Chapter 248
Chapter 248
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 248
Chapter Title: Seizing the Initiative
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Giants' Forest.
Two figures arrived there.
One was a red lizardman who looked like a bipedal lizard covered in scales.
He gripped a staff in his hand, scanning the surroundings with half-lidded eyes.
The other was a girl who appeared extremely timid.
Her cherry blossom-colored hair wafted with the intense floral scent unique to the Florria tribe.
Oddly enough, she carried a massive sword on her back, its blade extending all the way to a large hilt.
"Eeeek, why do we have to come here?"
The girl whined, prompting the lizardman to tap his staff against the ground.
"Everyone else got called away on duties. We're the only ones left with nothing to do."
Ikshion was in a frenzy of activity at the moment.
He couldn't pull away any personnel right now, not even for preparations.
And so, the deployed team numbered three.
The hunchbacked man, Dark Star.
The girl, Demon Subduer.
Finally, a woman with perky scarlet ears appeared.
Weapons strapped all over her body, she irritably surveyed the area through the slit in her eyepatch.
"Why's the rain pouring like this? My kids hate getting wet."
The woman's identity was Tiger Tribe's Shua Delphia.
She was an Erosion Devourer known as the Armed Princess.
Having crossed paths with Krash in the past at the Demonic Palace, she clearly despised water and kept her distance from the rain.
"You sure that Valheim direct lineage guy's really here?"
She vented her irritation at Dark Star and Demon Subduer standing right beside her.
Demon Subduer let out a short squeak and shrank back under her gaze, while Dark Star's eyes narrowed slightly.
"Newbie, we brought you along because you insisted on coming. Mind your manners."
"Ha, screw manners. You begged me to join, and I did. What manners?"
Dark Star and the Armed Princess clearly didn't get along.
Dark Star despised rudeness, while the Armed Princess hated stiff, rigid types.
As their glares clashed...
Demon Subduer shuddered violently.
"Doesn't it feel weirdly chilly for some reason?"
Sensing a chill in the air, Demon Subduer rubbed her arms.
The Armed Princess reacted as if it were the dumbest thing she'd heard.
"It's winter outside. Of course it's cold."
"It's not natural, Armed Princess. The Giants' Forest has seasons opposite to the outside world. It's summer now."
No matter the rainy season, summer was summer.
It should feel like a humid, sticky summer.
Yet what they felt was an inexplicable chill.
"I-I'm weak to the cold..."
"Then moving around should fix that."
Dark Star shot a glance at Demon Subduer as she rubbed her hands.
She caught his meaning and pressed herself against a nearby tree.
"Y-Yeah, you're right. We just find him quick and head back!"
Find Krash and return swiftly.
With that focus, Demon Subduer closed her eyes.
She began communicating her intent to the overwhelmingly vast Giants' Forest.
As a Florria tribeswoman, she could converse with forests.
At that moment, Demon Subduer's shoulders twitched abruptly.
Dark Star and the Armed Princess noticed her odd reaction and turned toward her.
Demon Subduer's eyes snapped open as she slowly turned her head to the side.
"Uh, he's... right there?"
Squelch-
Her shout was accompanied by the sound of mud being crushed underfoot.
The Armed Princess and Dark Star whipped their heads in that direction.
A boy stood there.
The young man, barely an adult, stood with rain-soaked hair.
An inexplicable chill emanated from him, sending shivers down their spines.
"Krash Valheim!"
The Armed Princess recognized him first, her eyes bulging in fury.
She'd been thoroughly tricked by him once at the Demonic Palace, and rage boiled in her gaze.
Dark Star, however, sensed something off.
People had described the boy as a fiery man.
But the aura from the boy now was bone-chilling cold.
A piercing chill that burrowed deep into the soul.
"Do you know how long I've waited for this day?!"
Unlike Dark Star's puzzlement, the Armed Princess burned with fury.
Every time she recalled her humiliation, she tormented herself over losing Thunder Fang.
Images of her child Thunder Fang wailing for her to come get him kept her up at night.
Today, she could finally settle the score.
Unlike before, she drew one of her Thirteen Demonic Armaments without hesitation.
The thirteen armaments the Armed Princess had personally numbered.
The seventh: Rending Slaughter Blade.
The moment she drew the saw-toothed sword, the Armed Princess swung the Rending Slaughter Blade.
Kagagagagak!
In that instant, the endlessly extending Rending Slaughter Blade flew toward Krash.
Its edge was so sharp...
It cleaved even the trees of the Giants' Forest as it hurtled straight for Krash, poised to kill him instantly.
"Armed Princess!"
Dark Star panicked at the sight.
They weren't here to kill Krash—they were here to capture him alive.
Just as the Rending Slaughter Blade reached Krash's nose...
Kaang!
The blade clashed against something in midair.
Empty air, unmistakably.
Yet the Rending Slaughter Blade was blocked there.
"Cheap tricks!"
Already boiling with rage since spotting Krash, the Armed Princess wildly swung the Rending Slaughter Blade.
The strikes relentlessly pressed Krash.
Each time, it was rebuffed in the empty space before him.
