Vast Expanse Heaven.
With Ares’ arrival, Tian’el could clearly sense a subtle increase in the Power of High Heaven under his control.
Deep within the origin of Heaven, threads of law suffused with blood-red radiance intertwined, beginning to extend into increasingly complex and mysterious transformations.
They were laws related to war, military upheaval, slaughter, and rebellion—domains that had evolved over hundreds of millions of years in that world.
Now, they were directly merging into the origin of this world, becoming nourishment for the further perfection of Vast Expanse Heaven.
“As expected, in that world, the gods function as spokesmen of Heaven—the bearers of authority and embodiments of natural law.” After confirming this fact, a glimmer of delight flashed through Tian’el’s eyes—this meant that as long as he drew all the gods of that world into his Heaven, he could effortlessly obtain the fruits of law that had been cultivated over hundreds of millions of years.
A single Ares was indeed insignificant to the scale of Vast Expanse Heaven.
But if all the known and unknown gods of that world were willing to descend here, then the originally underdeveloped origin of the Heavenly Realm would immediately expand to an unprecedented level.
The effect would be no different from directly annexing another older and more perfected Heaven at the level of law and order.
Thinking this, he looked at the unconscious God of War at his feet, his gaze deepening.
In Greek mythology, Ares was described as a “bloodthirsty slaughtering tyrant and conqueror of fortified cities,” a symbol of strength and power, as well as an embodiment of slaughter, bloodshed, and calamity for humankind.
In short, he was a barbaric and ferocious god who lacked intelligence and thought of nothing but fighting and killing all day long.
The one from that world might have a slightly gentler temperament, but in essence, there was little difference.
Having recognized this, it would be quite easy to make this war god willingly remain in the Vast Expanse—after all, Tian’el needed a cooperative pawn to help lure in more gods from that world.
After all, he could hardly appear before them as someone who had annihilated one of their own the moment he descended.
If he truly did that, the idle crowd in Orario would certainly unseal themselves at once for self-preservation, gather all their strength to resist an outer god, and any talk of cooperation would become impossible.
For that very reason, what he needed to do next was make Ares submit willingly—and that was hardly a difficult matter.
“Heh…
I hope you enjoy yourself in the Human Realm.” With a casual wave of his hand, a spatial vortex appeared beneath the golden-haired war god…
…
Vast Expanse Human Realm.
The cold moon hung like a hook, suspended upside down in the gray-white sky.
As a certain will detached, the long-unconscious Ares suddenly opened his eyes.
He looked around and discovered that before him lay a great river.
He had been lying on its bank, his crimson armor already smeared with wet mud.
“This isn’t Rakia.” After confirming that he was completely unfamiliar with his surroundings, the God of War quickly realized an even more shocking fact— “Where is my connection to Heaven?
Why can’t I feel it?” He pinched his thigh hard, baring his teeth in pain.
Once he confirmed this was not a dream, astonishment, delight, and panic took turns flashing across the golden-haired man’s face before blending into a strange flush.
“Ha…
hahaha?
So it’s another world—an entirely different world with no connection to Heaven at all.
I never expected to encounter something so miraculous…” Although his relationship with a certain goddess of wisdom was not good, relying purely on instinct, Ares quickly deduced that he had already left his homeland.
After all, only a truly different world could completely sever the connection between the gods and the origin of Heaven.
That was the benevolent mother who granted them eternal, undying life.
Even if a god treated suicide as entertainment, she would still expend immense time and resources to revive them.
It was difficult to imagine her completely abandoning a god—unless the distance was too great and she was truly powerless.
Otherwise, he would always be able to sense that reassuring protection.
But now that connection was gone, which meant that if he died in this unknown world, he would truly die—there would be absolutely no chance for his soul to return to Danmachi’s Heaven and be reborn.
After understanding this, feeling the unfamiliar emotions called “fear” and “anxiety” rising in his heart, the war god who had been bored for hundreds of millions of years burst into wild laughter toward the sky.
“Hahahahaha!!!
War, slaughter, fear, and death—how marvelous, how intoxicating!” He clenched his fists, his joints cracking loudly, and directly released the seal on his divine power.
“No matter whose handiwork this is, I must thank you properly!” “…” After venting freely for four or five minutes without receiving the response he desired, Ares turned his head and began exploring this unfamiliar world.
With the divine power of the war god fully unsealed within him, his five senses far surpassed those of mortals.
It did not take long before he heard the roars of beasts coming from the distance.
