Chapter 238
Chapter 238
It was like a massive rampart, like a serpent crawling skyward.
It was like a wave that had used the earth as its floor and surged upward, like a fountain shooting toward the heavens.
'Ice?'
From that point, the ground seemed to have been folded upward in half.
The barrier, connected to the earth, shot skyward. White frost clung to it from about thirty centimeters up, and from one meter onward it was solid ice.
The ice flowed endlessly upward, and trapped within it were clumps of dirt, weeds, and countless other debris tangled in a complex mass.
"What the hell is this?!"
Rozalin and the others who'd followed from a distance spat out curses.
"Something like the World Eater?"
"That one devoured the land. But this is...... what."
When dealing with demons, acting took priority over analyzing.
I drew my sword atop the Griffon.
I felt the Demonic Energy saturating the area.
And I set my Sword Intent.
'Cut. Full power.'
The instant I gave the signal.
The sword cried out in joy.
WOOOOONG—!
Indigo-tinged flames rippled in every direction.
They burned through every scrap of ambient mana, and Aura erupted.
A colossal Aura swept across the ground like wind, as if trying to sever land and wall alike in a single blow.
CRAAAAAASH!
The Aura collided with the ice wall in a thunderous explosion.
No—it wasn't an ice wall, precisely.
'It's expelling matter?'
The instant my Aura reached it, the ice wall had spat out the debris flowing through its body to block the attack.
And it hadn't merely blocked.
————!
With a deep, subsonic rumble, the liquid within the wall surged faster from top to bottom.
Simultaneously, the ice wall crept closer toward me.
In other words, the land had shrunk.
'It devours the land in a different way.'
Where the World Eater had literally consumed earth, this thing siphoned land upward into the sky.
Upward?
A strange instinct made me look up.
Something sharp was plummeting toward us from high above, like rain.
"Dodge!"
At my shout, the Griffon banked hard, reversing toward where we'd come from.
Almost simultaneously, dozens of pointed spears slammed into the spot I'd just vacated.
FWABABABABAK!
The dark gray spears looked to be over four meters long, their entire bodies hard as iron.
Barbs never designed for human hands—no grip, no handle.
Each was as thick as my arm; a single hit would mean clean impalement.
Meanwhile, the others came rushing in from behind.
"HRAAAH!"
The Spear God, at the very front, wrenched one of the embedded barbs from the ground and hurled it straight at the demon.
Somehow he'd already coated it in Aura—a faint sheen rippled along the shaft.
But once again, the result was the same.
Before the Aura-clad spear could touch the demon's body, the ground shuddered, and a small membrane formed between us and the creature.
The attack itself was useless, but there was one takeaway.
'Demonic Energy.'
The demon hadn't simply pulled in debris to block the Aura.
It had layered Demonic Energy onto the debris.
Like Aura.
'It's imitating humans.'
Demons were entities that wished for the destruction of the human species—of this world.
They were born as the Anti to concepts central to humanity's development and civilization.
Giant-Block, which blocked ranged weapons.
Ocean Hall, which neutralized maritime transport.
Sacer, which targeted Holy Power.
Anti-Magic, which sought to negate spells.
And so on.
'An Anti to Aura?'
No—probably not.
If it were truly Anti-Aura, then Aura itself shouldn't work at all.
The way Sacer had shrugged off every attack from the Holy Kingdom.
This was simply—
'The demons have absorbed the concept of Aura.'
They'd evolved.
Demons had learned Aura the way humans had, and begun wielding it as Demonic Energy.
A horrifying thought struck me.
'What if that Behemoth...... uses Aura?'
It was an opponent even Pan at Grand Sword Master level couldn't gain the upper hand against.
If it gained an offensive capability equivalent to Aura on top of that......
"Teacher!"
Rozalin, who'd drawn close, snapped me back.
Her voice jolted my mind into focus.
"That thing keeps blocking everything! What do we do?"
"We need to separate it from the ground first."
"From the ground?"
Rozalin sighed as she studied the demon.
Not as large as the World Eater, but enormous all the same.
Its width spanned an entire castle, and its height pierced the sky without end.
The upper portion, shrouded in clouds, was barely visible.
Lightning flickered and crackled within the cloudline.
Nothing about this looked easy.
"How? Pick it up and move it?"
"Pick it up?"
"We call Sihan. He pried apart an artificial island over there."
True—Sihan might have a method.
But before that, there was a high chance this thing would consume the entire Aislard continent.
So instead—
"We just cut it off."
"What?"
"I'm not attacking the demon. Everyone fall back!"
I pulled everyone behind me and explained the plan.
"Will that work?"
Only one way to find out.
I followed the Spear God's lead and gathered the barbs embedded in the ground.
They hummed in my grip, resisting—the residual Demonic Energy inside them reacting against the Sacer within me.
'Quiet.'
But the instant I raised my Sword Intent and layered Aura onto them.
The Demonic Energy filling the spears vanished, replaced by barbs of near-pure white.
"Hah!"
I threw the spears in staggered sequence.
Each at a different distance—a process of probing the demon's defensive range.
The demon blocked the three spears that neared its body but let the two that struck the ground embed themselves unimpeded.
"Good. Everyone knows the plan?"
At my signal, the others nodded and spread wide.
