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While everyone else was gazing up at the miracle in the sky, Ian was busy "searching the ground for teeth", no, for the shattered Fragments of Ra's Eye.
"That's the crystallization of the Sun God's very essence!" Ian muttered as he searched. "Even broken, they're priceless treasures! They might be used to brew Legendary potions, or to craft top-tier magical items."
As a Prince, his sensitivity to rare magical materials was almost instinctive. Moreover, he clearly remembered why he had come to this era in the first place, following the instructions of the ancient Titan Claire, he was to find the Fragments of Ra's Eye and bring them back to her for other purposes.
"Aha! Found one!"
Ian excitedly picked up a fingernail-sized golden fragment from a pile of rubble. It gave off a faint warmth in his hand, radiating pure Sun energy. He carefully placed it into a specially made lead box, this material best prevented the loss of magical energy, then continued searching for the next piece.
Ian Prince had no time to pay attention to the sacred spectacle unfolding in the sky. All his focus was fixed on the faintly glowing fragments scattered across the ground. After the explosion of the Eye of Ra, countless shards containing the Sun God's primordial power had been flung everywhere, like golden stars strewn across this ravaged land.
"One here… another over there!"
Muttering to himself, his eyes sharp as a hawk's, he scanned every corner. Carefully avoiding the still-writhing remains of the evil god, he focused on collecting those priceless fragments.
It wasn't just because of Claire's commission. As a Prince, his instinctive desire for rare magical materials nearly overpowered everything else. These fragments were not only crystallizations of the Sun God's power but also alchemical materials rarely seen in a thousand years, perhaps capable of producing potions beyond the era, or crafting Legendary-grade magical items.
"Ah!"
Ian let out a soft cry upon discovering a larger fragment embedded in a broken stone pillar. Using his wand, he carefully pried it out. The fragment emitted a warm fluctuation of energy in his hand, as if it were still alive.
Just as he was about to store it in the special lead box, a venomous roar suddenly echoed from the sky.
"RAAA!!!"
The already shattered Set-Apep had not yet completely perished. The remaining dark energy re-condensed into a twisted shadow. Though far weaker than before, the malice within it had become even more pure and intense.
"You destroyed everything I had!"
The remnants of the evil god shrieked piercingly. "If I can't have it, no one can!"
The shadow suddenly erupted with its final strength, transforming into countless black spikes that shot toward the Sun God Ra, who was absorbing divine power. These attacks were chaotic, nothing more than a berserk counterattack born of despair.
Ra didn't even blink. The black spikes dissipated on their own several feet away from him, like snow meeting the blazing sun.
"Pitiful creature. As expected, merely a product of tragedy," Ra said, a hint of pity in his voice. "Even now, you still don't understand that your defeat was inevitable?"
But the evil god had completely lost its reason. In a berserk frenzy, it gathered its remaining power, launching wave after wave of meaningless attacks. Dark energy twisted into all kinds of terrifying forms,
ferocious beasts, corrosive rain, warped spatial rifts, but before the true Sun God, all of it was nothing more than child's play.
While collecting fragments, Ian observed this utterly one-sided battle.
He noticed that although the evil god's attacks were fierce, they were rapidly consuming its last remnants of origin power, like a lamp burning through its final oil, its light bright but doomed to extinguish soon.
"Why?!"
Set-Apep roared, its voice filled with unwillingness and venom. "I calculated everything! I devoured so many souls, absorbed so much knowledge, why did I still lose?!"
Ra finally looked directly at the twisted shadow.
"Because you never understood that true power lies not in how much you devour, but in how much you comprehend. You plundered countless forms of wisdom, yet never truly understood any of them."
As he spoke, Ra gently waved his hand. A streak of golden light pierced the shadow like a sword. The evil god let out a miserable scream as its dark energy began to dissipate at an accelerated rate.
A golden torrent of divine power, like an inexhaustible galaxy, continuously surged into the Sun God suspended in the sky. That small figure grew ever more solid and majestic within the pure radiance of divinity. Two blazing solar eyes gazed down upon the earth; wherever their light passed, the purplish-red flesh left behind by the evil god sizzled like melting snow under the scorching sun.
The remains of the evil god rapidly carbonized and collapsed, turning into black ash that was scattered by the wind.
