The tear in reality, the wound that Nexus had ripped open, remained. And from the absolute blackness of the void, a being of impossible scale gazed back.

The Void Beast looked indifferently towards the two specks of light that had dared to fight back: Adam and Sunny.

It felt the pressure radiating from them. The aura of Adam, the First-Born, ancient and deep as the void itself.

And the aura of Sunny, a new, searingly bright star, crackling with a dozen different conceptual laws.

The Void Beast, a creature of instinct, actually felt a flicker of something it had not experienced in millennia: fear.

But then, it felt something else. A sensation that was far stronger, far more demanding. The delicious, intoxicating scent of a million worlds, a billion souls, and the sweet, irresistible river of mana that Nexus had so foolishly poured into its dark home.

Its hunger, an all-consuming force, instantly devoured its fear. This was a feast he couldn't miss.

Its tentacles, each one as vast as a solar system, lashed out, probing the barrier between worlds, striking the tear in the arena. The first tentacle hit the shimmering, invisible wall of Sunny's God's Domain.

Sunny felt it as a drain. A sharp, agonizing drain. His faith reserves, which had just crested above 500 trillion, plummeted.

A single, casual, probing strike had just cost him one trillion faith points.

"Oh," Sunny whispered, his voice catching in his throat. "So the barrier will only last until I have faith left.... That's why it was cheap"

One trillion per hit. He had 500 trillion faith. This beast had thousands of tentacles. He couldn't even last ten minutes.

He wanted to curse Nexus, but he knew it wasn't his creation's fault. He wanted to curse Mammon for entertaining void, but he, too, was just acting in character.

In the end, the fault was his. This entire tournament was his idea, his grand display.

He had been so focused on his own game that he had forgotten he was just a player in a much larger, much more dangerous one.

"How much is that domain of yours consuming per strike?" Adam's voice was grim, his eyes fixed on the writhing mass of tentacles that were now lashing at the barrier with increasing fury.

Whip. Whip. Whip. With every strike, Sunny winced, feeling another trillion vanish into nothingness.

"It can only take about 500 hits total!" Sunny replied, the desperation clear in his voice. "My reserves... they're not enough!"

Adam nodded, his expression grim. "Then we will make them enough." He stepped forward and placed a hand on Sunny's shoulder.

Sunny felt a torrent of energy, a river of pure divine energy, pour into his very being. His own reserves, which had felt so immense, were a mere puddle compared to this.

A trillion… a hundred trillion… a quadrillion… one hundred quadrillion. Adam, the fallen God, the dying soul, had just transferred 380 quadrillion faith points into him. It was a divine transfusion, a god-to-god transfer of faith.

Sunny stared at Adam, his mind reeling and confused, he didn't know how did Adam saved so many faith even after letting them use the system features.

As a God he knew how much faith it will take to let 10 billion people use system without any fees.

Even from the start Adam has been helping them a lot, only after doing something similar did Sunny understand how much Adam has done for them.

He knew that microbes, algae etc doesn't give faith upon dying, but all the faith that the Gods earned from them were provided by Adam.

Even the buffs from system shop, items and even the divine embryos, all of them were provided by the inventory of Adam.

"We can discuss my savings later," Adam said, his voice a low growl of command. "Your domain is the only thing keeping that… thing… at bay. You are the shield. We will be the sword. Call your clones. Call your strongest Gods. We must make a show of force."

Sunny nodded, his mind clear once more. He was no longer a panicked God; he was the Emperor, and his territory was under attack.

With a single, thought, he summoned his elite.

His twelve clones, each a perfect copy of his, materialized around him, their cosmic robes swirling, their masked faces a silent, calculating chorus.

Joker appeared, a crackle of pure, chaotic energy in his eyes, his aura a was sharp and witty, he was ready to mock the void beast for it's ugliness.

Asura appeared beside him, his presence burned with righteous fury, a volcano of controlled power.

The other Gods of the Pantheon, though weaker, gathered behind them.

The Void Beast, sensing the sudden spike in divine energy, only grew more furious. For him it was just a larger meal.

It stopped its probing, exploratory whipping and drew back. Then, with the force of a collapsing star, it rammed its colossal head against the barrier.

A sound like the universe itself cracking in two echoed in Sunny's mind. The barrier held, but at a cost that made him sick.

One hundred trillion faith points. Gone. In a single, devastating hit.

The beast reared back, preparing for another. It was going to brute-force its way in.

In that moment terror, Sunny finally understood. He thanked his own past self. He thanked Thalorax. He thanked his Divine Intuition.

If he had copied one of Adam's other, "better" SSS-Grade talents, they would all be dead.

Divine Command? To create a law like, "You cannot enter this realm" against a being of this magnitude would have costed something that even Sunny couldn't think off.

His reserves would have been incinerated in a heartbeat. But God's Domain was different. It was a shield. It was designed to endure. It was the only reason they were still alive.

The beast rammed the barrier again. Another hundred trillion vanished. And again. And again.

"Now!" Adam roared. "All of you! Fire everything you have!"

Adam himself, his divine form now blazing with a white-hot light, began weaving an ancient spell, a matrix of law so complex it made Sunny's own magic look like a child's scrawl.

Sunny and his clones mirrored the action, their combined knowledge from the past and present forming into spears of power.

The other Gods, their hands shaking, poured their own faith-infused magic into the volley.

Billions of spells, a hailstorm of multicolored sparks, lanced out through the tear in reality.

Most of them, the weaker attacks from the subordinate Gods, disintegrated in the chaotic energy of the void before they even got close.

But the strongest spells; from Adam, Sunny and the God with enough faith reached towards the void beast.

They struck the Void Beast's dark, whale-like hide. They scorched. They burned away its hide, revealing a pale, sickly flesh underneath, but no blood came out.

For the first time in a million years, the Void Beast felt pain.

It shrieked.

The sound was not just a shriek from the pain. It was a weapon. Sunny felt his God's Domain crack under the sonic, conceptual assault, the remaining quadrillions of Adam's gift draining away like water from a broken dam.

The beast, in its agony, opened its vast, dark maw and fired a blast of its own; a sphere of void energy.

The sphere hit the now-faltering barrier. A silent, blinding explosion. The void itself trembled. The Realm of Advancement, protected by the domain, was safe, but the cost was absolute.

Sunny looked at his reserves. The 380 quadrillion from Adam was gone. Vaporized. All that was left was his own, 10 trillion. But the barrier remained the same, as their was still faith left in Sunny to maintain it.

"Another volley!" Adam roared, his form blazing, ready to fight and die.

But the Void Beast, floating in the darkness, its hide scorched, its senses screaming from the unexpected pain, panicked.

It was a hunter, not a soldier. It had come for an easy, delicious meal. But this meal… this meal had teeth. This meal had cost it more pain than it had ever known.

It was not worth it.

With a final, killing glare, a look of hatred that promised a future reckoning, the Void Beast turned.

It vanished, disappearing back into the deeper, darker parts of the void, in search of easier prey.

"Haah… haah…" A collective, ragged gasp of relief echoed from the Gods. They had survived.

They had stared into the true, hungry, terrifying face of the cosmos, and they had, by the thinnest of margins, held the line.

Sunny looked at his own hands, at the faint, residual power of the God's Domain talent, and he made a silent, unbreakable vow.

He would never, ever think of going against his Divine Intuition again.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.