Following the sound, he looked across the river and saw several pairs of faint green eyes staring at him from the dense forest.
As mist rolled and churned, a group of strange beasts he had never seen before stepped forward— Their forms resembled tigers, yet each dragged the tail of an ox behind it.
Their fur was mottled yellow and black.
Upon seeing a stranger, they suddenly barked like dogs—”woof.” By divine instinct, his power automatically captured the scattered information drifting between heaven and earth.
Thus Ares learned the racial name of these beasts: [Zhi].
It meant wild boar.
“???” These tiger-bodied, ox-tailed creatures that barked like dogs were supposed to be wild boars?
Ares could not understand it.
What kind of wild boar looked like this?
Not to mention, the aura emitted by each of these vicious beasts was nearly on par with top-tier Level 6 adventurers.
If mere wild boars were this powerful, then let alone ordinary people—even if all the Familias of Orario were moved here, they might not be able to survive in this world.
But very quickly, the war god cast aside such trivial considerations.
Because these beasts had clearly already regarded him as prey— The Zhi bared their tusks.
Saliva dripped onto the grass, corroding the blades and raising wisps of white smoke.
Barking wildly, they lunged forward.
“Excellent!” Ares licked his cracked lips, a long-lost blaze igniting within his pupils.
He bent down and picked up a river stone, crushing it into powder between his fingers.
His figure shot into the beast pack like a crimson arrow.
With divine power augmenting him, one punch shattered a tiger’s skull.
An elbow strike swept sideways, tearing an ox tail clean off at the root.
The Zhi shrieked in furious alarm, throwing themselves forward one after another, only to pile into a ring of flesh and blood around him.
“Yes!
That’s it!” The stench of blood splattered across Ares’ face.
He wiped it away and, in the same motion, plunged his hand into a Zhi’s throat.
Listening to its dying struggles, his pupils flushed red with excitement.
“Hahahaha!
Now this is what you call battle!
No seals, no restraints—only the purest slaughter!” Throwing his head back in laughter, Ares charged into the forest, launching a frenzied pursuit of the fleeing Zhi.
Along the way, he showed no fear in clashing head-on with other ferocious beasts he encountered.
As time passed, the opponents he faced grew stronger and stronger— Giant birds resembling eagles with sharp horns growing from their heads.
Serpentine monsters with six legs and four wings.
Massive oxen with white heads, a single eye, and snake tails…
One after another, these ferocious beasts fell to his hunt.
Among them were existences whose strength approached the level of gods, yet after expending some effort, they still collapsed at his feet.
As the moon set and the sun rose, the war god tore apart a four-eyed owl with a human face, laughing wildly as he hurled its corpse into the nearby swamp.
Amid rising blood mist, Ares spread his arms wide and shouted toward the gray-white sky: “Hahahahaha!
In this world—I am invincible!
Who can kill me?
Who can kill me!!” His laughter echoed through the forest, startling countless birds from the marsh.
But perhaps joy begets sorrow, or perhaps the ruler of this territory simply took offense at a foreign intruder rampaging through its domain.
In the next instant, the ground beneath Ares’ feet suddenly collapsed.
A foul wind rushed toward him as a colossal shadow surged upward from the swamp.
It was a gigantic serpent more than three thousand feet in length.
Its scales gleamed with a cold luster like obsidian.
Set upon its green triangular head were two blood-red eyes.
As its forked tongue flickered, even the clouds in the sky seemed dragged downward.
Ares’ smile had not yet faded, yet his pupils had already contracted to needlepoints—the instinct of a war god warned him that this ferocious beast was different from the previous creatures.
This was a true enemy capable of threatening a god with death.
[Bashe].
From the information drifting between heaven and earth, he comprehended the giant serpent’s racial name.
Divine power surged within him, shaping a long spear wreathed in crimson from nothingness, which he pointed viciously forward.
“Good.
I like opponents worth my effort!” But the Bashe had no interest in the thoughts of this hairless ape.
It swung its tail like a steel whip, sweeping across the land.
Ares barely managed to raise a hurried guard.
The spear formed from divine power shattered instantly, and his entire body was sent flying dozens of miles like a severed kite.
Along the way he smashed through every obstacle before embedding deeply into a cliff face.
His crimson armor caved in.
Blood streamed from his brow, mixing with dust into muddy paste.
“Pain…
it hurts, it hurts!!” The monster’s physical body was absurdly powerful!
The disheveled war god howled as he crawled out of the crater.
