Spoiler Latest Chapter Discussion Thread for Death Mage Raws

Hear, hear!

Maybe predictions for the next chapter? Or a list of unresolved plot threads and unused Chekhov's Guns?

 

Anything really, could be about if van creates giant robots/golems out of death metals to either attack Alda, defend the Vidal empire or go to origin and do something there, but seriously anything.

I just got me thinking that someone mentioned that sentient golem existed before or around the time of the demon king war, so if van can make a "race" of sentient golems that can learn and grow into giant robots then...

Yeah sure why not.

 

The more I read about Van and how outrageous he is the less I want to read through the MTL raws. I hope the author finds some way to give him a challenge while not making the enemies magically all power up because he didn't pace things right. I don't mean to complain but its really been bothering me lately. I think this is part of the reason I've been losing interest in keeping up.

 

Van still faces plenty of challenges. It's just that those challenges, even combat-heavy battles, are far less reliant on pure fighting power.

 

I've been working on a few ideas and got the seeds for some shorts. Just haven't managed to get around to writing them.

Honestly, if anything's going to be a challenge for him, it's going to be a true god. (As in, not a demigod with a physical manifestation.) There has been strong implications that real gods are a lot more powerful as a rule than demigods. After all, that slime god of thievery, devouring, and mountains gave Van something of an actual challenge. That was a full fledged god, and not a particularly powerful one either. I don't think Van has the chance to personally take on the likes of Alda yet, and probably Bellwood or Nineroad could do some damage too.

The only thing really keeping him safe from them is a similar matter to how the boundary mountains kept him safe for most of his early life. It is the fact that the gods are unable to manifest physically without fulfilling certain conditions, which is something that has allowed Van to engage them on his terms. If they ever find a way to manifest a more powerful true god in front of him, I think Van might be in a bit of trouble.

 

That's the problem I have. If Alda actually does come down to Lambda is that not the end of the novel? If it is then I feel like the Origin part of the story is useless in the grand scheme of things. The only way I can see that happening and it being interesting is if Alda's side decimates Van's forces leaving him to start from scratch. I don't see the story going in that direction but if it did I'd be absolutely shocked.

 

Are you insinuating Van should ascend to true godhood to match other gods? I think Van would actively object to being a true god, because that might qualify as his fourth time. Imagine Van ascending to godhood to manage the death attribute, only to lose Underworld God Magic.

Yes, but their actions are restricted and they can't use the status system. Lambda's gods are clearly supposed to be useful to the mortals and the world itself, not just powerful.

Yes, but that god came mostly prepared after 100000 years of planning for world domination, and hijacked two other gods and a few Demon King fragments. Alda does not make long-term plans like that.

Alda and Bellwood are powerful only because they are widely worshipped. That's a huge problem, but it's very different from fighting the Evil God of Cannibalism, who is crafty and resourceful.

It is indeed a problem. However, Van quickly realized that gods are vulnerable to mortal afflictions when they descend. He was able to curse Phitun, after all. It's not a surefire way to defeat gods, but it's always worth a try.

Plus, Alda will eventually have to notice that Guduranis is slowly returning. Once that happens, he'll have to stop attacking Van to focus on the bigger problem.

In fact, the return of Guduranis may force Vida and Alda to join forces, helping close the rift that Bellwood opened during the previous war. I wouldn't count on it, though.

Alda can't kill Van. He can only do the next best thing (separate him into numerous pieces and seal each fragment), but he can't actually kill Van. Also keep in mind that unlike Guduranis, Van has the unyielding loyalty of his allies and followers. This means that unlike the evil gods, who abandoned Guduranis after his defeat, Vida's faction would actually work toward Van's revival. So there might be timeskips or changes to the setting, but I don't think the story would really be over.

Actually, that would work out perfectly. If Van is sealed before the others die on Origin, Banda could take a larger role. Also, it would be great if Van's revival and recovery happen at the same time as Hiroto's development on Lambda.

 

More likely he will assume that it is Van, since he has been convinced Van is the new DK for a decade now and Van keeps absorbing fragments, and double down on going after Van claiming Vida and her faction have turned traitor.

