Chapter 278
Chapter 278. Latent Heat (15)
With her awakening, Sirocco had succeeded in dealing Anarchilon a blow it could not immediately recover from.
But while she had broken part of its carapace and even temporarily downed it, strictly speaking, the enemy had merely toppled onto its side. It was neither unconscious nor stripped of its ability to attack.
Sirocco had even shattered its colossal horn — but that alone was no guarantee of victory.
It had merely bought them a window before the creature regenerated.
If they failed to finish it here and now, every effort made until this moment would dissolve into nothing.
Sure enough, Anarchilon — still toppled on its side — was already lashing fresh tentacles toward the wolf-eared girl who had climbed onto its back and delivered that strike.
"Lady Sirocco!"
Alicia's cry rang out beside him — but worrying about Sirocco was, by now, meaningless.
Sirocco, red lines of mana wound around her ankles, was flitting across Anarchilon's torso like the wind itself, kicking apart every tentacle in an impossible acrobatic display.
By the look of it, she was doing it to clear the way — to make the approach easier for the two of them sprinting in at ground level.
So that was 9th Rank. A mage who had achieved her own transcendence.
But they could ask no more of Sirocco than this.
The damage pouring from her formidable body-enhancement magic was immense — but driving a blow deep enough to pierce the innermost core beneath that supremely durable carapace was impossible for her.
In the end, if the enemy was an immortal that regenerated even mortal wounds, they needed a means to erase it in a single stroke.
Alicia, sprinting beside him without dropping her guard, pressed close to Enoch and shouted.
"There's no time, Direct Lineage!"
"I know. A drawn-out fight favors them. We commit everything from the very first exchange."
Enoch exhaled once to release the tension, then drove strength into both arms and both legs, sinking low into his stance.
The Sword Saint of the Waves' swordsmanship — the stance of 'Reverse Flow.'
Beside him, Alicia snapped her lance toward the enemy and called out gallantly, with the spirit of one who would never retreat.
"Commencing combat — Alicia of Victoria. On your orders, eliminating the enemy, now!"
— ——, ———! —————!!!
It was Anarchilon that moved first.
Bellowing like a bull maddened with rage, the creature writhed — and a whip-like tentacle came sweeping across the ground at horrific speed, scything toward them.
Immediately, with [Reverse Flow], he tilted the axe at an angle — poised overhead like flowing water before the enemy's mighty tentacle — and the instant after—
The ultimate counter-form, which slid aside the enemy's overwhelming offensive and even the will behind it, deflected the tentacle away as serenely as a windless lake's surface — nullified.
Not a single sound was issued; even the noise of air colliding with the strike slid away with it.
He clearly saw every one of Anarchilon's green-lit eyes flood with shock.
At the same time, Enoch's own eyes narrowed at a flicker of strangeness.
'The completeness of Reverse Flow is......?'
He had deflected the force of a tentacle whose diameter was dozens of times his own body — and yet, somehow, not even the tip of his foot had wavered beneath that weight.
A [Reverse Flow] of higher completeness than ever before had slid the enemy's attack away — flawlessly, without a scratch.
What that implied was terrifyingly clear. He had drawn another step closer to the Sword Saint of the Waves.
Which meant the Inner World's erosion had already reached a dangerous—
"Direct Lineage!"
In that instant, a second tentacle came spearing down diagonally at forty-five degrees from his blind spot in the sky.
Alicia's hand seized Enoch's waist — and the next moment, the two of them were airborne.
But the enemy had already anticipated they would evade that strike.
As if it had foreseen that once airborne, they could not change direction, a tentacle came slicing through the wind.
Enoch and Alicia glanced at each other — confirmed.
Soles of their shoes pressed together, each using the other as a foothold, they kicked off with all their strength. Two bodies separating in midair.
A ferocious shriek of cleaved wind — and the massive tentacle swept through the space where Enoch and Alicia had been an instant before.
Alicia angled her Bombardment Lance opposite to Enoch's direction and pulled the trigger, firing a single cartridge to redirect herself.
Then, closing toward him, she shouted.
"Direct Lineage! Go!"
On Alicia's signal — she laid her lance flat before her chest at a forty-five-degree angle.
Grasping her intent at once, Enoch spun in midair, kicked off the slanted lance shaft she held as his foothold, and plunged forward in a falling charge.
His vision narrowed; the violent acceleration felt like it would tear his body to pieces.
Weaving through the wave-like host of tentacles crashing in — slipping past each by a paper's width — he came down from directly above Anarchilon, plummeting toward the center of its armor.
Sword Saint of the Waves - Swordsmanship Form 3, [Dragon Pool]
He unleashed the slash with the axe drawn far back behind his head.
Magic-stone alloy axe against hardened hide — two super-hard materials collided. The armor cracked, and the sensation of the axe burying itself in the enemy's flesh traveled up the haft to his fingertips. But it was far from a mortal wound.
At the pain, Anarchilon shook its body with furious speed, howling in rage.
