The surface of the world was covered over entirely in monolith, and borders were gone.
My Castle sits atop the monolith, sole occupant of the surface.
Ah—not quite. There were still those I had banished onto the monolith, were there not.
And one or two who go on reincarnating for all eternity, so they are still squatting up there.
"Ugh, fiiine."
I annihilated every last one of the people who had ever come calling at My Castle.
The Great Sage with his endless reincarnations, the deathless high vampire from the set-meal diner—all of them, everyone still failing to manage to die. Erased.
I erased them because they were an eyesore, but the upshot was that I had gone and done something merciful.
I had refrained from wiping them out precisely so that they would suffer a living hell—but they do not loom large enough in my thinking for me to weigh up whether to keep it going. Which is to say: I do not care.
Every human being in this world erased. Very refreshing.
Now, upon the monolith, My Castle stands as the one and only structure, and inside it I and my pet Mofu exist as the only two living things.
Magnificent!
Hm? Aren't I lonely, you ask?
Not in the slightest. What on earth are you talking about.
Even without my pet Mofu I would feel nothing of the kind.
Putting on a brave face, am I?
Certainly not. Do not lump me in with mummy's boys and clingy women.
I never once got homesick even before I was reincarnated, thank you very much.
I erased the countries of the world one country at a time. Honestly, though, there were moments when the urge came over me to skip all that tedium and erase the lot in a single instant.
That I restrained myself was, again, entirely in order to spite the Goddess.
Now then. The land had been finished off by monolith, which leaves the Goddess only three places to reincarnate her next Hero into: on top of this monolith, in the sea, or in the sky.
Depending on where they land, they will die before they can so much as use the Goddess's Gift, [The Power to Have Any One Wish Granted].
Oho. Look at the Goddess—running to her superior, the God, in tears. She has finally cried uncle.
However many Heroes she reincarnated, I struck every one of them down, and the Goddess had been worn thin in spirit.
Lately she had been nursing her hatred of me and throwing herself at it in a frenzy, but at last her endurance gave out.
Ooh, look. The Goddess is getting told off.
The Goddess's job is to reincarnate Heroes in order to halt the monster incursion into the human lands. She had produced no results, so of course her superior tells her off.
And it does not end there. She has produced, in me, a threat considerably greater than any Demon Lord. This is a full-blown incident by now. The responsibility for causing it weighs heavy.
The Goddess was ordered to carry on discharging her mission and sent back to her old job. A lecture about not shirking responsibility, and that was the end of it.
The God gave the Goddess no help—but neither was she held to account any further than the lecture.
The Goddess wept. Chances to reincarnate come and she lets them go by; she has abandoned the work.
The Goddess loses.
A total victory for me.
Mwahahahaha!
Until now I have refrained from laying a hand on the Goddess directly, but I may dispose of her whenever I like now.
She is still nursing her broken heart, so I shall go and dispose of her once her spirits have recovered a little. Disposing of her now would be a waste.
"Pu, pu."
The Mofu was frightened. A rare thing, that. To be frightened while under my protection.
Being omniscient, I knew the cause. Its instincts as a living creature were responding to what was about to happen.
"It's all right."
I said so and stroked it, and the Mofu let its fluffy fur lie flat and fell asleep.
And then the thing the Mofu had feared came down upon My Castle.
—RUMBLERUMBLERUMBLERUMBLERUMBLE!!
The earth shook. The earth shook, and shook My Castle along with the monolith.
An earthquake of magnitude eleven. Epicenter directly beneath My Castle.
Out of the vast ocean, mountain after mountain lifted its head, erupted, and flung magma.
Lava, launched with what looked like careful aim, rained down on My Castle.
—Rumble, rumble, rumble—KRAKAKAKAAAAAAAAABOOM!!
Black cloud covered the sky, and with dazzling light and a shattering roar an outsized bolt of lightning tore the air open and struck My Castle dead on.
And it was nowhere near finished. Disaster after disaster came, each aimed at My Castle with pinpoint precision.
Clearing the twenty-kilometer height of the monolith, a colossal tsunami slammed seawater against My Castle.