 

That would be good for a sequel where van is the over powered mentor who for some unknown reasons doesn't/cant personally do much except mentor and protect the new protag (mei/hiroto)

EDIT

This could only happen if Alda committed to a full frontal assault onto the Vidal empire, managing to destroy it in the process. I can only imagine that if Alda did a full frontal assault and vidas side was losing zuruwan, ricklent and the gods of origin would try to evacuate the citizens of the vidal empire to origin (and maybe garlicland if they have time due to it being secret and all) while the vida gods and van hold off aldas forces, the major gods would order the other gods to fall back into origin (with darcia becoming the defacto leader replacing vida for a time) vida, van and co would hold the line as everyone evacuate' s lambda, van would fall trying to buy time for vida and co's escape once that's done van would transfer half of his power into Banda before being overwhelmed and sealed by aldas forces.

This could only happen if Alda committed to a full frontal assault disregarding the damages to his side, I believe that after this assault he would have lost about half of his pantheon if not more, so he would not be able to do anything at all and it would take 500,000+ years to get back to where he is now.

EDIT 2

Thinking about it I think that vida, ricklent, zuruwan, botin and Peria would hold the line and van would escape before them (if he wasn't taken down before then) then the great gods would escape successfully with zuruwan, gufardgarn and the gods of origin sealing the bridge between the world's. I can only imagine the chaos origin would be in, giant gate appears out of nowhere, gods fighting behind it in a hellish landscape (due to the war between gods) and semi-monsters (vidas races) flooding out with injured, children and the elderly with them.

I would imagine van would get Banda to somehow (maybe get anameya) to tell the world that a huge amount of refugees will be coming from another world that don't mean any harm.

 

Not at all. I was just responding to FussyBadger's comment about how nothing seems to be able to challenge Van by pointing out that there have been some fairly clear signs of power scaling given up till this point that indicate the greater gods are still far more powerful than Van and the only reason Alda hasn't killed/sealed him is because he's a demigod and lives in the physical world.

If anything, it's exactly the opposite. Using the boundary mountains to protect him from the humans and nurture his growth worked out quite well. Right now, he's repeating that scenario using his demigod physical body to keep himself away from the threats that could kill him. In that light, ascending to true godhood is the absolute last thing he should ever want to do. He's going to need to get quite a bit stronger before even considering doing such a thing.

 

Um... He might assume it's Van at first, but he should be able to tell soon enough that Guduranis is not Van.

This demands a fanfic.

 

Freeing Botin and Peria should be seen as a challenge for him but all I can see it as is a wake up call for the side fighting Van. I agree that the power scaling has been done well and that True Gods are challenges to him but they aren't a problem either. They aren't allowed to move freely and if they were then he could just retreat to other places. Even his followers who should be fearing the Demigods they're up against have no fear of them. Many of his subordinates are reaching the levels where they too will become demigods so what is he going to fear in the near future? The reincarnators from Origin that are C ranked when they will be brought to Lambda? The Heros that Alda hastily put together? Heinz and his party? Alda's forces creating a crusade to stop him? None of those honestly are an issue to him because he broke the power scaling that was in place. I don't mind the level he's at but I wish the author spaced it out over another twenty years to be honest.

I like this novel too much to see it turn out like the ends of all the other isekai novels I've read. Where the antagonist suddenly power up to the point where the MC will unite everyone he can to oppose them. Look at the mess of an ending Slime had. I don't want something like that with this novel. I don't want the war to end all wars where our MC becomes the most powerful in the land/world/realm. I was hoping DM would end differently but like you said it's the opposite. Van is now the biggest/baddest guy just below being a true god. He hasn't had any losses or set backs on his fights and I don't see them happening in the future. I could see a mario being pulled and your god is in another dungeon/seal happening with one of the gods.

Sorry for the complaints it's just really been bothering me.

 

Ok, let me start with robots. They were mentioned to exist (golems with proper AI) by Luciliano a while back, so I guess that count as Chekov's Gun.

