One Strike Is Enough
He was afraid.
He was terrified.
Khtun swallowed back the rising surge of nausea and bowed his head.
Whoosh—!
A tentacle skimmed past his hair.
Along with the dizzying certainty that he had nearly died, his instincts screamed once more.
Run.
Get away.
"You idiot—! That's a dog's death! Run!"
He had never been a particularly obedient descendant, but in this moment he wanted nothing more than to do exactly as his ancestor commanded.
And yet, every time the urge rose, one man's face flashed through his mind.
—Ah, aaah—! E-everyone, run, run—!
—I will not run—! I won't run! The coward Myuhan is dead! He died the day he abandoned his brothers and fled—!
A man more terrified than anyone, who had still charged ahead of everyone else and met his death.
Had he truly been brave?
No.
Khtun thought as he blocked and dodged the surging tentacles.
Myuhan was… a coward.
That had not been courage.
It had been nothing more than the desperate thrashing of a weak man who had given up in the face of fear.
But whatever the reason, Myuhan had not retreated. He had gripped his weapon and stood against his terror.
He had stood against that damned demon.
"Ugh, aaah! Ah! Ah! D-D-「Di—e」—!"
"Lord!"
In the strange shockwave born from the collision of the demon's Word of Power and the priest's prayer, Khtun gathered his scattered thoughts.
Then he kicked off the ground and charged.
Golgol—!
Tik, tak!
His loyal undead followed at their master's heels, driving their weapons into the demon's ashen-white flesh.
"Young master—!"
The faithful knight Balt threw himself forward to protect his lord's bloodline.
"Ugh, ah! Ah! Ah! It h-hurts! It h-hurts!"
As James's vast holy power filled the space, Khtun and his undead methodically carved into the demon's body.
Slash—!
Tentacles smashed the Minitons to pieces.
Golgol!
They sent Golgol flying.
And even when they finally shattered Tiktak, Khtun clung to the demon's body and drove his sword in.
But the demon's flesh was hard.
"Without Aura, it's meaningless!"
Aura!
That damned, cursed Aura!
Khtun clenched his teeth and thrust the sword in again. Then he released the shield in his left hand and gripped the blade itself. In his right hand, which had held the sword, a mace now appeared.
"Hup!"
Khtun's hand, gripping the mace short, cocked back.
And then—
Thud!
He brought it down on the sword's pommel. The blade drove deeper even as its edge bit through his gauntlet with a wet skrrk and sank into his palm.
At the same time, the sword plunged into the demon's body.
Once more.
Thud!
"Ah, aaah, it h-hurts—! It h-hurts—!"
The demon's tentacles swept the surroundings indiscriminately.
In that assault, where a mere graze would burst limbs apart, Khtun felt death approaching.
"I said dodge—!"
No. He would not dodge.
Khtun drove the sword in again with the mace.
"Lord, protect us."
Priest James's ward blocked a tentacle.
"Kh!"
Then Balt's sword struck aside a tentacle flying toward Khtun.
That was when the voice reached him.
"Aim for the mouth!"
It was Ren.
Khtun immediately abandoned the sword and snatched up his shield.
The loyal knight Balt covered him as he did.
But aim for the mouth?
How am I supposed to do that?
After a moment's thought, Khtun smashed aside an incoming tentacle with the mace, then jammed the shield into the gaping maw.
"Well done!"
Even Ancestor Arch praised him this time.
But Khtun did not stop there.
Laminate
Boom!
The shield, jammed horizontally into the vertically split maw, shuddered violently.
The teeth clamped down on it cracked with a grinding crunch and shattered outward.
"AAAAAAAAAAAH—!"
The demon screamed.
The more it did, the more violently its tentacles thrashed—but Balt's sword gave them no opening.
And again.
Boom!
The demon's teeth broke.
And just as the demon writhed in agony—
"Good. That should be enough."
Ren, who had somehow drawn close, stepped forward.
"Everyone, fall back."
So saying, Ren laid a hand on the body of the demon whose maw was sealed by the shield.
The curse-mist that had been coiling around Ren moved an instant later.
Sss, ssss—
In a heartbeat, the demon's body began to blacken.
"KRAAAAAAAAAAH—!"
The demon shrieked in pain so vicious it seemed to burn the soul itself.
Its tentacles lashed savagely toward Ren, but a curse so foul and damp it was nearly tangible clung to them, rotting them as it spread.
The demon's tentacles thrashed wildly, seeking Ren.
A hair-trigger moment.
Ren closed his eyes and murmured an endless stream of incantations.
Those incantations goaded the curse, and the goaded curse stretched out in every direction like a pack of savage hunting hounds.
And everything in its path rotted and withered.
All the while, Ren poured every ounce of his strength into dismantling the demon's flesh.
But this was a demon, after all.
…This is hard.
Ren gave a bitter smile.
He had scraped together every curse he could, and still the demon endured and endured and endured—until at last it began slowly pushing the curse's power back out.
At this rate, a counterattack was inevitable.
So I have to use that after all.
The twelve curses he had prepared to target the Apostles of the Apostle Council.
He hesitated over whether to unleash the first of them.
But perhaps he had hesitated too long.
"Ah, aaah— ah!"
The shield slipped free of the demon's maw, and its mouth reclaimed its freedom.
And the first thing the demon did in that instant was unleash a Word of Power.
"「Fa—ll」—!"
"Tch."
Ren hastily stepped back, canceling out the Word's influence.
It was only possible because of the divine ward James had woven.
Having weathered the crisis, Ren once more approached the demon with calm, measured steps.
But the demon, too, was a creature that learned.
