Ch.792What Could This Be?

My left arm was completely healed.

It wasn’t particularly surprising. From the moment that brilliant beam of light—bright enough to burn out my optic nerves—swept through my body, I had anticipated this outcome.

The holy sword Zuwaise had been sealed at the base of the Sky Mountains for hundreds of years. The power accumulated within it had burst forth in an instant to welcome its new master, manifesting as a miracle.

It was power of an entirely different dimension, both qualitatively and quantitatively, from the holy power granted to priests.

Well, how could the holy power released by a mere human compare to the force that had suppressed all the monsters across the vast expanse of the Sky Mountains?

Thanks to that, I was able to perfectly recover from the injury to my left arm, which even Lena had said would take some time to heal.

Not just me—Demian too would have had all the minor injuries remaining on his body erased as if wiped away.

In gaming terms, you might call it an event-based full party heal.

Though I wasn’t particularly surprised since I’d already experienced this in the original story, it was truly fortunate nonetheless.

If the power stored in the holy sword hadn’t burst forth, Demian wouldn’t be standing proudly on the back of the starlight whale right now. Instead, he would have dropped his sword, collapsed, and tumbled down.

Why, you ask?

Well, you see… I tried to be as careful as possible to avoid shattering Demian’s body, but there are limits to that.

I somehow managed to prevent his body from completely exploding or his internal organs from being crushed, but there was no way to prevent his arm bones from crumbling and his spine from breaking into pieces.

Well… since he could recover like this anyway, wasn’t that level of damage acceptable? Right?

Making excuses to no one in particular, I launched myself toward Demian, who was tilting his head in confusion with the holy sword still embedded in the starlight whale’s back.

—-

“Are you alright? Nothing hurts?”

Up close, Demian’s face was the perfect illustration of bewilderment.

“Haschal? What exactly is this situation…?”

Yes, he couldn’t help but be bewildered. He had mustered his courage to pull out the holy sword in the mysterious crystal cave, but when he opened his eyes, the blue light was gone, and he found himself on the back of an unfamiliar monster in the middle of what looked like a war-torn wasteland.

If the corpses of the monsters I’d slaughtered had remained, he might have thought he’d fallen into the depths of hell.

“When you pulled out the holy sword, about three thousand monsters came charging at us. While you were sound asleep with the sword, I killed them all. Except this one.”

I briefly summarized what had happened while Demian was asleep, pointing at the starlight whale that was groaning and limp, seemingly affected by the holy power unleashed by the sword.

Thanks to the many corpses being consumed as sacrifices for the starlight whale’s manifestation, the surroundings were filled with nothing but broken debris—not a drop of blood or a piece of entrails remained. Even the thick dark mana that had blanketed the area had long since dissipated in the recent holy storm.

The only evidence left to support my explanation was this dying whale…

“Monsters… three thousand of them?”

“Yes. Maybe even more.”

Even so, Demian seemed to believe my words without any doubt.

Perhaps because my aura had weakened to half its usual level after using up all my Karma of Murder.

“You must have had a hard time because of me.”

The hard time of fighting while gritting my teeth to endure my body’s reaction to being drenched in aphrodisiac.

The holy storm had blown away the drug’s effects, so the pleasure stimulating my spine had subsided, but my trousers, soaked almost to the knees, still emitted an intensely sweet peach scent that made me dizzy.

“Yes, you do look like you’ve been through a lot.”

Fortunately, the oblivious Demian seemed to mistake it for the smell of my sweat.

“So, how are you—”

Just as I was about to change the subject and ask about Demian’s condition,

“—!”

The starlight whale that had been serving as our platform let out a fierce, ominous roar, as if squeezing out all its remaining strength, and set off a chain of explosions on its back.

Demian quickly spread his two wings to avoid it, while I kicked off the whale’s back and spun backward like a windmill to distance myself from the explosion.

Come to think of it, this bastard was just exhausted, not dead yet.

“We’ll talk later! Let’s take this down first!”

After landing near the whale’s tail following seven complete rotations, I looked up at Demian and shouted.

“—!”

The sky whale let out a majestic howl and shot a black beam from between its eyes.

In response, Demian displayed spectacular evasive maneuvers, fluttering his pure white wings.

The starlight whale’s beam persistently chased Demian’s trajectory but couldn’t keep up with his free flight that defied inertia, only disintegrating innocent walls and rocks.

“Is this a monster too?”

“Yes, it’s a Void species! Remember learning about them at the Academy?”

I shouted in response to Demian’s question as he flew around in such complex orbits it made me dizzy. Meanwhile, I tightly embraced the area near the starlight whale’s tail with my now-healed arms.

“Void species? Aren’t those the monsters that can’t be killed?”

Usually, yes.

“Stab it with that sword and it’ll die!”

