Warrior Race (3)
"...Moses?"
Wait, what on earth was brother Moses doing here?
If this had been the Hero Gallery, it would have made at least some sense. In the Bible I remembered, Moses was a savior who led his people out of bondage. For such a savior to be hailed as a Hero wouldn't be strange at all. But a figure named Moses being a Demon Lord? Something was fundamentally, terribly wrong with that picture.
"Your world might have myths of him as a savior," Odin remarked, "but that Moses over there comes with a rather different background. Him ending up a Demon Lord isn't strange in the slightest."
"How is he different?"
"Escaping an empire with his people—that part's identical. The twist comes afterward. In that dimension... what was it called again? Ah, right. He parted an ocean known as the Blood Sea with a single sword slash to evacuate his people, then faced off against a hundred-thousand-strong army alone and slaughtered every last one of them. Afterward, dragging his exhausted body, he went looking for the people he'd saved."
"He parted a sea... with a sword?"
"Yep. And that hundred-thousand-strong army was entirely composed of formidable martial artists trained in internal energy arts. Even for a Swordmaster, racking up that kind of body count is bound to leave you completely drained."
What on earth are internal energy arts?
"Haven't you ever read martial arts novels in your world?" Odin continued. "Just picture humans who can take artillery shells and cruise missiles to the bare chest and walk it off without a scratch."
"...Why the hell is the power scaling so completely broken?"
In my home dimension, outside of a tiny handful of apex ability users, hardly anyone could withstand a missile with their bare flesh. And among a global population of ten billion, an ability user of my caliber had been unique—there was only me.
"Stop nitpicking," Odin snapped playfully. "Anyway, after that, he climbed some mountain and stumbled upon a stone slab left behind by an Outer God. His body was completely spent from wiping out that army, so he couldn't resist its influence. After that? He fell into total madness and danced with his blade."
"Wait... then did that Moses kill ninety percent of his own people during that rampage?"
"Looks like you read the awakening conditions guide. Exactly. If I remember right, within twenty-four hours, just about all of humanity on their planet was wiped out."
"Does that even make sense?!"
"Makes total sense. Especially when you're talking about a dimensional-tier Swordmaster. An uncontrolled powerhouse is always that dangerous."
"..."
An uncontrolled powerhouse.
The moment those words left his mouth, a heavy tightness settled in my chest. Because in my dimension, at least, I was the one who fit that definition. What if I suddenly lost my mind one day and stopped managing the Gates? What if I decided to hunt down and slaughter the remnants of humanity who had fled into outer space?
There was no one who could stop me. Nor was there anyone who could ever replace me.
"Hey."
"..."
"Hey!"
"Ah, yes?"
Odin's sharp shout snapped me back to reality.
"Stop having thoughts like that. Reading them is creeping me out so bad I feel like gagging. A Hero's gonna pop up for you soon anyway, and once you're locked in a death match, you won't have the luxury to brood over crap like that. Besides, you've already ascended to the throne of a Demon Lord—why waste breath worrying about it?"
"...Is that so?"
"Damn right. So you, rookie, just enjoy the match right now and focus on figuring out how you'll handle your incoming Hero. Underestimate a Hero, and you'll get stripped down to the bone, got it? Heroes receive calibration directly from Causality and the Balance from the get-go."
"What do you mean by Causality and the Balance...?"
"I'll explain when the time comes, so please, shut your trap and watch the damn fight. Understood?"
Seeing Odin glare at me with genuine annoyance, I realized it was time to redirect my focus to the arena.
Shifting my gaze back to the center of the arena, I caught sight of the countdown beginning.
Unlike his previous duels, Equilibrium had assumed a deliberate, rigid stance. In his right hand rested the holy sword shaped like a longsword; in his left, the demonic dagger held in a reverse grip.
TenCommandments—Moses—on the other hand, was merely resting both hands upon a plain wooden walking stick. That wooden cane, blending seamlessly with his elderly appearance, gave off an impression of utter harmlessness.
"Don't let appearances fool you," Odin muttered. "Every single bastard who takes on the appearance of an old geezer is batshit crazy."
I could feel power surging into both of Equilibrium's feet. On the magnified spectator screen, his body looked like an artillery shell primed for launch. Battle aura seemed practically corporeal around him; his condition was at its absolute peak.
Moses, meanwhile, remained standing with his eyes gently closed, leaning on his staff.
With only a single second remaining until the match, Moses finally opened his eyes and murmured softly:
"Take this single blow well."
Alongside the announcement declaring the start of the battle, a figure vanished from the arena.
It was a speed that not even the supplementary spectator feed—slowed to its absolute minimum playback—could track. After ten straight hours of spectating, I had foolishly believed that with the assistance of the Gallery system, I could keep up with their movements. But this speed seemed to laugh directly in the face of such arrogance.
Having lost sight of one duelist, all I could see was the other.
An old man, standing motionless in place, leaning upon his wooden staff.
The instant my gaze locked onto Moses—
The world split.
No, reality itself was cleaved in two.
The colosseum conjured through magic tore down the middle, collapsing into formless ruin. The enigmatic sky, shrouded in pitch-black veils, was sliced clean open to reveal the true sky beyond.
Visible through the rift in the sky was none other than the night sky of Earth—the very world I lived in.
"What in the..."
What dragged me back from this surreal spectacle was Odin's whistling admiration.
"Damn, now he's slicing through dimensional projection spells too? At this rate, it's beyond sword intent and straight into conceptual territory. Even I could get lopped in half if I'm not careful."
