The barrier closed in around the Heart of Destruction once it reached the part of it that was underground.

It didn’t completely close around the Heart of Destruction, it still left a bit of space for the Heart of Destruction to survive. But it wasn’t as if this was a lot of space as it was still cramped into this ball created by the barrier.

With just a single thought, it would have been easy to crush the Heart of Destruction.

Especially since it had already used a lot of energy trying to escape just now.

Even if it wanted to resist, it wasn’t as if the Heart of Destruction could do much to resist.

The only thing that it could do was look around this barrier to find any kind of weak point that it could exploit. Only it didn’t seem like there was a weak point to this barrier with how it perfectly wrapped around the Heart of Destruction.

With the way that it was surrounded, it seemed like the only thing that it could do was wait to see what would happen.

It was completely at the whims of those that controlled the barrier.

But that was the reason that the Heart of Destruction couldn’t calm down since the ones that controlled the barrier were those that wanted to see it destroyed.

With how things had developed, it was clear that it was only a matter of time before this Heart of Destruction was killed.

"We need to show everyone this scene."

That was what the gods agreed on.

After all, the gods had once been human and had suffered at the hands of the Black Tide just like the rest of humanity. Which was why the grudge that they felt towards the Black Tide was something that they kept even as a god.

It went beyond a normal grudge, it was one where they couldn’t exist in the same world.

That was why they wanted to show this end to the entire world.

However, there was someone that stopped them.

"Stop, you can’t destroy it."

The moment that this voice rang out, all of the gods suddenly stopped.

From their reaction, it was clear that the gods recognized this voice even if the humans didn’t recognize it. In fact, it seemed like the gods were completely shocked that this voice would say something like this.

The humans were all confused, but the gods slowly revealed looks of betrayal.

After all, this voice belonged to the one that they all followed.

The voice belonged to the one that had put into action the plan to take down this Heart of Destruction in the first place. So for them to say that now, it was as if they were going against their own plan.

But it didn’t seem like the gods were going to say or do anything.

Even if they felt betrayed, it wasn’t as if they lost their faith.

They knew that if this voice spoke, it meant that there was a reason why this couldn’t be done.

With a sigh, that same voice said, "If you destroy it now, you’ll destroy the balance of this world and it’ll collapse."

All of the gods looked like they were skeptical about this claim.

After all, they had been destroying the Black Tide without any consequences so far. From what they had observed, it didn’t seem like this claim had anything backing it at all.

It seemed like the voice knew what they were thinking, so it said once more, "Go on and try to harm it. You’ll see what happens."

The gods couldn’t help knitting their brows even more when they heard this.

After all, they could hear the confidence that was in this voice as it said this.

If there was this kind of confidence, there had to be some kind of basis for it.

Did that mean what the voice said was the truth?

It didn’t seem like any of the gods were willing to test this with how all of them were remaining still.

As for the humans, it wasn’t as if any of them were qualified to test this since they wouldn’t even be able to harm the Heart of Destruction.

Which meant that there was an awkward silence that hung in the air.

What broke this silence in the end was the Heart of Destruction.

"You finally see how important I am? You should release me before you cause any more harm to this world."

Though it didn’t understand why that voice was speaking up for it, it was taking full advantage of this. The only thing that the Heart of Destruction cared about was saving its own life.

But the fact that it did this drew attention to itself.

The gods had been lost in thought over what to do with the Heart of Destruction, but now that it drew this attention back on itself...

It wasn’t as if the hatred that the gods felt towards this Heart of Destruction had gone away, it was just that they had been distracted by something else.

With the Heart of Destruction provoking them like this...

"Ah!"

The Heart of Destruction screamed in pain when different weapons came out of the barrier around it and stabbed into its body. As these weapons of divine energy stabbed into the Heart of Destruction, there were parts of the Heart of Destruction that disappeared.

The divine energy completely destroyed these parts of the Heart of Destruction.

The problem was that the moment that this happened, there was trembling that came from around them.

Even though they were deep under the ground, they could feel the trembling that came from around them.

If they could feel it all the way here, then it must mean that the trembling must be even more intense above the ground.

This trembling also went to prove what the voice had said.

Only if they couldn’t destroy the Heart of Destruction, what were they supposed to do with this thing?