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By the time Dina reached her hometown, it was already on the verge of destruction.

Her human mother had already long reached the end of her lifespan and passed away, and her father looked like nothing but the skin on top of his bones.

No, it was not just her father. At this point, Dina’s hometown had turned into nothing but a prison full of people who were just moments before their deaths.

“………”

Her heart wouldn’t be moved… or so should have been the case.

She had thought that she would not feel anything even if she saw what was happening. She was the Goddess’s avatar who just so happened to be born in this village. Thus, she should not have had any sentimental feelings towards these people.

But why? Why was it that she was feeling this agitated?

Why could she feel a chill running down her spine? Why did her feet tremble as if there were ice cubes sliding down her back?

Up until this moment, she had observed scenes like this many times. Although she did not directly play her hand in them due to her overwhelmingly powerful existence, she had ordered the Moon Ouroboros to create a scene like this over and over again. There were times when the population of the world had gotten way too large and she had reduced their numbers. There were even times when she had completely erased an entire species.

– Really?

Were those things really done by her?

Those were the things the Goddess did, and… isn’t it that I’ve never really personally seen a scene like this ever before?

“… Ohh, Dina… thanks for coming back again.”

She must have instinctively gotten close to the bed that her father was sleeping in before she became aware of how close she was.

Notwithstanding that it had been about hundred years since she had left the village, her father noticed the appearance of his daughter in a flash and reached out one of his worn-out and almost skeletal hands towards her direction.

Before she even noticed, she had grabbed his hand then became mute and dumbfounded from realising how weak it was.

A person would eventually die. They would die and leave this world. Even the long-lived elves were not an exception to this rule.

She was aware of this from the very start. Yet, within Dina, there were feelings of dread and dismay as if she had found out this rule for the first time ever.

Why was it that her heart was feeling so painful despite her mother being nothing more than a passageway to bring herself, the avatar, into this world? Why was it that her heart was feeling so painful despite her father being someone whose existence she did not even recognise until she saw him in such a weak condition?

Why was it that the memories of when the two of them showered her with loving smiles were overflowing into her this late in time?

She should have been the personification of the Goddess. As such, the deaths of one or two living individuals should not have been able to move her heart this much.

Until this moment, she had never questioned the equation, “the Goddess = myself”.

But now, for the first time, that equation fell apart. She could not help but feel that there was an insurmountable wall standing between herself and the Goddess.

It was because… she just could not believe in any shape or form that her real body, the Goddess, would be feeling the same pain that she was currently feeling.

In all likelihood, the Goddess would not even remember her father’s face nor his name… She would not even feel like remembering it, and… even if her father was left to die, she would have nothing more than a passing thought along the lines of “Oh, the avatar’s elven father died.”

“Fa, father…”

She had not thought of him as her father. She had thought of him as nothing more than one of the many individuals who walked on Midgard.

But was that really the case?

The loving smiles directed at her. The warm love that she had received from her parents. In truth, did she not feel comfortable and at home when she was with them?

In truth, did she not indeed accept the warmth and loving care afforded to her? Did she not feel happiness when she was with them?

Was it not merely due to her forcibly shutting her eyes and feigning willful ignorance as a result of her pride and conceit in believing herself to be the Goddess?

I don’t know. I don’t know who I am.

Because… I’m the avatar of the Goddess who walks on Midgard. I’m supposed to be the manifestation of the Goddess herself and…

But if that’s not the case, then… who exactly am I?

What flashed across Dina’s mind was the image of a foolish doll who merely mimicked the Goddess.

There were strings attached to the limbs of that doll, and the real Goddess herself was controlling and playing around with that doll from an ever-high position. Dina could not help but imagine such a scene.

Dina strongly placed her hands over the clothing on top of her chest as if she were trying to hold down her painful heart.

When she did, she felt something hard there. When she took it out to see what it was, she realised that it was the vial of elixir which had been forced onto her by Ruphas.

It was a forbidden medicine which could cure any illness and even increase the lifespan of a person. As it was a product which figuratively spat on the Goddess, Dina had planned to smash it to pieces later.

But right now, for some reason, she could not come to shatter it anymore.

She did not know whether to use it or throw it away. She was just standing in place, lost as to what she wanted to do herself. But at that moment, her sharp sense of hearing detected something and the colour of her face changed.

Something is coming… something big, and… dangerous is coming to this village.

There was a sound which was loud enough to shake the earth. And the sound of trees being snapped and knocked down.

After jumping out of the house in a fluster, what Dina saw was a giant black scorpion monster which was closing in on her position whilst sweeping away the buildings in its way.

The queen of poison… The Emperor Berserk Scorpion…!?

– The Emperor Berserk Scorpion. Amongst the countless number of scorpion-type monsters, it was known to be the strongest of its kind and was classified as a catastrophe-level magical beast.

