Chapter 106: The Beast, the Beast King, and the Human - 2
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 106: The Beast, the Beast King, and the Human - 2
Two claws, imbued with a blue aura, tore through the air. Shei parried the successive slashes, which came with barely a moment's pause, with a simple twist of her wrist.
The weightless sword, Chun-aeng, was a weapon whose inertia only Ebon seemed to feel. One moment it was blocking his left claw, but with a twirl of Shei's wrist, it changed direction and lunged to split his head. Because of this, Ebon had to attack with one hand while keeping the other ready to defend at a moment's notice.
"An invisible weapon. I thought it would be a headache at first."
It was actually a relief that Chun-aeng was invisible. If he hadn't focused on Shei's wrist from the start, his head would have been split open before he ever figured out the sword's secret.
Ebon remarked, lamenting the unfairness of it all.
"It's certainly a fine weapon, far better than you deserve."
"What would you know with that pathetic brain of yours? It's ten times better than you think." Shei sneered coldly and unleashed a wave of sword Qi.
Skyblade Art, Gentle Breeze.
From this moment on, the wind smiled only upon Shei. Chun-aeng descended, cloaked in air. Though the sword was weightless, the vibrating wind was a force in itself.
"Kuh!"
Ebon crossed his claws with both hands to receive the blow. Six blades vibrated violently against the single Chun-aeng. With a powerful shove, Ebon threw the sword back.
He had blocked it, but the moment he used both hands to defend, he had already lost the tactical exchange.
Shei scoffed, and Ebon gritted his teeth.
"You're doing well for someone who took a beating from the Beast King!"
"Oh, this?"
Still smirking, Shei tilted her head. In that instant, her Bloodcraft activated, and the blood that had spilled from her wounds flowed back into her body.
Ebon shouted in shock.
"It was a feint!"
"No, not a feint. I was actually hurt. I just healed."
That fact was no comfort to Ebon. If she had the ability to recover blood and heal her wounds, even slightly, his tactic of gaining an advantage by inflicting minor cuts with his claws was now useless.
"That Cat King of yours didn't run away even after getting pretty banged up. You must have trained her well. Thanks to her, I took some unexpected damage."
"So confident with your little bag of tricks."
He had no choice but to use his second power. Ebon twisted his left wrist and muttered, "Call to Arms, Set."
At that moment, a compact combat arm embedded in his left claw connected to his Bio-receptor. The Bio-receptor, now consuming mana, began to glow.
Clank, clank. A steel frame settled over his skin. Grade-3 Alchemic Steel, shimmering with Alchemical Glow, filled in the gaps.
This wasn't a transformation. Mana and Alchemical Glow flowed through his archaic avatar, allowing Ebon to finish equipping his combat arm in the middle of battle.
Ebon, now wearing a steel helmet, shook his head. Chun-aeng, which had been aiming for his head, was deflected by the single horn on his helmet. Faced with unfamiliar equipment, Shei used the wind to push Ebon back and retreated to assess his new weapon.
Ebon muttered confidently.
"The general's combat arm, Unicorn."
From the claws on both hands to the gauntlets, the chest armor with shoulder guards, the helmet, and the sturdy, non-ornamental horn—it was Ebon's personal equipment, specially crafted by the Military State to protect his upper body while adding another means of attack.
Ebon explained to the silent Shei, his voice echoing from beneath the horned helmet. "You of all people should know. Fighting with claws has the disadvantage of having to expose one's head. Until now, when you aimed for my head, I had to take a defensive stance to block or dodge... But with this combat arm, that's no longer necessary. All that's left is to attack. Well? Think you can stop me?"
Shei tilted her head, her face filled with confusion.
Ebon let out a satisfied smile, but contrary to his expectations, Shei's question wasn't about his capabilities.
"Just as I thought, I've never seen that combat arm before. You didn't steal it, did you? Or is it about to be scrapped because it's junk?"
Sometimes, hearing something so utterly absurd makes one's patience snap. Ebon, uncharacteristically provoked by the rude and bizarre suspicion, shouted back.
"Of course not! I am a Star of the Military State, and my combat arm is an artifact permitted only to a general officer! Just as each star is unique, so too is a general's combat arm!"
