Chapter 116
Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 116
Chapter Title: All-Out War (2)
"Everyone! This shelter is in danger right now! Please evacuate outside immediately, following our instructions! The Sword of the Goddess will protect you!"
"W-what's going on? The Holy Warrior himself led us here..."
"The forces of evil are trying to cast a horrific curse on this place! If you stay, you'll die—hurry!"
Over five hundred members of the Sword of the Goddess dashed through every corner of the Augusta Shelter, shouting loudly to rally the citizens and guide their escape.
The civilians who had taken temporary refuge there grumbled that it hadn't been long since the Holy Warrior had directed them here, so they didn't readily believe the warnings...
KABOOM!
A deafening explosion rocked the area just outside the shelter, sending faint tremors through the ground. Only then did they sense that something major had gone terribly wrong.
"Eek!"
"I-I don't want to die!"
"Where do we go?! Will we really be safe if we run?!"
"Who's fighting out there? What's happening here?!"
"We don't have time to explain! Trust in the Sword of the Goddess and help us get you out of this shelter now!"
Terrified by the blasts and roars, the citizens followed the Sword of the Goddess members' directions, hastily forming a long procession as they fled the shelter.
The moment they stepped outside, they saw a crimson-black haze rising to envelop the entire vast shelter.
Seeing that ominous sight, the citizens grew even more frightened, bursting into sobs.
"W-what the hell is that haze?!"
"Waaah, Mommy!"
"It's getting bigger!"
Just as the crimson-black haze flared brighter and swelled larger, a brilliant blue light suddenly enveloped the whole shelter. It began suppressing the haze, steadily shrinking it down.
The civilians, overwhelmed by the immense mana, stared at the blue glow with expressions of shock and awe. The Sword of the Goddess members instantly recognized whose magic it was and cried out in near-worshipful exaltation.
"This has to be... the Daughter of the Three Twinkling Stars protecting us!"
"Even the great ones stand with us! Everyone, take heart! Get the civilians to safety—as fast as possible!"
Buoyed by Linian's magic, the Sword of the Goddess members redoubled their efforts, scurrying frantically across the shelter's facilities.
KABOOM!!!
"Hang in there, Holy Warrior! Captain Celine!"
"We'll do what we can!"
From the very start of the clash, Robert was thrown into considerable disarray.
He had absorbed enough sacrifices to wield his full power even under the sunlight outside, but it wasn't quite 100 percent. He had already anticipated some drop in strength after leaving his stronghold, the grand cathedral.
Even accounting for that, he should have been able to handle these lackeys of the goddess and their companions with ease if his power had recovered to this extent.
Yet after just a few exchanges once the battle began, he realized the goddess's pawn was swinging with far greater force than he'd seen at the cathedral.
It wasn't a holy sword, but the blade infused with the goddess's power unleashed terrifying might. One misstep, and he risked being cleaved in two himself.
That alone was unexpected enough, but what irritated him more were her comrades.
They wrapped their arms, legs, and weapons in the light created by the goddess's authority, attacking from all sides in a coordinated assault. Each time, he felt chunks of his very existence being gnawed away.
'Damn it...! Is this the goddess's true power?!'
He and his allies could never tolerate the sacred, pure power of the goddess entering their bodies.
They were the most profane blasphemers in this world, having committed the ultimate sacrilege. Contact with the goddess's inherent power would incinerate their very beings.
That was why they had appointed figurehead Holy Warriors from past generations from the shadows, using holy wars as an excuse to dirty their hands—and absorbed that corrupted divinity to survive.
But now, the uncorrupted essence of the goddess's divinity—something they hadn't directly touched in thousands of years—was radiating forth, and Robert's body burned in sacred flames.
"Hyaah!"
Even from the bunnykin girl's aerial leap, her midair kick whipping up a blade-like gust.
"You filthy scum—think we'll let you repeat what you did to our homeland?!"
Even from the enraged elf's barrage of intangible arrows.
"You sent your goons in Libertà to kill me, right? Come on, try it now!"
Even from the noble lady's spell, fusing two magics in an instant and unleashing them at once.
Every attack carried the goddess's divinity, leaving him unable to properly counter.
The moment he grabbed the leg of the bunnykin girl who had closed in for a kick with one of his black hands, a burning pain shot through him. Half his arm immediately disintegrated into black smoke.
Sensing something was gravely wrong, Robert switched to a defensive stance, just buying time—but that wasn't a solution either.
"Robert!!! We all trusted and followed you! I respected you! And all this time, you've been plotting this filth behind our backs! Sacrificing all those people from the northern front lines—and now trying to slaughter everyone here too?!"
Yielding to fury, Celine swung her massive sword—nearly as tall as herself—heedless of its growing cracks.
It should have shattered long ago, but the divine power enveloped and protected it like a sheath, allowing it to hold its shape despite the fissures.
In the sparring matches when Robert had publicly played the role of Sword of the Goddess captain, he had dominated her completely. But now, with Celine bolstered by pure divinity—his ultimate weakness...
Slash—!
"Kgh...!"
Above all, Celine was the type who, in battle, would use any dirty, underhanded trick if it boosted her odds by even 1 percent, no holds barred.
She swung her sword to blind him, then scooped up dirt with her toe and flung it into his face. Blinded, Robert flinched and focused solely on defense.
