Ch.18159. The More Impossible Something Seems, The More Certain It Is To Happen.(3)

“Kugh!”

I was in no position to plead my case.

From the shadow path in the abyss, from that pit, until I burst back into reality.

Forcefully steadying my body as it tried to slam into the ground, I shoved Heba aside and immediately swung my sword.

Clang!

A black hand reaching out.

My sword lodged in the gauntlet makes an intense friction sound.

Thanks to the repulsive force, the sword bounces away, and even my elbow tingles beyond my wrist.

Just maintaining my powerless body makes me dizzy. My vision blurs and everything I perceive dulls, but…

I reflexively rolled my body.

It felt as if hot heat had sliced through my torso.

It’s an illusion.

From returning sensation, the heat warming my face is transmitted intact.

If my reaction had been even slightly delayed, I would have been caught by that thing.

“Kariel! You truly are pathetic!”

It’s not because I’m great that I avoided that.

It must be thanks to Ahriman, who spoke to me mockingly, helping me somehow.

“Just this once?”

Over my hazy consciousness, a new awareness overlays.

“Kugh!”

As I coughed up congestion, blackened blood burst forth.

My mouth still felt stuffy.

“……”

I don’t know what method was used, but my consciousness has returned. My physical condition is still terrible, but… somehow I can manage.

And those red eyes watching me.

She wrinkled the corner of her mouth.

“So persistent. How many times must you repeat this meaningless act before you’re satisfied?”

“……”

She’s brazenly saying what I should be saying.

I swallow a hollow laugh.

“What’s that whining about?”

Inside my head, a heavy voice—Ahriman—grumbles.

“Can’t you understand what she’s saying?”

“And you can?”

…I wonder if I do.

I try to strike down the current Demon King who lunges without warning with my sword wrapped in darkness.

It doesn’t block.

It doesn’t stop.

Instead, only my attacks become meaningless.

…I guess Veretragna didn’t struggle for nothing.

“Stand aside!”

Before the shout even ends, the steel warrior crashes down like an avalanche.

The golden sword in his hand descends upon the current Demon King like a building’s foundation pillar tilting.

“Insignificant!”

She doesn’t just take it either.

Black flames scatter from the current Demon King’s hands, and crimson afterimages leap out from within those flames.

They are something that resembles both beast forms and specific objects.

Without a single identical entity among them, they sweep over the steel warrior like waves.

What a sight—as if crimson, multicolored life forms and structures intertwine without pattern like waves surging over a sea of fire.

“!!!!”

The steel warrior faces this silently.

Even that power, close to a natural disaster, didn’t seem able to sink the steel warrior in one go.

But.

“!!”

Perhaps because his entire body was mutilated.

His movements become duller than before.

“Ugh!”

Similarly, my body rattled due to the pain rising from the wound on my shoulder.

Even trying to face it calmly and composedly, the intense pain that strikes like an ambush—pain is no easy thing to deal with.

And this is pain that would normally make one faint or lose consciousness with eyes rolled back.

The fact that even Veretragna’s incarnations, the Bahram Yasht, sank to that technique proves its power.

Yet the steel warrior does not fall.

“Is it not enough?”

Over the current Demon King’s pale, distorted complexion, intense killing intent spreads like frost.

She rushes in directly, deflects his sword, burrows into his embrace, and toward his heart…

Thunk!

She thrust her crimson hand in.

Despite their considerable size difference, her arm penetrated deep into his chest.

The sight of her black hand barely piercing through his back seemed quite surreal.

At that very moment.

A resolute command echoed.

“Barahran! Hold tight! Bahran! Behram! Now!”

As the boy who was both war god and youth commanded, intense lightning struck through the clear sky.

Light and sound spread and burst with a half-beat delay, creating a shock wave.

Then a powerful wind, as if plunging from sky to earth, enveloped both the steel warrior and the current Demon King.

Baa-aa-aa!

As the sheep bleated, the steel warrior, who had seemed about to collapse, once again infused strength into his muscles and instantly bound the current Demon King in his embrace.

