Chapter 217: Shock in Heaven (4)

As the rotation of the gems accelerated, the influence reached even Canis.

An overwhelming drowsiness overtook him. He tried to resist by biting his lips, but if he continued cutting the restraints like that, he would end up severing the girls’ wrists.

‘No! I can’t leave Arin behind!’

Blood flowed from his bitten lips.

Amy and Tess, who were watching the scene, could not give him any advice.

The only one who could stop him was Arin.

“Canis, there’s still time. Retreat for now. If you keep going like this, you’ll be the first to fall.”

“Damn it! Damn it!”

He knew he had to retreat.

Just a little more and he could cut them. If he had overwhelming power like his master, he would have already cut all the restraints.

— Information transmission rate: 50 percent.

“I will save you. Wait a little longer.”

Canis could not even look the girls in the eyes and stepped out of the object’s area of influence.

As if it were a lie, his mind returned to normal. But the pain of that moment did not fade. It was a compulsory force incomparable to sleep magic.

‘That’s a compulsory force. That’s the characteristic of objects.’

Objects are mutations of the world of things. Due to some cosmic error, the very concept of the object had been distorted.

Therefore, since they do not violate causality, it is impossible to block their abilities by any means.

Moreover, there was not much time left. In a situation with a time limit, summoning a dream demon had been an excellent choice.

“Rian, fall back. I’ll handle it.”

Canis switched places with Rian. For a swordsman with weakness against mental abilities, the dream object was practically poison.

Peophe pointed toward the entrance of the great battlefield and shouted,

“Guys! Look over there!”

The giant Ymir was running toward them with his enormous body.

Rian’s eyes sharpened. He looked smaller than the first time he saw him, but it was undoubtedly that giant.

Even the usually calm Canis could not hide his anger this time.

“Damn it! Even the giant came!”

“Calm down. I’ll handle the giant. You take care of Baalbe.”

It was the correct decision considering affinities. But Rian wanted to face him personally, even setting that aside.

In the first encounter, he could not even inflict a serious wound, but this time it was his turn to show his specialty.

When Rian reached the entrance, Peophe flew toward him holding the metagate.

“Hey, what do I do with this?”

“Protect it for me. We will return, without fail.”

“What? How am I supposed to take care of something that important?!”

Peophe could not finish her sentence. It was a heavy and excessive request, but when she saw Rian’s face, she could not say anything more.

It was not the face of someone who said he would come back.

“But if you end up in danger…”

Rian looked at Peophe and smiled softly.

“Then throw it away and run. It’s not worth more than your life.”

Peophe pressed her lips together and made an annoyed expression.

How could he say something like that? Why were all humans so absurd?

“Don’t say nonsense! Why can’t you say it honestly? You want me to protect it even if I die! If you don’t have this, you won’t be able to return!”

Rian did not respond.

“Idiot! The enemy is Ymir! The king of the giants, Ymir! If you fight, you will definitely die!”

Rian finally understood. So his name was Ymir? Not just a giant, but the king of the giants.

Then there was no better final opponent.

Peophe’s chest tightened. Was this the life of humans? Being as short-lived as mayflies compared to a fairy, did they try to burn with all their strength?

Rian blocked the entrance. With the light behind him, like an eclipse, his figure seemed strangely larger.

“Name… your name…”

Peophe, her voice trembling, managed to force the words out.

“What is your name?”

That was how she asked Rian. In heaven, revealing one’s name was dangerous, but Peophe thought she needed to know. Now he had become someone she could trust.

“I am Ogent Rian.”

Rian, raising his greatsword, looked at Peophe and said,

“I am Shirone’s sword.”

Boom!

Driving the greatsword deep into the ground, Rian leaned his back against the blade and lowered his center of gravity.

Ymir charged toward him with a grotesque smile.

“Kekeke! Is this the second time we fight? That’s how a warrior should be.”

“Come, king of the giants.”

Ymir did not slow down and charged.

Feeling a pressure as if a gigantic rock were rolling toward him, Rian took a defensive stance and shouted with all his strength.

“Uaaaaaaa!”

Ymir’s hunched shoulder slammed into Rian’s upper body.

The greatsword bent as if it would break and then returned to its form through elasticity.

Crack!

From inside Rian’s abdomen came the sound of something breaking. The blood that burst from his mouth dyed the sky red.

***

The shockwave pierced through Ymir’s chest.

The battlefield where the greatest magical swordsman of heaven and the warrior clashed was devastated.

Every place they passed left sunken marks, and wind rushed in through the broken windows.

Ymir, leaning against the wall, laughed. As the signal of the shockwave invaded him, his body was decomposing at the cellular level.

“Hehehe, not bad. How does it feel? The sensation of having pierced me?”

Ashur frowned. Even though Ymir had lost his body, he was not someone who would allow himself to be struck so easily.

“…Was that a part of you?”

Ymir was a giant who had reached the tenth level of the art without precedent.

Only Ra knew how many bodies he had absorbed, but the general theory was that they exceeded ten thousand.

“Being a giant doesn’t mean I can’t think. Come slowly. I’ll go ahead and wait for you.”

As Ymir collapsed gently, Ashur’s sword pierced through his head and came out.

Shortly after, Ymir’s body began to bubble and dissolved into a black liquid.

