Chapter 419: The God-King Returns

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Neji had no control over where the portal would lead to in the underworld. When he and the Satans stepped in and walked out, they were in a desolate flowerland right outside some city's walls.

A moment later, Grayfia came out of a different portal. Neji didn’t notice her before, looks like she was the only person other than the Satans who kept their consciousness after the second entity appeared. Since she was awake, the many Gates of Babylon that appeared under the devils couldn't deposit her. Luckily she managed to find her way back right behind them.

She rushed over to them and joined them, but nobody spoke. A thick silence lingered over them; Neji simply stood with Tiamat in his arms, until Sirzechs broke it. 

"It's near Asmodeus' Territory, it should be safe here. Are you alright, Grayfia?"

While Grayfia nodded and the two of them shared a moment of concern, Neji took in his words. Falbium Asmodeus, the last of the current four Satans. Neji suddenly wore an odd frown on his face. Countless thoughts and decisions went through his head, that if the Satans knew they’d kill him right here.

"Just what happened back there?" Serafall asked next, directing the question to nobody in particular though she did look at Neji. 

Grayfia added, "Same question. Being the weakest in the area, I could barely perceive things since everything happened at such an incredible speed. But even I could tell that the first being was stronger than Great Red, but I couldn't even sense anything from the second one."

It wasn't Neji who answered her inquiries, but Satan Ajuka. "We have always known that life existed beyond this world. There were other beings of great power. However, the fact that they were never able to contact us just as we were unable to, meant that they weren't strong enough to cross paths with Great Red. So it's a thing to wonder where such strong beings came from. Because certainly, they weren't here from the beginning."

That hit too close home for Neji. Neither of those beings were locals of this world. They were outsiders… and given his situation, it's not hard to guess which "outside" they were from.

The Primordial God and his wife were the ones who sent the horned creature, along with the thousands of others he could sense earlier. Neji expected this of course, Mistress Death hinted something like this before.

The issue wasn't them, though. The issue was the entity that saved Neji from the horned alien. "Father" was what he said.

"Who was that guy?" Neji asked aloud, all three of the Satans looked at him, but the question wasn't to them. "Death, I know you can hear me."

There was a silence, half a minute long. Serafall opened her mouth to ask him what he was doing, but Neji raised a hand to signal her to stop as a system notification prompted in front of his eyes.

[Lady Death says, "That is a Golem, though my Sister likes to call him her son, she had him with First Gamer."]

That entity was the son of the First Gamer and Abstract Entity Life? Then why did he call Neji… 

[Death adds, "It mistook you for its Father, due to the Gamer system, though I can also see a lot of other factors. From what I know, you have Light and Darkness powers just like the First Gamer did, even though the sources are different. Also, you have CHA Stat right? That's why you look similar, as that Stat makes you two look similar since gives your face a numeric value aiming for the Golden Ratio. So it's not unusual for a soulless doll to mistake you two. I am more surprised it realized its mistake."]

The message ended with that, and Neji didn’t spare much else for thought. It was the son of his predecessor, and he didn’t seem hostile towards Neji, so it’s fine.

Neji wanted to ask something else to Death, but he has a feeling that she won't tell him. In fact, he knew the answer already. Neji wasn't a fool at this stage, his mind could calculate things in a realm beyond humans when he tried. Since the son of Lady Life was here, and he even said something about "mother's orders" that meant that Lady Life was heavily involved in this. And if Lady Life, who should have been locked in the same prison as Lady Luck, was involved with this, it meant… Lady Luck was involved in this.

In the best-case scenario, Life and Luck may be out of the Suratrat prison. Something very big was going on in the grand scale of things, except Neji didn't want to be a doll waiting to be picked this time. He was too weak, he already saw that against that horned alien creature; Neji needed to get stronger as soon as possible, and by that he meant under the next 24 hours.

"Neji, you're not saying anything." Serafall broke the silence as Neji returned his focus to the situation at hand.

"I'm thinking."

"That was very reckless, Dragon Sage." It was Sirzechs who said that, frowning now. "That creature was after you, we can tell. But if you didn't interrupt the Game and nearly destroyed the dimension, I doubt the creature would have come over."

