Chapter 229: Ch 229 : Infinite Lives

The battlefield was frozen in a moment of stunned silence. The six billion Gods watching through Thea’s broadcast, the 200-plus demigods of Veridia, the 16 allied Gods, and even Adam; all had their senses locked onto a single, impossible event.Edgar had just, with a single blink, bypassed Sunny’s guard and sliced his first clone in two.

The triumphant laughter of the demon god still echoed in the void, a sound of victorious malice.

The Gods of the Pantheon gasped, a collective shockwave of terror. Their Emperor... a part of their Emperor... had just been killed.

But then, as Edgar was still reveling in his kill, his red, circular eyes wide with pleasure, a new portal, identical to the one Sunny had first arrived through, tore open in the void.

From it, a new figure, robed in the same cosmic majesty, masked in the same cosmic mask, stepped out.

It was Clone Number One. Reborn and radiating the exact same power as the one Edgar had just annihilated.

The entire battlefield, the six billion watching Gods, and the laughing demon god all fell into a new baffled silence.

Edgar’s laughter died in his throat, a choked sound of disbelief. He stared at the newly arrived fourth clone, then at the three others who were already reforming their defensive circle, and then back at the new one.

He rubbed his glowing red, circular eyes. He even, in an almost human gesture, pinched his own cheek, showing a gesture of confusion.

"But... I... I killed you," he stammered, his voice no longer a thunderous roar, but a confused whisper.

The reborn Sunny simply took his place in the formation. The four clones then spoke as one, a voice that echoed from all sides, a sound of amusement. "Shocked?"

Edgar’s mind began to race. He had seen Sunny split from one to two, then two to four.

This... this rebirth... was a variable. A thought, a cold and logical conclusion, wormed its way into his consciousness:

’What if he can just keep doing this? What if he can... continue to increase in number?’ If one could become four, then what was stopping him from becoming a hundred? A thousand?

This was Sunny’s goal all along. Using his clones as vessels, and the Soul Splitting to give them true life, and then the Divine Immortality to make them eternal.

This was the ultimate plan. The infinite perpetual machine. Even if one of the four bodies died, the remaining three would stall, defend, and wait for it to revive.

They could do this forever. They would just keep coming back, an endless loop, until Edgar, the monster who fed on stolen power, finally ran out of fuel.

"I... I need to think of something quick," Edgar muttered to himself, his red, circular eyes darting between the four identical, colossal figures of Sunny. "This God... he is strange."

He looked around, his gaze sweeping past the Gods, past the battlefield. He was searching, desperately, for any weakness he could find, anything he could exploit.

And then, his eyes stopped.

He saw Adam. He saw the sixteen allied Gods, their forms nervously watching from a distance, inside the protection of the barrier.

He began to smile, his crooked, red-lined mouth twisting into a cunning grin.

’Found it.’

He walked. He strode past Sunny’s clones, his movements casual, as if he were taking a stroll.

The four Sunny’s tensed, their combined consciousness, their God’s Eye and Intuition, all screaming.

They were ready. They were waiting for the blink.

Edgar blinked.

The four clones snapped into a defensive stance, anticipating an attack from behind, from above, from within.

But Edgar wasn’t there.

He had reappeared fifty thousand kilometers away, his colossal form standing directly in front of the barrier of the God’s Domain. He had ignored the immortal bodies of Sunny and gone straight for the castle wall, to take away the throne.

His scythe-like hands, shimmering with a dark energy; an SSS-Grade power he had absorbed from some long-dead, forgotten victim, slashed down.

SKRAAAAA-BOOOOM!

The sound was a shriek that tore through the minds of every God. The barrier, the wall that had repelled the Void Beast was hit once again.

But it still didn’t break, but Sunny felt a drain, fifty trillion faith points drain in a single instant.

"NO!" Sunny roared, his four voices a chorus of panic. His clones, his souls, his own immortality; it all meant nothing if the barrier fell.

He poured his own power into his clones, and in a blur of spatial-warping, all four of his colossal forms appeared in front of Edgar, a living wall between the demon and their home.

But Edgar had seen Sunny’s weakness, he just laughed like a maniac.

"You know my weakness, little bug?" Edgar’s voice was a arrogant whisper to Sunny’s soul "So do I know yours."

He knew Sunny couldn’t attack him. But he also knew Sunny had to defend. As he had found his hostage.

It was the billions of souls cowering behind that invisible wall.

Edgar raised his scythes and attacked the barrier again. But this time, two of Sunny’s clones, their forms radiating a light, likely from a buff that made their skin tough, appeared in the path of the blow. They couldn’t attack him, but they could intercept his attacks, atleast.

CLAAAAANG!

The sound of Edgar’s scythe striking down the flesh of Sunny echoed in the void.

The scythes, which had been aimed at the barrier, slammed into one of the clone’s chests.

A splutter of blood erupted. The clone was hurled backward, it’s cosmic robes torn, it’s forms deeply wounded, but the barrier, behind it, was safe.

"See? How weak you are," Edgar sneered, his red smile a mask of sadistic joy.

"You can’t attack me. You can only take my beating. And I can just leave anytime I desire... and return anytime I want... i will beat you everytime I want, but... you can’t do anything."

He raised his scythes for anothet slash, an attack aimed at the barrier just behind the clones, a blow they would be forced to take with their entire bodies.

The four clones of Sunny didn’t hesitate. They moved as one. They stood, side-by-side, shoulder-to-shoulder, a final wall between the demon and their home. They raised their hands to receive this attack.

The scythes descended.