Ending Maker Chapter 73
Ending Maker Chapter 73
Chapter 23 - Rotten Fossil #2
A brilliant golden light filled their vision.
The moment the Spear of Corruption was pulled out, the surging power of the Dragon Vein blanketed the surrounding area.
"Graaah!"
"My eyes! My eyes!"
The Angry Rhino Tribe warriors, already corrupted by Belial's power, writhed in agony under the holy power erupting from the Dragon Vein.
Yuder looked back at Cordelia, and Cordelia nodded.
They had pulled out the Spear of Corruption and released the Dragon Vein's power, but the two had no intention of stopping there.
Cordelia looked back at the spot where the Spear of Corruption had been lodged.
Staring straight at the pulsating golden flow beneath the ground, split open as if torn apart, she chanted a spell.
Thus, she created.
Thus, she detonated!
"Fucking boom!"
The Spear of Calamite slammed into the Dragon Vein. It exploded on impact, sending the already half-rampaging Dragon Vein into a complete rampage.
KABOOM—!
A thunderous roar erupted. The ground shook again and again, and what Cordelia had hoped for began to happen.
"Earthquake! It's an earthquake!"
The Angry Rhino Tribe warriors screamed, and the ground, which had truly been shaking, began to split apart entirely.
Yuder and Cordelia intended to send the Dragon Vein into a rampage and destroy the enemy stronghold itself.
"Woohoo!"
As the ground split from the earthquake and the rampaging Dragon Vein surged into the sky, Cordelia raised both arms high and laughed brightly, and Yuder lamented.
Because, looking at her—who would have looked like a complete lunatic if she just stuck a flower in her hair—he had momentarily thought she was pretty.
"My lady!"
"Dolsoe!"
Even while the ground shook, the Twenty-Four Gale Steps remained intact.
Yuder, having become a gale, dashed toward Cordelia in an instant, and Cordelia leaped toward Yuder.
"Combine!"
It was nothing impressive.
The moment he heard Cordelia's shout, Yuder turned his back, and Cordelia simply clung to Yuder's back as if sticking to it.
"Let's bolt!"
Cordelia wrapped one arm around Yuder's neck and shouted cheerfully, and Yuder adjusted Cordelia onto his back before starting to run again.
"Hold on tight!"
"I'm already holding on!"
Boom!
Yuder kicked off the ground. Kicking off the splitting, shaking ground along with whirlwinds, he escaped the Angry Rhino Tribe stronghold.
From all over came the clamor of the Angry Rhino Tribe warriors, not to mention all manner of thunderous sounds of things breaking, shattering, and collapsing, but Cordelia—the culprit behind it all—laughed merrily.
"Oh, this is fun!"
And so, at last, they were outside the earthquake's range.
The stronghold seen from atop a low hill was utter devastation itself.
"Mission clear."
"Good job."
At Yuder's praise, Cordelia gave a smug little "ahem-ahem," then looked back at the Spear of Corruption clutched in her right hand and spoke.
"Yuder, Gentle Snow Breeze's power will come back now, right?"
"It should. No, I think it already has."
With Cordelia still on his back, Yuder turned toward the Gentle Snow Breeze tribe's basin.
And Cordelia could see it too.
A holy blue light was rising from far away.
* * *
Madga saw it too.
And she realized.
They had pulled out the Spear of Corruption that had been blocking the Dragon Vein's power.
They had abandoned the Essence of the Blue Moon and attacked the stronghold.
What they needed was not the Essence of the Blue Moon, but a means to restore Gentle Snow Breeze’s power.
She had confused the objective with the means. And as a result, Gentle Snow Breeze had recovered her power.
"......No."
What the series of events signified.
Failure.
A catastrophic failure beyond compare.
Madga herself had failed.
She had ruined the mission.
"No."
Madga's breathing grew ragged.
Blood began to rise in her eyes.
Hugging her own shoulders, Madga muttered in a small voice.
"I can’t fail."
She must not fail.
Haragen would abandon her too.
Just as her master—no, that bastard who had called himself her master—had done, he would abandon her.
Failure was not allowed.
She must not fail.
It was exactly as Yuder and Cordelia had analyzed.
Madga was career-driven and arrogant by nature.
And the root of that personality was the past pain of being abandoned by her master.
Because she must not fail, because she had to succeed at everything.
Because she had to become someone who could not be discarded.
Because she had to rise to a position where she would not be abandoned.
She armed herself with arrogance.
She pursued perfection by personally involving herself in every matter.
"Failure is."
Madga's obsession with success was intense.
