The Last Life
Was it because it had already been taken down seven times?
Thalaze, now a pond, didn't reappear right away—it merely rippled in place. Beside it, Prince shouted tauntingly.
[Come on out! Scared? You're scared, aren't you? If you don't come out, I'm coming in after you!]
And from a little ways off, watching quietly, Simon's pupils narrowed to slits.
Don't tell me—
His thoughts were short and his actions faster. Simon opened his subspace, and six Overlord blades surged up from the ground beneath his feet all at once, launching his body high into the night sky.
[My Lord?]
[Hey, why are you going up?]
Simon, flying up through the night wind, gripped the greatsword's hilt tight and drew in a long breath.
Looking down, he saw the flow of the rippling pond growing more and more violent.
Here it comes!
Sure enough, the pond erupted upward, and Thalaze shot into the air in a straight line, shaped like a massive drill.
I knew it would come out like this.
Simon bit down hard, steeling himself, and swung the Sword of Ruin down with every ounce of strength he had.
Thalaze rocketing up, Simon falling down—the two collided midair.
BOOOOOM!
A tremendous shockwave burst outward, shaking trees and grass to their roots.
Simon was descending in his follow-through stance, and above him, from the tip of the drill to its very end, Thalaze could be seen splitting evenly in half.
[NICE!!!]
[My Lorrd-!]
Prince threw both hands up in a triumphant cheer. Erzsébet drank in the sight of Simon descending through the air, his shadowed cape billowing, her face rapturous.
Only two left now!
Simon turned, panting hard.
But—
Suuuuurrr.
The halves of Thalaze's body, split apart in midair, flowed back together into one, reforming the shape of a great pond.
It can resurrect in the air too—!
THWOOOM!
From within, Thalaze's true body—two lives remaining—burst out.
Simon was still descending and couldn't pursue immediately, so Erzsébet and Prince cried out in alarm and gave chase with their spiders and zombies in tow.
[Thalaze. Must survive. Mutate as situation demands.]
Squelch, squelch.
Membranes spread from both of Thalaze's arms like bat wings, reaching down to its waist. It beat them up and down vigorously as it descended.
[Thalaze. Died eight times. Eleven total. But all survived.]
Thalaze specialized in aquatic combat at sea, but it was not a creature capable of true flight.
Gliding down through the air to put a vast distance between them, Thalaze transformed once more into the small four-legged beast shape and tore across the grassland. The moment it reached the sea, it was confident it would escape without fail.
Tap-tap-tap!
[Must survive. Report to Magnus.]
It ran blindly, eyes fixed ahead—then Thalaze's keen senses picked up the presence of a person.
Ahead, a man was walking toward it, robes streaming behind him. It looked like one of those 'Watchers'—the ones who kept popping up to be a nuisance every time Thalaze scouted this forest.
Thalaze's mouth split open, unleashing a threatening roar meant to say move.
Any ordinary person would have frozen in terror at the roar alone and backed away, but the robed man simply stopped walking and crouched down. It was here that Thalaze realized something had gone terribly wrong.
WHAM!
The man's fist, flying like a flash of light, slammed into Thalaze's abdomen.
Crunch!
The sound of something inside its body snapping rang out with terrible force. Thalaze's body caved inward and went tumbling across the grass.
[Warning. Withdraw.]
It had to get out of here before those 7th Legion bastacks caught up. Thalaze's body swelled, transforming into a menacing, five-meter-long monster.
[Withdraw.]
TANG!
But even at the final warning, the man kicked off the ground and leapt into the air.
His posture in midair was strange. Chest thrust out, both arms stretched straight, head thrown back so far it nearly touched his spine, both legs bent back to the point of touching the back of his skull.
It was the stance of a compressed spring gathering its strength.
⟨ Kajan Original – Top ⟩
Holding that exact stance, both arms snapped forward and crossed in an X. Ten claw-marks shredded Thalaze's torso to ribbons, cleaving through its upper body, lower body—even its neck.
Under that assault, Thalaze's body collapsed entirely, melting back into a pond.
"Kajan!"
Simon, appearing overhead by stepping from branch to branch, called out with a bright grin.