Sunken ships and sea monsters that the tsunami had lifted came body-slamming in with the wave.
Violent tornadoes bore in from all four sides to grind My Castle away, and merged at My Castle's coordinates.
Three or so enormous meteorites came down and struck My Castle square on.
Meteorites fell into the sea as well, driving up the level of the water. Then the bedrock sank, monolith and all, lowering My Castle's elevation until at last the top of the monolith was under water.
My Castle, naturally, was unharmed, and not a drop got inside.
"Irritating!"
I dropped a fresh monolith. One that covered every sea on this planet.
And thus monolith covered the entire surface of the planet.
I annihilated all the seawater that had spilled onto the monolith, then layered monolith on top of monolith to erase the sky as well, and teleported My Castle onto the outer monolith.
With that, the planet was completely covered in monolith. No water, no atmosphere. A planet on which nothing exists above the crust but monolith. The view from My Castle's windows: outer space.
"Haaah…"
This state of affairs is perfectly fine as a state of affairs. But it is not the result of my redecorating on a whim, and on that one point alone I am dissatisfied.
Which means the cause of it requires punishing.
"Oi. I am coming for you now."
I said it and put a glare behind it—whereupon the other party came calling on My Castle instead.
"Forgive the intrusion. Lord I—might I trouble you for a word?"
The visitor was God. The Omniscient, Omnipotent God.
An old man in a single length of white cloth wound about him, with long white hair falling in waves.
"You may."
"Will you not withdraw now, I wonder?"
The God's voice was feeble. He knows my answer as well as I do.
That he was holding a conversation anyway was in order to share information in real time with observers—the Goddess and her like.
"You poke at me, you find you are not equal to me, and so you come over all humble. Rather convenient of you, isn't it? Very human behavior, for a god."
I turned a dubious look on him, and the God dropped his eyes, awkward.
The earthquake and the tsunami and the rest of those natural disasters had been the God attacking me. He did not imagine he could defeat me either; he was merely trying to see whether he could somehow drive me off this planet.
Those attacks had, however, frightened the Mofu more than any Hero to date.
"I am sorry. I beg you."
The God bent ninety degrees at the waist and bowed his head low.
"No. Thank. You. Your subordinate the Goddess is at fault. And by extension you, her superior, are at fault as well."
Huh. Not going to grovel on the floor, then—though even if he had thrown himself flat my answer would not change. I will absolutely not withdraw.
"I am truly sorry. Is there no way at all?"
"None at all. And even supposing I did withdraw, the monolith here would go on squatting here forever. Omniscient, Omnipotent God though you are, you cannot erase a monolith produced by me, who am both Omnipotent and Absolutely Superior. What exactly do you propose to do with this planet?"
"I would have you erase the monolith somehow as well. Failing that, take this planet—but leave the other worlds untouched."
"No to that as well. I am [The Omniscient, Omnipotent, Strongest, Invincible, Absolutely Superior One]. In each and every world that exists, I have become the highest being there is. There is no one left who can stop me. I shall do exactly as I think and exactly as I please."
The God's resignation came out of him as a sigh. His spine curved, and his arms hung limp from sloping shoulders.
"Lord I. What do you intend to do after this?"
"Whatever takes my fancy. I may erase the monolith on this planet. I may crush other planets with monoliths. I may erase universes that already exist, or create new ones."
"If nothing in particular is decided, might you not stretch a point for us, just a little?"
"No. Ah—here is something I had been keeping hidden even from your omniscience: there are a few things I will most certainly be doing."
The God's sunken eyes went wide and fixed on me.
"That had been troubling me. So it was you concealing it, and that is why the future would not show itself. And you mean to tell me what it is?"
"I do. I am going to erase you, and then erase the world of the gods—the Divine Realm. Along, naturally, with every other god in it."
"What!"
The God despaired, and in the depths of his dejection annihilated himself.
"Don't run."
I revived the God, put him through a good deal of terror, and then annihilated him properly, by my own hand.
And then I annihilated the Divine Realm.
With the single exception of the Goddess, every being that goes by the name of god was gone from existence.