Chapter 47
Chapter 47
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 47
Chapter Title: Night of Mana #2
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The incarnation of death falls upon death itself.
But they were never the same.
Balakia, cloaked in the fragments of the violet sun that rained down helplessly, screamed and writhed once more.
“Anne Rose!”
“Coming!”
At Arma’s call, Anne Rose responded.
The massive mud golem left behind by Valkein’s lizardmen rose again and charged at the thrashing Balakia.
The golem, shaped just like a lizardman, seemed to smack Balakia’s head a few times with its arms before spinning its body dramatically and slamming its tail into Balakia’s waist.
-Kwang!
The force was so immense that the mud golem’s tail nearly shattered.
But Balakia took equal damage in return.
Standing on its two legs, Balakia staggered back several steps before collapsing sideways.
“Nice!”
Anne Rose clenched her fist, and the adventurers watching from afar erupted in cheers.
But Arma was different.
She hurled all four of her demonic swords at Balakia simultaneously and shouted.
“Anne Rose! Fall back!”
“Huh?”
Anne Rose asked, not understanding.
Her reaction was delayed by that much.
Just as Arma’s demonic swords surged toward Balakia, a burst of violet flames erupted from its gaping maw and engulfed the mud golem.
“Kyaaak!”
With Anne Rose’s scream, the mud golem stumbled backward.
But the flames of death did not subside easily; they used the golem as kindling and blazed even higher.
It was the flames of death that made conquering Balakia on the first day practically impossible.
In the original story, it couldn’t use those flames until the third day, but this was only the first day.
Stopping its flames was impossible.
“Anne Rose!”
Arma shouted again as she charged at Balakia.
The four demonic swords that flew ahead scattered in different directions before slicing into Balakia’s flesh from all sides.
Elements of Nature.
The four demonic swords that Arma Valentine prided herself on.
The lights emanating from the swords, each imbued with different elemental powers, cracked the pitch-black body of Balakia shrouded in darkness, but it wasn’t enough to fully dispel the shadows.
Blue lines were carved, darkness split apart, only for new darkness to immediately cover the wounds.
The tips of the demonic swords could never reach deep into Balakia’s flesh.
Thus, Balakia endured Arma’s relentless slashes with its body, rose to its feet, spread its enormous wings, and roared.
“Grararara-!”
It did not repeat the mistake of creating another violet sun.
Instead, it emanated deathly energy while exploiting the mana vortex created by the Night of Mana.
Just as the power of life had spread throughout the atmosphere via the mana vortex, the deathly energy it emitted now began to blanket the surrounding area.
“Fall back!”
“We need to withdraw from the battlefield!”
Lethe’s priests emitted purifying light to push back the deathly energy, but it only bought them time.
The adventurers screamed and fled, and as if that fear fueled it, Balakia let out another triumphant roar.
“Master!”
From within the golem engulfed in deathly flames, Anne Rose cried out.
The strength of Arma that she knew was far more than this.
The Elements of Nature—those four demonic swords—could unleash far greater power than they were now.
But the current Arma could not.
No, it would be more accurate to say she couldn’t.
“The mana vortex?!”
Anne Rose’s guess was correct.
The one present here was not Arma Valentine herself.
It was merely a terminal she had created by modifying a murder doll excavated from the Magic Kingdom.
The real Arma Valentine was far away, grasping the situation through the sensory organs installed in the doll and remotely controlling it to participate in the battle.
However, the mana vortex was interfering with that control system.
Amplified by the deathly energy, the mana vortex was enough to disrupt the signals between the murder doll and the real Arma Valentine, naturally slowing the doll’s reaction speed and movements far more than usual.
“Anne Rose! Escape for now!”
At Arma’s command, Anne Rose ordered the mud golem to charge before swinging her two swords wide to briefly clear away the deathly flames swirling around them.
The mud golem rushed at Balakia, and Arma caught Anne Rose leaping down from its head while recalling her four demonic swords.
-Kwang!
The golem collided with Balakia.
No—Balakia’s tail struck the waist of the blindly charging golem.
The powerful spinning strike snapped the golem’s waist clean in two, and its flaming wreckage rained down across the Valkein ruins like meteors.
-Kwahaa-!
And then the flames poured out again.
The deathly flames from Balakia’s maw targeted Arma Valentine precisely, but Arma—who had already anticipated this—spun her four demonic swords like a windmill, creating a barrier of seasonal forces.
-Kwagaga-!
The deathly flames, blocked by the barrier, split in two and scorched the air.
But the barrier couldn’t hold for long.
Corroded by the deathly flames, it collapsed, and Arma soared high into the sky with her four demonic swords to evade them.
The situation was dire.
Looking down at the ground from high above, Arma witnessed the skeletons that had been shattered earlier rising again within the atmosphere infused with deathly energy.
Their numbers were still few, but if given more time, it was clear they would soon form an army of thousands once more.
‘I can’t win.’
Balakia was clearly not in a normal state.
Its power had been greatly diminished by the life energy it absorbed upon awakening and the deathly sun it had created itself.
But even that weakened state was overwhelmingly strong.
With a doll—and in a situation where control was this impaired—she could never defeat it.
Of course, Arma wasn’t alone right now.
But the golem controlled by Anne Rose was destroyed, and the assembled adventurers couldn’t even join the fray due to the deathly energy emanating from Balakia.
“Grrr-”
Balakia lifted its head and glared at Arma.
A light flap of its two wings made it seem ready to take flight at any moment.
So Arma made her decision.
Holding out any longer would just be stubbornness.
“Anne Rose! Hold on tight!”
