Now all the puzzles have been solved.
Among those who simultaneously possess the divinity of the Seven Dragon Generals, only he and Maximillian in this entire world have reached the 'qualification' to challenge ascension.
Whichever side wins this final battle becomes a god. A god in the literal sense. Not remaining as some crude tribal deity like the Seven Dragon Generals, but becoming a true god in every sense of the word.
What such a concept entails is still difficult to understand clearly. If one becomes a god, does that mean shedding mortal flesh and soaring to the heavens?
However, setting aside such vague notions, the situation was much clearer.
The man before his eyes seeks to become a god. He has prepared all his plans to destroy the very rules of this world called 'ascension,' and now stands on the verge of the finale.
'With this war's end, hundreds of thousands will die, and across all nations, indirect damage alone will claim hundreds of thousands more who will inevitably perish. The ripple effects will easily kill at least a million by winter's end.'
Even considering the casualties of the Great War era, a substantial number had died and would face unavoidable death.
All soldiers are conscripted from able-bodied adult men capable of combat. This means their numbers belong to the most active economic population.
If such numbers from the core age demographic are completely eliminated, there's no way to prevent national-scale collapse. Already, enough have died to anticipate stagnation and poverty for more than half a century ahead.
Therefore, at least a million people died by this man's hand.
On behalf of billions over thousands of years to come. A million of this era died.
This man calls it a necessary, minimal sacrifice. However...
However, Ivan cannot accept that.
"What about Gilbert and Beolgreen? What about Einar?"
"...They had the qualification for ascension."
"So they had to die?"
"At minimum, they had to exit from this story."
"I see."
Ivan quietly nodded his head.
"Indeed, there should be no gods."
"Yes, now you too understand..."
"I'll kill you and commit suicide."
"...What?"
Ivan looked at Maximillian while holding his axe. For the first time, he was showing clear emotion. Something close to bewilderment and confusion.
"We could have given our lives for you. All of us could have thrown away even our lives for your victory. Your victory was achieved through all our devotion, and that position you obtained was not an accomplishment you achieved alone."
"Ivan Petrovich."
"If you consider all those who love you and worship you as sacrifices for a greater cause, then I... 'we' will reject such a god. If that is the qualification for godhood, we reject gods. You cannot become a god, and neither I... nor anyone else should become a god."
"Ivan!! This is the minimal sacrifice!! In the eternal chains that will continue forever, how many do you think will die as they have in the past!!"
"For billions yet unborn!!"
—CRASH—!!
Ivan charged with his axe raised. Maximillian's swinging sword sparked brilliantly beneath his axe blade.
Under the blazing sword blade, both Ivan's face and Maximillian's face were reflected simultaneously.
"If millions who are living now, who are alive, who struggle to live must die—!! I refuse!!"
"You want to continue the history of being enslaved, endlessly exploited, and purged!! Are you sane!!"
"Those billions of the future!"
—CRASH—!!!!
The long sword became firmly entangled between the axe blades. Ivan pulled out one hand and reached into his coat. Cold steel wrapped around his grip.
None of them are harmed by bullets. They possess the reflexes to dodge at the moment of firing.
However, no matter how great a hero might be, skin cannot be harder than steel. Firearms are weapons that guarantee corresponding damage as long as they hit their target.
Therefore, there are only two shooting techniques created to face transcendents. Either pour out so much they cannot dodge, or get so close they cannot dodge—
Fire from close range.
—BANG—!!
Ivan's pistol spat fire. With the muzzle pressed tight against Maximillian's exposed waist, bang, bang.
Each time, the Demon King's body jerked. The bullets sharply penetrated the Demon King's flesh, spreading their full impact throughout his internal organs.
While pulling the trigger until the magazine was completely spent, Ivan growled.
"How can you predict that those billions of the future will be defeated? How can you predict that people will be defeated once every thousand years?"
"Don't you know that's mere optimism! This world is made that way!!"
"And people are not made that way."
Maximillian's long sword deflected Ivan's axe blade. His right arm lifted high and thrust deeply through the opening.
With speed and precision impossible to dodge or block, his long sword pierced Ivan's chest lengthwise.
