Murphy had never felt this tired.
Even when he had sealed the subspace rift beneath the R-9 Base, he hadn't felt as exhausted as he did now. As he repeatedly ignited and burned the Hunting Lord's divine soul, he had come to understand a great deal more about gods. The most obvious lesson was this:
These high-concentration aggregates of faith were really hard to burn.
It was like trying to light a lump of coal with a tiny flame. Even the constant kindling that peeled away from it required Murphy's full concentration to gather his strength and suppress it. The Hunting Lord kept struggling, and that spiritual struggle made Murphy feel like he was pinning down a fish that kept thrashing and biting.
He maintained this full-power assault for a full seven minutes and twenty-one seconds before he finally incinerated the Hunting Lord's most fundamental symbol of faith.
Murphy used the Omega Program to keep scanning what lay before him and the area around them. Only after confirming that the last trace of the Hunting Lord remaining in the world had been completely cleansed, and the Divine Nature: Hunting Beacon status on him had disappeared, did he open his mechanical fingers.
A clump of pure white matter fell into his palm, light as a feather.
But it was the last thing the Hunting Lord had left behind, and could barely be called "ashes."
He didn't examine it right away. Instead, he glanced at Hugeson. The poor fellow looked as if his body had spontaneously caught fire. Not only had all his fur been burned off and his eyes incinerated, but his dark skin was covered in heat wounds. He looked just like a botched piece of pottery.
"This one's beyond saving. Its body was already badly wounded, and you even