It's Not Like She's Some Saint
Not like I'm some saint or anything, but—
"Whatever we do, I feel like we're going to win this..."
Perched atop his massive bear, Dinosaurs Are Alive — the man who had turned the Purple Team's fortress into an impregnable stronghold — was lost in thought.
They were already ahead in every respect.
Their growth rate dwarfed Lily's team's, and their buffs were on another level entirely.
Above all, the moment they'd taken down Raizaka and claimed the Blessing of the Extreme Dragon, the tide of the battle had already turned.
Honestly, if he went himself, he might lose to Lily or Vlack, but he could beat everyone else without breaking a sweat.
And yet the reason he was holding back instead of pressing the attack came down to one single person.
"I think she's coming. If it's Lily, she'll come for sure?"
Lily is coming.
The same Lily who had just very nearly demolished the Red Team all by herself.
Frankly, knowing Lily's personality from her streams and the Mock Sieges so far, it was entirely plausible she'd push straight in.
That was exactly how she'd charged in and crushed the Red Team, after all.
But 'now' was different.
Breaking the Red Team had cost her plenty, and the growth gap had widened to a serious degree.
Even the great Lily might prefer to dig in and grow stronger rather than fight head-on right away.
At this rate, are they just going to catch up to us completely?
Not that his side intended to sit idle, of course.
"We didn't exactly stay put either, you know?"
Leo said with a smile as she returned from the hunt.
She had chosen a defensive battle despite these favorable conditions — but she'd sent Fracion and Iron, both grown to Grand General caliber, along with thirty percent of the summons, to the Blue Team's castle.
If Lily really did come this way, as Leo predicted, there would be no one left capable of stopping an 'army' of that size.
"Still, wouldn't it be enough if you went yourself, Leo, and attacked with the Extreme Dragon buff? I don't know about anything else, but with the spirit buffs you could unleash 'Ruin' and—"
"Impossible!"
"Huh?"
"It's impossible."
Wrapped in her swirling aura, Leo could feel the power in her body.
And she remembered.
That thing Lily had shown against the copycat.
No matter how much power she scraped together, she didn't think she could block or neutralize that technique from back then.
The only one who could stop it would be a 'Lily' herself — a copycat of Lily.
And Lily was far stronger now than she'd been then.
"As long as Lily is blocking the Core, breaking through is impossible. Better to lure her toward us instead."
That was the only way this side would get a real chance.
Dinosaurs Are Alive wore a puzzled expression.
"Is it really that bad? So bad that Leo, in a situation this favorable, couldn't win?"
"Honestly, raw power is about even. If I use Spirit Descent properly, it's fifty-fifty?"
Leo was strong.
One of the greatest players in the game, and the only spirit mage commanding all five elements.
A Nymph who had changed her race, the ranker beyond approach who had contracted with the Light Spirit and mastered Spirit Descent itself.
Countless titles described her, and her standing was every bit as colossal as those titles implied.
In an even match, who could say — but with a gap this wide, her odds were certain.
Yes. Certain.
"That's exactly the problem. Because the odds are good."
"?"
There was no telling where her ceiling was, or where the limits of her power truly lay.
If she charged in believing everything Lily had shown so far was her limit, she might get blindsided by something even greater.
Come to think of it, even that technique she revealed is still holding something back.
Which was precisely why their side needed to prepare a variable of its own.
Mid-conversation, Leo suddenly thrust out her hand.
Something blazing hot was hurtling toward the Core at incredible speed.
A spear.
A spear wreathed in brilliant white light came streaking in like an arrow loosed from a war bow.
Leo's hand snapped out, raising a barrier of spirits.
Spear met barrier, and a contest of force began.
The spear was heavier than she'd expected.
Tsk. Clicking her tongue, Leo flicked the Staff of Id — a Legendary-tier hidden piece.
A staff woven from the branches of the World Tree of Epocis, kingdom of the elves.
Loss.
Ssaaak...
The tip of the spear simply ceased to exist, and only the bare shaft remained, tumbling down to the ground.
Dinosaurs Are Alive stared into the far distance with startled eyes.
The forest was already trembling.
"She's really...?"
"Whew... What did I tell you? I said she's really coming."
Just as predicted, Lily was on her way.
Kugugung!
Sugaak!
"...That, I didn't expect."
That much, even Vlack hadn't seen coming.
Kiooooooh!
Kraaaaaa!
Kre-eck!
The summons that had just entered her domain were already dying by the dozen.
Leo let out a hollow laugh.
Just how buffed up is she?
Truly, a monster through and through.
"If this keeps up, they'll break through. Let's go, now!"
"Huh? But I'm rear line—"
Grrab!
"A true friend of nature fights together!"
"N-no, wait! I have no combat power at allll—!!!"
And so Leo and Dinosaurs Are Alive took to the skies.
