Ch.762Golden Waves

“Waaaaaaaaaah!”

About two thousand soldiers, enveloped in dazzling holy light, swarmed toward the hill. With a smile brimming with pride, I deeply welcomed the Holy Corps charging toward us.

Most emitted the golden holy light unique to the Church of Astraea, but occasionally mixed among them were the blue light of the Church of Menes, the crimson light of the Church of Saulite, and the silver-white holy light of the Church of Elpinel.

They must have brought every available soldier from the northern Holy State.

The lineup was nothing short of magnificent.

Hundreds of battle priests and paladins, over ten high paladins, and even Ceylon, the strongest paladin of the Holy State. These were elite forces more than sufficient to determine the outcome of this battlefield.

Even Nidhogg, which couldn’t be challenged by a similar number of knights, wouldn’t be able to display its former might against paladins, given its nature as a monster that uses dark mana.

“The Holy Corps…!”

Tersillius let out a gloomy sigh.

It was a sigh mixed with self-loathing for being manipulated repeatedly by me, whom he had underestimated as a barbarian, and despair at having no way out.

“Astika…?”

The dragonborn wore similar expressions. Understandable. In their exhausted and wounded state, they would struggle to face even the high paladins, let alone Ceylon.

This was their grave.

“Yes, my introduction was a bit late.”

I slightly lowered my top, pushed aside the bandages on my chest to reveal my stigmata, then greeted them with a knightly bow and a bright smile.

“The saint of Astraea, goddess of order and justice. I am Haschal Median ‘Astika’ Aishan-Gioro von Landenburg. My name’s a bit long, isn’t it?”

“You…! You deceived us!”

An enraged Eirnesia charged at me, swinging her sword.

I parried her blade with Durandal, smiling as I kindly corrected her misunderstanding.

“Deceive? I never lied. ‘In your current state,’ you cannot defeat that. ‘For you,’ that was the only option left. That’s exactly what I said.”

That’s right. I only said that if we were to defeat the dragon by ourselves, we would have no choice but to cooperate. I never said we had to defeat the dragon by ourselves.

Without the Holy Corps as reinforcements, we truly would have had to form a temporary alliance to defeat the dragon.

An alliance that obviously wouldn’t work properly and would inevitably collapse with someone’s betrayal.

But…

“Now that the premise has changed, naturally the conclusion must change as well, don’t you think?”

I smiled as I pressed down on her with my left hand placed on the center of our crossed blades.

My mechanical arm, which always exerted consistent output regardless of my physical condition or energy level. In our current exhausted state, this was truly an overwhelming advantage.

“You… vile swindler…!”

“Why so angry? It was just a ‘temporary alliance’ anyway. Think of it as an alliance that was broken a little earlier than expected.”

I smiled down at Eirnesia, who was gradually bending her knees, unable to withstand the pressing force, my face soaked with blood and sweat.

The temporary alliance was only proposed because I wasn’t confident we could defeat Nidhogg with our power alone. But now that we can end this situation with our own strength, shouldn’t the temporary alliance naturally be terminated?

“And this… think of it as your life, which would have ended eventually, ending a little sooner.”

“Stop spouting nonsense!”

Eirnesia completely bent her knees to lower her body, rotating her entire body to slip past Durandal and kick at my leg.

My boot, which had lost its scales and had only leather remaining, tore away as a heavy thud traveled up my shin.

Well… it didn’t particularly hurt.

Rather, Eirnesia, who had kicked my shin, seemed bewildered, as if she had kicked an iron tower.

“This is… could it be the blessing of the Unyielding Flesh… Rotholandus’s?”

“You know it well. Have you experienced it before?”

I grinned as I lifted Durandal, which had struck the ground after missing widely.

A defensive blessing that prevents wounds from even mediocre blades and reduces the impact of strikes.

Since I was wrapped in fur, which weakened its output, it hadn’t been very effective during the fierce battle and had allowed injuries…

But it could easily block a kick from an exhausted woman. Though I might get some bruising.

“Now you understand. It’s time for you to die!”

“What the—!”

Eirnesia tried desperately to create distance, her face filled with dismay. As I took a large step forward and swung Durandal to sever her neck—

“Eirnesia!”

“You wretch!”

“At this point, even if you—!”

