Chapter 736: 736: The One Who Wounds Me Most
Half a year slipped by.
“Unfortunate. You lost.”
A blade hovered a hair’s breadth from the tip of Orson’s nose. He forced a thin smile, nodded, patted the dust from his clothes, and dragged his battered body back toward the little temple.
Bellara’s brows knit as she snapped the order. Yet the steel in her voice had softened over time; a hint of teasing lingered at the corners of her mouth, as if she were suppressing a satisfied smile.
“Next time. For sure.”
Orson said it with his back to her, the words carrying more than a little defeat.
Earth’s undefeated Archmage of Infinite Dimensions had challenged Bellara six times in six months, and six times he had been beaten. He could not use skills; she refused to use skills against him as well.
She wanted him to see the truth with clear eyes.
No matter how strong a mortal becomes, he does not stand beside a god.
A millennium of killing had forged Bellara into a peerless war-lord. Six classes, zero downtime, switching with flawless precision. Tactics, technique, tempo, control—she had refined them to the point of the uncanny.
Orson couldn’t hide the disappointment. He knew this was not a fight between equals, not even by dimension. His absurd range could create problems for her, but once she shifted into Rogue form, she moved like something beyond human. The raw stat gap was a chasm.
Whatever plans he spun, whatever mastery he brought to bear, to her it looked like a child playing soldier.
Waving a toy sword in front of Guan Yu.
Watching him trudge away like a soul gone astray, Bellara’s expression loosened despite herself. Something stirred. “I’m surprised you lasted a full quarter hour. Give it a century or two and you might actually threaten me.”
“A hundred… two hundred years…”
Orson’s laugh was bitter. He shook his head and went back to his room to mend.
Time was the one thing he didn’t have. The longer he lingered in this forsaken place, the more his thoughts spiraled to the family and friends waiting on Earth.
He would not rest while demons lived and gods stood.
Back in the temple’s side room, once his wounds were bound, Orson went to the creek deep in the secret realm and netted a white-scaled river fish. He hacked off the head, raised a small cook fire, and simmered it down into broth.
He had been cataloging Bellara’s little secrets. This heaven was vast, a small world unto itself. She had planted acres of grain. The storehouses were packed to the rafters.
Guarding a heaven alone was boring. Even gods who didn’t need to eat still lived with their backs to the fields and their faces to the sky.
He pulled two packs of instant noodles from his bag. He bathed them in fish broth, waited a perfect minute, then lifted the lid.
If he couldn’t outfight her, he could at least eat well. That much, he owed himself.
Bellara cleared her throat as she stepped in. She flicked her wrist and a bowl and chopsticks appeared in her hand.
Orson didn’t bother to look up. Bellara shot him a glare, sat down, and started in on him. “I’m your teacher, you know. Is that any way to treat your master?”
“Get lost,” he swore under his breath.
She had cut his limbs off more than once, left him a single arm, and thrown him into a demon pack so he’d be forced to operate at the absolute limit. “Master,” was it?
“Mm. The aroma… This is divine. The bite, the spring. Much better than hand-pulled.”
She swallowed hard and took a mountain of noodles soaked in broth, then claimed the fish head he’d so carefully simmered.
Orson could have exploded.
Beaten and now bullied at the table. So this was what it felt like to be weak. No wonder those he’d crushed had glared like they wanted to skin him alive. This humiliation stung.
“So, who invented this? He must be a god of cuisine. If fate allows, I’d like to pay my respects.”
“I can take you. Now.”
His eyes lit. Inwardly, he added, I’ll take you to that ramen devil in the underworld. He’s waiting for you.
“Ahem. Fate is fate. One doesn’t force such things. Learn to go with the flow, little disciple.”
She nearly choked, then tossed him a bright smile.
His small spark of hope guttered out. If he couldn’t beat her, he couldn’t leave The Sunforge World. A dead end.
It wasn’t only him coming for defeat. The Immortal Master and Cain showed up every month as well, lining up for their monthly beating. Three unfortunates, all snared by Bellara’s red dress.
No light at the end of the tunnel. Just one-sided trouncing.