The current Demon King, her red hair disheveled, writhed like a worm in the warrior’s embrace.

“How far! How far do you intend to mock me!”

The current Demon King’s neurotic cry.

Ignoring this, the boy shouts earnestly.

“I cannot understand Your Excellency’s words at all! But one unchanging certain fact is that Your Excellency has used force to oppose us!”

Even if the great destruction, the great catastrophe, has been averted.

If that being attempts to exercise indiscriminate violence and unreasonable evil.

“Whoever it may be cannot escape from the blade of judgment!”

Somehow the golden sword had become the sleek curved blade the boy had held earlier, now gripped in his hand.

“Ahhh…”

The resistance ceased.

The current Demon King was bound in the steel warrior’s embrace, with lightning and gales surrounding and pressing upon her.

But she seemed more disturbed by what the boy had just said.

“Ahhhhh!!!”

A low lamentation bursts forth like a cry, a shout, a scream.

“That manner of speech! That temperament! Appearance! Now I see! You! You! You! Youuu!! It was you?! It was you?! Was it you?! Youuu! Why am I only discovering you now? That hateful faceee!”

…If I associated the boy’s face with my father when I first saw him.

How must it have been for her?

For one who claims to hate the lineage of light.

Seeing something like me, yet simultaneously seeing something more than what I see.

Her current reaction must be the aftermath of that.

The steel warrior embracing her.

Crimson branches shoot up as if piercing his entire body!

“!!!”

The warrior couldn’t even scream as his entire body was pierced and mutilated.

The gale that had been enveloping her also scattered and disappeared in the black flames rising from her body.

Baa-aa-aa!

As the sheep was bleating, a crimson branch sprouting from the ground pierced through its body.

Baa—

A plaintive cry substitutes for its death throes.

“What is this?!”

Even in the distance, something like a black tree rises.

There too, something resembling gold seemed to be pierced by the tree.

The bodies of the incarnations who had fallen or were in critical condition were also thoroughly ravaged.

After all that, only one remained intact. Just one person.

“…I see. Your Excellency, you were destruction.”

Victory does not lose, but a being that cannot be harmed by even a speck when all concepts of defeat and victory are scraped together.

That is calamity, that is destruction.

It is a phenomenon that, regardless of victory or defeat, collapses, breaks, and destroys everything.

The concept of victory and defeat only applies to beings capable of competition.

For a being to whom victory and defeat are meaningless from the start, being victorious merely means being a survivor.

In other words, what remains for the boy now is to fulfill his duty as a survivor.

“Even with sufficient preparation, it would have been vague, but luck was not on our side.”

Yet the boy neither self-deprecates nor blames himself.

He shows no sign of despair or frustration.

What is meant to happen, happens.

That’s all there is to it.

“How did you come to be at odds with such a being?”

He gives me a glance and asks.

“……”

How would I know?

I can guess and estimate, but even that loses all meaning in the face of violence.

Absurdly so.

The current Demon King, who broke and tore away the crimson branches that had pierced even her own body, shook off the steel warrior and approached the boy with staggering steps.

“You Light ones have always… always deceived us. You dare show your face to me even here?”

“Unfortunately, I cannot hear what Your Excellency is saying.”

“I’m not saying it for you to hear. I’m saying it because I want to. I. None other than I. I—!”

The boy retreats.

His movement is so fast that he instantly disappears from view.

“—!!”

She seems to be shouting something, but I can’t hear it.

That’s how far away he is now.

“……”

She was about to chase after him.

But suddenly she turns her gaze toward me.

“A promise is… a promise. That one, I can kill anytime. I can kill him.”

She mutters as if reminding herself.

Eventually, she walks toward me again.

“……”

This has become troublesome.

Ahriman is snickering, the former Demon King is silently observing the situation.

Heba is lying there collapsed, reaching out toward the empty air.

It’s a total mess.

In a situation where I’m not normal either, a being difficult to deal with even under normal circumstances has gone beyond readiness and embraced the fire that would burn the world.

