Godfrey returned the favour. Their fists clashed, then again and again and again. The earth trembled, the wind exploded and roared as both demigods slammed their fists into each other without restraint.

Saul was mad. He had lost everything he struggled for. Godfrey was also mad that his mother had almost died while he was around. The fact that this man couldn’t accept defeat and peacefully walk away enraged him.

Why go after his family?

Why kill people who are vulnerable?

He couldn’t understand it.

It was cowardice.

Cowardice that sought to bring him pain.

While they fought, hills were damaged by Ronald and the Spatial Spartan.

"I trained Arian. You think you can defeat me in hand-to-hand combat?!" Saul sneered.

"You’re blinded." Godfrey shifted, evading a punch, and slammed an uppercut that made more blood burst from Saul’s nostrils and mouth.

He staggered backwards, wavering from side to side. He looked at Godfrey and finally saw... the young man was completely unscathed. His armour... it must be a relic.

Panting heavily, Saul’s eyes shifted. He thought about calling his summon only for a loud sound to split the air.

Ronald let go of the summon whose neck he had just snapped and fell on one knee in the midst of a seventy-foot-tall rock, they brought down in their fight.

Disbelief coloured Saul’s eyes.

"Release her and... and I won’t kill....you," Godfrey said, holding himself back.

Saul’s expression became ugly. Within him, Apollyon watched. The king she was waiting for was the man of her dreams, the cold, unbothered king, but this man who showed concern might not be so bad after all.

While this happened in his soul space, Saul kept staggering until he got to what remained of the Soul Piercing Rod.

Godfrey manifested a longsword, but Saul began to laugh like a madman.

"At least I have one win." He plunged the rod through his chest with a loud yell. "Your noble knight dies with me!"

His soul shattered. His body remained standing for a while, then it dropped.

Godfrey stared at his corpse. He didn’t know what to think, but his father patted his shoulder.

"You did your best." He grunted and looked around.

"We should leave." He teleported both of them back to Paradise.

***

Apollyon found herself in a dark world. Darkness rushed toward her and began to forcefully twist her.

This was the Afterlife World. It wasn’t her soul that was shattered, but here her tier, which was suppressed, soared tremendously. But the cost of being a true god judged to be in this part of the Afterlife was to become a Harrowing Omen!

She formed a cocoon of ice to protect herself, but the ice slowly turned black.

Apollyon thought the darkness was forcing its way through, but when she looked at her deformed hands with fingers that were too long, she realized it was she who was changing the ice.

This transformation wasn’t physical. It was the darkness within that attracted the one outside.

"My eyes..."

When she noticed her vision was dwindling, Apollyon broke down the cocoon. Fighting fate was useless. But then, she noticed something.

At the horizon.

It slowly took shape the closer it came. In this dark world, a pure white light like that couldn’t be ignored.

Her eyes widened when she discovered it was a knight riding a white unicorn. He wore white armour with a winged helmet and held a huge lance.

His long cloak danced in the wind as he galloped toward her. The unicorn lifted up its forelimbs and neighed loudly when they got to Apollyon.

"It’s been a while, Sister." His deep voice rang.

His presence alone made the darkness affecting her cease.

She was before a Chief General, one of the likes of Solstice. Before her was the Dawn of the Morning.

He was the morning while Lament was the night.

"I saw you fall from the sky, and I come in peace." The white knight said as he dismounted.

They had once fought in the past, and he knew Apollyon could hold a grudge.

"I met him."

The knight tilted his head. "Who?"

"The king."

***

In the Pendragon Mansion, Rick walked into one of the rooms no one had entered in a while. It was the room Isolde usually kept her drawings in, and it had been closed for a while.

But right now, the doors to this large room were open.

As he went in, his eyes went to Isolde, who stood in a nightgown staring at a painting he had never seen before.

It was a man made of shadows with golden eyes piercing through the eyeholes of his helmet. He held a golden longsword and seemed to be looking at something in the air.

"What is that?" Rick didn’t know what drove him to ask without even greeting her first. But there was something about this painting that disregarded all authority in the room.

It was like the painting was alive.

"That’s the unknown king," Isolde said, her palms stained with black ink. This painting was massive, human-sized, and she drew it without a pencil.

Since the early hours of the morning when many slept, she had stepped into this room like someone possessed and began to draw until this hour. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

"An existence that resides within Godfrey. I just discovered Godfrey’s identity as king. That title is a being, a living being." She paused.

Her breath trembled. "And it will appear once he dies."

"What?!" Rick frowned.

"I saw Frey die in the midst of the Ruination. I saw that the Ruination won’t be long. It will take a short time, a very short time, because something broke the order. An ancient god was born on Earth."

Rick looked at Isolde. That meant his tier would rise once more. Many others would benefit. Godfrey could save the world from the Ruination as their tiers would begin to skyrocket, but...

Isolde’s expression meant a different thing. "I’m going to make sure he doesn’t die," she said, knowing fully well it meant sacrificing millions, maybe hundreds of millions.

Her sins... the sins of seeing the future were heavy, but she would have to carry them alone.

*****

THANK YOU FOR READING.

THIS IS THE END OF VOLUME SEVEN!! Check discord for announcements concerning the next volume.