The opening strike was mine.
I raised the sword and gathered my energy.
'Full power again.'
The sword hummed once in acknowledgment.
The ambient mana rippled, and once more a torrent of mana surged through my body and into the blade.
I set my intent and swung.
Between the demon and us—across the midpoint of the ground.
A long line carved itself through the earth.
And then—
CRUNCH!
As if something had bitten clean through, a wide, black void opened between the two halves of the land.
The World Eater Fantasy's power.
The Fantasy that devoured continents—erasing them from the world as if they'd never existed.
CRAAAAAAASH!
From that void, a crimson-black light erupted skyward.
It looked like watching a mage's Firewall spell.
Perhaps because it had been severed from the continent.
The demon's upward flow stuttered to a halt.
Its body began to tilt, slowly tipping backward.
"Now!"
Before my signal even landed, people who'd read the situation were already launching attacks, scattering Aura.
Dozens—no, hundreds of strikes hurtled at the demon in a compressed instant.
CRASH! CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!
It looked like a well-drilled battalion firing cannons in sequence.
The first to arrive were met by endless Aura-laced debris.
Simultaneous detonations, the roar in the air growing louder.
"Fall back!"
Thousands of barbs rained from the sky like arrows.
Smaller than before, but in staggering volume.
"Deflect! Don't try to block head-on!"
"AAAGH!"
"Dodge! One direct hit and you're done!"
Screams and shouts mingled.
The sounds of students in pain made my body flinch instinctively.
But I didn't look back.
'I have to trust them.'
Holy Power bloomed.
Yuria was here.
As long as no one died, she could save them.
I trusted the skill of the students who'd come this far, the judgment of the comrades fighting alongside me.
I fixed my gaze on the demon's state.
'It's shrinking.'
The clouds overhead had thinned, and the barrier's size was gradually diminishing.
Just like when the World Eater had vanished.
It was working.
"Once more!"
I gripped the sword in both hands and poured in energy again.
Having expelled so much mana in a burst, the ambient supply was thin.
That was fine.
The land was already severed. Now it was simply a matter of hammering it endlessly.
"HRAAAAAH!"
"HAH!"
"Die! DIE!"
Attacks poured in from every direction, and with each volley the Demonic Energy wavered.
It wasn't just mana being consumed.
The demon's Demonic Energy was depleting too.
———UOOOOORGH!
A basso rumble too deep for any human vocal cord gradually climbed into audible range.
The demon's scream.
An increasing share of the Aura was breaching its defenses and striking its body.
The seemingly impervious edge of the world was crumbling.
The wall of ice, earth, and debris slowly toppled.
RUUUUMBLE!
With the sound of collapsing land, the terrain beyond the continent lurched.
A glacier zone—half ice, half water.
A massive wave rolled away from the falling wall, then surged back toward us like a tsunami.
SHWAAAAAAA—!
Most of the wave poured into the void carved by the World Eater and vanished.
The sea beyond the boundary was strikingly clear and bitingly cold.
"A Fantasy......"
Whether this sword had done it again or not, a single Fantasy was drifting in on the waves from afar.
It had looked ready to be swept into the darkness alongside the water, but instead it floated up and drifted toward me.
Toward the sword, precisely.
I snatched the Fantasy out of the air.
WOONG—!
The sword vibrated in protest.
I slid it into the sheath.
"No."
It hadn't only absorbed the fire demon's Fantasy.
The World Eater's abilities had manifested in that strike too.
Rather than parasitizing the World Eater Fantasy, the Doppelgänger seemed to be absorbing the World Eater Fantasy itself.
If it consumed this demon's power on top of that......
"Looks like it's over."
Rozalin came to my side.
"The students?"
"Some got pretty banged up, but they'll be fine with treatment. Nobody died."
"Thank goodness."
"Only the Spear God's thrilled."
I wondered what she meant, then saw the Spear God directing students to collect the barbs embedded in the ground.
"New spears, basically. He was probably jealous of you using the World Eater Fantasy in your sword."
"Tell him to wrap it up. You said people need treatment? Yuria can't handle it alone. Let's head back."
***
"Ohhh...... ohhh......"
The people of Aislard clasped their hands and gazed skyward with reverent hearts.
The sky, choked shut since the demon's arrival, had cleared to a brilliant blue.
The stale, acrid air had turned crisp.
Above all, the boundary that had walled off the sea and land beyond the horizon was gone.
'How can humans win a battle against nature......'
Nature was a great existence.
Nature was the world—the mother who'd given birth to humanity and all things.
The father who humbled humanity, and time itself, which embraced even human death.
And the beings who'd fought that existence were returning from beyond.
"O great ones......"
Every one of them fell prostrate in reverence.
And Cassian, meeting their gaze—
"Uh, huh?"
—simply stared in bewilderment.
"At last, kindred souls who appreciate your greatness, Teacher. I believe we have enough for a religion."
Yuria said something alarming.
"No, Yuria? That's not what this is, so don't do anything. It's really not, okay?"
Cassian protested in distress.
Amid that commotion, there was one piece of good news.
"There's a settlement?"
"When Aislard sells children, it's not individual sales—they're traded at a large market. And that market is held here."
Zelta pointed to a spot on the map.
Not far from where they stood.