Thanks to Odin chewing on snacks and gulping alcohol while endlessly heaping praise on the spectacle, I managed to snap back to my senses. Gathering my scattered thoughts, I forced out words in halting breaths.
"What... was that?"
"What else could it be? TenCommandments' signature technique: blending a quick-draw with a flying slash. When drawing the blade, he extends the trajectory of his slash infinitely, slicing all the way into the dimensional plane."
"Did he just cut through the arena's magic as well?"
"Yep. Even I was a little surprised, honestly. At this level, he didn't just sever the dimensional projection spell—he probably sliced clean through the concealment distortion field too."
"If it's that destructive, are the Demon Lords watching in the audience all right? Didn't one or two of them get chopped in half?"
Just moments ago, I had glimpsed dozens of Demon Lords cloaked in hazy silhouettes throughout the colosseum. Surely a couple of them had been directly in the path of that slash. If it could sever dimensional magic, wouldn't the spectators be in danger?
"Don't be ridiculous," Odin snorted. "If someone could fire slashes clean across dimensions, would we be chilling here as Demon Lords? We'd be playing god. He simply severed the transmission of the interdimensional spell mid-feed, so the connection dropped, making the projection look like it got sliced in half."
"I see..."
Well, as long as it was safe, that was all that mattered. Cleaving dimensions and severing magic were topics far removed from my everyday reality anyway.
"Who won?"
"Look for yourself and see."
I turned my gaze straight back to the center of the arena with system assistance. As the dust and debris cleared, the figures of the two combatants came into view.
The first to catch my eye was Equilibrium. His clothes were reduced to utter rags, and his holy and demonic swords were crossed before him, locked in the posture of having blocked the slash.
And shockingly, both swords were webbed with countless fractures, teetering on the verge of destruction.
Moses, on the other hand, stood across from him looking entirely untouched, without so much as a thread frayed from his robes—just as he had appeared when he first stepped into the arena.
"Did Moses—I mean, did TenCommandments win?"
By all appearances, that was the obvious conclusion. Had the twenty-four-hour undefeated streak finally come to an end? Just as that thought crossed my mind—
"No way," Odin countered. "Looks like that Hero Spy did some serious training of his own. He blocked it. For now, it's a draw."
No sooner had Odin finished speaking than Equilibrium's holy and demonic swords shattered into fragments, while Moses's wooden staff split down the middle and burst into flying splinters.
Wait, I thought that was just a walking cane, but it was a sword-stick all along?
"Neither of them can use an Invisible Sword without a physical medium, so all that's left is hand-to-hand combat. But that TenCommandments geezer would rather die than brawl in close quarters, so he's definitely going to surrender. Shame, but the Hero Spy took the win."
Odin's prediction proved dead accurate.
"I concede," Moses said serenely. "You have grown considerably, young man."
"Damn old man's still spry as ever... Ugh."
Final Match Concluded. Winner: Equilibrium
The arena penalty for Gonik 'Equilibrium' has concluded.
"...Is that it?"
With neither cheers nor congratulatory announcements, the arena concluded in stark anticlimax. I stood there, dazed. The buildup had been magnificent, so why did the ending feel so limp?
"Quiet, my ass. It's an absolute madhouse right now... Ah, right. You can't perceive the other Demon Lords, can you?"
"Pardon?"
"I'll temporarily lend you my innate magic, so take a look. Don't freak out, now."
> Additional Gallery permission <&$^&**> transferred from 'OneEyedGeezer'.
A strange prompt flashed before my eyes for a fraction of a second. Then, an explosion of sound hit me like a physical blow.
"Hey! What the fuck, how does that make any sense?!"
"What's with the match-fixing, old man?!"
"That was a legendary duel, what the hell are you clowns crying about?!"
"Was I the only one who nearly pissed themselves seeing that final slash?!"
The sheer volume of roaring shouts and cursing ringing from every direction made my ears throb. Wondering what on earth was happening, I clapped both hands over my ears and raised my head—only to be greeted by a bizarre spectacle.
The colosseum, once populated only by hazy blurs, was suddenly teeming with countless Demon Lords.
Beast-human half-breeds grabbing each other by the collar, Demon Lords wriggling bizarre tentacles, giant Demon Lords huffing and stomping in fury, and... a Demon Lord in the form of a succubus, wearing an outfit so scandalous it was impossible to look at with eyes wide open.
She was a walking obscenity that made the typical succubi of generic fantasy look positively puritanical.
"Ugh..."
...I looked away immediately, so it should be fine, right? Meeting her eyes had to have been my imagination. Probably.
As I bowed my flushed face and curled myself as small as possible into my seat, Odin let out a hearty laugh.
"Why so worked up over that?" he teased. "A Demon Lord getting bashful over some eye candy? What kind of Demon Lord does that?"
"..."
"Well, it is pretty stimulating, so I can't blame ya. I'll take back the permissions now, so relax."
The moment he mentioned reclaiming the authorization, the surrounding cacophony receded, and the colosseum itself began dissolving piece by piece into thin air.
"What's happening?"
"The matches are over, so the dimensional projection spell is unravelling, obviously. Catch ya on the Gallery. Between settling the arena betting pool and other errands, I've got my hands full, so I'm heading out first."
"Take care."
—See ya.
Odin vanished, and the colosseum was on the brink of fading away completely.
With the permission granted by Odin's spell rescinded, all the other Demon Lords should have become invisible once more.
Yet, despite that, there was still one Demon Lord clearly visible to my eyes.
The succubus.
Flaunting her obscene, bewitching beauty amidst the dissipating light of the dimensional projection spell, she cast something in my direction.
"...What the?"
A sly, knowing wink.
...Nothing bad's going to happen, right?