Become the Light

"I knew it would come to this."

James's voice dripped with mockery. I sighed and pushed myself back to my feet. Did he actually think I was down for the count?

"Come to what, exactly?"

I exhaled hard and exploded forward, closing the gap in a single burst as I drove my sword straight at him. He wouldn't dodge this.

"Distort."

He somehow read the strike. His skin polygonalized like a glitching 3D model, then began to warp and collapse in on itself. The instant my blade was about to be swallowed by that twisted shape—

Shunk.

Thanks to my title, the damage went through. James's face twisted as the sword punched clean through the left side of his chest.

"Tsk. How?"

"I told you. I came here to judge you. The Lord is with me, you piece of shit."

"Hoh…"

I dragged the blade straight down from where it had pierced him. Even he wasn't walking away from this.

Blood sprayed. A wet, tearing rip. James crumpled, gushing red — and the moment he hit the ground, his form shimmered like a heat haze and dissolved into smoke.

"Huh?"

A low hum. A hiss of displaced air. James reappeared a short distance away, both arms spread wide, a greasy grin stretching across his face.

"Behold. Is this not the Messiah your humanity so desperately desires?"

"Nah. Hearing that from a guy who's just getting carried by his gear makes it sound pretty pathetic."

This bastard. Talked a big game, but he'd just come back from the dead. Was that even a resurrection? I'd been sure I killed him.

He pointed at me.

"And you didn't die either. I thought you were finished."

"You don't seem all that surprised."

"That's because I already knew."

"Tch. Was my acting that sloppy?"

"No. I simply have a sense of the power of the things you carry."

Is this bastard evolving like Lao or something? Sense of what, exactly?

"Yeah, well. See ya."

I closed the distance without telegraphing a thing and swung. James's head came clean off his shoulders. And once again he turned to smoke, blooming back into existence nearby.

"Behold. I have risen, as befits a Messiah."

"I told you to cut that crap out."

I clicked my tongue and took my sword in both hands. Connecting this to last time, I could finally guess at what he was doing.

This guy's warping reality. Same as when he turned those people into flower petals. Just now he vanished and distorted the wounds before showing up again.

Those were wounds that should have killed him several times over. But right now he looked pristine — like he'd never been touched at all.

I let out a breath.

What a convenient power. And earlier he tried to instakill me, too. What a pain in the ass.

If I hadn't been invulnerable, I'd be dead for real. There was a matchup problem here, too. If I were a versatile mage, this wouldn't be hard — I'd just overwhelm him with raw output. But for a warrior built around speed, that itself was a handicap.

He distorts reality. How the hell do I fight that?

James's eyes gleamed as he looked down on me, the way you'd look at something already beaten.

"Frightened already? From watching me rise again?"

"You and your damn resurrection. You Bible-thumping piece of shit."

I caught my breath and sprinted forward. As I tore through the wind, he locked his gaze on me.

"Bend."

Kiiing—!

My neck snapped sideways. But it was about the angle you'd get from a neck stretch — not painful, not even threatening.

"Yeah, no. That doesn't work."

I was just about to drive the sword into him when he spoke again.

"Bend."

"I said it doesn't work."

"This time, it isn't you."

A groaning creak, then a metallic clang. A streetlamp suddenly bent like a piece of pulled taffy and intercepted my blade. The moment I cleaved through it, James slipped backward, quick on the uptake.

Whatever. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I kicked off the ground again and closed in. Block me once and that's it? That all he had?

I unleashed my fastest attack. James shrugged.

"Rise."

The ground itself surged upward with a deep, grinding rumble, walling off the space between us. James sneered at the sight of my sword buried in the risen earth. I yanked it free and started toward him — and something smashed into me from behind.

WHAM.

I tumbled forward. Didn't hurt, of course. I looked back. The streetlamp I'd just cut had stretched itself out and clubbed me in the back of the head.

Oh, come on. He could do that too?

Doesn't even hurt, though. The physical force just knocks me over. So this is what invulnerability feels like?

My body kept glowing gold. James pointed at me with a peculiar expression.

"That sword is protecting you."

"Nah. God is protecting me. Amen!"

"Even better. I'll destroy you and your god together."

"Why do cultist bastards always have such big dreams? You're just like those politicians stuffing their back pockets."

I walked toward him at an easy pace. Speed, cutting him down, killing him — none of it mattered if he could just warp reality afterward. There was no answer.

Yeah. No answer. But what if I stop him from using the ability at all? It's not a tactic I'm used to, but…

I needed to lay the groundwork first. I couldn't die to him. And he probably couldn't die to me. Which meant this was going to come down to brains.

I charged in again. James swept his hands like a conductor and shouted.

"Bend — and warp!"

He started distorting and weaponizing everything around me instead of targeting me directly. Streetlamps snapped sideways to club at me. The ground caved in underfoot. Branches from the roadside trees reached for my arms and legs, trying to bind them. The entire world warped to James's will and threw itself in my way. Watching him puppet all of it, he looked like malice given flesh.

