The Max Level Hero Has Returned!

Thud!!

An intangible force made its way out from Davey’s body, shaking him as he released everything he had consumed.

“Cough… Cough… I really ate a shit ton,” he muttered, half in disbelief. He had wondered how much his frenzied self would consume.

Fortunately, things worked out better than he expected. He was able to push Thanatos to her breaking point and shatter her divinity.

Just as Davey was about to finish her off, Thanatos gritted her teeth and shoved him away. Alas, her resistance lacked the strength she once had.

“You’re still resisting?”

“You monster! How on earth did you do it?!” Thanatos cried out.

Even though he was in a space where he could freely lose control, he knew he wouldn’t be able to return to sanity later. So, he had taken steps to ensure he wouldn't lose himself completely.

“Well, it’s called a brake,” Davey said nonchalantly.

Her eyes widened slightly as she recalled seeing Davey stumble, almost as if he had been struck by something, during their fight. But still, she couldn’t fully understand what he meant.

Losing control to madness meant he was acting beyond his conscious will. That led to him allowing his power of taboo to run wild after a certain amount of time.

[My power may have overwhelmed you and subdued you for now, but you’ll eventually develop an immunity toward it.]

Hercules had saved him when the madness had overtaken him in the past. Using the characteristic of the power of taboo, the hero had collided it with his madness to subdue Davey. Of course, Davey was so drenched in madness he couldn’t pull him out completely all at once.

And so, Davey knew that if he couldn’t get it the first time, he’d try over and over again until he woke up from the madness. He made the two powers clash into each other repeatedly to regain his sanity. Even though it would be a brief moment, he knew it'd be enough to let out all the powers he consumed and force the power of taboo back into dormancy, making the madness of hunger disappear.

Thanatos stared at Davey as she slowly disintegrated. Davey looked down at her and began to restore his own body.

Thanatos was fading away.

It seemed like she was remembering what all she had done in her attempt to kill Davey. Having gone as far as to consume the source of a star to kill him, she only had one future left: complete annihilation. And as if the surrounding black fog reflected her deteriorating state, they began to slowly dissipate.

This different space, though it resembled the universe, wasn’t quite a universe. While the universe was the source of all dimensions and stars, this place merely borrowed its form, as ground existed as well.

“It’s only been a little over a year,” Davey remarked.

Thanatos locked her eyes on him as she continued to fade away.

“So long since we’ve been fighting to death like this.”

He didn’t expect a response. The space slowly returned to its original state, as if being pulled into a black hole. Through the rifts, Davey reached into Eclipse’s body and completely extracted what remained of Thanatos’ shattered divinity. Her divinity had weakened so much that he was able to pull it out with ease.

Eclipse, finally freed from Thanatos’ control, reverted to her original form of a small girl. She was lying in a pool of her own blood, motionless to the point that it seemed like she was dead.

Her soul, having been consumed by Thanatos, was beyond saving. Extinction was the only fate left for her.

The saddest part of it all was that Davey had wanted to reunite her with Hercules before her end, but it was no longer possible.

“What are you doing?” Thanatos asked with her eyes fixed on him, despite her form disappearing.

“What am I doing?” Davey repeated. “Retrieving your divinity.”

Recovering her divinity for his own had been a gamble. He was satisfied that he was lucky enough to obtain it like this.

“Thanatos.”

“...”

“There are only three years left.”

Thanatos remained silent.

“Even if you reset civilization, it’s only a thousand years. Yet, you still wanted to realize your ideas?” Davey continued, though he didn’t expect an answer. “Haah. What’s the point in talking with you anymore?”

Before he knew it, the surrounding space had shifted back to the cave full of flesh, where Davey had first encountered Thanatos.

“Davey.”

When he turned around, he saw Isildi, Verdandi, and Skuld approaching. He wondered when they had arrived.

“Mother!” Verdandi shouted, rushing toward Eclipse. But before she could get close, Isildi blocked her path with a blood-stained sword.

“Step back,” Isildi commanded coldly. “The god Thanatos still lingers.”

“...”

Verdandi gritted her teeth, fists tightly clenched, but still obeyed Isildi.

After completely pulling out Thanatos’ divinity, Davey pulled a card album from his Pocket Plane. He wasn’t sure if sealing divinity was even possible, but he figured a card crafted with the power of his own soul might be able to.

Unfortunately for her, Davey had no intention of sparing Thanatos. If he could use the soul of a former god for his own purposes, he intended to do so without hesitation. He materialized a golden chain and sealed her soul.

“What are you trying to…?” Isildi trailed off.

“Divinity itself contains immense vitality,” Davey replied.

“That’s so cruel of you,” she said, her voice filled with bitterness.

Even as he sealed Thanatos’s divinity with chains, she couldn’t resist. The golden chains just hung her up.

