Ch.1105Can I Actually Win This…?

======[ Airship ]======

Unlike the other two airships, the last airship had been purchased and operated by the Holy State.

The moment the captain of this airship saw the adjacent vessels plummeting, he hastily issued a retreat order.

“Fall back! Retreat! If we hesitate, that invisible attack will strike us next!”

“B-but if we move any farther, we’ll be outside effective firing range!”

“Forget about bombardment! It’s not working anyway! Continuing to fire from here would only waste our power meaninglessly!”

This wasn’t retreating out of fear. If that were the case, they would have abandoned the battlefield entirely.

The captain issued the retreat order because it was the best option he could think of as the person responsible for the airship.

“How many small vessels do we have loaded? Deploy all of them except the escape lifeboats!”

“Impossible! We have the vessels, but no personnel to pilot them…!”

“Piloting isn’t necessary! Overload the mana circuits and send them flying toward that monster! With a target that size, they can’t possibly miss!”

An order to use small airships—each worth the price of a mansion—as expendable suicide bombs.

In peacetime, such tactics would be considered madness, but from beyond the evil god’s attack range, this was the only way to inflict damage greater than conventional bombardment.

Seconds later, more than ten small airships, with their mana circuits overloaded to explode upon impact, poured out simultaneously, cutting through the sky.

And then.

【 Pathetic҉̧̘̙͎͊̌̍̕. 】

Invidius didn’t even look in their direction, merely extending one hand slightly.

Eight fingers spread wide like a venus flytrap, and the surrounding air turned completely black.

This wasn’t an attack that spewed Dark Mana.

Just as when he had grabbed and crushed the airship with its mana barrier earlier, he simply absorbed all the mana in the area and filled the empty space with Dark Mana.

– Guuuuung….

With just that, the overloaded mana circuits fell completely silent, and the dozen small vessels lost their power, falling in gentle arcs toward the sea of demons.

Due to their momentum, a few of them did crash into Invidius’s body, but…

– Kung! Kuuung!

With their mana circuits stopped, they were no longer projectiles but merely heavy chunks of metal. The small vessels that struck the evil god’s body created dull echoes as they broke apart feebly.

What followed immediately after was Invidius’s counterattack, compressing the Dark Mana he had formed and adding his own power to it.

– Kwaooooo!

A torrent of black Dark Mana, like a dragon’s breath, spread a black river across the dim sky.

“Evade! Evade!”

The Holy State’s airship avoiding that counterattack was truly a miracle worthy of divine intervention.

The river of Dark Mana that narrowly missed continued stretching beyond the horizon, colliding with a low rocky mountain standing there.

With a flash of black light, a mushroom cloud rose beyond the horizon—the corpse and death cry of the mountain that had been annihilated.

======[ Haschal ]======

…Right, destroying a mountain in one blow. At least he’s good at showing off his strength.

I glanced sideways at the mushroom cloud spreading densely in the distance and inwardly heaved a deep sigh.

The opponent was the evil god Invidius. Probably the most powerful being in this world right now.

I had expected our chances of victory to be low from the moment we prepared for battle, but facing him now made me realize it anew.

“Is this… the power of a god…!”

“How are we supposed to fight something like that…?”

Even those expectations had been excessively optimistic, mere wishful thinking.

The God of Envy, who had revealed his true form as massive as a mountain, possessed power as transcendent as his enormous body.

Before the battle had properly begun, we had already lost two airships pathetically, and our plan to slice him to death with Skywalk had been thwarted from the start when my Defying Fate was sealed.

Moreover, even Heaven’s Wall’s fire, which we had trusted and relied on, showed no signs of igniting, obscured by the darkness hanging in the sky.

This was actually our biggest miscalculation.

If Heaven’s Wall had functioned properly, I would have attempted a delaying action in hopes that he would burn in those flames, but it seemed the fire had no intention of igniting at all.

I couldn’t tell exactly what method he had used, but astonishingly, Invidius appeared completely free from Heaven’s Wall’s constraints.

It was an absurdity like no other.

If a being with such power could freely roam the earth, Heaven’s Wall’s very reason for existence would become meaningless.

No, beyond meaningless—it would be completely detrimental. Our side remained completely blocked from becoming that powerful.

…Of course, judging by the fact that he was the only god who had descended, his method of escaping Heaven’s Wall’s constraints was probably neither normal nor safe.

When you think about it, it’s only natural.

If there had been a way to bypass Heaven’s Wall’s constraints without any problems, Invidius wouldn’t have been a concern in the first place.

