Ascension Through Skills-Chapter 497: 92nd Floor. Faith (8)

Kang Taesan was now the recipient of faith from more than ten planets.

Indeed, the level of faith he possessed was enough to elevate him to the realm of a true god of faith.

However, he hadn’t achieved that transcendence. While Taesan himself hadn’t fully grasped the reason, it was simple.

It was because he had borrowed the name of Remidaos.

A name represents an inherent value of an entity. Yet Taesan, when receiving people’s faith, took on the guise of Remidaos, borrowed his name, and acted in his image.

Thus, the people’s faith was directed at Taesan mimicking Remidaos.

In the end, the faith was tied to the concept of Remidaos, not Taesan himself. It couldn’t truly be called his personal faith. As such, he had been unable to reach transcendence in the truest sense.

But now, things were different.

The people's feelings toward Remidaos had twisted. They no longer revered or offered their faith to him.

That wandering faith began to converge on Taesan.

Not to Remidaos—but to Taesan himself.

[This is...]

"Hmm."

Both Taesan and Remidaos sensed the change. Taesan smirked.

"So that’s how it is."

[You worthless vermin!]

Remidaos exploded with rage. The emotions of a transcendent entity tore through the minds of the people. They screamed in terror and cowered, but this only drove them to worship Taesan even more fervently.

Remidaos ground his teeth audibly. His plan was unraveling. Taesan was far stronger than he had anticipated, and he had failed to instill overwhelming fear in the people.

[...It doesn’t matter. I’ll just kill you, and it’ll all be over!]

"Give it a try."

Taesan opened his arms wide.

Remidaos gathered divine power and unleashed it in a devastating torrent, a cascade of holiness that filled the space like a galaxy rushing forward. Taesan gripped his sword.

Boom!

With tightly condensed chaos, he deflected the divine force and forged a path forward. Taesan charged at Remidaos, who desperately attempted to block his advance.

Screeeeech!

The divine power formed a curtain, closing off the space.

[You have activated Chaos Collapse.]

A sphere of chaos materialized, slowly pushing aside the divine curtain and clearing a way forward.

Remidaos waved his hand, forcing the curtain back under his control, engulfing both the chaos and Taesan. Taesan planted his feet firmly.

[You have activated Magic Explosion.]

Boom!

Chaos erupted, shredding the condensed divine power. A small breach appeared, and Taesan slipped through.

[You’re not going anywhere!]

The curtain disintegrated, transforming into thorn-like projectiles that flew toward Taesan. Each thorn was so tightly compressed that it could pierce through chaos itself.

[You have activated the Sword of the World (Chaos).]

Taesan swung his blade wildly, shattering the thorns that came at him. The massive blade, comparable to a mountain range, slashed relentlessly, breaking the onslaught. Soon, the sword began to corrode, as though eaten away.

But he had bought himself enough room to maneuver. Cloaked in chaos, Taesan pushed forward.

What greeted him next was another overwhelming wall of divine power.

‘This is endless.’

Even as Remidaos used unimaginable amounts of divine power in every attack, there was no sign of depletion. The sheer volume of his divine power exceeded Taesan's expectations. At this rate, the duration of Chaos Summon would end before the divine power was exhausted.

Taesan’s gaze sharpened.

The only time the divine power had been meaningfully reduced was when he directly struck the divine aura surrounding Remidaos.

Simply erasing the manifested divine power had little effect. He needed to attack the core directly.

For that, he would have to take a risk.

But it was a risk worth taking.

Taesan could feel the faith pouring into him.

With every block and counter to Remidaos's attacks, the faith directed at him grew stronger and denser.

It had always been this way—when achieving feats that anyone could recognize as extraordinary, faith would surge explosively.

If he could succeed in landing a decisive blow on Remidaos...

He would ascend in the truest sense.

His mind made up, Taesan tensed his legs.

[You have activated Acceleration.]

[You have activated Skill Acceleration.]

His body surged forward at impossible speeds. As Remidaos wielded divine power, Taesan focused the ash-colored chaos around him even further.

[You have activated Stealth (Chaos).]

[You have activated Baal’s Layered Darkness.]

[You have activated Random Blink.]

"Ugh."

For a moment, Remidaos hesitated.

Within the radiant divine brilliance, Taesan had completely vanished. Even with his heightened senses, Remidaos couldn’t locate him.

[No matter, though!]

Remidaos stomped the ground, sending ripples of divine power in every direction. The force could have shattered planets, its sheer strength rivaling that of a conceptual god.

But it couldn’t touch Taesan.

Taesan's skill erased and excluded any attack that failed to recognize him as its target.

Without interference, he closed the gap in an instant. Remidaos, realizing too late, frantically gathered divine power, and Taesan did the same.

Boom!

Magic, black magic, and the power of destruction erupted, filling the space with chaos and light. Their forces clashed violently, creating a small breach that Taesan exploited to draw even closer.

[Foolishness.]

Remidaos sneered at Taesan’s reckless advance.

The sudden stealth and approach had caught him off guard, but that was all. From a cold, logical perspective, Taesan’s move was akin to a beast sticking its head into a trap.

No matter the chaos surrounding him, Remidaos was confident he could break through.