To that extent, she could not tolerate failure. To prevent failure, she could do anything.
"Madga?"
Her adjutant looked at Madga with a worried face, and Madga raised her head and looked at him.
She spoke as if pouring the words out.
"Sacrifice yourself for the greater cause."
"Lady Mad......ga?"
That was as far as it went.
Madga's hand settled above the adjutant's forehead. Before he could respond in any way, she chanted a spell and activated the ritual formula she had planted in advance.
"Ah? Aaaah?!"
Centered on the adjutant's forehead, a dark-red magic circle spread across his entire body.
And it was not only the adjutant.
All twenty-odd soldiers Madga had brought with her were the same, and every one of them let out agonized screams.
"Madga!"
"Wh-why!"
Madga did not answer. She continued chanting and clenched her fist, and in that moment, the adjutant and all of her subordinates turned into blood.
They became sacrifices, offered to the magic circle—to Belial's altar.
Human sacrifice.
The fastest and clearest means of borrowing a demon's power.
Madga closed her eyes. A dark-red energy condensed where the adjutant and her subordinates had stood, and it soon surged toward Madga.
"I must not fail."
She would succeed.
The Dragon Vein had been released, but it had only just happened.
Gentle Snow Breeze’s power had been sealed for a long time. Belial’s power had eaten away at her.
So there was still a chance now.
She could still do it.
Madga opened her eyes.
A red gleam rose in her eyes, which had transformed into compound eyes like those of a fly. Large moth wings sprouted from her back.
Madga took flight.
She charged toward the Gentle Snow Breeze tribe's basin.
* * *
Gentle Snow Breeze soared into the sky. Spreading pure-white wings like those of an angel, she unleashed her power, and the demonic energies threatening the basin were washed away in an instant.
"Go, my children! My power shall be with you!"
Gentle Snow Breeze's power settled upon the tribe's warriors.
Clad in blue wind, they raised their respective weapons and charged.
The brothers Clear Eyes and Fine Eyes cast their sorcery together, aiding the warriors with gusts of wind.
"Sweep them away! O gale!"
"Scatter them! O swift wind!"
A mad wind rose and tore through the Angry Rhino Tribe warriors, and the Gentle Snow Breeze tribe warriors followed behind it.
The Angry Rhino Tribe still outnumbered them several times over, but the direct blessing of a Wild God was powerful.
Moreover, Gentle Snow Breeze did not simply watch.
"O shield of wind! O blade of wind!"
High in the sky, Gentle Snow Breeze moved her hands in rapid succession. She protected the warriors with barriers of wind, and she personally swung blades of wind to attack the Angry Rhino Tribe.
At this rate, she would break the enemy army apart.
After driving out the Angry Rhino Tribe, she would join forces with the other tribes of the south.
A smile spread across Gentle Snow Breeze's face.
She was not one who enjoyed fighting, but this was the moment to punish those who had tried to destroy her and her children.
She set mercy aside for the moment and unleashed her accumulated fury.
But how long did it last?
From behind the Angry Rhino Tribe warriors—who, as if proving they were the strongest warrior tribe of the Wild Lands, were barely enduring the Gentle Snow Breeze tribe's fierce assault—a sinister energy rapidly approached.
It was an energy so powerful—no, so foul—that even she, a Wild God, could not ignore it.
"Madga!"
"It’s Madga!"
The Angry Rhino Tribe warriors cried out in joy.
Because although compound eyes had formed and moth wings had sprouted, Madga still maintained a human form.
Madga looked at those warriors, then turned back to Gentle Snow Breeze with a sinister smile.
"As I thought, you've weakened."
She was not yet in a complete state.
There was an opportunity.
Madga raised her hand. Sensing danger, Gentle Snow Breeze hastily summoned wind, but Madga’s spell was faster.
"Sacrifice yourselves for the greater cause."
Magic circles began to form, starting from the foreheads of the Angry Rhino Tribe warriors.
It was only a portion of the hundreds of warriors, but even so, the number approached one hundred.
"Madga?"
It was the same as the adjutant.
The Angry Rhino Tribe warriors looked up at Madga with dumbfounded faces, and Madga did not hesitate. She clenched her fist and offered the sacrifices once more.
"Aaaagh!"
"Eek?!"
"Madga?!"
"It's a demon's trick!"
Regardless of friend or foe, screams and shrieks and voices filled with terror rang out from all over.
Madga ignored them all.
She simply accepted the temporary power gained by offering one hundred sacrifices.
"Haha! Hahahaha!"