The dark crimson sky completely faded away, replaced by a pure blue expanse, like a freshly washed canvas, gently covering the heavens once more.
For the first time in a long while, warm sunlight returned, not the twisted purplish-red of the evil god, but true, life-giving gold. It poured down generously, dispelling a thousand years of gloom and deathly silence.
Amid the ruins of the city, tender shoots broke through the soil, clear springs began to flow, the wounded healed, and believers wept uncontrollably. The spring of life was flowing once more.
Yet just as all things revived and order began to rebuild in this tranquil dawn, the heavily damaged, lingering consciousness of the evil god did not dissipate like dust.
Its remaining massive body had long since lost any coherent shape, like a grotesque, living tomb composed of constantly collapsing purple-black flesh and twisted bones, emitting a foul stench as it sprawled across the ruins of the Temple.
That enormous purplish-red eye, formed from the wailing of countless souls and filled with so-called "divine" wisdom, though shattered and dim, still burned with a final, undying, utterly venomous berserk fury.
"Ra… you… long-dead remnant…"
The voice of the evil god was no longer majestic or arrogant. Instead, it had become a hoarse, broken hiss layered with the voices of countless souls, filled with endless hatred. Every syllable sounded like a curse from the deepest pits of Hell.
"You think… shattering my hope and reclaiming your power… is the end?! I am 'Perfection'! I am 'Eternity'! My existence… is the blessing… of this world!"
With that venomous hiss, the collapsing purple-black flesh of the evil god's remains suddenly erupted in one final, desperate counterattack.
This was not an organized assault, but a dying struggle, a berserk outpouring driven purely by resentment and the will to destroy.
Across its crumbling body, countless ghostly faces, congealed from pain, suddenly opened their eyes! They let out silent shrieks, transforming into twisted, semi-transparent Resentful Souls that swarmed forward like a plague of black locusts, recklessly charging toward the Sun God Clone in the sky!
From the roots of its remaining tendrils, dozens of barbed blood-spears, formed from condensed pus and shattered bone, shot forth with piercing screeches, streaking through the air!
This was the struggle of something on the brink of death.
Ferocious. Overwhelming.
That shattered purplish-red eye forcibly focused its last strength, firing two warped, space-cutting beams of violet-black light, attempting to distort the force field around the Sun God!
Its remaining consciousness, like billions of venomous insects, whispered berserk into the minds of all living beings, injecting thoughts of despair, betrayal, and self-destruction, trying to collapse the newly restored order from the mental plane.
A truly terrifying assault.
This final, chaotic barrage was like the last desperate kicks of a drowning man, loud and violent, yet utterly without structure, filled with apocalyptic madness and despair.
Its sole target,
The Sun God, who was absorbing divine power and reshaping his divine body.
It sought to drag this "thief" down with it, even if only to delay his resurrection for a moment, to cast a shadow once more upon the returning sunlight.
"No! I cannot disappear like this!" Set-Apep roared in desperate resistance. "If I am destined to be destroyed, then let the whole world be buried with me!"
He howled at the top of his lungs.
The remaining dark energy suddenly contracted inward, forming a highly compressed sphere of energy, one that contained a terrifying, destructive force.
Clearly, the evil god intended to self-destruct in a final act.
Seeing this, Ian's expression changed drastically. "Watch out! He's making a last desperate move!"
However, in the face of this berserk onslaught, the Sun God Clone floating in the sky did not even shift his posture.
Those two eternally burning golden solar eyes calmly "gazed" downward.
When the swarm of Resentful Souls surged forward like black locusts, a thin, ripple-like golden halo spread outward from his body. The souls were like moths to a flame, upon touching the light, they released the most piercing screams before being instantly purified and erased, leaving not even a trace of ash.
Ra remained calm.
"A futile struggle."
At the very moment the energy sphere was about to explode, he simply extended a finger and tapped lightly.
As the dozens of blood-spears shot toward him, he merely raised his hand slightly. A slender yet incomparably resilient beam of golden light, formed from highly condensed Sun God power, shot forth like a precise surgical blade, cleanly slicing every spear apart mid-air and vaporizing them. Not a single drop of foul blood was allowed to scatter.
When the two space-cutting violet-black beams struck, the golden divine field surrounding the Sun God merely fluctuated slightly, smoothing the distorted force field as easily as crumpling a piece of paper.