In that very moment, Anarchilon's massive legs slammed down against the ground — and the body Sirocco had toppled onto its side began heaving itself upright, restoring its stance.
The vast expanse of its back-shell armor shook as if in an earthquake; clinging on and holding fast was all he could manage.
If he were shaken off now, the creature would unquestionably move to crush him flat beneath those massive legs.
"Alicia! Aim for the head!"
Alicia — who had been continuing her aerial battle, leaping from tentacle to tentacle as they swept in from every direction — landed atop one of them, ash-brown hair streaming, then sprinted down its length, bearing down on Anarchilon's body.
Kicking off the tentacle, Alicia unleashed her second lance thrust from above.
"Haaaaaaah!!"
The lance, striking Anarchilon's head at meteor speed, detonated its bombardment at the point of impact.
The shock slammed the giant beetle's face into the ground — and for one moment, the shaking ceased.
"Direct Lineage!"
"Alicia — while it's stopped, get underneath! As long as it can move, there's no aiming for a true opening at close range!"
With the aid of Alicia, who flew to him, the two of them slipped together beneath Anarchilon's body.
At a height of roughly two meters, its pulsing belly radiated hot body heat, and its six legs served as the pillars holding up that ceiling.
First, they had to stop its movement.
"Let's flip this monster beetle over."
Alicia's eyes went round. But she immediately nodded hard.
"Got it!"
"Good."
Steeling himself, he glared up at the pulsing belly, hard with the distinctive plating of a great beetle.
He drew his right knee high, then drove his leg down, kicked off the ground, and leapt with all his might.
Right beside him — with the crack of a Bombardment Lance cartridge striking its primer — Alicia, too, shot upward at ferocious speed, using the lance itself as her booster.
Eye contact with Alicia in midair.
Sword Saint of the Waves - Swordsmanship Form 4, [Water Moon Rain]
"Dragoon Bombardment Arts, Number Seven! All rounds — Full Burst. Pierce them through!"
The two slashes and the bombardment, fired overhead with every last ounce of strength, converged on the dead center of Anarchilon's abdomen — the shockwave split the earth and blasted the air away.
Enoch endured the cold sweat and clenched his teeth.
Hard. If the slash lacked the power and was repelled, he would slam into the ground and likely snap his neck. That desperation focused every fiber of his strength into the axe's edge.
A slash and bombardment of power beyond comprehension. And the mass of a colossal beast beyond all standards. The balance between the two clashing boundaries shattered in that instant.
THOOOOOOOM—!
Anarchilon's abdomen caved in massively — and immediately after, its gigantic body floated up off the ground.
The monster — its weight beyond imagining, surely tons upon tons — soared into the air like a joke, lifting a full twenty meters skyward.
Even Anarchilon seemed unable to comprehend what had happened, its limbs flailing.
The reason they had won the contest of strength came to him quickly.
Sirocco's earlier strike had shattered a substantial portion of its back carapace, and the tentacles destroyed one after another had stripped away a great deal of its weight.
The next moment, Anarchilon's back slammed into a great cliff — part of the cliff face collapsed, crashing down upon Anarchilon in a cloud of dust.
Flipped flat on its back, belly fully exposed, Anarchilon was — quite literally — an overturned rhinoceros beetle.
But the legs of the motionless Anarchilon began to twitch — and then to thrash, moving once more.
Its massive legs churned the night sky, demolishing every terrain feature around them, and boulders dozens of meters across rained down around Enoch and Alicia like a bombing run.
Its abdomen, too, slowly began regenerating.
Any ordinary beast would have died instantly several times over from that damage — but of course, it would not be so obliging.
Enoch reached for the AP Bomb clipped by carabiner to his belt, felt the cold magic-stone alloy against his palm, and gripped it firm.
"Alicia. Let's end this."
He tossed the bomb to Alicia beside him.
Alicia caught the shell as it arced through the air, immediately gripped and detached the detonator housed in the AP Bomb's body with one hand.
She rotated the shell's dial to the red line, set it, then looked back at him and nodded.
"Let's go! Direct Lineage!"
There was no need to spell out the plan.
Again the enemy's tentacles came sweeping across the ground as if possessed of their own will.
Alicia racked her chamber, loaded a fresh cartridge, seized Enoch's waist and jumped, swinging the lance rearward and firing.
With the blast, enduring crushing g-force that narrowed his vision to a tunnel, they climbed to an altitude of fifty meters — high enough to look down on Anarchilon.
For an instant, Enoch glanced over at Alicia.
"Alicia. You can do this, right?"
"I can!"
Alicia nodded hard, locked onto Anarchilon below, then — like a multi-stage rocket — kicked off Enoch in midair.
Separating from him, she plunged into a headlong dive.
Simultaneously she fired the cartridges within the lance — every round she had chambered earlier blazed incandescent with the orange of mana.
"Dragoon Bombardment Arts, Number Zero———"
The extractor seized the spent casings remaining inside one after another, ejecting them all rearward through the ejection port.
