundred times? Then I'll kill you a hundred times."
He said it as lightly as if it meant nothing at all. At the same time, the Blue Crystal Sword in Cid's hand began to shine, and tremendous Magical Power gathered at its tip.
"Let me ask you something..."
Looking at the lion head, whose face was full of disbelief after hearing those words, Cid tilted his head and spoke in a puzzled tone.
"What's your name?"
"Me? My name is, of course..."
Hearing Cid's question, the lion head froze. It instinctively tried to say its own name, but halfway through, it suddenly got stuck, its face turning blank with confusion.
"AAAAAH!"
A shrill scream rang out. Not because of the chaotic memories churning in the lion head's mind, memories of desert, ocean, sky, and snow all mixed together, but because while the lion head was lost in confusion, the tiger head on the other side suddenly attacked.
The tiger head bit down on the lion head's neck, and a tangible crimson battle intent poured in through the wound, staining the lion head's soul.
Watching this, even Cid had to admit that the world was truly vast.
What a joke. A Chief God had its faith ignited by an outsider without noticing a thing, then got suppressed in reverse by the consciousness born from that very faith. In the end, its soul was stained and replaced by that consciousness, turning it from the master of its godhood into a puppet of its own godhood.
What made it even funnier was that this wasn't a joke at all. From Cid's point of view, the Hundred-Form Monster before him had gone from having its faith ignited at the start to being completely replaced by the consciousness born from that faith. Pfft...
Right now, Cid only wanted to know just how unworthy this Hundred-Form Monster had to be for it to pull off something this absurd, something unprecedented and perhaps never to be repeated.
"Well, whatever..."
As he watched the Hundred-Form Monster's soul be completely stained and replaced, and its writhing body finally go still, Cid spoke in an easy tone.
"Clang!"
The Blue Crystal Sword rose and blocked a massive lava battle-axe swung down by the Hundred-Form Monster that had suddenly appeared behind him.
"Bang!"
The Amethyst Sword knocked aside the black sword thrust at him by the Hundred-Form Monster in front, then casually drove straight into its heart.
"Let me see how strong the real Beast God really is."
Turning to the side, Cid flung away the Hundred-Form Monsters attacking from front and back, both of them sent flying with the Purple and Blue Twin Swords buried in their chests.
They crashed together, and in the next instant, a massive explosion erupted, kicking up a sky full of dust.
The dust blocked all sight, but it meant nothing to Cid.
Magical Power flowed into his eyes, and the dust cloud in front of him became transparent. Cid could clearly see a faint flash of divinity as the erased Beast God once again used "Substitute Death" to return from faith.
It didn't matter. Cid had expected this. The Hundred-Form Monster might have been exaggerating when it boasted about having more than a hundred subordinate Gods, but from how certain it sounded, Cid believed it definitely had at least dozens.
So what Cid had to do next was simple. Make the Beast God in front of him use its full strength, then kill it.
"Whoosh!"
A crimson beam of Magical Power several meters thick shot out of the dust cloud at astonishing speed. Even from hundreds of meters away, the destructive force it gave off erased everything along its path, briefly carving out a vacuum corridor nearly a hundred meters wide.
"Boom!"
Without dodging or retreating, the purple giant met the powerful red beam head-on. Its purple armor collided with the beam with a deafening impact.
"Rias-senpai's Power of Destruction..."
The red beam instantly spread outward in a circle. For the first time, the purple War God Giant took visible damage. Purple Magical Power and crimson Magical Power clashed and canceled each other out, and both of its fists vanished.
At some point, dark clouds had swallowed the sky. Lightning flickered through them nonstop, gathering together before crashing down in radiant bolts toward the purple giant.
"The harpy's weather control, Akeno-senpai's lightning..."
The destructive blast blew apart the armor on its back, exposing the purple body beneath as chunks of violet crystal fell from the damaged area.
"Ahhh..."
A shrill cry burst from the Beast God's mouth. The seawater behind the purple War God began to gather, forming waves seven to eight hundred meters high that slammed toward the purple giant.
The waves crashed against the giant body of the purple giant, but unlike before, they failed to break through its defenses. Even so, the temperature of the seawater began to plummet. In just a few seconds, the water flowing around the War God turned into thousand-year ice, locking its movements in place.
"A mermaid's water control, the snow-controlling ability of the mutant Yuki-onna from World No. 1..."
A scythe radiating a sinister aura appeared overhead, passed through the ice, and carved a slash across the purple giant's body.
"...The Reaper's scythe... has that been defined as a monkey-bone man?"
It left no wound behind, but the flow of Magical Power inside the purple War God's body came to a halt.
"Hiss..." "Moo..." "Roar..."
A silver beetle appeared, weakening the War God's Magical Power. A two-horned horse used vibration to destabilize the War God's body. A golden lion and an axe-wielding minotaur charged the giant form of the War God, covering it in cracks.
"Kojou's Primogenitor-class Beast Vassals..."
Several spatial wormholes opened above the War God Giant, and a barrage of Magical Power attacks poured out of them, bombarding the purple giant's body.
Under such a dense storm of powerful Magical Power attacks, the body of the War God Giant shattered with a crack, breaking into countless pieces of purple crystal. Having lost his footing, Cid began to fall.
"The cave ability of that extra Devil from the Underworld..."
