“Your guard is over.” - Guts smirked with a crazed grin. – “You're next!”

With these words, he lunged forward and attacked the 'true god', who immediately felt how much stronger the 'pitiful victim' had become over time. But even with all his strength, Guts couldn't defeat this demon right away. The demon turned out to be a master of magic and managed to surprise even me. However, considering the immortality of the swordsman's body, the Idea of Evil had no chance of survival. Every time the demon showed a new trick, I immediately deciphered the mechanics of the spell and gave to Guts a similar spell, as well as a 'counter-spell' to prevent the use of such magic.

Finally, Guts severed the enemy's arms and legs, spilled his guts, ripped out his heart, and stood on the mangled chest, staring into the demon's eyes.

“If you tell me how to reach Griffith, your death will be quick and painless.” - He made an offer that was hard to refuse. – “Or I will have to torture you until you go insane.”

“Ha-ha-ha-ha...” - The demon laughed, unable to even move. He was now a pale shadow of himself. His astral body was destroyed, and his physical vessel was living its last minutes. – “The key to the gates that lead to the deepest depths of hell hangs on my chest. But you won't be able to use this key because only I know the password to its use. And I would rather die than betray my master! Because his will is above all! And khr-r-r...”

Guts thrust his sword into the demon's mouth, cutting off its tongue and ending its wretched life in the process.

“So, what do we have here? Oh! I think I can open a portal.” - I said, grabbing the key mentioned by the demon. – “Let's go, let's see these gates.”

Behind the throne room where we were, there turned out to be a relatively small hall, in the center of which were... star gates. Even here, their design was not significantly different from what the Ancients had invented in their time. Apparently, their design was accepted as a standard. Or maybe they were just one of the races that 'invented' star gates, only obtaining information about their construction without being able to improve it.

The key that the demon was so proud of contained the coordinates of the destination point. To use it, you really needed to know the password. The address for opening the gates, however, was not encrypted, so I could open the gates even without the key. Of course, there was no other 'input device', but knowing the gate's construction, I could activate them myself, especially since I had magic with me.

But as soon as I activated the gates and entered the address, they lit up... and then turned off, failing to open a portal. Instead, a foreign thought infiltrated my consciousness.

"""Object detected with blocked access rights through the Star Gate system. Remove the object at a distance of at least one hundred meters and try again."""

Worried, I immediately conducted a series of experiments and found out that it was indeed my access rights that had been blocked. If I wanted to, I could send Guts through the gates, but the gate refused to let me pass. It must have been the doing of the fucking Being! The issue was not with the specific gates, but with this 'heretical magic' itself, which allowed matter to be transformed into information. As soon as I approached the gates, they simply stopped working, as should have happened in any normal world.

However, there was also good news. Only the function of moving physical objects was blocked. But the exchange of information was still available. Thanks to this, I was able to not only obtain the address of the exit point, but also its actual coordinates. I found out that the place I needed was in the same universe where we already were. However, the bad news was the distance we needed to overcome - over five hundred billion light-years.

If it were about five hundred light-years, I would have used a portal created with the help of magic. If it were five hundred million light-years, I could think about creating a spaceship and making a jump through hyperspace. But a distance of five hundred billion light-years was almost an insurmountable obstacle. Almost, because there was still one way.

Of all the known technologies of spatial movement, there was one that I never intended to use. It was the creation of portals using Bahion. Such a method was only available to gods, whom billions of sentient beings sincerely worshipped. Fortunately, I fit this description. In the world of Eldar, I managed to accumulate a considerable amount of Bahion. But even so, a "leap of faith" over such a distance was truly wasteful for me.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Activating this spell was supposed to consume seventy percent of my Bahion reserves. In addition, my intuition was urging me, telling me that we didn't have much time. The fate that led Guts to Azathoth was limited by time frames. Also, the Being’s search never stopped for a second, and my personal time was also limited.

“I will be able to open a portal to where Griffith is right now, but I will need help.” - I said to Guts after a short reflection. – “This ritual requires a sacrifice, so we will need to find a suitable place, gather a crowd of demons, and then you will kill them.”