"Why? Last time, there wasn't a general with such a stupid-looking combat arm. What the hell? You mean even you guys weren't the masterminds?"
"...What do you mean?"
But Shei's question was one the Ebon of this time couldn't answer. Forgetting the fight, Shei muttered to herself.
"The warden. A man, part of the Human Regime, going on about humanity's great desire. He knew about the Undying and thought only an undying could stop me. And he brought the Beast King."
Fragmented pieces of information spilled from her lips. Hearing her words, Lieutenant General Ebon's gaze grew colder as he asked, "...Humanity's great desire? What do you know?"
Shei could have answered his question, but she had no intention of doing so. She just continued muttering to herself. "And there were two women. It's unclear if that included Azzy, and it's also ambiguous whether the lieutenant colonel was there at the time, so I'll skip that. But roughly all the circumstances fit."
After a long moment of deduction, Shei grew irritated at the puzzle piece that didn't fit.
"Then who the hell is the one who made a mess of the Abyss?! And why did those Human Regime bastards, who call themselves experts on beasts, do that to Azzy? And where did all those corpses come from?!"
Their information crossed paths. Ebon couldn't solve Shei's mystery, and Shei had no intention of solving Ebon's.
In this situation, it was Ebon who found a new purpose. He clashed his claws together, then slowly dragged them against each other, sharpening the blades. Sparks flew from the metal with a grating screech.
"It seems... I'll have to cut off your right arm and interrogate you before you'll talk. Don't worry. I'll leave your left arm with the Bio-receptor. I'll need that for the torture."
A bad memory surfaced, and Shei's face twisted in disgust. Even when a horrific memory that could easily cause PTSD came to mind, her first reaction was irritation—one of her strengths, at least from a Regressor's perspective.
"Why don't you worry about that horn of yours?"
"What you're worried about won't happen. The other parts are Grade-3, but this horn alone is level 4 alchemic steel. I hope you don't get yourself killed by impaling yourself on it by mistake. You have much to tell me."
"No, that's not what I meant. That thing on your head." Shei gave an ominous smile. As she did, her hair began to crackle with sudden static electricity.
Belatedly, Ebon noticed Chun-aeng fluctuating ominously. He also saw that its normally transparent form had darkened, becoming like a storm cloud.
"Doesn't it look like a perfect target? They say a Thunderbird looking for a place to land loves pointy things."
Before Ebon, sensing grave danger, could react, Shei's attack was complete. She swiped her fingers downward, unleashing her power.
Skyblade Art.
Thunderbird.
As if it were predestined, as if no other outcome were possible.
A bolt of lightning struck the unicorn's horn.
"Guaaaaaaaargh—!"
The electric shock coursed through Ebon's body. Forcing his trembling body to obey, he spread Qi throughout his entire being. State Standard Qi Art, Heaven Kata. Deflection.
The Heavenly Counter Domain, capable of deflecting bullets and arrows, manifested across his body. Using the repulsive Qi to momentarily shake off the lightning, he planted his feet firmly on the ground and drew up more Qi.
Standard Qi Art, Earth Kata. Flow.
With his legs rooted to the earth, he spread his Qi, instantly channeling the lightning into the ground. The electrical energy that had been ravaging his body seeped away in an instant.
Having accomplished the feat of grounding a lightning strike, Ebon gasped for breath.
"Hah... Hah..."
But this alone was a devastating loss. He hadn't dodged his opponent's attack but had been forced to endure it, unleashing consecutive Qi Arts that drained his energy immensely.
As Ebon recovered, Shei taunted him. "Looks like you've somehow managed Heaven and Earth. So, have you grasped Water yet? Or do they make anyone a general these days as long as they've mastered Earth?"
"Kugh... You just got lucky and found a powerful artifact! Don't you dare talk down to me as if gaining the upper hand with its power makes you my superior!" Ebon shouted, trying to buy time to recover. But contrary to his expectations, Shei's face contorted in anger.
"Gear-carried?"
He hadn't used those exact words. But faced with her explosive reaction, Ebon couldn't deny it and simply stood still. Shei, fuming, gripped Chun-aeng tightly and glared at him.
