Moon Cleaver
Why am I the first one...?!
"Target locked."
Somewhere deep in a forest, far removed from Lily's team's castle, Raguel drew back her bow—a weapon crafted from a material unique to the Angel Guild—and held her focus.
It was a process of slowly accumulating power and attuning herself to it. A genuinely difficult procedure, but as a member of the Angel Guild it was work she had performed before, and she could carry it to a respectable standard.
"Ah."
Tears streamed down her cheeks from the sheer density of the overlapping power. The bow, layered with Clairvoyance and Leo's buffs and Fracion's enhancements besides, began to blaze with light.
"Here you go."
Beside her, Leo conjured light—the same light she always used—but this time shaped it not into a blade, but into an arrow. The light-woven arrow settled onto Raguel's bowstring.
Kii-jiik...
The blessing of light and the arrow of light, stacked atop a mountain of buffs.
The preparations were perfect.
"...Do you really think this will work?"
"Probably?"
Leo gave the arrow a couple of idle taps and flashed the mischievous grin of a little rascal.
"Honestly, even this won't beat her. Best case, we blow off one of her arms."
An arm. To anyone else that would be a devastating wound, but to Lily it was barely a scratch. She could probably take dozens of these arrows and regenerate without any trouble at all.
But—could the castle behind Lily hold?
"Spirit Descent."
Leo's hair ignited into light. Raguel's hair turned to light as well—a technique made possible only because they shared the same attribute: light.
Having achieved synchronization not with a spirit but with a human, light formed a bow at Leo's fingertips, and her lips parted.
"Taishan?"
"Clairvoyance, Taishan."
Two arrows tore through the forest.
■
КWAKAGAGAGAGA!!!!
КWAKAGAGAGAGA!!!!
Two thunderous roars split the forest—far too much noise to be the sound of mere arrows.
So they really did combine their power.
The first arrow shattered every one of Redberry's thirty-seven layered barriers. Even reinforced through careful mana manipulation to four times their usual strength, the barriers burst like panes of glass.
Yet the first arrow, slowed by only the slightest margin, went streaking on toward the castle.
─Light dares approach me?
The moment it drew within arm's reach of the castle walls, the Shadow Spirit erupted from them in human form. A hand woven from black clouds confidently seized the arrow.
To all appearances, it was a flawless block...
"You'll regret that."
─What...?!
The black clouds were simply pushed aside. The Shadow Spirit was a world-boss-class entity, but within the Mock Siege it was nothing more than a rather strong Grand General.
Certainly, that much would have been enough to easily block an arrow fired by Raguel alone.
But her opponent was Leo—an arrow forged from light powerful enough to cut off her own hand.
─Grrrrgh...!!!
The spirit was wringing out every drop of its limited strength, and its speed was steadily bleeding away. Left alone, it might just manage to stop the arrow before it reached the Core.
КWAKAGAGAGA!!!
But what would that even matter?
"Looks like she's braced for it."
The real one is coming.
The arrow Leo had fired came screaming in behind the first—speed and destructive power of an entirely different dimension.
PUHWAAAAK!!!
The arrow punched clean through the clouds. Blazing with even fiercer energy, the arrow of light hurtled toward the Core like a bolt of lightning.
I leapt lightly into the air, the red hammer settling into my grip.
Hammer met arrow.
"Ngh...! Lady Lily!"
The shockwave of the collision rolled across the surroundings. An arrow carrying weight to rival Taishan itself, and a hammer steeped in divinity.
I had confidence in a contest of strength—but the problem was my weapon.
Just as I thought.
Because the knockoff had shattered the hammer, its current material was not Karabus's shell but merely some sturdy red mineral. Far too soft an ore to stop an arrow empowered by Leo's Spirit Descent.
Kwajik!
The hammer broke.
Out of options, I twisted the spear in my hands. A storm erupted. Everything began to be sucked inward, and the arrow, unable to reach its target, was dragged off course.
Both arrows were swallowed into the Eye of the Spear with an immense roar.
"Did you block it?"
Amid all this, Redberry—who had been rolling across the ground from the shock—tossed out an ominous flag of her own.
"Careful saying things like that. It only invites more."
Races born with a 'Concept' were each strange in their own way, but among them one stood out as the strangest of all: a species susceptible to the classic did I just jinx myself? revival incantation—in other words, to 'flags'.
Why such a species even existed, I had no idea, but then, the world had stopped conforming to common sense the moment my very existence did.
To be fair, it wasn't an absolute effect like the other Concept races—it couldn't bring someone back from a sincere, full-power attack from a Celestial or a Demon, or overturn a lost situation. Leo wasn't even that race to begin with...
But the reason the revival spell worked at all was simply that such moments happened often, and the effect was that potent.
"See? Look."
More arrows came flying in.
■
Racing through the forest alongside Vlack, Devil clutched at his chest. A power he had been hiding, reserved for this round and this round alone.