The fact that this woman hasn’t killed me yet is probably because she never intended to kill me.

‘Is taking me to the World Tree her ultimate goal?’

What grudge could the World Tree have against me to go this far… Hah. I shouldn’t think about it.

‘She doesn’t seem to intend to take me quietly either.’

Thanks to the curse that has already stuck to my shoulder like a brand, I’m in no good state either.

‘She’s coming.’

Though she walks slowly, it feels as oppressive as if she were right in front of me.

That’s how different the density of her presence is, on another dimension entirely.

The King of Pain.

A ridiculous name, a title that somehow seemed mocking.

But if its essence is genuine, then she is a monster like no other in the world.

Living beings.

In the face of pain.

No one can declare victory.

Enduring is the most one can do.

Even that is just a matter of time.

But if one can overcome it.

…One can surpass limitations.

Yet even that is limited to growing pains.

In the face of pain that destroys my dignity and future, everything becomes meaningless.

…If the desire, the longing to achieve something despite enduring that pain is deep enough, one might somehow endure.

This is the strongest leash that God has placed on us.

If there were no pain.

No one would be afraid or fearful.

Perhaps this is, among all principles and providence combined, the most cursed leash.

“Don’t resist.”

I swing my sword.

The sword wrapped in darkness bounces off her hand helplessly.

I retrieve it and face her again.

It’s strange.

So strange.

Why… against this being before my eyes, my swordsmanship? Abilities? Attempts?

Why does all of this become meaningless?

‘No.’

It’s not that they don’t work.

It’s just, just…

…She knows this too, this method.

But the way of mastery, the way of growing and utilizing it is clearly different.

The results achieved are similar, but the methods pursued and achieved differ.

She simply knows my techniques too well.

In a way, this is only the second time I’ve faced her.

And even then, just for a brief moment.

It’s obvious there was no time to observe and analyze the opponent.

But even so…

“Enough.”

Clang!

I barely retrieve my sword, turn my body, and return the recoil as a counterattack.

But.

Tang!

“?!”

As the darkness scatters, the cross-section of the sword is revealed.

Her left gauntlet, her hand, has firmly grasped the flat and both edges of my sword.

“……”

A sword with its darkness removed.

Is just a sword.

No matter how famous or hard the sword may be.

…It is just an ordinary sword.

Creak!

The sword crumples.

Structurally and compositionally, a sword should break or shatter rather than bend.

A bent sword can still be used somewhat, but a broken one cannot.

That’s why in sword care, elasticity and resilience are preferred over mere hardness.

Too hard, and it breaks easily.

A sword with elasticity, however, doesn’t break easily.

Even after wear and tear.

Yet this sword crumples miserably.

Beyond measure.

Clang!

It snapped.

With a clear metallic sound, it broke in two.

It happened in less than a second.

I immediately retreated.

In my hand, a half-sword.

…I see.

So you too, have come this far.

When I left the Institute.

The original sword I received from my father and Patina was once bent by this sword.

“Just give up. If I had wanted to kill you, I would have done so already.”

“……”

She urges me.

Ahriman is laughing inside.

The former Demon King, the golden girl, was watching us with an expressionless face.

…The wind blows.

It approaches me.

Clank, clank.

Heavy metal treads arrogantly on the ground, step after step.

The girl in black armor, despite her clearly younger appearance than before, radiates a pressure no different from before.

“Why is it always like this.”

It’s an obstacle.

Each time I overcome one, an even greater obstacle blocks my path.

No exit is visible anywhere.

Even if I were to return to my original timeline, my original world from here.

…I wasn’t confident I could shake her off.

If she could somehow chase me even to this ancient time, what more needs to be said?

Perhaps from the moment I allowed her to touch my shoulder, I also embraced tracking magic or related effects as a bonus.

“……”

Nevertheless.

This time too, I had no choice but to raise my sword.

“You always…!”

As I show my will to resist, the light of wrath once again settles on the current Demon King’s face.