Serafall sweated, "Hey, I was angry at him too at first, but isn't it a bit too much to blame all of this on him…? How would he have known that such a thing was after him? I'm sure he had a reason for attacking Riser, too."

Neji sighed and took out the Amulet from a golden portal. It floated in front of them via a telekinetic force.

"This would have killed Hinata if her palm strike connected to it. I'm pretty sure that it's forbidden to use such a deadly artifact. I had to step in to save my cousin and in turn Rias from her marriage. You should be thanking me, not blaming me." Neji said, "Also, I could have fixed the dimension after I defeated Tiamat. It would have been easy with my powers. But then that thing came out of nowhere."

Sirzechs stayed silent and said nothing. The other two Satans didn't say anything either, unwilling to pour oil into the fire. 

Neji decided something at that moment. He closed his eyes; he expanded his Jogan to spread over the nearby region. Neji created an Omnipresent Copy of himself that appeared too close to the household of Satan Asmodeus, who then created two Wood Clones beside himself that ran off beyond Neji's Jogan's range with a mission of their own.

This all happened beyond the three Satans' notice, Neji was careful.

Ajuka Beezlebub spoke, "Serafall just said you couldn't have possibly known. But let me ask you just in case. Did you know?"

Neji opened his eyes to look at him. He had to keep his Jogan activated to keep his Omnipresent Copy active. He didn't answer as Ajuka spoke again.

"You came out of nowhere, Dragon Sage. You said you are from K'un-Lun, but I find it odd how there has never been someone this strong from that place." He added, "It's true that K'un-Lun holds lots of dragons, but there shouldn't be anyone stronger than the strongest of the Five Great Dragon Kings in there. You beat Tiamat with ease."

Suddenly, the air shifted in the place. It gained a heavyweight. Except for Serafall, whose shoulders shook and she looked back and forth between him and her old friends, the two Super Satans let out a dangerous aura. It took Grayfia only a moment of hesitation before she joined her aura with them.

"So, I have to ask," Ajuka Beezlebub said, "Who are you, really?"

Neji's indifferent expression morphed into a sigh. A golden portal appeared below him and he finally dropped Tiamat into it. The two Satans and the one Satan Class looked weary, looking out if he'll take out EA.

Neji didn't do that, instead, he opened his mouth and said, "You lots should have done the questioning after I had released all the devils inside my Gate, idiots." Neji smiled for once and added, "Boom." As the sound of a nuke going off came from behind them.

Everyone turned around, and there stood a Neji with EA in his hands, raining down a beam of destruction right towards the castle of the lazy Satan Asmodeus.

Satan Asmodeus had [Absolute Defense], an ability he was born with. It sounded very strong, and it was, as it could "Block All Attacks". Falbium's body, even when he's not actively thinking about it, was constantly wrapped in its aura. Among the Devils, only the other three Satans, Grayfia, and lastly, Rizevim, are able to harm his defense.

"Your fellow Satan's ability isn't as strong as it sounds if even Grayfia can hurt it. No offense to you, love." Neji patted her on the shoulder just as she turned around in alarm, only to be slapped on her ear with a force that sent her flying away.

Right now, Neji was a bit stronger than when he fought Tiamat. Because two quests had been completed without him knowing, though now he knew as Sisty let him know.

[You have completed the quest, "The Strongest Amongst the Dragons of Babylon."]

[You have received 150 Levels!]

[You have completed the quest, "Survive the Encounter With Wor Te."]

[You have received 150 levels!]

[You have reached Level 4400!]

A three-hundred-level boost wasn't small even in this league, and he even distributed all his 3,000 Stat Points from all 300 levels.

As the three Satans turned him, Neji didn't run away. "Enuma Elish did its job."

Just like that, Satan Asmodeus was dead. He was a bit weaker than Serafall, standing at [Tier 43], but the level he gave was far less than what killing Tier 43 Nawab gave him. He received only 450 Levels from him, whereas Nawab gave him 950. 

Leveling was getting slower. But now, Neji was at Level 4850. 

"N-Neji, why are you doing this?!" Yelled Serafall in one last hope. Neji looked into her eyes as they got lost in a second of emotional exchange that neither of them could understand.

