The moment pitch-black darkness covered the world, Arphia knew it instinctively.
This could not be stopped. It was not something a human could withstand.
Her innate arrogance kept her from bowing her head to the very end, but even she could not help feeling an absurd, bitter awe at that outrageous power that seemed to swallow the sky itself.
In some corner of her heart, resignation bloomed. She no longer had the strength to fight, nor the will. She would become part of that darkness, and that darkness would sweep across the world.
"Ah... Meteria."
What surfaced at the end was her beloved younger sister, and the man who looked so much like her.
The family she had wanted to protect no matter what, and in the end had failed to save.
"I'm sorry."
With an apology that could never reach them, Arphia finally closed her eyes.
As if turning away from the reality closing in on her.
Then, just as the darkness swallowed Arphia and the subjugation force,
"[Keraunos Astrafe]."
Thunder roared through the air.
Like the whistle that signaled a final battle.
Lightning struck down.
Fast as a rabbit, sharp as a blade.
It cut through the darkness, like the rising sun at dawn.
"Ah..."
Arphia saw it. The darkness split apart, and the sky emerged once more.
"You—"
But what she could not take her eyes off was the man standing before the spirit, lightning coursing through his body.
A man with hair white as fresh snow, one of the people she had just been thinking of.
Arphia's mind filled with confusion at the appearance of someone who should not have been here.
How? Even if he had rushed here after learning of her defeat, there was no way he could have arrived this quickly.
The moment that question arose, as if answering it, she heard the faint flutter of wings from above.
Rolling her eyes upward, she saw a gargoyle plummeting toward the ground in a state of utter exhaustion. It was clearly the talking monster she had seen once before.
"Did he ride that thing here?"
Even as she looked away from the rare sight of a monster being worn out, Arphia's questions did not stop.
"Are you... all right?"
"..."
Her biggest question, naturally, was Vesta's condition. Anyone with half a brain could tell he was not in good shape. Hadn't she seen him fail to use his technique properly and spit blood during the Leviathan subjugation?
And yet how could he use that technique now, when he was even weaker than he had been then, and still look so fine?
Even in the face of Arphia's question, Vesta gave no answer. He only stared silently at the enemy before him.
"..."
-...
They looked at each other. Across time, they felt the fate that had brought them face to face.
The spirit did not know Vesta. Vesta knew the spirit.
To the spirit, Vesta was nothing more than a new intruder, but Vesta could not dismiss the other so lightly.
It was that thing. That thing had taken everything from him.
Friends, family, home, future.
It had stolen it all.
And now it was trying to take everything again.
"Long time no see."
-...
There was not even a response to the indifferent greeting. Vesta had not really expected one, so he did not mind.
From the start, this was not an opponent he could hold a conversation with. Just as humans and gods were different, that thing was different from humans too.
Above all else, its heart was different.
The heart of a monster that destroyed everything.
As long as that existed, we could never understand each other.
And even if we could, it would never understand.
This was revenge. The last thing I could force through.
I know it's meaningless. From its perspective, it must seem unfair.
But right now, I'm throwing all of that away.
I'm entrusting myself to the boiling surge in my chest.
What I do from here on is revenge for the future that will disappear, and a gift to the future that will move forward anew.
And my childish plea to you.
"Today, at this moment..."
Please forgive me for breaking your word, Lord Zeus.
"Take this."
He handed Arphia a potion. He had brought only a few in his haste, but if they were shared among the healers, they might just survive.
"Wait—"
After handing over the potion, he stood without hesitation and moved toward that thing. Arphia tried to say something, but he did not stop or look back.
He kept only one thing in his sight and went straight ahead.
-Forget me.
I can't. You know that.
-You don't have to suffer thinking about this day.
How could I, when you're gone? When all of you are gone?
-It was not your responsibility.
It is my responsibility. It's because I was too weak.
-Don't cry.
I won't cry. I still can't cry.
-...Be happy.
"I'm going to kill you."
