The sun of Lugunica, for the first time in centuries, no longer warmed the earth.
Non — this sun no longer dazzled the world as it usually did, as if it no longer cared about what happened beneath it, as if nothing mattered anymore to its indifferent eyes.
This time, it was hidden. Hidden behind a thick fog, a blizzard of absolute and biting cold, and a snow that swallowed everything, every patch of land, without leaving the slightest trace exposed.
And under this pure and inconceivable cold, at the heart of this white hell stood a man.
Fire-red hair, sky-blue eyes, wearing the immaculate uniform of the Royal Guard Knights. In his right hand, the dragon sword Reid.
Reinhard van Astrea stood there, his face stern, muscles tensed, a single bead of sweat trickling down his temple despite the cold on his forehead. He was on his guard, all his senses at maximum alert.
Even the Sword Saint had to remain serious in the face of what stood before him. It was the worst convergence of nightmares this world had ever known.
The White Whale, immense, proud, and imposing, floated majestically in the air to his left.
The Great Rabbit, by the thousands, crawled on the frozen earth at his feet, a shivering white tide, mingling with the snow in a continuous swarm.
The Black Serpent — the calamity of calamities — swam in a puddle of its own putrid venom, as if nothing in the world could reach it, enthroned to his right with that immemorial assurance of things that cannot be killed.
And in the center, Puck. The Beast of the End, majestic, perched there with a golden gaze that seemed devoid of everything, as if he himself were not entirely conscious of being present.
And above this apocalypse stood a man. Entirely dressed in white, floating in the air, positioned like a superior being contemplating a tasteful spectacle.
Kozuwa Kurisu was there. And beside him, Natsuki Subaru, frozen in mid-air, observed the scene with the eyes of someone who no longer wants to be alive but is forced to remain conscious.
That was all that presented itself before Reinhard. And yet, despite all this, despite the madness of the situation, the Sword Saint did not take a single step back. His face hardened, displaying absolute concentration.
His hand on the hilt of Reid, his muscles contracted, ready to fight. The dragon sword itself seemed to tremble, ready to be drawn, conscious — as much as a blade could be — of the absurdity its wielder was facing.
Reinhard inhaled once.
And he drew. With a sharp motion.
The gesture was clean, without hesitation — a white light burst from the blade in a blinding flash, and pure energy invaded the entire domain in a fraction of a second, engulfing the entire horizon without leaving anything behind it.
The Sword Saint brought his arm down in a perfect arc, a blow meant to pulverize the air, the snow, and the beasts in a fraction of a second.
Then the light dissipated. The wind howled.
And nothing had changed. Nothing. Absolutely nothing had changed.
All the beasts were still there — intact, motionless, as if nothing had even grazed them.
Reinhard frowned.
Reinhard : « …Huh? »
He did not understand.
His gaze dropped to his hip, where the scabbard should have held the weapon he had just used — and he turned pale. His blood ran cold.
The sword. The dragon sword Reid… one of the Ten Swords of Power… was no longer there.
Reinhard murmured, incredulous.
Reinhard : « What… ? »
A mocking laugh answered his question.
Kurisu : « Kekekeke! »
He raised his eyes to the sky, toward the direction from which the sound came, and he saw him.
Kurisu was still there, suspended in the air with that casualness that never left him — but what immediately drew Reinhard's attention was what the man was holding in his left hand.
It was there. The Reid sword. Shining between his fingers like a trophy one has just picked up.
Reinhard gritted his teeth.
Reinhard : « How… is this possible? »
He hadn't even felt the weapon being taken from him. Not a vibration. Not a displacement of air. Nothing.
How could this man have snatched his weapon from him without him even noticing?
Kurisu shrugged with a smirk.
Kurisu : « Kekeke… did you really think I was going to let you do that? No no, sorry! But I need a fight that lasts more than two seconds, man, lol. »
He laughed, lighthearted, and without further ceremony, suiting the action to the words, Kurisu threw the sacred sword into the void behind him.
The blade flickered like a defective hologram and disappeared, purely and simply, instantly — not fallen, not flown away, just erased, as if reality itself had received the order to delete it from its records.
Reinhard did not have time to be shocked any further.
Kurisu was already speaking again and stretched happily.
Kurisu : « Well, well… I think it is time to start, isn't it? »
He raised his hands high.
TAP. TAP. TAP.