Before he could steady himself, a massive storm swept in, intent on tearing both him and the mountain beneath his feet apart.
Looking up, Ares saw that the storm’s source was the Bashe’s bottomless, gaping maw.
An overwhelming chill surged through him.
His instincts screamed that if he were truly swallowed into that monster’s belly, he would be digested into nothing but residue.
There would not be the slightest chance of survival.
“Damn it!
What the hell is this thing!” The war god who had just proclaimed himself invincible immediately turned and fled, shouting miserably.
His burly body tumbled and scrambled down the mountainside like a stray dog.
“W-wait!
We can talk…” But the Bashe’s hiss followed like a shadow.
With each flick of its tongue, foul wind tore apart mountain ridges.
It clearly had no intention of letting this delicacy escape.
Indeed, the beast’s instinct told it that if it devoured this never-before-seen hairless ape, it would obtain tremendous benefits.
Perhaps it might even usher in a new evolution.
“Waaah!
This isn’t fair!
If you’ve got guts, wait until I train up an army and then we’ll fight again!” …
Vast Expanse Heaven.
Before him, Tian’el condensed a mirror of water, within which was displayed the game of chase between Ares and the Bashe.
“The ordinary gods of that world appear to be roughly at the level of fairly standard mid-tier ferocious beasts.” Ever since Ares awakened, Tian’el had been silently observing his battles against one ferocious beast after another, collecting data to assess the combat power of that world’s gods.
It should be known that the gods of that world were divided into only two ranks: ordinary gods and great gods respected by all.
Although the latter could not permanently eliminate the former, they could easily send ordinary gods back for revival.
As the god of war, even if he governed war without guaranteeing victory, Ares’ combat power undoubtedly stood among the upper tier of ordinary gods.
According to Tian’el’s observations, if all the divine power within Ares were unleashed at once, using Earth as a reference standard, he could cleanse the entire surface of the planet within mere seconds with ease.
Objectively speaking, such strength was already terrifying—absolutely worthy of the level of a true god in the eyes of ordinary beings.
Yet placed within the Vast Expanse Human Realm, where ferocious beasts ran rampant, it could only be said to barely qualify as first-rate, still far from the true upper-tier ferocious beasts.
Not to mention the outrageous existences like Hundun, Taotie, Taowu, and Qiongqi.
Even ordinary upper-tier ferocious beasts such as Jiuying, Xiangliu, and Zhuyan were beings that, when fighting with full power, could rely on their innate gifts or even their physical bodies to destroy stars.
Below them, mid-tier ferocious beasts like the Bashe were actually comparable in strength to Ares.
The reason he appeared so miserable was mainly because he had been cut off from his source of authority.
If this were his original world, with the support of Heaven’s origin and an endless supply of power, the outcome of the battle would certainly be reversed.
Further below were lower-tier ferocious beasts capable of tearing apart continents, and elite ferocious beasts lacking innate divine abilities and unable to contend against authority.
For now, no corresponding existences could be found in that world.
At the very bottom were the unranked ferocious beasts like the Zhi, which were probably comparable to mortal adventurers—except that the latter were further subdivided into levels from Level 1 to Level 9.
After roughly sorting out the power hierarchy of the countless ferocious beasts within the Vast Expanse, even Tian’el, with his calm temperament, could not help but twitch slightly at the corner of his mouth— Fortunately, the Human Realm was vast enough, accounting for thirty percent of the entire Vast Expanse and possessing a surface area ten thousand times that of Earth.
Otherwise, it would have long since been destroyed by the conflicts of these ferocious beasts.
It should be known that even the sun’s surface area was only about twelve thousand times that of Earth.
With the scale of the Vast Expanse Human Realm, it was no exaggeration to call it a stellar-level continent—yet it still teetered on the brink under the ravaging of countless ferocious beasts.
“What a headache…” This world’s instinct placed far too much emphasis on creating powerful lifeforms, without the slightest consideration for the limits of space-time and material capacity.
To put it bluntly, the fact that the Vast Expanse had managed to endure until Tian’el’s arrival without collapsing…
was practically a miracle.
The problem was that, as the Celestial Emperor, he had no choice but to step in and clean up this mess—after all, it was also for the sake of protecting his world.
Letting out a helpless sigh, Tian’el’s gaze suddenly sharpened.
His right hand tore open the void directly, reaching toward the Human Realm.
If he did not intervene now, Ares truly would end up inside the Bashe’s belly…