Chapter 449
Chapter 449
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 449
Chapter Title: Moonlight Resolve
What was nocked on the bowstring was a moonlight arrow.
Pulling the string taut, Remia closed one eye. Aiming at her target with that single eye, she recalled the years she'd spent alone since Kyle had fallen asleep.
"You said you're the disciple of the Divine Archer Epta?"
"I heard you're the one who inherited the title of Divine Archer."
She had nearly lost Kyle.
She had come to fully realize her own powerlessness. Everything she had built up was utterly useless, and what she had ignored all this time shone more brilliantly than anything else.
"I've come to seek your teachings."
She had realized it, felt it in her bones.
And so she could put it into action. She could make the resolve. She, who had started her path far ahead of others, set down everything she had accumulated and walked back to the beginning. The place she arrived was not the starting point of an elf, nor of a divine archer.
The starting point of an ordinary mortal.
A vast, empty plain with nothing.
Standing on that plain, she began anew.
She bowed her knee to countless people. She lowered her head, humbled herself, and begged for instruction. The arrogant elf cast aside her pride and self-respect entirely. As long as she held onto them, she would never change.
...And so she learned countless things.
...And so she filled in the foundations she had lacked.
A mere few years.
The past her would have scoffed at it as "mere," dismissed it as a fleeting moment. But Remia spent that time with the highest density of any in her life.
'And now.'
Remia exhaled a long breath.
The trembling arrow tip steadied. In the stillness, her eyes gleamed gold.
'Time to show the results.'
Effort doesn't solve everything.
But at the very least, effort won't betray you. The devoted time would help in some way or another. Recalling the voice of one bowman who had taught her, Remia released the string.
Whiiiiiizzz!
The moonlight arrow left the string, slicing through the air as it raced across the battlefield. The string aimed at the center of the churning waves of black hands. Looking at Raniel standing there, pushing through the waves, Remia smiled bitterly.
...The battlefield she had fled from in the past.
Back then, gripped by fear, she hadn't even been able to nock an arrow. She had scratched her own forearm, screamed, squeezed her eyes shut, and cowered on the ground.
'And even then, that human...'
That shining human.
Raniel van Trias.
'Was advancing forward.'
She had stood in front of their broken selves.
She hadn't been able to do anything then... but she couldn't let it happen again. Following the trajectory of the first shot with her eyes, Remia nocked another arrow.
Moonlight.
The arrow condensed with moonlight radiated brilliant light. The string, pulled to its limit, creaked. It was the moment the first arrow reached Raniel, traversing the battlefield in a bizarre arc.
Twang.
Remia released the string.
The first arrow curved, the second flew straight, both slamming into the battlefield. Thus, the two arrows arrived at the exact same spot simultaneously, without a hair's breadth of error.
Break.
Remia called out shortly.
2.
The apostate ascending the stairs to the heavens.
Glared at by her, Raniel kicked off the ground and began to run. With every step, the earth cracked with a boom, leaving footprints where she trod.
Crunch.
Slamming her foot down, she swung her fist.
The shockwave bursting from her swung fist tore the hands apart. Bursting the demonic hands, Raniel kicked off the ground and leaped up. In midair, what she saw was the overflowing black waves. Waves made of hands.
Clap, Raniel clapped her palms together in the air.
The moment she pulled her palms apart, what connected them was a bundle of platinum chains. Plummeting toward the black waves, Raniel swung her arm. With a clink, the chains wrapped around her arm whipped out.
Chaaarling!
The platinum chains that had once bound the Demon King's feet.
The extended chains bound the black hands in the area. Stepping on the hands now unable to grasp anything, bound by chains, Raniel charged forward.
Toward the center of the waves.
Glared at the apostate climbing the stairs to the heavens, Raniel murmured shortly. Accel. With a thump of her violently beating heart, Raniel accelerated in an instant.
"Where to."
Crunch, kicking off a black hand, she leaped up again. Toward the apostate. The leaping Raniel grasped at empty air with her outstretched hand. Mana was sucked out in an instant, forming a massive sun in the sky.
Flash.
A colossal mass appearing in a moment.
Grasping the boiling heat in her hand, Raniel twisted her waist in midair. She hurled the gripped sun. Watching the sun leave her hand, Raniel snapped her fingers.
Accel, Accel, Accel, Accel, Accel, Accel...
The slowly falling sun flickered for an instant.
Scattering immense heat, leaving afterimages, the sun engulfed the apostate ascending the stairs. The black hands extending from all directions grasped the sun, barely preventing its swelling explosion.
Sizzle!
The sound of burning. The sound of sewage boiling.
Hearing those sounds, Raniel swung her arm wide once more in midair. Her five spread fingers roughly clawed at empty air. What was etched into the space she clawed was an impossibly complex circuit.
Tick, tktktktktick!
The moment starlight rising from her body touched the circuit, the spell was complete. The instant the five circuits torn into empty air manifested, what tore was the air. The clouds above the sky. Immediately after, with a deafening roar that split eardrums, the area was dyed pure white.
"⟨ Judgment ⟩" What fell from the heavens was azure-white lightning.
The slanting lightning pierced the platinum sun Raniel had thrown just before. Immense mana clashed repeatedly. The sun and lightning swelled as if devouring each other.
In terms of time, a split-second fragment of a second. The two supreme spells, swollen to their limits, reached their peak simultaneously.
Flash.
With a blinding sweep of light, the hands gripping the sun burned away entirely. Light swept first, followed belatedly by the roar echoing out.
Kwaaaaaaaaang!
With a heaven-shaking thunder, the released heat engulfed the apostate. Before vision recovered from the white flash, Raniel stepped on the scattering fragments of black hands and leaped toward the apostate.
Thud.