And reality was shaped.
Literally speaking — the world, this dear and magnificent world, transformed for the sheer pleasure of one man. The blizzard, the Mathers manor, everything disappeared entirely in a strobe flash, replaced by something improbable:
An arena of immense scale, covered in mountains and valleys that stretched to infinity, where there was nothing left but grass as far as the eye could see, under an artificial blue sky.
Everything — absolutely everything — had vanished. The beasts, the snow, the domain, the world as it existed a second earlier.
Reinhard found himself alone, standing in the center of this grassy void.
A crackle resonated.
Then Kurisu reappeared above him, decked out in a sparkling suit and tie, and his voice changed completely — deep, cheerful, theatrical, exactly that of a TV presenter wearing a flashy suit with a microphone in his hand.
Kurisu screamed into the microphone with the energy of an overexcited host.
Kurisu : « Hello everyboooooooody! I wish you all an excellent day, dear readers! »
His voice did not only resonate in the arena, it carried through all space, amplified by something that had no identifiable source.
Applause resounded from nowhere, from everywhere, without any presence being visible to produce it.
Kurisu gestured, hand on his heart.
Kurisu : « On this magnificent day, you are in for a dantesque showdown! A fight that will remain in the annals forever! »
He yelled this into his microphone, almost arched backward under the effort of his own theatricality.
Kurisu : « On this day, we will be treated to a pure Shonen fight! The GREAT HERO REINHARD! »
He pointed at the Red Knight, who remained stoic despite the total lack of understanding of what was happening to him.
More applause echoed in the void.
Kurisu : « Who will have to face four! Yes, yes, you heard me right — FOUR calamitieeeeeeeeeeeees! »
He paused theatrically, as if cupping his ear to listen to an imaginary question from the crowd.
Kurisu : « But, but, but! Facing them all at once without preparation would be a bit easy, wouldn't it?! Exactly! Skipping straight to the main course would be wasting the merchandise! So we will start with some warm-up games, obviously! »
His voice dropped slightly in intensity, without losing an ounce of its theatrical power.
He winked at the invisible camera.
Kurisu dropped a tone, becoming gravely epic.
Kurisu : « And by warm-up games… I am talking about 1v1! Yes! Reinhard will first face each calamity, solo! »
He dropped the microphone, which disappeared in a spark of confetti, and smiled broadly.
Kurisu : « So… how many will he be able to beat? The bets are off! Kekekeke! »
He then turned toward the exact spot where Reinhard was observing him — unable to make a move, not because he was physically prevented from doing so, but because what was unfolding before his eyes purely and simply exceeded his capacity for understanding.
Kurisu : « So — we shall begin the first fight! »
CLAP !
Kurisu snapped his fingers.
And just like that, it appeared. The White Whale materialized in the clear sky, massive, motionless, letting out a dull roar, waiting for its turn.
Kurisu : « Kekekeke. Well, let us take our seats, shall we? »
Barely had he said these words when a gigantic, luxurious throne, adorned with gold, diamonds, mithril, and all the precious materials ever invented in a work of fiction, appeared beneath him.
Kurisu sat down comfortably, crossed his legs, while the Whale began to descend slowly toward Reinhard.
Kurisu : « So, Reinhard… »
He rested his fist on his cheek, smiled.
Kurisu : « Are you ready? ... »
His gaze settled on the Sword Saint.
The red-haired knight kept an impeccable posture, saying nothing — but his entire face screamed what his mouth kept silent.
His eyes were slightly rolled back, his lips pressed together, his hair impeccable despite everything, his fixed gaze planted on the man in white.
Reinhard : « I am sorry, but… I have absolutely no intention of participating in your little games. I will defeat you to protect this world. It is the only reason for my presence here. »
He said this in an absurdly neutral tone, as if nothing in the world could shake him.
But instead of getting angry, Kurisu burst into laughter. Again.
Kurisu : « Kekekekekeke… ah yes, that is right! You are a noble and pure hero, Reinhard. I had almost forgotten. »
He stopped laughing, and continued in a suddenly softer tone.
Kurisu : « In that case… I suppose having a princess to save will motivate you, won't it? »
Reinhard frowned.
Reinhard : « What do you mean by that?! »
For an answer, Kurisu snapped his fingers.
Clap.
And next to Kurisu's throne appeared a cage. Made of solid gold — the kind of cage one uses to capture a bird one wants to keep alive. And in that cage was Natsuki Subaru.
