Asura's memories of his previous life were faint. He didn’t know anything about life itself.

However, the sensation of taking countless lives had remained at his fingertips. After all, he was the God of FIghting. Surely he had fought and killed every day during his previous life. Then, he must’ve met someone stronger than him and was killed.

This was where Asura became intrigued. How did the one who killed him erase his name from the myths? There had to be a lot of beings stronger than him. For example, the Gods of the Beginning and the Martial God.

Yes, it was understandable if he had died because of them. However, what was the principle behind him being forgotten by people?

Human beings were always competing among each other. No civilization developed without struggle. It wouldn’t have been easy to erase the name of the God of Fighting from their memories. In fact, Asura had been worshiped by people even in recent times. Only a handful of monks offered prayers to the God of Fighting Asura.

Perhaps there had still been people who continued to believe in Asura even after his death. Nevertheless, he had definitely been forgotten. He had been completely erased from the myths.

[Annihilation energy.]

Asura used his own body as a weapon to neutralize Grid’s attack. This ended up being disadvantageous and forcing him on the defensive, so he smiled bitterly.

[Truly a great power. Now that I have this, I can also erase many myths from the world.]

Why did he forget his past life? Asura was obsessed with this question not because he wanted to know the truth. He wasn’t interested in getting revenge for his past life. He just wanted to kill other gods with the same method he had been subjected to.

Why?

[Grid, I am the God of Fighting, so I understand everything about struggling. I know that there is no eternal victor. The only exception—]

Boom, booom!!

[...is Chiyou.]

Asura wounds regenerated incredibly fast. He reverted to his original form. The razor blades were gone and his skin was once again smooth. He admitted that it was too much of a disadvantage to maintain Weapon Breaker.

[The Martial God is invincible. I noticed it last time when we were fighting.]

Purple energy rose from Asura like smoke. It was Annihilation energy.

[That duel you watched. Just as I learned the Martial God’s techniques, the Martial God also learned mine. No, it was more than that. He was already seeing through my habits. The proof is that I was caught off guard and failed to seriously injure him despite using his techniques to launch a surprise counterattack. No matter how many times I look back on it, his response was perfect.]

The Annihilation energy rising from Asura like smoke condensed into snowflakes, hardening. He had already learned how to use the energy he just copied. He was just like a player learning an ability by looking at its skill information. Martial God Chiyou’s ability to make even this monster feel humble was once again amazing.

[To be honest, I was worried. No matter how strong I became, I wouldn’t be able to compete with the Martial God. I became so anxious to challenge him that I suddenly felt afraid.]

The God of Fighting existed to fight. Baal had been obsessed with the birth of Asura because he believed Asura would fight and fight until the world was destroyed. Indeed, Asura wouldn’t give up even if the opponent was stronger than him. He would retreat for a while, but he would eventually try again.

[But, thanks to you, all my worries have been relieved. The Annihilation energy is more powerful than I expected. I will use this power to destroy all life in the world. Then I will become stronger and stronger until, in the end...]

Seven arms protruded from Asura’s back. He held the Annihilation Sword in all nine of his hands.

[Once Chiyou and I are the only ones left in the world, I will challenge him and win.]

Just like he had confessed earlier, Asura knew there could be no eternal victor, but this didn’t mean that he wanted to be a loser. He would keep fighting while dreaming of becoming an absolute victor. Hence, he was the God of Fighting.

The nine Annihilation Swords materialized in different directions. It looked as if Black Knight Eligos’ swordsmanship reached its pinnacle. The nine swords quickly multiplied into hundreds or thousands, creating a storm of sword energy.

There was no way to avoid it. As it devastated the area, the final path of sword energy tilted downward as it followed Asura’s movements toward the land made of golden clouds. Asura was putting pressure on Grid, who had both feet planted in this land as if he was rooted in place.

[Ack...!]

Grid, who had been fighting Asura’s high-speed combo attacks with the same sword dance, finally coughed up blood. The ground on which he stood completely collapsed.

[By scattering the energy of destruction, the fierce attack of the God of Fighting shattered the divine world.]

There was no exaggeration in the narrative of the epic. Asura truly did destroy parts of Asgard. The aftermath was significant. Asura’s annihilation energy stretched through cracks in the torn golden clouds and spread like an aurora across the sky. Onlookers could observe this phenomenon from the surface.

“T-This is impossible...”

The humans on the surface, who were in constant shock by the content of Grid’s epic, started to tremble in earnest. Some were absolutely terrified, especially those who were close to the collapsing sky. They clearly saw the birds and monsters in the sky turning into ashes as soon as the purple aurora touched them.

***

“The range of Dismemberment...”

Regas frowned as he stared up at the sky. He had the Asura class. As the name suggested, it originated from the God of Fighting Asura. It was only when the hell invasion occurred that Regas had learned about the backstory of his class.

