"Most importantly of all..."
His gaze seemed to pierce through Ishtar's arrogant disguise, looking straight at the very essence at the deepest part of her soul.
"...you're rather poor, aren't you?"
"The quality of your desires and your soul are severely mismatched. Long on greed, short on substance."
"Conclusion: a flashy but hollow, bug-ridden, half-baked goddess."
"Appraisal complete."
...
The entire scene fell into dead silence.
Ur-Nun and his soldiers were utterly stunned. They had even forgotten to keep kneeling, every one of them gaping, staring at Seiji with the eyes of someone looking at a lunatic.
This man... what had he just... done?
He was... critiquing... a god?!
And up in the sky, Ishtar's pretty face, which always wore arrogance and majesty, had now completely frozen.
Those ruby-like eyes were first blank, then aghast, and finally... overtaken by an unprecedented, ultimate humiliation and rage that nearly burned a hole through the very sky!
"You... you little... you ant who doesn't know the value of your own life!!!"
"Do... do you even know what you're saying?!"
She was so furious she couldn't even finish a sentence!
Who was she?
She was the great goddess of Venus! The mistress of the heavens! The most beloved daughter of Anu, king of the gods!
Always, it had been she who judged others, she who critiqued others!
Since when had it been the turn of a mere mortal, one without even any divinity, to point fingers at her?!
And what was more!
What was more, everything he'd said... had precisely, every single line, struck at her most painful, most unmentionable weak spots!
A human body she was possessing causing her power to be limited! An unstable divine core! And most detestable of all...
Poor!!!
"Aaaaaahhhh!!!"
Ishtar let out a sharp, hysterical roar!
"This goddess will kill you! I'll tear your corpse into ten thousand pieces!!!"
"Come forth, my child! Gugalanna, Bull of Heaven!!!"
As she screamed, the wind and clouds above changed color!
A massive magic circle, composed of lightning and storm, abruptly spread open!
A terrifying beast as large as a mountain, its body covered in green carapace, its twin horns wreathed in hundreds of millions of thunderbolts, thrust its ferocious head out from within the circle!
The mere pressure of this divine beast's appearance cracked the earth!
"It's over..." Ur-Nun's face was ashen.
He knew the goddess was truly enraged now.
Before this legendary "calamity" that had once destroyed several city-states, all of them would be ground to dust.
Yet just before that world-ending thunderlight was about to fall.
The man who had been calm the entire time finally moved.
Slowly, he raised his right hand.
Then, to the silent, pitch-black King of Knights beside him, he issued a concise command.
"Alter."
"Make it shut up."
The next second.
A pure "darkness," more savage, more profound, more unreasonable than the Bull of Heaven, erupted with a roar!
Seiji's figure was instantly shrouded in that pitch-black magical energy.
When the light dispersed.
Standing in place was no longer the man in the black casual clothes.
It was a figure clad in ferocious pitch-black dragon armor, holding an ominous demonic sword, a cold faceplate covering the face, radiating a despair powerful enough to freeze the soul...
The pitch-black King of Knights.
"Heroic Spirit Armament: Saber Alter."
"...As you command, my... King."
A cold voice with a faint metallic quality, belonging to Seiji, rose slowly from beneath that pitch-black faceplate.
The moment Seiji transformed into Saber Alter, the "art style" of the entire battlefield changed.
If Ishtar and her Bull of Heaven represented the violent, majestic, irresistible "calamity" of the gods.
Then Seiji, at this moment, represented the even more unreasonable "doomsday," capable of devouring all things and dragging the whole world into eternal night!
"What... what kind of monster is that?!"
Up in the sky, Ishtar, whose heart had been blazing with fury, was stunned into a daze by this sudden scene before her.
She could clearly feel that the "quality" and "purity" of that pitch-black magical energy on her opponent far surpassed even her own divine power!
It was a pure "power" she had never seen before, brimming with violence and the will to destroy!
"Roooar!!!"
