The Debt of Light
It seemed there needed to be more.
Hundreds of sword strikes came pouring down, targeting Sre and me at once.
This time, it wasn't using water or fire at all.
So it's relying purely on the primordial body.
"Pwah!"
Puhwak! Kagagang!
Most of the sword strikes were deflected by Sre's scaled-down breath and my spearwork.
A few punched through the defense and drew blood, though. Sharp enough, I supposed, but without its main abilities, it wasn't much of a threat.
And even those wounds healed over in an instant.
"...I'll have to put some real force into this."
Surging blue mana conjured a colossal blade of sword energy. It rose so high it could be seen from anywhere on the island, then came crashing straight down on me.
I twisted the White Savior.
Rising like an ascension into heaven, sixfold Spear's Roar spiraled upward and fused into one.
The roars that tore apart the landscape gathered together and carved out the shape of a dragon.
The sword energy shattered on the spot.
Fragments of blue blade-energy rained down like a storm, and Spear's Roar, its work done, lost its form and scattered.
Through the falling debris, Caums clenched his fist and charged.
The overwhelming destructive force of the primordial body came swinging down, and a whole stretch of forest shook with the impact.
Krdududuk...!
"...!"
"Ugh!"
It was Sre who blocked the fist.
Stretching out a massive forepaw to stop a blow far smaller than her own body, she grinned.
"Your body is harder than I expected. To think you could withstand a strike from—"
"Weaksauce."
"...I will use you as materials."
KKWAAAAANG!!
The earth groaned, and Sre's new body skidded backward. The ice sheathing her forepaw shattered into shards, and staring at the reddened paw, she pulled a face like she was about to cry.
"It hurts!"
"It will hurt far more soon. You will writhe in agony—"
"Why you hit!"
Whoong!
In an instant, Sre's new body vanished.
Reappearing out of thin air, she dropped her full weight directly on top of Caums. As something even bigger than a mammoth pinned him down, a flustered Caums hurriedly summoned waves of blades.
But just as before, water was a losing hand.
"Krrgh..."
"No hitting!"
He had ended up trapped between his own ice instead.
"You are truly infuriating!"
"Uuu!"
Lise's body made Caums undeniably strong, but right now two of his abilities were sealed. Fire showed not the slightest spark of igniting against Sre's deep freeze, and water was devoured by the biting cold the moment it materialized into the world.
His raw strength may have surpassed even Demonic-Gram, but his capacity to wield that strength properly had only regressed. If his powers had been mana or divinity, he would have been far more dangerous than this.
Not that it mattered against Sre, who carried a fragment of the Frost Demon King inside her...
Still not something worth using.
The fragment lodged in her foreclaws was, first and foremost, a 'weapon'. The demonic mana sealed within it couldn't be drawn out by Sre — even Sgaredo at her prime couldn't have managed it. That was how far beyond imagination a Demon King's mana truly was.
"Hraaap!"
Caums split the ice using nothing but raw physical power and hurled Sre into the air. Clutching his trembling hand, he lunged straight for her heart.
Kagagang! Spear and sword collided once more, and the roar released from the twisted spear tore through the primordial flesh.
My body took wounds in the exchange too, but it didn't matter.
Suaaa...
"Heh."
A body carrying the blood of the heavenly race could recover from nearly any wound. The only things that couldn't be healed were the most potent authorities, or divinity and demonic mana.
The primordial body, by contrast, did heal its wounds — but compared to mine, it was crawling. And even that regeneration was constrained by divinity.
"Let's see just how tough you are."
I spread my wings of light.
The divinity that had grown stronger upon reaching level 100 surged forth, and that power soaked into the White Savior undiluted.
The spear pierced through Lise's body.
It had all started with something utterly trivial.
As always, the blue bastards ran their mouths without end while our king, forever bowing his head, swallowed every insult. Were it not for the trait that kept their mana from ever running dry, they would have died with a single gesture — and yet there they were, strutting around and mocking the king.
A king that strong, unable to say a word.
I couldn't understand it.
Among those of us born and raised beneath the Isle of Antiquity, some were blessed and some were not. That absurd treatment made my blood boil.
So I caused trouble every time, and got beaten every time. They were endlessly weak bastards, but because their mana never dwindled, time would pass and there they'd be again, wailing on me.
If I stepped up this time too, maybe I'd win the opening exchange — then get pummeled again.
Damned idiotic red-skins. This is exactly why you people...
But then trouble broke out once more.
I took down two of the weak ones, then got beaten like a dog for it.
Beaten badly, too. They should have just killed me, the wretches. Something about how someone like me was useful for work, so they'd spare my life — as if I cared for their charity.
This time they even locked me in a prison with neither food nor water.
Claimed I could survive without eating anyway...