The Armed Princess's eyes twisted further in fury.
"This...!"
Roaring, she halted her swings.
Chingclang! Chaeng!
Instead, she hurled all the weapons strapped to her body into the air at once.
Kuwoong!
The moment she stomped the ground...
A black dagger was suddenly in her grasp.
A dagger blooming like a black flower.
One of the Thirteen Demonic Armaments: Hellflower.
The instant she drew Hellflower, she plunged it into her own chest.
Plunk!
In that moment, the Armed Princess's form began to change.
Black horns sprouted from her head, and a jet-black tail emerged.
Resembling a dragonkin more than her tiger tribe self now, she seized one of the weapons raining down on her.
The axe in her grip flew toward Krash.
But it didn't end there.
She hurled the next weapon, then the next.
All the thrown weapons bounced off before Krash.
The Armed Princess didn't care.
She leaped forward, closing in on Krash.
Grabbing weapons from the downpour, she swung them wildly.
Kwang! Chaeng! Kaang!
Each weapon rang out differently.
All of the Armed Princess's weapons were crafted with unique properties.
Perfectly attuned to their traits, she wove a space of pure weaponry.
Weapons Domain.
The Armed Princess hounded Krash like a madwoman.
Rainwater bounced off her weapons domain as she piled weapons into a mountain.
Before it.
Krash watched the Armed Princess with crimson-glowing eyes.
Her eyebrows twitched.
"Damn it, don't look at me like that!"
The moment her rage peaked and she screamed...
"Armed Princess!"
Dark Star's shout snapped her back.
Krash's Thunder Fang had flashed out like lightning, lunging for her throat.
Kuwoong!
Demon Subduer had somehow appeared before the Armed Princess.
She raised her sword just in time, deflecting Krash's blade off course.
Kaang!
As the clash echoed, Demon Subduer's earlier timidity vanished entirely, replaced by cold eyes fixed on Krash.
But Krash's sword didn't stop.
The chill pouring from it threatened to swallow everything around.
"Keeek!"
The Armed Princess kicked off the ground, leaping far back.
Demon Subduer retreated too, sliding across the mud.
'Chill laced with World Erosion?'
Watching the scene, Dark Star's thick brows furrowed.
'This is...'
Dark Star recalled this power.
The White Dragon force wielded by Epania's imperial direct lineage.
It was unmistakably similar.
'And that aura swirling around him just now...'
The White Dragon's presence, without a doubt.
'But presence should only push back surroundings at best?'
No matter what, blocking the Armed Princess's onslaught with mere presence was impossible.
"Playing some strange trick."
Dark Star slammed his staff into the ground.
Kuwoong.
Aura surged from his body, extending toward Krash.
Kagagagagang!
The moment Krash's rising presence clashed with his, Dark Star's eyes widened hugely.
Krash wielded the White Dragon's presence, confirmed.
And he realized how Krash was using it.
'Like a sword.'
Krash handled the White Dragon's presence as sharply as a single blade.
Sharp enough to parry the Armed Princess's every assault.
This realization stunned Dark Star.
Fine with a sword, but wielding something only controllable by will alone to that degree?
Unbelievable.
"Hoo."
White breath escaped Krash's mouth.
Just as Dark Star was shocked, Krash had consumed considerable mental energy.
Infusing his Sixth Sense into the White Dragon's presence to execute a Blunt Sword technique with it.
[Are you insane? Testing that against World Erosion Devourers?]
Crimson Garden's bellow rang in Krash's ears.
Precisely because of this situation, he had to test it.
He knew they absolutely couldn't kill him.
And this move had gained him an advantage.
The three World Erosion Devourers wouldn't dare touch Krash rashly now.
'Worth the mental drain.'
The less they knew about his power's source, the less they'd act impulsively.
Especially in a clash between the strong.
Krash had played his hand.
Shooooaaaa-
Amid the pouring rain.
The three watched Krash warily.
A lone figure overwhelming three World Erosion Devourers.
A situation he couldn't have achieved by just hiding.
'In battle, the most terrifying thing is the imagination directed at your foe.'
From the Radiant Emperor to the battle with Yeonma.
Plus backers like Crimson Garden and Evelask.
Krash had entrenched himself as a profound threat within Ikshion.
With that image now...
Krash appeared even more formidable than before.
Naturally, the three couldn't act rashly.
Seizing the initiative.
The term fit perfectly.
'Dark Star Jerva, Demon Subduer Habilleraz, Armed Princess Shua Delphia.'
Krash knew them all.
Before regression, handling fallen World Erosion Devourers had been his job.
'No telling how much they've changed from back then at this point.'
But battle was different.
World Erosion Devourers' styles carried habits ingrained from their original worlds.
'Black Witch, Beast King, Sword Sovereign. As long as they're not that level.'
Had it been them, Krash would've fled at top speed upon sight.
But not these three.
Victory wasn't impossible.
"If you won't come..."
All three reacted to Krash's words.
His Thousand Kills Aura intertwined with the White Dragon's presence, unleashing murderous intent.
"I'll come to you."
Time to show them the terror of a venomous raven.