Gugalanna, the Bull of Heaven, by its instinct as a divine beast, also sensed the lethal threat from that tiny figure below! It loosed a roar that shook the heavens, no longer hesitating, opened its enormous maw, and a destructive thunder breath that could vaporize a mountain range in an instant came crashing straight down upon Seiji!
Yet facing this heaven-rending, earth-shattering strike.
"Seiji" merely raised the pitch-black demonic sword in his hand, slowly.
No extra motion, no flashy technique.
Just that simple, a single stroke swung upward from below.
"Excalibur Morgan!"
Along with a cold True Name release devoid of the slightest emotion.
A massive torrent of pitch-black magical energy, composed purely of "darkness" and "malice," erupted from the blade with a roar!
That pitch-black torrent and the thunder breath collided fiercely in midair!
There was no earth-shaking explosion.
Only... a teeth-grating sound of "devouring."
The instant that city-destroying thunderlight made contact with the pitch-black torrent, it was like snow doused in concentrated sulfuric acid, eroded, broken down, and devoured at a speed visible to the naked eye!
After devouring the thunderlight, the pitch-black torrent didn't weaken in the slightest. In an even more violent form, it surged up against the sky and slammed solidly into the Bull of Heaven's massive body!
"Gwooohh!!!!"
A wail of utter agony, brimming with pain and terror, rang out to the heavens!
That divine beast, large as a mountain, found its green carapace, which could withstand any mortal weapon, as fragile as paper before that pitch-black magical energy, torn open and pierced through in an instant!
A massive, terrifying wound, clean through from front to back, appeared on its chest!
Black flames burned fiercely at the wound, madly devouring its divinity and life force!
Just one strike!
The legendary divine beast, the Bull of Heaven, was on the brink of death on the spot!
"Gugalanna?!"
Ishtar let out a cry of disbelief!
How was this possible?!
This divine beast was one of her strongest trump cards! Even that damned golden glittery one had once been wary of it!
And now it had actually been gravely wounded with a single stroke by some fellow of unknown origin?!
And what terrified her even more was yet to come.
The pitch-black King of Knights, after gravely wounding the Bull of Heaven, did not stop.
The air beneath his feet burst outward in a ring of white shockwaves!
His whole body turned into a pitch-black afterimage and vanished from where he stood in an instant!
The next second, he had already appeared atop the Bull of Heaven's enormous head!
The pitch-black demonic sword in his hand was raised high, aimed at the divine beast's massive eye, which had grown somewhat unfocused from the searing pain.
"Sto... stop!"
Ishtar let out a panicked scream.
But it was already too late.
The blade plunged into flesh with a muffled sound.
The pitch-black demonic sword cleanly and decisively pierced through the entire head of the Bull of Heaven from top to bottom, utterly grinding its divine core to pulp!
That arrogant, massive divine beast stiffened abruptly, then, like a marionette with its strings cut, fell limply from the high sky.
A thunderous crash erupted as the enormous corpse smashed into the ground, gouging out a pit like a meteor crater, dust and smoke billowing everywhere.
The entire scene fell into dead silence.
Ur-Nun and his soldiers were thoroughly dumbstruck. Their minds were completely unable to process the shocking sight before them, a scene that overturned everything they believed about the world.
The powerful, invincible goddess they worshipped, and the divine beast she commanded...
Just like that...
Had been cleanly, instantly slain by an unknown "monster" in black armor?
Up in the sky.
Ishtar's body trembled violently.
Half from anger, half... from fear.
She looked at the pitch-black King of Knights who slowly rose from below and hovered before her, and for the first time, an emotion called "terror" appeared in those ruby-like eyes.
"You... what in the world... are you?!"
"Me?"
A cold voice, belonging to Seiji, rose slowly from beneath that pitch-black faceplate.
"I'm just a... player passing through."
"And you, goddess Ishtar..."
His gaze fell upon Ishtar's pretty face, full of terror and rage, his tone carrying an undisguised amusement, the kind one has when appraising "spoils of war."
"...you have already been added by me to the collection list."
With that, he slowly dismissed the "Heroic Spirit Armament."
The pitch-black armor receded like a tide, turning back into the man in black casual clothes with the kindly smile on his face.
