The Max Level Hero Has Returned!

"Huff... Ahh."

As Davey exhaled briefly, a black aura began to flow over him like steam. The consequence of using devil mana, whose very nature was madness itself, while half of his body was consumed by rage and impulse.

‘Kill! Huh? Kill! Kill them all! Quickly use him to kill that bastard!’

The devil mana clamored for attention in such a manner. Although Davey did not fully unleash the devil mana with his bare body, the destructive aura he emitted, the Blood Demonic Attack, was indeed a power created by the fusion of Heavenly Destroyer and devil mana. Elder Kon, suppressed by the overwhelming power around him, collapsed without making any move.

Since there was no intention to engage in conversation with him in the first place, Davey walked toward Kon without hesitation and slowly drew the dagger hooked on his waist. As the sharp metallic weapon was unsheathed, making a ghastly noise, Kon shivered, and his eyes followed the blade.

Thrust!

"Ugh…"

Stab! Stab!

Madness was in full swing. Davey continued to pierce Kon while bearing a slight smile at the corners of his mouth.

"That injury on Myuu's body showed a lack of skill. It was you, wasn't it?"

Thrust!

"Ugh..."

"You won't be able to move easily. Elder Kon, the spirit that protects you, has hidden in fear of his Blood Demonic Attack, and the power of the Divine Tree that shields you is probably facing an unexpected enemy now."

Slowly raising his finger, the demon behind Davey also lifted its index finger slowly. In the sky above, stars moved in circular orbits, creating trails.

"You can't achieve celestial motion in the same time zone."

Thrust!

‘But do you know why the stars draw tails like that? It's a field magic that imitates part of that power.’

[9th Circle Transcendent]

[Grand Celestial Magic]

[Rest of the Stars]

There was no need for further complicated explanations. The more Davey ruthlessly carved his sword into Kon's immobilized, still-living body, the broader his smile grew. Usually, Perserque would restrain him, but she remained in Heins territory and could not come here. And this time, he had no intention of controlling his impulse.

Boom!!!

When the demon struck the ground again, cracks spread, and eerie magma spewed out in small amounts. The once lush holy place of the divine tree, now discolored red, turned into a hellfire. Davey kept carving his sword into Kon's body until his life force started to drain away.

Swoosh! Slash!

He soon picked up a blunt weapon lying around and began to batter Kon, who was already marked by his sword.

Thump!! Thump!!

"Urgh! Urgh!"

Despite Kon shivering and twitching all over, Davey calmly maintained the Blood Demonic Attack just enough to prevent Kon from losing his mind, and purely by physical strength, he battered the man.

Davey knew from personal experience where to hit so Kon would not die but endure longer. There was even the damned hero who insisted that the best way to learn was to personally experience, to the point of beating people until they were at the brink of death.

The beating went on for a while, only ending when Kon, who had crossed the limit, foamed at the mouth and cried out. It was a pitiful death, but Davey did not feel the slightest bit of sympathy. To him, showing mercy to the one who brutally killed that child would be a luxury.

Boom!!

The ground split open once again. Including Kon who had been swept toward him, the Elder Elves were soon sucked into the crevices in the ground, swallowed into the fiercely engulfing magma. The only thing left around was death. The only ones who survived here were the human slaves who were caught here. They had headed out of the forest before he started this mayhem.

What would happen to them in the future was not certain. But Davey’s involvement was limited to this point. He felt a considerable aversion to having killed everyone, regardless of gender and age. Even after transforming into a Blood Elf, there might have been peaceful elves in the past.

‘Ahhh…’

Eventually, as Davey slowly clenched his fist, the demon that had formed around him also closed its fist gradually. With that, the celestial motion that controlled the surrounding nature at will disappeared, and the environment returned to its original state, with the crevices that had split slowly closing up one by one. The surroundings, which had been spreading a hellish scene, returned to a quiet silence as if nothing had happened.

Silently observing the surrounding ruins, Davey soon suppressed his mana sphere slowly, not letting out a single trace of mana and plunging into complete silence. If he tried hard, it was not impossible to do so.

Thud... Thud...

