"......"
How had it ended up like this?
The ash-haired man covered in blood and death... no, the angel, stared at the scene before him with blue eyes drained of all life.
-......
The great forest lay in ruins. Corpses were piled like mountains. A killing intent cold enough to freeze one to the bone filled the air.
What had once looked like heaven had been reborn as the worst hell in the material world. After engraving that devastated land into his eyes, he finally lifted his gaze toward the arrogant angel looking down at him from the sky.
The mad archangel who had destroyed the Holy Relic,
sealed away the [Primordial Demons],
and in the end even slaughtered the [Demon Lord]s,
becoming the enemy of the entire world.
"......"
"You still have no intention of giving up?"
"......"
"You already know the outcome, don't you? Now that I possess the power of three [True Dragon]s, along with [Destroyer Dragon], I have become an existence that cannot be killed, even if Guy and Milim were to revive."
"......"
"So stop resisting. The reason He created you as the [Eighth]... was surely for this very moment."
"......"
Even after the archangel's repeated words, he never opened his mouth.
No, he could not.
It had been far too long since his vocal cords had been destroyed in an earlier melee, and after taking in the [Cryptid]s' all-out [Skills], his wounds had reached a state where he could no longer heal them himself...
'......'
...He could still barely send [Thought Communication], but he did not use even that.
After all, the archangel's proposal was not worth answering, and not one he wanted to answer either.
"...So you still refuse to accept it."
As he stared at the ash-haired angel who would not even send a thought, the archangel Feldway merely muttered as if he found it regrettable.
Half of humanity had already been wiped out, and most monsters had fallen into ruin, yet the man still gripped his sword in his one remaining hand, his eyes still searching for an opening in Feldway's guard.
"......"
'He really thinks that with Guy's [Skills], Milim's magic power, and Rudra's swordsmanship... those three things alone might somehow let him win.'
Even though his right arm had long since been severed, his left eye lost, his wings torn away, and even his five senses ruined.
Feldway frowned at the man who dared try to defeat him with nothing more than the fruits of talent and effort, then raised high his beloved sword, the sword of creation [Ark], which had reached the level of [Genesis-grade].
'...Tch. I have no desire to destroy the body He painstakingly made, but it seems I'll have to cut off all his limbs before he'll listen.'
Rumble...!
Then Feldway, pouring even his own magic power into the blade that had grown still stronger after absorbing Guy's [World] and Milim's [Asura], swung his arm with an emotionless face.
Even if the man before him was a [Seraphim] who far surpassed the original Seven Angels of Origin, even if he was the strongest swordsman in the world, one who had transcended countless swordsmen and reached the very summit of the world, he was still absolutely not at a level where he could defeat Feldway as he was now.
"Blame yourself for learning even that arrogance from your master, Adelio."
Kzzzzzt...!!
And then, the sword strike that had once inflicted the fatal wound that led to Guy's defeat came flying down over Adelio's head.
It was meant to swallow him whole and show him an absolute gap he could never overcome, forcing him to accept becoming Veldanava's vessel of his own will.
"......"
...
......
.........
However—
"......!"
—that slash never reached Adelio.
'Lucia...!'
"Yes!"
Because Adelio still had one more thing left.
"[Flow backward.]"
The younger sister of the first [Hero], and the wife of the [Creator God]—
"[Mix together.]"
The mother of the pitiful tyrant, and humanity's greatest archmage—
"[Return.]"
One whose talent surpassed even the [True Dragon]s and the [Primordial Demons], the greatest genius in history—
"[And... regress!]"
—Lucia's magic, who had become a Manas through Chronoa's sacrifice.
This fourth legacy was the greatest reason Adelio had refused Feldway's offer.
"...! This spell... don't tell me...!!"
The purest and most perfect magic, using none of the power of [Skills] at all.
The final trump card that Veldanava had passed on to her alone manifested through Feldway's own sword strike.
"Were you hiding in there from the very beginning, Lucia?!"
Feldway had never imagined that his own magic power, filled with the power of all the [True Dragon]s and [Destroyer Dragon], would be turned against him to cast a spell. Only now, sensing the auras of Raphael [King of Wisdom] and [Yog-Sothoth] [King of Space-Time] within Adelio, did he shout.
"Do you really think you'll get away with this after daring to do such a thing as His wife?! What you're doing now is nothing more than throwing everything away for a brief moment of freedom!!"
Feldway screamed that the laws of the [World], which had surely been observing all of this, would never accept such a trick.
As long as Adelio had been born with the fate of the [Eighth], the same result was certain to repeat itself again.
"......"
But Adelio only watched Feldway in silence and quietly raised his sword.
'......■■■■...'
A strange sword that had been with him ever since his reincarnation, back when he had been born an angel, and yet for some reason symbolized the king of hell.
'...Let's go.'
Then, with a faint smile, he poured all his magic power into the jet-black blade and unleashed his final supreme technique.
[Arts].
Praying that in his next life, he might become a good demon rather than an evil angel—
"Enma Raja."
—his final technique, bearing the same name as the sword itself, advanced together with the vortex of regression in a scene devoid of color and scent.
Very slowly.
Yet swiftly.
As a contradiction.
So that one day, it might even cut through fate itself—
—and the fate of the man who had cursed becoming an angel scattered away like dust.
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register