Even though she herself confirmed that fact, she still couldn’t believe it was real. Everything felt like a dream to her right now, but with the freezing sensation constantly encroaching upon her mind, body, and soul, she knew that she was in no way hallucinating.

All of her accumulation flooded out in an instant. Her veins glowed bright, appearing as if green lines were glowing all throughout her body.

The restriction placed on every avatar didn’t just limit their ability to ascend their superpower to Level 4, it also restricted the development of everything else, from their body, mind, and even soul.

As for why that was the case, no avatars could truly know why. Only the original, in his ever-mysterious plan to reach godhood himself, would know.

It might be an elaborate ruse, or just plain and simple ‘sealing their potential so they would have no way of surpassing the original.’

However, with the restriction abruptly taken off, her zenithral power which has long surpassed the boundaries of Level 3 began to flood her from the inside and out.

Pain flooded every fiber of her being as her body and soul were reconstructed, but with the threat of the Demigod still there, she had to endure the pain and act.

She gritted her teeth and pushed through. Although she was in a lot of pain right now, there were a couple of benefits she could exploit with her body currently undergoing rapid evolution.

For instance, she was unable to utilize her zenithral flame at full power to produce Level 4 weapons because it would push her body and soul to their limits, putting her in a weakened state for at least a week, and considering she managed to reach this point in just over a month, a week is detrimental to her progress.

This time was different though. With the zenithral flame coursing through her body without limit, she could finally unleash the terrifying power of Zenith.

Zenithral Augmentation!

Spiritual Augmentation! Power Augmentation! Flame Augmentation! Guaranteed Hit! Critical Hit! Guaranteed Miss! Lucky Dodge! Fortune Manipulation!

She used all of her abilities in tandem, manipulating her fortune and pushing the probability of the situation in her favor.

Spiritual Augmentation would cause the cannon’s beam to attack the Demigod’s soul. Power Augmentation increases its raw power. Flame Augmentation transforms the cannon’s beam to produce blazing heat.

Guaranteed Hit would push the chance of her attack landing to an extremely high degree. Critical Hit would allow her beam to deal an amplified blow. With Fortune Manipulation, the chances of her hitting a Critical Hit would also increase.

Moreover, with Guaranteed Miss and Lucky Dodge, her chances of evading any attack are pushed to an astronomical rate!

In total, from her sudden conversation with Braun to the zenithral flame racking her from the inside out to her attacking, less than half a second had passed.

A destructive beam of fiery red light, tens of meters tall and tens of meters wide burst forth from her cannon, swallowing the draconian demigod whole.

From the sides, sharp icicles shot out of nowhere and were about to impale her, but due to the extreme power of the cannon, she was launched backward, narrowly evading the attacks.

She gritted her teeth as blood leaked out of her fractured arms, but with her transformed physique and rapidly evolving body, her wounds rapidly healed and she quickly regained her mobility.

The destructive beam of light receded, and a large part of the forest was destroyed with a trail of destruction going on for over a hundred meters straight.

Aegis’ Demigod, the ice-controlling draconian woman snorted coldly and harrumphed. All of the burns on her skin rapidly healed as they were covered in a layer of ice.

She then raised her arm to the sky, constructing a large ball of frost energy which she released high into the air. The ball of frost energy exploded, forming a hemispherical domain, entrapping a hundred-meter-wide circle inside a thick layer of ice.

Fuck, how am I gonna survive till then? She cursed vehemently as she observed the metaphysical space inside her body.

Right now, all of the crystals she required to fuse and create her Level 4 Crystal were already in an unstable state. They were half-incorporeal, seemingly constructed from light, and half-crystalline, like many fragmented pieces of crystals.

The crystal fragments hovered around the warping lights, forming a beautiful sight.

The situation was far from beautiful in reality though, because once the crystals begin to fuse into one, it would be virtually impossible for her to use her abilities until they complete fusing.

Right now, she was in a small little hole far below the ground. By exploiting her great luck and using Guaranteed Hit to hit what is essentially a ‘jackpot’, she managed to randomly teleport into a tiny crevice over a hundred meters below the ground.

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A little over a minute is all I have to prepare? Fuck it, it’s time to unravel the mysteries of godhood!

The crystals in her body began to fuse, and she forcefully pulled one crystal out of her body. Staring at the crystal, she took a deep breath as her form slowly returned to being human, with the crystal belonging to her Golden Cat transformation undergoing fusion.

The extreme energy in the fusion process is disrupting my ability to use any other crystal inside the metaphysical space inside my body. Since it’s already come to this, there’s only one way left!

It’s time to return to my roots.

She slammed the crystal to her boots, and a bright light shone in the tiny crevice.

On the surface, the draconian woman stared coldly at the ground as she flapped her wings. She could already see that the little rat somehow escaped, but she was confident that she was still within the boundaries of her icy domain.

Why?

“Keep the space sealed, I’ll deal with this one,” she mumbled softly to the air.

Christopher floated outside of the huge barrier of ice and replied lightly, “Sure.”

The draconian woman then stared coldly at the ground and her figure began to change. Her wings grew wider, her horns taller, and her scales more pronounced. From being a petite woman to a proud, gigantic dragon, she roared loudly and inhaled a large amount of air.