Within its body, it contained any and all kinds of poisonous concoctions which existed in the world. It was designated as an extremely dangerous species as, if the monster felt like it, it could cover the whole planet in its poison within a mere few days and turn it into a dead and lifeless planet.

Within history, these kinds of monsters had actually appeared a few times. The purpose behind these monsters was to cull down living things who had grown too numerous in number.

Living things were left to flourish as long as the ecosystem was not destroyed. However, once the Goddess determined that the balance of the world had collapsed, these monsters would appear.

These monsters would then concoct a kind of poison that the target living creatures did not possess the antibodies of, right on the spot, and spread an epidemic, driving them into extinction… In other words, they were walking pestilences themselves.

Its battle prowess was level 900. Although it was a little lacking when compared to the world’s arbitrators, like the Lion King and the Dragon King, it did not change the fact that these monsters were extremely dangerous. The emergence of these catastrophe-level magical beasts equated to the extinction, or at the very least, decline, of some species. Even to this date, they served as a feared calamity which could not be handled and would continue to assault and terrorise the humanoids.

That was the true nature of the epidemic which was treading upon this village.

Why…? Sure, the elves have been growing in number lately, but it’s still not the time for something like that to move yet. So why is something like that…? And at this village…?

While staring at the queen of the scorpions, Dina desperately worked her brain.

The elves were one of the Goddess’s favourite species. Furthermore, the number of elves were not that high by any means.

There was no special reason for something like that to come to this village. If anything, it should have been facing the humans, which were currently growing with massive momentum. So why?

Could it be…?

There was one thing that came to her mind.

And that was her very existence.

As the avatar of the Goddess, going forward, there would be times where she would have to name herself as the Goddess and appear before the people.

As a matter of fact, the best and most efficient way to remove the existence known as Ruphas was to utilise the name of the Goddess and declare Ruphas as evil and incite the people.

However, if such a time were to come and it was revealed that the one calling herself the Goddess was known to have been born amongst one of those people, then others would become doubtful. She might be considered a charlatan who called herself the Goddess.

But there was one simple solution to that problem. There would not be any problems if the ones who knew of that fact were no longer in this world.

Dina thought the use of memory manipulation would have been sufficient. But the one who had moved this scorpion must have considered it insufficient and wanted to be absolutely sure.

Precisely. The avatar and the real body, which should have originally been the same person, had a different take on the matter. It just so happened that such a troublesome thing resulted in such an outcome.

The queen of poison opened its mouth, and at the same time, Dina instinctively reacted at a comparable speed.

“Tsk! Heed me, ‘time’!”

Dina quickly activated a unique skill, trapping the queen of poison in a prison of “time”.

The unique skill [Yed Posterior]. It was a skill used to control time. A set period of the target’s time would be cut away and removed, causing the enemy’s movement itself to elongate over the cut period. It was an extraordinary skill only usable because she was the proxy of the Goddess. It was an absolute skill with an unfair effect.

Not only that, this skill’s effect only became more potent the more time the target was placed under. Eventually, not only would the target’s time stop completely, it would go beyond that, and tread into the negative territory. The target’s time itself would revert and rewind back into the past. It was such that Dina could even revert them back to the moment “before they were born”.

Similarly, Dina also possessed a unique skill which allowed her to speed up the flow of time. The commonality shared between these two skills was that they could not be prevented.

Her special unique skills had an effect whereby, when it was used, it took “absolute priority” over all others that were in place.

Although people around the world were not aware of it, there were priorities attached to every given skill.

For example, where two skills, one with absolute accuracy and another with absolute evasion, were to be pitted against each other, the skill with the higher priority would be given precedence.

There were five levels of priority. Typically, the higher the rank of the skill, the higher the priority it had.

However, the priority level of unique skills used by the agents of the Goddess, such as Dina and the ouroboroses, was “six”.

In other words, those skills would successfully and unconditionally take effect, and absolutely could not be off-set or negated by any means possible.

It meant that once the skill was used, it would be perfectly established with absolute certainty. The significance of these absolute priority skills was proof that the user was a proxy of the Goddess.

The movements of the queen of poison dulled before Dina’s eyes, becoming extremely slowed down.

However, the poison mist had already been fired from her mouth. Those mists were ever so slowly… but definitely, making their way out of the prison of time.

Oh no… oh no oh no oh no!

Irrespective of how well the queen of poison’s real body’s movement was restricted, if the poison mist were to escape out of the prison of time, then there were no hands left to be played.

At that very moment, the queen of poison’s speed was reduced down to 100 000th of her original speed. For most living things, this much deceleration was as good as stopping their time.

However, it was still moving. It had not yet stopped.

In other words, its original scattering speed was just simply that stupidly fast.

The flow of the time continued to get slower and slower. By now, the queen of poison was almost unable to move at all.

