Ch.148The Main Character (6)

# Main Character (6)

As radiant brilliance enveloped Esmeralda’s sword.

Her blade shattered Eleven’s sword and pierced through his heart.

And Eleven’s sword, shortened with its middle section gone from Esmeralda’s thrust, sliced through empty air.

Eleven, watching this sequence unfold, widened his eyes.

‘How utterly…’

Beautiful this sword is.

Glorious this death is.

“May you… meet… a glorious death… as well…”

Eleven didn’t leave many words behind. With an infinitely satisfied expression, he wished for Esmeralda to meet the same end as himself.

Looking at his satisfied expression, Esmeralda replied.

“…I’d rather die of old age than die fighting.”

Esmeralda stared at the fallen Eleven for a while before retrieving the holy sword she had dropped.

‘That was a close call.’

It had been a razor-thin margin.

Esmeralda could feel it. The brilliant golden light beginning to dwell in her rapier, whose nature even she couldn’t identify.

It was similar to the light emitted by her holy sword, yet somehow different.

That power had begun rising from the tip of her rapier, and if its timing had been even slightly delayed, her sword wouldn’t have broken Eleven’s.

Of course, she had managed it in the end.

But Esmeralda couldn’t understand what she had done.

It was purely instinctual.

Not a technique she had mastered, but something akin to a momentary miracle.

Realizing this, Esmeralda felt once again that she still had a long way to go.

As she was ruminating on the unsatisfying nature of her half-victory…

“Huh?”

Thud.

Esmeralda collapsed to the ground like a puppet with cut strings.

Her body had no strength left. Despite not being severely wounded, she felt an intense weakness that made her head spin.

‘This is…’

The price for what she had done, the recoil.

The weight of karma imposed for forcibly using something she didn’t understand.

Sitting on the ground, feeling as if all strength had drained from her body, Esmeralda muttered.

“Now I see this wasn’t even a half-victory…”

She had defeated Eleven.

She had survived.

It should have been a situation worthy of being called a victory, but considering her original purpose, it was frustrating.

She was ultimately immobilized. She couldn’t go rescue her companions. Yes, this wasn’t a half-victory…

It was a moment of mutual defeat.

***

In this extreme situation, Garnet could faintly smile.

The hero party had finally returned after defeating Legion Commander Twelve.

For a moment, he saw a red-haired girl plunging a dagger into Force’s waist, as if trying to sever it while his hammer was raised high.

“Wow! So hard!”

Tina had quickly stabbed Force and retreated.

Of course, the wound wasn’t significant. It was impossible to inflict serious damage on Force with just a dagger.

Moreover, if she were hit even once while approaching, she would be shattered to pieces.

But because of this, Garnet was all the more grateful for Tina’s presence.

‘The exact talent we need right now.’

Though she couldn’t wound him, she had sapped Force’s strength as he was about to bring down his hammer and destroy everything around.

Just that alone reduced his power to less than half of what it should have been, so Garnet naturally felt he could breathe a sigh of relief.

“How many died?”

“Nobody died, you know?!”

“That’s impressive.”

Everyone had survived without any casualties.

Garnet couldn’t help but smile.

Then came the barrage of magic spells and the holy barrier that began to envelop him and Tina.

The precarious situation where a single attack could have rendered them incapacitated was suddenly reversed.

Now Force’s attacks could be withstood at least once if not hit directly, and long-range sniper magic was causing continuous damage.

“Now let’s prepare to win.”

Garnet, who had been at his limit just holding on, could now clearly see a path to victory.

The reassurance of having comrades was a sensation he hadn’t felt since his death.

“Hmm…”

Had Force noticed the tide of battle turning? He who had remained silent all along finally spoke.

Not being able to defeat Garnet immediately was a major blunder.

He couldn’t catch her quick movements. If he had caught her just once, he could have won.

In such a situation, Tina, whose movements were even faster than hers, had joined the fray. Simply put, the number of targets he needed to worry about had doubled.

In addition, there was the barrier reducing his attacks and magic raining down from a distance, hindering his movements.

It was essentially close to defeat.

But…

“Continue.”

Force didn’t give up the fight.

The Demon Lord had ordered him to eliminate everything residing in the Abaddon region.

And besides that, he had an eye for the situation.

“They seem to be nearing their limit anyway.”

He could have despaired at the suddenly reversed situation, but he could see that the hero party that had joined late wasn’t in good condition.

Contrary to Garnet’s assessment, he was quite intelligent.

