The sound of flesh being forcibly pierced rang out, followed by blood spraying into the air.
In everyone's vision, King Solomon's chest now bore a gaping, mangled hole.
The thirteen Papiyas surrounding him held bloodied hands—one of them clutching a still-beating heart.
"Hahaha, I was the fastest!"
The Papiyas holding the heart laughed in delight. The heart, torn out so swiftly, hadn't yet realized it was no longer in its host's body and pulsed a few more times.
This sight instantly drained all color from the humans' faces.
"Why—"
Göll let out a hoarse, trembling voice, her eyes on the verge of brimming with tears.
But the sound was abruptly cut off as the scene took a sudden turn, transforming her sorrowful expression into one of excitement.
Brunhilde, who had also been tense, exhaled slightly in relief.
"T-This is truly nerve-wracking!"
Even the announcer Heimdall, seemed to be sweating bullets for King Solomon.
On the battlefield, the heart clutched by Papiyas had undergone a change—it had turned black, taking on an eerie appearance.
In other words, was King Solomon's heart different from a human's?
Or had Papiyas altered King Solomon's heart into this form?
Neither!
Because this heart did not belong to King Solomon—it belonged to a Papiyas.
And the figure surrounded at the center, with a gaping hole torn in his chest, was not King Solomon but one of the Papiyas.
As if performing a magic trick, King Solomon had swapped places with one of the Papiyas in an instant.
Correction—this was no mere magic trick. It must have been spatial magic.
Wait—
"No!"
Heimdall adjusted his glasses, spotting the inconsistency.
The distance between the pillar where King Solomon had originally stood and the arena's outer wall had shifted slightly.
As if the pillar itself had moved.
The next moment, the pillar did move—or rather, the space around it shifted, returning it to its original position.
No—!
"No, King Solomon didn't swap places with a Papiyas."
King Solomon had never moved from his original position.
And this claim wasn't based on the pillar as a reference point, but rather the entire arena itself.
The pillar hadn't moved either—it remained in its original spot.
The illusion of movement had been just that—an illusion.
King Solomon's true position had been concealed, while a projected illusion appeared slightly ahead of him.
"This utilizes the refraction and reflection of light..."
"Creating a mirage-like effect?"
"Not just that—he also disguised one of the Papiyas as himself, ensuring that the decoy would step right into the path of the other Papiyas' attacks. This level of visual deception is extraordinary!"
"To be precise, it wasn't just the Papiyas who were deceived—everyone present was fooled."
Awe-filled murmurs rose from the human spectators.
Though most humans were ordinary, some among them possessed keen insight—these were the ones who had unraveled King Solomon's trick.
"When did he even do this? I didn't notice at all!"
Even Ares, the God of War from the Greek pantheon, sounded incredulous.
If it was purely visual deception, there should have been at least a fleeting inconsistency—yet he had detected nothing.
"He must have done it when the sandbox world exploded. Or perhaps even earlier—he had already been deceiving everyone's vision while their attention was fixed on the sandbox world, making it impossible to notice the subtle changes."
Loki offered his explanation.
However, deceiving the vision of people from all angles in the arena was not achieved by using magic to make oneself invisible while creating illusions. Instead, it was purely a physical manipulation of perception—subtly altering the reflection and refraction of light to create discrepancies in the images of King Solomon that reached the retinas of the observers.
This technique was truly astonishing.
It was precisely this method that successfully fooled Papiyas' vision.
If it had been an illusion created by magic, it might have been detected.
After all, illusions crafted by magic are constructed from magical energy, and their mana density would feel slightly out of place compared to the surroundings.
Wait, no—that manipulation likely still involved magic.
To be precise, King Solomon's spell, which manipulated the refraction and reflection of light, enveloped the entire arena, ensnaring everyone within it. That's why no one noticed the discrepancies in the ambient mana.
"Hahaha, how fascinating! Absolutely fascinating!"
As they spoke, the expressions of the Papiyas twisted one after another.
What followed sent chills down everyone's spines.
The Papiyas who had seized the heart opened its mouth wide, stuffed the heart inside, and devoured it with a crunch.
At the same time, the Papiyas whose chest had been torn apart was itself ripped to pieces by the other Papiyas.
"Ugh—!"
"They're actually—"
"Are these monsters Beelzebub created really safe?"
"They're eating their own kind!"
The twelve Papiyas tore apart and feasted on the thirteenth, swallowing it down in mere moments. The sight was unbearable for both human and divine spectators alike.
If they had been devouring beasts, it might have been tolerable. But the Papiyas took humanoid forms, and this act of cannibalism trampled over the psychological limits of most onlookers.
Some of the gods now found themselves harboring an unexpected thought—they no longer wished for the Papiyas to win this battle. Instead, they hoped King Solomon would emerge victorious and eradicate these abominations.
Ah, and Beelzebub too. That guy was far too dangerous, recklessly creating such horrors.
"Is it just me?"
"Does it feel like the Papiyas have changed somehow?"
"Their bodies seem… larger?"
Those who noticed this broke out in even colder sweat.
Could it be that the Papiyas had also inherited Beelzebub's [Gluttony] ability?
Speaking of which, why were the Papiyas scanning the audience? And why were they licking their lips?
Were they eyeing the spectators as food?
The next moment, the Papiyas' attention was drawn back to King Solomon, who had begun to move.
A magic circle unfurled around him, its design instantly recognizable to some.
It was the summoning array for the Seventy-Two Demon Gods.
Was he summoning them again?
To throw them to their deaths?
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