The fairies and dragonborn, united in purpose, all rushed at me.

“Ha, pathetic bastards.”

Several grown men ganging up to beat a single woman—as the saint of order and justice, I found such vile and filthy behavior intolerable.

【 Kraaaaaaa! 】

Even Nidhogg, which had been hesitating, perhaps startled by the sight of unpleasant enemies swarming in, decided to kill us first before deciding whether to flee or fight, and charged with its protruding maw wide open.

“Haschal!”

Naturally, our companions also threw themselves forward to block the other races.

Demian’s greatsword blocked Beherikes’s spear, while Eirnesia, who had been creating distance to draw her bow, desperately rolled to avoid Asha’s lance.

“How dare you, dwarf wench!”

“The spear of fairy slaughter—!”

Their killing intent clashed in circles amid the exchanged contempt.

“Lady Haschal!”

“Not a finger shall touch our lord!”

Nigel and Jahan, despite their exhausted bodies, blocked the guardian Iberfalos and three patrollers, then pointed their weapons—a crimson-hot demon-slaying sword and a crackling lightning spear—at the enemy.

“Cry out, demon-slaying blade of blood—!”

“Um, you too shall cry! Holy spear of Eberond!”

The next moment, literal lightning bolts rained down from their weapons. Lightning bolts with five times the power of Ophelia’s high-level magic.

“Ah,”

The four fairies turned to ash without even a scream.

Even the guardian couldn’t avoid it. How could one avoid being electrocuted by lightning and then engulfed in flames?

With a light so bright it was hard to open one’s eyes, streams of extreme heat and storms of lightning struck, and the resulting boom echoed throughout the mountain range.

It was truly a terrifying power, a destructive strike that was hard to believe came from Nigel and Jahan.

Perhaps… the elemental power their weapons had absorbed until now—the mana of fire and lightning—was released in an instant.

“No, this is…”

“What on earth…?”

Seeing the two who had demonstrated such destructive power looking at their weapons in bewilderment rather than wearing triumphant smiles…

“That sword…! I suspected it, but it really is a dragon scale! Hand it over!”

Makaoros, whose attention had been momentarily diverted by Nigel and Jahan’s lightning bolt, recognized the true identity of the blood-scale sword and lunged toward Jahan.

Meanwhile, the black-scaled dragonborn who had been maintaining silence…

The dragonborn…?

‘Wait, where did this bastard go?’

[ He fled. The moment you and the fairy woman clashed, he turned west and escaped very quietly. ]

Surprisingly, he had seized that opportunity to escape. So stealthily that neither I nor his fellow dragonborn had noticed.

Well. First Hush, and now this—do dark-skinned fellows, regardless of race, receive some blessing that makes them good at hiding and escaping?

…Anyway, we engaged in a final battle.

During that brief respite before Nidhogg thrust its maw toward us.

—-

“Headbios! I’ll split that head of yours in half!”

I charged forward, pushing off the ground, and swung Durandal at Tersillius, who was tirelessly summoning elementals.

“May Alvheim be eternal!”

Tersillius, perhaps lacking the strength to summon intact elementals, called forth only parts of them to block me.

Specifically, the arm of a rock elemental.

– Krrrr…!

The suddenly protruding stone arm grabbed Durandal’s blade and yanked it, while a piece of wood thrown by Tersillius struck my right hand gripping the hilt.

A bow made from a branch of the World Tree. Or more precisely, a fragment of it.

– Craaack!

The next moment, the piece of wood that touched my wrist swelled up and coiled around my fingers like a snake, spreading them apart. The power of a fairy who controls vegetation. Durandal slipped from my loosened grip.

“Oh no…!”

There was no time to draw the blood-scale short sword in place of the lost Durandal. Tersillius had already reached me and was thrusting his sword toward my face.

“W-wait!”

I spread both hands toward him as if pleading for him to stop.

Of course, he wouldn’t stop for such a plea.

“I’ll cut out your tongue!”

Tersillius, convinced he could somehow harm at least me, wore a sinister smile.

And then.

“This is the end—!”

As Tersillius’s sword pierced through my left hand and approached my head,

“Kenaz.”

A stream of fire erupted from my outstretched right hand, engulfing his face.

Runic flames burst out at point-blank range without warning.

