Chapter 352: The Anointed (2)
Chapter 352: The Anointed (2)
My attack and The Enemy’s collided.
And for the first time in a long while, a familiar sensation traveled up my arms.
The feeling of two attacks clashing with almost equal power, their forces shattering against one another.
It wasn't that I hadn't faced enemies capable of matching my strength recently.
The Gray Eater, or the Magic Kingdom Guard, for instance.
I had met several who could hold their own against my power for a short time.
However, most of them relied on the sheer mass of their gargantuan forms.
Or they used magic, espers, or anomalous means like Otherworld Erosion.
Lieutenant General Par had blocked my attacks by nullifying them, but that felt more like the attack itself was being erased.
The Heavenly Sword had held back my strikes, but that was a case of matching the power of a single hammer blow with an overwhelming volume of dozens of sword ki strikes because he was being pushed back one-on-one.
This, however, was different. This was the clean sensation of pure, equal forces clashing and breaking.
A refreshing mutual destruction born from the collision of raw strength against raw strength.
How long had it been since I felt this?
For long years, only the sensation of crushing and destroying things had traveled up my hands.
Days where the only feedback I received was the feeling of my emotion-laden strikes being rejected.
As that sensation from past battles and spars surged through my arms, old memories began to resurface.
Memories of an era when I chased nothing but strength, nothing but everyone's future.
Memories of times that were horrific, yet we could still laugh as long as we were with our comrades.
Memories of days that were miserable, yet in the end, we could bite down on lit cigarettes together and say, "I'm glad," came flowing back.
Those are memories of a warrior that can never be revisited, now painted over by other, darker recollections.
A single clash of attacks, yet so many branches of memory followed in its wake.
A laugh bubbled up involuntarily.
I knew the situation was serious.
I knew that if I lost, there would be many sacrifices.
However, even if I were to fall, humanity would not perish.
That Self-proclaimed Messiah said she would swallow the whole world.
But the moment I am defeated, the Public Enemy Designation range will expand.
As soon as the Geneva Branch is released from isolation, countless Heroes will swarm in to eliminate her.
And through many sacrifices, humanity will survive once again.
They won't go extinct, though corpses will pile up and blood will flow.
Such a heavy burden was placed upon my shoulders.
Yet, I couldn't stop laughing.
In the midst of it all.
Skreeeeeeek.
The Pry Bar scraped down The Hammer.
Its claw aimed to snag the handle of my hammer.
I tried to shake it off with a slight flick of my wrist, but the Pry Bar was stuck to The Hammer as if glued.
To that, I responded.
"Let's not play petty tricks!"
I let out a shout laced with laughter, grabbed The Hammer head with my left hand, and thrust both arms upward.
Clang!
The sound of metal grinding metal stopped, replaced by the loud thud of the claw catching the handle.
This probably wasn't the Self-proclaimed Messiah's original goal.
She likely intended to snag The Hammer with the claw and force the weapon out of my hands.
Or perhaps she planned to drag it into a long-term struggle and burn me with the flames attached to the Pry Bar.
Or maybe she intended to seal both our weapons and, like I often do, drive a fist into me in the opening.
Those were the schemes that came to mind.
There might have been some brilliant tactic The Enemy thought of that I hadn't.
Regardless, that path was now blocked.
"Hyah!"
Due to the most ordinary laws of physics.
The Hammer, held like a horizontal bar, soared high into the air.
And the Pry Bar hooked onto the handle leaped into the void along with it.
Along with The Enemy who held it.
The Enemy was launched from the ground into the air.
As if she truly had no special abilities as she claimed, she spun helplessly in the air, falling.
Unable to create even a single foothold.
Just like me.
"Haha."
I laughed.
I really couldn't stop laughing.
The gaze of the falling, spinning enemy locked onto me.
Even if she couldn't maintain her posture, she refused to lose sight of her foe.
Yes, that's how it should be.
Even if our thought processes, personalities, and memories differ.
That thing is my double.
Unlike Yumil, who was made based on me but grew up entirely differently.
This was my opposite, my Inverse Phase, born from a desire connected to me.
For someone like me, who lacks even a common aerial foothold ability, I cannot actively deal with a fall.
That's why my basic tactic is to bond my feet to the earth, allowing my small body to swing a weapon of immense mass and maintain a ground war.
But in a fight against an entity of great power, that bond is torn away all too easily.
Therefore, being in the air is my weakness and, at the same time, the situation I must be most mindful of.
If an attack comes, grit your teeth and endure it.
Do not look away from the pain.
Erase from your mind the tactical struggle that will inevitably follow, where only bad moves remain.
If you struggle in the air to prevent a moment's pain.
If you think about the bad future that follows.
Then being launched into the air truly becomes a losing move.
Endure the pain with your sturdy body.
Even if you have to give up an arm, return to the ground.
To do that, do not take your eyes off The Enemy.
Instead of wasting time blocking minor attacks, find The Enemy’s position.
Something only I can do.
Something I must never teach my disciples, and something they must never do.
To me, the snipes and follow-up attacks that pierce me while I'm airborne are merely wounds.
To my disciples, they are a death sentence.
Choosing the worst option—death—is something only I, whose body places me in a distant realm, can afford to do.
And my enemy was doing exactly that.
Aiming solely to return to the ground.
Even in the chaotic, rotating fall, she never lost sight of me.
That's why.
I ran.
Toward the spot where The Enemy would land.
I lowered my posture to the extreme, enough for The Hammer to scrape the ground that no longer existed, and dashed forward.
The Enemy, dancing in the void, came down.
Her gaze fixed on me.
Holding the Pry Bar aloft, though it lacked proper leverage.