The man was locked up, his hands gripping the golden bars. His knuckles were white. He could finally move a little — but he was forced to observe the scene, and he could not speak, something invisible sealing his lips.
He could not scream his terror, nor beg Reinhard to stop. An imposed muteness, because according to Kurisu's own words: "Hearing him scream every second would be unbearable for the readers."
Something no one wished for.
Kurisu turned toward Reinhard, the smile now extremely sadistic.
Kurisu : « So, what about now, Reinhard? ... »
He made a gesture with his hand toward the cage and pointed at Subaru with a smile of absolute sadism.
Kurisu : « If you do not face the opponents I send your way… Your dear princess is going to have a very bad time. You wouldn't want that, would you? ... »
Silence fell over the arena.
Reinhard remained silent for several interminable seconds.
Reinhard gauged the distance, evaluated his options. He could have tried to neutralize the man immediately.
But he knew his power, he knew the incomprehensible powers of this man — and without Reid, he had no guarantee of taking him down and saving Subaru in time without him suffering the consequences of a rushed gesture if he were to attack him head-on.
Slowly, Reinhard's gaze hardened.
He finally sighed.
Reinhard : « Very well… I will play your game. »
Kurisu clapped his hands with exhilaration, visibly delighted.
Kurisu : « That is what I wanted to hear! »
He sat back comfortably in the cushions of his throne, observing Reinhard facing the Whale.
Kurisu : « But I am not such a monster that I would let you fight bare-handed. »
Clap.
A knight's longsword, of excellent craftsmanship but terribly basic, materialized planted in the ground before Reinhard, as if it had always been there.
Kurisu sneered.
Kurisu : « At the very least, use that to defend yourself, Sword Saint. »
Reinhard took the sword without a word, without even casting a glance at the man who had just offered it to him.
Kurisu smiled, and turned his eyes toward the invisible point where, only he knew, hundreds of gazes were fixed on this scene.
Kurisu : « So there you have it, dear readers… the 1v1 can now… begin! »
A gigantic countdown appeared above the heads of the two combatants.
3...
2...
1...
FIGHT !
The Whale lunged.
With all its strength, it roared. It opened its gaping maw, releasing a torrent of erasure fog, invading the entire space, blowing this deadly mist like a tsunami straight toward its opponent.
It was ready.
It was going to crush what stood before it — such was the power that the great calamities had always known.
It progressed a few tens of meters in this devastating charge.
Then it stopped dead.
The area was literally blown away in a fraction of a second, the fog dispersed as if it had never existed, leaving the space bathed in a cold and clean light.
Reinhard still stood in the same spot. The basic sword was drawn, held toward the sky, looking straight ahead — and in front of him…
A disgusting sound tore through the silence.
SCHLACK.
The White Whale split exactly in two down the middle. Purely. Simply.
The Sword Saint had made only one move. Draw. Get into guard. Slice. Nothing more, and the 400-year-old monster had ceased to exist…
And the Whale, defeated, saw its two colossal halves crash heavily onto the grass in a pool of steaming, silent blood.
A deep and awkward silence fell over the arena.
As if it were, sincerely, the most ridiculous thing this world had ever produced.
Subaru, in his cage, was frozen. He was trembling. His pupils were dilated.
The White Whale… This absolute nightmare that had massacred armies, that had terrorized and broken him…
This same beast he had fled, which had caused so many nightmares in his flesh, which seemed absolutely invincible — had just been reduced to nothing in a single sword stroke, as one crushes an insect without even thinking about it.
« How… how is this possible?! »
His thought collided against itself without finding an answer. His hands tightened a little more on the golden bars.
The anticlimax was total, and for Subaru, it was of unheard-of psychological violence. He realized the insignificance of his own struggles.
Reinhard raised his eyes toward the throne, his voice calm, and fixed his gaze on Kurisu.
Reinhard : « So. Is that all? »
Kurisu remained silent for a second — his mouth still slightly open, surprised despite himself by the question. He quickly closed it, keeping his smile.
Kurisu : « No. Not at all. Here is the next candidate. »
CLAP !
With a snap of his fingers, the Whale's body disappeared entirely, and from the vacant space, a staggering blizzard materialized.
The temperature dropped by sixty degrees at once. Snow instantly covered the terrain, and from this snow, a shape emerged.