Orson drew a long breath, leveled his spirit.
He hadn’t come away empty-handed. Monopolizing eighty percent of the “Sunforge shard” resources, his merits had skyrocketed. The fusion of his Overgod soul marks was finally in reach. Ten years at best, twenty at worst, and he’d have the Divine Essence he needed.
He’d asked Bellara whether he could cheese the system with the Demon-Summoning Incense and farm the skies clean, purging the demons outside The Sunforge World.
Her answer crushed him.
The brood queen in the sky was called the Holy Demon Broodmother. A demon king with lesser-god combat strength who spawned demons of every tier.
The more he killed, the faster she bred.
And demons didn’t develop like adventurers. Guided by the will of the Demon Emperor, they didn’t need time to grow. A high demon rivaling a commander-tier adventurer could go from hatchling to battle-ready adult in a single day and night.
That was why even the gods felt despair. You could annihilate a swarm in the billions. If even one got away, it would mature into a Broodmother and start breeding again.
In a year, you’d be right back where you started.
Of course, a Broodmother required a brood numbering in the billions. The vanguard that devastated Earth in the old timeline? Just one tiny tendril of a much greater legion.
The struggle continued. So did the grind.
Orson wasn’t the sort to yield. He didn’t ask to soar; he asked to move mountains, one shovel at a time if he had to.
Years blurred. Months turned to dust.
Fifteen years passed.
He sat cross-legged on a mountain spine, looking like a hermit gone to seed. The handsome lines of his face were worn. His beard hung to his chest. His skin was bronze and cut with scars.
Bellara’s “lessons” had fed him well.
She had, of course, stolen the last of his instant noodles in year three. He had never been angrier. He’d flipped the dinner table, called her a relic, a Radiant Shuttle turncoat, a woman he couldn’t stand.
He had never been beaten worse.
That was the day he glimpsed her god-domain—Taiyi Edge. Ten thousand blades like a dragon riding the clouds, projections of Radiant Shuttle’s ancient heroes striding forth. He even saw, among them, the Sword King Wang Meng of Pondenorlin.
It was the Weapon God’s will made manifest. Every figure came from a shard of Bellara’s childhood memory.
He even saw his great-great-grandmother, whom he’d never met.
He burned ten years of life to unleash Manifest Heaven and Earth, his soul-mark finisher, and barely survived.
After that, the woman who had delighted in calling herself “Master” and him “Disciple” stopped speaking to him. She moved deeper into the heaven and lived apart. She only appeared on the appointed day each month to challenge him—and take out her temper.
She struck. She left. Cold and final.
Like a scoundrel shirking responsibility.
Orson had never been good at reading women. He guessed the noodles had killed her interest in visiting. That made as much sense as anything.
He had long since earned the merits for Divine Essence. But he refused to move forward. He wouldn’t accept that he couldn’t understand why he kept losing.
Were mortals truly barred from standing beside gods?
He wouldn’t accept it.
He’d stopped dreaming of beating her. He had set a simpler goal.
Sunlight slid across his weathered face. The day had come again. His breath ran deep and true; light flashed in his eyes. Dark red sigils crawled along his arms, glinting strangely.
With a thought he sent the elements roaring. He used no skills. He guided only the flow. The battlefield shifted into a terrain he preferred—rolling hills and kill lines.
By year seven, his understanding of magic and martial technique had risen to a new plane. His fingertip brushed the bedrock logic of the Infinite Dimensions. The complex sigils had meaning now. The formations and barriers woven from elemental runes were a language he could read.
Adventurers only ever tugged on those strings to pull power from heaven and earth, making miracles in a practiced way.
On the horizon, a figure appeared in a fire-red dress, same as always. The most update n0vels are published on NoveIＦire.net
Bellara’s eyes narrowed as she studied the silhouette on the ridge. Another ripple of danger slid through her.
He had grown faster than she expected.
His gaze was harder now. A hint of blood-edged resolve.
Her lips parted. A whisper escaped her.
“I have grasped every weapon under heaven. Yet only this man wounds me the most.”