He condensed his divine power further, compressing it into a blinding white form.

Whooooom!

He launched it directly at Taesan, the proximity leaving no room to dodge. The only choice was to face it head-on.

Taesan, however, had no intention of directly confronting it.

[You have activated Choice Exclusion.]

The brilliant white divine power rushing toward Taesan disappeared entirely, as if it had never existed.

[What?!]

Choice Exclusion—the authority granted to Taesan by Maria, the Goddess of Choice. With it, he could select and completely erase a single action or attack.

Conceptual gods or high-ranking deities might have been able to resist it, but Remidaos, being a god of faith, had no such means.

A path opened.

Taesan accelerated even further. Though Remidaos scrambled to summon more divine power, Taesan was already too close. Forced to react prematurely, Remidaos attacked with incomplete power.

[You have activated Fall of All Things.]

Remidaos's divine power plummeted in quality.

Taesan infused his sword with chaos and swung it.

Boom!

Destruction tore through divine energy, erasing it as Taesan drove forward. Though divine power lashed out in retaliation, trying to erase the chaos, Taesan refused to yield.

[You have activated Denial of Possibility.]

All possibilities that didn’t lead to victory were negated.

As Remidaos unleashed a wave of divine power to push Taesan back, Taesan raised his sword high.

"Stop."

The blackened blade embodied his will.

Time itself froze.

Even Remidaos couldn’t escape this temporal halt.

Though the time was brief, it was enough.

Taesan plunged his chaos-infused blade deep into Remidaos.

Screeeeeech!

Divine power tore apart, corrupted and disfigured by chaos.

As time resumed, Remidaos roared in rage, unleashing another torrent of divine power.

[Your second attack immunity has been activated.]

[Your third attack immunity has been activated.]

[You have taken 198,754 damage.]

Though Taesan’s chaos deflected some of the divine power, his health dwindled rapidly. He retreated quickly, using divine energy to heal himself.

"This isn’t so bad."

Taesan assessed the situation calmly. He had expended a significant amount—his transcendental powers and immunity had been exhausted, and both his chaos and divine power were heavily drained.

But Remidaos had suffered far more.

Half of the divine power that had radiated from him was gone. Though the remaining amount was still staggering, the loss was undeniable.

[You... you! YOU!]

Remidaos’s rage boiled over. The faith he had accumulated over eons as a transcendent had been cut in half. The sheer loss set his mind ablaze with fury.

[I’ll kill you!]

"You’ve been trying to do that this whole time."

Taesan replied nonchalantly, his tone calm and unwavering.

As Remidaos raised his divine power once more, twisting it with his intense emotions, he suddenly paused.

A realization dawned on him: the emotions of those who once worshipped him were gone.

The fear and trembling devotion of the people had vanished.

And in their place, their faith began to flow toward Taesan.

"Oooohhh!"

"Please, grant us your mercy!"

When Taesan struck Remidaos with a decisive blow, faith in him surged explosively.

Remidaos didn't want to see it. He didn't want to hear it.

But the voices of the people, the faith they poured into Taesan, were inescapable.

The fear and dread Remidaos instilled only served to fuel their prayers for salvation.

Had events unfolded differently—had Taesan fallen as Remidaos had planned—the outcome might have aligned with his desires.

But Taesan refused to collapse under Remidaos’s will.

Instead, he counterattacked and wounded the very god they thought was untouchable.

The people saw what they once deemed impossible: someone standing against Remidaos and gaining the upper hand.

Naturally, their faith flowed to Taesan, and the decisive strike he landed caused that faith to erupt.

[Your mastery of Divine Power has increased by 17%.]

At that moment, Taesan’s divine power reached its peak.

***

Taesan gathered the faith directed toward him.

Layer upon layer, divine power accumulated, rising higher and higher. Eventually, it began to take shape.

His perception shifted.

A sense of omnipotence coursed through his entire being. It was a feeling Taesan had experienced once before—back on Earth.

This was the complete state of transcendence. A position of undeniable authority, a god of faith whose domain extended beyond the boundaries of belief itself.

The faith of more than ten planets now filled him completely.

[...Don’t make me laugh!]

Remidaos refused to acknowledge this truth.

[Even if you’ve reached that position, it’s a mere fledgling state! You’ll never match me!]

Remidaos wielded his divine power once more, compressing it into a mass as bright and overwhelming as the sun. Up until now, Taesan had struggled to fully block such an attack, even with Chaos Summon.

But things were different now.

Taesan cloaked himself entirely in chaos.

The thick, ash-colored energy met the divine radiance.

Screeeeeech!

It held firm.

No—more than that. The ash began to devour the divine light. The radiant, sun-like divine power gradually dimmed, darkened, and turned a dusty, lifeless gray.

Taesan clenched his fist.

The divine power, consumed by chaos, vanished without a trace.

Remidaos was left speechless.

[...What?]

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"Not bad," Taesan remarked with a satisfied smile.

"Let’s end this."

He gripped his sword.

The ash-colored chaos radiated outward, extending in countless tendrils. Like an intricate spiderweb, it spread through the space, rapidly expanding in size.

The world itself began to be engulfed in ash, the dull gray consuming everything in sight.