Book 15 Chapter 47
To the city of water,
What, give me my body back (6)
Rin's foul play defeat should have been immediately punished by the Maritime Duel Arena Management Committee, but it could not be.
At that moment, a wave of madness that began in the eastern <Granat> swept over this place, causing the majority of people to lose consciousness and change strangely.
Friede was terrified, thinking that match-fixing had been discovered, but soon felt relieved that the crowd had turned into villains, and eliminated them without hesitation.
“No, I didn’t eliminate them? I’m just subduing them. Can’t you see? Are you blind? Huh? My flames are saving people from brainwashing!”
“Shut up. You conspired with Rista to make me look like this again, didn't you? This time, I won't let it slide.”
“You shut up! All my assets are gone because of you! It was money I could have used to get pampered and stroked dozens of times by handsome oppas! What are you going to do, what are you going to do?!”
“You're next, trash.”
“Pipi's cornfield is gone, give it back, give it back, compensate me.”
“You're next, trash parrot. You're an accomplice too. Get ready to die.”
“Gyu gyu gyu gyugyung (Trash Parrot)!”
“How dare you insult Pipi? Fine, come on, you damn bastard! Rista isn't here, so let's have the showdown we couldn't have back then! I'll properly establish the hierarchy!”
Sval and Pipi first announced the start of the fight in the sky, becoming intersecting blue and red beams of light with Sval Punches and Pipi Kicks!
“Gyooouung!”
“Pipipipit!”
Subsequently, ultimate flames and lightning clashed, forming a massive shockwave of light.
The consecutive light waves began to block and repel the wave of madness that threatened to engulf the entire imperial capital! What a crazy hero party!
Thanks to Friede's flames, those who regained consciousness later repented and became good people. They recall that day thus:
- The sight of the hero party's priestess and mage fighting against the darkness until their bodies were battered and bloody, protecting us, was truly the epitome of a hero party…
While Friede and Rin were engaged in such a tearful(?) bloody battle, Rista was also gradually being cornered in a fight to protect.
‘Too many tentacles, and people too…!’
Brainwashed fairies, who had been enjoying the casino, were continuously pouring in.
Among them were executives whose power had been amplified by [King's Flesh].
Paladin Raven swung his holy spear while defending Shimian, and Cecil Duren barely assisted Rista with ice magic, but the enemy's numbers were despairing.
‘If only I had the leeway to use Spacetime Slash, I could have cleared them all at once…’
But if that happened, even the brainwashed fairies would all be caught up and die. There were many difficulties in unleashing such ultimate power in such a confined space.
‘Mr. Cecil is doing his best to help, and I feel really sorry, but if Rin were here… it would have been much easier.’
No, no.
Rista shook her head urgently. Rin had already finished her job just by finding the location of this ruin.
Then Raven shouted.
“Fae Carrier! From now on, Lord Shimian will recite the highest miracle's Holy Word! Come here and you protect him too!”
Shurigan's miracles had few attack-oriented properties, mostly focusing on defense and healing.
“Do you think I'd let that happen?”
Fairies' high spiritual sensitivity allows them to handle all miracles, which is a racial characteristic.
That, in turn, connects with the same property to their sensitivity towards the abyss.
Moreover, Sasha, being the fairy with the highest such sensitivity, was able to powerfully activate dark spells of the abyss.
"!!!"
The rampage of madness intensified.
Bundles of tentacles, surging with both intangible and tangible force, doubled in number and began to batter them more quickly and powerfully.
Not caring at all that those who had been enslaved by brainwashing were being torn into flesh and chunks of meat along the way! At that tragedy, Rista desperately cried out.
“Stop it! Do you even know what you're doing right now?!”
“Of course I know! They're useless trash! Anyway, all living beings across the world are becoming my subordinates now, so what's going to happen if a few of them die?”
“You've truly abandoned your human heart. If that's the case, then there's no more hesitation.”
The answer to the question, "What will you do if there's none…?" came in the form of a clear light that flew in from somewhere.
It was an arrow of light.
Over a dozen arrows, upon impact, simultaneously extended holy roots in various directions on the ground. These roots didn't temporarily block the tentacles but bound them.
‘That dark power isn't something that can be grabbed or contained, but it's being held like that? What on earth is that magic…!’
If there had been a supreme archer capable of seeing beyond what the eye could reach, they would have at least recognized the general outline.
Archer Kiees.
An arrow of light piercing through the very center of the wildly raging tide, and beyond the momentarily created opening, the figure of an archer drawing a bowstring!
[(--)7]
The reason something impossible with ordinary magic arrows was unfolding before their eyes right now was precisely there.
The World Tree is an existence akin to an avatar of the Water Dragon Yeliselyka; a bow made from its branches can embody fragments of its power. It is capable of grasping the madness of the abyss as if it were a tangible substance.
Rista smelled that light, the fragrance brought by that power… the scent of great nature purifying deep within her body, and she trembled with joy.
‘It's enough, Kiees. This one moment you bought me is enough.’
The chanting of the Holy Word was completed on Shimian's tongue at that moment.
It was as if a long and arduous journey had come to an end.
A sacred Holy Word where even a single incorrect character would twist the very foundation of its power…
‘It's truly amazing to show such incredible concentration and faith at such a young age.’
The power of the Blood-Red Sun Shurigan, said to have wept and prayed before the misery of this world, spread crimson and quelled the darkness of madness.
It bestowed peaceful rest upon all who were dying, and healing tranquility upon the injured.
Not only that, it even readjusted the drastically changing terrain to be "pleasing to the eye," meaning in accordance with the providence of creation.
“This can't be, this can't be! The power of madness connected to the old nobility! It can't be calmed so easily…!”
Dark spells began to be recited from Parmena's mouth.
Rista threw herself forward.
Barely dodging the holy sword's strike that tore through the barrier, Parmena tried to chant a spell to revive the power of the old nobility, to make its madness regain vitality, but…
‘My voice… isn't… coming out…’
Instead, only congestion came out.
The afterimage of light that had cut across the edge of her vision now stimulated Parmena's optic nerves.
At the end of that afterimage… the area from her left shoulder to her heart had disappeared in a round shape, as if surgically excised with precise skill.
A penetrating wound.
This power, which accurately takes life from a blind spot that the opponent neither perceives nor recognizes, would later be known as 'Circular Needle Kill (圓針殺)', one of the top secret techniques second only to "Sky Blossom Kill" among the Drunken Masters.
‘Regeneration…!’
Before the defensive barrier disappeared, before the fake hero could rush in through that vanished gap.
‘Regeneration using the power of [King's Flesh]…!’
Parmena, who was pouring blood all over her body and trying to amplify the power of [King's Flesh], at that moment, saw her eye level shoot upwards, then spin around.
Too much…
Truly too much…
An impeccably clean slash…
A greatsword is originally a weapon for breaking and crushing, but could it really sever a body, leaving behind only such a sharp cross-section?
‘My body, my body is…’
Beyond the severed cross-section that separated her upper and lower body, she saw the fake hero retrieving the [King's Flesh], which had grown to the size of her entire internal organs.
Even the tears that welled up in his eyes.
Don't pity me, she wanted to scream. How dare someone like you, someone who could be chosen by the world… But her voice wouldn't come out.
‘My body, my dreams, just like this, so futilely… If only this location hadn't been discovered by that fake hero today…’