So he began to rein in his size, build a domain for the coming battle, and reshape his body. It was a body built almost purely from laws and principles as a framework, with energy and force filling in the flesh. It surpassed all previous forms made from piled matter and now slept quietly within.
Was this because he feared he could not handle the upcoming battle? No, the reason was far more absurd.
Normally, stepping on his own foot was enough to reach the sky. The combined reactions of his templates, now nearing sublimation, were accelerating like mad, almost breaking through the atmosphere.
As said before, if the Lord had caused the planet's strange evolution, then the planet had incredible potential. The other three were not inferior either, but there was a troublesome stage in this one's evolution.
That stage was evolving into a higher-dimensional form like the original Gold sea cucumber. In his nonstop accelerated evolution, he had already brushed against a corner of it. That was the strange glimpse of more things he had seen before.
If he continued evolving like this, he could sit at the same table as that sea cucumber and treat it as a side dish. Naturally, he would no longer be able to return to this familiar table and keep eating.
To put it in White Tier terms, he was being a bit smug. He was simply too strong. If he continued getting stronger, he would be forcibly elevated into a form that was hard to even describe.
It was like this pond could no longer hold a Godzilla of his size. He would have to leave the water and go higher. One possible result was that, like the original sea cucumber, he would no longer be able to interfere with what was below.
That would mean he could only watch helplessly, unable to beat anyone down anymore. In that case, the original crisis would be solved, but he still had to vent this frustration.
So he deliberately stalled at the final step before elevation. He forcibly locked himself into a form that could barely contain his level, just so he could go and smash opponents of the same tier.
It felt novel. Belial had never imagined that one day he would have to actively slow down his growth just to beat others. It felt strange.
As for his current strength, it was hard to define. In terms of energy level, it did not match the vast Laws and principles he controlled. Even expanding to the size of a supercluster would not be enough to encompass them.
If one said he was now absurdly overpowered compared to the original sea cucumber, that was certainly true. After all, that one struggled just to gnaw on a planet and even got slapped by Gen Urobuchi.
Theoretically, when Belial first gained the Space template, he had already swallowed an entire universe.
If he encountered an opponent with higher raw energy but lacking comprehensive and powerful mechanisms, one slap from Belial would spin them like a top until he felt like stopping.
Even if all those dozens of enemies who once gave him trouble were added together, he could think of dozens of ways to defeat them instantly while lying down.
In the end, the stat monster fell. Belial had transformed into the kind of mechanism-focused being he once despised. It really was the age of mechanisms after all.
"A bit confusing, but I still need to keep adjusting my body. That said, the Clone on the Thousand-Year Dragon King side is fine, though it did get affected by my passive evolution." "I do not know what it will be upgraded into, but it should be fine for now. Maybe this will become one of my few ways to interfere with lower dimensions."
In his hazy state, Belial sensed that situation. The Clone of the Thousand-Year Dragon King had evolved along with his passive elevation. It was not placed within his own body, but sent out earlier together with Translation Pocket.
Because this template had not fully merged with the other Godzilla templates, the increase was not huge. It was not enough to directly elevate dimensions, and it was still sleeping.
He felt a bit relieved. Fortunately, the Thousand-Year Dragon King was weak enough not to be dragged along into explosive growth, so it could still barely survive in this low-tier pond.
It was just that being the administrator of Translation Pocket for too long had rubbed off in odd ways. It seemed to be evolving toward directions he did not fully understand, leaning toward decay of the Sun, heat, and mass-energy conversion.
In terms of strength, it was not strong compared to him. Even with some benefits, it could not directly grasp the laws of the entire universe. Because of its inherent God nature and long-term lack of faith, it also could not exert much power.
Unless one day a Mothra suddenly appeared and was sacrificed to heaven to fill in the Thousand-Year Dragon King completely, it might only wake up briefly and remain dormant most of the time. But chances like that did not exist.
"Speaking of which, I have been here for so long and fought almost every famous monster. I still have not seen Mothra. That is a bit of a pity."
Do not misunderstand him. It was just curiosity and mild regret. No matter which template he used, if Mothra dared to stand against him, he would still fight without hesitation.
He could only say that reading the settings from Legendary Pictures had shocked Belial for a hundred years. He had never imagined it. Although Godzilla and Mothra often had some pairing appeal, most of the time they simply did not interfere with each other while opposing other monsters, and they fought often as well.
Yet Legendary Pictures had actually served that dish straight up.
"Uh, it seems I really did receive a bit of faith spending. It is less than I expected, but whatever. This is basically White Tier freeloading, so I feel a bit embarrassed." "At this pace, I might barely be able to make a single move. If I have to possess someone and fight again, I do not know what the situation would be now."
Because he could not act often, he had built that Dyson sphere before. Now he was reconsidering whether its firepower was sufficient.
If the opponent also wielded unreasonable mechanisms, a simple supernova would not defeat them. Belial was thinking of the Dark Vortex that had escaped earlier, the sacrifice he still had not found.
That made his teeth itch with frustration. Since he could not find it, he would wait. Based on the similar nature of his friend's power, placing the Thousand-Year Dragon King near the opponent should let him track it down eventually.
The role of the Thousand-Year Dragon King would be to act at that time, hold down the vortex at the scene, and then it would be his turn to drag out the entire body of The End and beat it properly.
"After that, it might be my final stop here. It feels a bit like clearing the game. Still, there are many things I have not seen before ascending dimensions. That is a pity."
Belial slowly closed his eyes again and yawned. As he stirred up a violent photon storm large enough to cover the Solar System, he gradually fell back into sleep.
He had already vaguely touched that door, and Belial felt that if he steeled his heart and slept hard once, he could just roll straight through. But it was still not time. The two mutts that had dared escape from his grasp were not dead yet, and the true the Lord behind that disgusting mark that kept bothering him had not been beaten up by him either, so he still had to restrain himself and not fall into a dead sleep.
He suddenly felt rather miserable. Belial realized that ever since this Book began, aside from the first volume, he had barely ever had a proper, uninterrupted sleep, always being disturbed by some inexplicable thing. Now there was finally nothing that dared to disturb him, and even if there was, he had already killed it all, yet he still could not sleep well because the one torturing him into sleeplessness had become himself.
How many things was he multitasking at once. He had to control Thousand-Year Dragon King over there to keep watch on that Sun, adjust his own combat body, keep an eye on that cursed mark, and be ready to slap flat anything crawling out of Overlord Ridge. At the same time, he had to restrain himself from ascending dimensions while creating a domain adapted to cosmic Laws.
"I am suddenly so tired. I really want to sleep. I will sleep a bit more later. Maybe in the future I will not even have the concept of sleeping anymore."
Although he had only briefly experienced a single instant of that viewpoint during his previous slumber, that instant alone gave Belial a great deal. Only after personally experiencing that feeling did he dare to say that things like energy levels were meaningless at that realm. Game numbers, no matter how high you edit them with cheats, are still Void fake when it comes to reality.