Ch.275Mourner (4)

The existing Mourning had a weakness.

Of course, that weakness was only natural.

The overwhelming fatigue that came as a reaction to drawing out immense power. Even a homunculus with immortality couldn’t escape it.

Although the effects of exhaustion recovered quickly, the power was so intense that even a homunculus would become exhausted.

Llewellyn felt two streams of fierce power flowing through his body.

The familiar and the unfamiliar. The borrowed and his own.

That’s where the chance of victory lay.

Llewellyn saw blood spreading from his swung fist. The first effective hit, or more precisely, the first effective hit delivered with his fist rather than a star cluster.

He saw scales and flesh being torn away and scattered. He also saw the path flashing between them.

The enemy was right before him. There was an immediate counterattack at the moment of his strike, but he endured it.

The Mourner, Nerilmeius, was a max-level Mourner. She possessed a skill that automatically counterattacked any attack directed at her.

Llewellyn had struggled with this fact and faced a crisis.

Even if Llewellyn, who didn’t yet possess that ability, forcibly used it, it wouldn’t increase his chances of winning.

One couldn’t just grab the other by the collar and try to kill them until one of them died.

The same applied to the combined power of Mourning and all sorts of techniques including the Undertaker given by Ulrich.

Llewellyn wanted a definitive victory. A flawless victory where no one else would have to sacrifice themselves or die.

So Llewellyn wrapped his body in divinity. He moved while mimicking the power of Mourning and imitating the dragon before him.

The Mourning that took form spread its wings around his body, boosting his vitality. It imbued his body with enough power to blow away even the form of the great dragon she had taken until just moments ago.

If counterattacks were the problem, then he just needed to strike hard enough to render them meaningless. He just needed to make it possible to attack one-sidedly.

If counterattacks were the problem, then he just needed to defend. Options that would have been impossible before now appeared before him. Because he hadn’t missed the opportunity Ulrich had created.

Llewellyn leaped.

The upturned earth flying through the air, trees scattering, and through the gaps, the flashing eyes of the dragon.

Llewellyn saw the dragon pushing off from a tree and leaping toward him. Gray pupils with vertical slits chaotically pursued Llewellyn.

CRASH!

They collided at the end. Llewellyn’s reflexively swung leg struck down on the dragon’s head, and the dragon’s tail, swung without delay, pounded Llewellyn.

But the result was different from before. Llewellyn blocked it with his arm raised just in time, while the dragon didn’t block.

A tilting body. A pushed-back head. She negated the force trying to tear off her neck by leaning back without resistance, but it became useless when Llewellyn grabbed her leg that was shooting out as a counterattack.

Her attempt to create distance failed. Llewellyn held onto the dragon’s leg and spun his body in midair.

“What—”

A woman’s voice that seemed flustered. Llewellyn paid no mind and utilized the tremendous force flowing through his body to its maximum potential.

The Mourner wearing Nerilmeius’s guise. He grabbed her leg and spun his body, whirling her around in the air.

Naturally, a loud sound of air being torn apart echoed. A body that, while not large, couldn’t be called small either, receiving all the air resistance possible.

A storm writhed following that body, and at the end, Llewellyn released her leg and swung his own leg again.

CRASH!

A booming sound and spreading shockwave. A tail that ended up writhing because it couldn’t get into position to extend a counterattack.

A strange light flickered in Llewellyn’s eyes, and he watched Nerilmeius’s body being shot down and buried into the ground.

BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, CRAAASH!

She was buried while breaking the ground, then shot up breaking rocks, destroying every tree in her path as she decelerated, and finally was bounced upward after staining a protruding rock with blood.

In her eyes, she saw Llewellyn closing the distance with a leap so fierce that it shattered the anti-magic foothold he had created in midair.

An incredible speed. A speed that distorted his form even with a dragon’s exceptional physical abilities and the enhanced senses from Mourning.

Explosive leaping was a skill proportional to physical ability, after all.

The moment she raised her arms for defense with a startled realization—

CRASH!

Llewellyn’s fist crushed her arm and smashed her jaw as if to make a point.

A shock that made even an immortal being’s consciousness fade. The carved-out ground spurted up like a geyser. Heated mud squelched, and splattered blood seethed.

Nerilmeius rose from within and counterattacked.

She rotated without resisting the force pushing her body. A tail swung in rotation. It tore through the air, causing the forest lurking right behind to vibrate. Llewellyn avoided it by lowering his body significantly, then threw an uppercut.

