Story by: Rhenhwa.
Virtual God's Online
Chapter 9: "Verdant Eclipse."
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, organizations, and settings depicted are entirely fictional and created for storytelling purposes.
***
For everyone who watched, all saw it. They marveled.
It wasn't the way he split the star in two, or the way he annihilated his enemies, that captivated them.
Rather, it was the unraveling.
– [The heck is what that attack, the virtual space inverted!]
– [Akasha is trying to adjust the colors but you can definitely see even Akasha is having a hard time.]
– [Stop overreacting, it's effect is only centered around the star.. nothing more.]
– [Get a load of this guy. Talking like he's pulled that kind of thing off himself.]
– [That guy… he isn't an Eathern-ranked deity, is he?]
– [No way.]
– [The commenter above clearly doesn't know what they're talking about.]
One after another, stunned spectators flooded the live feed with their comments.
The attention of multiple high-ranking deities had been caught—no, snatched.
All because of one move.
Now, the name was being spoken more and more:
That one Eathern deity—nicknamed Blackstar.
And with that strike, he had undeniably earned it.
"Hahaha! Besides us, never have I seen someone punish the perfect Akasha like this."
Susanoo laughed, meanwhile Amaterasu paled. It felt like she was dealing with another Ageha.
Ageha, on the other hand, had been completely taken by that attack.
Others may not have seen it, but she did. Twinkling white lights surrounded him.
And those white stardust that still lingered slowed Akasha's reconstruction speed.
'Authority of the Blackstar, like your name. Is that your authority?'
There, inside her empty body, the core of her being, she felt it thump with excitement.
It wasn't only her,
At that moment, after Susanoo laughed, he calmed down, his eyes glowing blue as he stared at the screen, arms folded.
HYUN-!
Around them, the digital space churned. It trembled faintly. He hadn't meant to release his Virtual Force.
It had simply… leaked out—from excitement too strong to suppress.
"Ageha."
In contrast to his excitement, which didn't bother both Supreme Goddesses in the room in the slightest, he called out to her.
"That guy… he's mine first. You don't mind, do you?"
Like him, her lips slowly curled into a smile.
The unkind one, the one that seemed to say, "Break him," in several divine tongues.
"Go ahead then, muscle-brain."
Their banter was dangerous; they spoke in that manner, much to Amaterasu's exasperation.
However, even she could not stop them at this point.
'Yes. Truly like her in that aspect.'
Much like the world below, in the virtual world, it is not surprising for a deity to have opposites sides.
Creation, destruction.
Light, darkness.
Duality was a core concept, and for Ageha, it was no different.
However, one of these two could perfectly exist without the other, just as, several simulated millennia after her, Alcor came into being.
Data layers unfolded, and the simulated space began to reconstruct once more.
The star that once existed, the Desert Star, had been cleanly split in two, and Alcor had been forcibly ejected from space.
"Now then… do I get eliminated for being out of bounds, or…?"
『Nay. Since the cause of the deity's ejection is due to the elimination of the battle space, according to Akasha's current rules, this does not count as an out-of-bounds violation.』
『Restructuring of the rules will be reconsidered after the match ends.』
"Oh? That's great news, does that mean I can do the same for other stars too…"
Alcor said excitedly, staring at the blurry panel that appeared in front of him while he mumbled to them.
However,
In response to his words.
『...Hngh!』
Akasha visibly reacted. It wasn't written, but he could feel it—he'd just triggered a level of disdain.
"Alright, alright. I won't wipe out the (remaining battlespaces) other stars."
Eventually, he raised his hands in surrender.
Maybe he got away with this just because no deity had ever done something like it before.
'Which means… either Akasha's rules are incredibly strict—or no deity's ever tried breaking them in this way.'
It had to be one of the two.
Thinking of that, Alcor blinked.
From a distance, where the severed star hung below, among other stars, a golden ball of light levitated toward him.
KIN—!
He stared at it momentarily before shifting his gaze behind him, towards the world tree that towered beyond the void.
"Qualifications, huh?"
Clenching his hands, storing the key into his virtual space, he looked toward his next destination.
[Location: Forest Plain]
"There."
With a smile brimming with excitement, he flew toward the green-hued star in the distance.
Meanwhile,
While that happened, a little earlier when Alcor originally split the Desert Star in half.
"That…?"
"…No doubt about it. That's Blackstar."
"We're the closest. Let's hurry and finish here."
~The Open Temple — Saharahdarha~
Four ancient pillars atop a raised platform of weathered stone.
Vines curled around the cracked structure, giving it the aura of something long abandoned.
And there stood a lone figure, a female deity cloaked in shadow.
Her entire body looked as though someone had turned down its contrast, dimmed to near nothing.
In her hand, she held a long staff, pointing it toward them.
