"Hahahahaha!"
His laughter was so arrogant.
That down below, Aaliyah, Luna, and others battling a few partially materialized captains looked up uneasily.
Soon, they discovered Gauss "locked" in mid-air.
"How could this be?"
Aaliyah’s pupils contracted rapidly.
The situation in the sky seemed clear—Gauss was trapped by an inexplicable force, while the orchestrator, Fisher, came and went as he pleased.
"I must help Gauss!"
Aaliyah was somewhat anxious.
Though her level wasn’t very high, the gradually awakening elven blood within her and the noble yet extremely faint Moon God’s power could still help her suppress those evil forces.
"Be careful."
With a word of caution, Albena had no time to look at the now transfigured Aaliyah, who had turned into a falcon. She merely swung her giant axe to force back Aaliyah’s original opponent.
"Let’s go together, you two!"
...
In the sky, Fisher, feeling that everything was settled, was not in a hurry to take the next step, or rather, he needed the Beast Punishment to continue destroying the power within Gauss. Otherwise, he dared not approach carelessly, fearing that Gauss might have some means to retaliate against him.
So he merely kept his distance, silently admiring the beast-shaped shackles layered over Gauss’s body—visible only to him—pressing down like a mountain on Gauss.
It was a scene far more impressive than the time with Wolf, like a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.
"What have you done to Gauss?"
Aaliyah, transformed into a falcon, approached Gauss and injected her energy into him, but unfortunately, she didn’t feel any change.
Her strength seemed insufficient to help Gauss out of his predicament.
"Beast Punishment."
"This is the highest divine art bestowed by the gods; just give up."
"No adventurer can escape the judgment of this divine art."
"Under the effect of this invincible divine art, the grievances, unwillingness, and pain of the monsters he once personally killed erupt as a curse."
"I heard your leader really enjoys slaughtering monsters, right?"
"The more he kills, the harder it is to escape the divine art."
"This is the weight of life!"
"His body might explode like a balloon, puff."
Fisher was unwilling to approach Gauss, fearing that the restrained power in Gauss’s body would also explode at the complete breakout of the Beast Punishment, watching Aaliyah’s futile efforts, he generously explained.
After all, everyone present would be killed by him.
Wolf lost his ability to resist under the effect of this move, but unfortunately, this divine art requires consuming divine power; the stronger the effect of the Beast Punishment, the more divine power it consumes.
Otherwise, he might have chosen a stronger target to attack.
However, after killing Gauss, he would surely gain even greater power.
As he was lost in imagining what immense power the gods would reward him with, his eyes suddenly stared wide at Gauss, as if he had seen a ghost.
"How... how is this possible?"
He detected the omnipotent divine power within him was rapidly depleting.
If that were the case, he could understand it as the impending complete explosion of Beast Punishment within Gauss. But what unsettled him was that the shackles entwined around Gauss were accelerating their collapse.
"No! This is the power of divine art!"
He had heard that Gauss had killed a large number of monsters in the past two years, probably tens of thousands.
Before setting out in Farlim, he even asked someone to confirm this was likely true.
Gauss usually very much enjoyed taking on numerous low-level commissions or attacking nests with a large number of monsters.
In his mind, this was a slaying technique specifically chosen and bestowed by the gods to be used against Gauss, meant to annihilate Gauss with ease.
"You seem quite surprised?"
At some point, Gauss had regained his senses, opened his eyes, and looked at Fisher with a face full of terror.
As he moved his limbs, the invisible shackles shattered completely.
The curse explosion just now indeed came with great momentum.
However, the real effect wasn’t as strong as Fisher imagined. The grievances and other negative emotions surrounding him were incredibly intense, forming a shackle that momentarily restricted his body, but they hesitated to act against him as if fearing him like a god.
When he realized this, those seemingly fierce grievances evaporated like spirits exposed to Holy Light.
Of course, this was extremely reasonable.
When alive, they couldn’t pose a threat to this monster slayer; how much of an uproar could the will of the dead possibly cause?
If the many grievances belonging to goblins and kobolds could act on their own, they’d probably avoid him at all costs.