Silently, he moved, taking down the three elves that hung on the cross. He walked on without a word. He had no ties to Myuu or Aina of this place. No remnants of a soul remained in their bodies.

Then, he did something unthinkable for someone who had just committed a mass slaughter. He used a small shovel pulled out from the void space and brought them to a quiet forest that had not yet been discolored and untouched by the aftermath of the corrupted Divine Tree's power.

Even though there should have been many natural spirits here, the spirits overcome by fear did not dare to peek out. Yet, he silently shoveled the earth, creating three large graves. First, he gently laid Madis down. Next was the now cold Aina Helishana, and lastly, he carefully nestled the little girl Myuu, small enough to cradle in his arms, into the grave.

"The elves' funeral is a return to nature," Davey muttered as a peculiarly blurry sensation filled his eyes.

"How much did you suffer?"

There was no answer to his quiet question.

"How unfairly were you treated?"

Again, he asked, but still, there was no reply.

"Did I...arrive too late?"

Davey felt sorry.

This place was the same as Tionis, said to be a place that had everything, even if the landscape changed. In the quiet forest, he began to hum a quiet tune. "My hometown, where warm spring descends..."

Singing with lyrics was something even his music teacher, Muse, had given up on. Hence, he quietly hummed the song about home that Muse, who had simply been his mentor as a minstrel, used to hum occasionally, slowly and gently covering the three graves with soil.

Without using the power of spirits or magic, he dug and covered the earth with his own hands. The three elves did not show any reaction to his actions, but he continued in silence. After spending a significant amount of time, three mounds were formed, and he slowly approached the trees nearby.

"Don't be scared."

At Davey’s words, a very small brown apparition peeked out from within the tree. It was a spirit of the earth living here. The frightened creature soon looked at him and slowly emerged from the tree.

Gathering the fallen big trees on the ground, Davey then drew his dagger and carefully carved them, creating wooden tombstones that anyone could be proud of, and placed one in front of each mound.

"Be born in a place without war in your next life. At least, any place without war is better than here. Well, I'm not sure if the souls on the wheel of reincarnation in this lifetime really go through a proper cycle of reincarnation.”

After silently caressing the tombstones for half an hour, Davey slowly got up and casually clenched his hand before turning his back. This sacred place of the Divine Tree in this world would be completely gone after this time. The decision had been made, and there was no turning back.

Boom!!

Megalodria, who had following, stood in front of him, flaunting his massive stature, but Davey passed by Megalodria and quietly said, "Megarodria."

"Was it a precious connection?"

"Yes, probably not as much as you think of Shane."

"..." Megalodria silently kept quiet.

"Stay here. After burning all the damned trees, let's go."

‘We never had time to stay here for long. I'm not sure if I can come again, but it's not a sight to behold.’

* * *

Even as the elves were dying horribly, the Divine Tree did not reveal itself. There was no need to search for the complex location of Yggdrasil because Davey already knew where the resting place of Yggdrasil, the Garden of Yggdrasil, known only to the Divine Tree’s saint, was.

Creak... Creak...

When Davey forcibly opened the door and entered the garden, he began to see red branches growing toward him as if they were alive. The once beautiful garden was a sight of devastation. A pond reddened like blood, and the twisted screams of the spirits were all around. The aftermath of the curse left by Yuria Helishana, who was sacrificed as a tribute to the Spirit King, seemed too vast to be so. Probably, the Divine Tree received the consequence of violating a taboo it should not have violated.

Squeak... Squeak...

A strange sound could be heard. Without a word, Davey walked, and soon he could see a woman leaning on a small, long chair in the innermost part. He found her to be a familiar entity.

"The prophecy..." Eventually, Yggdrasil looked at Davey with a tired expression. "Has the entity of prophecy come?"

To that question, Davey conjured a flame in one hand. "You reap what you sow, Yggdrasil."

She stared at Davey, her face lined with creases. She was not cursed with baldness, but her grotesquely altered appearance indicated her condition was far from good. If she were openly twisted, at least she would have seemed normal. Even when breaking taboos, she did not bend her will, bearing the consequences as she died by her own hand. So, the transcendent gaze that had been watching him from the beginning was not hers.