Even after gaining this strength—taught to him by Lily-nii... by Lily—he had followed the plan and never once used it.
This time...!
How many times had he died, how many times had he been sent packing in helpless humiliation during those matches? Shoved around by Iron of all people, brushed aside powerlessly by Chukachip. And that wasn't all—Leo had retired him in barely two strikes.
For the Demon Lord, god of darkness, and ruler of the Black Flame Dragon, the results had been unbearably humiliating.
But now he would show them all. Revenge on everything that had looked down on him.
"With my power!"
"...Start getting ready. If we run into Choco, you run. No arguments."
"I didn't come here to run, human!"
Fight, and win. That was the way of Devil, ruler of the Black Flame Dragon.
Vlack shook his head at the declaration, but Devil was dead serious.
Pii-ik—!
Devil's right arm, pushing ahead of the group, was sliced open in a long gash. He sprang back like a wounded cat.
"An ambush?!"
An unseen enemy had cut him—which meant the opponent was Yena.
Black flame blood welled from the wound and went wild. His pathetically feeble imitation dragon heart pounded thunderously, and all that power flooded into Devil's left hand.
A technique born from the dark dragon Seripid.
"Combat Art: Black Dragon!"
A fist shaped like a coiled black dragon slammed toward Yena.
■
Yena gritted her teeth.
The plan had been simple. Leo, Raguel, Fracion, and Choco would combine forces to bombard Lily's castle from long range, while the remaining members defended as the situation demanded.
Just as planned—no, better than planned—the Raguel-and-Leo combination had erupted with tremendous synergy, outperforming even the much-discussed pairing of Leo and the dinosaurs. If Leo had picked Raguel instead of Fracion in the team draft, they could have seriously set their sights on the championship.
And then...
"HRAAAAAH!"
КWAAAAAAA!!!
The black flame came crashing down. A destructive force so bizarre it hardly seemed like Devil's ability at all. Every swing tore the surrounding area apart, and the black flame ruined her concealment.
The dagger that caught his fist let out a pained screech, looking ready to shatter at any moment.
Worse still was the black aura circling Devil's body. Cloaked in it like a living shield, he refused to take any fatal wound no matter how many times her daggers opened his skin.
Yena let out a hollow laugh, feeling as though she were facing a Grand General.
"What did you do?"
What could anyone have done to change their skill this drastically in an instant?
Devil spread his black wings, scattering black flame, and grinned wide.
"This is the true power of the god of darkness!"
"...Did Lily teach you something again?"
"......"
Devil's mouth snapped shut. Yeah. That's exactly it.
"Ugh... seriously."
Dragon power, of all things. Had she actually taught him dragon techniques?
At this rate, holding Devil back alone would be no easy feat. Dragons were, by default, a 'field boss'-caliber species around level 80 to 90. Even a half-baked imitation that only weakly inherited a dragon's power could exert crushing dominance over a human.
And now he'd grown strong enough to be a 'real' dragon...
"...Lily really does collect disciples, doesn't she."
Every new person she met seemed to show up with a brand-new technique in hand. And Yena, who had received more of that teaching than anyone, felt something indescribably complicated welling up inside her as she tightened her grip on both daggers.
I am...
"I'm supposed to be the first one...!"
A poison-laced surge of dagger strikes came crashing in, and in answer the black-flame-wreathed fist drove forward to meet them.
Suuuuk...
Shwiing.
And above it all, two shadows descended. Unicorn and black greatsword collided.
КУUUUUNG!!!
A shockwave swallowed everything around them. Devil and Yena were blasted apart in an instant.
As the Unicorn—strengthened further by Raguel—neighed sharply, Vlack gave his beloved sword a fluid, sweeping swing.
"Devil. Get clear."
"Aw, come on! We were in the middle of a fight, why—"
The sky transformed. The blue heavens were drowned in deep darkness, and the light that had poured down over the Unicorn died away.
Overhead, as if sketched onto the void, an enormous black moon appeared. Black Destroyer—the second Masterpiece forged by Drak, the great blacksmith of the continent—erupted with moonlight.
Devil wasn't the only one who had been hiding his strength.
Moon Cleaver.
A slash that cleaved the moon. But the moon was not the only thing being cut.
Sugagagak...
The Unicorn split apart. From the left shoulder, where the blessing of ice had rested, all the way to the right flank, where the blessing of earth had dwelled.
Everything was severed, and through the gap in the cut, Yena darted in. The opening that inevitably follows the use of a great technique—for Yena, an assassin with exceptional battle sense, exploiting it was second nature.
"Going somewhere, human?"
If no one else had intervened.
Devil, scattering black flame, seized her dagger. Yena frowned and moved to shake him off at once—
Hwoong.
But that brief moment was more than enough time for Vlack to restore himself, drawing on the mana restoration lecture he had attended only days before.
"I leave the rear to you, Lady Lily."
The slash carved Yena apart.