When they learned that the Dungeon's spirit was involved, every member of the subjugation force was issued weapons imbued with the power of spirits. And not just any weapons, but ones of a fairly high grade.
Under normal circumstances, it would have been impossible to prepare that many spirit weapons in such a short time. But for some reason, the Guild had released a large stockpile of spirit-imbued armaments it had been preparing, making it possible to equip everyone.
Spirit power was countered by spirit power. Gear imbued with the power of a rare light spirit was the natural enemy of the Dungeon's spirit, which wielded darkness.
So they had not been wiped out yet. But even so, it was far from enough to hold out on its own.
-■■■■■■■■
"Tch...!"
The Black Dragon... the Dungeon's spirit unleashed a blast of black energy. It was similar to the black wind it had fired when it was still the Black Dragon, but deeper, heavier.
That was no longer wind. It was darkness itself, something that could not even be described with words.
A mass of destruction that devoured everything it touched surged toward Arphia.
"Guh...!"
With the sensation of broken bones piercing her lungs, blood burst from her mouth.
This one was deep. Blood was beginning to pool in her lungs little by little, and her breathing was starting to fail.
Arphia's vision blurred little by little.
'At this rate, suffocation is a certainty.'
Even a first-class adventurer was still human. She had to breathe, and blood had to flow through her body.
If left alone, the blood filling her lungs would choke her to death and drown her in her own blood.
There was no time to hesitate. Arphia immediately raised her fingertips and brought them to her side.
Fshk!
"Ghk...!"
The sensation of her fingertips tearing into flesh. Agonizing pain surged through her, but Arphia only paused for a moment before using her own hand to dig into the wound and force the broken ribs back into place.
It came with tremendous pain and bleeding, but Arphia ignored it.
Crunch At the same time, she used the elixir she had tucked between her teeth to heal the wound. Full recovery was impossible, but she had used an elite elixir, so most of the external injuries should heal.
The pain-clouded vision gradually returned. Only then could Arphia take in the state of the battlefield.
"Disgusting."
The words escaped her naturally at the sight.
The battlefield had been ravaged as if a meteor had fallen. The front line had collapsed, flung far away or reduced to chunks of flesh, and even the rear line, which had suffered less, was mostly in ruins.
What was even worse was that the Black Dragon in front of her was preparing a third wave of attacks.
"Tch, [Ataraxia]!"
It was too late to dodge. Arphia immediately deployed a defensive spell and compressed its range with a skill.
She concentrated it on both arms. Then she crossed her arms, wrapped in magic, to protect her head and heart as she leaped backward.
At the same time, the attack began.
-■■■■■■■■
"Grrrrrgh...!"
The darkness spewed by the Black Dragon swept over Arphia along with the subjugation force. It easily shattered the spell she had cast, ripped apart the cloth imbued with a light spirit, and butchered her body.
Her flesh was being shaved away by the darkness. On the cleanly carved wounds, as if she had simply been erased, red droplets belatedly welled up and spilled out.
How much time had passed? After what felt like an eternal instant, when Arphia finally lifted her head, there was nothing left there.
Not the front line that had been blown away into the distance, not the rear line that had fallen under the attack, not even the flesh that had burst apart because it could not endure.
Not a single thing remained. Everything had vanished cleanly, as if it had been devoured by that darkness.
"Ah..."
At that horrifying sight, an unfamiliar feeling welled up inside Arphia.
A feeling so strange, so distant.
The name of a feeling she had never known in her entire life. It was fear.
Right now, Arphia had been overwhelmed by the being before her.
Beyond the realm of living things, down to the most fundamental level.
Fear of the Black Dragon was being carved into Arphia's very existence.
A mark that would never be erased was being etched into her.
"Pull yourself together."
Through her wavering mind, a calm voice reached her.
"If you go like this too, we're all dead."
"Your arm...!"
"Don't worry about it. It's just a scratch."
One of the Empress's arms had vanished completely. It had probably been devoured by that darkness.
"...You did that while saving the others?"
"Well, yeah. I'm a mage anyway. Losing one arm doesn't matter."
Despite those words, the Empress glanced at her missing arm with a faintly bitter smile.
Then, as if shaking off any lingering regret, she turned her head and looked back at the Black Dragon.
"It's not even a dragon anymore."
She muttered it with a dry laugh, sounding almost sick of it.
Arphia realized that the Empress was afraid of the transformed Black Dragon too.
The difference was that the Empress might be afraid, but she did not hesitate.
"Get up. We have to fight."
"...Can we beat that thing?"
"No, we can't, idiot."
"Then..."
"Then what, you gonna run?"
As much as Arphia wanted to, she knew she couldn't.
"If we leave it alone, it'll rampage through Orario. Then a whole lot of people will die, right?"
"..."
"The choice is yours. Fight if you want to fight. Don't if you don't."
With that, the Empress walked toward the Black Dragon.
"I have no intention of dying here, though..."
"At the very least, we need to buy time."
The figure that appeared took up the Empress's words.
"Time for everyone in Orario to escape."
"We're adventurers, after all."
"...You're alive too, Guel."
"Mm."
"You don't look unharmed."
Guel was injured badly as well, though not quite as badly as the Empress.
In particular, the crushed eye on one side could never be repaired, no matter what they did.
"It doesn't matter. I have two eyes. I should be thankful I didn't lose an arm or a leg."
If he had lost even one limb, it would have been a massive loss of strength for Guel, who fought on the front line.
On the other hand, the Empress having injured one eye was a terrible situation for a mage. Strangely enough, the two of them had been hurt in the least troublesome places they could have been. Maybe they had ended up like this while protecting each other.
"What are our odds?"
"We'll make them from here on out."
