Chapter 95
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 95
Chapter Title: The Price of a Moment
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From the heart of the explosion, something sharp came flying. It was Maltiel's claw.
Just before being struck by an attack that concentrated the lightning from the massive cloud into a single point, Maltiel, in a desperate gamble, had torn off his own claw and thrown it, aiming for the boy's brow.
Ordinarily, a small hole would have been punched right through the boy's head.
But the boy twisted his head once more to dodge it. It left a light scratch on his forehead, but the wound was too small to be of any concern.
Not long after, the boy's body slowly came to a halt in mid-air before beginning to fall toward the ground.
Maltiel, who had taken the full brunt of the immense energy, was also plummeting powerlessly to the ground like a waterlogged kite.
Even as he fell, the boy raised a finger and aimed at Maltiel's body.
More than four minutes of Blooming's duration remained.
Despite having just unleashed a massive amount of lightning, the boy still had plenty of mana. This was because he had drawn and controlled external electricity, not the electricity within his own body.
Something faint glittered within the chest of the fluttering, falling Maltiel.
It was Maltiel's core.
Without a moment's hesitation, the boy swung his arm.
A brilliant white light suddenly erupted from the blue sky. Creating a bolt from the blue was a trivial matter for the boy.
Riding the ionized air, the lightning split into dozens of forks. It didn't matter. The main bolt was striking precisely for Maltiel's core.
The word "victory" flashed through his mind.
At the same time, the faint smell of a corpse cart brushed past the boy's nose.
The faces of the soldiers who had died in the burning forest that night passed before the boy's eyes, one scene after another, like a silent film.
The boy himself had never imagined that such a memory would surface at the very last moment.
Though he hadn't realized it himself, it seemed that deep in the boy's heart lay a dormant guilt for those who had lost their lives because of him.
*...This is it.*
And so.
Just as everything was about to end.
"Samael."
Maltiel's scorched black lips uttered that name once more.
***
Dirt scraped past his eyes. A small stone hit Rex's thick eyebrow and bounced away. The dry wind clawed at his back.
Rex felt a chill in his abdomen. Twisting his body where it lay slammed against the ground, he looked down and saw his stomach, drenched in red blood.
His abdomen was rotting. His very flesh was rapidly turning necrotic, as if injected with a toxic fluid.
The first emotion he felt upon seeing the wound was terror.
*I'm going to die.*
The reality of it was viscerally palpable.
*What am I doing right now?*
But a powerful question soon overwhelmed the terror, filling his mind. Rex turned his head to survey his surroundings.
There was dirt everywhere. The corners of his vision were black, and his arms and legs felt powerless.
The moment the thought, *Where am I?* naturally surfaced in his mind.
"Samael."
That low, chilling voice vibrated through his eardrums, sending a shiver down his spine.
"...General."
Belatedly, Rex's mind began to piece the situation together.
*I was in the middle of a battle.*
Maltiel and General Bin were fighting one-on-one. Rex had been feigning the use of his horn to get on Maltiel's nerves.
As a result, Maltiel had used Samael—who was practically his own limb, a card he'd saved until the very end—on Rex.
Samael had overpowered Rex in an instant.
And now, here he was, waiting for death with a hole in his abdomen.
It didn't take long for Rex to understand this sequence of events.
*Damn it. Did I lose consciousness for a moment? My limbs are moving. I can still breathe, however faintly. I can still fight. Assess the situation. What happened to the battle between the General and the Overlord?*
Rex forced his sprawled body up and turned his head toward the source of the voice.
There, Maltiel, burned to a blackened crisp, was falling powerlessly to the ground like a waterlogged kite.
*Did the General win? By himself?*
The usual Rex would have, at this moment, focused on marking Samael to ensure Bin, who had seized the upper hand, could finish Maltiel off.
The tide of battle was overwhelmingly in Bin's favor; it was a foregone conclusion that Maltiel would die in the next moment, barring any unforeseen variables.
*...Is it over?*
But Rex was not in his usual state.
He had just regained consciousness after blacking out for a moment. His brain wasn't getting enough oxygen, and an immense, delayed pain was beginning to surge from his abdomen.
Moreover, the one dying was *that* Maltiel.
The Overlord who had caused the annihilation of the 6th Platoon, the platoon Rex had spent three years with, crossing the line between life and death together.
Bin wasn't the only one left with trauma from the tragedy in the forest that day.
*...Finally!*
The vow he had made before the bodies of his comrades that day flashed through his mind.
The smell of that day, when he had sworn to become a stronger warrior and kill Maltiel, was still vivid.
The creaking sound of the corpse cart carrying his comrades occasionally filled his ears.
Rex felt a dull ache in his arm, which had now been replaced by a machine.
At the same time, he couldn't contain the overwhelming emotion swelling in his chest.
And that complex torrent of emotions momentarily slowed the warrior's thoughts.
"Overlooooooord!"
That led to an irreversible, colossal disaster.
"....!"
A desperate roar from behind sent a shiver through Rex, and he whipped his head around. There stood Samael, wings spread wide, knees bent.
