Chapter 234: Endgame (3)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 234: Endgame (3)
An arm thudded to the ground.
The Blood King and the Dragon King stared at it blankly before reaching for their own left and right arms, respectively. Where their limbs should have been, there was nothing but empty, hollowed shoulders.
“Ugh!”
The Dragon King let out a pained groan, clutching the shoulder that was now gushing blood.
When did she…? Don’t tell me, that moment she brushed past me…
But he hadn’t felt a thing. Was this a side effect of the cut being too clean? The Dragon King was bewildered. Leah, however, couldn’t have cared less about his confusion.
“What are you doing? Not going to reattach it?”
She simply looked at them with pity for squandering the chance she’d given them.
Leah took a step forward, only to be stopped in her tracks by the sudden whipping of thick tree trunks that erupted around her.
“I will buy some time. Both of you, please regroup.”
The Fairy King followed up the whipping assault by sending forth spirits, which shattered their own mana cores to self-destruct.
“…Didn’t you say you wouldn’t interfere?”
“The situation has changed. I cannot stand by and let my brothers die.”
“Tch… Since when did you care so much about us?”
The Fairy King frowned at the Dragon King’s sarcasm.
“Is this really the time for sarcasm? Hurry up and reattach your arm! She is not an opponent to be taken lightly!”
“I know that without you telling me.”
The Blood King reached out a hand. His severed arm, lying on the ground, dissolved into blood, flowed back to his shoulder, and reformed itself.
The Dragon King, incapable of such a feat, had to pick up his own arm and press the severed ends together.
It was just as the two of them had finished restoring their limbs.
The self-destructing spirits froze as if time had stopped, and the tree trunks whipping through the air were sliced apart in an instant.
The Fairy King’s expression hardened as he withdrew the trunks.
Amidst the dust of what was once the Demon King’s castle—pulverized by the lashing trunks and exploding spirits—Leah stood perfectly unharmed, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
She brushed the dust off her white short-sleeved t-shirt and glared at the Fairy King with displeasure.
“You know, my cheapskate master actually splurged on this expensive brand-name shirt for me. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t get it dirty.”
“…I do not know what you are talking about.”
“Yeah. I didn’t expect you to.”
Leah raised her index finger and swiped it through the air.
A slash shot forward. Originating from her fingertip, it grew in size as it flew toward the Fairy King.
Staring at the massive attack that filled his vision, the Fairy King was greatly alarmed and hastily wove the tree trunks into a defensive wall.
The wall buckled inward under the slash’s immense power, and the Fairy King himself was pushed back.
“Kuh… Haaap!”
The Fairy King strained with all his might to keep the trunks from breaking, and it worked. The slash that had been tormenting him began to lose its power. When it finally dissipated completely, he let out a weary sigh.
In that instant, Leah tore vertically through the weakened barrier and appeared before him.
Before the startled Fairy King could react, Leah flicked her middle finger.
A colossal silver blade shot forward, tearing through the ground as it aimed for him. Dozens of layered red magic circles materialized to block the tip of the murderous blade.
K-K-K-K-K-K-KANG!!!
The protective magic circles, condensed to their limit, shattered like glass. The blade, slowing with each circle it broke, finally lost its momentum just before the last one.
The Fairy King gulped, staring at the massive blade tip that had stopped right before his eyes.
If not for those protective circles, he would have been split in two.
“Th-thank you, Dragon King.”
“Save the pleasantries for later. Focus on her!”
The Dragon King thrust his hand forward, and several layers of high-level magic circles materialized above Leah’s head. As he clenched his outstretched fist, red lightning struck down on her.
The bolt was blindingly powerful, carrying enough voltage to instantly kill any ordinary creature, but…
“Dammit!”
It failed to pierce the hemispherical barrier surrounding Leah. The shield didn’t allow a single spark of electricity to touch her body.
“What the hell is up with that goddamn barrier?! Nothing’s worked on it from the start!”
Overwhelming firepower.
This was the Dragon King’s greatest advantage among the three kings. But when it proved useless against his opponent, he began to waver.
In contrast, the Blood King, who had more options at his disposal, remained calm.
“Calm down. The Fairy King and I will create an opening. You pour the greatest firepower you can muster into that gap.”
“…Can you do it?”
“Perhaps. Fairy King, I need you to obscure her vision, even if just for a moment.”
“I will do my best.”
The Fairy King brought his hands together and drew upon his power. Though he wore the form of a fairy, his true identity was the World Tree, the ruler of nature. And nature answered his call.
Dark clouds gathered from all directions, blotting out the sun. Rumble. The ominous clouds swirled into a vortex and descended.
This was not some artificial storm created by magic, but nature’s wrath itself.
It crashed down vertically upon Leah.
Given the scale of the tornado, which seemed to suck in everything in the vicinity, one might think this alone would be enough. But the Fairy King knew better.
And so, he made tree trunks erupt from the ground beneath Leah’s feet.
His target wasn’t Leah herself.
From experience, he knew the trunks would be cut down helplessly the moment they touched her body.
The thick trunks wrapped around Leah’s barrier, working in tandem with the tornado to block her vision from two sides.
The Blood King did not miss the fleeting opening this created.
F-f-f-f-fwak!
Crimson blood spears poured into the tornado. The spears pierced the tree trunks and struck her barrier.