It was a truly perfect counterattack that he couldn’t possibly avoid.

“Aaaaaaaargh!”

Tersillius screamed and collapsed.

In the extreme heat that could melt even rock, his skin immediately melted and began to drip like jelly.

It was a fatal wound that even ten Lenas couldn’t heal.

“I told you to wait. Why didn’t you listen?”

“Gaaaack—!”

I smiled as I stomped on his chest, crushing it.

One should always keep their trump card hidden until the very end.

During this battle, I had been spewing karma flames while flying around, but I hadn’t shown myself uttering runic activation words and emitting magical flames.

To implant the preconception that my fire uses the power of murder karma as fuel, making them mistakenly believe I couldn’t manifest it now that my murder karma was almost depleted.

The result, as you can see—

“Gaaaaaaargh—!”

Along with a smell similar to roasted tomatoes, Tersillius’s death throes echoed mournfully. It was a smell that stimulated the appetite.

And then,

【 Krarararararaah! 】

Nidhogg, perhaps feeling the same as me, cast a large shadow over my head as it opened its mouth wide like a child biting into a hamburger.

“Yes, eat him.”

I looked up at Nidhogg’s throat and sneered. I felt no sense of crisis. Because—

“Lady Astika—!”

The golden knight Ceylon, wearing golden armor and radiating the halo of scales, flew to me at wind-like speed, grabbed me, and swiftly retreated.

“Are you unharmed, Lady Astika!”

“…Yes. Thank you, Ceylon. It’s been a while.”

I responded with a smile on my blood-covered face to Ceylon’s voice asking about my well-being as he held me like a lady.

I didn’t particularly like being carried like this, but thanks to his timely arrival, everything had worked out well.

“You’ve been through a lot. Please leave the rest to us from now on.”

Ceylon wiped the blood from my face with the edge of his clothes, set me down away from Nidhogg’s attack range, and declared with a dignified expression.

He told me to leave Nidhogg to the Holy Corps and to rest, tend to my wounds, and recover my strength.

He was overflowing with confidence.

“Alright, I’ll leave it to you, so do your best.”

I nodded slightly and waved my hand.

“Thank you!”

Ceylon bowed in response, then flew back toward Nidhogg and shouted to the Holy Corps, which had begun to form formations and surround the beast.

“Battle priest corps! Seal the beast’s movements with the weights of sin! Paladin corps, emit the light of judgment and destroy its wings!”

“Yes!”

As the priests raised their staffs, swords, or holy symbols and prayed, golden chains shot out from various points in the air, wrapping around Nidhogg’s body like ropes.

The chains that touched the dragon’s body emitted smoke and gradually crushed its scales.

【 Krrr?! Kaaah! Krarararara! 】

Nidhogg roared, twisting its body in apparent discomfort.

Dozens of chains snapped and scattered into light each time the beast twisted, but the battle priests immediately manifested nearly a hundred new chains to rewrap and constrict its body.

It was like watching prey caught in a net. Except the scale was enormously massive.

Following this, the paladins, who had been praying while kissing their longswords, raised their dark swords high and manifested the light of judgment.

– Woooooong!

The sky, which had been dark with steam and black clouds, opened wide to reveal blue heavens, from which golden thorns of holy light poured down relentlessly like monsoon rain.

– Crack-crack-crack!

Each individual beam was weak enough to merely scrape scales before dissipating, but when they numbered in the hundreds and thousands, they became powerful enough to break through Nidhogg’s scales and tear into its flesh.

“High paladins, slay the dragonborn and fairies! Lady Astika has created this opportunity with all her might—to miss it would be an unforgivable disgrace!”

Seven high paladins of the Church of Astraea rushed at the dragonborn and fairies who were facing our companions.

“Victory for Lady Astraea!”

“Glory to our saint, Lady Astika!”

Normally, these paladins would be limited to facing fairy patrollers or wingless dragonborn, but now that their opponents were weakened below that level, their arrival was nothing short of a death sentence for the other races.

And Ceylon…

“The day of judgment has come, and I shall be His spear and sword!”

Fully unleashing the power of judgment bestowed upon him by Astraea, he faced Nidhogg, swinging his thornbush sword.

It was a brilliant, magnificent, and even majestic sight.