*Damn it.*
Belatedly, Rex focused on the foreign object in his chest. He had to take out the horn and blow it as quickly as possible to prevent Samael from interfering in the fight between Maltiel and Bin.
Fine particles began to flow out, piercing the skin of his chest.
But it was already too late.
*BOOM!*
A black shadow grazed just above his head. A sharp wind immediately whipped past his cheek.
*Wai—*
Rex had neither the strength nor the opening to stop Samael.
*Am I not your enemy?*
*I'm still alive. Doesn't this horn bother you?*
*Do you intend to defile a sacred warrior's one-on-one duel?*
All sorts of nonsense ran through his mind. He couldn't think of anything to say that might hold back that monster for even a tenth of a second.
No, perhaps no words existed that could stop that monster.
"Kill me first and goooooo!"
Nevertheless, Rex had no choice but to shout. The particles that had emerged from his chest had not yet taken the shape of the horn.
*This is the worst.*
The moment he recognized his mistake, a chill ran down his spine, and cold sweat beaded under his chin.
No matter what Rex said, Samael did not stop flapping its wings.
Samael shot like a bullet toward its Overlord, roughly 1,000 meters away.
As a result, Maltiel's scorched body and Samael's body shattered simultaneously.
The flesh and bone fragments, scattered in all directions, immediately began to gather around Maltiel's core. Then, at a speed incomparable to before, they restored his black skin and wings.
"Tricks."
Despite the sudden variable, the boy cloaked in lightning remained unfazed. He simply brought down divine punishment with a gesture as casual as ever, and a second bolt struck from the clear sky.
Maltiel's rapidly regenerating body was engulfed in black smoke. A delayed clap of thunder echoed all around. Rex felt a cold despair crawl out from his gut and choke him.
"...Excellent, Samael."
A low voice came from within the black smoke.
"Let us see the end of the world together."
The sound of powerful wingbeats came from the smoke. Soon, the black smoke cleared, revealing Maltiel, his body perfectly restored.
"......"
The boy cloaked in lightning grimaced, like someone who had just witnessed a bizarre and disgusting scene they weren't meant to see.
Rex saw clearly what had happened through his vision, which was turning crimson with pain and regret.
Samael had flown to Maltiel faster than a crossbow bolt and crashed into him.
This act was to quickly shear the burned, dead cells away from Maltiel's core.
At the same time, Samael had dismantled its own body, separating its core from its flesh.
Samael's core, detached from its body, immediately transformed into dozens of fragments and was sucked into the Overlord's core. Then, blood vessels filled with foul blood instantly began to cover the black core, and in the next moment, Maltiel regenerated his chest and arms first at an unprecedented speed.
Maltiel blocked the lightning strike with his restored arms and chest. They immediately turned to black ash, but he regenerated them just as quickly.
*...What am I doing?*
A young boy, not even seventeen, had overcome his own limits and subdued an Overlord one-on-one.
And yet he, born a warrior who had spent his entire life on the battlefield, had made such a ridiculous mistake.
Rex couldn't stand how pathetic he was.
He couldn't even begin to imagine what consequences this mistake, born from a moment of sentimentality, would bring upon the people of the continent.
*In the end, I couldn't accomplish a single thing properly.*
He was aware that he was a shield unworthy of the General.
The boy would undoubtedly become a mage on par with a Sword Saint within the next three years, and it was clear that no matter how hard he tried, he could never keep up with that growth rate.
That was why he had hesitated when first offered the position of the boy's guard.
He wondered if it was okay for him to accept such a role, if a more reliable and stronger warrior shouldn't be the one to help him.
Nevertheless, he had ultimately accepted the position.
He wanted to repay the boy who had trusted him.
*And this is the result.*
It was a moment worthy of despair.
The Overlord, who had been pushed to the brink of death, had absorbed the High Lord he should have been marking and recovered his condition.
He hadn't wanted to achieve glorious feats or leave an impressive mark. He simply thought it would be fine to die as long as he could fulfill his duty.
Vellaland was that kind of battlefield.
The battlegrounds of Overlords and Generals were places where over a hundred warriors of his caliber lost their lives every day.
But look at him now.
Far from protecting the General, he couldn't even hold back the Mazoku in front of him, causing them to lose a battle that was all but won.
For Rex, even the desire to "do my part" was too much to ask for.
*General Bin is someone who will face Overlords, and eventually, the Demon King and devils. Compared to him, I'm nothing more than a mediocre talent you could find in any unit... unable to even hold back a single High Lord.*
It was a moment where he felt the stark reality of his own talent's limits.
*KRR-DDK!*
Rex's prosthetic arm scraped against the ground, spewing red sparks. His staggering legs kicked off the dirt floor, trying to rise again and again, only to collapse.
His broken shin shook violently. The pain crawling from his abdomen spread throughout his body, dulling his muscle movements.
*But that fact...*
Screws began to fall from Rex's prosthetic. A creaking sound came from the metal plate where the number '6' was painted in thick red.
*...is no excuse to lie sprawled out in a place like this, wallowing in despair.*
At last, Rex pushed his heavy body up on two bruised black legs.
In his hand was the horn the boy had given him.
"Biiiiiiiiiin!"
The warrior roared.