With a hiss, the blazing long sword instantly melted his flesh. Even in that terrible pain, Ivan glared at Maximillian and spoke.
"We do not, cough. Call any defeat... inevitable."
Strength entered his right hand. With his chest muscles split deeply down to his shoulder, what moved his body was not strength from muscle or nervous reflexes.
Pouring out the mana and divinity flowing through his blood vessels without reserve, like controlling a puppet.
Not muscle relaxation through nervous action, but a strike created by precisely manipulating each muscle fiber through mana.
From this twisted posture, a physically impossible strike drove down toward Maximillian's nape.
—CRASH—!!
"Mountains and fields teem with monsters, every winter brings poverty, and each spring is barren. Seasons and climate, nature itself has never been consistently favorable. But still."
No defeat is inevitable.
No defeat is called unavoidable.
Failure, defeat, famine, disease. Even in any hardship and adversity, one must not let go of the plow in hand. Only such people survived, and all people who survive and move forward are ultimately victors who rose from defeat.
Thus, human history is not the history of lives exhausted in inevitable disasters that sweep in once every thousand years.
It is the history of victory by those who, even seeing civilizations collapse like sandcastles once every thousand years, can rise again and build the same sandcastles for the next millennium.
Every living moment is a record of victory. All history created by people is a trace of victory. Collapsed civilizations, in themselves, bless the humans who survived to discover them even in the crisis of civilization's collapse.
Ah, you people. You shall be eternal.
Eternal struggle and suffering shall therefore mean eternal prosperity.
The dead have no struggle. Pain and tragedy are exclusively the possessions of the living, and the tribulations of that coming millennium are a tribute to those who will survive in the grand future spanning over thousands of years.
No parent confines their child within themselves out of worry for the pain their child will face in the future. The maximum support for a child's future must ultimately remain as encouragement for their growth.
Billions of people will die in the future? How do you know? Because it has been so until now, it will be so in the future? Who can guarantee that?
Who can assure us that we will not improve?
Ivan put strength into the axe that had penetrated Maximillian's nape. Through his wound, divinity gushed out, and Ivan's body began healing instantly.
"Do you mean to bear the tragedy that your optimism can prevent, Ivan? Do you truly see that as a wise choice? You are not the first to have such thoughts, and the result is me!"
Maximillian, his neck reattached to its original state, shouted.
"I saw history through the eyes of a god. I read the past through the words of a god! The god of humans, the victor from a thousand years ago who watched over that past millennium, reached the conclusion that was me! The only god who loved humans, the opportunity given for humans... the euthanasia chosen by a god who loved humans!!"
The god guided Maximillian to this place, prepared to lose his believers, lose his divine power, and lose even eternal life.
The once most powerful being in this world. The mighty existence who defeated the gods of all races and ascended alone chose this future at the cost of abandoning all his power.
To abandon that based merely on the optimism of 'believing in the future.'
As a transmigrator from a distant world, as a wanderer who could feel the alienness of this world more objectively than anyone. Maximillian had believed in Ivan's choice.
And the result was before his eyes. Ivan had become like someone born and raised in Krasilov, acting steadfastly, loyally serving, and becoming a foolish native who willingly devoted everything he had.
With that brilliant talent, having achieved those great accomplishments...
"I didn't need to win necessarily. Ivan... Whether I won, or you survived to the end. I thought we would desire the same ending."
"Then at least, you shouldn't have abandoned your comrades. You shouldn't have betrayed those who believed in you."
"Even if I were given a hundred chances, I would have given the same answer."
"Is that so."
Ivan examined his once-again attached body and replied.
"Even if I were given just one chance, that one time would be better than before."
With those words as his last, Ivan threw himself at Maximillian again.
The same strike as the first. Therefore, it would produce the same result as the first.
—CRACK!!
Still an invisible-speed sword strike flew in and pierced Ivan's chest. The impact tore his heart, and the mana bursting from the penetrating blade shredded his neural network.
Under the truck-like impact, his lungs collapsed and ragged breathing burst out. Strength left his hands and feet, and his vision darkened for a moment.
However.
—CRACK!!
The raised axe struck down on Maximillian's shoulder.