"Thank you for coming!"
"Glad I wasn't late."
Erzsébet, arriving hot on Simon's heels, scrunched up her face.
[You again, I see?]
"It's been a while."
The two of them knew each other from the joint investigation before the Saintess incident.
Prince, the last to arrive, on the other hand, jolted at the sight of Kajan and snapped into a combat stance.
[A-a human?!]
"Kajan's fine, Prince. He's—"
Grrrrrgle!
The pond began churning again, and everyone fell silent, warily fixing their eyes on it.
"It transformed right after taking my hit."
"Yes, I saw it too."
Only one life remained now.
Catch this one, and it was over.
Just then, Thalaze's voice drifted up from the pond.
[Thalaze. Died nine times. Only once. But survived.]
The pond shrank in an instant.
Everyone was raising every drop of their Jet-Black, preparing their attacks to hunt down the emerging Thalaze when—
SHWAAAAAAA!
The pond suddenly expanded. It swallowed Simon and the three others whole, spreading out to a radius of several hundred meters—and at the same moment, their bodies began to sink.
[Kgh!]
Erzsébet tried to pull her legs free, but it was no use. It was as if she'd been glued to the bottom—not a muscle would move.
SHRRRRR!
Before long, the center of the pond bulged upward, and the largest Thalaze they had ever seen revealed itself.
[Plan revised. Kill everything. Then survive.]
When Thalaze swept both arms downward, the bodies of Simon, Kajan, and the Ancient Undead all sank at once toward the bottom of the pond.
Glub-glub-glub.
Simon held his breath and looked around.
They were inside a murky, foul-smelling pond. The bones of beasts and unidentifiable refuse drifted lazily all around.
There was a bottom, too, and across it grew black, filthy moss that swayed with the current. It looked grotesquely like a human arm beckoning—this way, come here—and it sent a chill up his spine.
"Something's wrong with this pond. There's no swimming out of it."
Kajan was stroking furiously, but his limbs merely churned in place, carrying him nowhere.
Simon looked up. Above them, the enormous Thalaze was swirling its Jet-Black-laden arms, clearly plotting something sinister.
[Boy! Look down!]
At Pier's shout, Simon's head snapped down.
From the bottom of the pond, out of the dark moss, countless tooth-lined piranhas were swarming in like a hornet's nest. It was as if a pitch-black wave were crashing through the depths of the pond.
[Gah! There's so many of them!]
[I cannot even spin my webs down here! What shall we do?]
"......"
Instead of answering, Simon slowly gripped the Sword of Ruin and lowered it. Blue-black flames blazed up at once in Pier's helm and in Simon's eyes.
"Go, Pier."
[Kreh-heh-heh!]
Slowly swaying the greatsword he held in both hands left and right, Simon drew it back behind him in a wind-up stance, then began pouring all of his strength and every thread of Jet-Black into the blade.
KUGUGUGUGUGUGUGU!
The Jet-Black gathered, and the water roiled in waves.
A colossal flash erupted from the Sword of Ruin, lighting up the dark pond as bright as noonday.
Slowly.
Simon's body rode the raging current of the pond, spinning as though sliding along it. As his two downward-pointing legs tilted to the left, his arms moved in unison, dragging the greatsword down.
KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA!
The greatsword began to carve a giant circle.
A massive line that split space itself trailed in the blade's wake, and everything it touched was cleaved in two. The piranha shoals were deleted outright; the writhing moss and the pond floor split apart like a crevasse.
The recoil of wielding such enormous force wrung a groan from between Simon's teeth and sent blood rushing to his head, but he gritted down and kept driving the power forward.
The slash, having split the pond floor, began to rise.
Its final destination. Simon's gaze was already locked on Thalaze above the water.
Through space itself—
The greatsword's tip, drawn around by centrifugal force, swept past the bottom and arced toward the sky as Simon's body plunged downward.
Feeling his consciousness blur at the edges, Simon roared inside his mind.
The sensation of cutting!
SHWOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The blazing white trajectory split pond and sky alike, and everything between them—Thalaze's body included—was bisected from head to toe as it passed.
