I impersonated God in America

Cavalli put the pen back in its cap and leaned back in his chair.

"Ring ring!"

The Papal States' encrypted private line?

Cavalli answered the call, and the voice on the other end was that of the Secretary of State, the Cardinal himself.

"General Kavali, it was your men who took the hat from the ruins, right?"

"What hat? I don't know."

"Buddy, don't play dumb. Things are more serious than you think. You see, inside that hat is a core relic that seals a monster beneath Mount Vesuvius. Once the hat leaves the altar, the seal will break, and the monster will begin to awaken soon."

Cavalli's finger paused on the microphone, but he wasn't sure if the other person was bluffing him.

"What monster? I don't know!"

"If you don't admit it, don't come looking for us if something happens later."

Everyone in the command room heard the sound coming from the loudspeaker at the same time.

The intelligence analyst in the back row took his headphones off his head, still holding a half-full cup of coffee in his hand.

Just as Cavalli was about to speak, his assistant suddenly stood up from his seat, causing the chair to tip backward and crash to the floor with a loud metallic clang.

He pointed at the main screen, his lips trembling slightly.

"General! Look at the crater at the observation station!"

The main screen switches to the live feed from the Vesuvius Observatory.

The thin layer of steam above the crater has been completely torn apart.

Thick, black smoke billowed upwards from the center of the crater, its interior enveloping in dark red flames.

A visible heat wave emanated from the air.

At this moment, the olive trees on the mountaintop, after being swept by the heat wave, had their crowns charred and curled.

Volcanic ash spread in all directions from the top of the plume.

thump.

A deeper, more resonant impact, with a long trailing sound, echoed from inside the crater.

thump.

With each impact, the flame in the center of the smoke column leaped upwards and then receded back to its original position.

thump.

Everyone heard that dull sound, which made their hearts tremble.

Kavali was still holding the microphone.

The Secretary of State's voice came through the microphone.

"Still not admitting it, buddy?"

"Okay, we took the hat."

--------------

Elcorano, located on the southern slope of Mount Vesuvius.

Wenban held the selfie stick in front of him, aiming the camera at the rock face behind him that was already completely surrounded by military tents and cordon tape.

The number of online users started dropping more than ten minutes ago, and only a few comments were appearing in the live chat.

Hey buddy, this doesn't look too good.

"Everyone, I've checked. The military has only fenced off the Vesuvius scenic area because they need it for research in the short term. Relax..."

Suddenly, the comments started scrolling.

[Hey streamer, look over there at the crater!!]

[As expected, that unlucky guy. I knew watching this streamer wouldn't disappoint me; he always manages to get insider information.]

Wenban turned around.

The plume of smoke above the Vesuvius crater is rising.

Dark red flames surged within the smoke, each flicker making the surrounding expanding gray cloud glow.

The edge of the gray cloud is pressing down, spreading rapidly from the crater towards the surrounding hillsides, and has already crossed the mountainside.

The smoke column suddenly bounced upwards from the center.

next moment.

A hand made of pure black smoke reached out from inside the crater.

When the entire palm was spread out, it blocked the small patch of sky directly above the crater, and smoke flowed down from between the fingers like melting asphalt.

The live chat exploded.

Get out of Italy! You never bring good news when you arrive!

I'm French, and I hope the anchor can come and broadcast from here!

Don't believe that guy! I checked his IP address on his profile! He's British!

The number of online users has skyrocketed.

Wen Ban gripped his phone tightly to his chest, his lips trembling slightly.

"Stop talking, I'm really not a jinx!"

--------------

Xu Ge had just stepped out of the bronze door at the end of the snake cave passage, the lingering sulfur smell from inside the passage still clinging to his sleeves.

As soon as he poked his head out of the crevice at the entrance of the stone gate, he noticed something strange.

"Huh? Have I been inside for that long? Why is it so dark?"

next moment.

A hand formed from black smoke is slowly pressing down from above the crater.

The hand patted around the crater, and the blast wave sent rocks flying in all directions.

Whoosh!

One of the fragments grazed his ear and flew to the rock wall behind him, embedding itself about half an inch deep into the volcanic tuff.

"..."

He seems to know the reason now.

"Hey buddy, get out of the way. Didn't you just trick me too? We're even now..."

