The Hero Returns

Currently buried inside thick fluffy clouds, Sun Wukong was treating his surroundings like some ocean to float around on lazily.

"Aaargh, seriously..." He then rubbed the back of his hand while muttering in irritation, "I was having so much fun, so what the heck was up with that interference just now?"

A beam of green energy flew out of nowhere and smacked him in the head, causing him to fly far, far away. But that wasn't the only energy beam. Many more beams flew out without any warning to completely flip the battlefield's situation on its head.

The green rampage forced not just Thor and Loki to halt their fight, but even other Predators and Sun Wukong had to stop and be on standby for the time being.

"Was that bastard, Osiris, responsible for this?"

Su-hyeun didn't use an ability like this.

He displayed some magic talent, but that was nothing more than an ancillary ability to help him out occasionally. Indeed, his primary method of attack was using a sword and throwing a bunch of spears.

Which meant that it had to be Osiris that fired all those green rays.

"And he fired so many of them, too."

Sun Wukong frowned while still feeling the numbness at the back of his head.

He got hit only once, but the impact force was considerable enough to throw him so far away. He even hurriedly summoned some clouds to protect his head, too. Yet he still ended up in this state.

The green beam was also too quick to dodge properly, while its power seemed a bit too much to block without him getting hurt.

In the end, it was the same as attacks that were utterly impossible to block and dodge that rained down like crazy.

"Little bro... Will he be alright?"

Sun Wukong knew all too well that the tangled thread of fate belonging to the ancient past lives needed to be undone by the parties involved.

Su-hyeun requested for it, after all. Sun Wukong, wanting to honor that request and show his trust in his little brother, chose to turn his attention away from Osiris.

However, with things like this, he couldn't help but worry.

Even now, the battle between Su-hyeun and Osiris down on the ground was causing all sorts of explosions and ear-splitting noises to burst out.

"Tsk." Still stuck in a dilemma, Sun Wukong smacked his lips and turned his head away.

But right at that moment...

Rustle—!

"Hul..."

Sun Wukong shot back up to his feet and looked to his side, ceasing his lounging around on the cloud.

Pazzik, pazzzzik—

He had spotted a particular spear floating in the air, with its shaft enveloped in azure lightning energy.

Kkyaaaaah—!

It soon assumed an image of a dragon before rapidly descending to the ground below.

* * *

KA-RUUUMBLE—!

Pazzzziii, bzzzzzz—

Rumble...

The azure lightning poured down below.

The lightning currents condensed, then condensed some more, eventually resembling a massive azure pillar of light. In the middle of the pillar was Osiris, standing still as if he had become a magnet that was sucking in all those lightning currents.

"Wow," Su-hyeun watched this scene unfold and exclaimed quietly to himself.

This would be his first time witnessing such highly concentrated electrical currents on a massive scale. Even the Thunder Dragon Zeus used in the past shouldn't have been this strong.

This was the combined might of the thunder Zeus possessed, the Godhood of Sky, and the weapon crafted by Brahma and wielded by Odin until recently, Gungnir.

"Even so, this is well beyond even my expectations."

Su-hyeun worked hard to set up the stage just right to land this one shot.

He held himself back from direct close quarter attacks, then tried to match Osiris's pace by sticking primarily to ranged attacks instead.

And the result of his patience was this.

This might have been what he intended, but the destructive power on display felt several times greater than what he had anticipated.

"Is this because of Gungnir's effect?"

The armament Gungnir was personally crafted by the Primordial God, Brahma.

It might have been a weapon that symbolized Odin, but even so, the actual implication behind it was not what one would typically expect. After all, it was a weapon made by a Primordial God.

Because of its origin, this weapon was bound to possess some extraordinary power, just like the divine artifacts Palm Leaf or the Somersault cloud that had existed since the beginning of time itself.

But Gungnir seemed to possess an even greater killing power than Palm Leaf or the Somersault cloud.

Pazik, bzzzz—

The azure currents slowly grew fainter.

The electrical storm lasting for around 10 minutes receded, finally revealing Osiris's figure from within.

Bzzzik, sizzle...

The remnants of azure currents sizzled, rising from his body like hot steam.

Gungnir fell from the sky to impale him straight through the chest. His whole body was now charred black, making it almost impossible to tell whether it was an actual person or a lump of charcoal that happened to resemble a person.

His state was indescribably wretched. Even so, Su-hyeun didn't feel confident about Osiris's death.