The madness, the storm pouring from her red eyes… presses down on my body formlessly.

Even so, it’s just wind. An illusion. A delusion.

Even if it acts as physical pressure.

In the end, it’s all about how you receive it.

Breathing is difficult, my head is dizzy, and my legs might collapse at any moment.

‘Even so.’

For me to fall here would mean that my will, my heart, and my soul are broken.

I might collapse inevitably.

But it shouldn’t be by my will.

I might die, of course.

But that shouldn’t be my decision either.

It’s just such a matter.

…I wish no one in the world would look down on me.

I wish no one in the world could force me to kneel or impose unreasonable demands on me.

This is another wish I hold.

Dignity in the name of freedom.

A crimson star rushes in.

Light, waves, storms… all surge toward me at once.

Time gradually slows down.

Consciousness drifts far away.

Everything feels surreal.

But that doesn’t change the present.

‘What will you do?’

It seems like someone asked, or I asked myself.

…Who cares.

I wrapped darkness around the half-sword, extending its length and size to transform it back into a complete sword.

‘Aegis.’

Crimson branches, like sharp crystal spears and arrowheads, stab at my entire body.

The blocking lasts only a moment.

It took less than a few seconds for it to pierce through and stab my body.

“—!”

If it’s all or nothing anyway!

“??”

My entire body is pierced by crimson branches.

At the same time, toward the one reaching out with a black hand right in my face.

I decided to give her one back.

‘Everything becomes useless.’

As the crimson branches flow down like ash, blood bursts through the gap.

“How?”

Dominatur Peccata.

Maintenance is impossible.

So just for an instant.

And limited to my body.

Grandeus can maintain this as easily as breathing.

For me, using it for the duration of one exhale was both the most and the best I could do right now.

Swish!

The half-sword thrusts toward her neck.

The red-eyed girl widens her eyes.

By then, the broken edge of the sword had already reached her neck, but.

Clang!

It was blocked.

As if hitting armor, the sword bounced off futilely.

…The cause was the armor.

Part of the armor swelled, covering the gap between her neck and face in an instant.

It was as if the armor responded as if it were alive.

Was that also some kind of magical armor? A Noble Phantasm?

“……”

I couldn’t even lament.

This too, isn’t enough?

At this point, I might need to appeal to the goddess of fate.

“……”

She grabs my shoulder.

“Light ones. You always…”

From the quietly muttering voice, hostility erupts.

Like a monster that could beat a beast to death, rough and murky killing intent swirled violently in her eyes.

“Uaaaaa—!!!”

Her hands, filled with malice and ill will, squeeze my neck with all her might.

Cold yet hot, hard yet somehow soft—.

“?!”

My consciousness quickly blurs.

The sky, the sea… the earth.

The world…

Caw!

A cry.

A crow.

Black feathers flutter like snow.

The sight of small, long wings flapping… feels so prolonged.

The world dims, my vision blurs.

Yet still, I saw it.

A pure white light descending from the sky.

Light.

The light gradually approaches.

Through that light, I sense a blue gaze.

Blue like stars, clear like the sky and sea…

Silver-white also flutters.

Somehow familiar, yet strange…

Before that, pure white light covered my vision.

Then just… silence.

As if everything had stopped, the world entered a void.

……

………

Or so I thought.

In the blurry world, those uniquely blue eyes remained strangely memorable.

I had seen them before.

…Where did I see them?

No, I remember now.

This is…

“One needs strength to refuse unjust demands. That was the conclusion I reached back then.”

It sounded like something I’d heard before.

But clearly a different conclusion than then.

“Strength is essential. But that alone wasn’t enough.”

Like a burning fire, yet strangely with hair that had turned pure white.

She with blue eyes.

She supported my half-collapsed form and was looking straight down at me.

Where had she thrown her bright red hair, to have changed like this?

…Elhermina.

The pure white flames clinging around her head and body.

Like a mane or a living being, like flames just igniting.

Warmly, affectionately rippling.

It was like the bright white light that envelops the bright sun.

Like that pure white radiance.