Chapter 218: Sky (1)

Canis gasped with difficulty. His head was not only dizzy, but he felt as if his brain were melting.

But he still could not relax. He had to fight for Arin until the very end.

“Baalbe, your appearance is pathetic.”

At Kariel’s voice, Baalbe’s body trembled.

“I’m sorry, Lord Kariel.”

Canis’s face went blank. He had shattered every bone in his body—how could he still be alive?

No, it was not simply that he was alive.

Each of his organs was mutating into strange forms.

Insect legs covered in shell sprouted, and tentacles similar to those of a mollusk extended.

“Thank you for granting me the Demonic Awakening.”

When Baalbe’s size grew like a mountain, everyone raised their heads completely.

It was a gigantic creature formed from a mixture of all kinds of living beings.

The word mixture fit it perfectly.

If octopuses, cockroaches, flies, worms, and snakes were put into a pot, boiled, and then the liquid dried, they would probably have exactly that shape.

“Kikikiki! It has been two thousand years since I last awakened.”

“This is already… the end.”

Canis’s hope vanished like foam. The object was nothing more than a toy for the Maras.

When he realized that he had bet his life on something impossible from the beginning, it was already too late.

***

“Rian, Rian…”

Peophe, her eyes filled with tears, looked at Rian. Even in a situation where everything had fallen into nothingness, he was still fighting.

No, he was enduring.

After spitting blood in the first clash, Rian clung to Ymir in that very state and activated a mental block.

It may break, but it does not bend.

What he gained as the price for choosing that dangerous path was physical ability comparable to a schema.

Ymir, realizing that he would not let go unless he destroyed Rian’s body, began throwing repeated blows.

Each time Rian’s body shook from the impact, the greatsword trembled.

“Guh! Still…!”

At this point, even Ymir felt something strange.

The nature of his strength was hard as iron. It was not a strength a living being could produce. Moreover, he had shattered his insides, so he should have been incapable of exerting force.

‘Among humans, very few can use this.’

After countless battles, he would occasionally encounter such individuals.

But all of them, without exception, were the strongest warriors representing their civilization.

Comparing a human who could not even use the art of giants to them would be unfair to those warriors.

“Kekeke! Let’s see how far you go!”

Ymir launched a point-blank uppercut.

At the moment the muscles of his abdomen tore, Rian’s eyes widened. His body was blown away, and when he landed his knees buckled, but he clung to Ymir and endured.

In the next instant, Rian released the mental block and pushed Ymir’s shoulder.

When the grip that seemed impossible to break came undone, Ymir showed a puzzled expression.

But what did it matter? After all, he was the strongest.

Any being that faced the king of the giants ended like this.

“So in the end you gave up? For a human, you endured quite well. As a reward, I will give you a painless end.”

Ymir stomped and threw a punch. Even at short distance it had destructive power that tore muscles apart, so a blow with all his weight was something Rian’s body could not withstand.

But Rian did not care. While smiling at Ymir, his eyes looked beyond the giant’s shoulder.

“You arrived, Shirone.”

***

Shirone covered a distance of 1 kilometer in 30 seconds.

As the great battlefield came into view, he saw the giant throwing punches and Rian, completely wrecked.

“Riaaaan!”

Ymir trembled. But the punch filled with force followed its inertia and shot toward Rian’s abdomen.

Shirone cast Shining Chain. A chain dozens of meters long completely wrapped around Ymir’s body.

“Hm?”

The moment Ymir understood, his body was dragged at enormous speed.

“Kuuuuu!”

Even in the air, Ymir injected strength and tried to break the chain.

The giant’s strength was transmitted through Shirone’s mind. But he had no intention of accepting such a brute challenge.

Shirone moved the chain and hurled the giant.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Ymir’s body, wrapped in the chain, traced parabolic trajectories and was slammed repeatedly. When he finally drove him into the ground, the impact resounded with a roar.

Ymir lay spread out in a cross, unmoving.

It was humiliation.

The fact that his body was being toyed with by a mere human mage made his body boil with rage.

“Do you think I’ll break just from being slammed into the ground? I’ll break this chain right now! Feel how strong my body is!”

When Ymir swelled his muscles, the chain tightened. Shirone frowned.

But if the opponent attacked head-on, the mage had to respond by deflecting it.

“How about this?”

When Shirone swung his arm, the chain unraveled and Ymir was flung off the bridge.

Ymir, suspended in the air, looked at Shirone with a stunned expression.

“You…”

The moment he tried to say something, gravity took hold and his body fell below the bridge.

***

Ymir, falling, looked at the bridge drifting away. It was not until the scenery was covered by clouds that he freed himself from the feeling of emptiness.

“Honestly, these mages…”

He did not care about crashing into the ground like this. Rather than hesitating in a partial state, it would be much more fun to compete in endurance with the ground waiting below.

That was what he thought.

But the moment the boy appeared, he sensed that smell again. That characteristic smell of the battlefield, metallic and sharp.

Nothing had ended yet. The hottest place in heaven was still the great battlefield.

“I can’t stay out of something like this.”

He had to return to the great battlefield.

If he tried to jump, the power of his part would weaken even more, but the smell of blood from the battlefield was calling him, so there was no reason to hesitate.