Hundreds of years ago, during a pilgrimage, a monk accidentally found a stele with the myth of God of Fighting Asura on it. He deciphered the contents of the stele to restore some of Asura’s physical skills.

The martial artist’s third advancement class, Asura, surprisingly originated from this monk. To be exact, he had been a martial artist with a monk background, but... This meant Asura’s skill tree bore some resemblance to Asura. This was how Regas figured out what skill was causing the destruction of the sky.

“Dismemberment?”

“It’s an ultimate skill that ignores the target’s defense and evasion to cut off or fracture limbs. It’s a small AOE skill that can be applied to two people at most... Meanwhile, the range of this one...”

“It’s wide enough to dismember twenty thousand people, let alone two. Even Grid would find this attack hard to withstand. Let's hurry.”

“Yes!”

One floor, and then another… The tower was increasing its number of floors at an incredible speed. Even the boss monster that copied King Daebyeol repeatedly collapsed at the feet of the challengers. They surpassed even the record set by Grid in the past.

This showed the difference between the players before and after the update. The Overgeared members who had access to elixirs, techniques, mystical arts, and Treasures obtained from killing the cultivators were incomparably stronger than they used to be a few months ago.

But what about Grid?

***

In the Hwan Kingdom, Chiyou stood on top of the ruins and stared at the distant sky. Of course, the sky of the Hwan Kingdom was blue. This was the place farthest away from Asgard.

However, Chiyou’s eyes reflected a purple aurora. He was observing beyond continents. Of course, he couldn’t peek inside Asgard because Asgard rejected him.

“He is quite high-spirited but...”

Just because he couldn’t see it, that didn’t mean he didn’t understand what was going on. Chiyou had an idea about what kind of power was being used in the battle between Grid and Asura.

“Asura, you might not have noticed it, but times have changed.”

Very few gods existed forever. One of them was Chiyou. Therefore, his myth didn’t change with the times.

Chiyou had always been the strongest. In other words, Asura didn’t know the concept of changing times. He wasn’t aware of the fact that Chiyou was no longer the symbol of the era.

***

[What tremendous power...! I really feel like I can do anything!]

Asura burst out laughing. The experience of smashing Grid and all of the tiresome Asgard was exhilarating. He was just as excited as a child when he used a mystical art.

Hundreds of black coffins rose from all directions. This move summoned the dead. He was able to temporarily revive a recently killed target.

[Kill everything that is alive and breathing.]

As if in response to this order, the lids of the coffins opened at once. Hundreds of demon cultivators burst from the coffins and attacked Marie Rose’s group. Their momentum was great. They felt several times stronger than when they had been alive.

Mumud and Noe gritted their teeth and fought fiercely. They fired spells and used Treasures to stop the advance of the demon cultivators, but nothing worked. Most of their attacks failed to hit the cultivators.

“They’re using Fluidization.”

[I see. They seem to be classified as evil spirits.]

Mumud understood what was going on after seeing the translucent aura of the cultivators and cast a divine spell.

-Aghhhhhhh!

The ghost cultivators were engulfed in pure white flames and writhed in pain.

"Nyang!"

Noe’s claws sliced through them while they were weakened. He also became translucent. He responded with Fluidization by using his own version of it.

-...!?

The ghost cultivators tried to avoid Mumud and Noe’s attacks, but they were wounded severely in the process. They were unable to withstand the magic bombardment from Grid’s clone and took massive damage in no time.

The Braham-style enhancement spells focused on destructive power. They had the property of collapsing the target from the inside, so the opponents were annihilated regardless of being a ghost or not.

At first glance, this spell resembled Annihilation energy. Mumud indirectly glimpsed Braham’s tendencies and was overcome by the anxiety he had been trying to suppress.

-Hayahhhhhhhh!

Despite the struggles of Noe’s group, the number of ghost cultivators didn’t decrease. They were a lot stronger than before. Some of them used to be Absolutes, so it was difficult for the three people to deal with the entire army of ghost cultivators.

“Y-Yikes! I’m going to die!” Noe screamed.

Marie Rose, who had been staring at her hands for a while, finally drew a small magic circle on her palm.

“Just this one time.”

This spell traveled across dimensions. It was difficult to tear through the fabric of space, let alone dimensions. The success rate of this spell increased only when the caster and the target cooperated with each other.

The person that Marie Rose was targeting was... her brother, Braham. This could be unpleasant, but they were incredibly compatible because they were blood related. The success rate of the dimensional transition magic reached a huge 99% in this case.

[I’m here.]

The God of Magic and Wisdom descended on the battlefield.

[Delicious prey has come to me on his own...] Asura’s face brightened only to suddenly stiffen.

Slash!

His frozen face was split in half because of a sword light that burst from where the ground was collapsing. It was the Dragon sword dance. Grid, who was thought to be dead, emerged unharmed. Surprisingly, he was equipped with purple-colored armor.

“I almost died.”

The aspirations of the best blacksmiths in the world, Khan and Hextia, had saved Grid.