Chapter 203 : Chapter 203
Chapter 203
Darkness occupied the entire mountain.
A single, tiny sword that had been driven below it traced a white arc like a meteor.
It was no different from a single speck of dust stamped upon the vastness of space.
But the instant that sword touched the darkness, it detonated in a blaze of light vast enough to blanket the world.
CREAK— GRK, GRKRKRK, GRRK? GRAAAUGH? CREE
CREEK? CRAAAK?
A distortion ten times more violent than when Sihan had thrown in the bag compressed and twisted the mountain.
A gargantuan body that had been invisible to the eye was grotesquely crushed down until it entered their field of vision.
The ground screamed of its own accord; the sky crumpled down to the tops of their heads.
A catastrophe beyond catastrophe.
"Get back!"
"Run!"
Drained of energy after firing, the knights stumbled and crawled backward.
Sihan emitted mana and began grabbing people and flinging them to the rear.
Duke Crownhardt, too, gritted his teeth and seized the knights nearest the front, running.
But it was not enough.
The moment a few knights lost their strength and staggered on the ground.
As though the Iron Eater were pulling steel, the World Eater began dragging their bodies.
WHINNNNNY—!
But not one of them was pulled into the World Eater's darkness.
Small-framed horses.
Translucent, violet horses that at first glance looked no bigger than ponies erupted from beneath their bodies and galloped, carrying them.
"Phantom Steed!"
All eyes turned skyward to Cassian.
Cassian was standing on a Griffon that had followed him.
From there, he layered Aura endlessly upon the energy he had already fired.
He drew on every last drop of surrounding mana and rotated the Fantasies seated in his body.
And with the now-empty cylinder in hand, he continued to fire Aura.
POP! PA-PAP!
Volleys of Aura rained down from a distance and slammed into the space around the sword.
Each volley was feeble on its own.
But it was enough
to nudge the sword — still cradling its massive force, still warping space —
a little
further forward, generating spin.
GRAKAK? KAK?
????KA!!!AH?
AH???KA?AH!AH!?
The enormous mountain crumpled and crumpled and condensed without end.
By now, the mountain had shrunk to the size of a very large castle or city.
That was still immense, but put another way, it was small enough to take in at a single glance from above.
Hundreds of Phantom Steeds had rescued the knights, who now watched with taut nerves.
And so they did not notice.
'......I have to stay conscious.'
That Cassian had reached his limit.
***
The operation itself had not been bad.
The power of five hundred Aura users.
Maximized through formation, loaded into a weapon, and swung.
A method that had succeeded several times through demons like Sacer and Ocean Hall.
I had expected a similar success this time.
'It is too enormous......'
The World Eater's body and power were stronger than anticipated.
Around the sword, the World Eater's body was still compressing.
But the speed of compression had slowed drastically from the start.
'The sword cannot hold the full force.'
Even the Holy Sword had failed to withstand the Holy Power of hundreds of Holy Knights.
No matter that this was an Iron Eater–forged blade tempered by a 6th-circle mage.
Apparently it could not perfectly endure energy of this magnitude.
The sword, which had been holding firm at the center, was slowly vibrating, cracking.
'More energy......'
Moreover, the World Eater's body was too vast to cleave in a single stroke.
Far more energy was needed than I had estimated.
I was dragging in every scrap of ambient mana and force-feeding it in, but each time, my body protested — as though begging me to stop — with endless pain.
Thanks to the Sacer Fantasy, my body was not giving out, but.
'The surrounding mana is running out.'
The strength and resources I had left to fire were slowly dwindling.
The World Eater's body, which had been spinning and compressing, gradually came to a halt.
The Griffon, as though it could bear no more, slowly retreated.
The compressed energy began to vibrate as though it would burst at any moment.
A little more, just a bit more......
The cracks were about to give.
More.
"......rise...... your......!"
More.
"Fallen...... strength...... O!"
To me.
Give me strength!
"Let the fallen rise again by their own strength!"
My hearing cleared, and familiar energy surged through my entire body.
An energy that was thrilling enough to jolt me awake, yet chilling at the same time.
"Let the dreamless dream, and the purposeless find purpose!"
"No hardship that does not fell me shall fail to make me stronger!"
One after another, dozens, hundreds of voices braced my back.
A choir's singing lingered softly around me; each word of the hymn took on physical force and settled into me.
And the flapping wings of dozens of Griffons filled the space beside me.
Among them was my disciple.
"Teacher. I am here."
Yuria — and the forces of the Holy Kingdom she had contacted in advance — had arrived.
A sidelong glance told me their condition was wretched.
Strong divine power kept their bodies clean, but they had almost no armaments left.
Swords were snapped, shields dented, armor half-destroyed.
Many were missing a shoe; even the banner symbolizing their holiness seemed to have burned away.
All that remained was faith.
And the people who believed in God.
"So use us to your heart's content."
I trusted their faith, and took up the sword once more.
HUMMM!
New power imbued the empty cylinder.
Yuria's, Ganemia's, and the Holy Kingdom's sacred violet energy.