Certainly more so than Garnet.

Yes, he had simply found the optimal method, and it happened to be as crude as a tank.

The original Force was closer to a researcher studying ways to increase strength.

He had selected and perfected every bone, tendon, and tiny blood vessel in his body, patching it together like a rag.

His ability to fight so crudely came from the confidence born of his knowledge and experience accumulated over time.

“And it doesn’t seem like anyone can pierce through me anyway.”

He had risen through the ranks of the Demon Lord’s army with unstoppable momentum. The fact that he had remained in the position of Force for a long time was because he could assess himself more objectively than anyone.

“No grotesque techniques that turn fantasy into reality, no claws that cut through steel like paper.”

For the current hero party to defeat him, they would have to surpass him with physical power. And in his mind, that was nearly impossible.

“Die, all of you. That is the Demon Lord’s command.”

Force immediately raised his hammer above his head.

As the hammer with its massive weight rose, just that alone caused Force’s ankles to sink into the ground.

Crack!

The ground around his buried ankles split as his feet moved while still buried.

The eerie sound and his swelling upper body muscles.

Just witnessing this scene made the hero party realize what Force was about to do.

And they couldn’t help but be horrified by the sight.

‘Until now, not even once…’

Garnet had trembled at Force’s attacks many times but had endured.

‘He wasn’t using his full power?’

The overwhelming torrent of power that could be felt even during the fight with Twelve.

The fact that it wasn’t everything made Eirene Saintess and Millia Asrin, who were quite far away, flinch.

‘We must block it.’

And in that split second.

Tina’s senses rang alarm bells, and another being within her immediately urged action.

Shaaaaaaak!

Tanha threw her chakram.

Having momentarily taken control of the body, she unleashed her maximum attack.

And immediately after regaining control, Tina rushed toward Force with all her might, dagger in hand.

Kagagagagagak!

Tanha’s chakram, imbued with intense mana, and Tina’s dagger, rushing in like a beam of light, simultaneously pierced Force.

The blades touching his skin sparked as they cut into his body.

But even with such all-out attacks, Force’s body only suffered scratches. They couldn’t stop his preparation.

This was different from before.

The opponent wasn’t weakened by surprise or pain; he was preparing a strike with that in mind.

It wasn’t just Tina.

Garnet’s powerful attack, prepared belatedly, also hit Force, but even in that inferno, Force didn’t stop his preparation.

He was confident that if he delivered this one blow, he would win, regardless of what attacks he received.

Seeing that determined look in his eyes, Tina gave up attacking and retreated.

She retreated as far as she could jump, but…

“All of you.”

At that moment, Force, tattered from taking both Tina and Tanha’s unified attack and Garnet’s inferno with his body, muttered in a low voice.

“Are within range.”

Force’s upper body, with blood vessels bursting as if unable to withstand his own power, brought down the hammer onto the ground.

In that instant.

Everything that had been chaotically surrounding him disappeared as if it had never existed, turning into flat ground.

The explosive shockwave expanded to reach even Millia and Eirene Saintess, who were in relatively safe positions, overturning the entire area.

A passing heat.

And after the shockwave passed, what followed was a vacuum state where not even sound could be heard.

As if to fill that void, air sucked in from the outside pulled the entire hero party, who had lost consciousness from the shockwave.

Thus, from outside to inside.

The air current that rapidly gathered toward the center shot up into the sky, throwing the hero party into the air.

“Kuhek…!”

Only Tina, who had awakened the dragon’s blood, and Garnet, who carried the authority of the fire spirit, could briefly regain consciousness in that turbulent current.

The two could do nothing but pull the other hero party members to prevent them from dying.

Thud!

After floating in the air for a while, the fallen hero party could only tremble as they looked at the heavily charred but still standing massive figure.

“There seems to have been an error.”

Completely battered.

Legion Commander Force, wounded by his own attack.

But clearly better off than the hero party who couldn’t even move now.

“But it should be enough.”

Thud!

Tina and Garnet could only watch as Force approached with his massive hammer slung over his shoulder.

The slowly approaching scent of death. In that moment, Tina tightly closed her eyes.

But…

“Yes, this is enough!”

A man who had not intervened in the battle until now, patiently waiting for an opportunity.

A powerless one who had been biting his lip alone, unable to do anything.

A middle-aged, insignificant man, heavily charred and bloodied, wounded almost as badly as the hero party.

“Enough to kill you!”

It was the moment for a mere extra to step up as the main character of this scene.