Though they failed to break through, simply making contact was enough.
The blood that formed the spears contained a component that dispersed mana.
“Now!”
At the Blood King’s shout, the Dragon King released his polymorph. Magic was one thing, but for instantaneous firepower, nothing surpassed a Dragon Breath.
Fwoooosh—
The inferno scattered the wind and melted the tree trunks. The Blood King felt his own blood spears evaporate as well, but he didn’t stop the Dragon King.
Instead, he and the Fairy King began preparing their next attack.
Considering their opponent, they had to account for the possibility that she wouldn’t fall to this assault.
Even so, there’s no way she’s completely unharmed… Hm?
The Blood King, who was carefully observing Leah’s position, saw something glinting within the scorching flames. By the time he realized those glinting objects were menacing blades bursting through the fire, it was too late.
A shotgun-like blast of silver blades rained down upon them.
*
Leah walked out from within the dying flames. Inspecting her clothes, she noticed the hem of her t-shirt was slightly burnt and scowled.
She raised her hand, then brought it down.
A giant silver sword fell from the sky, impaling the downed Dragon King through the stomach.
[KRAAAAAAAAHK!!!]
Despite the earth-shattering scream, Leah paid it no mind, merely kicking the Dragon King’s massive body. Her face was filled with irritation.
“I told you not to damage my clothes. Was that so hard? Huh?”
Thwack!
His right wing.
“Was it?”
Thwack!
His left wing.
Impaled by three massive swords, the Dragon King could do nothing but scream, pinned like a taxidermy specimen.
“Why aren’t you answering? Does it hurt? Hey. You want to answer for your friend?”
Leah asked, turning around. Having taken more damage than expected, the Blood King had lost his reason and was charging at her, his body liquefied into a mass of blood.
“You don’t look like you can answer either.”
She dodged the Blood King’s claws and kicked his leg.
Normally, a simple physical attack should have passed right through his fluid body, but strangely, Leah’s didn’t. The moment her kick made contact with the blood, it forced that part to materialize, and the now-solid leg was cleanly severed by her kick.
“Kuaargh?!”
Watching the Blood King cry out in pain as both his legs were cut off, Leah created a sword with a different mana composition than any she had shown before.
The Blood King instinctively knew that this sword was incredibly dangerous and must not touch him. But the distance between them was short, and she was not one to miss at this range.
That is, if a tree trunk hadn’t suddenly shot out from the ground and wrapped around her body.
Leah was slightly surprised.
“Didn’t I take your head off earlier?”
The Fairy King had failed to dodge the initial barrage of blades and had been decapitated.
“We have lost. We surrender. Please, stop this.”
“You sound fine for a dead guy. Is this not your main body?”
F-f-fwak!
Several blades pierced the fleeing Blood King’s body. Just as when Leah had kicked him, the impaled parts were forcibly materialized, and he fell from the sky before he could get far.
The Fairy King’s voice was laced with horror and fury as he witnessed the scene.
“What are you doing!? I said we surrender!”
“What is this guy talking about?”
Leah scoffed and flexed her body. The tree trunks restraining her were torn apart with laughable ease.
“Ugh?!”
Seeing her break free so easily, the Fairy King tried to retreat by hiding underground.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
But Leah was faster, creating swords that pierced the Fairy King’s tree trunks.
“Wh-what is this…!”
The Fairy King panicked as the swords struck him. It had become impossible to withdraw his consciousness from the trunks. He finally understood why the Dragon King and the Blood King had been unable to do anything after being hit.
They couldn’t have done anything.
It wasn’t because they were incompetent, but because these swords were just that special.
“Hey, hey. What does you admitting defeat have to do with me kicking your asses? Did we sign a Geneva Convention or something? No, right? We’ve got nothing between us.”
“…Is there something you desire?”
The Fairy King didn’t understand what a Geneva Convention was. He simply inferred from Leah’s words that there was something she wanted.
His guess must have been correct, because Leah beamed.
“Yup. There is.”
“I-is that so? Please, tell me. Anything that is possible—”
“Your soul.”
Leah stabbed a tree trunk with the same sword she had intended to use on the Blood King.
“KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK!!!!?”
The Fairy King screamed, assaulted by a foulness and pain that went beyond the physical to touch the very core of his existence. Leah patted the trunk like a doctor calming a child getting a shot.
“It’s okay. It’ll only hurt for a second.”
“KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK!!!!!”
“There, there. It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t hurt.”
After a long moment of screaming, the tree trunk went limp and drooped, as if it had reverted to an ordinary piece of wood.
The Dragon King, who had been watching, asked with trembling eyes.
“What did you do to the Fairy King…?”
“You’ll get to experience it for yourself. He’s just being a baby; it doesn’t hurt that much, so don’t worr—Uweek!?”
Leah was suddenly struck by a bolt of lightning from the sky and sent flying. After tumbling across the ground several times, she crashed into a deep crater. Feeling a numbness she hadn’t from her fight with the three kings, she muttered weakly.
“Hah, what kind of glorious life did I think I’d have…”
Seriously, where else could you find an Ego Sword as devoted to their master as me?
The master really ought to appreciate this more.
Grumbling, she pushed herself to her feet and shouted.
“Master, the bastards you were waiting for are here! So get your ass out here already!”