Suddenly…

Crack!! Crack!!

The flesh that filled the cave began to split, and an enormous surge of power flooded the space.

Isildi and Verdandi looked around in panic, but Davey remained focused on sealing the divinity into his card. Davey himself wasn’t exactly fit to move. Despite his outward composure, he was on the verge of collapse. He jokingly thought to himself that he would probably die if he took even a single small hit right now.

Davey scoffed and glared at Thanatos. “What did you do?”

“The plan failed,” Thanatos responded bitterly. “My divinity has crumbled, and I’m now just a mortal, no longer capable of reaching a transcendental will.”

“So?”

“If I have to disappear like this, there’s no way I’ll let things go the way you want,” Thanatos said firmly.

A massive amount of energy collided, distorting the surroundings.

“Mother!!”

Tentacles stretched out from a black rift in the floor, grabbing hold of Eclipse’s lifeless body and pulling her in. Isildi and Verdandi, desperate to save her, rushed forward but were stopped by an intangible barrier. As the two didn’t have divinity, there was nothing they could do to stop Thanatos’ final act of resistance.

Davey, too, was unable to move. All he could do was grit his teeth and watch as Eclipse was dragged away.

“Someone has destroyed the space in the Abyss,” Thanatos sneered, her voice full of madness. “The ancient dragon’s body shall be thrown there, cursed to be twisted and torn apart forever along with the crumbling space!”

“Choose, Saint of Freyja. Will you continue to seal my soul and lose her? Or will you release me?”

Davey knew that if he simply released her divinity right now, Thanatos would completely lose her divinity and disappear. But that would also mean he’d be giving up that immense vitality of hers.

He was caught between a rock and a hard place.

“No! No!!!” Verdandi cried out as Eclipse was pulled further into the black Abyss. But Davey couldn’t save her.

“Damn it! You’re really making this difficult, right to the end!” Davey growled, trying to speed up the sealing process. Unfortunately, it was proving agonizingly slow.

Thanatos had tried to do something with the flesh she had stockpiled in the cave, with the vitality the gray knights had absorbed. Davey figured she was trying to block the sunrise in Tionis.

The sun directly affected the influence Goddess Freyja possessed. Had Thanatos succeeded in making the sun disappear, Tionis’s future would’ve been thrown into chaos. But now, she was instead using the power intended to weaken Goddess Freyja to get revenge on Davey.

Davey wondered if she already knew she was in a do-or-die situation.

The black mist around Thanatos seemed to laugh mockingly.

“You and I are parallels. We’ll never understand each other. Look, it’s all ending in catastrophe.”

Davey frowned even deeper at her words.

‘If she gets away with Eclipse’s body that still has her soul…’

As he watched Verdandi sobbing and pounding helplessly on the intangible barrier, he could taste the bitterness of the situation.

Riffle, riffle!!

More chains wrapped around her divinity, dragging it closer to the card, but the sealing process was painfully slow as her final struggle was fierce.

Unable to move, Davey could only watch as Eclipse's body was completely sucked into the black rift—he couldn’t give up on Thanatos just to help her.

“Hahahaha!!! Hahahaha!!” Thanatos laughed maniacally.

“Don’t you think I’ll let you die peacefully,” Davey said while glaring coldly at her.

Eclipse eventually vanished. He assumed she was twisted and torn apart in the collapsing Abyss, as Thanatos had said. He closed his eyes, thinking of the pain she would receive for eternity.

Verdandi, fell to the ground devastated, staring at the empty space where Eclipse had disappeared. Tears streamed down her face as she whispered, “No… No…”

“Verdandi…”

“No!! No!! Ahhh!!”

As Thanatos watched Verdandi bang the intangible barrier in anger, she began cursing at them.

“Scream! Despair! Feel the same pain, anger, and hatred that I endured!”

“Shut up, bitch,” Davey spat, his voice cold as he tightened his grip on the chains, forcing more than half of her soul into the card.

Soon after, an intense light shone from the card as the chains consumed the last of her divinity. Davey finally fully sealed her in the card.

"I’ll be waiting for you at the end of despair."

With her final spat of cursing, her divinity stopped resisting. A drawing of a black scythe appeared on the card.

Though Thanatos had been reduced to a divinity with no power of divine intervention, just enormous amounts of vitality, Davey felt as though she was still laughing at him from within the card. Seeing the card in his hand, he wondered if it would even be possible to use it to find Eclipse who had been sucked into the collapsing Abyss.

“Aaaah!!!” Verdandi wailed while curled up on the floor. Her cry was full of pain and sorrow.

Crack… Crack!!

“The cave is collapsing. If you don’t want to be consumed by those masses of flesh, we need to get out of here right now!” Isildi shouted, grabbing Verdandi.