"Is he really dead?"

Osiris was the ruler of hell.

King Yama continued to rule over many netherworlds despite experiencing several destructions and subsequent rebirths of the universe. But then, Osiris managed to take away one thousand hells from someone like that and ruled over them as his dominion.

He was fundamentally on a different level compared to someone like Hades, who ruled over only one hell.

Therefore, someone like that dying so quickly seemed rather unbelievable.

Sure enough...

Pa-sususu—

Crack, split...

Starting from his head, Osiris's charred body began to heal gradually.

The burned skin regained its previous color while his hair grew to fill the charred and barren scalp.

Only his clothing was not regenerated, leaving him buck-naked.

"I... almost died just now," Osiris muttered before staring down at his chest. "But I guess I'm already half-dead?"

"Looks like you can't regenerate that?" Su-hyeun asked while staring at Osiris, who was busy regenerating his body except for his chest, where Gungnir was still impaling him.

Osiris managed to heal himself to the point where he didn't look injured at all—other than Gungnir still impaling him in the chest, of course.

No matter how many lives he exhausted, he couldn't heal the fatal wound inflicted by Gungnir.

"Indeed. You accurately pierced my heart. Your skill is quite commendable."

"Since you can still talk, you must be feeling pretty good."

"I'm glad that you think that way."

Grab—

While retorting, Osiris grabbed Gungnir from his chest.

Crimson blood began trickling down from Osiris's wound as its shaft slightly moved around.

He yanked the spear out and chucked it far into the air.

Dribble...

Quite a considerable quantity of blood poured out from his wound.

The moment Osiris yanked Gungnir out, he wobbled and worked very hard to maintain his balance.

Whoooosh—

Grab—!

Gungnir flew back into Su-hyeun's grasp once more.

"Can you throw that again, I wonder?" Osiris suddenly asked. "Because it can't be that easy even for you."

Plop—

He then plopped down on the ground. Despite his whole body covered in cold sweat and blood and looking like a horror show at the moment, he was maintaining that permanent grin of his.

"Even Odin could not throw that spear several times in a row. And let's not forget, you didn't directly throw the spear just now, too."

"Don't worry. I can throw it as many times as I want."

"Well, even in my current condition, I can still dodge an ordinary thrown spear, you know. So the question is, can you accurately hit me?" Osiris pointed at his head. "Are you confident of hitting me, old friend?"

Su-hyeun didn't answer and simply furrowed his brow deeply.

In all honesty, no, he wasn't confident.

He had to work pretty hard to make sure that Gungnir landed where he intended just now, and he had exhausted quite a lot of his energy in doing so.

Throwing Gungnir just once required a surprising amount of stamina and energy.

If he failed to end the battle even after throwing the spear several times, the one in trouble would have been him, not the other party.

"Well, it's not like I have no other avenues available, but..."

He got this far already, so he wasn't keen on taking another gamble.

He couldn't think of a reason to do so in the first place, "You're already dying, anyway."

"No. I won't die from something on this level," Osiris only half-agreed with Su-hyeun's assessment. "But I might need a long time to recover, that's for sure."

Regardless of what, it was certain that the balance had tilted in Su-hyeun's favor.

Osiris was grievously injured, his healing speed too slow to keep up. On the other hand, Su-hyeun wasn't critically injured at all.

He simply had exhausted most of his strength while his stamina had almost run out. A little bit of rest should be enough to recover from the fatigue of this level mostly.

"I don't think I'm the one in the tight spot, though?" Su-hyeun asked back, feeling a little confused.

Since Osiris figured the situation out and brought it up first, he must've been analyzing the flow of the current events in a relatively composed mindset.

But judging from how relaxed he sounded or acted just now, could it be that he had already come up with another scheme?

It didn't seem that way at the moment. Su-hyeun was continuously glaring at Osiris through Insight, but after getting impaled by Gungnir, the latter was not making any conscious movements.

Osiris replied, "You're right about that."

"Have you given up or something?"

"You were curious about what happened, weren't you?" Osiris tried to continue the conversation.

He was dragging things out.

Although obvious, Su-hyeun would also benefit from this as his strength would recover in the meantime as well. He crossed his arms and made an expression that implied, "If you want to say something, go ahead."

Osiris continued, "Do you still remember it, old friend?"

"Remember what?"

"How you and I ended up being worshiped as gods and when that happened, too."

Su-hyeun mulled over Osiris's question, but he couldn't recall it properly.