It was power far too great for a mid-grade Demonic Human's body to contain.
Because of that, Madga's body swelled grotesquely.
Spider legs and, above the body, the upper half of a woman covered in carapace emerged, and above that again sprouted arms with sharp blades like the arms of a mantis.
Moth wings spread wide from her back, and countless horns sprouted in place of hair.
Not a person, but a monster.
A demon.
But Madga felt rapture.
She shuddered at the demonic power filling her entire body.
"Gentle Snow Breeze."
Madga smiled madly. Now nearly a dozen meters tall, she charged toward Gentle Snow Breeze.
"O barrier of wind!"
Gentle Snow Breeze cried out urgently and erected dozens of layers of wind barriers.
Madga paid them no mind. She swung both arms wildly and tore the wind barriers to shreds. Step by step, she advanced toward Gentle Snow Breeze.
The clear blue sky began to stain black.
The snow where Madga had passed turned dark red.
Each time a wind barrier was torn apart, Gentle Snow Breeze let out a pained groan.
A demonic energy that overwhelmed the entire scene.
Not only the Angry Rhino Tribe, but the Gentle Snow Breeze tribe as well could do nothing but watch.
They could only watch the clash between a Wild God and a demon.
But two people.
There were those who were not like that.
* * *
"Whoa, is this for real? Isn't that a Demon Prince?"
"It's as shoddy as in the original. As expected of Madga. Her last-ditch struggle is the same this time too."
Demon Prince.
The lords of hell, mighty beyond compare.
What had appeared before their eyes now was not a Demon Prince. It was merely a temporary monster—one that would eventually vanish with time—created by Madga forcibly inflating her own power through human sacrifice.
But even so, it was mighty.
"In the original, it was 'survive for 15 minutes,' right?"
"Because after 15 minutes, that state breaks."
"Gentle Snow Breeze won't last 15 minutes, will she?"
"Doesn't look like she will, right?"
"Yeah, she basically can't fight."
Even now, she was just standing there, doing nothing but continuously creating barriers.
At this rate, far from 15 minutes, Gentle Snow Breeze would be smashed to pieces by Madga's hand in under 3 minutes.
"There's no special weakness."
Yuder narrowed his eyes and stared at Madga.
In the original, Madga in that state had never been sent out to be defeated in the first place.
The strategy was simply to endure and endure, buying time.
But this place was reality.
Moreover, the Wild God Gentle Snow Breeze existed.
So wasn't there some method? Wasn't there some opening to exploit?
Just as Yuder began to ponder, Cordelia did not bother thinking. She pulled a cord from her waist, gathered her long, voluminous hair, and tied it up neatly.
"All that thinking. That's why you don't measure up."
"Hey, I'm rank one, you know?"
They hadn't mentioned it lately, but rank one was Yuder himself, and Cordelia was the eternal rank two.
But Cordelia snorted.
Because even for her, the eternal rank two, there was exactly one field where she was rank one.
"Hunting is where I'm rank one."
And that was not all.
"Gentle Snow Breeze is here. Against a giant monster-type like that, it's actually easier to fight than a humanoid type. And......"
"And?"
"Because you're here too."
Cordelia grinned confidently, and Yuder found himself staring blankly at her without realizing it.
"Shall we go, then?"
Cordelia smiled again. To counter doping with doping, she took out the vial she had carefully kept at her waist and swallowed the liquid inside in one gulp.
Guardian of the Tomb.
The blood of a beast-type angel.
In the original, it had been an item with no other use.
But this was reality, and after various experiments, they had discovered one use for it.
The angel's blood flowed down Cordelia's throat.
The angel's energy spread through her entire body, temporarily awakening a power that had long lain dormant.
Cordelia's hair, stained black by Witchification, remained as it was.
But new power surged through her body. Her fangs lengthened like those of a beast, and the pupils of her blue-gleaming eyes transformed into those of a feline predator.
If one had to name it, Beast Mode.
"A real beast, huh."
Because Cordelia even had rabbit ears and a tail.
Yuder muttered quietly and once again opened the Second Gate of the Nine Heavens Nine Gates.
Activating the power throughout his body, he raised a golden holy combat aura.
"What, wasn't the Second Gate a passive?"
"No, I just felt like I should do something too."
At Yuder's answer, Cordelia blinked, then burst into giggles. And then she looked forward again.
Before they knew it, more than half of the wind barriers had been blown away, and the face of the Wild God, unskilled in battle, was on the verge of tears.
"Let's go."
They spoke at the same time.
The two rotten fossils looked at each other one last time, then charged toward the demon.