Pakko had already taken off his cloak, and his backpack contained the newly acquired jackal mask. Looking at Xu Ge blocking his way, he couldn't help but mutter a few words of complaint.

Then, the next second, he heard a roar from the sky.

"I was sealed away for thousands of years and banished from my homeland!"

"Now that you've chosen to awaken me?"

"You're all courting death!"

Pak looked up at the terrifying giant hand protruding from the crater, and saw thick smoke billowing out.

The sky had been turned black.

"Am I hallucinating because I've been inside for too long? Should I go back to the castle and come out again?"

Chapter Forty-Nine Negotiation

St. Mary's Church.

Lynn unfolded the system panel, and he had already placed the Smoke-Smoke Fruit and the Flame-Flame Fruit in the card slots.

He had actually considered using only the Smoke-Smoke Fruit to create a giant, but the oppressive feeling of a pure smoke shell was not enough to achieve the deterrent effect he needed.

Last time in New York, the use of a clever method to exploit the tobacco fruit resulted in a catastrophic outcome.

But this time is different.

The purpose of this Smoke-Smoke Fruit is to create black mist in the volcano. The output of the Smoke-Smoke Fruit alone is actually quite limited; at least on the surface, it cannot create enough physical damage.

Once the military sends its firepower to the front lines, it will eventually realize that the giants are just bluffing and are not as terrifying as they seem.

This is also why Lynn chose to end the last Thunderbird incident quickly.

However, if the flames of the Flame-Flame Fruit are added, the nature of the fruit changes completely.

Black smoke enveloped the flames, and the flames expanded outwards with the help of the smoke.

Each time the giant raised his hand, it brought a substantial impact of high temperature, which could scorch a layer of soil when it hit the ground.

The most important thing is to free up the card slot.

The Smoke-Smoke Fruit and the Flame-Flame Fruit occupied two of his equipment slots at this moment.

We'll need them for several more big events, and it would be too wasteful to assemble them separately every time we use them.

Besides, Thunderbird had already confirmed it with him last time.

If enough people believe it, then the corresponding template can be generated.

If the plan succeeds.

After that, he can completely separate these two highly used fruits, saving two crucial card slots.

The numbers on the system panel keep jumping, and the real-time footage of Mount Vesuvius has covered all of Europe.

Use any spare money I have; that's my way of ninjutsu.

The newly acquired willpower was continuously added into the Titan's body.

--------------

Rome, Ministry of Defense command center.

On the main screen in front of Kavali, the giant had already propped up most of its body out of the crater.

Layer upon layer of black rock, solidified from lava, covered its trunk, its shoulders exceeding the diameter of the crater.

Black smoke seeped out continuously from the cracks in the rocks.

Flames flowed like blood, slowly trickling along the cracks in the rock, burning their way from the fissure in his chest to the hollow in his shoulder blade.

Each time the giant exhaled from his nostrils, two thick, black plumes of smoke were simultaneously pushed down from his nasal cavity.

"Good heavens, Mount Vesuvius has monsters like this? Are you sure this isn't a Balrog?"

The intelligence analyst in the back row overlaid the mythology database and the scene footage on the screen simultaneously, his fingertips dancing across the keyboard for a while before stopping.

"Although it looks very similar, the initial guess is that it should be the giants from Greek mythology, the Arcyonius. Legend has it that this giant was dragged here by the hero Hercules because he could not die in his birthplace."

"But this guy has nothing to do with lava in mythology, right? How did he turn out like this?"

The assistant placed the underlying geological profile data of Mount Vesuvius on the side of the screen and pointed his finger at the marked line of the crater rock layers.

The magma chamber, thousands of meters deep beneath the volcano, has never completely cooled down in the past few millennia, and the geothermal heat released each year is enough to bake the surrounding basalt into a semi-molten state.

He pointed to the giant on the screen.

"This guy has been trapped under the volcano for nearly a thousand years, spending all his time in those semi-solidified rocks above the magma chamber."

"Having been submerged for nearly thousands of years, it's not impossible that it was assimilated by the power of the lava."

"Legends are legends, and reality is reality."

"We cannot deny what we see in reality just because it differs from mythology."

"Do you think this giant was created specifically to scare us?"

“That makes sense, you've convinced me.”

The command room was quiet for a moment.

After no longer dwelling on the source of each other's power, everyone remembered the stone serpent on Sardinia.