"Ah, aaah, s-s-s-scary, scaaaaary—"
The Mouth of Targis put distance between itself and Ren, its body rotting black.
Even so, it kept swinging its tentacles—clearly stalling for time.
Damn it.
Just as he failed to hide his frustration—
"Valhal—laaaaa!"
A shout from somewhere.
A boy's figure entered Ren's vision.
The boy was none other than Khtun.
Khtun seemed about to pass Ren by, then charged straight at the demon.
Ren started to shout something at the reckless, shieldless charge—but Khtun was faster.
Clack, clack-clack-clack—!
A skeleton rose from the ground.
"Golgol!"
Golgol!
Golgol appeared before the shield, seized it at once, and leapt.
And collided head-on with a tentacle.
Yet Golgol was unharmed.
Of course—Kracion's near-absolute defensive power had absorbed the impact.
That was when Ancestor Arch stepped in.
"Descendant, give me your body—!"
Yes!
No sooner had Khtun willed it than Arch's spirit sank into Golgol.
Having gained a body, Arch picked up the sword lying on the ground.
"I will open the way."
What about the shield?!
"Here."
Arch handed the shield to Khtun, then matched his stride and ran.
Tentacles crashing in from every direction, a blade flashing as it carved the air, black blood spraying upward.
Khtun simply ran.
Leaving everything to Arch.
And behind him, Tiktak's Minitons followed close.
How far had they advanced under Arch's cover?
"Ah, aaah, aaaah, 「Die」「Die」「Die」「Die」「Die」「Die」「Die」!"
Khtun clenched his teeth against the indiscriminate barrage of Words of Power.
Was he really going to die?
Just as a chill ran down his spine—
"Protect us—!"
A pillar of radiant light poured down from the heavens.
Within that column of light, Khtun felt a fullness he could not name.
And he was not the only one who felt it.
"Excellent."
Arch, occupying Golgol's body, spoke and kicked off the ground.
Power surged through every bone.
Compared to his original strength it was pitifully lacking—but even so, it was not bad.
"One strike. That will suffice."
The sword raised high at the apex of his leap came down toward the earth as he fell.
It was no greatsword, but he had long since transcended the need to discriminate among weapons—and though the skeleton's frame was frail beyond measure, it was more than enough to unleash the sword-intent he had already awakened.
A knight who had once slain a dragon.
That knight's sword-strike was recreated, borrowing the power of the divine.
And so…
Shhk.
The blade parted space.
"Ah, ah, aaah…?"
As if time itself had stopped, the demon stood still, lips working soundlessly.
A line appeared across its ashen-white body an instant later.
Tss, tsszz.
The hard outer shell split, and the body began to slide apart along the line.
And when at last that body had fully split in two—
Arch shouted.
"It is not over yet—! It will regenerate at once! Charge! Now!"
Khtun sprinted straight ahead at those words.
Into the demon's body splitting in half, into that vertically gaping maw, he jammed the shield and twisted it with all his strength.
Tss, tsszz—!
The seam that had been trying to rejoin tore open again with a sickening sound.
Khtun shouted in haste.
"Reeeeeen—!"
"Got it!"
Ren snapped back to focus and hurled his curse at the demon once more.
The curse chewed into the demon's body again, and Khtun's shield tore freely through its maw.
Laminate!
Teeth shattered, and the demon screamed—and in that moment—
"I will finish this!"
Arch, strength restored, raised his sword.
And—
Slash!
The demon's body crumbled.
The Mouth of Targis—the calamity that had turned an entire region into a land of death—had at last met its end.
Watching the demon split in half and melt away, Khtun gasped for breath.
"Haa, ha…"
The terror was gone.
But the trembling remained.
And then—
"Valhallaaaaaaaaa—!"
A roar thundered out.
A roar of victory.
As the mighty roar resounded, the apostate Rohan watched the scene in silence.
It was not long before Ferhan appeared at his side.
"My, my. Things didn't go as planned, did they?"
"…"
"If it had gone according to your original design, the one to kill the Mouth would have been that monster Vilheim, no? And you hoped the curse left behind by the Mouth's death would taint him."
Yes.
The picture Rohan had wanted was for Vilheim to kill the Mouth, and for the curse left in the Mouth's dying to reach Vilheim.
That curse was one that led inevitably to death.
And watching Vilheim fall to the curse… the Adversary Ren would have tried, as always, to absorb the curse into his own body.
But that would have been impossible.
This curse existed solely to kill its target—an absolute, vicious thing.
Unable to properly dissolve it, Ren would have been doomed.
Vilheim as well.
And yet.
"Of all things, an undead killed it."
"…"
"There is no curse that can kill the already dead a second time. So the Mouth's curse is useless now."
For Rohan, the plan had completely fallen apart.
So what now?
"Not only did you burn the Mouth like a disposable tool before it had even recovered its strength—you botched the whole affair… tsk tsk. The Apostle seat has slipped further away."
"No. We end it here."
"Oh? You mean to step in yourself?"
Rohan answered with silence and began to walk.
Everyone was exhausted.
At this rate, finishing them off would not be difficult.
That was when—
"But Rohan. Perhaps surviving comes first, no?"
"What…?"
"Look behind you. See who has come looking for you."
"…"
Rohan stopped and turned.
And then he saw it.
A knight with blue eyes of light, gripping a pure white greatsword.
…Vilheim Falaon.
The knight of monstrous strength whom the Apostle Council had long marked as a "monster."
He asked,
"You. Are you of the Apostle Council?"
A voice unnaturally cold drove itself into Rohan's ear.