“Killing of demons is what I live for.” - The swordsman replied with pathos. – “Where should we go?”

I scanned the surroundings and didn't find a single demon worthy of attention nearby. We had already cleared this location, and it was necessary to reach another "demon lord". I scanned the space and was able to determine the "gradient" of the change in the saturation of demonic energy in the area. It was densest where strong demons lived. We were currently in the center of such a hotspot, but in one direction, the energy was weakening much slower. That's where we headed.

After a couple of days, we reached another place where demons began to threaten us on behalf of their ruler. Here, Guts had to disguise himself as one of the demons. Of course, the Brand of Sacrifice couldn't be hidden, but the swordsman pretended to be a demon carrying the Sacrifice on his shoulder to deliver it to the local "lord". Often, they tried to stop us and take the "sacrifice" but the argument in the form of a huge sword successfully resolved all disagreements, cutting down any dissenters by a head.

Finally, we made our way to the heart of this "palace" - the ruler's throne room. He happened to be temporarily absent, so Guts, with his audacious face, declared that he would wait for his return, and until then, no creature should approach this place.

After driving out all the local inhabitants, I began to create a ritual circle to offer the demons as a sacrifice. Only bahion was not enough to activate the ritual, and the souls of recently deceased victims were also required. I finished drawing and concealing all the lines of the magical pattern just a minute before the arrival of the local "lord" in the throne room.

"What is happening here?" - The local demon lord burst into the room. - "I was told that I would find... m-m-m... such an exquisite scent of sacrifice here. His soul is literally overflowing with hatred. Did you bring me this gift?... However... you are the Sacrifice yourself" - he figured out our game.

Furthermore, I immediately sensed that this demon was much stronger than the Idea of Evil. Much, much stronger. It seemed we had chosen the wrong place to perform the ritual. However, it was too late to change anything, and we had to stick to the plan. And to prevent Guts from realizing too soon the dire situation we had gotten ourselves into, I should intervene.

"Well, actually, you are the Sacrifice!" - I boldly declared, stepping forward. - "Today, you will become my meal. And your lackeys will serve as a snack for my pet. Guts, kill them. Fass!!!"

The swordsman, already used to my teasing, didn't pay much attention to my statement. He rushed forward, but attacked not the "big boss" himself, but his entourage. Guts already had an idea of how his powers worked, and understood that he needed to "accumulate anger" first. And the best way to do that was by killing demons. The more corpses appeared around him, the stronger he became.

I decided that it was not the time for playing games, and it was time to go all out. So, I took on my normal size, transformed into the "king of the elves," and also attacked the surrounding demons, while blocking our main opponent with magic. I no longer held back, and my destructive spells mowed down the strongest monsters like grass.

I was much stronger than Guts for one simple reason. He possessed a source of psionic energy, the core of which was his own soul. In other words, Guts was at the level of a strong but ordinary psionic. But my sources of magic, chakra, and psionics were based on the souls of the strongest demons. That is, my power now corresponded to the concept of a "lesser god" or "archdemon."

Of course, I could be considered the weakest and most pathetic of the archdemons, but then the second foundation of my power came into play - the powerful quantum computer in Vritra's body. Thanks to it, all my spells had a one hundred percent efficiency, perfectly adjusting each time to deal maximum damage to a specific target.

In the heat of battle, we became so engrossed that we inadvertently "expanded" the throne room, sweeping away the surrounding walls. We were in an underground dungeon, but due to the local laws of physics, the ceiling couldn't collapse on us as nothing was pressing down on it. As a result, after an hour, we found ourselves inside a massive hall with a diameter of almost a kilometer. The only intact thing in the vicinity was the floor of the former throne room, upon which the lines of a ritual circle glowed brightly, absorbing the souls of all the slain demons. However, no one paid attention to this "detail" because the enraged Guts was relentlessly attacking the local ruler, simultaneously destroying anyone who tried to help him.