Chapter 356 – One Step
The divine punishment of light, embodied and transcended by humans who bore the power of gods.
[───!]
The holy lance launched by the Saintess, Gran-ter, pierced through the Bone-Relic Dragon's body.
A pillar of light imbued with transcendental power connected the heavens and the earth.
The morale of the Undead beneath it evaporated all at once, and even the form of the massive dragon vanished without a trace.
Everyone's vision was dyed in noble radiance.
That flash grew larger and larger, eventually rending through space and engulfing the entire city.
A single soldier murmured.
"…Warm."
The walls did not collapse, nor did innocent casualties occur.
The miracle of the Saintess was a light that annihilated evil that defied the light, yet stabilized the world and healed the devastated hearts of humanity.
Only then did those who had been crushed beneath the presence of the Bone-Relic Dragon collapse to the ground or finally breathe properly.
Their frozen reason returned intact.
Unknowingly, smiles spread across faces.
Sacrid, which had been falling into despair overnight, was saved.
The invasion of demi-humans and magical beasts, the terror of a transcendental Undead, had at last come to an end.
At that fact, relief and hope filled everyone's hearts.
Moments later, the form of Gran-ter began to fade.
"Ah, look…!"
As the light diminished, the figure of the Bone-Relic Dragon reappeared in sight.
Plunk… plunk…
A broken ribcage and twisted spine.
The two wings that had sprouted from its back had collapsed and were completely gone.
Fragments fell one by one, embedding into the ground or rolling away.
Across the rest of the skeleton, countless cracks were engraved, and the eerie blue flames typical of the Undead within its body had vanished as well.
Holy power is the natural nemesis of beings born of death.
Even more so when it is a miracle manifested by the Saintess, the strongest of the Luas Church, from the far side of the continent.
Before that, even the resistance of an Undead Dragon that had endured Verden's magic was rendered meaningless.
It was dead.
It was certainly dead.
No matter how one looked, no sign of survival could be found.
Archbishop Joseph, utterly drained by the ritual, and Haldirn, barely holding himself together.
Everyone who gazed upon that scene was convinced.
Everyone, except for one person—Verden.
A being able to sense it only because he stood within reach of transcendence.
Though far weaker than moments ago…
'…It's still alive.'
And immediately after.
Whoooosh.
Suddenly, a blue flame roared to life inside the Bone-Relic Dragon.
The light spread through its collapsing body, igniting flames in its eye sockets.
"H-how can an Undead withstand the Saintess's miracle…!"
As Joseph said, by rights it should have been annihilated.
For an Undead, that was normal.
But the Bone-Relic Dragon had made a rational judgment in an instant.
If the light was unavoidable, then block it by sacrificing its wings.
A gamble close to chance, but one never knows the result without rolling the dice.
Even though it was Undead, it still belonged to the category of Transcendents.
A dragon is an unquestionable being of intellect.
No matter if its flesh had rotted, its wisdom surpassed humanity's by countless measures.
[GRAAAAAAAA!]
The Bone-Relic Dragon's roar, bereft of reason, rippled the air like a mirage.
Craaaack—! The surrounding land split apart.
Tremendous vibrations shook the entire city, including its walls.
At the same time, from deep within its maw burst a flickering, chilling blue radiance.
The breath of the Bone-Relic Dragon, which should no longer have manifested, was fired straight forward.
Standing before it was Verden.
'I can dodge this.'
Because of the fatal wound, the power was overall weaker than before.
The dragon's center of gravity was twisted, accuracy was drastically reduced.
The impact point was directly above Verden's head.
Which meant that even if he stood still, he would remain unharmed.
'It could even be a chance for a counterattack.'
But if that happened, the breath would pierce straight through in a line and strike the inner city.
Predicting the scale of the explosion when it met the ground… the casualties would be at least tens of thousands.
Thud.
Verden drove Orient into the ground.
Without hesitation, he invoked a spell through his Mystic Eye.
< Circuit Reversal >
The
And among the three sixth-tier enchantments he had mastered from Arc's Library, this one.
The flow of his mana circuits was inverted.
Convergence of currents flowing forward and backward.
Excessive mana temporarily pooled within his body.