The Beast of the End. Puck. Large, imposing, ready to freeze the entire planet, his golden gaze now empty, fixed on the Sword Saint.
Kurisu sat back comfortably and crossed his hands.
Kurisu : « Here is your next opponent. Let us see how you beat him. »
The countdown panel returned.
3...
2...
1...
FIGHT !
Puck lunged while howling.
The temperature dropped instantly, again and again, reaching Absolute Zero, freezing the air itself in an instant. The Beast of the End rained down from the sky a deluge of ice spears by the hundreds, massive as buildings, all converging toward the red-haired warrior.
But Reinhard advanced anyway — he did not charge, he did not run, he walked, simply.
Advancing serenely through the storm, and every projectile that approached him shattered instantly upon contact, without exception, as soon as it entered his range.
Boom. Crack.
The air vibrated under the impacts, but the ice flew into shards before even touching him. His divine protections neutralized the cold; he royally ignored the cosmic gel.
Puck growled and redoubled his efforts, now launching ice projectiles the size of entire buildings straight at the man.
BOOM.
A deafening crash echoed throughout the space — but it was not the sound of ice hitting the earth. It was the sound of the ice shattering into a thousand shards under Reinhard's blade.
Puck continued, dropping the temperature far beyond absolute zero, launching sharp spikes capable of razing entire cities with a single impact. Yet, nothing affected Reinhard — his divine protections neutralized almost everything, and he seemed to barely care.
He raised his arm to slice through Puck's magic. But nothing happened.
The man forgot one thing.
Even if he was not affected — his weapon, on the other hand, was.
Reinhard : « What is… »
When he tried to move, he realized that his sword was literally frozen in mid-air, fixed by a cold it was not designed to withstand.
The vulgar steel blade had no divine protection. It was literally frozen to the hilt, brittle as glass. He had forgotten, for an instant, that he was not holding Reid but a simple borrowed blade.
That tenth of a second of hesitation was enough for the Beast.
Puck howled and released a tornado of pure frost that raged, entirely engulfing the spot where the knight had stood a second earlier in an impassable dome of ice.
Kurisu leaned forward.
Kurisu : « Hmm… did that actually work? »
He wondered aloud, sincerely curious.
But the tornado was blown away the following instant — dissipated as if nothing had happened — the dome exploded into a million luminous particles, and Reinhard emerged unscathed, without a single scratch.
His sword, however, was gone. He found himself bare-handed.
Kurisu straightened slightly on his throne.
Kurisu : « Ohhh, Oops… excuse me, dear Reinhack! Sometimes I forget that a simple sword does not suit you at all. Kekeke. »
Clap.
A new sword, heavier, slightly different, forging a bluish glow, fell from the sky and appeared in front of the redhead.
Kurisu encouraged him.
Kurisu : « This one is a bit more resistant. Make good use of it. Pff. »
Reinhard let out a light breath. He picked up the weapon without according a look to Kurisu.
Puck then raised a titanic paw, gathering mana from the atmosphere for a devastating attack.
He then wanted to unleash all his magic, ready to engulf the entire world in ice if he had to — but Reinhard was already before him.
He had crossed the distance in less than a second, and was now just in front of the Beast's face, dozens of meters high.
He concentrated his mana.
And brought his sword down with a single stroke.
A pure blast emerged — a wave of light hitting the beast head-on.
Puck did not even have time to moan; he was purely and simply disintegrated, instantly reducing himself into simple particles of mana scattered in the air.
It was the end of the Beast of the End.
Reinhard landed gracefully on the ground, without even a crease on his outfit, as if all this had been a mere formality.
On his side, in the cage, cold sweats ran down Subaru's forehead.
The Beast of the End. Puck.
This same Puck who had literally engulfed an entire forest in snow, who had crushed Petelgeuse like a mere mosquito, who was, by his own admission, capable of freezing the entire world — had just been reduced to nothing by a simple sword stroke.
Once again. Still a simple sword stroke. As if every enemy were the same, for beings situated above everything else.
« Another blow… A single blow… And that's it… »
This thought remained locked inside him, and he kept it to himself, his face twitching slightly behind the golden bars.
Each of Reinhard's crushing victories hammered one more nail into Subaru's ego.
What was the point of his horrible deaths if the solution to all the world's problems turned out to be this simple red-haired knight?
