Chapter 116: The Tales of Cinder [10]
Mitsuki’s eyes went wide.
There was no time to react. No chance to defend.
To him, in that brief instant, everything was over.
They had lost.
Surrendering at that moment seemed reasonable—but there was someone who would never be capable of surrendering.
Before, he ran from the flames in the cracks of the ground, but now he ran toward the swords. Marco was ready to give it everything. In that fleeting fragment of time, he took the full force of both blades—a cross slash impossible to withstand—from the Lady of Cinder.
His body was pushed back, sinking into the ground. The muscles in his arms burst, his bones shattered with grotesque, wet cracks. The same happened to his legs, but instead of collapsing, he remained standing, holding his sword firmly.
Amazingly, the princess’s blades stopped. And there, before her, that young man stared back with eyes blazing with fury. The strength he used to hold the enemy’s swords in place made the ground tremble.
"No!" he shouted. "You’re not going to beat us that easily!"
His body was destroyed, but...
"I won’t allow it!"
Demonic light flared intensely around him. The irises of his eyes shifted into a dark crimson red.
’Marco...’
Mitsuki was speechless. He had seen ridiculous things in this world, but Marco’s mysterious will surpassed all of them. Even while broken, he looked his enemy in the eyes and faced it without fear of the consequences.
He had seen glimpses of that before—especially during the battle against the dragon.
Marco wasn’t just the kind of guy Mitsuki had thought he was, and Monar had told him that many times.
When you don’t know someone and choose to keep your distance, you end up never understanding what’s going on with the people around you.
’I don’t get it...’
It was... confusing, because Mitsuki would have never thrown himself into danger for others. His first thought when he joined these people was to use them to become stronger—but after getting to know them... had that changed?
Azel drew his bow and fired. The arrow flew, but this time, the arm covering the Lady of Cinder’s right eye moved and stopped it before it could strike her face.
"Heroes... false..." she whispered.
She separated both swords with that same invisible pulse from before, sending Marco flying toward one of the pillars at overwhelming speed.
The blond shot past Mitsuki and crashed violently into the bricks.
Terrified, Mitsuki looked toward the impact...
’I guess I’ll never understand.’
Marco stood up. He gripped his sword tightly, his gaze unchanged.
It seemed like he couldn’t feel pain at all, and even so, he walked calmly toward the princess, who looked at him with slight surprise. The eye hidden behind her hand opened, revealing a beautiful golden eye, shining like pure gold under sunlight.
Monar smiled.
"That’s Marco—the real Marco."
The demon behind him, hidden in the darkness, began to laugh.
At the same time, Azel lowered his head and gripped his bow tightly. He closed his eyes, focused, and when he opened them again, he drew the string, forming another blood arrow.
"We won’t fall without fighting to the very end, so you can call us false heroes—maybe we are—but you can’t deny that at least we tried," Monar said.
He raised his hand. The mantle of mana from the Lord of Green enveloped Marco and instantly healed his wounds.
A dozen arrows whistled through the air and struck the princess, who couldn’t fully defend herself.
"We won’t give in," Azel added.
Among them, Mitsuki felt overwhelmed. They were definitely special—more than he wanted to admit.
’I wonder if Jeanne and Ellegaard are like them...’
He charged magic into the shotgun, bent his knee, and fixed his gaze on the target.
’I wonder... if I...’
In his left hand, he summoned Viktor and gripped it tightly. He crossed the sword over the shotgun, forming a defensive stance.
’Maybe...’
His body dissolved into ash. Marco charged head-on into battle. Azel fired arrows, and Monar poured all his strength into supporting them.
The Lady of Cinder reacted. She stepped forward and faced Marco. She raised the sword in her right hand and struck the knight in battered shining armor.
Their blades clashed. Marco’s entire body cracked as blood splattered, but he stepped forward and pushed against the crystal blade, forcing the specter back.
Mitsuki materialized behind the princess from a trail of ash. He aimed and fired, but her other hand moved in defense, slicing the projectile and redirecting the attack back at him.
Before the blade could hit him, he turned intangible and escaped, circling behind her once again.
Four more arrows tore through the air, but the Lady of Cinder’s third arm caught them as if they were flies.
Marco ran around the specter with long strides. He raised his sword and attempted to strike, but she blocked it, returning the attack with her massive crystal blade.
As for Mitsuki, clinging to his earlier thoughts, he poured all his mana into moving through the air like a shadow without an owner. He fired the same fire spell again and again, but on the third shot, he changed the element of his magic.
The shotgun glowed with a yellow lightning hue. A thin, shining blade shot forward, but unfortunately, it dealt absolutely no damage to the Lady of Cinder.
Mitsuki leapt and tried again with a water bullet, but the result was the same.
Beside him, Marco tried multiple times to engage the specter in a one-on-one duel, but it was difficult since she was fighting all of them at once. Their swords clashed with metallic echoes that rang throughout the area, sparks from Marco’s blade fading with each exchange.
The shotgun blasts were relentless, as were the arrows that tore through everything.
’This isn’t working.’
Clearly, they were doing the same thing over and over without any tangible result. So Mitsuki fired one last shot and dropped down beside Marco.
Without saying a word, both of them knew—it was time to attack as one.