The Beast God turned into a cloud of blood mist and instantly appeared in front of the falling Cid.
"A vampire's mist form ability..."
A mysterious white airflow wrapped around the Beast God's arm, causing it to swell to an unnatural size.
"Koneko-chan's Senjutsu ability, the physical enhancement abilities of the Oni race or mountain ogres..."
Destruction, lightning, ice, Beast Vassals, caves, and the Beast God's own fist all struck Cid at the exact moment he landed. The eruption of Magical Power kicked up a sky full of dust, and even the heavens changed color under that single blow. The waves of Magical Power swept across all of Itogami Island.
"No need to rush..."
A fierce gust scattered the smoke and revealed the scene within.
One hand blocked the massive fist in front of him. The many attacks striking his body did not leave so much as a scratch. Cid stood there smiling brightly.
"We haven't even fought the second phase yet, so don't rush straight to the third-phase boss."
A substance like blue crystal appeared, and a towering blue giant rose where he stood. The dense Magical Power erupting from its appearance instantly annihilated the enormous body of the Beast God.
"Rias-senpai, Kojou. He's using your abilities even better than you do."
With enormous amethyst wings spread behind him and the Purple and Blue Twin Swords in hand, Cid hovered in the air and looked down at the Beast God below, who had just revived through Substitute Death and now wore a face full of battle intent. Inwardly, he took the chance to mock his acquaintances.
From Cid's point of view, the faith inside the Beast God was burning faster and faster, allowing the consciousness born from that faith to draw a constant stream of power from the concept of beasts.
Just like how it had used the abilities of Fallen Angels, Devils, and Vampires earlier, it was now searching for other races that could be defined as Beastmen.
As long as a humanoid creature had beastly characteristics, it could be defined by it as a Beastmen. That even included humans, who were directly classified as monkey-men.
But humans, strictly speaking, did not possess any special supernatural bloodline. They only differed in talent, so it could not gain abilities from humans themselves.
That left it with only one workaround. Exploit a loophole by treating dead humans who became Reapers as monkey-men too, and in doing so gain a Reaper's ability to harvest life.
This was completely different from that earlier Hundred-Form Monster, which had the stats of a top-fifteen figure in the world on paper, yet could not even bring out thirty percent of its actual strength and might not have been able to beat an SSS-rank opponent in real combat.
The Beast God before him had not only pushed beyond that top-fifteen level and reached SSS+, the same tier as Shiva, the world's sixth-ranked God of Destruction, it also possessed the combat instinct to match that level of power.
Not that there was anything to envy. It was a one-time thing. Once the power of faith burned out, no matter who won or lost, the Beast God in front of him was certain to die.
As a consciousness born from the power of faith, it might not be able to push ten parts of strength into twelve, but when it came specifically to the Beast God's own abilities, it could wield them with a perfect ten out of ten, just like a god born that way from the start.
"Come on. Let's have a glorious fight before you die."
Raising his sword in invitation, Cid quietly watched the Beast God strengthen itself, fully looking forward to the fierce battle to come.
That was the tolerance of an Eminence in Shadow. Only by letting the enemy use every trick it had, then crushing it utterly head-on, could he shut down every excuse and display the absolute power of an Eminence in Shadow.
That thought reminded Cid of his battle with the First Primogenitor.
He had not paid attention to the online reaction after that fight, but he was sure plenty of people on the internet must have been making excuses for the First Primogenitor's defeat. That was what happened when you failed to show the tolerance of an Eminence in Shadow. A bunch of people would start saying that if the enemy had done this or that, they might not necessarily have lost to an Eminence in Shadow.
"ROAR!"
A roar that shook heaven and earth burst from the Beast God's mouth. A vast amount of Magical Power gathered and then erupted from its body. Scorching flames belonging to a dragon-man wrapped around the Beast God's hideous form, and its newly grown dragon wings spread wide as it prepared to charge at the blue giant high above.
The Purple and Blue Twin Swords also began gathering Magical Power, and the blue giant took up a sword-swinging stance.
"Boom!"
It seemed that when the Beast God spread its dragon wings, the flames on them touched something dangerous, triggering another explosion on the ground.
It should have been a trivial matter, and Cid could not have cared less, but he noticed that a tiny object had been blown out from the site of the explosion. By pure coincidence, that tiny object was flying straight toward him.
He did not want to bother with it, but then Cid's nose twitched. He actually smelled money.
At that point, he had no choice but to pay attention. If heaven handed something to you and you refused to take it, you would only have yourself to blame.
Keeping the blue giant frozen in place, Cid opened a passage leading from the outside world straight to his hand, matching the little object's flight path.
"Fwoosh!"
With a rush of friction, the small object successfully passed through the tunnel and arrived in front of Cid.
"Woohoo. An unexpected bonus. A one-of-a-kind work of art."
Looking at the golden ring in front of him, Cid could tell at once. Perfect purity, a lost crafting method, ancient history. It was a truly unique masterpiece on a world level.
He just so happened to have one in his treasury already. That made a pair, which doubled the price. Hahaha, haha, ha...
Unique.
And he just so happened to already have one.
His laughter stopped dead.
Trembling as he stared at the golden ring in his hand, Cid realized something was very, very wrong.
...
At that instant, the sky over the entire world suddenly darkened. Everyone's heart jolted, and a nameless fear rose in every living being, including gods and Demons...