His punches were accompanied by the sounds of explosions and volcanic eruptions, so what he was saying was defined out. But she could hear him clearly.
Fire and ash filled the spherical world as he pummeled her. He kept beating her back again and again, but these were just superficial wounds because he was relying mostly on his physical strength, not his domain or the power of his mind.
He was only harming her exterior, not the foundation of her existence. He was even taking great care not to kill her too soon.
This is clearly a bad thing to do in a fight with another god. At this rate, he won't be able to kill her soon.
But he didn't want to kill her early. He wanted to beat her up. He wanted her to feel a little regret before she died.
He said to her, "You had the chance. You had the opportunity. You had the whole world to yourself and could have grown your god fire until it became as bright as a star."
Each sentence he spoke was followed by a punch. He used his fist to beat his point home in case she was too stupid to understand.
"Do you know how many gods would have loved to be in your shoes? Do you know how many demigods don't have the luck to attempt the breakthrough to true god whenever they want without any repercussions? You don't because you're stupid and ignorant."
Fire and lava flowed all over the divine life forms besieging him. They were scattered and blown away like candle in the wind. Then his small fist smashed into her arm and cracked into her arm and cracked it.
The force of the punch smashed her against the wall of the blue spherical world. She didn't collide with it as one would do with an ordinary world. Instead, she sank into the blue wall and left the spherical world.
He sank into the wall after her and chased her to the surface of the Lignum world.
Her giant figure suddenly appeared in the world. But he still kept beating her and smashing her to the ground.
She stood back up every time and fought back. But she was just no match for Aganju. He loved every moment of it and continued to push her.
He said, "Look around you. Look at the wreck that your world has become. Look and know that this was all your fault."
"The moment you stopped pursuing strength and became content with your lot, you doomed this world to be ravaged by predators. If you truly cared about this world, you should have let the mortals sacrifice their lives to your godfire."
"No. You shouldn't have let them do that. You should have ordered them to do it. You should have forced them to it."
"But you didn't do that, did you? Instead, you banned blood sacrifice throughout the world. What has that led you to?"
"I'll tell you now. It made you weak. It made you fail your transformation. It led Lignum to its ruins."
"I bet you thought you had nothing to worry about. You probably thought you were the only living beings and the only god in existence. Well, you were wrong."
His words struck her as hard as his fists. But he showed no mercy. He continued to beat her physically and verbal.
"You were wrong about everything. Now you will pay for your hubris and the decision to wallow in mediocrity for the rest of your life."
He said all of this and rubbed in salt in her wounds because he was being petty for wasting his time and because he was jealous of her opportunity.
It is as he said. Not many people have the opportunity that she had. But she squandered it in exchange for peace and prosperity.
She forgot the meaning of life. She forgot that life is all about struggle and competition. Life is overcoming adversity and evolving to become better at surviving.
She forgot about all of these and prioritized peace and prosperity. This decision made her and everyone in the Lignum world mediocre.
Peace and prosperity only breeds mediocrity. It made the inhabitants of the world weak. It made her also weak. It made the whole world prime food for the predators of the deep.
He didn't lie about what he had said. If she had assumed the position of apex predator in the food chain and had done the things that needed to be done to continue growing stronger, then he wouldn't be here to fight her at all.
A true god like him won't be sent to subdue a world with a powerful god king. Instead, they would have sent one of the god kings of the Yggdrasil civilization.
Maybe the likes of Odin and Zeus would have needed to come to subdue the world. Or a very powerful great god would have been sent. That was the kind of potential she wasted. It is the kind of potential he never had.
So he was bitter as he said, "You will die, and the inhabitants of the Lignum world will become slaves for all of eternity. The Gesalt consciousness of your elven race would be shackled forever and ever."
That finally got to her. She roared in anguish and despair, "Nooooooo!"
He drank in her cry of despair and sneered as he said, "Look at the world again and know that this is all your fault."
His mockery didn't go to waste. She truly felt regret.
But beyond that was the question nagging at her mind. "How could I have known that there was someone else out there?"
She didn't know. So she felt that there was no reason to feed on souls. Besides, there was no danger for her in becoming a true god.
As the only god in the Lignum world, she could start the breakthrough and quit anytime with no danger to herself. So she didn't feel any pressure.
Now that things have reached this point, she couldn't help but think that things would have been different had she allowed blood sacrifice or at least the spread of faith.
—
When the two gods started fighting, the whole world came alive and became hostile against the human army. Every animal became irrational and angry at the human soldiers. They rushed at them from every direction in the world.
Every animal and insect knew where the human army was on Lignum even though they had never heard of them, had never seen them, and couldn't see them now. Then they rushed with all their might to get rid of the human army.
The plants were not exempt from this hostility. Trees came to life and began walking in the direction of the human army.
Bugs crawled out of the ground, and fishes began to riot near the shores of the water body they were in because they couldn't go on land to kill the humans.
It was as if the human army was an infestation on the body of a large creature, and it was sending antibodies to get rid of the infection. The whole world had turned against them.
This was worse than the time the elven kings called for soldiers and raised an army. Their calls were only for the intelligent, and it didn't reach everyone.
But this time, even microorganisms began a long trek in the direction of the human army to fight them to the death. Every living thing that could move began a travel while those who couldn't move hitched a ride in their direction.
It was easy to hitch a ride since everyone was going in the same direction.
Kelvin was in formation with the other soldiers when this began. The first thing that happened was that the birds in the sky began dive-bombing them and fighting them.
Wrath said to him, "And so it begins."
Things got worse after that. Moles and earthworms drilled out of the ground to attack them. These were overshadowed by the multitude of ants and insects rushing over to kill them.
Wrath chuckled and said, "This is not going to be pretty."
He said to her, "Stop making jokes. This is a serious matter."
She agreed and said solemnly, "It truly is a serious matter. These living things are forgoing food, water, and their basic survival instincts for a final attack."
"If they win, they will become free from the Yggdrasil for a short time. But if they lose, they would have damaged the vitality of the world and put the ecosystem in chaos for nothing."
"So this is a serious matter. It is a matter of life and death both sides involved."
Kelvin was already taking the situation seriously before. But now that Wrath has let go of her usually frivolous attitude and has become serious too, he couldn't help but become solemn about the situation.
This was the fourth phase. It is the stage in the war that occurs after the human army intrudes into the core of the world and the world retaliates with everything it has to try and flush out the invaders.