Ashur looked at the liquid soaking the ground beneath his feet. As he opened his palm, his sword turned into a signal and disappeared.

“Damn it, I let my guard down.”

Ymir does not like strategies. He considers them a second option for the weak.

But today, for once, he abandoned his pride and chose to go to the great battlefield.

Animal instinct? No, it was a superhuman instinct.

Ymir likes the simple, but he always defeats the complex. Because he was born with a characteristic.

The instinct to smell war.

If one reviews the history of heaven, Ymir was always at the core of wars.

This time was no different.

He sensed that what was happening in the great battlefield would be key to recovering his body.

“It may already be too late.”

Although their natures were opposite, Ymir’s sense was reliable.

For someone like him to abandon the battle and disappear meant there was no need to buy time. Without a doubt, the situation in the great battlefield was more serious than expected.

Ashur kicked off the ground and left the battlefield.

***

“Canis! Fall back! You can’t keep going!”

Arin shouted. Ten minutes had already passed since they entered the object’s area.

Even so, Canis not only did not retreat, but further increased the casting speed of his spells.

Baalbe, as if it were not worth responding, simply avoided confrontation.

A two-horned Mara surpassed Canis’s abilities by default, and as long as the object was present, he had no need to intervene directly.

The dream object caused living beings to fall asleep, but what was truly terrifying was resisting it.

If one resisted by force, the fatigue from lack of sleep would accumulate until it led to death.

At that moment, Canis’s mind was in a state equivalent to not having slept for eight days.

“For a human, not bad. But how long will you endure? If you don’t sleep deeply, you will die.”

Canis regained consciousness.

He had not heard what Baalbe said a moment ago. What he saw with his eyes did not reach his brain.

— Canis! Regain consciousness!

Harvest shouted through the mental channel. But it was useless. His mind was beginning to paralyze, and he could not even respond.

“It seems you care quite a bit about your master. Well, you share life, so it’s natural.”

At Kariel’s words, Harvest turned around. The archangel had descended to the ground and was observing the situation. He had undoubtedly noticed that Harvest’s strength had weakened.

“To maintain the darkness requires quite a bit of energy. Are you compensating for it with the life of a human? It’s an interesting idea, but you are only dispersing your power.”

Canis slowly got up.

He had just realized that he had been lying on the ground. He had not even been aware that he had saliva in his mouth.

“Arin, it seems not all of us will return alive.”

“No! Canis! Not that! Never!”

A terrifying thought crossed Arin’s mind.

If Canis, who had a personality similar to his master’s, tried something in this situation, it could only be the card Arcane used just before dying.

Harvest reached the same conclusion.

— Canis, you’re not thinking of Abyss Memory, are you? But you are not Arcane. You may not endure it.

Canis shook his head. With such weak resolve, he could not defeat a two-horned Mara.

— No. I will try what I mentioned before. I need your power, Harvest. Can you help me?

— No. That is a magic that is only possible in theory. We haven’t even tested it. At the very least, you should try it after interpreting the book of light and darkness.

— Harvest, if one of us must live, that is Arin. You know that too.

Harvest did not respond. But he did not deny it either, which was equivalent to accepting Canis’s words. And that also meant his own disappearance.

— Understood. I will give you my power.

Harvest’s body was absorbed into Canis’s shadow.

Canis, regaining a bit of consciousness, prepared for death.

He had never thought about a specific situation in which he had to die. He was simply prepared to enter the eternal world of nothingness.

“Abyss Limit.”

The magic designed only in theory was activated.

In an instant, the mental fatigue disappeared. But he did not erase his memories like Arcane.

What he erased was the limit.

Canis knew what kind of human he was. He probably could not reach the supreme level like Shirone.

That is why he surpassed his limits in his own way.

Children who do not know fire put their hands into the flames without hesitation, and great monks burn themselves to enter nirvana.

The difference between ignorance and enlightenment is enormous, but the mental magnitude of throwing oneself into the fire is the same.

If he could not be an enlightened monk, Canis chose to be an ignorant child.

The result was a temporary state similar to an immortal function.

Of course, he had not truly reached nirvana. But at least in combat, he could obtain a very similar mental strength.

“I’m going!”

Until the duration of Abyss Limit ended, he would feel no fatigue.

But seeing Canis move with such energy was hell for Arin.

“Canis! No! Please don’t do it!”

Arin shouted through tears. Without Canis and Harvest, she had no courage to continue living in the world.

But Canis could not hear any voice. Feeling even a slight ecstasy for having achieved that magic for the first time, he cast the most powerful spell he could use.

‘Familiars of darkness.’

A magic that converts the mage’s mind into physical force. Arcane had a dark golem, but Canis’s familiars were completely different.

The shadow spread across the ground like a liquid surface, and from it emerged a huge worm called worm.

“Master…”

If he could obtain a mental strength comparable to an immortal function, familiars of darkness were the most compatible magic.

‘Would he praise me?’

The ten-meter worm traced a parabola and fell vertically.

Baalbe did not tense up. Without even uncrossing his arms, he simply stepped aside.

“Not bad. This deserves praise—”

Before he could finish speaking, another dark worm emerged from the ground.

A kind of inverted waterfall rose, swallowing Baalbe up to the ceiling.

The object shattered into pieces, and the sound of Baalbe’s bones breaking could be heard.

Shortly after, his twisted body fell to the ground.