Frost energy gathered at the tip of her mouth and she aimed it straight at the ground, roaring loudly.

A burst of ice ravaged the ground and penetrated through the earth, encapsulating the entirety of the forest in a land of snow.

Christopher sensed the space within the barrier flicker and a woman phased through the icy energy. Standing high in the air with a pair of glimmering black boots and wielding a knife with a fiery blade, the woman stared at the dragon intently with a grin.

A Level 4 Body, and two artifacts with raw power comparable to Level 4 Supers.

Let’s see how long I can last, eh?

Even she herself was surprised that she managed to achieve so much in so little time, but when she remembered the very nature of Zenith itself, a power that pushes forth the very concept of evolution into reality, it was understandable.

The pressure on her was immense, forcing her to grow stronger with each passing second. If she succeeds, she’ll ascend to heaven in one step! But failure was equally terrifying as it meant her doom.

Green flames continued to bathe her body whole, with her zenithral power constantly rising at an absurd rate.

She stepped forward, appearing right in front of the dragon as she maniacally grinned. She aimed the tip of her knife at the dragon’s body and a ginormous wick of a candle’s flame was formed.

It’s vastly different from what a Demigod’s ability is like. Although this artifact has the raw power of Level 4 abilities, it doesn’t have their… godliness. It’s simply akin to a nuclear bomb, a weapon of mass destruction with no profound mysticalities.

However, raw power is all I need!

Although the ability she infused into the knife remained the same even though it leveled up, displaying the limitations of artifacts with their abilities remaining the same, albeit stronger with each successful increase in power, Shirley still utilized it with shocking skill.

With Level 1 Candle Wick elevated to Level 4 Artifact Candle Wick Knife, Shirley burned through the dragon’s defenses and vaporized huge amounts of ice and snow in the air.

The demigod stared at the candle wick with dark light shimmering in her eyes. She willed and the environment around her surged. She gained control over ice and snow, forming countless icicles in the air.

Shirley snorted and tapped her boots on solid ground, collapsing the space around the forming icicles.

The dragon, however, used that moment to lunge forward and attack with her massive body, opening her mouth and chomping with terrifying force.

Shirley tried to teleport out of the way but suddenly felt the space inside the domain of ice and snow turn more ‘solid.’

Oh fuck!

She hurriedly constructed a tiny pair of gauntlets made out of the fabric of space and raised her hands to the sky.

The dragon bit on her body but she grabbed the dragon’s teeth for dear life. She clenched her fist tightly and straightened her legs, pushing her body to its limits.

Since when did space get sealed?! Shirley was alarmed by this notion. Her thoughts raced as she tried to think of ways to escape from the dragon, but this notion in her head made her realize something.

Wait… Why am I trying to fight the dragon right now? Why didn’t I try escaping instead? Why did I go through all the trouble of creating two Level 4 artifacts and pushing my body to Level 4 so I can try and fight a Demigod, and not just skedaddle from the very start so my crystals can just fuse?

This abrupt thought appeared out of nowhere and her mind turned blank.

Although she couldn’t process it completely, she clearly felt that something was wrong with the situation she was in right now.

Sadly, she wouldn’t have the time to contemplate anything, as in the next moment, frost energy began to leak out of the dragon’s mouth.

Shit!

…

Christopher stared at the corpse on the ground with a cold gaze. Although he had technically killed his friend, Christopher didn’t feel any guilt or sadness and only felt a bleak feeling of nothingness.

He inwardly sighed and looked back at his fellow Demigod, and asked her, “Any idea how?”

“Don’t look at me, I’m not the space expert here.” She shrugged her shoulders and squatted down on the ground, poking at Shirley’s lifeless corpse.

After killing her and freezing her into an ice block, when they finally thawed her out of it, the two found out that all of her crystals, along with her artifacts, were gone. Even her cannon was missing. Not to mention that her soul was nowhere to be seen.

It’s as if she was stripped of all of her belongings, leaving her as nothing but a worthless husk.

“Although considering her raw physical strength is so monstrous, she could be used as research material for Aegis…” she continued to poke her corpse.

When she poked her though, the corpse suddenly scattered into ash and drifted with the wind, causing the woman who had just poked her to press at the air dumbfoundedly.

Braun, you unscrupulous bastard.

Christopher stared at the drifting ashes with a thoughtful look.

Just what are you planning on with all of these sacrifices?

…

Braun fiddled with another incomplete Level 4 crystal and wore a thoughtful look.

So even they aren’t capable of creating genuine Level 4 artifacts… and these incomplete Level 4 crystals sure are mysterious.

When she was almost done ascending, the connection this crystal had with her whole being had reached a deeper level compared to before, and it would have undergone a metamorphosis as it assimilated the essence of Shirley.

Although for Level 4, raw power could still overcome their godhood, things should be much different at higher levels. Perhaps I’ll only be able to understand what makes genuine Level 4 artifacts and crystals so different once I finally become a Demigod myself.

Fortunately, that would be soon true once all of the cards I have are set in place.

Braun smiled as he incorporated the crystal into his web, and stared at one of the web’s nigh-endless threads, revealing Laura lazily humming a tune as she slept peacefully in her store while cuddling with her pets.