“Huuuuup!”

Ymir inhaled air and expanded his body.

By blocking oxygen, his skin hardened like porcelain. The color drained from his face and life vanished from his eyes.

His lips parted and his pulse stopped.

Thus, Ymir died.

Boom! The front part of his corpse exploded and another identical Ymir shot out.

Propelled by strong propulsion, Ymir leapt dozens of meters and dug his fingers into a pillar that held up the sky.

“Ugh, every time I do this it irritates me.”

For someone who seeks strength, the weakening of power was an unbearable frustration. Especially being born from one part to another meant passing through death, which made it extremely unpleasant.

There was only one reason to endure all that humiliation. To see the end of the battle with his own eyes.

Ymir, hanging from the pillar, braced his feet and dropped his shoulders. The moment he pulled with his arms and propelled himself, his enormous body rose defying gravity.

***

— Progress of the liquor of the life: 80 percent.

Shirone looked around the great battlefield. As he approached the entrance, Peophe transmitted all the memories up to that moment.

Shirone looked toward Rian, who was bleeding.

“Are you okay? Sorry for being late.”

“No. It’s not late. Go in and save the girls.”

Rian was a mess. To return home, he at least needed time to recover some energy.

“Shirone!”

Amy shouted. The emotions she had been holding back burst, and tears filled her eyes. She thought she had been enduring well, but apparently she had been suffering without realizing it.

“There’s no time! If the information transmission is completed, everything will be over!”

Shirone knew what her words meant. His fingers trembled with rage.

All this time, he had never thought that Amy needed his permission to do anything.

But facing this situation, he finally understood.

Without his permission, no one had the right to treat Amy like that.

From Shirone’s shadow, Canis emerged.

“What happened? Did you find a way to escape? Did Ikael say she would free the girls?”

“Ikael will not come.”

“Then all of this was in vain?”

“It may be. But from now on, I will handle it.”

Shirone walked toward Baalbe. But the one he stared at was Kariel behind him.

“If you release them now, I will leave without doing anything.”

“And what would that change? You cannot avoid destruction. The final war will happen, and the only thing humans can do is wait for death.”

“No. You cannot destroy us.”

“I don’t know what basis you have to say such nonsense. The power of heaven is grand. If Ra did not exist, your world would not exist either.”

“That may be. But Ra is not a god.”

It was neither stubbornness nor a forced argument. Shirone sincerely believed it. And Miro as well.

— Shirone, a god is not necessarily a grand being. It is only the designer of the world.

When he heard that from Miro, at first he did not understand it. He thought it was the arrogance of an Unlocker who mastered scale magic.

But now that he knew the secrets of heaven, it was no longer so.

Miro knew it. She knew that a being who considers itself grand cannot be a god.

God is only one. The one who designed the world.

“Humans are not as foolish as you think! A being that we can see, feel, and analyze cannot be a god! Let’s fight! If the final war happens, the one that will be destroyed will be heaven!”

Kariel’s face hardened. It had probably been a long time since he had heard such blasphemous words.

“Now I am certain. Humans deserve to die. Baalbe, eliminate them.”

“That is my greatest pleasure, Lord Kariel.”

Baalbe’s heavy body began to twist. Every time he moved, unknown organs writhed meaninglessly.

“Canis! Fall back!”

Countless photons began to appear around Shirone. The vibrating tension of the light was so intense it seemed like it would explode at the slightest touch.

At the very moment Baalbe lunged at Shirone, more than ten Photon Cannons were fired.

Booom!

Amazingly, Baalbe’s body was pushed back. Then he let out a piercing scream.

The Photon Cannons struck his enormous body without pause.

The insect legs broke, and the mollusk tentacles lost their elasticity as if they had been chewed apart.

Baalbe’s body flipped completely over. Even so, he was pushed toward Kariel while taking the impacts.

Shirone finally stopped the magic. It was an attack where all his accumulated rage exploded at once.

Even so, he was not tired. Although the power of each shot had increased, he did not feel the slightest exhaustion.

Canis, watching that scene, went blank.

Was it possible for a human to increase the power of their magic by an entire level in a matter of hours?

On the battlefield, it is not uncommon for someone to realize something new while risking their life.

But Shirone had not experienced a mental change.

All the values that made him up had increased uniformly.

‘This can’t be. He can’t pull that far ahead.’

Just a few months ago, when he fought Shirone, the difference had not been so great. And after losing to light magic, he trained more than anyone to surpass him.

But Shirone was far beyond before.

Why doesn’t he collapse? What is the source of his power?

Kariel spoke to the fallen Baalbe.

“Stop playing, Baalbe.”

His expression did not change in the slightest. Of course, Shirone’s magic was quite remarkable for a human. By the standards of divine servants, it easily ranked within the top 40 percent.

But that was not enough to defeat a two-horned Mara.

According to the law, not even ten Shirones could do it.

“I’m sorry, Lord Kariel. It seems the great battlefield will break a little.”

“I permit it.”

When Kariel gave his permission, the ground began to tremble. The organs of the countless beings that made up Baalbe turned toward the ceiling and began to writhe.

“Kikikiki! Waking my lovely test subjects from their sleep… this will be a nightmare for you.”