Even in blurry vision, she could see the apostate's form. Raniel reached out and grasped the apostate. No matter how divine, it couldn't emerge unscathed from such an attack. The moment Raniel gripped the apostate and tried to corrupt her mana crimson-black.
"...!"
Raniel's eyes widened.
As her blurry vision cleared, what she saw was the apostate's form. The form of the 'black hand' she held. Raniel's eyes flew wide open.
"Did you think you caught me?"
No wounds. How?
Belatedly, Raniel saw the black divine power rising from her body. She saw the black sewage enveloping her.
...The apostate, Gleria van Armias, was the first saintess. She could perform every miracle the saintesses in history over the past centuries had wrought—more perfectly than any.
⚙ DIVINE ART: Veil of Rejection ⚙ The supreme divine art that rejects magical intervention. Unscathed even amid such an explosion, using a fragment of the Demon King as medium. Crunch.
Raniel gritted her teeth and released the gripped black hand. She pulled her hand back to engage in close combat... but hands surging from all directions seized Raniel. Dozens, hundreds of hands restrained her movements.
"Ashes to ashes." Raniel detonated all the ash rising from her body. Shaking off the hands, she swung her fist toward the apostate... but first, the apostate's extended finger touched Raniel's forehead.
"⟨ Divine Art: Flames of Purification ⟩" The divine art that burns away evil. Originally a powerful art that incinerates only things related to demons, but in the apostate's hands, the Flames of Purification became black flames that burned only what she deemed impure.
Sizzle!
Raniel's body burned.
Her skin melted away, the spells she created, the ash she raised—all incinerated. Amid the agony of her whole body aflame, Raniel's stance wavered.
Grind, gritting her teeth, Raniel tried to reach out through the heat... but.
"...!"
Something bit into Raniel's arm.
The black sewage enveloping the apostate. It took the form of a gaping maw and bit into Raniel. A massive hand bursting from the sewage struck Raniel's body.
Boom!
As if her ascent had been for nothing, Raniel crashed back to the ground, vomiting a mouthful of blood as she pushed herself up. Raising her head, she met the eyes of the apostate looking down at her.
"Judgment, was it?"
The apostate smiled.
Smiling, she flicked her fingers.
What her fingers drew was a black waterway. The flowing waterway completed a divine art.
"⟨ Divine Art: Heavenly Punishment ⟩" The black waterway flowing around her evaporated in a chunk. Sacrificing the waterway teeming with countless lives, what she summoned was... the answer lay in the sky.
"...Hah."
Raniel let out a hollow laugh.
Something fell from beyond the open sky. What fell was a pillar of black light. Heaven's punishment itself. Frowning at the massive light pillar, Raniel thought.
'...I have to dodge.'
The moment Raniel kicked off the ground to evade. Thud, something gripped her ankle. Looking down, a hand rising from the sewage flowing across the ground held her fast.
Thud, crunch. Craaack.
Hands, demonic maws, unknown things seized Raniel's body. She shook them off, but time had already been delayed too much. It was too late to dodge. The moment Raniel reached toward the falling light pillar.
『Duck. Close your eyes.』
Remia's voice echoed in her ear.
With the voice in her ear, Raniel heard it. Whizz, something slicing through the wind. Raniel immediately ducked and closed her eyes.
Clang.
The metallic clash of arrowheads colliding.
What burst forth immediately after was a massive flash. Even with eyes closed, the world went white—a brilliantly shining moon rose above Raniel's head.
Break.
Crack, the moon shattered.
The moon shattered into pieces along with the black light pillar striking it. Slowly raising her head, Raniel's eyes widened. A technique she'd never seen. That pointy-eared... no, Remia could wield such harmony?
She had no defensive techniques... did she?
『Run.』
As Raniel faltered, Remia shouted.
『I'll support you.』
Whiiiiiizzz!
Before the words finished, the sound of arrows cutting wind rang out. Raising her head, Raniel saw them. Moonlight arrows freely racing across the battlefield. Their bizarre trajectories all pierced the black hands approaching her.
Dozens of arrows falling, each bearing its own moonlight, resembled a meteor shower.
"...Tch."
Raniel exhaled shortly.
It was the opening Remia had created. Exhaling, she gripped her wounds and cauterized them with starlight. Grimacing as she mended her mangled ankle, pierced and bitten.
...Could she reach without using it?
Raniel looked up.
There stood the apostate looking down at her. Gritting her teeth at the churning sewage rippling with every flick of her fingers.
Mana corruption. Summoning crimson-black lightning.
She couldn't use it yet.
Its duration was far too short, and she didn't know which part of her body she'd 'lose.' She had to save it until the very last moment... and even if she used it now, she doubted her body would hold until she reached the apostate.
She needed a sure opportunity.
The moment to seize the apostate.
'But like this...'
Her wounds would only increase.
Kicking off the ground and running, Raniel agonized. Not a way to bypass the trial given to her... but a way to shatter it head-on. She too was a superhuman now, and she no longer looked only at herself.
She viewed the battlefield with wider vision.
Seeing much, calculating, deriving answers.
Thus, Raniel could see it. Feel it. The ground shaking. The slash rising toward the sky. The raging storm and flashes. Their approach.
"Ah."
Raniel unwittingly smiled.
Come to think of it, she'd almost forgotten. She no longer fought alone. There were those who believed in her and followed. Her disciple she had raised herself... and.
Kagagagagagagagagagak!
Comrades.
"Rak."
"Got it."
The bone dragon erupted, tearing up the earth.
Seeing the massive bone dragon appear right beside her, Raniel smiled. Two clung to its leaping body. Belnoa, nails dug into the bone dragon's carapace, gripping Rak's arm as it rampaged.
"Grab on."
Rak extended his hand.
"We'll make a path."
Thud, Raniel seized Rak's outstretched hand.