Subaru screamed internally, his throat tight.
Kurisu noticed. Smiled. Then turned toward Reinhard and applauded softly.
Kurisu : « Well done, Reinhard. You've passed the elemental boss stage! But let's move on to serious matters. »
His voice became more mischievous, more graceful, sharper.
Kurisu : « Here is the main course now. »
CLAP !
All the snow vanished into thin air to give way to a new tide.
White as well, but radically different — with red eyes, covered in bloody horns by the hundreds, staring at its prey with thousands of hungry red eyes.
The Great Rabbit.
They were there, on the ground, crawling over one another in a continuous swarm. The infinite swarm was already gnawing at the artificial grass around Reinhard.
Kurisu sneered and made himself comfortable in his throne.
Kurisu : « So, dear hero… How are you going to defeat a beast that multiplies infinitely?... Kekeke. »
Reinhard did not say a word. He gripped the hilt of his sword and took his stance.
The panel returned.
3...
2...
1...
FIGHT !
This time, it was Reinhard who attacked first. He vanished. He became a red streak crisscrossing the arena at a speed beyond comprehension and began to simply and purely raze the rabbits.
It was an absolute slaughter. The rabbits flew into pieces, sliced, exploded by the sheer air pressure of his movements — the creatures had absolutely no power whatsoever to even graze their opponent.
But the problem — and he discovered it quickly enough — lay elsewhere.
No matter how many rabbits he eradicated, more kept springing up. For every hundred rabbits pulverized, five hundred others gushed from the entrails of the survivors.
He continued, crushing them, shredding them over and over again, accelerating more and more, far exceeding the speed of light, reducing them to dust, becoming a mere red streak himself in this white, swarming sea.
He was no more than an invisible storm of blades.
And yet — no matter his speed — the rabbits were still there.
Reinhard thought that if he were fast enough, he could neutralize them faster than they multiplied.
It was a good strategy. It would have worked, without a doubt.
But it required time. An enormous amount of time. And he did not have that time.
He then decided to group them together, to encircle them, and continued in a loop — destroying in concentric circles, again and again and again, closing the net without ever letting a single one escape, until the mass naturally reduced.
He succeeded. Again, and again, and again.
And finally, when the number was sufficiently reduced, Reinhard concentrated all the kinetic power of his dash, then rushed at full speed and launched a powerful attack with his sword, splitting the air itself, releasing a massive shockwave — a blast hit the remaining rabbits, annihilating them in a resounding explosion.
The arena trembled. All the rabbits were incinerated by the friction of the air.
In the end, Reinhard stood there, exhaling slightly, sword in hand. He was done.
Well — almost.
For when he looked closely at the ground… a wet cracking sound echoed.
A rabbit.
A single rabbit had remained hidden under a shard of earth.
Before the Knight's eyes, the rodent split in two. Then in four. Then in ten. The infestation was starting up again at an absurd speed. He had forgotten one — and now, they were starting to multiply again and again.
Reinhard returned to his guard, ready to launch his deadly dash once more.
But even before the rabbits reached the hundred count, a noise echoed.
Tap.
A sharp clap of hands.
The rabbits disappeared. Evaporated. Erased from the matrix. Literally. All at once.
Reinhard, genuinely surprised, turned his gaze toward the source of the noise. It was Kurisu, who had just clapped his hands.
Kurisu yawned ostentatiously.
Kurisu : « Hmm. I think we've seen enough, Reinhard. Let's say you win this round. »
Reinhard, truly shocked, could not help but ask:
Reinhard : « Why did you do that? » he asked, squinting.
Kurisu scratched his chin, falsely avoiding Reinhard's gaze.
Kurisu : « Ohh… well… you would have ended up winning anyway by running faster, so I preferred to end this fight now, before it became repetitive. »
He looked away as he said this.
The real reason, which he obviously did not say, was that Author-san was feeling lazy.
Writing a mathematical chase scene for ten pages was boring.
He had absolutely no intention of writing more for a simple warm-up fight.
Yes, he was lazy. So what? It was he who decided, and Kurisu simply followed through.
So he had simply clicked "delete." But that, he would never — ever — reveal to Reinhard.
In his golden cage, Subaru felt his mind fracture. He had just seen the power of those things.
He had seen that even Reinhard had had to push himself…
And this man in white had just erased them because he… "was bored"?
The horror no longer made sense.