"Did you just call me gear-carried?"
Her hostility swelled. Sensing it, Lieutenant General Ebon quickly raised his claws.
She grips Chun-aeng firmly with both hands, winding her arms and raising it behind her shoulder. Simultaneously, she draws up Qi from her entire body.
Her overflowing Qi, accumulated from countless treasures and elixirs, seeps into Chun-aeng.
In that fleeting moment, Shei, now cloaked in an immense aura, roared at Ebon.
"Stop calling me gear-carried, you bastard! I can beat a lieutenant general even without Chun-aeng!"
Heavenly Counter Domain.
The ultimate defensive Qi Art, which engraves movements into the body beforehand to naturally parry even the most unexpected attacks.
However, there was no rule that the engraved movements had to be defensive.
There are more ways to attack than to defend. Attacks must be more varied and tailored to the opponent. Therefore, for a pre-prepared kata like Heavenly Counter Domain, its efficiency in defense is overwhelming.
Indeed, the Qi Art known as Heavenly Counter Domain was designed with that goal in mind.
Still... couldn't there be a few offensive forms? If they were movements that weren't too situational, maybe five of them.
Shei had thought so, and she had acted on it.
One of the five offensive forms Shei had stubbornly created. A descending slash from the left.
Chun-aeng cleaved through space with immense weight. A weightless sword imbued with Qi becomes power itself.
The sword, filled with a verdant blue Qi, was the only sky in this Abyss. Irresistible. Unblockable.
"Deflect—!"
Ebon desperately deployed his Qi to defend himself, but...
...before such overwhelming power, only his claws were sent flying.
The unicorn horn, made of level 4 alchemic steel, snapped. Chun-aeng carved a great gash from his shoulder guard down to his chest armor. It even sliced through the Qi contained within, leaving a blue diagonal line across Ebon's body.
Blood sprayed. Ebon staggered backward.
Shei, momentarily paused by the recoil of the Heavenly Counter Domain's offensive form, took the opportunity of the newly created distance to observe her opponent rather than pursue.
It was thanks to his Qi Deflection that he had avoided a fatal wound. The Qi spread across his body had pushed him back at the moment of impact, allowing him to protect his ribs from Chun-aeng's trajectory.
It was a grievous wound, but he had saved his life.
Ebon spat out blood along with a lament. "...Damn it... Sunderspear... To drop... a monster like this... without even neutralizing her..."
Shei muttered indifferently, "If you knew, you should have come better prepared."
Ebon laughed. He laughed so hard he coughed up more blood, which he stemmed with his hand as he muttered.
"Haha... I even brought the Cat King... What more preparation was needed?"
Shei had to agree. For the Human Regime to deploy the Beast King, they had clearly taken this seriously. Any more military power than this would be reserved for a decisive battle, not something a lieutenant general could use for personal matters.
Instead, Lieutenant General Ebon had used every means available to him from his position. From the authority that came with his rank to the talented individuals he had painstakingly nurtured and recruited, the mana herbs, and even his adjutant.
"And yet, to think... a single variable... would block it all..."
Muttering in vain, Ebon deactivated Unicorn. The broken metal was lost, while the remaining alchemic steel dissolved into a halo of light and converged on his left arm.
Pop. A chipped and damaged combat arm packet ejected. A general's combat arm was a form of identification and a weapon filled with military secrets. In case of defeat, it was a soldier's virtue to lock it away in packet form to prevent technology from being leaked.
As Ebon picked it up with a trembling hand...
...a faint crack came from inside the combat arm packet. It was the hollow sound of a gemstone shattering.
Then, a fragment of the broken gem fell at Ebon's feet.
Ebon's eyes widened. He hadn't misheard. It was one of a pair of resonating twin gems.
If one breaks, the other breaks with it.
"What's that?"
Shei's question reached him, but he had no obligation to answer.
Besides, the answer would soon make itself known.
Keehahahahaaaaaaaaaaaak!
Nabi's cry echoed from the distance. It wasn't a simple hiss, but a howl tinged with a hint of madness.
