WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 562

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The Ash-Covered Sin and the Skin-Stitched God - 2

Even the moonlight seemed to blind it. The patron deity, squinting the borrowed eyes taken from the Mouth, moved its frame of over three meters forward.

[Enough. What would a mere servant know of this body's wish to become a greater being.]

"P-patron deity!"

The immortals bowed their heads in fear at the sight of their god rousing from its long seclusion. The patron deity was a local god, one they had each glimpsed once or twice, but it had never before woken and gone out into the open of its own accord.

"Oh! Patron deity! You've awakened! Good timing."

Rashy, however, greeted it the moment he laid eyes on it, waving like he'd spotted an old friend.

"I heard earlier you ordered our guest killed. Was that truly an order to kill the teacher?"

"Rashy, you blasted fool! What kind of way is that to speak to the patron deity!"

"What, can't one ask a question? The patron deity must want to answer, no?"

Rashy really is more open than the rest of them. Standing face to face with a god and carrying on like it's nothing. Is this what studying abroad does to a person?

The immortals blanched at Rashy's brazen question, but the patron deity was not a god inclined to guard its words.

[Yes. He is the King of Humanity. A great being that, in the distant past, tore this body to pieces.]

"Oh? Teacher, were you really that formidable? And what was that? The King... of Humanity?"

[But he has lost his power now. This is the only chance to devour him. If he regains his strength, this body will remain forever a wretched insect that submitted to that great being.]

Bow low when the enemy is strong, bite when the enemy is weak. To the patron deity, that was the most natural law of the wild.

And more than that, this was a jungle god that had once nearly gained eternal life through the power of Gluttony. Its eyes had gone red with hunger at the thought of devouring my strength.

"Patron deity. Are you truly saying we must eat the teacher?"

[Right-Arm. Will you do it?]

"I'll stop you! You are already a great being who gifted us with immortality, patron deity. Is eating the teacher truly so necessary?"

[One must devour what one can devour. Leave him be, and he will soon devour this body.]

Eliminate the enemy and make their power your own. Since time immemorial, Gluttony had always been the survival strategy closest to correct. It was taboo now, but to the patron deity, Gluttony was as ordinary and routine as breathing.

Grasping the patron deity's firm resolve, Rashy hesitated before answering.

"...Oh. Dear patron deity, my mother. In my role as your child, I would rather stop you."

[You have called this body a god, borrowed its life and power. And now you refuse this body's will?]

"Yes. We may live on this land, but we still have to deal with the outside world, don't we? Eating a guest who came from beyond the plains would be terrible for our reputation."

[You went and stayed beyond the plains and now you put on airs of learning.]

"No, that's not..."

[Enough. There is no need.]

The patron deity waved a hand.

At once the immortals staggered and collapsed, struck by a sudden draining weakness. The bodies they had offered to the patron deity writhed and clawed back their vitality.

[In the end, this body has no choice but to act directly.]

The patron deity's body swelled. That roughly stitched frame filled to bursting with power. The patron deity, Ankra, which had barely clung to life after death by inhabiting others' bodies, broke from its long seclusion after two thousand years and breathed out its full strength.

Aimed at me.

The ground split. The moment I read its thoughts it had already arrived. An enormous hand reached to close around me in one grip.

Can't let it catch me. Getting devoured would mean losing the Demon God and everything else along with it. I reacted instantly, twisting free of the patron deity's fist. Fingers of mismatched sizes grazed my shoulder as they swept past.

Phew, fast. Even outside its prime it's this strong? Still, the body doesn't look solid, if I can pull it apart at the right seams, I should be fine.

I spun half a turn and drove my skewer into the gaps between the stitched seams. Having once made a living as a pickpocket, tearing through human skin was ,

[Fingers.]

The moment the patron deity murmured that, all five of its fingers bent sharply backward. The joints flipped in reverse, its palm became the back of its hand, and its right arm curved outward into the shape of a left arm.

Thunk. My skewer was caught in the back of its hand.

"What?"

[Indeed. I have grown weak.]

The patron deity muttered that and crushed my hand in its grip. A cracking sound came from my fist. I felt the full, raw sensation of my hand being pressed flat and turned to something liquid.

The reversed joints were no problem at all. The patron deity's body had been cut and stitched together from the start. Joints could be attached in any direction it pleased.

I collected my mind/consciousness, converted the skewer back into a card, and used the reduced volume to pull free of the patron deity's grip.

[Oh. How did you do that?]

The patron deity marveled, then swung its arm with the joint still bent backward. A punch came in at an angle no human body should allow. I had no time to respond. It landed flush.

"Ngh!"

It felt like the world itself had thrown me. My body sailed for a long moment before snagging on brush and snapping through branches, barely slowing to a stop.

Its arm bends outward? I can't assume normal anatomy. I was barely scrambling back to my feet when the patron deity came lunging into view.

[Got you.]

It was still ten steps away, yet its arm stretched out and swallowed the space I was standing in whole. That stitched-together body was impressively elastic as well.

It isn't even a human body anymore. I rolled urgently across the ground to dodge the fist, and just at that moment a shadow barged in and blocked the path between us.

"Patron deity!"