Having lived thousands of years in disguise, he had never crossed swords with someone who fought this way. Internally, he was quite rattled by Celine's style.
The Celine he had trained in swordsmanship had always shown clean, proper form, no different from other Sword of the Goddess members.
"Robert, you filthy heretic scum! Die by the very sword techniques you taught me!"
"Think gutter-trawler brawling makes you something special?!"
Quickly adapting to Celine's tactics, Robert spotted her trying to kick more dirt into his eyes again and leaped back, widening the gap.
But this time, the ambush came from behind.
"Hyah!"
Ravi had sneaked up and hooked his leg, throwing Robert off balance.
"You damnable bitches, every last one...!"
The instant he reached for Ravi's head, his body suddenly floated upward. Then came a volley of arrows infused with the goddess's light.
"Gah... Graaaah!"
The light in each arrow was faint, so it wasn't lethal, but the pain was undeniable.
Pierced by the glowing arrows, Robert's black body failed to regenerate properly. Just as it tried, moonlight poured down upon him.
"Moonlight...?"
In broad daylight, a massive moon plummeted along the path of the sudden heavenly glow.
It wasn't the real moon—just a mana construct mimicking it—but its power rivaled a true lunar impact.
"Grk... Gah...!"
He desperately raised his sword to block the frontal descent, but Ravi slipped underneath and smashed his spine with a kick, launching him upward.
Crunch!
A bunnykin kick shouldn't have hurt him much under normal circumstances.
But now, their attacks struck true.
"Damn it all... Holy Warriorrrrrr!!!"
The problem was that everyone had infused their arms, legs, weapons—everything—with the goddess's light.
His pitch-black body and multitude of arms, once near-invincible, were now tattered rags, barely holding form.
As they battled and shifted positions, Robert suddenly darted to the opposite side, trying to forcibly activate the ritual and absorb sacrifices to recover, no matter what...
"Son of a...!!!"
But the ritual was suppressed by Linian's power, shriveled to the point it could hardly be called one anymore. Robert, no expert in that field, couldn't reverse it.
BOOM!
Spears of light rained from the sky like a downpour. Robert swatted some aside in haste and escaped the blast radius.
He looked up to see a man with translucent golden wings spread wide, holding a sword of light and gazing down with haughty disdain.
"Trying to suck up a few more lives? How utterly vile. Linian named you Underground Vermin perfectly—you're just vermin."
"You bastard..."
The Sword of the Goddess members spotting Alvis hovering in the air cheered wildly, spurring each other on with renewed vigor.
"The true Holy Warrior and the goddess's first creation are watching over us!"
"Get the refugees out! Save as many as we can!"
"We won't let these Underground Vermin have their way!"
"Fear not death! The true apostle of the goddess fights with us!"
"The Holy Warrior battles for his life—we can't slack off! Move faster!"
Hummm—
At that moment, the space beside Robert rippled, and a pitch-black portal tore open. Two figures emerged from within.
Simultaneously, the crimson-black mist that had blanketed the entire Augusta Shelter vanished without a trace.
Bastol and Dantalion, materializing on the scene, took a split second to grasp the situation before questioning Robert.
"Robert?! What the hell is going on here?!"
"What is this!? What happened to my ritual!? I can't feel any power left! Where are the sacrifices? Why are those bastards still...?"
"Hah... hah... Perfect timing. Join me quick and take these fools down! I can't handle them alone—"
KABOOOOOM!!!
Crack—crunch—snap—
In an instant, someone appeared beside Robert and slammed him flat with an enormous arm.
Covered in blue scales with razor-sharp claws, the arm pinned something beneath it amid gruesome sounds of crushing, pulverizing, and mangling. At the same time, vast blue wings unfurled amid the dust cloud.
As the dust settled, the arm and wings shrank. A powerful gust scattered the remaining haze, revealing a woman with a deeply satisfied—and wickedly sinister—smile.
"Hah... y-you're..."
Linian raised her blood-smeared draconic arm toward the sweating Bastol.
"You ungrateful vermin who betrayed my mother despite her grace. The moment I've awaited to tear you apart alive and rip out your bones and guts has finally come. You slithered through the dirt, evading my eyes all this time—quite the escape artists! Considering the years I couldn't return to my true form because of you scum, you'd need to die a hundred million times and it still wouldn't be enough! Ready for it?! Huh?! Priest BASTOOOOOOL!!!"
Bastol and Dantalion recoiled in horror at Linian's thunderous roar.
Just like with Vector, no matter how much damage it took, the regenerative body was now unrecognizably mangled into a bloody pulp—the remains of what had been Robert.
"Ahh, you have no idea how many thousands of years I've waited for this. Even at my weakest, I have more than enough strength to rip you apart now. How shall I kill you to slake my rage?"
"Damn it... We need to summon the great one—now!"
"Shit... If he finds out this failed, he'll kill us himself!"
"Fighting that mad dragon two-on-one is suicide! Hurry!"
As Linian charged, Bastol and Dantalion opened a portal back to their lair. In that instant, a massive spatial distortion erupted from it, and a colossal arm shrouded in pitch-black darkness emerged.
Linian, barreling forward, spotted it and leaped back, grinding her teeth.
"... You rat bastards, clinging to your boss after all. Everyone, be careful! That's Solaris, the head of the Underground Vermin!"