Nevertheless, before its time could be stopped completely, the poison mist would leak out of the prison of time first.

As the avatar of the Goddess, Dina possessed seven unique skills. All of them had their priority levels assigned as “six” and would take precedence over any other skill.

But amongst those skills… none had an effect that was able to resolve this current problem.

What should I do? What can I do?

Once the poison mists leaked out, she might be able to bear with it for a while, however, the people in this village would die.

At the very least, her father, who was already on his deathbed, definitely would not survive.

Furthermore, once the poison had been sprayed all over the village, regardless of how many times she was to use resurrection divine magic, the ones resurrected would die again immediately afterwards.

At this moment, Dina had even forgotten that she was the Goddess’s avatar as she did nothing but desperately rack her brain trying to find any possible solution to avoid what was about to happen.

However, a panic-driven brain in a mad rush for an answer would naturally not even be able to come up with the most obvious solution.

Impatience gave birth to further impatience, ultimately robbing away any form of rational decision-making ability she would have had.

And finally, it was the moment the poison mist had reached the edges of the prison of time and was about to cross over –

“Hmm, the effect of your skill is absurdly powerful, but the way you’re utilising it is horrendous. I guess it’s because you have access to overpowered skills that you can’t think of a way to pragmatically resolve the problem. Look here, something like this can be resolved in a much simpler way.”

Dina heard a voice overflowing with confidence from her side. In the next moment, she saw a clenched fist come into her peripheral vision.

The owner of the voice took a step and punched with all their might.

That was all that they did. Nevertheless, the resulting outcome of that was beyond Dina’s imaginations.

With just a single strike of their fist, an enormous tornado which reached the ends of the sky was created, blowing away all the poison mists high up into the air.

The queen of poison was ever so slightly caught up by this tornado and was also sent high up into the air. As a result of its weight, it barely managed to avoid getting sent out of the stratosphere, but as it was falling back down, Ruphas clenched her fist once again and took aim at it.

“You also seem to be under some lame control. Whatever, you’ll probably wake up from being punched. I’ll hold back, but I’ll punch with all I have. Ready?”

What a contradicting sentence it was. How would one punch with all they had even whilst holding back? It did not even make any sense.

But this was a world where such an illogical thing could be established. And it was the existence of skills which made it possible.

At that moment, Dina definitely felt something.

The presence that she felt from Ruphas skyrocketed at an overwhelming degree, and of the fact, that even the level restriction in place had been overcome.

Ordinarily, [Observing Eyes] could not be used to measure the values of an individual which was stronger than the user.

However, Dina was the Goddess’s avatar. She was able to disregard that condition and determine Ruphas’s level. After seeing that it was a ridiculous number exceeding 4000, Dina almost fainted.

The level cap served as a wall in place against how much destruction could be caused. So that power that was too strong would not destroy the world, the might of an attack was forcibly brought down to a specified cap upon impact. It was a defensive mechanism that had been set in place.

Had such a system not been in place, just by a person moving beyond the speed of sound, there would be serious collateral damage done to the surroundings as a result of the sonic boom. Similarly, if a person were to move beyond the speed of light, the world would perish.

Furthermore, there was more than one wall in place. As a precaution, beginning at level 1000, at a set interval of 1000 levels, there were ten layers of restrictive walls in place.

In other words, there was a restrictive wall at level 2000, 3000 and so on and so forth.

And right now, Ruphas’s level was over 4000. She had already overcome 4 restrictive walls which were in place.

In her current state, the maximum damage which could be dealt was 999 999 999!

It would be possible for her to deal almost a billion damage per hit.

In that condition, the skill [Blunt-Edge Strike] was activated. After activating the “special holding back” skill, which would definitely leave the enemy at 1 HP, Ruphas punched the queen of poison with all her might, sending her away.

This time for sure, the giant body with a length reaching 100m was sent flying out of the stratosphere, eventually closing into where the Sun was.

The Blunt-Edge Strike prevented the opponent from dying as a result of the damage dealt by the user. However, the opponent could still die as a result of damage from outside factors. In other words, if the queen of poison continued to plunge into the Sun in its current condition, it would not be able to survive.

Nevertheless, Ruphas had already caught up to where the queen was, and turned her around with a kick.

(After this, Ruphas was joking around at a tavern with her comrades whilst saying “as expected, the Sun was actually pretty hot”.)

Again, using with the effect of Blunt-Edge Strike, Ruphas kicked the queen, who was already at 1 HP, vertically down into Midgard.

She again overtook the queen who was falling down like a shooting star and stopped in a standby position in the sky slightly above the village.

She then stopped the queen who fell right down onto her with one hand, finally slowly landing back down onto the ground.

The total time that elapsed whilst all of this was happening… was merely about one second.

Dina’s jaw, which had dropped down, did not close.