Empress vs. Hero (2)
The crimson asteroid slowly swallowed the earth. In truth it was plummeting at tremendous speed from above the stratosphere, but its sheer bulk made the descent feel almost leisurely.
Regardless, that blazing red meteor carried a murderous force that looked ready to reduce the Hero to ash.
The colossal mass filling every corner of the sky was a catastrophe capable of annihilating not a village but an entire major city. It had not even touched the ground, and already a vast thermal storm was savagely scouring the surface below.
"Dimension Cube."
"Dimension Cube"
⟨ Spatial Containment ⟩
After casting Meteor, Piel chanted a support spell, and a transparent barrier immediately unfurled, wrapping wide around the impact zone. It was meant to keep the explosion from spreading outward and to maximize the magic's power by confining it to a narrowed space.
KWA-KWA-KWA-KWANG!
As the meteor closed in, its force grew even more savage. And to make matters worse, the catastrophe was not singular. Above it, four or five more red shooting stars of similar size were already glowing as they fell.
"Hoh…"
Yet even as those searing miniature suns streaked toward him, the Hero's expression remained remarkably calm. He merely let out a murmur of admiration as he watched the reddened sky.
He'd taken her for a girl who merely showed off with magic and swordplay — yet here she was, wielding power worthy of a sage. And she wasn't even a transmigrator from another world. Lucas felt, just a little, a flicker of awe toward Piel.
"Wouldn't be right to just stand here and take it."
She'd staged such a spectacle for him. As a man, he ought to answer a lady's passionate attention. The Hero adjusted his grip on the Holy Sword in reply.
Sacred power shaped like a blade stretched out for hundreds of meters. By ordinary standards that alone would have been a formidable manifestation — but set against the falling asteroids, its presence was almost insignificant.
Seogeok.
Its actual power, however, was another matter entirely. When the Hero's Holy Sword drew a line across the sky, a mighty sacred shockwave invisible to the eye shot forth and effortlessly shattered the meteor from within.
For all its majestic force, the Meteor was stopped as if it were nothing. He repeated the motion two or three more times, and every last asteroid crumbled into fragments.
KWA-KWA-KWA-KWANG!
Even the larger shards measured dozens of meters and carried no ordinary destructive force. But to a transmigrator Hero, they were less than pebbles.
Lucas swatted away a few of the more bothersome pieces, then — apparently finding it tedious — simply took the rest head-on. The boulders that struck him failed to leave so much as a scratch; they could not overcome the Hero's durability and were ground to dust against him. It was a body so monstrous it was hard to believe he was human.
What… what the hell is that…?
Despair flickered across the Empress's face, which until now had known no restraint. The magic she had just cast had been a finishing move delivered with everything she had. And he had taken even that as if it were nothing. Hero or not — wasn't this going too far?
She had not always been the one on top, the inevitable victor. There had been a time when she was weaker than her father, Viscount Bayorn, and a time when she had looked up to the Grand Duke of the North, the strongest swordsman alive. But she had always carried a vague hope that someday she would surpass them. And that imagination had, in fact, become reality.
But this Hero was already, in the category of raw power, a god who had far transcended the level of mortals. Those eerily glowing golden eyes seemed to declare that the gap between them would never close.
If there had been even the smallest opening, she would have driven into it and searched for a thread of victory. But it would not be easy. Half her mana was already gone, and the Hero watching her wore a clear sneer on his lips. His demeanor was the picture of leisure.
No matter how fierce a temperament, no matter what adversities a hero had overcome — this was a gulf of sheer physical power that left no choice but to feel helpless. And so Piel's spirit was no longer what it had been at the start.
"……"
Tension mounting, cold sweat ran down the bridge of her pale nose. Both hands gripping the greatsword and the halberd began to tremble faintly of their own accord. It was an unfathomable wall she was feeling for the first time in her life.
And yet.
"UAAAAH!"
