The Strongest God
Inside the Imperial Council Hall, the atmosphere turned tense in an instant.
The council members stared at the floating magic screen in front of them—an advanced surveillance artifact linked to the Hero of Wind and her expedition team.
At first, the feed was normal.
Then—
It cut.
No static. No warning.
Just complete disconnection.
“…Signal lost,” one of the council members said quietly.
Another leaned forward. “All of them?”
The screen showed nothing but blank magical distortion.
The Hero of Wind.
And her five warriors.
Gone from observation at the same time.
A heavy silence filled the hall.
No one understood what had happened.
No battle data.
No emergency trigger.
Nothing.
“…This isn’t a normal interruption,” someone muttered.
Panic began to spread, controlled but real.
The council immediately activated broader detection orders through the surveillance network, sending monitoring requests across the kingdoms.
But deep inside the hall—
None of them knew the truth.
At the exact moment the signal vanished elsewhere, the Hero of Wind and her five warriors had just stepped through the portal.
Time stopped the instant they crossed.
Everything froze.
Wind, movement, sound—locked in place as if reality itself had been paused.
Their bodies remained suspended mid-step inside the distortion.
Then something unseen moved.
Not visible.
Not recorded.
The frozen figures were taken without resistance.
One by one.
And placed into an unknown enclosed space—neither dungeon nor realm.
The feed never recorded it.
Because it never happened within recorded time.
The battlefield exploded into chaos.
Jorem and the five warriors faced the Five Calamities and Guardian Furino as the war finally began.
At the center of the battlefield, Jorem clashed directly against Guardian Furino.
Meanwhile, the five warriors confronted the Five Calamities themselves.
Shockwaves spread across the land as swords, magic, and destructive force collided nonstop.
Surprisingly, the five warriors were able to keep up with the Calamities during the early stages of the battle. They exchanged blows equally and landed both magical and physical attacks against the ancient monsters.
The warriors of Yugi Kingdom were known as some of the strongest fighters in the Mankind Empire. Unlike Heroes who specialized in one element, they trained in every type of magic while also mastering physical combat.
Their versatility allowed them to survive against enemies far stronger than normal humans.
At the same time, Jorem completely dominated Guardian Furino.
Blazing flames covered the battlefield as Furino was repeatedly overwhelmed by the power of the Fire God.
However, Furino continued regenerating his injuries and focused entirely on defense while waiting for an opportunity to counterattack.
The battle continued for nearly half an hour.
Eventually, the five warriors began reaching their limits.
Their bodies were covered in wounds, their mana reserves were nearly exhausted, and their movements slowed from fatigue.
Yet even so—
they continued fighting with smiles on their faces and unshakable determination.
The Five Calamities became thrilled by the warriors’ resistance.
Especially the Second Calamity.
With a cruel grin, the Second Calamity suddenly broke through the warriors’ formation and appeared before Shanti Dope.
A killing strike descended toward him.
But before the attack could land—
a mysterious man appeared instantly and blocked the attack with a single sword swing.
The battlefield froze.
It was one of the instructors from the Imperial Academy.
The strongest among the seven instructors.
A man who had been offered the position of Principal many times but always refused it.
His name was:
Jin Law.
Unknown to mankind, Jin Law was not human at all.
He was the hidden Eighth God.
The strongest God in existence.
The God who chose to live among humanity for a thousand years.
The battle resumed immediately.
Jin Law calmly looked toward the five warriors.
“Retreat to Pilipo Kingdom,” he ordered. “Heal yourselves.”
The Five Calamities laughed coldly.
“You think we’ll let them escape?”
But at that moment, the other six instructors appeared behind the warriors and activated a massive defensive magic barrier.
The Calamities’ attacks slammed against the barrier but failed to break through immediately.
Using the opportunity, the five warriors retreated toward Pilipo Kingdom.
Now the battlefield became:
Jorem and the seven instructors
vs
The Five Calamities and Guardian Furino
Meanwhile, far in the distance, the five million monster army continued advancing toward the battlefield.
According to estimates, they would arrive within five hours.
The war intensified further.
Jorem and Jin Law completely dominated the battlefield.
The two moved at terrifying speeds, combining overwhelming magic and physical combat to pressure all five Calamities simultaneously.
For the first time in centuries, the Five Calamities were wounded repeatedly.
Even Guardian Furino was pushed back.
Jin Law’s strength was monstrous.
As the Eighth God, he far surpassed the other Gods in power.
And unlike the others, he had spent a thousand years living among humans, learning, evolving, and hiding his true existence.
Suddenly—
time stopped.
The entire battlefield froze.
At the same moment, massive portals opened behind the Five Calamities and Guardian Furino.
The monsters had received an order to retreat.
Although the time-stop magic affected almost everyone on the battlefield, Jorem and Jin Law remained completely unaffected.