Kurisu cleared his throat, resuming his role.
Kurisu : « Urhhm... Good! Here is the final opponent of the test phase! »
CLAP !
The place transformed again. All the trace left by the carnage of the rabbits vanished purely and simply, and the fake blue sky darkened gradually and became ink-black.
The entire space was covered in darkness, the earth turned into black mud, and a putrid, toxic, smelly tide began to cover the plains. A black tide made of disease and all the conceivable misfortunes of this world.
A smell of pure death invaded Reinhard's nostrils. The tar rose, forming gaping heads and purulent appendages.
The Black Serpent. The largest and most terrifying of all the calamities. It stood there, towering over the place with all its mass.
Kurisu reached his hand toward the monster.
Kurisu : « Here is the "little" dessert, then. Kekeke. Let's see how you handle this one. »
Reinhard took his position.
The panel appeared one last time.
3...
2...
1...
FIGHT !
Reinhard did not lose a second. He leaped instantly. He aimed for the beast's main neck, his sword already armed, and swung it with a sharp, precise blow.
The blow was so powerful that it cleanly sliced the creature's muddy neck, and the blast traveled through the entire place in a dull rumble.
Reinhard landed on the ground. The beast's mass crashed behind him with a disgusting, liquid, sickening sound.
Was it already over?
Obviously not.
When Reinhard looked at his sword, he saw that it was melting. Literally. The entire blade was liquefying between his fingers, consuming itself like wax under the effect of the toxic blood.
Reinhard stifled a grunt.
Reinhard : « Ughh — ?! »
He dropped the steaming hilt. He looked at his hand which had held the weapon — deadly black bruises were beginning to form on his skin, spreading rapidly.
They were neutralized in a few seconds — after all, Reinhard benefited from a blessing of immunity to diseases — but the mere fact that they had been able to affect him, even for an instant, was already extremely concerning.
And that was not all.
Barely had he had that thought than several dozen tentacles struck at him with lightning speed. Reinhard dodged them all to perfection, without great difficulty — except for one, which managed to graze him, taking advantage of the split second of destabilization that had preceded it.
His shoulder instantly began to heat up brutally, sweat beading on his skin, before everything gradually returned to normal.
He gasped for a second.
When he looked at what had touched him, he swallowed hard. The beast was there, intact, staring at him with malice, as if nothing it had just undergone had left the slightest trace.
Kurisu burst into laughter, above it all.
Kurisu : « Kekekekeke ! Did you really think it would be that easy against a zone boss? »
He laughed heartily for a few more seconds.
Kurisu : « Come on, I'm being nice — here is a sword that won't melt on the first hit. Even if it won't be of much use to you, LOL ! »
He snapped his fingers, and a new sword, forged in an invulnerable black alloy, appeared in Reinhard's hands.
The man grasped it, immediately returning to his guard. This fight would undoubtedly be the most difficult of all those he had faced so far.
He rushed forward.
The Serpent also began to pour its poison, to arm its appendages against the man, and thus began what one could have called a true war of attrition.
Reinhard continued to rush, to exterminate, to cut the beast into pieces, to blow away its waves of venom, generating storms of pure mana that would have razed the capital, to shred it again and again — but it did not seem to care.
The Serpent did not care.
No matter how Reinhard sliced its maw, tail, or appendages, it always reformed from that putrid tar that constituted its body. Worse yet, it seemed to absorb the blows as if it did nothing to it at all.
And each of the Serpent's attacks was also harmful to Reinhard, incorporating a new disease, a new side effect at every moment, which only took a few seconds to subside under the effect of his blessings — but which came back tirelessly.
The Serpent was not to be outdone either, pouring its torrents of venom straight at Reinhard without the slightest warning.
Yet the red-haired man seemed to almost swim in this tide as if nothing were wrong — the beast threw everything it could, its appendages, its diseases, and almost nothing seemed to touch Reinhard.
And even on the rare moments when something managed to reach him, it never lasted more than a few seconds before the man was intact again.
It was a ridiculous stalemate. Reinhard dominated physically, but the beast was conceptually unkillable.
It was annoying. For the beast. For Reinhard. For Kurisu who was watching from his throne.
The fight continued like this, again and again — Reinhard barely affected, the red-haired knight seeming to almost adapt gradually to each new attack, continuing to land sword blows, pouring out all his energy, swinging waves of pure mana that razed the place several times over, tracing furrows that seemed to erase everything in their path.
