162: True Name Unleashed! This body is the Holy Grail, devouring all things!

Gurgle... Countless pale arms stretched out from that shadow swamp, wailing and struggling as they clawed desperately at Arjuna in the air.

Arjuna’s expression was indifferent. The shattered divine ring behind him spun at high speed, and black divine fire fell like raindrops, incinerating every arm reaching for him into ash.

But in the instant he was distracted by these "weeds"...

A bolt of red lightning tore through the rain of black fire.

Too fast.

So fast that even Arjuna, who possessed [Clairvoyance (Transcendence) EX], only caught a glimpse of an afterimage.

"I’ve caught you, God."

It was a voice full of mockery and tyranny, ringing directly in his ear.

Arjuna's pupils constricted violently, and he instinctively tried to teleport.

Too late.

Puchi—!!!

A pale hand—not clenched into a fist, but with five fingers pressed together like a blade—plunged into Arjuna's chest with unrivaled kinetic energy and piercing power.

That was the location of the heart.

And the location of the Divine Core.

Time seemed to freeze at this moment.

The bat wings behind Dracula spread out dozens of meters wide, enveloping Arjuna entirely in a massive shadow.

His long, pale hair danced wildly in the turbulent magical current, and a cruel, hideous grin hung on the corners of his mouth.

"Your blood... what does it taste like?"

Pu!

Dracula didn't hesitate for a moment, not even giving Arjuna a chance to counterattack. The palm thrust into the chest suddenly clenched, then violently ripped outward!

Kacha!

It was the sound of some hard crystal shattering.

Arjuna's body trembled violently.

In those eyes that were originally as cold as ice, true astonishment appeared for the first time.

In the hollow of his chest, wrapped in black fire, the Divine Core had already been forcibly crushed halfway.

Hu—

The black flames counterattacked frantically, and the near-immortal regenerative ability of [Soul Lamp] activated instantly.

Countless black sprouts of flesh tried to wrap around Dracula's arm, attempting to devour and assimilate it.

But this time, the regeneration was hindered.

Zzzt... On Dracula's arm, dark red magical energy clung like maggots on a bone, biting tenaciously into the divine cells trying to heal.

It was a curse from legend—[Life Reaping] and [Divine Pollution].

If I can't kill you, then I'll turn you into a monster just like me.

"Get away!!!"

Arjuna finally lost his lofty composure.

He let out an angry roar, and the massive divine power within him erupted indiscriminately, turning into a black shockwave that violently blasted away the Dracula who was fighting him in close quarters.

But the large hole in his chest did not heal instantly as it had before.

Black flames flickered at the edge of the wound, mixed with a glaring blood-red color; the healing speed was visibly slow.

"Is this... pain?"

Arjuna clutched his chest and staggered back two steps.

A hundred meters away, Dracula flipped elegantly in the air and landed.

He licked the black divine blood staining his fingers, a look of intoxication and madness appearing on his face.

"Don't be in such a hurry, O lofty God."

Swish! Swish! Swish!

Dracula's figure blurred again, instantly splitting into hundreds of blood-red afterimages, surrounding Arjuna completely.

"The banquet... has only just begun."

As each afterimage swept past, a cluster of shrill sparks would spray from Arjuna's body. His divine skin was torn, and before the black blood could even hit the ground, it was greedily sucked dry by the blood-red thorns in the domain.

In the center of the battlefield, Arjuna, who had been passively taking a beating, suddenly stopped moving.

In the midst of Dracula's frenzied attacks, his pupils, as black as the abyss, abruptly lost all color.

Like a high-speed spinning palette that, after mixing all colors, finally settled into a suffocating—pure white.

Buzz—

An indescribable sense of vibration erupted from the core of Arjuna's saint graph.

Dracula's afterimages instantly merged back into one.

The pale tyrant stood a hundred meters away, his massive blood-red bat wings wrapping tightly around himself. For the first time, a look of extremely solemn wariness flickered in his crimson eyes.

He sensed it.

A deeper, heavier, and more unspeakable terrifying power was awakening.

The remnants and wails of the thousands of Indian gods devoured by Arjuna had finally found an outlet at the edge of his shattered Divine Core.

Arjuna was no longer a god.

He ignited himself, turning into an abscess that carried the sins of an entire continent and an entire era.

"Since this world is beyond redemption..."

Arjuna slowly spread his arms. His body twisted and swelled within the black light and shadow, and beneath his skin, it seemed as if countless venomous snakes were slithering frantically.

Every rune that emerged represented a curse abandoned by the era.

His voice was no longer grand but became sharp and piercing, layered with the wails of men, women, old, and young, exploding directly in the minds of all humanity:

"Mother Ganga, please have mercy on this filthy son."

As this prayer was uttered, the space of the Mirror World began to emit an overburdened wail.

"With the Bow of Heaven’s Grant as the cup's rim and the shattered divine ring as the cup's base, all seen by this eye shall be considered evil karma."

Arjuna looked up, his pure white eyes devoid of even a trace of humanity.

"Come, let all sins become a flow, let all evils become an abyss—"

"My body is the Greater Holy Grail. Mother, please drink deep of my venom!"

[True Name Release: This Body is the Greater Holy Grail · Mother, Please Drink Deep of My Venom]

Rumble—!!!

The entire Indian subcontinent of the Mirror World seemed to let out a wail at this moment.

A massive black singularity, a thousand meters in diameter, collapsed silently behind Arjuna.

The live broadcast screen in the outside world distorted instantly.

People saw New Delhi in the Mirror World instantly enveloped by a blood-colored "filter".

The sky was no longer a murky yellow but a dark red as viscous as blood.

The glass on the ground was liquefying, roaring.

In the center of that terrifying singularity, a surging river composed of black pus-blood and forest-white bones, like a dying black python, defied the laws of gravity and came crashing down from the singularity in the sky!

“Crash—”

This was not the clear sound of rushing water, but the low-pitched roar of hundreds of millions of curses rubbing and squeezing against each other.

It was a strong acid capable of corroding even space itself.

Wherever the black Ganges River passed, the rules of the physical world were forcibly rewritten.

The [Swamp of Blood] beneath Vlad III's feet, which had been expanding frantically just a moment ago, was like boiling oil poured into snow the moment it touched the black water.

Zzzt... Zzzt...

The tooth-aching sound of dissolution echoed between heaven and earth.

The blood-red thorns and shadow tentacles manifested by Dracula's magical power didn't last even a second under the wash of the black river; they instantly withered and blackened, then turned into puddles of foul-smelling pus, becoming part of this river of death in turn.

"What... what kind of monster is this?!"

For the first time, a look of disbelief appeared on Dracula's hideous face.

He violently flapped his massive bat wings, attempting to pull himself up and escape the ground that was being devoured.

However, his body, which usually required only a thought to travel a thousand miles in an instant, was now as heavy as if it were carrying a mountain.

It was the weight of "sinful karma."

Within the domain of this backward-flowing Ganges River, all existences that failed to achieve Buddhahood and were judged as "evil" were stripped of the right to fly.