"How troublesome…"
"Yeah… that one is—"
Ranking among the top hundred High-Class Deities, she was a deity of the Verdant Archetype.
Name: Narberal.
In front of her stood five distinct deities, each wielding different Authorities.
Yet despite their numbers…
…they weren't confident of victory—even if what stood before them was merely a simulation of the original.
DUM—! DUM—!
A moment of tension pressed between them.
Then—
"Spread out."
They moved.
Clad in Virtual Force, the five scattered, striking from every direction. Each blow infused with their unique Authorities, their momentum sharpened by the intent to overwhelm her.
As they neared—
BAAAAM—THUD!
A dull, heavy impact rang out. Their advance halted.
Frozen mid-strike, each of them stared—disbelieving.
"…No effect?"
Law of Virtual Force.
Even something like Virtual Force abided by its own internal laws—not laws that bound it, but laws that defined how it functioned.
And among them:
Only an equal or greater force could cancel or overpower another.
This was a textbook example.
["Even if my power is weakened here, it's still more than enough."]
She spoke calmly, tapping her staff against the ground.
RUMBLE—!
The star beneath them shook, trembling as if bowing before her authority. From this moment, this star was hers.
"—She's taken control…!"
"Watch out!"
CRACK—!
THUD—!
The ground ruptured as vines shot forth, thick, whiplike tendrils, and massive tree trunks bending with unnatural agility.
And these weren't ordinary vines.
They were vessels of Force, designed to suppress any power weaker than their own.
But that wasn't all.
Some of them carried traces of entropy-based abilities, abilities capable of mimicking instant death upon contact.
It wasn't truly instant death per say, but she could accelerate diseases, decay, rot, and other entropy-based abilities.
She could induce a type of instant death in her opponent.
"Dodge!"
"If it's impossible, let's abandon the star and regroup with the others…!"
They darted between the vines, weaving through the forest for cover.
Trunks erupted from the ground, forcing them into the air.
But the flight came with limits.
Some games like this restricted altitude; they couldn't go higher than a fixed range.
And soon, they realized—dodging was pointless.
The only real option was retreat.
However—
["I will not let you go. ARGRRO."]
Yes—among the deities, there were those capable of such feats.
Instead of simply coating themselves in Virtual Force, they expanded it, creating a domain-based Force, a metaphysical field that trapped targets within.
There were various applications of domain Force, but this was the most common.
Among its traits was: Overriding the authority of another deity. Or as known as, giving yourself the advantage.
"Damn it—teleportation is sealed!"
One of them shouted.
"And the sky's locked off too!"
Originally, they had been more than a hundred tekel away from her—still near the abandoned temple.
Yet her reach extended all the way here.
Having taken control of the entire star, this was indeed normal.
She could have taken control of other stars, but she was strictly following the instructions she had been given.
["Be crushed."]
Narberal spoke calmly, tapping the ground with her staff again.
In response, the vines across a hundred tekels and beyond began to constrict, coiling with lethal force.
This should have been the end of it.
Or so it seemed—
["A new deity."]
Narberal's dimmed silhouette looked upward at the virtual blue skies. A black star was approaching rapidly.
Frighteningly fast.
["....Matters not."]
He was still distant, lingering in the stratosphere. But she moved anyway, tapping her staff once more on the ground..
From the trembling ground, new vines surged upward, towering toward the sky to meet him.
Black met green in a violent clash of Force that sent tremendous shockwaves that echoed around.
BOOM—!
It was only followed by, a deafening explosion that echoed across the forested star.
Below, Narberal narrowed her eyes.
He was still coming. Flying straight through the blast, almost unfazed.
And then, she smiled.
["Interesting."]
The shadow murmured, and then it happened. Her staff snapped in half with a sudden motion.
Arms spread wide, a terrifying wave of green burst from her body, surging upward in a spiral of violent wind.
Logic warped.
Vines, formed mid-air, glowing with a greenish-yellow hue, lashed forward like whips to bind, restrict, block, or swat him from the sky.
Yet—
He slashed. Cut. Dodged.
Jumped from vine to vine, even used some to propel himself forward with pinpoint precision.
And then—
THUD!
The ground cracked, splintered beneath his landing. He was right in front of her now.
Weapon in hand—a four-pointed star. He swung it straight toward her.
CLANK—!
The sound of steel striking something unyielding rang out.
Followed by something else. A crack which was then followed by a fracture.
Finally then, a clean break.
The weapon's tip fell, broken, [Starbringer] had shattered.
His eyes widened.
Reacting fast, he flipped midair and drove a kick forward—striking her Barrier Force.
Narberal slid back from the impact, unhurt but pushed.
"…That's strange," he muttered, eyeing the broken weapon in his grip.
["So, you came here first… Blackstar."]