Thwam!

Rashy had grabbed the patron deity's right arm. Even his frame of over two meters couldn't overpower it, and he was dragged skidding forward.

"Hup!"

Rashy breathed in deep and locked onto the ground with his energy. His feet plunged halfway into the earth and took the crushing force head-on. The ground churned and tore. At the end of it all, he managed to stop the patron deity's arm.

The patron deity was surprised to see its thrall revolt, and not only because Rashy had stepped in the way. Unlike the other immortals, Rashy was still perfectly healthy.

The patron deity said:

[This body withdrew its power, yet your right arm still holds this body's strength within it. Have you spent too long away from the plains?]

"I have no idea! I'm sure this too is the patron deity's will!"

Rashy still did not let go of the arm. The patron deity asked:

[This body's actions are this body's will. Why do you stand against this body?]

"These are people I owe a debt to from my time in the Abyss! I met them by chance and even received the Sheep King's fur as a gift! I welcomed them personally as guests, letting them die without a word would go against tradition!"

[You went and stayed beyond the plains and came back playing the learned man.]

"No, that's not..."

[Enough. There is no need.]

The patron deity waved him off.

Then its arm bent like a whip. As if Rashy's massive frame weighed nothing, the arm stretched all the way to a boulder in the distance. Before Rashy could let go, he went headfirst into the rock.

[Limbs that won't listen must be pruned. Even if it means weeping blood.]

Crack, crack, crack. The patron deity slammed Rashy's body into the ground again and again, then flung him off like a nuisance. Rashy shot upward with terrifying force and vanished from sight. Having dealt with the interference, the patron deity turned its head and came looking for me again.

At that moment I was behind its shoulder.

The right arm. Whether because of Rashy or something else, the patron deity's right arm was moving strangely slow. On top of that, the patron deity still wasn't used to its stitched-together body, it didn't even know its own blind spots.

[Hm? Where did you go?]

"Right here."

The patron deity hadn't noticed when I slipped a card between the folds of its skin. Just before it realized and began to move its arm, I sent lightning surging through the card all at once. The lightning-wrapped card trembled, burned through skin, and sent the muscles twitching beyond its control.

The patron deity cried out in shock.

[What have you done to this body!]

"Less remarkable than stitching skin together, really."

The patron deity's body was filled with a strange power that made direct control impossible, but the patron deity itself wasn't all that good at controlling its own body either. Its arm convulsed, joints bending and twisting as though it had five or six of them.

[You wretch!]

The furious patron deity tried to move its body, but couldn't manage it. Unable to control the limbs flailing of their own accord, it only thrashed in every direction.

Crack, boom. Trees caught in the patron deity's rampage were torn up by the roots, and churned-up dirt and sand rose like clouds. I rolled across the ground to dodge the uncontrolled body and grabbed at whatever brush was nearby.

The original thread had been made by drawing out plant fiber. I used the Root Tree to improve the brush and turn it into tough vines, then threw them loosely over the patron deity's thrashing body. I didn't even need to form a lasso. Patched together from all manner of pieces, the patron deity's lumpy, uneven body was its own set of hooks. Tangled in vines, it tripped over itself and went down.

I let the vines out little by little and launched myself toward a great tree nearby. Card in hand, I swept it grazing along the base of the trunk. Part of the great tree turned into cards, and the thick trunk began to topple at a slant.

[Petty tricks!]

The furious patron deity threw everything it had into charging at me. At that moment I focused my magical energy into my fingers and cast a spell.

"Set, ri. Bolt!"

[KRAAAAGH!]

Lightning poured out from inside it. Its muscles seized and went numb with no regard for the patron deity's will. Even as it writhed in agony, the great tree kept falling, picking up speed as it tilted toward it.

Thud. The great tree came down on the patron deity's body. Under the weight of centuries of natural growth, even the patron deity couldn't hold and dropped to one knee. But the patron deity was also a god that had spent nearly a thousand years building its strength. It withstood the weight of the great tree with staggering raw power.

[This much...!]

Using the environment like this isn't enough? Feeling the gap in strength keenly, I looked around, and above me, Rashy's voice rang out.

"Patron deity! As your child I should not dare strike you!"

The voice closed fast. Rashy pulled his thick right arm back as far as it would go, fixed his eyes on the patron deity, and dropped like a meteor.

"But my right arm is the patron deity! This fist is you striking yourself, so surely it's fine!"

[Right-Arm...!]

"Come to your senses! This is a loyal blow!"

Shouting boldly, Rashy drove his fist into the patron deity.

Every attack until now had barely left a mark, but this one was different. Rashy's right arm was the patron deity's own strength made flesh. The patron deity's body dented and warped and caved in. Crushed under the fist, it crashed into the ground with tremendous force.

The impact shook the earth. Buried in the ground and pinned under the great tree, the patron deity coughed up blood and screamed.

[KRAAAAGH! You...!]

"Set, ri, selsi! Fahrenheit!"

An incantation rang out from somewhere, and moments later a great curtain of flame came down.

A torrent of firepower I could never have managed engulfed the patron deity. Flames of magical energy climbed my vines and burned the patron deity head to toe.

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