Chapter 353: The Anointed (3)
Chapter 353: The Anointed (3)
The battle rages on.
How much time has passed?
Perhaps not that much at all.
Once the battle began and the limiters were released, time lost its meaning as my level of power ascended. It became impossible to tell for sure.
Strikes with enough force to shatter space were swung dozens of times in a single heartbeat.
The Enemy met them in kind, wielding her flaming oil and her Pry Bar.
Suppressed emotions explode.
An overwhelming sense of liberation consumes my body.
The power to destroy the world single-handedly.
That power, which I had held back for so long, begins to accelerate and swell.
And in response, the power of the Self-proclaimed Savior begins to rise as well.
Like a mirror.
I don't pay it any mind.
I say "like a mirror," but the increase in The Enemy’s power is slower than mine.
She called it an Inverse Phase, but she and I are different beings.
She was born from me, so she seems to be influenced by me, but there must be a limit.
As time flows and my power amplifies without end, the Self-proclaimed Savior begins to be pushed back.
Before long, her Pry Bar, unable to withstand the impact of my hammer, is knocked aside.
Once every few hundred exchanges, a strike she fails to block slams into her defenseless body.
The Enemy uses her oil to cover the gap in strength, but the cracks that have begun to form will only grow larger.
And so, I continue to build my strength, climbing toward the ceiling of an endless tower that even I cannot fathom.
To widen those cracks. To strike down my enemy.
I have long since surpassed the limits of the power I predicted.
The ceiling I thought I could reach was merely a space shrouded in darkness where light could not touch; far above that, in the distant upper reaches, another darkness exists.
A space submerged in gloom that I have never stepped foot in.
How long must I keep climbing?
My body is already self-destructing.
My arm bones shatter as the price for my attacks.
My Cognitive Acceleration, pushed to its limit, burns my brain.
The footwork required to close the distance with The Enemy dislocates my joints and crushes my bones, making the very concept of "taking a step" obsolete.
However, there was something I didn't expect.
My regeneration accelerates to match.
As Zess said, the process of comparing myself to my "whole" self is shortened by my infinitely accelerated brain.
In the brief moments between consecutive actions, my body restores itself instantaneously.
Streaks of mana, signaling regeneration, scatter incessantly.
Like a campfire burning toward its end, I spray a massive amount of sparks in every direction.
To my eyes, they look like fireflies, like the Milky Way—mere dust motes of light.
But to an outsider, wouldn't I look like a whirling canister of fire from a folk game?
A being advancing while draped in golden embers of mana.
One who destroys his own feet to launch himself toward a target.
One who breaks his feet again to stop that acceleration, steps on the ground with a newly regenerated foot, and swings his hammer at the cost of an arm.
That is what I am now.
Against this power, any ordinary O-Rank enemy—regardless of their special abilities—would be crushed before they could even show a glimpse of their strength, unless they possessed absolute physical immunity like Lieutenant General Par.
But the Self-proclaimed Savior was no pushover.
She gave up on facing me head-on.
If my power is 100, hers is 98, so a direct confrontation wouldn't be impossible for her.
Yet, instead of a continuous exchange of blows in one spot, she began to target my openings.
I held a massive power in my hands, the likes of which I had never seen.
But because I had never experienced such power, my attacks were simple and linear.
She toys with me.
She evades my linear strikes with nimble footwork.
She parries the swings of my infinitely accelerated hammer with a Pry Bar imbued with a momentary burst of reinforcement.
Unlike me, she seems to have no burden in using her strength, as if her physique is inherently robust.
This, too, is a difference between us.
She also has regenerative abilities, but they aren't as fast as mine.
Instead, she has a body capable of enduring her own power.
And so, the balance is maintained.
Me, draped in even more massive power, relying on instinct to crush my enemy as my technique vanishes.
And her, whose power balance has been broken, but who can still utilize her techniques.
In exchange for gaining a slight advantage, the nature of the battle changed.
Still, I have the upper hand.
It’s like an action game where I am the massive, powerful boss with linear movements, and The Enemy is the player lightly dodging and looking for openings.
But my attacks are too heavy and too fast for The Enemy to simply brush off a single charge.
To deflect The Hammer, The Enemy must also exert a massive amount of force.
Whenever we collide, dozens, hundreds of exchanges occur on the spot.
And when a gap appears in The Enemy’s balance of power, my hammer slams into that spot.
In those moments, The Enemy either fails to dodge and is struck, or evades as if she had anticipated it.
The battle is a repetition of this cycle.
To see the end of this fight, I continue to grow my strength.
Longing for a power so strong it cannot be parried, a power to destroy The Enemy.
And so, time flows once more.
In terms of the number of attacks exchanged, an eternity passes.
In terms of normal time, I can't be sure since there's nothing around to indicate its passage.
But the moment my broken internal clock perceives that only a few minutes have passed.
Finally, the balance collapsed.
In terms of raw power, it was probably 100 to 90.
At the moment when the widening gap in power could no longer be covered by technique or strategy.
"Cough."
My own familiar voice echoed hollowly.
The lukewarm, fishy taste of iron began to flow past my lips.
