Chapter 723: 723: Climb the Mountain, Steamroll
Plenty of eyes still burned with hostility, but Orson’s presence was too heavy to challenge. As he stepped into the sanctified pool, mist curled around his waist and the crowd unconsciously parted to make way.
“This water was filled by my forebears. This mountain was hewn by my forebears,” he said with an easy smile. “I walk through today. Naturally, everything returns to me.”
Every word landed like a thorn. The line was so brazen it scraped the limits of everyone’s patience.
He stood in the center of the pool, water cold against his skin. All eyes fixed on him, curious to see what a godchild of such pure blood would stir.
“How strange,” Estrella murmured. “There’s no response at all. No ruleforce manifesting. That shouldn’t be possible.”
Time stretched. On the bank, Darulunina and Nuhachit were a bundle of nerves, pacing grooves into the snow. Others had completed their rites and climbed out. Only Orson remained, the waters around him quiet to the point of dread.
Normally, even the weakest received a touch of grace here, a small molt into an adventurer’s path. The pool wasn’t rejecting him. It simply… ignored him. The silence turned uncanny.
At last, gossamer motes of white began to flicker around him, whispering meanings only he could hear.
“The lonely one has fallen. The debt is paid. Begone.”
“The lonely one chose another road, a road of unification. Where is the sin? Why hound me still?”
“Spare my people. Spare my world.”
“…You are not needed here.”
Cold gave way to anger, then to resignation. Orson didn’t budge.
He knew what it was: an echo of the Fire God, the sainted residue of a will that balked at a trespasser. He smelled too much like BlazeKing. It assumed he had come for old blood.
“Truly rare,” someone snorted. “The pool ignores him. What kind of monster do you have to be to get denied by heaven?”
“Said the mountain was his. If it were me, I’d throw myself in after that. Face is face. Live with none and you’re a joke.”
Laughter rolled over the waters. Boast big, fall big. Orson soaked in scorn.
“We misread him,” Caelum said, a handsome scholar’s face creasing. “He might be strong now, but given time we can reach him, even surpass him.”
“Consider the relic and the map… compensation for a friendship,” Estrella sighed.
“Spare your world?” Orson mused. “Ancestor, don’t joke.”
“Your world, my world—what’s the difference? If it’s yours, it’s mine.”
The Fire God had poured his soul into this place. Even fallen, he’d left the mountain to shelter his people. Still nothing happened. Orson’s patience thinned.
“Hurry it up,” he said under his breath. “I’m on a clock. Toss me two or three shifts and I’ll be on my way. I didn’t come for nothing.”
Even one mode change, added to an SSS-tier class, was a huge spike.
Ten more minutes bled away.
His jaw set. The remnant kept muttering, and he snapped. “No class? Keep yammering and I’ll level your mountain.”
Riley’s seal gagged his magic and actives unless he broke it himself. But soul-imprint skills weren’t bound. He could spend years of his life to manifest Heaven and Earth, become a walking war-idol and plow this peak flat.
“I paid for breaking with Radiant Shuttle,” the remnant droned on, rote and unhearing. “We parted ways long ago…”
Bird and beast, talking past each other. Orson’s temper flared. His eyes flashed like blades as he roared, “I am Radiant Shuttle’s master!”
Power exploded. A God-tier’s pressure crashed over the terraces.
“That aura… on par with the Godmaster and the Sunforge Sacred Executor… maybe stronger.”
Royal scions and sanctum wardens alike went weak at the knees, a compulsion to kneel pressing their bones.
“You. Answer me!” Orson’s voice rolled down the gullies and back again.
“He’s ordering the Fire God to speak!”
“Dead man walking. He’s broken taboo. Guards! Kill him!”
Samuel’s face twisted—part rage, part hope the wardens would do his work for him.
Silence answered him. No one moved on a God-tier.
After a long beat, a sigh threaded into Orson’s mind. “The debt is settled. Do you accept?”
Orson could barely keep the grin from his mouth. Era of Immortals grudges weren’t his circus. “I accept. Now hurry.”
The ninety-nine pools erupted. Dragon and phoenix lit the sky, an omen so bright it stunned the masses.
“Those are the Fire God’s twin beasts, from the chronicles.”
“If the pattern holds…”
“Sunforge Sword omen,” a warden whispered, breath frosting. “A perfect awakener. Six-Shift.”
Dragon and phoenix dove as a single sigil into Orson’s chest. He felt something click deep inside.
“No godrings?” he muttered, frowning.
“Sunforge Sword omen! Perfect awakener!” someone shouted.
This vision had appeared only twice in a thousand years: once for the Sacred Executor, and now.
Darulunina sobbed, laughing through tears. “I knew it. He belongs above the peak.”
“Bark. Go on, keep barking!” Nuhachit, drunk on vindication, vaulted from the pool and jabbed a finger at Samuel. “Sword as emperor, rings as vassals. You’re a dog at best. Go on, bark again!”
Spittle flew. A king hid his face.
“Not an ordinary man,” Estrella managed, wearing a polite smile that didn’t fit. “If the mountain were an item, I’d say he has the right to pick it up.”
“You have acquired a new class: SSS-tier Warrior, Chaos Sword God.”
“Due to seal effects, class skills cannot be accessed via mode swap at this time.”
“You have acquired a new class: SSS-tier Knight, Chaos Ironbreaker.”
“Due to seal effects…”
“You have acquired a new class: SSS-tier Cleric, Hand of Chaos.”
Prompts chimed one after another. Orson’s smile turned sharp. Six classes, one frame. Give him time to hone it and, God or not, he’d take a lower deity head-on. Lift the seal and stack his SS-tier forbidden arts on top? That would be a massacre.
“May I… ask which Infinite Dimensions world you hail from?” Samuel said, face smoothed into deference. The fangs were gone.
“You don’t have the standing. Tell your Godmaster to come to me.”
Orson stepped out, ignored him, and reached the bank.
“Up the mountain,” he said, eyes crinkling. “We steamroll.”
He tugged on his clothes, gathered Darulunina and the rest, and strode for the ascent like he owned it. The proud wardens knew the rules were broken, but no ant challenges a god. They bowed their heads and opened the way.