The final match of the tournament had become a question: what happens when an unblockable, intangible offense meets an all-encompassing, formless defense?

It was the boring, and yet utterly terrifying deadlock.

The live chat, broadcast to all the lifeforms, was a storm of frantic speculation as the audience tried to comprehend what they were, or rather weren't, seeing.

Lifeform73939: "So… is anything happening? Demigod Mammon is a genius for figuring out how to survive Nexus's 'kick' ability, but now what? Are they just going to sit there forever?"

Lifeform4737: "I wanted Lady Nova or Lady Thea to win… but lady Nova chose to surrender and lady Thea was unfortunate to face Demigod Nexus "

Lifeform3738: "Who do you think will win? My faith is on Mammon. He's an elder demigod. He must have another trick up his sleeve."

The Gods, however, were not watching the fight. They were, for the most part, checking their faith reserves.

The tournament had been the single greatest faith provider in the history of their existence.

The sheer excitement from their lifeforms; the cheers, the gasps, the desperate prayers for their champions; had generated a tidal wave of faith.

Many Gods had earned more in the past few months than they had in their entire lives as a God.

They were already calculating how to petition their Emperor to host such a tournament every five hundred years.

Sunny, from his high throne, was also calculating. He looked at the 421 empty worlds of the fallen Gods, the prizes for this tournament.

He had initially seen them as a simple reward. But now, he saw the truth. They were not prizes; they were opportunities.

He could manifest a million new, empty worlds for a small amount of faith. But these 421 worlds… they were inhabited.

They were filled with billions of lifeforms who had witnessed the cruelty of their creator.

They were populations living in suffering, desperate for a savior. The faith of his own happy, sheltered lifeforms in Veridia was a gentle, steady stream.

The faith of these liberated, grateful, desperate souls? It would be a tsunami.

In the arena, Nexus came to a decision. This stalemate was inefficient. It was a waste of time. He would force a conclusion.

He did not possess the talent to enter the void himself, but he was the master of the realm connected to it.

With a surge of his will, a small, shimmering tear, a wound in the fabric of reality, opened in the center of the arena.

He had opened a door to Mammon's hiding place.

But he didn't stop there. He couldn't attack Mammon through the void; the void itself would nullify his attacks.

So, he would do something else. He would make the void explode.

Nexus reached out with his consciousness, not just to the arena, but to the entire Realm of Advancement.

He became a siphon. He began to draw upon the ambient, colossal reserves of mana from the entire realm. The air in the arena grew thin. The magical glow of the distant biomes dimmed.

A river of energy, a torrent of power so vast it defied comprehension, began to flow from Nexus and pour directly into the small, dark tear in space.

He was flooding the void with mana, a substance utterly alien to that dimension of nothingness. He would force him out with an explosion, or simply destabilize it to the point of collapse.

In his God space, Sunny was watching this display of reckless power, a proud smile on his face. 'Clever boy.'

And then, his Divine Intuition screamed. It was a scream to warn him for the danger that was about to come.

'Use your domain! Don't let it invade!' the talent shrieked in his mind.

"What?!" Sunny didn't know what it was, but he didn't hesitate. He poured his will into his God's Domain talent.

"My domain shall not let any uninvited guest invade" Sunny commanded.

A billion faith points vanished in an instant, a cheap price. A shimmering, invisible barrier of law slammed shut around his entire territory; Veridia, his subspace universe, and the entire Realm of Advancement.

In the void, Mammon felt it too. His own intuition, a sixth sense roared. A wave of terror, a feeling he hadn't experienced since his birth, washed over him.

He didn't question it. He tore his way out of the void, his aristocratic form bursting back into the arena, his face pale and shaken.

Nexus, seeing his brother suddenly reappear, chuckled. His plan had worked. And with a single, triumphant thought, he activated his Controller authority.

The realm rejected Mammon. The triumphant demigod was teleported out of the arena, his match lost.

But there were no congratulations. There was no announcement from Adam. The entire arena was silent, frozen in a new, more profound terror.

Adam, the God of Growth, was staring at the tear Nexus had made, his face a mask of dread. "You fool…" he whispered, his voice trembling. "You fool! You rang the dinner bell!"

He flew from his high throne, his own divine energy flaring as he shot towards the rift, trying to seal the wound in reality.

"Nexus…" Adam's voice was a panicked roar, "You have brought a calamity to our very doors!"

But it was too late.

As Adam's power struggled to close the tear, a gaze pierced through from the other side. It gave a feeling. A vast, cold, and ancient consciousness, a malice so profound and so indifferent it was a physical force.

It saw the arena. It saw the Gods. And it saw the small, black slime that had dared to pour a river of delicious mana into its dark home.

Nexus screamed. It was a soundless shriek of agony. His slimy, black body, a form that had been intangible and invulnerable, suddenly turned a pale, sickly gray.

He began to boil. He was disintegrating, his very essence unmade by the malice of that single, casual glance.

"NO!" Sunny roared. He poured his own power into his demigod, a torrent of faith points. He tried to heal him. He tried to use Divine Command. "LIVE!" he bellowed, his voice shaking the arena.

It was useless. His faith, his commands, his very will… they were like throwing pebbles at a black hole.

The power of that gaze was on a level he could not comprehend. It was a judgment of eradication.

But as Sunny watched in horror, his demigod melting into a puddle of gray sludge, he felt a new, distant pulse.

The tiny, core spark of Nexus, protected by the Nine Lives blessing, had already reformed at the center of the Realm of Advancement. His demigod had just been reborn.

"Adam!" Sunny's voice was sharp, all traces of the calm Emperor gone. "What is that thing?!"

Adam, his face pale as death, his hands still struggling to seal the tear, gave a one-word answer that landed with the weight of a dying star.

"...Void. Beast."

He grunted, "This one is still young. Just a million years old."

Sunny used his God's Eye, peering through the rapidly closing tear, spending another ten billion faith just to get a glimpse.

He saw it. In the absolute, crushing blackness of the true void, a shadow moved. It was a creature the size of a galaxy, a body like a colossal, dark whale, with tentacles of nothingness that seemed to stretch for an eternity.

And it was eating. It was lazily, happily slurping up the river of pure, delicious mana that Nexus had provided.

The plan to flush out Mammon had successfully failed. And the void beast after completing his meal was now looking towards the world filled with such abundant mana....

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