The spell's original purpose was to consume more mana to spread enchantments across a greater number of people in a short time.
But Verden used it differently.
Vast mana, accelerated by
Clenching his teeth, Verden manipulated the torrent in one motion.
A massive shield of mana, blocking the front of Sacrid.
The Bone-Relic Dragon's frigid breath slammed against it, the intense reverberation jolting his nerves.
"…!!...!!!!"
Already wounded by the Roar, with fatigue accumulated in his mana circuits.
On top of that, after unleashing Meteor and
…He shouldn't have blocked it.
Dodging and then retaliating against the wounded Bone-Relic Dragon would have been logical.
This was the worst choice Verden could have made.
Why?
Verden asked himself.
'I…'
Before he could form an answer, the mana barrier—like a fortress wall—shattered.
Silence followed.
Ahead stretched a path frozen by extreme cold, and behind lay the quiet Sacrid.
With what was considered a basic spell in the world,
Then came the backlash of
"Kh…."
Thud.
Verden fell to one knee.
His face was filled with strain, his grip on Orient loosening.
Thump… thump… thump…
The Bone-Relic Dragon slowly advanced toward him.
Driven by instinct, not reason, to eliminate what it judged the greatest threat before it.
No—crawling was the more fitting word.
Its cracked legs creaked ceaselessly, shaking its entire body.
"..."
And Verden could only watch.
He had no strength left to move, at least not now.
"Luas, please… bring forth light to drive away this darkness—kuh, kuh!"
Joseph tried to help, but coughed blood and staggered.
The holy power he tried to muster scattered away.
His body too was exhausted from the ritual.
The two paladins before him only exhaled in pale-faced despair.
"Stop it…! It's barely standing, just stop it right now!"
From afar, clutching his wounds, Haldirn shouted.
His desperate cry shook the dazed into action.
"Yeah…! Yeah, now's our chance…!"
"Ballista bolts! Someone, bring out the ballista bolts from the warehouse!!"
"Fire spells, anything! Just keep that monster from reaching Sacrid!!"
The weakened aura of the Bone-Relic Dragon gave them courage again.
Arrows, spells, and holy miracles rained down upon the towering Undead.
But even on the verge of death, it was a Transcendent.
It could be delayed for a moment, but not stopped from advancing.
At last, the Bone-Relic Dragon reached Verden.
[…]
"..."
The gaze of a natural Transcendent and a Quasi-Transcendent crossed.
Verden silently raised his arms to shield his head.
Craaaaash───!
The dragon's claw, tearing through all, struck him.
***
───GRAAAAAAA!
The Bone-Relic Dragon, arrived at Sacrid, rampaged madly.
Its thrashing spared no ally nor foe.
Walls reinforced with magic circles collapsed like fences, cries and screams echoed without end.
Eardrums quaked, heads pounded.
Amid the chaos, several clear voices rang close by.
───L-Lady Leira… w-what do we do? Holy power, healing miracles, none of it is working…!
───Why…
───Oi, something's flying this way! Leave the priests to that, grab your weapons!!
Familiar voices.
Forcing his consciousness awake, Verden opened his eyes slightly.
"Hh-hhk…."
Right before him, Bishop Lena shed tears as she pressed his wound and poured holy power into it.
Lowering his gaze, he saw Leira and Romer—whom he had met at Southern Pit—blocking incoming ice spears.
To protect Verden, who had lost consciousness for a moment.
And further below, Adrian and Haldirn were fighting alongside others against the Bone-Relic Dragon.
'So none of them received mortal wounds.'
Though they seemed gravely injured.
The same applied to Verden. He assessed his own body.
'Two ribs broken… and a deep slash across the abdomen.'
Ainber, crafted from dragon material, had been pierced.
Especially while he was defenseless.
Had it not been for a Demon King's artifact, his body would have been torn apart.
Perhaps nerves around the wound were damaged, for he felt little pain.
Ssshh.
Verden closed his eyes.
Truthfully, these were wounds he would not have suffered had he simply remained still.
Yes, the current state was brought about by his own doing.
'Why did I do that?'
A trifling heroism to protect the people? Or a petty conscience?
Nonsense.
Verden was not such an altruistic man.
Nor did he bear any such mission.