Right, she's determined to at least block this attack.
But it's already over.
"Kid, you're not coming down yet!"
Boom!
Since there was no one else around, I had long since released my limiters without restraint.
An upward swing packed with an impact that, if it hit squarely, might send someone soaring into space.
It collided with The Enemy’s Pry Bar, which held a force that was weak compared to mine, backed by the power of the earth.
Once again, The Enemy was launched into the sky.
Into the heavens where she could not control her body.
I knew it was a bit malicious.
If this had happened to me, I would have been cursing up a storm internally.
At least I have a transforming hammer and could stop this hellish infinite combo using the afterburners.
But The Enemy’s weapon is a Pry Bar.
Unless it has some special ability, this attack...
"...Dammit, why is everything I think lately wrong?"
Even as I cursed, I smiled.
Because The Enemy was dealing with this "perfect" attack I had envisioned.
Whoosh!
Fire erupted everywhere.
The waterfall of oil pouring from the void caught fire.
A massive blaze bloomed across the entire oily sky.
Right, the oil wasn't just for show.
I can't interact with the oil at all, but to The Enemy, the oil is something real.
The Enemy drove her Pry Bar into the oil pouring from the air and came to a halt in mid-air.
Then, hanging in the void, she stared intently at me.
A brief moment of scouting after a short exchange.
Now, I wonder what The Enemy will do next.
Without hiding the smile on my lips, I stared back at her.
About three seconds passed.
The Enemy took action.
Fwoosh!
The flames on the Pry Bar grew even larger.
The entire waterfall of oil she was hanging from was engulfed in flames.
What is she doing? Self-immolation?
While I was momentarily bewildered by a move I hadn't anticipated.
The Self-proclaimed Messiah was sucked into the burning oil.
In the moment I lost sight of The Enemy and failed to grasp her intent.
Splat!
Along with the sound of massive, viscous oil moving.
"Crazy."
A sight worth swearing at unfolded.
The sky was falling.
A massive amount of oil, clad in red light, poured over my head like a giant slime monster.
What happens if that hits?
Oil doesn't interact with me.
The fire on the Pry Bar interacts with me.
But is there any guarantee that burning oil like that won't interact with me?
If the oil in that state still has no effect on me, I only need to deal with the flames.
But if it does have an effect, then that is a weapon of immense mass.
Something that must be blocked.
That brief thought flashed through my mind.
I have to block it.
That was the judgment I made.
If only the flames affect me, it's a wasted effort and I'll lose the tactical exchange.
But if that thing affects me and I just take it, I'm definitely screwed.
It was such a massive amount of oil that it forced that thought.
Thump. Thump.
I planted both legs firmly on the ground.
I raised my hammer high.
And I spun it in a circle.
To knock away the oil and disperse the flames around me.
There was still time before the oil reached me.
But since I needed to "warm up" to accelerate while maintaining centrifugal force, I entered a defensive stance without judging whether the oil would interact or not.
Squelch.
Finally, the oil touched The Hammer.
Along with a heavy sensation.
Tsk. It does have an effect.
That thought was fleeting.
Soon, I couldn't even spare a thought for it.
A massive amount of oil pressed down on me.
Along with searing fire.
Enduring the pain and the weight, I swung.
Believing that the falling sky would eventually end.
In the process, splatters of burning oil fell onto my body.
A burning pain seared my flesh, but I didn't stop.
Because I couldn't let the weight crush me.
Because I knew that if I stopped, a pain incomparable to this would follow.
I swung my weapon in a trance.
And at the moment I felt the force on The Hammer lighten.
Below.
That intuition raced through me.
I slammed The Hammer, which had been rotating above my head, straight down.
Clang—!
A sound rang out, not quite as loud as the massive force behind it would suggest.
The sound of the burning Pry Bar, thrust upward from below, colliding with the oil-soaked hammer.
There stood my enemy, her skin raw and soaked in oil just like mine.
To avoid the continuous attacks after being launched into the air, she had thrown herself into the burning oil.
Even while burning like that, she had aimed for my opening, snuck beneath my line of sight, and thrust her dagger at me.
Her expression came into view.
A face turned dark red and covered in blisters, raw from the flames.
But she was smiling.
I probably had the exact same face.
I don't know why she was smiling.
But I knew why I was.
It was fun.
I was happy.
Yes, surely. It used to be like this in the old days.
With all my might, I swung The Hammer.
In this place, there is no one to get in my way.
I can pour out all my strength.
In this place, there are no bizarre gimmicks to interfere with the heat of battle.
No magic, no espers, no special abilities, no Otherworld Erosion.
All that exists are the weapons held in our hands.
And the pure strength coming from our own robust bodies.
Granted, there is the existence of oil, which I cannot use and which works in The Enemy’s favor.
But in exchange, I have my hammer, don't I?
Not a perfectly identical fight, but a delicious seasoning born from a subtly irregular situation.
Immersed in that battle, I wore a grin.
Clang.
Clang. Cl-cl-cl-clang.
Now, the initial carelessness was gone from both of us.
Weapons were swung. They collided.
Burning oil obstructed our vision.
The Hammer, laden with power, pushed back the oil and closed in on The Enemy.
The battle continued.
Even if arms broke, skin was crushed, and bodies were ruined.
The exchange did not stop.
The power to gouge the earth, slaughter those around us, and topple cities.
Here, it was just the force contained in a single attack.
No one could interfere with this duel.
With no one else around, I could use all my strength happily.
I unleashed the spar I had longed for right here.
I'm glad no one else is here.
Because this is so much fun.
"Are you happy right now?"
In the midst of the ongoing exchange, I felt like I heard such a voice.
Whether she actually said it, I couldn't be sure.