Book 14 Chapter 21
Episode 34. Platinum Mercenary Group, in the Northern Empire (8)
Overhead [Stella Grand Bridge], two women were fighting a fierce battle on a spiderweb made of wire.
In the sky covered with ashen clouds, every time the sun occasionally appeared, wires aiming for the swordsman's life from all directions glinted.
But nothing could land an effective hit on the swordsman… The swordsman stubbornly advanced, striking away the wires, and the sorcerer retreated with acrobatic movements.
"You're impossibly strong, what the hell are you? I've never seen you around here."
Paradoa of Divided Iron asked, weaving new wires on her fingers.
"If you answer my question first, I'll answer yours too."
"What is it?"
"Why are you doing this? You have power. You have enough power without relying on things like flesh. So why these gruesome acts?"
Paradoa, who glanced at [Stella Grand Bridge] that the swordsman pointed at, was so dumbfounded that she burst into laughter.
"Why, you ask? Is there even a need to say such a thing? It's to become stronger!"
"Why do you need to become stronger?"
"Because in this world, power is everything! I learned that bitterly from a young age. Only the strong are treated properly. To get delicious food, good clothes, luxurious homes, all of that, there's nothing but power. You know that well, don't you?"
She wanted to become stronger. If you're weak, you're despised. If you're weak, you starve. If you're weak, you're trampled.
The law of the jungle.
No matter how much the dragon race tried to convey the peace inherited from <The Ones Who Came>, in the shadows where their hands couldn't reach, the world was operating like a beast.
"With the power of flesh, I will create my own nation. My subordinates will become my vassals, and I will have a family that will forever continue under the name of royalty."
Paradoa's family died because they had no power.
They fell ill, and on the grounds of being an epidemic, they were expelled from the village without receiving treatment.
Such an experience is absolutely not acceptable again.
"There must have been sad circumstances leading to that conclusion. If so, are the people on that bridge now the ones who made you sad? They had nothing to do with it, did they?"
"So what? The world is messed up! In this world, there are only two types of people: geniuses who exploit, and fools who are exploited!"
"So you collect flesh?"
"Yes! I ripped open the bellies of all those who wouldn't give it up and took it out! Hahaha! Don't worry, I'll do the same to you. How many pieces of flesh do you have? A lot, right? The flesh inside my body is telling me so."
The swordsman threw away the kitchen knife she had cherished until now. And finally, she grasped the hilt of the greatsword protruding from behind her shoulder.
"Since the world is messed up, shouldn't we, who were born with power, strive to fix it?"
As the bandages wrapped around the blade unraveled on their own, white light poured out from the gaps, more brilliantly than sunlight.
"It's not 'I suffered, so others must suffer too,' but rather 'I suffered, so I hope others don't suffer.' That's how we must break the chain of evil."
Paradoa gasped.
It was as if her very presence was changing.
A transcendent murderous aura, as if a heart was placed on a single blade, as if that blade could tear a heart apart at any moment.
"Just as law is a testament to humanity's accumulated efforts to be righteous, if the hopes for the world to become just and peaceful continue to accumulate, I believe dawn will break someday. That testament is this Sürpen."
Paradoa had lived as a mercenary.
Regardless of humans or monsters, having fought countless battles with the strong, she couldn't lack the discernment to tell if an opponent before her was superior or inferior to herself.
"That sword must be an artifact, right? You're lucky! I haven't even found a decent one yet! But what do I do about this? It's the same for me; I can unleash my true power with [King's Flesh]!"
Paradoa struck her own heart with her fist.
Simultaneously, she recited the prayer of <Forgotten Kings> that [The Strongest Mage] had taught her while handing over the flesh.
With this incantation, vowing to dedicate everything to the King, the true power of the Abyss that had been squirming within her body was unleashed.
"Ugh, Ugh-aaaaaaah!"
Her veins glinted crimson, and that wicked light was visible even through her skin and clothes.
It was the light of lava.
The authority of Neigalath, one of <The Forgotten Kings>, who ruled the burning desert as the master of [King's Flesh].
Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle, gurgle, gurgle…
The wires spread out like a spiderweb over the Grand Bridge melted away. What was revealed in the molten liquid was lava.
The world blazes in a fiery heat.
As soon as the swordsman felt her boot soles melting on the spiderweb, she launched herself into the air.
"This is amazing, isn't it? Is this the King's power? Crazy, this is seriously fucking amazing! Yes, this is it, the power is running wild… unbearably hot and explosive… Ah-hahahahaha!"
She had gained the ability to use the King's power.
Even the wires that had given Paradoa the epithet Divided Iron all transformed into whips of lava.
If it so much as grazed her once, the lava would melt her armor, and if it grazed her again, then it would invade her body and leave fatal wounds.
"With this power, Platinum Rank 1 is no problem, I could even become the strongest Diamond Grade! It would be perfect to test this power against you right now!"
A stream of lava charged, aiming for the swordsman who had landed on a magic foothold formed in the air.
The swordsman did not look at her.
Below that grand bridge, after looking at the people moving like puppets on Paradoa's wires, her expression merely turned cold.