Right now Van is a demi-god, in other words a god with a physical body. For him to fully ascend to godhood he would need to die, something that every other mortal born god have to do before ascending, wether or not Van have to do the same is still up for debate though.

If Alda take the stick off his behind and decides that allying with Vida to fight against the actual enemy (Gudu) then I am sure that even if they are "cooperating" it would be only on the level of "don't get on each other way", and even then Van will probably accidentaly Guide some gods to his side and Alda getting on the way of Van being the one who gives Gudu the killing strike since it will more than likely be eating Gudu's soul empowering Van to who knows what degree.

Van being temporarily indisposed by probably Annoying Guy A's group (or maybe some complication because of his travel to Origin that will happen) would actualy bring a surprising and welcoming change, first it would show that Van's undeads don't go out of control just because he is not there (maybe) takin gout the way on of the reason Heinz is still opposing Van (or was it Annoying Guy A?) or show that even leaderless (or at least the head of the empire since there are many kings to lead) Vidal is still a dangerous opponent wether they have DA artifact or not and how faithful/loyal they are to Van's cause.

While "Alda is currently stonger than Van" is still up for debate, it is still truth that he is a great god that have lived for who knows how long and who is not stranger to fighting unlike Roddy, one who have been accumulating power for over 100k years, but (everyone together now) then there is Van who have the power (and many passives) to damage/kill gods, probably to a higher degree than even Gudu, not to mention than due to him still being "mortal" (couldn't make quotes bigger) he can still grow stronger, even more so with the seemingly endless buffet (gods) that Alda have been sending his way. AND there is also Baku that may or may not have innherited "eating" type skill from Van, so Van is probably not the only god slayer available on Vida's camp.

 

Yayy! Robot races, non organic species will be apart of vans races.

I think bakuwana would be like the god of cannibalism where he "seals" the souls inside himself (at most).

 

Wow, I was just about to mention how Slime have a giant asspull by the end, even if I kinda liked the whole war scenario thing. The main problem with that is that it was an understandable asspull (infinite space= infinite space for energy) it is still one of the asspull I hate the most, time travel. And the ending of the epilogue was disgusting. The difference here is that while there is asspulls in DM (lets admit at least that), this are planned asspulls, some that have been planned on sight even (the tunnel for example). Yes, the power creep is comparable with Dragon Ball. Yes, Alda is showing to be less and less of a powerhouse as he was at the start. But this can actully be seen as a sort of "opening chapter" to the actual future conflict to ensue later on. A while back I proposed that DM is structured in sagas of about 3-4 volumes each with the current one possibly being the last one of the current one (the third one BTW) in which Alda will finally get his shit together and actully start to act against the very real treat (for him) that is Van instead of taking the wait and hope approach that is the unsealing of Bellwood. I also would really really want for DM to not end like Generic Isekai A since I really like this story, but because the antagonists are acting as proactive as the MCs of those novels (even acting like the MCs of those too) is easy to see the why of your worries.

Don't worry, as you can see with the wall above you are not the only one.

 

Time to make JARVIS! Though I guess Van is the JARVIS for Trasformation Gears... Cybetron maybe? A giant moon sized space station? That talks with cute anime voices 'cause? Zords would be cool too. Or Gundams.

Since Densuke said (according to Kari) that Baku's name was meaningful then it would not be that strange since in the myth Baku spited out the 7 moons, meaning he was just holding them in. A Kirby-like sube-space for a stomach maybe?

 

That's a death attribute thing. We don't know if Baku can do death attribute things.

You are contradicting yourself. If it was planned, it's not an asspull.

No. It is time to make Wheatley. :V

 

Moon sized Vidal sphere populated with sentient golem' s plus areas for organics to live?

 

Hey, being born from the blood of the emperor of death needs to have some perks right?

I meant it in a "it feels lik an asspull so it must be an asspull kind of way". But, yeah, I kinda crontradicted myself there.

Like Lambda needs more morons.... Hmmm, but if he is added to Roddy, would it make a plus or a double minus somehow?

 

And gigantic squid machine gods to Guide people?