The only thing he remembered was...

"Wasn't it because we possessed different powers from everyone else?"

That was the extent of it. That was all he could recall.

Osiris and Set were two men born with extraordinary strength. They were extraordinary but also remarkably different from everyone else in the world—maybe other beings in countless many other dimensions even.

That was why the two of them came to be known as gods. Afterward, the two friends began protecting other people as if they had become gods, too.

"That's right. Just because we were different from everyone else, just because we were much stronger... they called us gods. Even though they didn't know what we looked like or what kind of powers we had."

"Why are you suddenly bringing that up?"

"But did you know?" Osiris's eyes suddenly became bloodshot. "The 'god' they had been talking about, in the end, it was no different from the 'monster' in their heads."

Su-hyeun listened on.

"What those bastards wanted was an existence strong enough to protect them, a thing that could be used as a weapon. If you dared to show just a tiny bit different opinion from theirs, they would start labeling you as a monster, not a god."

"Something like that happened to you?"

"A large-scale conflict took place in the past," Osiris began talking about an incident from an ancient world that Set was unaware of. "Naturally, I tried to stop it. I believed that was my duty, after all."

"Did you fail, then?" Despite knowing that it was not possible, Su-hyeun still asked back.

That conflict probably didn't start with the alliance of gods, and regular humans couldn't have stopped Osiris, anyway.

But the incoming reply wasn't what Su-hyeun expected.

"No, well, result-wise, I did stop them, but…"

Result-wise, he said.

He didn't directly say yes or no. Meaning something problematic must've happened.

"The two sides combined forces to kill me. How laughable that was. There I was, trying to protect both sides, yet they were trying to paint me as an evil deity or something."

"Something like that really happened?"

"That's right. After that event, I began remembering your tale."

Osiris and Set used to hold completely opposing ideals.

But after that event, Osiris finally came to understand Set's viewpoint. The viewpoint that this world was too corrupted to be protected anymore.

"You asked me why I changed, didn't you?"

Shu-ruru—

Green energy began writhing ominously all around Osiris's surroundings.

"You'd have felt the same way if it was happening to you. Just because you were—!"

"You're right."

Whoooooosh—

Stab! Stabstabstabstab—!

Thousands of "spears" rained from the sky to slam into Osiris's figure.

[Dragon Slaying Spear - Spear Barrage]

The spear bits ripped right through Osiris's body, turning him into Swiss cheese. His aura that was trying to writhe instantly died down. Su-hyeun activated Earth Shrink Technique to appear right in front of Osiris.

He then spoke up, "It would have been the same with me, sure. No, wait, if it were me, I'd have turned much sooner than you."

"If so, why—?"

"If you are asking why I can't sympathize with you, then, isn't it too obvious?" Su-hyeun spat out a groan. "That's because what happened to you is your business. I do feel sorry for you. I think you got a raw deal, but that's about it."

Su-hyeun stopped there, then raised Gungnir high up as if there was no more need to explain himself.

"You already knew that, don't you?"

Swish—!

Osiris watched the tip of Gungnir rapidly closing in and recalled the words of certain someone.

"Sorry about this, old friend. I feel sorry for you, and I think it's not right, but that's about it. I still can't understand where you're coming from."

A somewhat familiar voice said those words.

"I was the one that said those things, wasn't I?"

The moment Osiris finished recalling those words...

CRUNCH—!

Gungnir's shaft was thrust deep into Osiris's skull.

* * *

Osiris's vitality turned out to be incredibly tenacious.

Despite Gungnir impaling his head, he was still alive. Sure, he was barely breathing, and his injuries were not healing due to Gungnir's influence; the fact remained that he was still alive.

Now that was incredible.

Even though Su-hyeun restrained Osiris and impaled his head, to think that he was still breathing like this...

"Wait, maybe this is for the better?"

Su-hyeun's goal was to either kill or incapacitate Osiris. Thinking about what he wanted to do after the battle, he supposed this result was better for him overall.

Shu-wuk—

Su-hyeun reached out to Osiris's head where blood was still gushing out.

Bubble, sizzle—

The flowing blood suddenly began to boil over. Osiris's blood had started reacting to Su-hyeun's hand reaching out to it.

"Sorry about this, but..."

[Predation will now begin.]

Shu-wuwuwu—

Osiris's blood traveled past Su-hyeun's fingertips and began dyeing his arm crimson.

"It's my win, old friend."