He burned with killing intent. Like feeding firewood to embers that had already gone out.
Even if what rose was a dull-colored flame, it was still a flame.
Hot, and at the same time burning fiercely and violently.
Crackle. In response to its master's will, the spirit's lightning writhed savagely. Emotion spreads. The sword too, following its master's intent, sharpened its killing intent and threatened the enemy before it.
Arphia found the sight strangely unfamiliar.
How should she describe this feeling? It was like the regret of having trampled fresh white snow with muddy feet.
She felt as though something clean had been sullied.
Just as she unconsciously reached out, driven by instinct, to hold him back—
Crackle—
"Ah..."
With that sound, Vesta dashed away toward the distant spirit.
To a place beyond Arphia's reach.
The sight felt almost like an omen of the future to come.
Keraunos Astrafe. A technique that took the power contained in the spirit's sword and accepted it into one's own body.
A terribly painful technique, extremely difficult to use, and one that consumed an absurd amount of Mind.
It was also a technique that could achieve an overwhelming enhancement beyond that, but by the time one could endure it, there were not many situations where such a technique was needed.
My stats weren't lacking, and any missing ability could be filled in with Argonaut. In fact, in the original timeline, I had never once felt lacking in firepower at any point.
So why did I make a technique like this? There were several reasons, but if I had to name the biggest one—
"Hup!"
-■■■■■■■■?!
I drove my clenched fist into the enemy.
That alone bent the spirit's body into a sharp angle as it reeled in shock.
It probably never imagined such a crude attack would reach it. In truth, a normal human, no matter how strong, could never withstand that.
Even Zald, after consuming a fragment of the spirit, would have his arm erased the moment it touched. The reason Vesta was unharmed after touching such power was simple.
Spirit power is countered by spirit power. The sword of thunder, which already stood at a high rank among spirits, was further strengthened through the blacksmith god's forging and then taken into my body.
For that brief moment, I could become something similar to a spirit rather than a human. My body and Mind were both charged with electricity, and what I was recognized as was not [human power] but [spirit power], allowing me to fight that spirit.
For this moment, it and I were placed on equal footing.
-...That was the background behind this absurd technique.
But there was a question. Since this technique deceived the body's nature, it demanded an equally great price.
Terrifying Mind. Pain like my body was breaking apart. Maybe the original body could have endured it, but with my current body, it was a cost I could not bear.
And yet, strangely enough, I wasn't feeling pain at all. Instead, I was pouring out attacks in better condition than ever before.
Had my body recovered? No, even if I were at full strength, being this fine made no sense.
Was it because the opponent was the Black Dragon? That wasn't it either. The last time I fought it, I had felt the strain normally.
The [Keraunos Astrafe] only affected the target; it didn't grant me any enhancement.
Was I really supposed to be this fine?
No, this was more like...
"Ah, I see."
At last, I understood the state of my body.
Apparently, my body was in a far more horrific condition than I had thought.
"So I passed my limit a long time ago."
I had already reached a point of no return.
My current state was like a final struggle.
Fire burns brightest just before it goes out.
The embers that had gone out were burning with their last strength.
As for the result... no, don't think about it. I had already resolved myself for that.
Instead, I was grateful that this body was still giving me everything it had to the very end, and I steeled myself to pour it all into the enemy before me.
As if releasing every knot of resentment I had built up until now.
As if I could take back everything that thing had stolen from me.
Even knowing that was impossible, I turned away from that fact.
I burned only my own selfishness.
"[Firebolt]!"
I struck the spirit, which had been knocked back by my fist, with a follow-up attack.
A lightning-wreathed blaze, mixed with true lightning rather than flame that merely resembled it, shot toward the spirit.
-■■■■■■■■!!
A sound like it was being hammered directly into my skull rang out.
The language of spirits. More a cry of telepathy than speech, it stabbed straight into my mind.
There was no doubt about the shock in that voice.
Yes, of course it would be shocked. Its overflowing power had been reduced, and it had never imagined that something it considered invincible could feel pain so easily.
