Hell’s Handbook - Chapter 188
Chapter 188 – Battle Of The Deities
Outside the Train of the Supernatural, Su Jin had enveloped himself with psychokinesis and had finally arrived at the point that connected the front of the train to the rest of the carriages just before he had run out of lifespan. His body had already deteriorated to the point where he had no energy left in him, and his blood had actually already stopped flowing. If his heart hadn’t been replaced by the Eye of the Demon Lord, it would have failed and he would have died by now.
He wrapped the bomb with his psychokinesis and placed it in between the front of the car and the rest of the train. He then commanded the Eye of the Demon Lord to give out the Demon Lord’s Spirit Power and meld with the psychokinesis around the bomb.
“Done.” Su Jin smiled faintly. As long as he managed to do this, then at least Kano Mai would be safe. He believed that the Mad Hatter would keep his promise, since he was supposed to be a god.
Boom! There was a terrifying blast. The Spirit Power bomb was so incredulously powerful that not only did it break the connection between the front of the train and the rest of the carriages, it also blasted a hole in the long river of time.
Su Jin’s body disintegrated the moment the impact of the bomb hit him. The only things that remained were his hard skull and the Eye of the Demon Lord.
Most of the skin on his head had disintegrated. He was left with no hair, eyebrows or eyelashes, and even his ears were gone. He looked like a skull prop that had random bits of skin stuck on it.
But he was still alive. His physical body could almost match that of a demigod, so he managed to survive despite suffering this much damage. At the same time, he had lost most of his body, so he wasn’t going to survive for long. Perhaps he would die after taking a few more breaths.
Now that he had come so close to death, Su Jin suddenly didn’t feel so afraid anymore. He looked on with no emotion on his face, yet the terrible fear of death made Su Jin’s psychokinesis increase again. This time, Su Jin felt like he had reached the maximum point of this Spirit Power. He believed that even if he faced Xu Ran now, Xu Ran would have to look up to him in amazement. But dying immediately after reaching his peak sounded like such a pity.
The impact of the bomb caused Su Jin’s head to fly backwards, and he realized that his body was recovering. The limbs, torso, internal organs and other missing parts were rapidly being restored. The further back he flew, the faster he recuperated.
“I see. This is the long river of life after all. Moving forward makes me old, because I’m moving forward in time at a speed that others cannot imagine at all. Each step I took was a thousand or even ten thousand times the speed of time. But at the same time, as long as I move backwards, time would also move backwards. Time is recreating my body for me!” Su Jin’s eyes lit up. He hadn’t thought of that earlier. He couldn’t believe he had found a way to survive this ordeal.
Moving along the long river of time was like using the fast forward and rewind functions of a video player. If you choose to press the fast forward button, you could move through the video at a much faster speed. But if you pressed the rewind button, you would eventually reach the first second of the video.
This was something that even the Mad Hatter hadn’t considered. He was in a hurry to blast this train, so he didn’t have a lot of time to conduct research on the long river of time. At the same time, his attention was focused on moving forward and completing this mission. He had no idea that the long river of time had the amazing ability to restore someone’s body like this.
Su Jin’s body was restored in a matter of seconds, moving from old age to middle age, then from middle age to even younger. Just then, the train flew off the rails and the train carriages were sucked in by the hole in the long river of time.
There was a bright flash that struck Su Jin’s body. By the time he could see clearly again, he realized he was in a barren land that was covered in smoke and heat.
“Where am I?” Su Jin used his tremendous psychokinesis to wrap itself around the area and was shocked to find that he was on an ancient planet that had no lifeforms on it at all.
Boom! A blasting noise filled the air. The train was not too far away, and deities were flying out from it. They had all regained their freedom and had gathered together with the Mad Hatter. Their expressions were nervous and high strung, as though they were about to face a major battle.
“What happened to Mai and the rest?” Su Jin used his psychokinesis to search for his teammates and he quickly headed in that direction. But before he could reach them, his psychokinesis informed him that the Handbook had taken them away.
The Handbook in Su Jin’s pocket gave off some heat, but it seemed to be affected by something and failed to teleport Su Jin away. All surviving owners of this Challenge had been sent away except him.
“Why is this happening?” Su Jin was puzzled. Could the Handbook be punishing him after finding out that he was the one who had done this.
Before Su Jin could think about this further, the train was smothered in darkness. A pitch black darkness instantly filled the air, and vengeful ghosts appeared in the darkness. Their howls and screams made one’s hair stand on end.
“So, this is how you deal with this situation? You’re going to use these vengeful ghosts and the deities who’ve gotten their memories erased to fight us?” The Mad Hatter was floating in the air and he had a mocking look on his face. “These ghosts are nowhere as powerful as deities, while the deities who got their memories erased are the weakest among us. Getting them to fight us has got to be a joke!”
Neither the ghosts nor the deities with erased memories moved. One more person then emerged from the train – Diablo.
The Mad Hatter frowned slightly. Diablo was truly powerful since he was a real deity. The Mad Hatter was on par with Diablo, but he had suffered some injury in the process of getting away from the constraints of the Handbook. Diablo, on the other hand, had assistance from the Handbook in this place. The Mad Hatter was no match for Diablo now.
“I’m really sorry. You know I don’t have a choice.” Diablo sighed and shook his head. He took a step forward to take his place in front of the ghosts and the other deities on his side. A pair of dark wings spread wide and his body grew exponentially, turning him into a demon that was at least 30 or 40 meters in height.