"True Form." Their little moment was broken when Sirzechs Lucifer did something incredible. His humane skin vanished, no, his entire body of blood and flesh vanished, and he became [Destruction] itself. He was energetic, he was red, a humanoid PoD that raised its finger at Neji and shot a beam at him before Neji could react.

The beam touched Neji, too fast for him to dodge, and it began to destroy him. Yet… all it did was bounce off his skin and spread out to perform fireworks.

Neji hadn’t forgotten the gift he received at the end of the Naruto world. It was a potion that the Direction of Last Act gifted; something Gamers weren’t supposed to use as it didn’t even register as his skill, yet he had drank it anyway out of spite.

===

Item Name: Potion of Infinite Defence

Details: One of the earliest potions made by the Director of the Last Act. 

– Upon drinking the potion, the user receives the passive ability to form an invisible barrier around himself that can be expanded to keep harmful attacks and substances away from himself. The barrier can only be deactivated by the user.

– The barrier doesn't block physical attacks, but rather attacks that have a space, destruction, or time element on it. It can be said to be an encounter to most if not all Time-Snipe and One-Shot abilities. In other words, only elements or attacks that ignore the physical defense of the user and therefore hurt him directly would be stopped by these defensive walls.

– Can't be used by Gamers/System Users.

– If a foolish System User still decides to waste this item on himself, the Director would like to say: “This skill won't be registered in your system, and thus can't be leveled up. Please stop cheating.”

– Recommended to be used by a non-system-user, as such a person would know to train this ability by themselves. While on the other hand, a system user knows nothing about training outside cheating.

==

So Neji had [Infinite Defense] against limited elements. It wasn’t all-powerful, it wasn’t invincible, otherwise it wouldn’t have talked about training of any kind. So he couldn’t depend on this entirely against Sirzechs, but he could do it just enough.

Sadly, Sirzechs wasn’t the only enemy here. Ajuka Beezlebub was a Super Satan in his own right, and he was more than just a head-strong heavy hitter, he had complex spells. Then there was Grayfia who returned soon, and Neji was sure even Serafall would go against him soon. 

He was surprised how she hadn’t attacked him yet; they didn’t really have any kind of emotional attachment with her. In fact, he was planning to kill her and Grayfia just now but…

‘No. Let’s not abandon the little bit of humanity I have.’ He would feel shitty if he killed Serafall after she held back against him for this long; he could kill Grayfia though, but then leaving this place will be hard. Killing either Sirzechs or Ajuka was impossible at his current level, at least when they were together.

By then, his Omnipresent Copy had vanished. The two clones he had sent to perform their own mission weren’t back yet, however. They will need a bit of time, and that was fine, these Satans won’t recognize them.

Neji was clashing fists with Sirzechs, and while the man’s destruction power didn’t erase Neji right away, he felt his HP lower with every strike. Grayfia was supporting her husband, while Ajuka was casting grand spells every second. Serafall seemed to have had enough as she decided to join in, and Neji didn’t wish to find out which side she would take, because he could guess.

It was time to flee. He gained 750 levels from this; until next time.

“Behold.” 

Neji had to talk like this for this, as his divinity spilled out from his voice. All four of the devils stopped in their spots. They hadn’t questioned him yet about the divinity flowing through his blue tattoos, but this one they didn’t need to ask about. They could all feel it down to their bones.

“Thou disobedient false children. Quake in fear. For lo, thy Divinity is here.”

The four Satans lost their footing for a moment, just a very small moment, indeed feeling a shake within their cores, as their eyes met Neji’s. At that moment, all doubt was cleared up as the brilliance of God shone over the underworld, the sky turned blue and the flowers became livelier. The entire realm bowed, as the Satans resisted.

Neji took that split second to send some information to his clones and then excused himself by slipping out of this world, with thousands of devils still inside his Gate. That will help him negotiate with the devils in their upcoming meeting. He reappeared back on Earth, with a mission in mind, while at the same time waiting for his clones to return and join him.

Indeed, Neji’s intuition was right yesterday. His job as a teacher had come to an end, and now it was time for him to work his God side; it was time to reclaim the empty throne. Because Neji wasn’t going to be a duck waiting to be killed this time; Neji needed power, and the Gamer gained that by killing and conquering.

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