I stepped on a streetlamp that tried to block my path and launched myself into the air. James bared his pearly whites.

"Grow, and seize him!"

The trees that were still standing all stretched their branches at once, trying to bind me. The way they reached — like they had a will of their own, like ghosts — looked so much like some alien organism it made my skin crawl.

The instant those branches came at me like tentacles, I took flight on magnetic force and swept my sword in every direction. Slash after slash. Wood cracked and shattered. I sheared through every last branch, then hopped onto Dawn Guardian and started flying like a maniac. Top speed.

"Full speed ahead!"

I tore through the air with a screaming rush of wind. James couldn't even track the movement. I called out, taunting him.

"Why don't you nerf— I mean, try and catch this? Come on, catch me!"

I flew like a lunatic, and I could hear James laughing in flustered disbelief.

"A child's game!"

"Scared?"

"Hrrgh… Fuse together and block him!"

The nearby buildings suddenly ballooned in size, sprouting up like bamboo after rain — like he was predicting my flight path and walling it off. He even started forcibly fusing them together, trying to raise an actual barrier.

He's really going all out. Does he think this is gonna stop me?

I clung to Dawn Guardian with both hands as it screamed through the air, then drove my sword at every building in sight.

Walls detonated in a rapid-fire chain of impacts and came crashing down. I smashed through every last one of them, then locked onto James — a meter away.

If I was going to take the shot, it had to be now.

No matter what freaky power he's throwing around, the main body is still human. One hit. Just one hit, please!

I spun through the air in a dazzling whirl, batting aside every incoming slab of building and every lashing branch. Then I came down on James, putting everything I had into the thrust.

That stretch of empty air, that sliver of time as I swam through space toward him — it was as grueling and tangled as passing through hell itself. The closer I got, the more everything around us bent and twisted into grotesque shapes. The whole world seemed to reject me, throwing itself in my path. Just as everything fused into one thick barrier—

In the Goddess's name — victory!

I poured the speed and weight of my descent into the blade and drove it at the warped barrier standing between me and James, loading the sword with ki.

"Yeomyeong — CALIBERRRRRR!"

I swung Dawn Guardian with everything I had. A deep, resonant hum built into a roaring discharge of light — and the twisted barrier vanished in an instant. James split in two as well, then calmly put himself back together.

"You are fighting the world itself! Not just me! And I am the Messiah. I told you attacks like that don't work on me!"

"Yeah, yeah. Time for you to go."

The instant I landed, I spun a full circle and swept my blade. The entire upper half of James's face came off. Even as it was being cut, I could see cells generating at blinding speed, knitting him back together.

"A pity. This is the end. Be severed."

Just like the first time he'd blocked my attack, he started manipulating space itself — slicing it apart piece by piece, trying to keep me from getting any closer. I could see him forcibly accelerating the growth of the surrounding trees at the same time, intending to bind me.

"If I cannot kill you, then I shall seal you! Devil's hero!"

But he didn't know my play. He was already well within reach of my sword. And his spatial cuts were sloppy enough that I could just tank them with invulnerability and slip right through.

"Space is a separate domain, so you're a little rusty at it, huh?"

James sneered again, certain he'd come back from this one too.

But see, that power of his? It had a weakness.

Brainwash!

In that instant I activated the necklace's effect and brainwashed him. Just one person — but I could brainwash that one person for certain. I pointed at James and gave the order.

"Even a second is enough. Forget the ring's power and do the cocaine dance!"

At my command, James started doing the cocaine dance like it was the most natural thing in the world. Not exactly a dance suited for a grown man. Didn't matter. The look of panic on his face arrived in the same breath as his death.

A cascade of cuts. A burst of blood. A wet, splintering crack. James was torn into pieces and died. His ring no longer glowed. No — it couldn't glow.

Points came in. Which meant he was actually dead.

I drew a breath and looked down at James as he dissolved into light. He kept talking to the very end.

"Just as the Lord bestowed Kahloom upon us, just as He made us Kahloom through blood! I will not die. I am…!"

And then there was nothing. He vanished, leaving only the ring behind.

Clink.

I picked up the ring he'd left. The specs were insane.

"Yeah. Don't die. Become the light."

What the hell? A new effect on Canape? I checked it just in case.

Holy shit. The item rank itself had jumped to Unique — the highest there was. And dimensional travel?

But I didn't know how to do dimensional travel. So it was conditional?

For humanity, the first moment imagination became reality was the moon landing, I guess. Still — I'd just gotten one hell of a title.

How was I supposed to use this?

While I was turning that over in my head, someone who looked like the Imperial Palace's vice-commander of knights came running, eight rings of light flashing on his chest, regular knights at his back.

"What's going on? Where is James, and who are you?"

"Lashu Leonhart of Gailwards. Son of Reiner Leonhardt, and the man who just finished off James Moonshiner of that cult."

"What? Y-you?!"

I nodded.

The surrounding knights all murmured in shock, every eye turning toward me. I had their undivided attention.