The balance had broken.
The one judged by The Scales to have the greater power was The Savior with 90.
At the end of this massive amplification of power.
The tower, whose ceiling was still not in sight, presented me with a trial.
It told me that I could not climb any higher with this body.
That even if I did, The End would be ruin.
My regeneration cannot keep up.
My body is collapsing.
This is my limit.
Even if I am immortal as long as my will exists.
This is a place I can no longer ascend.
A boundary that one who lays their body in reality cannot reach.
No, perhaps it's simply a side effect of me never having reached this level before.
If I could regenerate more efficiently, if I could get used to this power and make the flow of mana cleaner, I might ascend to an even higher state.
But that is impossible.
At this point, my power is already...
If I weren't in this severed space, my mere existence would destroy everything around me.
Every step is a meteor; every muscle movement cleaves the earth.
A level where training is impossible.
Maybe I should stop here.
Just a moment ago. I could endure it until I placed one more footprint on the tower's stairs.
So, I could just stop climbing.
I could be satisfied with 100 to 90 and settle there.
But the composition of my power does not allow it.
My power is an engine without brakes, simply moving forward.
The more intense the emotion, the more it becomes power.
And that power, in turn, gives birth to new emotions.
To stop the emotion is to let it cool.
To maintain the emotion is to keep burning.
Because I was born with a destiny that does not allow me to stay in one place.
If I stop, the power will quickly fade.
Then, must I endure?
To move forward in a situation where power is decreasing rather than increasing because I've started to break? Impossible.
Then, should I cool down slightly and then flare up again?
I know where the danger zone is, so I just need to adjust accordingly.
Maintaining that state is impossible, but it is possible to drop down like falling off a ladder and then climb back up from there.
But can I do that?
With these precarious Scales, where I don't know if I'll beat The Enemy or not?
Even amidst such worries, the smile does not leave my lips.
A realm I could not reach.
Because I have now grasped the realm that lies beyond.
A place on the other side that I could never behold if I were in reality.
A conceptual place beyond the darkness, with an end, transcending physical force.
I have obtained a glimpse of it.
By reaching the limits of the world.
If so, I cannot stop here.
For the goal I must move toward, and to defeat The Enemy and protect the world.
If that is the case. Now. All that remains.
Ptui.
I spat out the blood pooling in my throat and opened my mouth.
"Fine, let's see who wins."
Thud.
I let go of The Hammer.
As a massive shockwave spread outward and the Self-proclaimed Messiah retreated to avoid it.
"Let's take this to the very end."
With lips where the blood had begun to dry, I whispered a vow to myself.
The golden particles that had been repairing my body began to turn a murky black.
In the darkness, a red metal emitting a faint light appeared in my right hand.
A darkness deeper than Black Oil, deeper than the night itself, enveloped my body.
Shadows of darkness stretched out into the surroundings, greedily beginning to devour power.
A power imbued with a massive, yet incomprehensible will flows in.
I have consumed the power of others before.
The will contained within them hadn't affected me in the slightest.
But this scattered, oil-slick Otherworldly Power whispers to me incessantly.
That everyone must be happy.
That everyone must find their own happiness.
That I must follow that light, as if left alone in an infinite night sky.
To resist it, my consciousness grows dull.
I am beginning to understand the Messiah a little.
As the power I command expands, the boundaries grow faint.
However.
"Hahahaha. Right. So this is what it felt like."
I can't stop laughing.
My body feels light.
I can still soar higher.
This is the body possessed by Otherworldly beings.
The boundary held by beings who were not born human and were originally in a high position.
I leap over it in an instant.
Pop.
The black dress explodes.
Though I am consuming almost all the power.
It seems even a fragment of it is enough to cause a transformation.
And so, I sprout tentacles with a black oily sheen and twisted wings.
As I transform, The Savior watches me and speaks.
"Are you happy now?"
Happy?
I wouldn't know.
I can't even control my own emotions anymore.
But one thing is certain.
"I don't really know what happiness is anymore."
Bang.
I kick off the ground and charge.
My legs are fine.
Now, there is no longer a gap in technique.
"But I do know that this sense of liberation feels damn good!"
Clang. Clang. Clang. Clang.
Weapons collide.
There are no more clean sounds.
With an overwhelming impact, The Enemy’s weapon is sent flying.
The Enemy yields to the force.
She collapses.
The balance shifts to my side in an instant.
The Enemy tries to flee, but even that has become impossible.
I am faster.
I am stronger.
And I am... more.
Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.
Numerous tentacles sprouting from my clothes attack the Self-proclaimed Messiah according to my will.
The Messiah's power is growing as mine does, but it no longer affects this battle.
"Hahahahahahaha!"
The laughter won't stop.
On the upper floors of the tower I have never visited, I savor a fragment of The End.
A conceptual realm that transcends reality.
The sensation of power itself becoming me.
The sensation of power itself becoming my body.
Believing in that.
Upward, toward The Enemy, toward the Public Enemy.
I move forward, forward, forward.
I will eliminate The Adversary.
And I will grasp victory.
In this dark night where I stand alone.
I shall emerge victorious.