Alicia loaded centrifugal force into her body, rotating in midair, and drove the lance down like a dive bomber.
"Zero-Range Bombardment! GOOOOO——!"
The lance buried itself in Anarchilon's abdomen. Immediately after, the colossal body caved deeper still as the ground beneath split, bucked, and webbed with cracks.
And from that point, a ferocious blast like a tank cannon's muzzle flash erupted — across the enemy's carapace, concentric ripples spread in every direction, like a gunshot fired point-blank into ballistic gel.
His entire vision, blanketed in the scorching upsurge of black ash, went dark for an instant. The scream tearing from Anarchilon's throat hammered Enoch's eardrums.
The Bombardment Lance, buried in its abdomen, was still raging with violent aftershocks.
Every round spent, reserve ammunition included — Alicia gripped the lance, chamber locked open, with both hands.
Heedless of the white smoke hissing from it, she narrowed her eyes, flipped the AP Bomb up into the air, caught it, and rammed it into the chamber.
Then she hooked her finger onto the trigger and fired.
BLAAAAAM—!
The AP Bomb — become propulsion itself — tore through Anarchilon's flesh and carved through bone, independent of Alicia's will, burrowing deep toward the center of its body.
The flesh around the bombardment's tunnel swelled, knitted together, and healed over almost at once.
Enoch landed beside her immediately after. He stared down for a moment at the spot where the now-vanished shot had struck Anarchilon, then closed his eyes, drew a great breath, and shouted into the communicator.
"AP Bomb set inside Anarchilon's body. Detonation in three minutes. All units, withdraw beyond the blast radius immediately!"
He looked quickly back at Alicia.
Alicia nodded too, and — lance with its ammunition fully spent slung across her back — leapt again and again out from beneath the enemy's bulk.
In the blink of an eye, both of them had swung behind a great boulder dozens of meters away and landed.
He checked the time on his terminal. Thirty seconds left.
Peeking out from behind the rock: Anarchilon's wound had healed over with a hiss of white smoke, but a faint scar remained at the point of impact — a marker showing exactly where the bomb lay buried.
With less than ten seconds left, he pressed his back flat against the rock.
His heart hammered, pumping blood to every corner of his body. His hand clenched white-knuckled around the axe with tension.
......Time remaining: seven seconds.
Beside him, he saw Alicia squeeze her eyes shut and clamp both hands over her ears against the coming blast, then glance over at him.
......Time remaining: five seconds.
A short distance away, Sirocco, too, landed lightly, bracing a hand against the ground and lowering her body.
......Time remaining: three seconds.
Alicia drew the detonator out with one hand and squeezed it tight.
Two. One. Zero......
"Huh?"
Alicia's eyes flew open with a gasp; she frantically squeezed the trigger device several more times, checking its function. Enoch pulled out his terminal and checked the time.
......And.
Absurdly — impossibly — the projected detonation time had already passed.
A tidal wave of dismay crashed over him.
A delayed detonation from a faulty firing circuit? Had he misheard the detonation time from Elena? Or some other—
Every possibility flashed through his mind — but Enoch soon realized he was merely circling, thinking of anything else, because he did not want to admit the answer that was most likely of all.
......A dud. After coming all this way — a dud.
The strength drained from his legs, and he sank to his knees, eyes wide.
Peering out from the rock they hid behind, the thrashing Anarchilon was righting itself, head swiveling, searching for Enoch and Alicia.
It was over. The 19th Outsourcing District would fail to change the future of the Official History and be trampled. Everyone would die crushed beneath that monster's feet.
"Direct Lineage."
He lifted his head weakly. Alicia stood with her hands gathered anxiously before her chest.
He avoided her gaze and lowered his head.
The operation had failed. He could not bring himself to say those words to Alicia. His teeth ground together. This was a battle in which defeat could not be permitted.
He had even sworn it to the Saintess — his Follower Family. That with this operation, he would change the fate of the 19th Outsourcing District.
Then suddenly, like a lightning strike, the thought storm hit.
No. There is one. Exactly one way.
When Elena had first explained the handling of the AP Bomb, she had stressed it with the utmost caution:
—For reference: once the bomb is armed, it becomes extremely sensitive to impact, so striking it hard is absolutely forbidden. Please, please be careful.
That was it. A powerful impact.
In truth, there was a detonation method other than the timed fuse.
But unlike the timed fuse, impact detonation meant the explosion would come with zero delay.
He glanced to the side — the tactical pouch on the belt above Alicia's short skirt, where she kept her cartridges, was empty; her lance's bolt was locked back, chamber open.
Alicia's ammunition: fully expended.
Their means of ranged attack: none.
Therefore, to deliver decisive damage deep into the interior of something that enormous, the work would have to be done at close range — and at close range, there was no escaping the blast.
This task required a sacrifice — one person to be caught in the explosion. No matter what.
And that sacrifice was————
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