In that case, the first god we would have encountered would have been Alfodhr, not Invidius.

Think about it. How could Alfodhr, the oldest god, not know a method that even Invidius knew?

Yet Alfodhr didn’t choose such an early descent, which meant Invidius’s method was one that ordinary gods wouldn’t even consider.

Perhaps it was just a temporary measure that wouldn’t last long, or perhaps it consumed such an enormous amount of divinity that even gods hesitated to use it…

Or maybe it had a fatal weakness that would immediately nullify the method if struck there. Perhaps it was all three.

The correct answer couldn’t be known until we confirmed it. We had no choice but to find that answer in this battle.

Starting now.

“Skywalk has been blocked! Switch to Plan B! Engage in direct combat!”

As I charged toward Invidius, I announced loudly to everyone that this fight had gone awry from the beginning.

“Blocked?!”

“Good heavens, of all things, Lord Median’s special ability…!”

Morale would certainly drop, but it couldn’t be helped.

Now that our initial plan to vertically slice through him before fighting had completely fallen apart, we had to adopt the contingency plan we had prepared just in case.

“Don’t panic! We anticipated this possibility! Everyone, prepare for combat!”

Plan B.

Despite its impressive name, it was simply a straightforward alternative plan to fight with all our might from our respective positions until we either perished or achieved victory.

“Hmm. The power to seal a Tale of Heros…”

Persiella, standing on the deck of the last remaining airship, murmured with interest as she lightly clenched and unclenched her left hand.

“It’s surprising, but it seems he can only seal one person at a time. So even divine power has its limits.”

She clarified that only my “Defying Fate” had been blocked by Invidius’s power. Her heroic tale, “Extreme Ice,” could still be used without any issues.

“Demian! Leave the rear to me and be careful!”

Millia shouted as she drew the bowstring of her divine bow made from a branch of the World Tree.

Its appearance had changed somewhat. I heard that refugee fairies who had surrendered had enhanced it with Alvheim technology.

Not only had its power and range greatly increased, but various additional functions had been added. However, I hadn’t had the opportunity to confirm this, being too busy with battle preparations.

“Orhan, first a dragon and now an evil god… Until three years ago, I couldn’t have imagined such a thing. Though perhaps it’s different for you all.”

“…Would we have imagined such things either, Lord Joshua? Believing and experiencing are entirely different matters. That holds true even for those in holy orders.”

Joshua, who was part of the ground attack team, prepared for full-body giantification with a sigh, while Adamante, riding the unicorn I had bestowed upon him, also sighed with a somewhat intimidated expression as he summoned his holy power.

“Saulite. This new power you have bestowed upon me. I consider it a grace and provision for this moment. Please protect everyone here.”

Perlien, who had recovered from his injuries, kissed his Sword of Oath as he prepared to manifest his newly acquired power.

Though not powerful enough to reverse the overwhelmingly unfavorable power difference, he thanked Saulite for granting him even this much power.

「 KEUOOOOOH-!! 」

Kudsedra simply roared fiercely.

I had expected him to boast and show off as usual, but surprisingly, he said nothing.

Despite being unlikely to die thanks to the Ring of Returning Seal, perhaps facing an evil god head-on was still a terrifying prospect.

Perhaps he instinctively knew—or had heard from someone—that the immortality provided by the Ring of Returning Seal, while certainly a powerful ability, was not an absolute one.

Garmerlic himself had been able to affect the main body inside the ring just by manipulating Kudsedra’s avatar, so how could Invidius not be capable of the same?

If he died here, not just his avatar but his main body might die along with it, so it was understandable that he appeared somewhat subdued compared to usual.

…Anyway, there were only eight combatants with Hero-level skills or above participating in this battle: those six plus Demian and Agnes.

The Empire’s Percival and another hero couldn’t come because they were dealing with a sudden outbreak of undead hordes, and most of the Heavenly Sword members, including Nigel, were also tied up there.

Lacy and Ceylon remained in Alhebron, the Holy State’s capital.

Some might ask: isn’t it wrong to focus on defending territory when we’re facing a situation where half the world could be destroyed if we fail?

Well, if by some miracle we win but everything on their side gets destroyed, the world would end all the same.

The world was always in peril, and our forces were always insufficient.

So there was no other way. The practical best solution for us now was to distribute our limited forces as efficiently as possible according to their abilities, to achieve maximum results with minimal numbers.

For this battle, since the enemy would clearly have a massive body, we prioritized selecting those capable of wide-area attacks.

Whether that judgment was correct… the outcome of this battle would teach me.