As though the world-ending pitch-black Satan from a moment ago had never existed at all.
This enormous contrast instead made Ishtar feel a deeper, indescribable terror!
Bluster covering her inner cowardice, she pointed at Seiji and shrieked:
"You... you just wait! This goddess will absolutely not let you off! Gilgamesh! The gods! They will absolutely not let you off!"
With that, she couldn't even spare a thought for the Bull of Heaven's corpse. Commanding her sky-vessel "Maanna," she turned into a streak of golden light without looking back and fled in utter disarray toward the city of Uruk.
Watching that golden streak flee in panic, a satisfied smile, as if everything had gone according to plan, appeared on Seiji's face.
He knew his "establishing prestige in a single battle" had succeeded.
His existence, and the unreasonable power he'd displayed, were bound to be like a nuclear bomb dropped into a calm lake, raising towering waves throughout Uruk and even the entire Mesopotamian pantheon.
"So then..."
He turned around and looked at the Uruk soldiers still kneeling on the ground, already frightened out of their wits, and the smile on his face grew all the more "kindly and amiable."
"Now then, do you still think what I said earlier was a lie?"
Ur-Nun's body shook like a sieve, unable to utter a single word.
"It seems you need a new faith."
Seiji paid them no further attention.
He walked straight over to the massive corpse of the Bull of Heaven, reached out, and gently pressed his hand against that cold, enormous body.
[High-quality divinity material detected: the corpse of the Bull of Heaven.]
[Proceed with decomposition and absorption?]
"No, decomposing it would be too wasteful." Seiji said inwardly. "Medea."
"Yes, Master." Medea, who had been watching the battle from the side, immediately flew over.
"Use your Age of Gods magecraft to make this bull's existence the foundation." Seiji issued his command. "Then take my Holy Grail magical energy as the core."
"...Right here, build for me a temple that belongs to us."
"Build a temple... using the corpse of a divine beast as the foundation?"
Even a knowledgeable Age of Gods witch like Medea couldn't help pausing for a moment when she heard this insane, blasphemy-laden command from Seiji.
This was no longer simple magecraft.
This was, quite literally, erecting the throne of a new god atop the grave of an old one!
What... arrogance!
What... creativity, brimming with "Master's signature style"!
"Yes, Master! I understand!"
A fanatical light burst forth in Medea's eyes!
The blood of a magus within her was boiling!
To be able to take part in such a "groundbreaking," blasphemous ritual was, to her, the highest honor!
"Then allow me to show you the supreme masterpiece of the Witch of Colchis!"
Medea hesitated no longer. She flew above the Bull of Heaven's massive corpse and began chanting an ancient, intricate incantation.
Countless golden runes, like fluttering butterflies, poured forth from her fingertips and melted into the divine beast's corpse.
"Let the bones of god be the beams!"
"Let the blood of god be the mortar!"
"Let the soul of god be the fire!"
She was reshaping a "concept"!
Forcibly twisting a corpse that represented "destruction" and "calamity" into a structural foundation that represented "creation" and "protection"!
And Seiji stood off to one side and slowly raised his hand.
His vast, near-infinite magical energy, already fused with the "Holy Grail," poured ceaselessly into Medea's spellwork like a surging river, providing the most essential power for this "groundbreaking feat"!
A deafening rumble rolled out!
Under the horrified, despairing gazes of Ur-Nun and his soldiers.
The Bull of Heaven's massive corpse began to be broken down, reshaped, and raised from the ground in a manner that defied all laws of physics!
The green carapace turned into smooth, sturdy black walls.
The ferocious bones turned into eerie, Gothic-style columns supporting the dome.
The flowing divine blood turned into ominous, dark-red energy conduits that flowed slowly through the patterns in the walls like magma.
In less than a single hour.
A grand, eerie, oppressive temple, full of postmodern and classical-mythological style...
A pitch-black, pyramid-shaped temple rose from the ground, standing proudly upon this vast plain!
At the apex of the temple burned a never-extinguishing green fire of thunder and lightning, transformed from the residual soul of the Bull of Heaven, conspicuous in the night.
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