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Chapter 482: Faith

Are you certain that we will be enough for this? Jonas asked mentally as he rose into the air with Tsubaki. Alongside him was an unfamiliar man whose entire body seemed to be made of smooth, blue crystal.

The Keeper has assured me that our powers alone will be sufficient for this task. The kitsune nodded her head. Their mission this time had a far grander scale than anything that anyone had ever done before. They were to destroy a meteor the size of Desbar’s moon to prevent the total destruction of Earth.

Naturally, since the meteor had been discovered by a mortal organization, the news had quickly spread. A news announcement was made almost immediately after the report had been filed to Rin’s superiors. They wanted to convince everyone to seek immediate shelter, as only a divine intervention would be able to truly restore the planet’s surface if the meteor were to hit.

At first, they wished to issue an evacuation order, but… how would they be able to evacuate everyone? There was only the single gate leading to a different world. With an activation time of twenty seconds, and a maximum of one hundred people cramming together on the ring… They wouldn’t be able to save even a single percent of the world’s population.

Instead, people were given the only hope they could pray for. Tsubaki had contacted the media to inform her that the mortal gods were making a move. She, along with the two other ascended mortals, would be personally going to destroy the meteor.

This news spread like wildfire. Very soon, these three began to feel something that had previously belonged only to the true gods of the higher realm. With not only the people of Earth, but also the other worlds praying for their success, the divinities of billions of people became linked. Their strengths surged together into the three mortal gods, drastically boosting their divine power.

Although gods were capable of recovering their divine energy naturally on their own, and even strengthening it through training, both of these things could be enhanced by the sincere worship of a large number of beings. Tsubaki’s light had been growing brighter and brighter since the announcement had been made, forcing her to suppress it more sharply. Jonas felt as if his community had expanded hundreds of times over, as those who worshipped him had added themselves into his domain.

As for Tower, it was hard to read his expression, but he had noticed the change as well. It was particularly strong for him, who had never received a proper worshipper before. If the Keeper believes that this is within our power, let us have faith in him.

Jonas offered a small nod as the three of them left the planet’s atmosphere. Once in the void of space, Tsubaki wrapped her light around them, causing their speed to drastically increase. Within moments, they had stopped, able to see the massive meteor. Its size was truly enough to cause alarm, like a jagged stone being thrown through the air. Tsubaki had stopped them all a fair distance away, roughly two thousand kilometers away.

At this range, they were just barely feeling the pull of the meteor’s gravity, and its size completely encompassed their vision. Remember, no mana-based abilities. Tsubaki reminded, slowly extending her hands out to the side. Behind her, light began to pour in, forming a miniature sun.

I remember. Jonas nodded, clapping his hands together silently. Countless forms began to spread out behind him, phantoms summoned quickly enough to appear as a golden cloud. This army seemed to stretch out in every direction, the numbers reaching the hundreds, thousands, soon even the millions.

Meanwhile, Tower stared at the meteor. I require an evolved Disaster. He muttered, a black circle ripping open the space next to him, before it began to grow larger and larger.

“Don’t worry, Dale.” Terra smiled confidently as she set another card on the table. “Now that the three of them had been boosted by the faith of your worlds, let alone a meteor like this… they temporarily have the power to destroy an entire planet on their own.”

I flinched a bit at that, glancing towards Terra. “Temporarily?” I had long since known that the power to destroy worlds was something that was possible within the second tier. I just didn’t expect that I would come across it so soon.

“That’s right. Destroying a planet is actually not that hard for people at our level. At the end of the day, it is just a mass of rock that needs to be broken. Unless the planet itself is enhanced, or it is in fact the disguised avatar of an energy being.” She spoke as if answering my true thoughts, before moving on to what I had actually asked.

“Regardless, yes. Once the faith they are receiving wanes, their powers will fall back down. Originally, at least one of them would have needed to burn their divinity to take down this meteor. Now, it’s just a matter of them realizing their own power.”

I gave a small nod, focusing my mental gaze on the scene. Jonas was summoning every monk and druid from within his community. Tsubaki was creating a massive ball of destructive light, the likes of which you would normally only see in an anime. And Towers was creating… something. It was something big, that much I could say for sure, but until it stepped through the gate he was creating I wouldn’t be able to tell exactly what it was.

As I thought that, there was movement within Towers’ gate, which had grown to be over a hundred kilometers in diameter. A dark form was poking through the gate, showing bright white scales. It… took me a moment to process the fact that the gate had been summoned only for the mouth of a creature to stick through, but that seemed to be the case.