They'd spared me so I could work — so why the hell lock me up now?
'...Why did you do it?'
'Why did you come...'
'It was reckless. You are strong, but they are limitless. You cannot stand against them.'
The day I was thrown into that shabby prison, she came to visit as always, food in hand, nagging away. Why did I step in. Did I want to die. Why, when I couldn't possibly win...
'Doesn't it make you angry? Watching our own people violated and slaughtered by bastards like those?'
'...It does. I am very angry.'
Her expression was strikingly different from her usual apologetic one.
She looked genuinely, furiously angry.
'But I believe picking a fight you cannot win is reckless. Life is precious, and they are utterly beyond us.'
'...If you had the power. If a way to win appeared — would you fight?'
Whatever her kind heart might suggest, the strongest among us was Lise herself.
If she stood up, she would surely become a great wellspring of strength for everyone. True, the word around the tribe wasn't kind — that she groveled before a puppet of a chief, that she was all bark and no bite...
But I believed, with all my heart, that if she rose, everything would change.
'Of course. Naturally I would fight. And we would take it all back.'
Our rights.
"...Lise."
Cold. My whole body was cold.
So this is how it ended.
After that day, Lise and I grew close with startling speed, and after long waiting, the chance truly did come at last.
A chance to reclaim our rights.
And then that bastard Caums stole the chance away, and her along with it.
'Lise. You're really dead, aren't you.'
With everything in this state, my head was finally clearing.
Right. Of course Lise couldn't be alive. Just as that strange woman said, Lise was dead.
That bastard Caums had taken her body and done something unspeakable with it.
Thinking that far, the revulsion became unbearable. I had to get up right now and take my revenge, and yet...
How was I supposed to take revenge?
What on earth was I supposed to do with the bastard wearing Lise's body?
"...What does it matter."
I was already dying.
Lise.
"I'll follow you soo—"
"Don't you die!"
"Puhwaht?!"
Something enormous and pink lifted me clean off the ground. In the blink of an eye I was airborne, then dumped unceremoniously into a snowdrift.
Worse, my whole body was slick and sticky.
What in the—
"You keep trying to die after I told you you can't."
"...I thought I was dead. Apparently not."
"Why you die?"
The pure-white lizard — presumably the one that had licked me? — tilted its head. Judging by the biting chill radiating from the creature, this freakish weather was its doing.
Absurd.
"You keep the strangest company..."
"She is a little unique, yes."
"And Caums?"
"Suppressed, for now. Oh — and I'm keeping this."
Her hair having returned from white to blue, she said so while stroking the lizard's head.
Right. This was my fight, wasn't it.
I had dreamed of vengeance for over a thousand years, and when I finally stood before the object of it, I couldn't lay a single hand on him. In the end I merely borrowed another's strength, and even my revenge went unfinished.
"...Then what am I supposed to live for now?"
No one remained anymore. Not Lise, not my kin, not even the one I needed to avenge.
Nothing at all.
"......"
She regarded me quietly.
From her perspective, she had already spent a great deal. And the one meant to repay all that spending lay in this sorry state — small wonder she was troubled.
"...My apologies. I will repay this light without fail. Ask whatever you wish of me. Not that I need anything anymo—"
"Then I'll ask freely. Starting now, the labor is unlimited. The term is the rest of your life."
"...What?"
A faint smile crossed her face.
Delighted, and yet somehow strangely serene.
"Follow me."
Akron walked behind me.
At the end of his steps lay Lise.
The White Savior ran through her torso. Painful to look at, but not dangerous — quite the opposite, in fact. It was the medium preserving her masterless body.
Beside Lise, the blue sword stood driven into the ground, seething with a sinister aura. After suppressing Caums, I had poured his soul into it and sealed him there. He'd been bound to the sword from the start, so the sealing had been very, very easy.
Caums — trapped within the Ego Sword
"What have you done to me!"
"...Caums?"
"Pay him no mind. What you should be worrying about is something else entirely."
He looked at me, still wearing the expression of a man who had no idea what I intended.
"I gave it some thought. Just how steep a price would it take to revive a soul that died a full seventeen hundred years ago."
"......What?"
"As it happens, something suitable presented itself. I'll handle the arrangements myself, so don't concern yourself."
"But Lise is already—"
"She is right here."
There was no need to search for her soul. Her soul had always been at Akron's side.
His expression changed in an instant. He shook his head as if he couldn't believe his own eyes.
"...That's impossible."
"It is entirely possible. So concern yourself with other matters."
"What are you... No. I mean — what are you saying?"
Formal once more, as he'd been at the very beginning, he gazed at me with desperate eyes. I glanced at the chat window exploding with messages, then looked around at our surroundings.
"There are awfully few Rutilus here, aren't there?"
It seemed there needed to be more.