Piel had to scream and charge the Hero at full speed. Was it even conceivable that a barbarian daughter of Bayorn would feel fear before the criminal bastard who had violated her mother? She should be stoking her killing intent, not this.
Better to bite her tongue and die than surrender. Failing that, she had to keep both hands busy fighting back. Whatever the outcome, her will to struggle must not die until she fell.
No — she must not fall either.
Her defeat would mean this scoundrel would rape her mother.
For Piel, who loved her mother, defeat was not something that could be allowed.
Jjeok! Jjeok!
The Empress's monstrous strength, gripping the halberd with both hands, crashed against the Hero's Holy Sword. Every collision of their weapons sent savage tremors through the earth, and when she parried, the ground caved in beneath them.
Shuuuk.
Even so, the greatsword with a will of its own drove full force into the gaps in the Hero's defense.
Chantless Fire Magic
"Lagna Blast!"
Chantless magic poured out without stop. Every time the Empress opened her mouth, magma erupted beneath the Hero's feet. The number of times she had spoken had to be dozens at the very least.
"UOOOH!"
Martial technique as a warrior, a sword that flew through the sky, and magic firing without rest — the multi-pronged assault that crashed down like a storm with desperate screams was beyond what mortal senses could handle…
"KHAHAH!"
But for a Hero with the unfair cheat abilities of another world, it was not entirely impossible. He was rather pleased that, for the first time in this other world, something resembling an actual fight was taking place.
Kwang! Kwang!
And every time the light-radiating Holy Sword clashed with the blazing halberd, it was inevitably the latter that was driven back.
This insane monster bastard…
Since coming of age, Piel had never been overpowered by anyone. That included giants and dragons, not just humans.
Yet this Hero still had plenty of strength left — and he wasn't even putting his full power into it. Beating back his sword was crushingly difficult.
I can't drag this out.
The difference in raw strength was severe, and mana wasn't something she could draw infinitely the way he seemed to with sacred power. Dragging things out because she was outmatched would not produce an answer.
She had to avoid matching his leisure and settling into a long fight. That would just make her a toy for him to toy with. The right move was to pour out everything without holding back and end the battle in a single decisive strike.
"Hup—!"
Piel let out a shout and took a wood-chopping stance. A halberd was a versatile weapon capable of thrusting, slashing, and overhead strikes. Of those, the most devastating was naturally the overhead chop.
The greatsword briefly held off the rain of Holy Sword strikes. In that short window, Piel contracted her deltoids and biceps to the extreme, gathering her power.
Hwareureuk!
White flames — beyond red, searingly fierce — began to rise from the overheated blade of the halberd.
"HAAAT!"
Piel cried out and brought everything she had down on the Hero's front.
Kung! Kung! Kung! Kung! Kung!
"UAAAAH!!!"
A noble lady, a young miss of the aristocracy, casting off every shred of dignity in a relentless barrage of spear strikes. The Empress poured into her halberd the pure will to protect her goddess no matter what, and hammered the Hero's skull again and again.
"Ow, fuck, that's ringing my skull."
Had the axe-blows born of that tremendous inertia actually worked? A crack appeared in Lucas's previously unflappable expression. The iron-blooded Empress who had dominated countless wars would never miss this opening.
Self-Acceleration Magic
"Haste."
Piel accelerated herself, then gripped the shaft of the halberd and began spinning furiously. With each revolution the acceleration built, until at last she became a blazing vortex of fire itself.
KWA-DEUDEUDEUK!
The Whirlwind, loaded with extreme acceleration, was in its very existence a perfect fusion of offense and defense. In mere seconds, hundreds of consecutive strikes shredded the Hero's body like a blender.
The Empress felt the dull impact force in her hands and knew the assault was having real effect — and she kept spinning furiously, then concentrated all the rotational force she had built up into the tip of the halberd blade—
JJEONG!
—and drove it with everything she had into the Hero's face.
PAAANG—!
The tremendous gravitational collapse that followed swallowed both figures whole.