Massive jaws stretched from the top of the black field to the bottom, a bright light gathering in its mouth. Sharp fangs, each ten kilometers long on their own, rose from the jaws. When enough of the head had been exposed to show the slitted eyes, I knew that Towers was calling on the power of a draconic monster.

“Due to the warning of the Keeper’s Servant, Tsubaki, we are unable to show a projected model of this battle.” The news anchor said in a regretful tone, appearing within the homes of countless individuals. “However, we have turned some of our optical scopes towards the sight of the battle, so we are able to catch some images.”

After saying that, a large screen appeared beside the news anchor, showing the meteor. Zooming in, the image showed a bright light, as well as what looked like an army standing before the approaching disaster. “Please note that these scenes will be a few seconds behind the actual events, due to the sheer distance involved. As you can see, they have already started to make their moves.”

“Everyone at home, please… pray for their success.” After saying that, the news anchor went silent, and the scene of the battle expanded to cover the entire screen.

Tsubaki had initially been surprised to find how easy it was to amass her light sphere, which was now expanding above her head. Having experimented with it in the past, she had found that a sphere with a diameter of ten meters was her previous limit. This was a sphere where the light and heat was condensed so greatly that most matter would vaporize upon contact. When she had created it within Earth’s atmosphere, it had created a fireball due to scorching the air.

Now, she held such a sphere above her head that was over a hundred meters in diameter, and felt as if she could continue to let it grow further. However, she knew that she did not have time for such a thing. Although she had adjusted their momentum to be moving away from the meteor as it approached, it was still drawing closer, pulling them with its gravitational field.

Okay, you two. Let’s do this. She communicated mentally to them, before waving her hand forward to cause the sphere of light to descend on the flying space rock.

At the same time, the monster that Towers summoned had opened its mouth wide, jaws distending. It fired a beam of concentrated light from its mouth, not at the meteor, but at the ball that Tsubaki herself had just thrown. When the beam hit the glowing sphere, it seemed to be absorbed into it which caused the sphere to grow even larger as it traveled.

At the same time, Jonas’s eyes shot open. The combined ki of every monk he had summoned was pouring into his body at once, and he tightened up his fist. His entire arm seemed to radiate a brilliant, earthen glow which spread up above him like steam.

As the sphere of light crashed into the surface of the meteor, smoke and debris scattered. The meteor itself seemed to tremble under the force of the crash, and the ball of light which continued to dig down beneath the surface.

Seeing that, Jonas pulled back his arm. The glowing ‘steam’ that had been escaping his arm was pulled back to form a thin film along his skin. His lips moved, but no words were heard in the emptiness of space as he thrust his closed fist forward.

A thin beam of light shot out from Jonas’s arm, piercing directly through the ball of light that Tsubaki had created. Barely a second later, the same beam could be seen exiting the far side of the meteor, leaving a fist-sized hole that penetrated it in its entirety. However, that wasn’t all.

After being pierced through by that beam, the ball of light trembled violently before erupting. The shockwave caused the three mortal gods to be thrown back several meters, even as they were fighting to maintain their positions. The damage to the meteor itself, on the other hand, was far more extreme.

Thick cracks spread out along the meteor, each one releasing a towering mountain of dust and rock. At the point of impact, a wide crater could be seen, its edges smooth and molten. When the cracks had spread to cover the entire surface of the meteor, Tsubaki noticed large chunks that began to break off. It’s not holding its shape anymore. We should be able to deal with the largest fragments, with the rest being safe to let through.

Jonas nodded his head, calling on the druids that he had summoned. With so many working together to control the forces of nature, the rocks spread apart faster and faster, their speed also slowing to provide more time for the gods to act.

“As you can see, the initial attack by the ascended have caused great destruction to the meteor!” The news anchor called out in an excited voice. The hope that he was feeling seemed to project out from the screens, ‘infecting’ those who saw the scene. “Maybe they really can prevent this disaster…”

“Scholars have determined that any meteoroid entering the atmosphere in excess of a hundred meters diameter would be enough to cause significant damage on a national scale. Depending on the density of the meteor, any pieces smaller than that will cause more minor damage, or potentially explode within the atmosphere.”

“We are working in conjunction with the Astrological Research Foundation of Accal, also known as ARF, to constantly update the danger zones. When the ascended pull back, these zones will become more stable. Those that have the ability to erect public defenses are urged to do so, while others are asked to remain in the nearest underground shelter available.”

As the anchor said that, the scene showed the rocks seeming to stop in front of the three ascended mortals. These rocks then continued to break down further and further, becoming smaller with every passing breath. Druids were not particularly renowned for their combat ability, but when it came to terrain manipulation, there was nobody better.