The beams themselves were assimilated and dissolved into nothingness.
As for those whispering curses that sought to erode the mind… before the utterly pure radiance of Sun God power, they were like mist under sunlight, instantly evaporating without a trace.
Karina and her followers bathed in the sunlight, feeling an unprecedented clarity and peace within their hearts. Those venomous whispers could not even reach their eardrums.
Every attack of the evil god was like mud sinking into the sea; it couldn't even make the hem of the Sun God Clone's robe flutter. Its berserk outpouring not only failed to cause any harm but instead accelerated the collapse of its own remaining body. Every surge of energy stripped away more of its purple-black flesh, making its form ever more decayed, ever more grotesque.
"No… impossible…"
For the first time, fear appeared in the evil god's shriek. It finally realized that the small figure before it was no longer the "remnant" it had once devoured and imprisoned. Having reclaimed his primordial power, he had returned to his divine throne, an absolute existence beyond its comprehension or reach. Its so-called "perfection" was nothing more than a laughable imitation and blasphemy before the true majesty of the Sun God.
"No, impossible!"
To its horror, the evil god discovered that it not only could not self-destruct, but even its last remaining power was being forcibly drawn away. Wisdom flickered within Ra's golden eyes.
At last, the Sun God moved.
Slowly, like the most exalted emperor surveying his domain, he focused those two blazing golden solar eyes entirely upon the collapsing living tomb below, the final remains of the evil god. There were no words, no unnecessary movements.
He simply raised his hand.
A gigantic golden hand, formed from pure, highly condensed Sun God power and radiating supreme authority, appeared out of thin air above the evil god's remains. Though not physical, it carried the power of divine judgment over all things. The hand descended slowly, not fast, yet bearing an irresistible inevitability, the end of fate itself.
The instant its fingertips touched the evil god's remains,
"AAAAAA…!!!"
The evil god released one final scream that echoed across the universe, a cry filled with endless pain, despair, and unwillingness. Within that scream, its consciousness, composed of the wailing of countless souls, began to be completely purified and dismantled, like ice cast into a furnace.
Its remaining purple-black flesh and twisted bones ignited with a heavy boom, burning fiercely under the pure Sun God power.
The flames were pure gold, without a trace of black smoke, only the most absolute light of purification.
"All that you stole… shall return to its rightful owner."
The inward-collapsing energy sphere began to shrink rapidly.
The dark energy within was purified into its most fundamental form of Sun God power, then flowed into Ra like rivers returning to the sea. The evil god's screams grew weaker, until they vanished entirely.
When the last trace of dark energy was purified and absorbed, the once-feared evil god, Set-Apep, was completely erased from this world.
The burning lasted only a few seconds.
When the golden flames extinguished, nothing remained where the evil god's body had been.
No ash. No remnants. Not even a trace of evil energy.
Its existence had been completely erased, on every level: matter, energy, soul, and even concept itself.
As if it had never been born. As if it had never existed.
Only a faint trace of purified freshness in the air remained, proving that a battle determining the fate of the world had once taken place here.
Yes, there was no earth-shattering explosion, no desperate final counterattack.
It was as though it had never existed at all.
The world had been completely cleansed.
The sky was a pure blue, the sunlight warm and golden. A gentle breeze carried the fresh scent of newly sprouted vegetation. The ruins of the Temple still stood, but the evil aura that once shrouded it had completely vanished.
In the distance, Karina and her followers stood bathed in sunlight. Though their tears had yet to dry, hopeful smiles of survival after catastrophe had already blossomed on their faces. Throughout the city, the sounds of life returning gradually rose.
"The Main God is still far stronger than me…"
Ian stared blankly at the scene, utterly shaken. This was the power of a true God, not brute destruction, but absolute control over the laws of existence.
Ra slowly descended before Ian, a hint of a smile in his golden eyes.
"Now, you can collect the fragments at ease."
Only then did Ian realize that everything he had just done had been seen by the Sun God, and he felt a little embarrassed.
"Sorry about that… it's just a professional habit."
Ra shook his head dismissively.
"The instinct of the Prince House bloodline, I understand."
With a gentle raise of his hand, the scattered fragments automatically flew into Ian's lead box.
"Consider these your reward for helping me."
(End of Chapter)