Unlike the Empress, who was focused on buying time, Guel wanted victory against that thing.
He knew it was impossible, but adventurers were always those who pursued the impossible.
As an adventurer himself, Guel wanted victory against it too.
"Aaaaaaagh!!!"
Someone's scream rang out in the distance.
It was Zard.
"What now...?"
Normally Arphia would have snapped at him not to make a fuss, but now she couldn't do that.
Darkness was rising. From inside Zard's body.
The Black Dragon's fragment he had taken during the battle. That tiny fragment, dropped by the Black Dragon, had turned into a fragment of spirit power when the Black Dragon reverted to a spirit.
Excessive power brings destruction. Zard was unable to endure the small fragment of spirit power, and his body was beginning to collapse.
The sensation of being ground apart from the inside. If left alone for even a few minutes... no, a few seconds, Zard's body would collapse completely.
"Good."
Even in the face of that horrifying situation, Guel remained calm. In fact, the sight seemed to satisfy him, and there was even a hint of madness in his smile.
It was easy to forget because he was always trembling before Hera Familia, but the being standing before Arphia now was Orario's strongest. The strongest adventurer.
Adventurers were all insane. By any sane standard, there was no way people would eagerly throw themselves into a job where hundreds or thousands died every day.
Every day they picked up weapons, cut through and smashed monster bones and flesh, and charged toward the abyss with no light at its mouth like moths drawn to a flame.
The strongest adventurer meant a lunatic who stood out even among those madmen.
"Healer."
From the rear, where they had been waiting to save the unconscious adventurers, the healers rushed over.
"Leave only the minimum number here. The rest of you get to Zard."
"You... don't tell me."
"Can you do it, Zard?"
"Grrrrgh...!"
Zard clenched his teeth. His vision spun from the sensation of his innards being torn apart, and his reason was rapidly going numb.
He was going to die. In this moment, he understood that for certain. He would die soon, as the price for coveting power he had no right to possess.
But that insane beast was looking at him and telling him to fight in this state, wasn't he?
That monster was relying on him right now, wasn't he?
Then he couldn't say anything pathetic. He must not.
A man had his pride. How could he whine about being in pain here...!
"O-of... course...!"
As the healers poured their recovery magic into him, he felt the pain lessen for an instant.
But as if that had only been an illusion, even fiercer pain than before assaulted Zard.
The restored sensation from the healing magic made the pain feel even sharper.
But Zard no longer screamed. He resolved to pour even the strength he would have used to scream into swinging his greatsword.
Taking the spare weapon brought by the healers, Zard stood beside Guel. Even now, he was suppressing his body as it broke apart from within with the healers' magic.
"What about you?"
The last one was Arphia.
Those indifferent eyes pierced her.
"..."
Arphia did not answer.
She simply closed her eyes and thought quietly.
Orario's fate did not matter much to Arphia.
But what surfaced in her mind at this moment were her beloved younger sibling and the child that would soon be born to that sibling.
If she retreated here, she would save neither of them.
"I'm fighting."
The decision came in an instant. In truth, there had probably been no need to decide at all.
She had simply been swallowed by the fear she felt for the first time. The reason to fight, the reasons she had to fight, were already more than enough.
"Ah..."
Watching Vesta's disappearing back, Ais let out a small breath.
She had let him go. She had let him go after all.
Once again, she had only been able to stare at that same back as before.
"Vesta..."
Ais had wished for a hero.
She had always wanted a sturdy fence that would protect her.
She had wished for family who would laugh and talk happily within it.
But why had Ais taken up the sword?
Because she had lost her family? Because a hero had never appeared?
Those were part of it, but the biggest reason was this.
'I couldn't stop him...'
To be protected by a hero meant nothing more than having to watch that back.
Because she could only stand there and watch that back heading toward an irreversible battlefield.
Ais had taken up the sword because she hated that.
And yet, she had forgotten. Forgotten why she had taken up the sword in the first place.
She had suffered and hurt, and crying, she had searched for a hero. She had found one.
And now her hero was heading once again toward a battlefield from which there would be no return.
Leaving Ais behind.
"..."
She stared blankly in the direction he had gone.
She wanted to run after him and grab him. She wanted to cling to him and tell him not to go.
Even though she knew better than anyone that she couldn't, those thoughts kept welling up.
'If I follow him...'
No. Her existence would only become his shackle and help him in no way at all.
She knew that, but Ais could not suppress the feelings rising inside her.
Because she knew that if she just stood still, she would repeat the same mistake again.
"You can go."
"Loki..."
"Well, I mean, I should probably stop you, but..."
Loki scratched the back of her neck, looking somewhat awkward.
"You should at least say goodbye, shouldn't you?"
"...!"
"Riveria'll probably give me a bit of a scolding, but I'll smooth it over."
So go on. The god of lies looked at Ais with unexpectedly gentle eyes.
She pushed her wounded child forward so she would not regret it.
Ais could feel that feeling too, and because she could, she could not hold back the tears welling up.
But Ais did not cry. She knew this was not the moment for tears.
If she started crying now, she felt like she would never be able to face that moment for real.
"...Rey."
"...I can't fly as fast as Guel."
The half-human, half-bird Rey's flight ability was inferior to Guel's full beast form. At best, she would probably tire out halfway there.
"That's fine."
If they fell short, Ais would just run the rest of the way on her own legs. Even though she knew she would be late, she resolved to run desperately anyway.
It was a child's recklessness. Even though it was obviously impossible, Ais chose to force it through.
Rey did not try to argue. She understood Ais's feelings well.
She simply resolved to take Ais there with all the strength she had left.
Just as the two of them were about to set off after Vesta.
"I-I'm going too...!"
Someone suddenly called out like that.
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