“Let go of me!! Mother!! Mother is still—” Verdandi protested.

“We need to get out first, you stupid bitch!!” Isildi snapped.

As the cave of flesh began to collapse, everything that had used up its strength—like the gray knight and the blobs of flesh—crumbled away, disintegrating on its own.

Verdandi was still screaming on the ground, Skuld gritting her teeth as tears streamed down her face. Meanwhile, Isildi watched the cave splitting with a troubled expression. Davey, still staring blankly at the card in his hand, slowly began to return to his senses.

He had failed to save Eclipse. The thought made him feel sick, as if he no longer had the honor to look at Hercules. Although the image Hercules showed in the Divine Sanctum[1] had been disappointing, it didn’t make the long time Davey had spent with him in the Hall of Heroes irrelevant.

The collapsing Abyss was a place he couldn’t go—even if he tried, he knew saving Eclipse would be close to impossible.

“I’m sorry.”

This was all Davey could muster for Verdandi.

“You could’ve saved her!! You promised me that you’d save her!”

“Verdandi!!”

“My poor mother… You could’ve saved her at the end!!!”

She didn’t know the truth. She didn’t understand that Davey had chosen to seal and prevent Thanatos’ soul from disappearing by giving up on Eclipse.

Verdandi screamed in anguish as she walked toward Davey. She was acting completely different from how she normally was. Considering her past betrayal, her behavior wasn’t something Davey normally would’ve tolerated. However, he had no response or arguments for her. He couldn’t fault her—not in the face of such overwhelming sadness.

Even Isildi appeared restless and unsure of what to do as she watched Verdandi wail in agony.

Davey felt a heavy weight pressing down on his heart, her cries tearing through him. He didn’t know what to say to her. How could he possibly say anything comforting or reasonable, when he couldn’t even tell her the truth?

As these thoughts raced through his mind, Davey suddenly sensed something—an energy he recognized, beyond the weakened space, emanating from the rift where Eclipse had been abandoned.

‘Why are you coming out from there?’

* * *

The collapsing dark space had sucked Eclipse in.

She was free from Thanatos' control, but utterly powerless to move.

She knew it was over for her—her body had already died, and her mental strength was nearly gone.

Though things turned out different from what she had originally expected, she was falling apart as she unleashed all the power left inside her. She could only make faint, barely noticeable movement.

‘That’ll do…’

Despite her dire situation, Eclipse smiled faintly. The collapsing space eroded and tore up her body ceaselessly with torrents of destructive energy. The thought of suffering forever terrified her, but she didn’t blame Davey—he had done everything he could.

More importantly, he had protected her children who she wanted to keep safe: Urd, Verdandi, and even Skuld.

‘Still, it’s a bit scary.’

She was still fearful of what was to come. Eventually, her physical body dissolved into particles, leaving only her soul behind. As she turned into a translucent figure, she squinted down to see what remained of her.

Eclipse had no regrets about the state of her physical body which had long ceased to function. She had never expected Davey to actually separate her from Thanatos. She had planned on grounding her body to dust if it came to that, anyway.

‘This is something I was prepared for. I just have to accept it.’

But despite her determination, her instincts rebelled. The destruction of her body also meant the dissolution of the vessel that protected her soul. She wasn’t sure if her ancient dragon's soul could endure the torment of being torn apart in the collapsing space, or if it would consume her entirely.

All that remained was her soul. As she was about to suppress the screams that were trying to creep up on her from the overwhelming fear and pain, she suddenly heard something.

“Who is it?”

It was the sound of footsteps.

She barely moved her soul’s neck, which felt paralyzed, and focused her gaze. Someone was walking toward her through the collapsing space.

Once they drew closer, they gently hugged her.

Their touch was warm and familiar.

It was a sensation she could never forget.

Tears welled in her eyes.

For ten thousand years, she had never forgotten this man, not even for a single moment, not even during her descent into madness.

“I’ve missed you,” he whispered calmly. His words touched her heart, making tears flow down her eyes.

“Why…?”

“...”

“Why did you only come now? Why did you make it so hard for me?”

It was a complaint she would’ve never voiced under normal circumstances, but she spoke her true feelings while clinging to him with tears streaming down her face.

“I’m sorry, Eclipse,” the man said softly, hugging her closer.

Wiping her tears with her sleeve, Eclipse hugged him even tighter. There was one thing she had thought about for thousands of years—one phrase she had longed to say, but had never been able to.

“I missed you… Hercules, my love.”

“Even though I couldn’t save you,” he whispered, “I can at least be with you as you go.”

A hero who was already dead, a soul on the verge of vanishing.

The two beings met again and embraced in the collapsing world.

1. Previously God's Space. ☜

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