Startled, Shei turned her gaze toward the inside of the building. "What? A chest roar? No, that doesn't sound right..."
"Heh, heh, heh."
Ebon, who was familiar with this sort of thing, knew exactly what had happened.
The process of taming Nabi had been difficult, time-consuming, and dangerous.
Even a human addicted to drugs is dangerous. What more the Cat King?
Nabi, who had initially accepted the mana herbs thinking they were a gift, would sometimes attack her handler when her symptoms grew severe, snatching the rest and running away.
When a handler died like that, Ebon would immediately cut off the supply.
Once her stash ran out, Nabi would slink back. She would threaten, beg, and sometimes tear the base apart, but she could never find the non-existent mana herbs. Writhing from withdrawal symptoms, Nabi had it carved into her mind that Ebon was the only one who could provide them.
After tormenting her for a long while, he would finally provide the mana herbs again, making her understand that if she stole them, she would never receive them again.
Over and over and over again.
Thanks to these efforts, Nabi came to associate 'the death of her handler' with 'the loss of her drug.'
This wasn't a bad thing for Ebon, or for the colonel.
At the very least, the colonel's life was safe from Nabi, and if the colonel died, Nabi would go berserk and destroy everything. It was a solid insurance policy for them both.
"...Hah. So 'he' made something like this too... Truly, he's even worse than I am."
But some entity sponsoring the Human Regime had turned even that into a device.
If Ebon were defeated, it would cause the Cat King to go berserk... They had clearly installed something inside the body of the colonel, Ebon's only current adjutant.
Probably the kind that reacts when the gem breaks, tearing up the insides. Making sure to spill as much blood as possible.
"In any case, thank you. Thanks to that..."
...he took advantage of the moment Nabi went berserk and Shei's attention was diverted.
Ebon bit down on the mana herb he had slipped into his mouth earlier while pretending to cover it. The paper wrapping tore, and the mana herb inside, made from catnip...
To be precise, a specially crafted mana herb made from the king of catnip and dried World Tree leaves filled his mouth.
Ebon muttered self-deprecatingly, "Heheh. I didn't want to use this..."
Flick.
A flame sparked from his finger. Though he was a melee combatant, he had learned Level 1 Workaday magic as a matter of course.
"Set, Re."
Ignite.
A combination of Fahrenheit's flame and Pascal's wind. The fire in his mouth spread like a wildfire, instantly igniting everything at once, using the mana herb as fuel.
Shei, who had been momentarily distracted by the Cat King's roar, was bewildered. "Huh? He set his own mouth on fire? What the hell is he...?"
The answer was what used to be Lieutenant General Ebon.
"Keehaaaaaak...!"
His pupils narrowed into vertical slits. His hair stood on end. His posture naturally lowered, his nails grew slightly longer, and he let out something akin to a chest roar from a human body.
Shei finally realized her opponent's true identity.
"You...! A catkin...!"
Instead of an answer, streams of black smoke poured from Ebon's mouth. The smoke produced by burning the mana herb was dozens of times more potent than its mere scent. When a catkin inhaled it, they forgot pain, reawakened their beastly blood, and let out a chest roar.
It wasn't highly recommended even within the Human Regime due to its severe addictiveness and extreme side effects.
But if one were to use it on the verge of death, what was impossible?
Even as the flames scorched the inside of his mouth, Ebon screamed.
"Keehyaaaak! No! I am not a beast! I am human—!"
Ebon charged. This time on all fours, faster and lighter than before.
Shei had faced this form before in a previous timeline—one that roared like a beast yet retained its intelligence. The beastkin who had accompanied the Beast King, humanity's greatest enemy, had looked exactly like this.
"I thought your fighting style was strange...! So that's why the Cat King followed you! She thought you were one of her own people! But how... your ears and tail...!"
Shei quickly scanned Ebon, and then she saw it.
In the area where his helmet was gone, amidst his bristling hair.
The mark of something severed, covered by a hardened scab.
"His own ears...! You insane... bastards...!"
Her words were cut short. Ebon's claws, moving with far more ferocity and cunning than before, as if he were a real cat, lunged at her.
Against an Ebon who was burning everything he had to attack her, Shei began the second round.