In the moment of utter crisis, as Ehangwen was struck by Zeus’s thunderbolt and began to plummet, a violet meteor streaked vertically down from the sky.
The target was the terrace of the highest spire of the Obsidian Castle.
Standing there was a giant in black iron armor, Grangotte. Toward him, Medusa launched herself without a shred of hesitation.
In her vision, only one thing existed: the golden-ornamented dagger held in Grangotte’s hand—Chrysaor.
“Hoh, a bug has decided to fall from the sky for me.”
Grangotte snorted arrogantly and effortlessly hefted the massive, iron-studded poleaxe in his right hand.
He swung the axe blade horizontally across her falling trajectory, the force of the blow tearing through the air with a thunderous roar.
However, Medusa’s speed far exceeded the giant’s expectations.
Just before the blade could connect, her toe darted out like lightning, lightly stepping onto the side of the incoming axe.
Using the momentum of the rebound, she twisted her body in midair and, driving her heel with the full force of centrifugal acceleration, slammed a devastating kick into Grangotte’s face.
KWA-BOOM!!
The dull sound of a steel helmet denting rang out. Yet, the giant was merely pushed back; he remained undamaged.
“Pathetic.”
Baring his teeth, Grangotte drew the golden sword, Chrysaor, with his left hand. A fierce golden slash tore through the air, intending to cleave Medusa in two.
The blinding golden strike carved a cross into the terrace. The marble floor was sliced through like tofu, but Medusa was already gone.
“…!”
The moment Grangotte shifted his gaze, a violet streak flashed from his blind spot.
She was leaping at blinding speeds, using the falling debris of the castle as stepping stones. Bouncing off walls and ceilings with effortless agility, her movements were those of a mythical beast that had forgotten the laws of gravity.
CLANG! SHING! K-KANG!
Golden slashes and blue thunder pursued her closely, reducing the terrace to a wasteland, yet she evaded every attack by a hair's breadth with acrobatic precision.
But she wasn't simply fleeing.
Every shattered pillar she stepped on, every fragment of the floor, and every piece of airborne debris her chain-spikes brushed against was being covertly marked with a blood-red seal.
“You annoying fly! Stop buzzing around and just die!”
Enraged, Grangotte raised Keraunos. Just as dozens of fierce blue bolts were about to rain down in a radial burst from the spire's peak—
Medusa, hanging upside down from the debris in his blind spot, murmured in a chilling voice.
“It is already too late. The preparations are complete.”
Instantly, the blood-red seals on the dozens of fragments and pillars surrounding Grangotte resonated and ignited all at once.
<Bloodport Andromeda> (Anti-User, Bloody Divine Temple).
A grotesque, eye-shaped sigil appeared in the sky, and a massive red hemispherical barrier completely imprisoned Grangotte.
The demonic temple of the Gorgon sisters.
By transmuting the entire space into the interior of her own eye, this Anti-Army Noble Phantasm ravenously drained the blood and mana of every living being within.
“Kuh…!? This is!”
The moment the barrier activated, Grangotte’s massive frame visibly staggered.
The fierce vitality of the giant, which had been surging through his compressed muscles, began to sink heavily as if trapped in a mire, being sucked into the red barrier. It was a vicious absorption that could erode the life force of even those with immense magic resistance.
No matter how powerful a giant he was, he could not exert his full strength within this blood-red temple. His overwhelming physical pressure was halved in an instant.
“Now, we are finally on equal footing.”
Having diminished her opponent's strength and replenished her own mana through the barrier, a cold incantation flowed from Medusa's lips.
Brute Strength B.
An offensive trait possessed only by monsters and demonic beasts that temporarily amplifies muscular strength.
A weakened Grangotte and an empowered Medusa. The tide of battle had completely reversed.
TAAT!
The marble floor shattered like a spiderweb as Medusa’s form vanished.
“Where do you think you're going!”
Grangotte swung his poleaxe with his weakened body, but the sluggish trajectory was transparent to Medusa. She deflected the axe handle with her chain and dove straight into the giant's embrace.
Charging at supersonic speeds, Medusa unleashed a torrential rain of kicks against Grangotte’s jaw, chest, and abdomen.
K-K-K-KANG!! BOOM!!
It was different from before. The black iron armor, its durability eroded by the barrier, buckled and dented, sending Grangotte’s massive body flying upward.
Medusa planted her hand on the ground, spinning like a windmill to launch a heel kick into his jaw. When Grangotte barely managed to defend with Chrysaor, she immediately hooked her chain to a ceiling pillar and launched herself away like a slingshot to create distance.
A violet bullet navigating the air with absolute freedom.
Kicking off walls, winding around pillars, and twisting her trajectory in midair, Medusa engaged in a high-speed, three-dimensional assault. It was a perfect fusion of power and speed.
“You damned woman!!”
Grangotte roared, spitting blood as he scattered thunderbolts in every direction.
However, Medusa hurled the spikes of her chains toward the raining lightning.
The chains deftly avoided the bolts, winding tightly around the massive stone pillars and ceiling fragments that were about to collapse from the explosions.
“Fall.”
Medusa yanked the chains with monstrous strength.
The other end of the chain wrapped around the arm Grangotte had raised to fire his lightning, and dozens of tons of rubble cascaded down like a waterfall, entwining the giant's arm in the process.
KWA-BOOOOM!!!!