The Fire God and the Eighth God stood silently as the enemy forces prepared to withdraw.
Neither attempted to stop them.
For now, allowing the enemy to retreat was the better decision.
One after another, the Five Calamities and Guardian Furino entered the portals leading back to the Monster Base.
But unknown to everyone present—
CEE suddenly moved.
Without making a sound, he slipped into one of the portals just before it closed.
And without anyone noticing—
CEE entered the Monster Base together with the Five Calamities.
Deep within the Imperial Castle, the Imperial Council watched the battlefield through large-scale magic surveillance.
The entire hall suddenly fell silent.
One of the councilors widened his eyes in shock.
“Wait… zoom in on that portal.”
The magical screen shifted.
And there—
CEE could be seen quietly entering the portal behind the retreating Calamities.
The council erupted into panic.
“He entered the Monster Base?!”
“Is he insane?!”
“That place contains the strongest monsters in existence!”
Inside the magic screen, CEE calmly walked through the portal without hesitation.
Then the image stabilized.
And what appeared before him made even the councilors freeze.
The Five Calamities.
Eight Monster Guardians.
Countless high-ranking monsters with terrifying power.
And sitting above them all—
the Monster King himself.
The pressure from the room was so immense that even the magical surveillance devices began shaking violently.
“This is bad…” one councilor muttered.
“He’ll die.”
At the front of the council hall stood Princess Irah, daughter of the Emperor.
The moment she saw CEE surrounded by the strongest monsters in the world, her expression changed completely.
“Father!”
She immediately turned toward the Emperor.
“We have to save him!”
Her voice trembled with genuine fear.
“His life is in danger!”
The Emperor remained silent as the council continued watching the terrifying scene unfold through the magic screen.
Princess Irah clenched her hands tightly.
Unlike the others in the hall, her concern was deeply personal.
She and CEE had known each other for years.
During previous scouting expeditions outside the Empire’s barrier, CEE had saved her life many times without asking for anything in return.
From monster ambushes to deadly environments beyond the barrier, he had always protected her calmly and silently.
And somewhere along the way—
Princess Irah had fallen in love with him.
Even though CEE never seemed aware of her feelings.
Now, watching him stand alone before the Five Calamities, eight Guardians, and the Monster King himself—
fear filled her heart for the first time.
The battlefield had finally fallen silent.
What remained was not peace—but the uneasy calm that comes before another storm.
Jin Law and Jorem stood near the shattered edge of the portal’s fading glow. For a brief moment, both of them noticed it—CEE stepping through the unstable rift, disappearing into the unknown.
“…He went in,” Jorem said quietly.
Jin Law narrowed his eyes, watching the last ripple of space collapse like water sealing over a stone.
But neither of them moved.
No pursuit. No alarm. No words of panic.
Only silence.
“It’s already over there for us,” Jin Law finally muttered.
Jorem gave a small nod. “Yeah. For now.”
Behind them, the surviving soldiers and students had already shifted into survival mode. The battle was won—but war was far from finished.
Clock is ticking
On the scarred plains where monsters once surged like a tidal wave, makeshift camps began to rise. Tents were planted into the cracked earth. Fire pits burned steadily, their smoke curling into the dim sky.
The smell of grilled meat spread through the encampment.
Someone had managed to hunt down remaining beast carcasses, and now the soldiers cooked without ceremony—like men trying to remind themselves they were still alive.
Laughter echoed occasionally.
Not loud. Not joyful.
But human.
Instructors sat beside students, no longer separated by rank or authority. They spoke casually now, as if the battlefield had erased all distance between them.
“If I survive this war,” one student said, turning a skewer over the fire, “I’m going to become an explorer. I’ve had enough of fighting monsters.”
A nearby instructor scoffed lightly. “And where will you go? There’s nothing left unscarred.”
“Then I’ll find what’s left.”
That answer brought a brief silence.
Then a faint smile from the instructor.
Elsewhere, another group spoke about returning home, rebuilding villages, or simply sleeping for a month straight without fear of waking up to alarms.
Above them all, time continued to crawl forward.
The enemy would arrive in four hours.
Their allied reinforcement army would arrive in five.
One hour of difference.
One hour that might decide whether this land remained standing—or became another graveyard swallowed by monsters.
Jin Law sat alone near the edge of the camp, staring into the fire.
Jorem approached quietly and sat beside him.
“…Think we’ll survive that hour gap?” Jorem asked.
Jin Law didn’t answer immediately.
The fire cracked.
The wind shifted.
Finally—
“We don’t need to survive everything,” Jin Law said. “Just long enough to make that hour irrelevant.”
Jorem exhaled slowly, then smirked faintly.
“Sounds like a terrible plan.”
“But the only one we have.”
And above them, far beyond the broken sky, something began to move—unseen, approaching.
The next battle was already coming.
Jin Law is the God of Physical