Then, the remaining possible entities were not many. Two entities seemed to be duplicated here, but between this place and the original Tionis continent, there existed only one unique entity. The Goddess Freyja. However, the gaze felt too cold to be hers.

"There is a gaze upon me."

To Davey’s question, Yggdrasil slowly opened her tired eyes and looked at him. Then, she smirked cynically. "A gaze… Indeed. You are not of this place. That's why you attracted the gaze. This may eventually turn into something you deeply regret."

At those words, the surroundings started to change. Suddenly…

Randomly grown branches started to entwine around Davey’s body.

"Did you think I would die so easily?"

Davey slowly touched the branches that were wrapping around his whole body. And then, he slowly began to channel a deep, dark power.

[Rules are independent.]

[What I need to do is total independence from heat.]

As a massive force trembled, Davey’s body began to transform. His magic mentor Odin had been a monstrous wizard capable of moving celestial bodies, but she had been distinctly human. Without the burden of taboos, she could never have been entirely free from the rules that humans abided by.

‘But I am different.’

Eventually, his body began to distort and change like a flame. Although the intense heat was unbearable for the body, Davey continued to raise the temperature.

‘6th Circle Burn Body. I manipulate and change the formula at will, raising its firepower to the extreme.’

It was dangerous for the caster as well, but if he became massively immune to heat from the outset, it would be the most efficient enhancement method.

As the temperature continued to rise—1,000 degrees, 2,000 degrees, 3,000 degrees—it eventually began to emit blue flames, incinerating the branches that had been wrapping around him, even though the power of the Divine Tree should have protected it from any significant impact.

As the branches turned to ashes, Yggdrasil smiled with a tired face. "The prophecy... never changes..."

"At least where I come from, you didn't burn to death. You died with your head in shambles.”

"I am tired... He thought that by using Yuria's power as a sacrifice, the Divine Tree could be independent... but..."

"The repercussions were more significant, and the price was higher than you expected."

"..."

As Davey grabbed and incinerated Yggdrasil's core, she disappeared into ashes without even a scream.

‘Assuming this world is okay, it will take countless lifetimes until the next Divine Tree is born.’

The sight of the Divine Tree burning and disappearing was not pleasant to look at. However, Davey couldn't easily erase the smile on his face.

‘This madness!’

As he recognized this and slapped his own cheek, his face gradually returned from smiling to emotionless. After opening and closing his mouth several times, relaxing his muscles, Davey turned his body away without hesitation while looking at the trees disintegrating at the atomic level.

Then, an arrow suddenly flew in afterward. The arrow, filled with a giant flash of lightning, grazed right next to his face. Davey stood frozen as he discovered three figures that were not there moments ago. He could see a knight dressed in pitch-black armor wielding a sword, and a Dark Elf with dark skin. And, in between them, a very familiar figure.

"I came here to absorb the power of the Divine Tree," a hollow voice echoed.

At that moment, the Dark Elf pulled another lightning-filled arrow onto his bowstring, aiming at Davey, while the black knight drew a massive sword, guarding the rear. But Davey could not move after staring at the figure they seemed to be protecting.

He couldn't say a word. Davey just gaped, his eyes wide open.

‘The feeling is different. I should be following my instincts.’

"Even if the Divine Tree has weakened, ordinary beings cannot kill a Divine Tree. Who are you?" asked the hollow voice.

In response, Davey clenched his fist tightly, so hard that it felt like the skin might rip off, filled with rage and emptiness. Continually glancing at the silver-haired girl, while ignoring the threatening two entities, Davey was in shock.

‘Why are you here? Why are you in that state?’ Tears blurred his vision. ‘I should have been prepared for all scenarios.’

Filled with anger, he shouted, "I should have brought the damned Meramong!"

‘Seeing it in person is completely different! A golem capable of shape-shifting! Although I couldn't handle the Abyssal lifeform, the purified core had been quite promising, as it listened well to me. It was a foolish act to miss such an opportunity,’ Davey thought as he despised his past self.