"HAAAAH!"
The energy — intermingled with Sacer and Ocean Hall — guided their power through my body.
The very energy that had once coursed through me now raced through my body again.
Mana Roads, now far sturdier, accepted and gathered it in full.
'It has weakened considerably.'
The pain was almost nothing.
The Holy Kingdom forces, too, seemed drained from their prolonged battles.
But with this much power.
"HNNGH!"
I drew up Sword Intent, layered Aura onto the cylinder.
And hurled it straight at the World Eater.
PAAANG!
The cylinder, splitting the air, lodged beside the sword.
Unlike before, when an enormous silent light had erupted, the purple-trailed weapon crackled with a sharp burst upon impact.
WRRL—WRRL—WRRL?!
The stalled compression began to spin again.
Not as ferocious as before, but enough to keep squeezing the World Eater.
Its size was now roughly that of a small castle.
At this rate, it seemed as though the World Eater would be finished at any moment.
If only this could continue.
"Oh — is it finished? No, not yet?"
A voice popped up out of nowhere.
No — a person popped up.
Silhouetted against the swirling darkness, the figure looked at the World Eater as though inspecting an amusing toy.
"I see. So you got it down this far. If I had been any later, I might have missed it."
"Wolf King!"
"Hahahaha! Then let us put it down for good."
The Wolf King roared with laughter and raised his fist.
His loosely unbuttoned top flapped in the wind.
And then — as though a bolt of lightning were running backward up into the sky.
An ominous green glow bloomed from his right fist.
"HRYAAAAAAH!"
With a CRASH, his fist struck the gap between the sword and the cylinder.
A single punch reduced both to powder, and the vortex that had been grinding down the World Eater shattered all at once.
The World Eater, compressed to this point, seemed ready to burst.
But the Wolf King did not leave it alone.
"HRYAH! HRYAH! HRYAH-HRYAH-HRYAH-HRYAH!"
Dozens of blows per second hammered every inch of the World Eater's body.
Each time a fist touched the darkness, a storm of green lightning erupted.
It was nothing short of the sound of a mountain being chiseled away.
The World Eater's body shrank.
If that barrage continued.
The World Eater would truly be destroyed.
And all the credit.
Would go to him.
"We have to stop him!"
Ganemia and Duke Crownhardt, who had belatedly grasped the situation, tried to charge the Wolf King.
But the Wolf King had not come alone.
"Not so fast."
From earth that had held no trace of life, countless vines erupted upward.
Thorned vines thick as a person's waist stretched dozens of meters, hundreds of tendrils building a wall.
Only one person at the Wolf King's side could produce that kind of feat.
"Ulf!"
"It has been a while. Tsk tsk."
At the center of the vines stood Ulf with her white hair, staff in hand.
She was not the only one.
"WAAAHEE—!"
"YEEEEAHEE—!"
Druids and barbarians of the Great Forest — howling like beasts — scaled the vines and formed a barrier between the Wolf King and us.
"Ha."
Watching all of this from atop the Griffon, I could only let out a hollow laugh.
I thought I understood why the Wolf King had provoked me.
I was not sure if I should put it this way, but — he had trusted me.
Trusted that if he provoked me, I would somehow find a way to fight the World Eater.
And then seize the moment when we were spent to steal the World Eater's Fantasy.
'Ulf's sorcery has good synergy with the World Eater Fantasy.'
Most of her sorcery involved plant growth, animals, and spirits.
A terrain-sculpting Fantasy that could flatten mountains and raise deserts into mountains.
With that, the Wolf King's forces could operate at their very best.
"......"
I gazed silently at the Wolf King beyond the vines.
My mind was numb.
I had led five hundred here and done everything I could.
But our strength alone.
And the Holy Kingdom's power, added as a supplement.
Was not enough to finish it.
The World Eater was the most powerful demon I had ever faced.
I had not taken direct damage, but if left alone, from civilians to the entire continent.
The devastation would be immense.
So perhaps — just like this.
If I could not win, then at least let the Wolf King deal with it.
Should I just pull back?
Such thoughts stormed through my head.
The Holy Kingdom knights and Crownhardt knights.
Their struggle to somehow breach the barrier felt unreal.
'Is it over?'
Just as I thought that.
"NO—IT—IS—NOT!"
From the far distance, a girl came sprinting with overflowing spirit, vaulted off the vines, and leapt over.
Then she drove a sword — brimming with honed Aura — straight down at the Wolf King's back.
FLASH!
Sensing danger, the Wolf King shot his body skyward.
But as if to say that was even better — a sword tracing a white arc plunged deep into the World Eater.
"Rozalin!"
"DROP—DEAD—ALREADY!"
The Wolf King had pounded it so thoroughly that the World Eater had already been unstable.
By now, its size had shrunk to a sphere roughly three meters across.
Rozalin's sword — at Expert level — pierced its center, and in that instant.
WRLLWRLLWRLLWRLLWRLLWRLL!
Emitting an incomprehensible screech, cracks erupted across the World Eater's entire body — and it exploded.