Chapter Ninety-Three: How Dare a Mortal Slay a God?

The three who heard this exchanged glances, then all took an involuntary step back.

They might not have intended to kill anyone, but they could not be certain that the others had no intention of killing them.

Seeing their reaction, the Desert God laughed once more. “What is it? Having second thoughts? You should know that there is only one chance like this. If you do not act quickly, you may be the ones to die.”

The atmosphere grew increasingly tense.

At that moment, Iron Pillar’s expression also turned solemn as never before.

He looked at the Desert God. “How are we supposed to know you are not lying to us?”

“I’m lying to you?” The Desert God looked utterly incredulous. “With your pitiful strength, do I need to lie to you?”

“You have been here for over a thousand years, and now you have become a strange creature. If your strength had not declined, would you even believe that yourself?”

“Hahaha! No matter how much I have declined, I am still a god, while you are nothing but lowly mortals!” As he spoke, a tremendously powerful aura burst forth from him. “By obtaining my power, you will rapidly ascend to the first tier of this world!”

Iron Pillar drew a deep breath, then looked at the two people beside him.

In the end, years of friendship overcame greed. He pointed to the badge on his chest as a signal to them.

The two of them nodded as well, and then Iron Pillar turned back to the Desert God.

“No matter how you put it, this is only your side of the story. I wonder whether you dare to take on the challenge from the three of us?”

“A challenge?” The Desert God’s expression became exaggerated, as if he could not believe his own ears. “What are you trying to do?”

Iron Pillar calmly loosened his body, his gaze growing cold. “I want to defeat you!”

The instant he finished speaking, his entire body turned into a mass of black mist and shot straight toward the Desert God.

Seeing this, the Desert God’s body transformed into a swirl of yellow sand and darted aside.

But before he could even steady himself, he sensed a massive fluctuation of energy nearby.

Looking in that direction, he saw Dehua smiling as she punched toward him.

That blow landed on the Desert God as though striking a mound of sand.

In an instant, the Desert God transformed into a great mass of sand, absorbing the entire impact.

Yet that was not the end of it. Another fierce attack came swiftly at him, this time from the giant from before.

The giant stomped straight down from above, crushing the already sand-like Desert God into even finer fragments.

Without the slightest hesitation, the three withdrew to the same corner, all their nerves taut as they stared at the pile of sand.

A moment later, the Desert God’s laughter rang out. “Interesting. Very interesting.”

All the statues around them began to tremble, then turned into sand and drifted toward the Desert God.

At the same time, the sandy mass formed by the Desert God grew larger and larger, until it gradually took on a human shape.

On his head, a pair of eyes shone with light. “You actually knew to attach energy to your attacks and drive it into my body, making it impossible for me to evade. That was rather clever.”

“Hmph. The clever part is still ahead,” Iron Pillar said, for some reason with a hint of a smile on his face.

“Hm?”

The Desert God had not yet reacted when dark spots appeared all over his body. Within those spots, astonishing bursts of energy erupted.

After bursting forth, that energy did not dissipate immediately. Instead, it gradually seeped into his body, like ants making nests in the sand, roaming recklessly through his insides.

“This... this...”

Even the Desert God was stunned. “What on earth is happening?”

At that point, Iron Pillar seemed to have relaxed a little as well. He slowly rose to his feet. “This is my forbidden domain. Here, I am god, and I control the fundamental rules of space!”

“The moment you appeared, I noticed something was wrong. Inside you are two completely different forms of power: strange-creature energy and divine power. Yet according to the research reports from the Sunset Kingdom Strange Creature Research Institute, the power of a god and the energy of a strange creature can absolutely never coexist!

“If you forcibly make them exist together through outside power, only one result can occur: they will oppose each other, and neither kind of energy will be usable.

“To prevent that, you transferred most of the strange-creature energy into those statues, then used your divine nature to grant them life, turning them into real strange creatures.

“In theory, that should not have caused any problems. But in the end, you are only A-rank. The moment the three of us attacked together, you were bound to fall into a disadvantage.

“When that happened, you would surely have withdrawn the energy from those statues under pressure, and then the two kinds of energy inside you would clash again.

“And our attacks just now were not ordinary attacks. We left our energy inside your body, which would speed up the conflict between the two forces within you!”

He licked his lips when he finished. “How about that, my noble god?”

“That is impossible. Such a complicated plan, and the only exchange between you just now was a few looks!”

Iron Pillar walked up beside him and slowly extended his hand. “This is the greatness of mortals!”

As he spoke, a flash of black light flickered over his hand and plunged straight into the Desert God’s body.

“Ahhhh!”

The Desert God let out a scream of agony.

His body repeatedly shifted between human form and a heap of loose sand, swaying back and forth in endless instability.

At last, after another failed attempt to condense into human shape, he completely collapsed into scattered grains and spilled onto the ground.

Only then did the three of them collapse onto the floor at the same time, their foreheads covered in cold sweat.

They had just stood against a god under immense pressure, and both their energy and their spirits had been drained to the limit. Still, they had succeeded in slaying a god...

Just as they were surveying their surroundings and considering how to get out, a familiar laugh drifted over.

“How dare mortals slay a god?”

It was unmistakably the Desert God’s voice.

The moment they heard it, it felt as though something had violently crushed their hearts, leaving them in agony so sharp they nearly doubted life itself.

“Your forbidden domain? What a joke. This is my territory!”

That illusory voice came again, and with it appeared a massive figure.

“My representative must be clever, and you are not qualified to become my representative!”

For mortals to challenge a god was the most foolish act in this world.

“How... how can this be?”

Iron Pillar’s vision was already blurred, and even now he still could not quite believe the figure before him.

“Truth be told, I should thank you. You removed that burdensome body of mine, so I could descend among mortals once more.”

As he spoke, a vast aura erupted from him again. This was the true majesty of a god.

Though constrained by the plane and reduced to A-rank, it was still a world apart from an ordinary A-rank.

Let alone the three of them in their current state, even if they were at full strength, they still would not be a match.

“You three foolish mortals, I will cast you into hell and deny you reincarnation for all eternity!”

With that, the Desert God no longer suppressed his power. A scythe took shape in his hand, and he swung it toward the three of them.