Faces I don't even know could die in droves, even if the city right before my eyes were to be annihilated in the end, it would only sour my mood a little, that's all.
I can say for certain I would not feel a luxurious emotion like grief.
Then why did I stand against it.
The answer was simple.
'Because, I just, hated it.'
Verden had a line of his own.
A line that the tower master, Balrog Bessias, did not have.
Winning by failing to overcome himself, by making the innocent into offerings or bait, was never Verden's way.
Even when facing an enemy he could not possibly oppose, it was the same.
Even if that was what the world called Fate, he had no intention of yielding.
That was Verden.
As the Fourth Servant, Kessilus, said, the world is unreasonable, and unfair.
Even having become a Quasi-Transcendent like this, there were still those far above… whether the Bone-Relic Dragon, or the Saintess of the Luas Church.
Nothing strange about that.
That's how the world is from the start.
'They called it providence, didn't they.'
Kessilus also spoke as his last words.
That one who merely touches transcendence can never hope to defeat one born a Transcendent.
Separately, he acknowledged it.
That the Bone-Relic Dragon was stronger than any foe he had faced so far.
'But there is one thing Kessilus doesn't know.'
Verden knew better than anyone how to live in a world saturated with unreason.
To shatter providence itself.
That was the catalyst for the birth of the magic circle of Defying the Heavens.
***
"Hah, hah…."
Leira exhaled ragged breaths.
The shock she suffered from the Bone-Relic Dragon was extreme.
She had narrowly avoided instant death, but the recovery granted by a demon's curse had reached its limit.
Her left arm hung limp, barely managing to hold her position, that was all.
"Damn it, there's nowhere to hide…!"
A man with hair dirtied by dust, a mix of white and black, Romer, muttered.
His sword had vanished who knows where.
In both hands he held only the shield he usually carried.
The reason Romer was protecting the ashen-haired man collapsed behind him—the man who had pulverized him back at Southern Pit—was nothing special.
It just felt like he had to.
"Hey, adventurer from the Eastern Continent! No other way?! At this rate we're finished too!"
"They're, coming again."
"What? Ah, for real…!"
He raised his shield at once.
But this time it wasn't fragile shards of ice.
[GAAAAAAAH!]
Fragments composing the Bone-Relic Dragon shot forward.
"Why, is that thing only aiming here?!"
Romer complained, but it was already too late.
Dragon bone shards flew on straight trajectories.
To block head-on was to die. Leira and Romer, straining every nerve and ounce of bodily control, deflected them at a slant.
Even so, they could not hold out to the end.
"Aaaaargh!!"
The shield he swung and his body parted.
What slipped through the gap speared Romer's shoulder.
He was blown away, scattering blood and a scream.
Klang! Kang! Kaaang!
Leira withstood a little longer, but the result was the same.
Her mind blanked for an instant. Her thigh was pierced along with her armor, and she dropped to one knee.
And toward her face, the last fragment rushed in.
'…I'm going to die.'
Even with a demon's healing, if her head was skewered like this, she could not survive.
Sensing the end, Leira squeezed her eyes shut.
Crack.
A gruesome sound of rending flesh.
But there was no pain. When she cautiously lifted her lids, she saw the back of a man draped in a platinum robe.
"Ae… sher…!"
Verden pulled the Bone-Relic Dragon's shard out of his forearm.
Agony surged.
Pain sharp enough to jolt his dulled mind.
Step, step.
Verden threw the shard aside and advanced.
Bishop Lena, aghast at his composure, blinked. A trail of blood followed beneath Verden's steps.
Leira tried to follow him, but her body would not budge.
"Stay still!! If you move you'll really die!!"
Bishop Lena shouted as she healed Leira and Romer.
Leaving them behind, Verden walked toward the battlefield.
───Kwoooooom!
From the sky, an airship of the Beldirn Republic flew in and rammed the Bone-Relic Dragon.
And then, an explosion.
Did Supreme Councilor Brillen send it from the inner city as support?
For a moment the Bone-Relic Dragon reeled and roared in pain, but it still wasn't enough.
Enduring the shock, it scattered destruction in every direction.
Soon, Verden reached the vicinity of the collapsed city wall.
"..."
