CHAPTER 339: CHAPTER339-THE MISERABLE APOLLO

Daniel’s plan was deceptively simple.All he wanted was to launch a wave of spiritual assault. If the attack could shake Apollo’s will, then it would be an unexpected bonus.

What he never anticipated was how devastatingly effective a few casual words could be. That single, almost off-hand remark struck straight into Apollo’s deepest insecurity, breaking through the blazing god’s mental defenses completely.

"Impossible! Absolutely impossible!"The sun god’s furious voice reverberated through the abyss, wild and unstable."The glorious Goddess of Gold & Silver, Lady Aurelia, would never abandon me!""You do not understand, human—you cannot begin to comprehend how important I am, how indispensable my position is in Her divine host!"

His voice cracked like a storm tearing through the void.

"I will tell you plainly: I am Aurelia’s most faithful disciple! The most devout of all Her followers! I would give everything—my body, my life, even my core—for Her sake!""You must be lying. Yes—that must be it. You are spinning lies to poison my spirit!""You believe you can weaken me with such cheap tricks? Fool! I saw through your schemes long ago. My faith in Lady Aurelia cannot be shaken by your tricks, no matter how venomous."

His laughter turned shrill, almost desperate."Ignorant human, you understand nothing! Nothing at all!""The great Aurelia would never forsake me—never! Such a thing will never happen!"

Though Apollo’s voice overflowed with defiance and his words rang with conviction, Daniel’s Psychic Perception pierced deeper than any spoken oath. He looked directly into the blazing giant’s essence and saw, beyond the fury and denial, a pit of dread.

Yes, beneath all his shouting and bravado, Apollo was terrified—haunted by the very possibility that Aurelia had already discarded him.

Daniel said nothing more. He didn’t need to. The truth was already gnawing Apollo apart from within.

And indeed, new fissures tore open across the surface of the sun. Every crack was another confession of weakness.

The once proud star, radiant and invincible, was reduced to a pitiful spectacle. The smooth surface that once blazed with godly fire was now fragmented, lined with fractures like broken glass. The divine fire sputtered as hideous Filth of God oozed across his body, crawling like rancid sewage over molten skin, running unchecked through every wound.

His gravity faltered. Once, his pull was so absolute that not even light could resist him; now it was too weak to contain the corruption spilling forth. Streams of black sludge cascaded away from him like waterfalls, pouring into the abyss below.

From a shadowed corner, the Abyssal Emperor Malkar trembled like a child. The sovereign of countless horrors, the devourer of worlds, was reduced to silence, afraid even to breathe. His lungs locked tight, lest the sound of his breathing attract Apollo’s collapsing wrath and snuff out his existence in an instant.

This battle... this battle had already surpassed the boundaries of his imagination.He could not comprehend how these humans had accomplished the impossible—how they had taken the blazing Sun Apollo and driven him into this pitiful ruin.

Milla advanced closer to the sun’s tortured form, her presence a sharp contrast—calm, elegant, merciless.

"Apollo," she spoke gently, though her words struck harder than blades, "I regret to say that Daniel was right. Aurelia has already abandoned you."

Her mind power resonated through the abyss, carrying her words directly into the battered sun’s consciousness.

"To Aurelia, everything is nothing more than a tool to further her ambitions. You, too, are a tool. Surely, Apollo, you know this truth better than I.""You have been discarded. Can you not feel it? Why lie to yourself? Do you truly wish to die still blind to the truth?"

The words slashed open wounds deeper than any ice or magma.

Apollo’s face twisted into a mask of madness.

"No! Milla, you are wrong! You must be wrong!""How could Aurelia abandon me? That is impossible! Impossible!!"

He thrashed, struggling with renewed desperation, but Daniel’s absolute control made every effort useless. Shackles of stellar law bound him inescapably; his fury could only expend itself in futility.

Meanwhile, Dark Star Jarvan drank greedily from the sun’s essence. Apollo’s radiant body, once an inexhaustible font of life and light, began collapsing under the relentless drain. His every defense, once formidable enough to scorch gods themselves, now broke uselessly against Daniel’s suppression.

The invincible sun had been pushed to the precipice of death.

And all across the abyss, creatures cowered in unspeakable dread. The terror that blanketed them defied words. They knew they were witnessing the downfall of a god.

Far away, on the Continent of Myriad Races, countless demigod-ranked beings gathered at the rim of the abyss. Their eyes turned as one toward the battlefield below.

They had already realized that the Sun Apollo himself had fallen into the abyss.

To them, the abyss was not an insurmountable prison. For a demigod, entering and leaving the abyss was no more difficult than crossing a river. And yet they rarely dared. Now, compelled by awe and horror, they hovered at its edge, transfixed by the clash within.

They had seen it—the fall of the sun with their own eyes. And more, they had sensed something far greater than Apollo. They had felt the aura of a god stirring from within.

Thus no one dared look away. The weight of this battle held their attention as if chained by fate itself.

Then, as the world’s gaze fixed upon Apollo’s ruin, one demigod extended his hand and caught a dripping mass of black, viscous sludge that had fallen from above. He frowned and asked aloud:

"What is this substance? What do you think it is?"

Another shook his head. "I do not know. It seems to have flowed directly from Apollo’s body..."

But before the words faded, a third demigod stiffened, his senses reaching into the tar-like substance. A terrible realization struck him. His face blanched in horror.

"Damnation itself! Curse it all! Throw it away—throw it away at once!"

But the warning came too late.

The one who held the Filth of God in his hands stiffened. His pupils bled into inky blackness. And in the next instant, to the horror of every witness, he raised his hand—and devoured the substance whole.

"Are you mad?!" his companions screamed."You fool, do you even understand what you’ve done?!"

But the corrupted demigod only laughed. A sound both mad and triumphant.

"Hahaha! So this is the true nature of the world! At last, I see it!"

His grin widened unnaturally, his eyes like pits of shadow.

"My friend," he crooned to those beside him, "why do you stare at me with such eyes? Have I changed? Or perhaps... is it that you also wish to become my food?"

At that moment, the Time Stream surged.

Before the corruption could spread further, Daniel himself appeared among them, stepping through the current of frozen time. His arrival was instantaneous, his presence domineering.

He unleashed his power. Divine Ice sealed the world, freezing everything in the vicinity—the demigods, the corrupted one, even the air itself. All were bound in stillness.

And yet Daniel frowned. For the Filth of God, even under this supreme freezing, flowed on unhindered, slithering to its own rhythm, as though it belonged to no law of this reality.

That alone made him wary.

After a brief thought, Daniel reached into his dimensional pack and drew forth a Plane Core. The artifact flared with raw cosmic energy.

With its power, he tore open a vast void, creating a hollow half-plane before him.

He would not touch the Filth directly. Instead, he allowed the corrupt sludge to fall freely into the prison he had conjured, letting the half-plane swallow the pollution whole.

At the same time, his mind power expanded across both the abyss and the Continent of Myriad Races, his voice thundering within every consciousness.

"These things are terrifying. If you touch them, your lives will be forfeit. Do not say I did not warn you."

"Once polluted, there will be no resurrection."

His decree rang with finality.