"I'd like to subdue her alive, but that seems difficult. If I'm too late, those people will be harmed."
The swordsman swung her sword. Any iron, it should normally melt in this lava of murderous heat and kill its owner.
Chae-ae-ae-ae-ae-ae-ng…!
With a remarkably clear sound, the lava whip was repelled. The lava even seemed to tremble in pain.
"You blocked the first strike?"
This time, lava surged in bundles. It was a move aimed at the front, back, and sides simultaneously.
However.
As the swordsman swung her sword widely once, the bundles of lava were pushed back by the sword pressure created by that sword light.
"It seems warming up casually won't be enough, in that case!"
She would use both hands.
Not stopping there, she poured all the power raging madly within her body into her fingertips.
The lava whip roared more fiercely, and its thickness and heat were amplified to an absurd degree.
"Ahahahahaha, alright, what about this then!"
The power of lava that Paradoa wielded at an incomprehensible speed, it was truly the King's sport, turning the entire world into an inferno.
However, that power, which made heaven and earth ripple like a heat haze, was all repelled before that mysterious sword.
She wasn't even swinging the sword, all she was doing was holding it upright before her face as if in prayer.
"That artifact's ability must be something like absolute defense, huh? But like any other artifact, there must be a limit to its output! How much longer can it last?!"
As if cutting through Paradoa's roar with a sword, a reverent, clear, and transcendent resonance that made one's chest ache permeated the world.
"I am Lysta Alter Sürpen."
Simultaneously, the sword light spewed by the Grand Holy Sword Sürpen reached its peak, dazzlingly.
That light was the light of prayer.
Yes, it was the sword's prayer.
This, which only a hero chosen by the holy sword could recite, was a spiritual communication and resonance between the holy sword and the hero.
"I wish for true laughter to fill all lands."
The hero reveals her noble will, and the holy sword responds.
It was radiant.
It was brilliant.
As the light roaring on the blade reached its peak, Lysta gripped Sürpen in a reverse grip and raised it horizontally.
"Alter? You were a hero?"
Was it Paradoa who instinctively sensed the danger, or was it [King's Flesh] parasitic within her body?
"Yes, that's what it was! How would you, chosen by the world, understand how I feel? What would bitches like you know?!"
The lava's output was maximized to the point where her internal organs were damaged and the muscle fibers of her body melted away. However, the host did not feel the pain.
"Ugh, ugh, ugh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh…!"
Ppppppududuk…!
"…Kkeu-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah!"
All her blood vessels became streams of lava, bursting through Paradoa's body, and surged towards Lysta in hundreds of bundles.
"Space-Time Extermination."
A slash that severed all of that, the very time and space where such an explanation was located, from the totality of the world, banishing it to somewhere beyond.
Crack, rip, tear…!
Cracks spread across the dimension, and the explosive pressure phenomenon created as those cracks split into crevices sucked everything in its path into another world.
…Chae-ae-ae-ae-ae-ae-ng!
Providence, sensing a disruption in the world's order, immediately initiated regeneration procedures.
As the dimensional cracks were filled, a massive whirlpool surged over the grand bridge and the river overflowed.
In the center of that whirlpool, precisely with only her upper body above her intestines severed, Paradoa's body was swaying listlessly.
"Hyper-regeneration…?"
Was it refusing to accept the host's death?
As [King's Flesh] squirming in her intestines unleashed immense power, bundles of lava gathered over her body and were weaving a new physical form.
But it was not Paradoa, and was something grotesque that could barely be called human in the first place.
Puh-haak…!
Before that regeneration could be completed, Lysta's hand, which had surged forward in an instant, pierced through the intestines.
Since her blood had already turned into lava, lava splattered onto Lysta's hair and greaves, but she paid no mind.
When she pulled out the arm that had rummaged through the intestines, a piece of flesh the size of an index finger was gripped and pulled out. It moved grotesquely, struggling to escape from her grasp, changing its form.
'Who exactly is it…?'
Lysta put the piece of flesh into a glass vial at her waist and narrowed her eyes.
'There's no way a mercenary would know the prayer of the Abyss. Did she find the scripture of the Abyss at Trident Point?'
The original piece of flesh and this piece instantly merged… and the glass vial was instantly filled.
'No, Trident Point is the Spider Lord's land… there's no way the Lizard Lord's prayer would be there.'
Something is going on…
There's something behind this…
She was aware that [The Strongest Mage] mentioned by Archer Jack was causing all this chaos.
'But…'
This might be someone several times more dangerous than expected. Going beyond merely spreading the flesh, they even understand how to unleash its power.
'I can't forgive this…'
No matter how evil a person may be, what remains after taking a life is only extreme emptiness.
Life is precious…
She had no choice but to kill like this. If she hadn't been encroached upon by the Abyss, there might have been another way.
'If I keep searching for the flesh, I'll meet them someday.'
Lysta, who was steeling her resolve, saw that the tips of her hair, which had been dyed aquamarine, had turned pure white from the recent use of that power and gave a hollow smile.
The time I have left is not much.
The time she had to fulfill the calling she received as a hero in this land was limited.
'But it shouldn't be too late, nor should it be too early…'