Duality of Shadows-Chapter 1000: First Counterattack

The whale stared coldly at all the deities from above. Then his eyes locked onto a figure in the middle of them—a dwarf with black hair and a long braided beard. Despite his appearance, the dwarf emanated the aura of a scholar, someone who preferred reading and writing over fighting or spending time at a forge. That was precisely the figure of the God of Merchants.

Alm and Bruno scoffed, as did several deities now inside his internal universe. Not all those deities were guilty of being there. The queen had captured and enslaved them to do her bidding.

Now everything made sense. They clearly understood why the queen encouraged people to create their Daos and wanted as many deities as possible. They were incredibly important to her—so much so that she hadn’t even used them in battles against them.

Her heroes were her fighters. The Divine Inquisitors and the deities were few, and she needed to protect them.

"And him! Attack together—I’ll send the alert!" roared the deity, a beast who was the commander of all present.

Everyone nodded without hesitation. Their bodies pulsed with all the queen’s power simultaneously.

A large area of the forest lit up in gold as they drew their weapons and leaped toward the whale. He merely gestured, and his eyes gleamed with a grayish hue.

*Buzz!*

A terrifying hum echoed. In that instant, the entire forest seemed frozen in time. Then everyone saw an immense grayish tree emerging from the void like a specter, growing and spreading in all directions, piercing the skies.

The deities felt all the heavenly energies sealing around them. They had come to trap the wisps but had unknowingly jumped straight into a cage.

Outside, a large area was overtaken by a hidden formation that imprisoned them. There was no chance of escape, and all the deities felt this with shock.

The whale gestured, and five figures appeared around him. They were the five calamity-level elementals. Each represented a power beyond reason, and their presence made all the surrounding heavenly energies tremble uncontrollably.

The tattoos pulsed, and the whale wasted no time: "Wipe them all out."

The five moved swiftly, their bodies glowing faintly as waves of elemental power surged. They clashed with the closest immortals, who couldn’t gauge the power level they were facing.

Thinking they could counterattack, the immortals struck—but as soon as a bit of the elemental power approached... a bloody mist spread.

The deities simply vanished as they got close to the elemental power—much less touched it. There were no explosions or power waves, nothing. The elementals merely approached, and the deities’ immortal bodies crumbled as if made of melting wax.

Quickly, the others snapped out of their stupor. The beast was the most terrified. He tried using his power to send a message, but the tree’s influence seemed to seal everything around him.

"NO!" Shouts echoed.

Deities died every second. Five seconds passed, and the five elementals continued attacking and killing anything in their path with ease.

The deities roared, unleashing all the power they possessed, but even though they numbered nearly a thousand, they couldn’t get close to the elementals without being destroyed.

Some turned toward the whale, sensing that they had to target him. But he calmly observed everything, commanding the five elementals. Whenever one or several deities tried to approach, the elementals attacked together, creating a power wave that annihilated them all.

Meanwhile, the manifestation of the primordial chaos pillar trembled but didn’t dissipate. The whale hovered above, focused on manipulating the tattoos. A dark smile formed on his face.

’Heavenly energies controlled by the tree... It’s truly the best nourishment for it. That’s how we gained the power to rewrite reality in the past. In this place, we can maintain the manifestation indefinitely.’ Bruno murmured excitedly.

Now they had this powerful trump card to play against the queen. The advantage of this manifestation was that it allowed them to absorb all the surrounding energies to fight. However, to keep the tree active beyond five seconds, they had to concentrate all energy on it.

This meant they couldn’t directly fight while using this advantage. But with the manifestation active, they had access to the five calamity elementals.

Their power was barely 1% of what it would be if they used the system to attack with elemental calamity. Still, they were absurdly overwhelming and unstoppable.

These elementals had been powerful immortals in the past. But they lost their memories as if reborn and were taught by the nine-star tree within the internal universe. Yet they didn’t seem close to recovering their old memories.

Because of this, even with immense power, they fought awkwardly—like children slowly learning about the world.

"Attack him together!"

Seeing the desperate situation, the beast realized the only thing they could do was launch a combined attack and issued the command.

There were nearly a thousand deities, but their numbers were rapidly dwindling. The five elementals alone wouldn’t be enough to stop the attack on the whale if all the deities charged at him together. If even a small group managed to hit the whale, they could turn the tide—or at least that was their only hope.

"Release everything." The whale calmly ordered as he assessed the situation. Their training was over.

The five elementals immediately trembled before their forms disappeared. Only five pulsating runes remained, shimmering intensely like stars.

At that moment, the deities sensed death closing in, but they roared and charged furiously toward the whale, who was hovering around two hundred meters above the ground.

*RUMBLE!*

Five colorful explosions shook the entire continent and forest. Yet, strangely, not a single tree or plant was destroyed.

Of the nearly a thousand deities, 90% died instantly. But through the dust and destruction, a few dozen blood-covered figures emerged, standing just thirty meters from the whale with furious expressions.

Alm and Bruno turned toward them and sighed. It was fate—the God of Merchants was among the survivors.

"KILL!"

They attacked frantically, but a spatial rune bloomed on the whale’s forehead. Suddenly, eight figures shot out like arrows.

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Their allies slaughtered the deities within seconds. Their physical bodies were already heavily damaged, and the six who weren’t immortals brought them down with ease. Only a single dwarf was spared.

When it was over, the whale gestured, dispersing the manifestation. Then he removed all the queen’s influence from the God of Merchants and tossed him unconscious into the internal universe.

An elf appeared at his side, controlling the formation with multicolored runes.

The formation shifted the energies, and soon thousands of divine souls emerged. The deities had been killed, but their souls hadn’t been destroyed—only severely damaged. Without hesitation, the whale placed them all inside his universe as well.

The nine-star tree knew exactly what to do. It would evaluate which ones had been enslaved by the queen and which hadn’t.

The whale turned to the elf: "Have the others already gathered the Wisps?"

"Yes, all on this continent have been rounded up," the elf said, his eyes gleaming.

"Good. It was a perfect raid, and the queen shouldn’t notice until the end. Let’s move to the next continent. We need to act quickly so we can prepare for the final moment."

The whale spoke coldly, but the elf looked confused. "Prepare? We just need to hide them for thirty days, and everything will be fine..."

"No, our goal isn’t just to patch things up and hide. After saving them, we’ll have to deal with that woman. I had to run away once—now I’ll hit her hard enough so she knows exactly who she’s dealing with. This will be my first counterattack."