The massive pile of debris completely crushed Grangotte, and the terrace floor collapsed. The sound of spraying blood and shattering bones echoed within the barrier.
Medusa exhaled sharply, hovering in the air as she looked down at the scene of destruction.
Her shoulders and thighs were blackened from dodging the golden slashes and lightning, but she had avoided any fatal wounds.
But there was no time to breathe a sigh of relief.
RUMBLE!!
Blue lightning exploded from within the rubble, sending the crushing boulders flying into the air.
The Grangotte who stepped out from the debris was in a wretched state. Half of his black iron armor was destroyed, and his flesh was torn open, exposing white bone.
Yet, Medusa’s eyes filled with shock.
Because upon the exposed, broken fragments of Grangotte's bones, rune characters were glowing blue.
“…You inscribed healing runes into your very bones?”
With a gruesome sound, the magical circuits etched into the bone activated. Grangotte’s torn muscles and flesh boiled and regenerated in an instant, restoring his original form.
“Are your petty tricks finished? Then it is my turn!”
Grangotte roared, hoisting both Chrysaor and Keraunos. Even under the suppression of the barrier, the mana erupting from his body expanded as if to rend the atmosphere.
The coming strike was not something that could be avoided with mere acrobatic evasion.
A cold smile spread across Medusa’s lips.
She reached up and violently tore away the blindfold covering her eyes—<Breaker Gorgon> (Self-Sealing Dark Shrine).
Instantly, the blood-red world within the barrier was dyed a deeper, darker violet.
Medusa’s unveiled eyes: the Mystic Eyes of Petrification.
“…Kuh!?”
Grangotte’s movement to charge slowed.
Across his massive frame, over the twitching muscles and regenerated skin, a grey petrification began to spread at a terrifying speed.
Combined with the weakening effect of Bloodport, the pressure of the Mystic Eyes caused Grangotte’s strength to ebb away, his giant knees trembling as if they were about to buckle.
Just as Medusa gripped her chain to deliver the finishing blow to his throat—
“GRAAAAAAAAGH!!!!”
Grangotte let out a blood-curdling scream.
Instead of firing Zeus’s thunderbolt at Medusa, he drove it directly into his own chest.
“What…!”
FWA-SHHH!!!
The thunderbolt of the Age of Gods pierced through Grangotte’s body, raging wildly within him. The energy of the lightning was forcibly injected into his petrifying grey veins, causing the stone-like skin to crack and rupture.
Even at the cost of turning his internal organs to charcoal, he used the destructive divine energy of the thunderbolt to forcibly shatter the petrification curse from the inside out.
“Puh, did you think such a trifle would work on me!”
Erupting with both blood and lightning, Grangotte leaped with eyes wide and manic.
The golden light of Chrysaor in his right hand and the thunderbolt in his left fused into one, creating a colossal cruciform vortex of destruction that threatened to tear Medusa’s blood-red barrier asunder.
“…This might hurt a little.”
Floating in the air, Medusa used a dagger to lightly slash her own neckline.
As red blood sprayed, a massive magic circle deployed in the void.
From the circle descended the celestial beast of the Age of Gods, Pegasus, radiating a blinding white light.
Medusa mounted the divine horse and gripped the reins tightly. Her power surged explosively, and the divine protection of the celestial steed, which drastically increased her endurance, enveloped her like a meteor.
“<Bellerophon> (Bridle of Radiance)!!!”
As if a star were plummeting to earth, Pegasus galloped through the sky.
The lightning-clad giant and the Queen of Monsters atop her beast of light collided head-on above the crumbling walls of the castle.
KWA-BOOOOOOM!!!!!!!
A horrific explosion that completely paralyzed both sight and hearing.
The collision of golden slashes, thunderbolts, and celestial light created a blast so immense that the upper reaches of the Obsidian Castle and Medusa’s blood-red temple were completely collapsed and vaporized.
Blown back by the shockwave, Medusa tumbled wretchedly across the ruins of the wall, leaving a trail of blood. Pegasus vanished, and her body was a mess of burns and lacerations.
Red blood leaked from her lips as she gasped for air.
Across from her in the dust, Grangotte was also on his knees, panting heavily with his right arm and chest grotesquely twisted and burst open.
Even the runes etched into his bones had been overloaded by the strike of Bellerophon; further regeneration seemed impossible.
It was a desperate struggle that could be called a rebirth of myth.
Just as the ragged breathing of the two monsters filled the silence of the ruins—
From the highest point of the collapsed wall, Kay looked down at the two blood-soaked combatants.
“To think he could fight Medusa to that extent. He really is a monster. Well, the result is already decided. I guess I won't get a chance to fight.”
Medusa recovered her body using Tamamo's charms and activated her Brute Strength.
Blue light leaked from her legs like cracks in porcelain, sparks of mana flying as she charged forward as a violet flash.
To kill a hero with a gentle kick—that was her way.
CRUNCH!!!!
“Guh!”
The tyrant, Grangotte.
A monster who originally required the combined efforts of King Arthur, Britomart, and Arthégal to be defeated.
Yet, due to a clash of styles and the specialized mythic combat prowess of Medusa, he met his end just like the countless heroes she had slain before him.
In her hand, she now quietly held the golden sword that had belonged to Grangotte.
“Those who block my Master’s path… and those who soil the traces of my child, Chrysaor… shall not be left alive.”
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