“You’re the lord of the demons alright! Being able to fight you is my honor.” The Mad Hatter put his hat on and a long sword appeared in his hand as he dashed toward Diablo.
There was a big difference in their size, but they began to engage in a fierce battle. The deities behind the Mad Hatter and the army behind Diablo charged at one another as well. The war had begun.
The Mad Hatter’s sword could slice through almost anything. Every time he brandished his sword, a huge number of ghosts and deities would be sliced into pieces and were too injured to recover. Diablo was just as powerful. He spewed red flames from his mouth, burning up the deities he was attacking. At the same time, his dark wings helped to increase the strength of the ghosts.
This was an extremely bloody battle, and deities were dropping like flies. Su Jin noticed that the Goddess of the Harvest was nearly drowning in ghosts. He had received kindness from her before, so he immediately chose to help her.
His psychokinesis transformed itself into the Boning Knife and flew over, slaughtering all the ghosts that had engulfed the Goddess of the Harvest. Not even Su Jin had expected his one strike to be this powerful. These were creatures that could have killed him very easily before, but they didn’t even stand a chance against this psychokinesis knife at all.
The Goddess of Harvest thought she was doomed and was shocked when the ghosts around her suddenly perished. When she realized that the person who had helped her turned out to be Su Jin, she was even more stunned and was nearly attacked by another deity with erased memories. Thankfully, Su Jin noticed that deity and slayed it with one swing of his knife.
“Your growth is really unbelievable.” The Goddess of the Harvest approached Su Jin and stared at him in disbelief.
Su Jin’s psychokinesis was now as deep as the ocean and was even able to wrap itself around the entire planet they were on, which made him no less powerful than a real god. That was how terrifyingly powerful psychokinesis was. When one reached a certain level of psychokinesis, that alone was enough to kill a god even if that person’s body and other attributes were nowhere near a god’s.
“I went through centuries as I walked down the long river of time, so my psychokinesis has reached a level so high, I can hardly believe it myself.” Su Jin scratched his head. It hadn’t been easy to gain this power. If he hadn’t gone through the torturous process of living through the lives of so many generations of people, he wouldn’t have known how tough it was. But compared to the experience that these deities had, his experience was nothing.
The Goddess of the Harvest nodded slightly. She didn’t have time to chat with Su Jin anymore. The battle was still ongoing and both sides were still suffering casualties.
In the air, the Mad Hatter had a hardened look on his face. Diablo had the help of the Handbook and was beginning to gain the upper hand. But if he died here, Diablo was definitely powerful enough to kill everyone else here too.
There were real gods among his team, but their powers had been greatly curtailed after they were sent onto the train and could not compare to him, since he was no longer constrained by the Handbook. There was also no way they could fight Diablo, since he had the help of the Handbook.
“I’ve got to split the battleground up. At least I must make it impossible for Diablo to kill everyone in one fell swoop,” thought the Mad Hatter. He suddenly retreated and stopped fighting Diablo.
“Mad Hatter, what are you up to?” Diablo knew the Mad Hatter well and immediately gave chase.
“Teehee… Hello, Mr. Diablo! Since the Mad Hatter doesn’t have the time to accompany you, how about I accompany you?” Pinocchio had hopped out from nowhere with a wooden sword in hand, running after Diablo like he just wanted to play.
Diablo took Pinocchio seriously since Pinocchio was also a god from the World of Fairytales. Pinocchio and the Mad Hatter were exceptionally powerful, but since the Mad Hatter was no match for himself, he didn’t think Pinocchio would be impossible to defeat. He just needed more time.
Meanwhile, the Mad Hatter took his hat off and stuck both hands in. He pulled a patch of darkness out from his hat, which quickly spread across the entire battlefield.
“You’re teleporting them?! You’re trying to split everyone up!” Diablo immediately saw through the Mad Hatter’s plans. The Mad Hatter was splitting up the entire group by sending them into different Challenges. That way, no matter how powerful he was, there was no way he could possibly enter every single Challenge and hunt these deities down.
“Move aside!” Diablo slapped Pinocchio away with a claw as he anxiously ran toward the Mad Hatter. He was originally on pretty good terms with the Mad Hatter and he originally supported the Mad Hatter’s idea. But there was a reason why he had no choice but to fight with the Mad Hatter and stop this operation from succeeding.
Su Jin was on the Mad Hatter’s side for the time being. When he saw that Diablo was running after the Mad Hatter and Pinocchio hadn’t been able to stop him, he could only grit his teeth and try and do something about this. He needed the Mad Hatter to help him with undoing that seal on the Demon Lord, after all.
A silvery wall of light appeared in front of Diablo and blocked his path. Diablo got a shock because he could tell that this wall was made from psychokinesis, but almost none of these deities had this sort of power and was at this level.
“It’s you… You think you can block me?” Diablo realized it was Su Jin, but he merely glanced at Su Jin disdainfully. He used his devilish claws to shatter the wall immediately, which also injured Su Jin in the process.
However, that was still sufficient to stall Diablo. The Mad Hatter managed to send everyone into a different Challenge and reappeared next to Su Jin.
“Young man, thank you so much!” He grabbed hold of Su Jin, then leaped into his own hat. Diablo tried to stop them but all he grasped was air.
The barren planet was left with nobody but Diablo, but there was some relief in his eyes. He shrank back to his previous size as the man with a goat’s head, then slowly made his way back to the train.