This was an action coordinated in advance using mana spread throughout his body, anticipating his heart would burst. Divinity was drawn in and vitality returned to his body again. The soul that had been crossing death stepped on earth again and descended into flesh.
"Did you see?"
Ivan looked down at Maximillian's face and spoke.
"A trained operative never repeats the same experience twice."
When facing someone who doesn't die, what is the best method?
Kill them again until they can no longer come back to life.
Fortunately, this was something he had done before.
And he had never found difficulty in doing something he had done before again.
A clearing formed in the middle of the battlefield. A clearing created not by anyone's intention, but purely by instinct.
No one could guarantee their life within it. The minimum distance cried out by survival instinct was the width of that clearing.
The presence of gods danced. Storm-like overwhelming pressure brushed against skin, and the killing intent frolicking within that distance clawed at the hearts of the living.
Sword and axe and gun and spear, dagger and fist, legs and teeth—a manifestation of entangled violence.
At speeds immeasurable even in transcendent time, the succession of strikes aimed solely at the opponent's destruction became a mass of disaster sweeping through the clearing.
The battlefield at dawn now slept in silence. All the countless soldiers who had staked and taken lives, from the lowest foot soldiers to knights, their lords, and even the demon race.
Now stood still and watched this clearing.
Vision distorted by swirling killing intent—the range that killing intent reached drew a perfectly measured spherical diameter, so to describe it.
Like an egg. A sphere embodying death embedded in the earth.
The sound of fabric tearing from within was like a heartbeat. Thump, thump. The sound of flesh tearing and bones crumbling and reconnecting again to tear and crush the opponent's bones and flesh once more.
The sound of tearing, connecting, and growing.
A god was being conceived. If there was one person who would survive after that struggle ended.
The conditions were simple.
Even when injured, the side that drove a blade into the opponent recovered.
They absorbed each other's divinity and healed their own wounds again. In other words, from some point on, these two had been stabbing blades into each other with pure offense, disregarding defense.
Offer the shoulder and strike the neck.
Offer the neck and tear the heart.
Offer the heart and cut the arm.
Regardless of body part, only one strike. That single attack negated one attack they had endured. Therefore, this was.
Not a battle until one of them was completely consumed.
Until one could no longer control themselves, that is. Biting and devouring until one side gave up.
Ivan looked at Maximillian and forcibly gripped his torn-off arm to strike down. The spilled blood gathered as if rewinding time to reattach the arm, while Maximillian's long sword deeply stabbed into his chest.
Until one of them died completely.
Or until both died.
That was Ivan's victory condition. Meanwhile, Maximillian's victory condition was only when he made Ivan surrender. Mutual destruction was not his goal, and Ivan's victory meant his plan's failure.
So from any perspective, I'm more advantageous.
As long as suicide is taken as a given, the result won't change whether I win or lose.
As divinity flowed between their bodies, souls and mana mixed, and memories and emotions became one in this strange sensation.
Maximillian read Ivan's memories, feelings, and life.
He read those long traces stained with pain and sorrow, tragedy and struggle. He read the gaze mixed with inferiority complex and longing. He read the yearning toward all those who walked before him.
Ivan read Maximillian's memories, feelings, and life.
The moment that awakened love for the world, the gaze that shed tears before new life's birth, the heart that cried out to heaven and finally raised the sword, the sense of duty that had to walk ahead with a smile even in the deepest despair—he read it all.
And both simultaneously realized. The two people who understood each other better than anyone, and who had killed each other more than anyone.
They realized that never, under any circumstances, would either give up before the other.
Feeling that tenacious will, they sensed that their orientations had started fundamentally different and were heading toward completely different endings.
They wanted to believe.
Maximillian wanted to believe in the human possibility Ivan saw. And Ivan wanted to believe in the new hope Maximillian saw.
However, Maximillian would never turn his back on the price of blood he had shed. Just as Ivan would not.
As they extended swords toward each other once more, tearing each other's flesh, filling their own blood and flesh with the divinity that flowed between—
—Thump.
Like a heartbeat, the destruction of both continued.
Dawn was breaking.
And finally, one man stood alone on the vitrified earth.