Her head bent backward and her leg shot out. A typical front kick. Nerilmeius’s body bent from the kick delivered at a speed impossible to block, and her fist and leg were fired sequentially toward Llewellyn.

It was a fight that no ordinary human could possibly follow with their eyes or intervene in.

Llewellyn blocked the two fists fired almost simultaneously, and an explosive sound rang out from the elbow he thrust as a counterattack.

With his posture collapsing, he lowered his body greatly and swept his leg, while Llewellyn conspicuously jumped, flipped his body in midair, created a foothold with anti-magic power, and kicked off.

[Explosive Leap]

A resounding boom, a destruction sound from the foothold reminiscent of cannon fire or thunder, accompanied by a downward kick. Feeling it was dangerous even for her if not blocked, Nerilmeius crossed her arms to block and was embedded deep into the ground.

Naturally, her body bounced back, and Llewellyn grabbed Nerilmeius’s ankle.

That man, with tear stains on his face, gritted his teeth until they might crumble and twisted his body.

BOOM, BOOM, BOOM-BOOM-BOOM, CRAAASH!

What he was doing was something that could better be described as non-technique.

The extremely simple attack of grabbing Nerilmeius’s ankle and repeatedly slamming her into the ground.

A simple combo of just hurling her into the ground at a speed that her automatic counterattack from Mourning couldn’t reach.

Yet it was definitely effective. Whatever was wearing Nerilmeius’s guise knew this fact.

When Ulrich first grabbed her hand, the energy imbued in the slash he demonstrated then was eating away at her. It was no different from poison.

It was a type of poison that could be detoxified if given time, but something that couldn’t be done while being attacked.

Its function was the dismantling of transcendence. She felt the power of Mourning flowing through her body growing weaker by the moment.

If this continued, the outcome waiting would be…

She chose to twist her body and draw out the transcendence lurking in her body more deeply.

Llewellyn’s hand was released, and Nerilmeius’s body floated into the air.

Llewellyn sensed the death swirling around her body.

That thing she used to shoot from her mouth when in the form of a great dragon earlier. Something that could be dangerous even for Llewellyn if hit.

She was wrapped thickly in it. An incredibly intense energy.

But.

With a grinding sound of teeth, Llewellyn’s body tilted greatly.

CRASH!

Nerilmeius had somehow risen into the sky. From the ground, mounds of earth were once again spurting up like geysers.

How? Nerilmeius watched Llewellyn on the ground as she felt her caved-in side regenerating.

He had wrapped his entire leg in something black. Something Llewellyn himself called holy blood.

It was crumbling, but he didn’t care. All that mattered was killing Nerilmeius now.

He could even give up his holy blood. For Ulrich’s revenge.

Cough, blood spat out moistened Nerilmeius’s mouth.

A Mourner’s power is naturally reduced in midair. That’s usually the case unless you’re Llewellyn who can create footholds with anti-magic power.

Since intense power usually demonstrates its true value when there’s ground, Llewellyn intentionally held her in the air.

So that she couldn’t harm anyone else.

Moreover, so that everyone who could target something floating in the air would target her.

When Nerilmeius rose into the sky, she saw countless attacks coming into her gray dragon eyes.

“…Ah.”

Countless arrows flying toward her, countless spells fired while seething from the ground.

Blood bullets created by binding with blood and spine-like thorns that only some shapeshifters could fire.

Even the breath of those who were once her kin but had betrayed her.

Countless flashes of light engulfed her. It didn’t even tickle. She curled up in midair to endure, and her scales, tempered by her Mourning, easily deflected all such attacks.

She could withstand this much. Rather, she measured the attacks fired at her to gauge the direction and number of those with murderous intent toward her.

She thought with “intentional madness” that she would kill and mourn them all with the power of a Mourner, and with the regenerative power thus obtained, she would kill Llewellyn so that her father could once again come to this land.

She thought so because all bombardments eventually have their limits.

When all bombardment ceased as she had expected—

Nerilmeius knew she had been pushed up a bit higher but still smiled. She thought it was now her turn.

But there was a presence approaching stealthily from behind her.

An overwhelming magical power from someone who had jumped from a cradle that had risen inconspicuously, reaching exactly behind Nerilmeius.

“Ideal Manifestation.”

It was as hot as to be reminiscent of the sun, yet somehow sticky.

A fierce level of obsession. Amidst the sound of whirling wind, a pleasant voice pronounced the death sentence.

“Death of a Star.”

Before Nerilmeius could turn around, another sun rose in the sky.