You and I are exceptions, though.

“In that case!”

Demian nodded and changed direction, charging toward the starlight whale.

“Haaaa!”

The blade of the holy sword plunged down like a meteor in a pure white line, penetrating the starlight whale’s back and carving a deep wound.

Starlight-colored blood spurted out with a hissing sound.

After delivering the strike, Demian kicked off the creature’s back and soared upward, avoiding the explosion that followed like a counterattack. Then, in an instant, he charged again, swinging his sword to tear the whale’s skin.

His strategy was to approach at high speed, deliver a decisive blow, and immediately fly up to avoid counterattacks, gradually wearing down the enemy. It was literally like the movement of a mosquito.

He fights well even with a weapon he’s using for the first time.

As expected, I raised him well.

It was a one-sided attack, more like hunting. The starlight whale’s skin was quickly becoming tattered like a botched circumcision performed by a quack doctor. It was truly a satisfying sight.

Well… I should probably show something too, right?

I firmly gripped the starlight whale’s tail with strength that could easily crush black iron, and planted my feet shoulder-width apart, firmly anchoring myself to the ground.

With the starlight whale’s attention focused on Demian, I could just roast it like this, but… that would take too long, wouldn’t it?

So, I…

“Kryaaaaa!”

Instead of activating the rune seal, I squeezed out all the strength in my body and pulled the whale’s tail with all my might.

“—!”

Had it realized my intention? The nebulae within the starlight whale’s skin all focused toward the tail, as if looking at me.

But.

“It’s already too late—!”

I pulled my left foot out from where I had planted it in the ground, then stomped down again, using the recoil to sharply twist my waist.

– Crack! Crunch, riiip-!

With a sound like a brittle tree trunk being torn in half, the sword wounds carved into the starlight whale’s skin split wide open, and fountains of blood gushed out.

As expected.

I smiled with delight.

My guess had become certainty. While I couldn’t wound its skin without rune seals or the holy sword, it seemed possible to widen wounds that were already there. Just as I had expected.

In that case, just pulling like this should be enough!

“—! —!!”

As the starlight whale opened its mouth wide and let out a death cry,

“Die split in half!”

Its waist snapped and the lower half was torn off completely.

Along with bleeding incomparable to before—as if the entire night sky that filled its body was pouring out.

“—…!”

The starlight whale, with half its body torn away, let out a weak moan with only its upper body remaining.

A fatal wound that even a monster’s vitality couldn’t withstand. Seizing the opportunity, Demian rushed in and unleashed a storm of consecutive attacks on the creature’s body, dismembering its upper half into pieces.

For the first time in human history since Carlos the Great, a Void species monster had lost its life.

—-

The shredded starlight whale soon began to melt like water, becoming a pool that resembled the universe itself before being sucked toward its center and disappearing.

– Woooong!

Leaving behind only a multicolored sphere floating in the air.

“What is this?”

A star-shaped, multicolored mass wrapped in slowly rotating strange characters. It felt somehow familiar.

Where have I seen this before…?

I tilted my head repeatedly as I observed the sphere of light intently.

I definitely remembered seeing something similar somewhere… that is…

“Ah.”

A sudden flash of memory.

I remembered where I had encountered such an object.

Yes, that was it.

I hadn’t immediately recognized it because back then it had been a black crystal rather than a sphere of light, but the slowly rotating characters definitely matched what I had seen in my memory.

The arm of the evil god. The black jewel that was like the heart of a fragment that had broken off from Invidius and turned into a monster.

The energy flowing from the sphere before me was remarkably similar to what I had felt back then.

Perhaps because it belonged to something already dead, it didn’t feel particularly threatening.

…So would it be okay to touch it? Probably, right?

Keeping my muscles tense so I could withdraw my hand at any moment, I poked the light mass beyond the rotating characters with my finger.

Then.

– Woooong!

The characters surrounding the sphere of light began to spin wildly, and the next moment, the sphere itself shattered into two streams of smoke that flew toward us.

As I quickly withdrew my finger and assumed a defensive stance, the streams headed straight for the space between my chest and toward Demian, who was watching with a puzzled expression.

“Huk…!”

I reflexively swung my hand, but the strangely vibrating beam of light didn’t deflect—instead, it passed right through my hand and was absorbed into my chest.

“What is this?!”

Could it be some kind of curse left by the creature as a final act?

I looked down at my chest with a startled expression, my shoulders twitching. I worried that I might have carelessly touched something I shouldn’t have.

And then…

…Nothing happened.

I kept my eyes fixed on my chest for thirty seconds, but there was no noticeable change. Neither my mana resistance nor my stigmata showed any reaction.

“Phew…”

Whatever it was, it didn’t seem dangerous. I sighed in relief and smoothed down my startled chest.