That was also why the spirit had deliberately taken the form of the Black Dragon. The heroes of antiquity all borrowed the power of spirits. By taking the shape of a dragon, it must have been trying to ignore spirit power.
The heroes of this age grew stronger through Falna, the blessing of the gods. That was why Welf, who would one day be able to forge a spirit magic sword, and Ais, who inherited spirit blood, were at the center of battle.
Of course, it wasn't easy. Even with spirit power, there was no avoiding the weakening of Falna.
The Black Dragon, able to ignore both Falna and spirit power, was a nightmare of an enemy. But even so, it was not impossible to bring down.
In fact, hadn't we succeeded in bringing it down like this?
Because I existed—someone without Falna, yet still able to wield spirit power without losing strength.
"I can't let this chance slip away."
The spirit's shock likely came from feeling pain like this for the first time since antiquity. Once it grew accustomed to it, a merciless counterattack would come.
What I had to do before that was pour on the attacks, and if possible, kill it right here.
Click. I drew the god's dagger from my waist.
The perfect grip that seemed to wrap around my hand. Even as I felt an unbearable ache at the familiar feel of it, I charged at the spirit with the half-broken divine dagger in hand.
-■■■■■■■■!!
I brought the dagger down on the spirit in a reverse grip. A slash that cut from crown to groin in an instant. The spirit screamed and tried to pull back, but I had no intention of giving it space.
Zzzing— BOOM!
One second's worth of accumulated force. The light gathered in my right foot shot forward the moment the spirit swung its hand.
The spirit's outstretched arm was blocked by my foot. The darkness it had released lost its direction, flowed backward through the spirit's body, and exploded.
-■■■■■■■■!!!
This was the loudest scream yet. Though I called it a body, the spirit's form was not actually made of flesh. It wasn't exact, but that body was closer to Mind itself.
More than physical shock, it suffered the most when the connections among the Mind composing its body became unstable.
Just like now.
"Hup!"
Slashslashslashslashslash!!
The moment the opponent was too consumed by pain to react was the best moment for me to attack. Concentrating dozens of slashes into a single point in an instant, I drove the half-dagger straight into the hole that opened in the spirit's body.
"[Firebolt]!"
Whoosh— Using the dagger as a fuse, lightning-wreathed flame raced through the spirit's body. The fire climbed the path torn open by lightning and began to ravage the spirit from within.
-■■■■■■■■!!
"...Tch."
Had pain beyond a certain point instead calmed it down? The spirit immediately gave up maintaining its form and detonated its own body along with itself. The darkness that had made up the spirit's shape spread in all directions.
Of course, I, who had been right in front of it, was swept up in that darkness too.
I immediately withdrew the dagger and leaped back, but the darkness was faster.
I can't dodge this...!
"[Gospel]-[Satanas Bellion]!"
Just before the darkness collided with me, [Sound] flew in and became a wall between me and it.
The darkness ruthlessly shattered the sound, but I, accelerated by the cushion of sound, managed to evade the darkness safely.
Immediately, I moved my legs and escaped beyond its range.
"This is..."
"Pathetic. You let yourself get carried away and pushed too far in."
At the usual cool assessment, a bitter smile slipped out.
This person really was the same as always, even now.
"Are you all right?"
"I was fine to begin with."
"I see... And the others?"
"I sent the healers. They'll join us soon enough. Though... it wouldn't be bad to bring it down before then."
Arphia said that and opened her eyes to look at me.
She didn't say anything, but her eyes made it all too clear what she wanted to tell me.
Throb, throb.
...Looks like I'm not in a position to refuse. I suppose I should gratefully accept it here.
"Will you cooperate with me?"
"Don't get the wrong idea. This was my job to begin with."
The queen raised that arrogance once more.
"You're the one helping me."
"...Yes, let's say that's how it is."
"Keraunos Astrafe"
"Firebolt"
"Gospel"
"Satanas Bellion"
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