Yet they simply passed through the beast, which always seemed to reform, again and again.
It was truly a stalemate.
Or rather — it was less and less so, because the longer the fight continued, the more Reinhard dominated, again and again.
But the problem remained: he could not kill it completely. It even seemed more troublesome to eliminate than the Rabbit itself.
And it was starting to get boring.
Kurisu sighed loudly, slumping into his throne.
It was boring to watch.
Boring to read.
And above all — boring to write.
So Kurisu sighed and decided to intervene.
Suddenly, during a dazzling exchange, Reinhard stopped dead and stepped back several tens of meters. The Serpent also stopped.
The knight spotted something above the Serpent's head.
[████████████] ☠ BOSS HP
A bar. Green. He did not immediately understand, and instinctively backed away several meters. The beast, strangely, stopped moving.
Reinhard cast an inquiring glance toward the sky at Kurisu, who was smiling broadly.
Reinhard : « Kurisu… what are these green gauges above the beast? »
Kurisu stretched lazily, but answered immediately, as if he had been waiting for this question from the start.
Kurisu : « Ohh, that? Well, it was starting to get annoying, so I sped things up a bit. »
He pointed at the beast and fired a simple, tiny pulse into the air.
The beam instantly razed part of its head.
A video game sound echoed. The bar changed from green to yellow.
[████████░░░░] ☠ BOSS HP
Kurisu explained calmly.
Kurisu : « As you can see, it goes down when you deal damage to it. It's a bit like life points. Try to bring it to zero, and the critter dies. Simple, right? »
Yes, it was simple.
But it also hid an enormous amount of things.
First, Kurisu had just proven that he could have eradicated in a single gesture the beast against which Reinhard had been struggling for several minutes.
Next, it implied that Reinhard, despite all his power, was not strong enough to conclude this alone — that he was being offered an advantage, like helping a child who couldn't quite do it.
But before Reinhard could say anything about it, Kurisu continued.
He addressed Reinhard again, his tone suddenly graver.
Kurisu : « By the way, Rein. We aren't even in Lugunica, you know. We are literally in another dimension. There is only you, me, the princess, and this pile of mud. »
Kurisu spread his arms, grinning broadly.
Kurisu : « So… what if you let loose a little bit?... Because what's coming next will be much worse. »
It was obvious, and Reinhard knew it himself, that he never gave his full potential — he always held back, out of habit, out of caution, out of concern for others and their safety.
But here... there was nothing to destroy.
At this precise moment, there was nothing in front of him but a monster, in a space cut off from the rest of the world.
So, for once — the Sword Saint decided to give it his all.
He brandished his sword.
The Serpent did not move. Its HP gauge had recovered a while ago, and the beast had entirely reformed, motionless, waiting for what was next.
Reinhard braced himself. He lifted the blade above him in a slow, almost solemn movement. Slowly, he lowered his center of gravity. The ambient mana of the dimension was literally sucked toward him.
Reinhard brandished the indestructible sword. He called upon no technique. He simply released everything he contained.
The air cracked. Space itself seemed to groan under the pressure of the absolute force that was awakening.
The strike was apocalyptic.
A blast of pure, incandescent mana exploded, of a power so colossal that it instantly invaded the entire space, of a power that nothing until then had hinted at.
The light fell straight upon the Serpent, engulfing it entirely, and the shockwave propagated in all directions at once, making the ground itself tremble, blowing away the grass for kilometers, distorting the horizon of this artificial arena as if it were struggling to contain the violence of that single blow.
Yet the Serpent still stood upright, proud, engulfed in that blinding light.
But its bar was going down. Again, and again. Entire fragments of its mass began to erode, dissolved by the blast that did not weaken.
The creature shrieked as the attack literally ripped the notion of its existence from reality.
Its entire body disintegrated gradually under the intensity of the blow, and the bar dropped rapidly to yellow, then to red, then —
[░░░░░░░░░░░░] ☠ BOSS HP
Zero.
In a blinding flash, the Black Serpent was vaporized in the light.
Not a single drop of mud remained, not a single poisonous spore. Only scorched earth and a smoking crater the size of a country.
Nothing remained where the Black Serpent had stood a moment earlier.
Reinhard stood straight in the center of the cataclysm, breathing calmly.
The test phase had just ended.