Haldirn and Adrian, who had been fighting bravely, seemed to be at their limits now.
The Bone-Relic Dragon's frame had collapsed further, but as an Undead, it was still too early for true annihilation.
"Asher… your wounds…!"
Archbishop Joseph, who had climbed down from the wall, hobbled over, supported by a paladin.
Ignoring his own condition, he meant to heal Verden by force if he had to.
But holy healing and buffs did not work on Verden.
He simply waved a hand to stop him, and spoke low.
"Your Grace, is there a way to draw the Bone-Relic Dragon as far from the city as possible? Even briefly."
"For a brief time…."
Joseph's eyes slid toward the wreckage.
At the end of his gaze lay the half-destroyed Lustrous.
"Yes, there is. But we must distract the dragon's attention. Only for a short while."
"Then I'll ask that of you."
Hearing that it was possible, Verden nodded once and moved forward again.
Joseph, eyes wide, hastily tried to stop him.
"Surely… you mean to block the Bone-Relic Dragon? In your state, it's impossible…!"
Not wrong.
The last time he was this gravely wounded was at the Demon King's tomb.
Even so, it was fine.
───Tak.
He reached out and snatched Orient from amidst the debris.
"Everyone, fall back."
His voice rode the mana and resounded.
Haldirn and Adrian, who were close to the dragon, immediately withdrew.
They sensed something uncanny about Verden.
And the soldiers and adventurers, among others, were already some distance away.
Verden fixed his gaze on the Bone-Relic Dragon.
Stung by that glare, the creature began to manifest a massive iceberg in midair.
Staring it down, Verden sank into deep thought.
'A Quasi-Transcendent is a realm that stands at a kind of boundary.'
The gap that precisely divides the sixth tier and the seventh.
Verden had once crossed that line.
To oppose the Administrator, when he achieved the second Defying the Heavens through Body Unseal.
At that time it was an incomplete transcendence of only ten minutes.
A half-attainment, a remaining prerequisite to become a true Transcendent.
Of course, he did not consider for a moment that he would gain spiritual enlightenment and transcend here.
'I exclude luck.'
Do not hope for a fluke.
Do not lean on miracles.
With no possibilities entertained, hold only conviction.
If the world is unreasonable, then Verden need only become an unreasonable being as well.
If the enemy holds overwhelming might, then he need only obtain power greater still.
If someone were to hear this, they would howl that it's absurd, empty logic, but unlike them, Verden knew it as a simple truth he had experienced in the flesh.
Through the first Defying the Heavens, the restructuring of the body.
Through the second Defying the Heavens, the pioneering of Mado halfway and a body perfected by magic.
Between and after.
He ignores the fate given at birth.
To achieve what he wants, he wields a will and execution that would defy even the heavens.
Only those, are the sole answer Verden realized, for shattering the world's providence.
'I don't intend to step fully past the boundary.'
He casts away without regret the greed to become a Transcendent in one leap.
'Without haste, just a little.'
It will suffice to walk again a path he has already once trod.
He does not need much.
'Just one more, step.'
Yes, that will be enough.
Verden took a single step forward.
Outwardly, inwardly.
In that instant, within the coarsely pounding heart, an alien mana began to stir.
Jet-black mana, rimmed in crimson.
Without doubt the very mana the Administrator had spoken of, the mana that had ruined the Demon King's higher magic.
'Ruin, is it.'
He now understood why the Administrator had emphasized that word.
It felt oppressive and fierce, a nature entirely different from the endlessly pure mana that had filled his body.
Yet Verden held not the slightest doubt about this dark-crimson mana.
He did not labor to analyze its nature, nor focus to scrutinize it minutely.
He simply handled it as befitted its rightful master, as if naturally led.
By that will, the wall that formed the hierarchy, temporarily, met ruin.
At the same time, he recalled for the first time a magic he had held only as knowledge, and activated the Mystic Eye.
Ssss.
Blood trickled from his right eye, unable to endure the strain.
In exchange, a crimson light vividly flickered in Orient's orb, aimed at the Bone-Relic Dragon.
The manifestation of the Flame Realm.
< Hellfire >
One of the spells the Administrator had once displayed before Verden.
Seventh-tier flames that burn the world spread in a cone, devouring space.
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