That voice scared him like hell.
Hearing it, he subconsciously turned to look at the baby boy beside him, his heart pounding as he listened closely to what the boy was saying.
"You know it's not good for you to depend on me to kill them, right?" Deus said in his usual cold and distant voice.
He let the words sink deep into Lancelot's bones before adding, "Who do you think I am? Some kind of hero!?"
Lancelot's eyes widened in shock. From Deus' words alone, it was obvious—he knew about the bounty hunters.
"H-H... ow?" His voice came out broken.
Now, he didn't feel like sleeping anymore—the sleepiness disappeared without a trace, as if it had never existed. He fell silent, his throat dry. He didn't even know what to say anymore. No answer came to his mind.
Seeing him fall silent, Deus sighed, as if disappointed. He decided to give Lancelot some very important advice... but also a little bit of a lesson.
He focused his intent again, this time far greater than before.
Lancelot immediately collapsed to his knees, forced down as Deus acted like gravity itself, crushing him beneath an invisible mountain.
It felt like the entire weight of the world was pressing down on him. His heart hammered wildly, fear returning stronger this time—so strong it felt like his chest would burst. A sharp, stabbing pain hit his mind. His soul itself screamed, as if it was about to be ripped apart at any moment.
He tried to plead, but his lips wouldn't move.
Even blinking became an impossible task—the pressure was too much. His bones groaned, his body trembling.
'At this rate… I'm going to die at his hands… What should I do!?' His panicked mind raced.
"Lightning Cheetah! Phantom Manifest!"
"Phantom Combine!"
"Void Shattering Dragon! Phantom Manifest!"
"Phantom Combine!"
"Tyrant Bull! Phantom Manifest!"
He kept calling out—one after the other.
Deus watched all this, and for once, he smiled. Seeing Lancelot manifest and combine with all his beast soul phantoms to strengthen himself… it amused him. If Deus wanted, he could easily cancel those manifestations out. Or destroy them completely, they were after all his creations. But he didn't.
He wasn't angry. In fact, he felt a tinge of pride.
After all, every single one of those abilities—everything they relied on now—was originally gifted by him to these "natives" of Earth… eighty-three years ago.
Without his help, humanity would have crumbled the moment the first wave of the apocalypse hit. Back then, they had been confused, scared, helpless.
The system they had at the start?
It was nearly useless—good only for buying and selling beast cores, or showing their status.
So, Deus changed everything. And no, like most other gods, he hadn't done it out of kindness. He wanted something in return.
He boosted their world. He enhanced their system. He blessed them—and every creature in the world alongside them.
Thus, they abandoned mana and started using soul energy—his energy.
Soul energy was harvested when a beast or monster was killed. The energy floated in the air and could be absorbed by anyone nearby, much like the EXP humans used to get in their old games.
About thirty percent of a beast's total energy would scatter this way. But there were exceptions: soul cores.
Some beasts had these precious cores, storing over seventy percent of their total energy. Humans could absorb the energy directly, and beasts could swallow it to grow stronger.
And if a beast didn't have a core?
Then almost ninety percent of its energy would be released into the air for anyone nearby to grab.
Yet, what truly made soul cores valuable wasn't just the energy. It was the bloodline sealed inside. The true treasure.
Not every beast had a bloodline, and not every beast could form a soul core. If cores were rare, then bloodlines were ten times rarer.
After draining the soul energy, one had to crush the core with their hands to release the beast's bloodline.
But there was a trick to spotting a valuable core: If it had veins running through it—and if those veins matched the color of the phantom that would manifest—then that core carried a bloodline. So, a core with red veins? It would yield a phantom with a red glow.
And when a person combined with such phantoms, they would grow stronger—far stronger. They would gain abilities and affinities linked to their phantom.
Like someone with a Fire Dragon beast soul phantom? They'd command fire itself.
Even without merging with their owner, phantoms could fight independently.
But if combined? Their owner's stats would shoot up through the roof.
Some phantoms could even take the form of physical weapons.
And these—these were the rarest of all.
Only a handful of people in the world were lucky enough to possess such phantoms.
Those who did… they stood at the top, their power boosted far beyond the norm.
All of this—the system, the phantoms, the evolution—it brought a smile to Deus' face.
But that wasn't the main reason he was smiling now.
No.
What made him truly smile was the fact that Lancelot… Lancelot possessed the phantom of a divine beast—the Void Shattering Dragon.
Deus knew that beast soul well.
It was one of the twelve nythical eggs he had personally placed in the world, hidden as a reward inside his God Ruins. That was done long ago, sometime after he had blessed Earth.
'I wonder… Has anyone reached the God Dungeon level yet?' He mused to himself.
The entrance to the God of Souls Dungeon—also called his Ruins—was scattered all over Earth. Exactly one thousand entrances.
But once a person stepped inside…
No matter where they entered—be it North America, Europe, Asia—they would all be teleported to the same place.
Inside the dungeon, hunters had to fight beasts and earn dungeon points, which they could trade for treasures and powerful artifacts that would help them survive the apocalypse.
The Void Shattering Dragon beast soul?
It came from one of those eggs—placed as the top reward for clearing the Mortal Level of the dungeon. And somehow… Lancelot had managed to get his hands on it.
Deus' dungeon was divided into ten levels, each representing a trial far harder than the last. The deeper one went, the stronger the beasts they would face. The levels of his dungeon were in rhyme with the name of each star Souler, eg 1 star Souler = Mortal... Mortal level in Deus's God ruins...
The ten levels were:
Mortal Level
Souler Level
Ascendant Level
Phantom Level
Celestial Level
Angel Level
Immortal Level
Demi-God Level
Eternal Level
God Level
And at the end of that path… only the strongest would stand.