The thrown spear had been blocked.
Only one person in this battle could have stopped a spear like that.
Leo.
Leo was in the castle.
"So Leo really is holding the fortress."
"We confirmed it before moving, didn't we?"
Vlack said this as his blade sheared through three wolves with a single head apiece—no, three heads apiece.
A crescent-arc slash, clean through every neck at once.
I pierced a colossal crocodile and turtle with my spear and nodded.
"That's right."
We'd made this mistake once already with Choco's team.
Determined not to get burned twice, Redberry and I had pinpointed the enemy's positions with our magic before committing to the assault.
If Leo had been charging our castle, we would have intercepted her midway.
Even with all our preparation, holding back Leo in that state would have been no easy feat.
"I'll break through first."
The long-range strike had failed.
To crack the Core in our current state, we'd have to neutralize Leo or push past our limits.
In the end, everything came down to reaching the castle itself.
The spear coiled, and the divinity coursing through my body readied itself savagely for the strike.
Spear's Roar.
The most fundamental technique — and the most destructive.
A roar reminiscent of a dragon's breath, grinding everything in front of it to dust.
An overwhelming shockwave. And with it, a soundless echo of screams rippling outward.
Such was the power of an angel.
What a familiar sight.
An alluring, colossal strength that towered above everyone — and, at the same time, something close to calamity.
It resurrected those whose lives had ended, and slew those who should have lived.
Its mere existence destroyed everything in its path, leaving the ground it crossed erased without a trace.
Ihihihing~!
And then something that shrugged off even that devastation blotted out the sky.
An enormous figure wreathed in five-colored radiance...
"It's a Unicorn."
"...A Unicorn?"
Since when were unicorns the size of dragons?
Come to think of it, the face did resemble a horse's.
It even had a horn.
Vlack, who had stood dazed for a moment after the Spear's Roar, raised his moonlike greatsword.
"One year ago, DeoEn received a major update. A cataclysmic event in which not one, but three World Bosses appeared at the same time."
Ssaaa...
"At the cost of countless players and NPCs, all three were eventually slain, and their legacies were distributed on a sliding scale to the users with the highest contributions."
The greatsword seemed to remember that day, exhaling a cloud of black miasma.
"The mightiest of the three World Bosses was the 'Unicorn of Purity and Nobility.' The one who resurrected part of its body as a summon was Dinosaurs Are Alive."
Vlack's blade trembled.
I, too, felt a presence far from ordinary and tightened my grip on the spearshaft.
By his account, the Unicorn empowered by Leo's buffs was a weakened World Boss — no, possibly something even beyond that.
Plenty of buffs plus the Extreme Dragon's blessing would do that. Naturally.
But if it was the Unicorn whose traits I actually knew...
"......Something about this really annoys me."
Somehow, this felt like—
[(Pseudo) Weakened Unicorn of Purity and Nobility gazes upon you.]
[(Pseudo) Weakened Unicorn of Purity and Nobility looks at you and its eyes go wide!]
[(Pseudo) Weakened Unicorn of Purity and Nobility's stats are drastically reduced.]
[(Pseudo) Weakened Unicorn of Purity and Nobility refuses to attack you!]
Oh, for f—'s sake. Seriously.
"This is a real problem, you know?"
"What is?"
Dinosaurs Are Alive, the Unicorn's master, sensed trouble the moment he was swept up into Leo's flight.
The Unicorn was...
"It won't attack Lily."
The Unicorn had long-documented traits, but among them all, one stood singularly special and important.
Purity.
A being whose temperament and strength were decided by whether its target was pure — or not.
And this purity wasn't merely of the body; it scrutinized purity of heart and every other dimension besides.
Rigorous to the point that those facing it found the standards frankly unreasonable.
But this was the Unicorn of Purity and Nobility.
Even if one was pure, without nobility the Unicorn would show no favor.
That was precisely why, of the three World Bosses, it had been the most demanding to face.
Its master, Dinosaurs Are Alive, was pure enough but not noble — though from the start, his contract had never been a proper one to begin with.
Besides, it was a system-based resurrection through a dead corpse, so some allowances were made.
Leo gave a hollow laugh.
"How is this even possible?"
Nobility was not something one could manufacture out of a 'kind heart' or 'service to others'.
It can be made. The very fact of thinking that already proved you'd strayed from nobility.
For users — functionally immortal beings, and modern people at that — such a mindset and value system were simply impossible to hold.
Where would you ever find someone pure AND noble?
It's not like she's some saint, for heaven's sake.
Tsshk.
"Figures. Nothing about her is ever normal."
"Then what about Vlack, at least...?"
"Dino, you go deal with the purity-obsessed one and handle Vlack! As for me—"
A chill raced through Leo's heart and froze it solid.
"I'm going to avenge my homework."
First, the ice spirits.