THE GOD EATER

The good news was that the traces left by the rank 9 entities were visible and unmistakable. The bad news was that the traces were, in fact, trails of devastation.

Another good news was that anyone who could see anything, be it afterimages or traces of devastation, was still alive. This was a precious thing because not many people could claim to have this opportunity. However, if the fight continued, fewer people would be able to enjoy this privilege.

Wherever the rank 9 fighters went, there was destruction and death. In the case of Loki, nothing was left behind. There was only a large empty canyon that was 2,486 kilometers across. Everything that used to be in the canyon was gone.

It didn’t matter if what Loki encountered was a city, a mountain, a river, or a forest. His external body devoured everything it came across.

As bad as this was, it was better than what the black monkey left behind. The black monkey’s domain of death left graveyards behind wherever it went. The graveyards were so dangerous that even rank 8 beings stood the chance of being killed just by standing in them.

Perhaps the worst part of the graveyards was that they didn’t disappear after the black monkey left. The graveyards were poised to remain in place for the next hundred years or more. And they were full of wandering rank 9 skeletons haunting the place.

The only good news was that the rank 9 skeletons were not replenishing their numbers after being destroyed, as they were in the black monkey’s external body. Of course, someone would have to destroy the undead skeletons before this weakness could be taken advantage of.

If no one destroys the rank 9 skeletons, they will remain in the graveyard for the next hundred years, killing any living thing that wandered into the graveyard.

Just like that, forbidden lands were created. And this was just the pollution left behind by a rank 9 avatar. It wasn’t the direct attack of the rank 9 avatar. Yet it would have a long-lasting effect on the world a century after the attack was made.

In his attempt to escape, Sword Maestro ran to the world barrier. To be fair, he didn’t exactly run there. He was only trying to run away from Loki, and the Central Domain was simply too small to contain him.

The Central Domain is about 110,000 kilometers across in terms of length and breadth. Sword Maestro’s avatar can move at a speed of 759,071,250 kilometers per hour. With this kind of speed, it would only take the avatar 0.52 seconds to cross the distance of 110,000 kilometers.

So he was bound to reach the edge of this small space at one point in time while trying to run away from Loki. The fact that he decided to take advantage of the situation to leave Loki behind was just a happy accident.

When he reached the world barrier, he slammed into it as if he had slammed into a wall. This slowed him down drastically. Even so, he was hellbent on entering the world barrier. So he continued to force his way into the world barrier.

Unfortunately for him, Loki didn’t want to leave the Central Domain. He wanted to keep fighting here partly because he wanted to fight in a place where any drastic move against him would definitely damage the Four Directions Sect.

Already, billions of people had died in their few seconds of fighting. On the surface, it seemed the Dao Lords didn’t care about the lives of the people in the world. But Loki wasn’t going to be fooled just yet. He meant what he said about going down with everyone in the world if he was going to die.

Because of this, he didn’t want Sword Maestro to move their battle away from the Central Domain. So he reached out his hand to grab Sword Maestro as soon as they reached the world barrier.

This wouldn’t be the first time in their fight that Sword Maestro had tried to escape by entering the world barrier. Loki had always been successful in pulling Sword Maestro back. But things were a little bit different this time around.

As soon as he reached out to grab Sword Maestro, the avatar of the Dao Lord turned to him, swinging the stick in his hand. This forced Loki to take the attack head-on or allow Sword Maestro to strike him.

Loki was determined to stop the avatar, so he allowed the stick to hit him. The stick struck him in the chest while he grabbed the avatar by the shoulder. Then he pulled the avatar back.

As he pulled Sword Maestro, the stick pierced his body. The red light around the stick exploded, which amplified the injury inflicted on him.

The explosion blew open a hole in his chest and inflicted significant damage on him despite the avatar being several times weaker than him. The wound in his chest also began to bleed.

That single hit had damaged his body, soul, mind, and will. It was so bad that his existence was pushed to the edge of breaking apart. But Sword Maestro also wanted to keep the wound bleeding so that the single injury would kill him.

In return for sustaining this much damage to his existence, he managed to pull Sword Maestro back. Or so he thought.

The avatar turned the stick against himself. Sword Maestro slashed his own shoulder and split himself in half from the neck down to his chest. So as Loki pulled on his shoulder, the shoulder tore free from the avatar, leaving the avatar free to continue moving.

So all he got for his labor was approximately one-third of Sword Maestro. Sword Maestro was still able to enter the world barrier, and his chest was bleeding. The bleeding wound in his chest was also trying to expand and rip him in half.