After warning the disciple in her arms, Arma flew south, abandoning the battlefield.
Emboldened by Arma’s retreat, Balakia spread its wings with a sinister laugh and took to the air.
Arma was fleeing.
One of the world’s top ten superhumans was showing her back and running away.
“Grararara-!”
Tearing through the violet sky with its jet-black wings, Balakia closely pursued Arma.
Arma flew south without even glancing back.
It wasn’t a long time.
Barely a few minutes.
But the distance covered was far from short.
A Hecatoncheires beast holding a crystal orb chased after Arma and Balakia through the forest.
From the start, what the Hecatoncheires wanted from Mana Beast Sovereign Balakia was sufficient destruction of the west, so the current pursuit toward Venus City wasn’t particularly bad.
‘To prevent the skeleton legion’s rebirth?’
Staying in the Valkein ruins would allow the skeleton legion to fully form.
So they needed to lure Mana Beast Sovereign Balakia away first.
It was a fairly reasonable judgment.
But at the same time, it was a tactic limited to just that.
After all, the current Arma could never defeat Balakia.
“Grararara-!”
Balakia spat death flames once more.
In response to the flames raining down from above, Arma seemed to accelerate sharply before hurling her four demonic swords at Balakia’s head.
-Kwagagaga-!
The Elements of Nature sliced across Balakia’s entire body once again.
But even this time, dispelling the darkness was impossible.
The wounds left by the four swords healed instantly, and Arma’s attack yielded only a few seconds.
“Gar!”
Balakia spun sharply and emanated deathly energy again.
To raise the corpses of wyverns and monsters scattered throughout Asain Canyon.
Arma sensed it too.
But instead of luring Balakia further, she held Anne Rose close and landed on the ground.
The violet sky rippled.
The mana vortex, now one with Balakia’s energy, transformed the surrounding area into a land of death.
Arma swallowed hard.
Marion, watching from beyond the crystal orb, wore a faint smile.
And Luther looked up.
While Arma lured Balakia, he had run toward only one spot and now stood before a massive stone pillar.
The mysterious stone pillar at the entrance to Asain Canyon.
Its imposing form made almost every Dragon Hunter Origin player touch it in hopes of triggering an event.
But in the early western arc, no matter what you did, you couldn’t elicit a response from the stone pillar.
It only served its purpose much later, after completing the east, west, north, and south arcs, when the central arc—the latter half of the story—began.
[Using future assets in advance, huh.]
Using an object needed for the central arc in the western arc.
As a result, it couldn’t be used in the central arc.
But Luther didn’t hesitate.
If they couldn’t survive the present, the future wouldn’t exist anyway.
“I’ll borrow it now and pay it back later.”
Luther’s Plan B.
A contingency for when the spirit jewel attack, death sun attack, mud golem, and even Arma Valentine failed to defeat Mana Beast Sovereign Balakia.
[Heard a pretty pathetic line, but it’s true, so no helping it.]
[Plan B, activating!]
At Integra’s shout, Luther activated the mana stones set in the magic circle he had pre-drawn at the base of the stone pillar.
This too had been made by Lilia.
What it activated was an ancient relic.
And what it produced was a massive mana vortex!
-Kwagagagaga-!
The mana vortex began at the stone pillar and grew larger and larger.
The pure white vortex swallowed the other mana vortices formed by the Night of Mana, expanding further until it became a colossal mana vortex devouring all mana in the area.
The violet sky shook.
The deathly energies that had been blanketing Asain Canyon were sucked into the mana vortex along with the shattering vortices.
It was no natural phenomenon.
And thus, it defied the laws of nature.
The mana vortex, dozens of meters tall, spun majestically atop the stone pillar, transforming the surroundings into a mana void zone.
“Graaak!”
The darkness covering Balakia’s wings faded.
Unable to maintain flight, it plummeted to the ground, revealing its true form of bare bones as the shadows lifted.
The mana void’s effects didn’t end there.
Arma’s four demonic swords lost their power and fell to the ground.
Arma herself closed her eyes and froze inside her massive armor.
Even the Valkein mud golem, crawling toward the battlefield on its broken upper body, lost its mana and crumbled into dirt.
No using atmospheric mana.
Those emitting magic power had it stripped away by the mana vortex.
That’s why Arma couldn’t fight.
Anne Rose, who fundamentally relied on artifacts, couldn’t fight either.
The mud golem could no longer rise, and the adventurers were too far from the battlefield.
But one person.
There was one who could fight at full strength even in the mana void.
[Twin Drive deactivated.]
[Emergency power activated.]
[Combat time remaining: 12 minutes 30 seconds.]
The crystal orb connection was also severed.
Dragonkin Jenadu could no longer see what happened next.
[Mana Beast Sovereign Balakia.]
[Target is rising.]
[The energy membrane around its body has vanished.]
[You can now strike the main body directly.]
Just as Integra said.
Balakia’s true form, now revealed without the darkness, was truly unimpressive.
It was a bone dragon of sorts, but the bones were so thin and fragile they seemed ready to snap.
A form not seen until day 7—or rather, day 8—in the original.
Luther exhaled deeply and extended his hand.
He lifted the massive weapon prepared for this day.
A new weapon to replace the large axe lost in the fight with Balboa.
Fundamentally, it was a gigantic axe over 2.5 meters long.
But it was far from ordinary.
Because what was attached to the handle’s end wasn’t a blade, but a huge saw blade.
[The man’s dream, activating.]
With a roar of the engine, the circular saw blade spun ferociously.
A smile spread across Luther’s face as he gripped the ‘Chain Axe’ larger than himself.