The ensuing shockwave shook the pond and the Forbidden Forest to their core.
-KREEEEEEEAGH!
Thalaze's two arms flailed skyward, then its split body crumbled to pieces and rained down.
The four of them swam clear of the falling debris.
[PWHAH!]
"Khh!"
With Thalaze destroyed, they could finally surface.
The pond had shrunk considerably. Erzsébet sent out webs and hauled all four of them up out of the water at once, carrying them to safe, solid ground.
Even in that moment the pond kept shrinking, until it became a lump of gore and dwindled to a tiny dot on the ground.
Gurgle.
Out of the pond-turned-dot came a steady gush of pulped organs and corpses, and then the pond vanished entirely.
[We are victorious! We caught all ten!]
[We did it!!]
Erzsébet and Prince cheered. Simon was so exhausted he simply crumpled to the ground where he stood.
Kajan came over.
"Good work."
"Ah—thank you so much for the help."
Simon managed a weary smile. He finally felt free of the crushing pressure that had been tightening around his throat.
[Hey! Time for the victory ceremony!]
[O fair maiden, run this instant into our Commander's arms!]
The Ancient Undead swarmed around him. It looked like getting any rest was going to take a while yet.
Tap.
Tap-tap-tap.
Thalaze, now a mouse, was fleeing in a blind panic.
Everything had gone according to plan. On its final life, Thalaze had dragged the members of the 7th Legion into the pond and slipped out in this mouse form—the true body—while its duplicate bought time.
Being down to its last life, it had invested all of its power and energy into that duplicate. It should have held them off long enough. But when Thalaze glanced back, even that powerful duplicate had already been cleaved in two.
They are extraordinarily dangerous.
Stronger than I imagined.
The necromancer presumed to be the Legion Commander looked like a Kizen student, yet he was already that powerful.
If he kept growing, he would become a grave threat to Magnus. He had already forcibly seized the Ancient Undead of the 7th Legion—conflict was inevitable.
It had to report this to Magnus by any means necessary.
The sea! I just have to reach the sea.
As it burst from the forest, a shoreline and a stretch of sand came into view. To Thalaze, the sound of the waves was immensely welcome.
Still in its mouse form, it grew gills along its cheeks and dashed for the water's edge.
[!]
Sensing a human presence, Thalaze instantly hid itself behind a rock.
Someone was there.
At this late hour, alone on the moonlit shore, walked a black-haired girl.
She carried an air that defied description. Her face looked tired, as if she'd just woken from a nap, and she wore nothing but a white dress, barefoot on the sand.
She raised a communication crystal.
"Yes, Mom."
Her voice carried on the night air.
"Yes, I'm out where you told me to be. What is it, at this hour of the night. ...Ugh, you always work me to the bone. Yes. Yes, I got it."
Thalaze held its breath and waited.
It had no idea what that human was, but there was nothing to gain from being discovered.
Keep walking. Just keep walking.
Chak.
Tossing the communication crystal into her subspace, the girl walked along the beach, black hair streaming behind her.
"I hold no grudge against you, but—"
Somewhere along the way, a deep-red dagger had appeared in her hand.
"—die."
SHWIP!
The shriek of the blade tearing through the air sent Thalaze scrambling backward. The dagger split the rock clean open and buried itself in the sand.
[I belong to Magnus's Legion. I am Thalaze.]
Thalaze spoke in a rush.
[If you are a necromancer. I request that you state your allegiance.]
Chak. Chak.
The girl came closer, her bare white feet pressing into the waterlogged sand.
"Allegiance?"
As she stopped walking, her eyes turned a feral, glowing red, like a wild animal's in the dark.
Then, behind her, on that moonlit stretch of beach, space yawned open like a mouth—and from within the darkness, pairs of crimson eyes, identical to hers, flickered to life, one after another.
"Daughter of some meddling mother."
From the abyssal dark, a crimson pillar—dense enough with condensed energy to defy comprehension—poured down in a straight line.
THUD.
Thalaze, fleeing for its life, was finally swallowed by one of the countless red pillars and vanished.
It was Thalaze's first failed mission—and its very last.