Victory!

There was no way.

Even Miron's Silence could not stop those Blood Clan from detonating themselves. The demonic forces under his command were just as helpless. Isera's own legion was not free from the constraints of a weakness, after all. At best, his demons were nothing more than meat shields meant to protect him.

"Agnes! Do you mean to break the contract that bound you as my spear?!"

······.

In the end, only the Spirit King Agnes remained. But Agnes still had his gaze stolen by that damned Reaper.

Even for a Spirit King, however, breach of contract was a fatal matter.

Very well.

Agnes finally nodded and raised his right hand.

Fwoooooosh!

In that instant, a colossal spear of flame roared into existence. Agnes hurled it, and the spear stretched endlessly onward, incinerating every Blood Clan near its path without even needing to touch them.

What followed was a sight almost too absurd to believe. A single throw evaporated nearly a thousand of the Blood Clan — as if they had never existed at all.

If Agnes just moves properly, we can win this.

Watching the spectacle, Isera nodded to himself. Even so, it seemed that legion was not truly invincible. If Agnes's attacks were landing, then this war still held hope. Wipe out that bitch's entire legion, and the invincibility would break!

"What are you doing? Why did you stop?"

But after throwing the spear only once, Agnes halted again. When ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Isera ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠snapped at him in irritation, Agnes answered flatly.

I lack mana.

······What? Lacking mana?

For the Spirit King Agnes to wield power in the mortal world, he had to draw on his contractor's mana. And Isera's mana had been a bottomless sea. Had he already burned through all of that vast reserve?

······I wasted far too much of it.

Ah.

Waste had been the problem. He had poured enormous mana into activating the portals for the Mass Teleport. And that was not all. He had fought the Dragon God Lucaria for four straight days. On top of that, he had been caught in the Blade Dragon God's smoke and squandered even more mana for nothing. Of course even a sea of mana would eventually run dry.

My weakness is exposed, my soldiers are insufficient, and I have no mana left.

How had it come to this? He was completely cornered. Never before had he fought a battle this devoid of options. And yet the idea that a newly born Dragon God had orchestrated this entire board was absurd.

How did she learn my weakness? If she knew it in advance and prepared accordingly······ the only ones who could know that are the other Lords of Hell.

The Demon King and the Lords of Hell all knew Isera's weakness. Whenever he revised it, they learned of it naturally. That had been the sole condition under which the traitor Isera had been permitted to settle in the Demon Realm.

Could there be a traitor among us?

There was only one way anyone could have known a condition never shown to the world and prepared a countermeasure in advance. One of the Lords had betrayed him and passed the information along. Nothing else made sense. A Dragon God's Wish Orb could not reveal a weakness unless it was used right before one's eyes.

But who? Even if there were a traitor, it was strange. Was it truly possible to tip off a Dragon God who had not even been born yet?

···And how would they have known?

Boom! Boom! Brooooom!

A festival raged in the sky. The blood of the Blood Clan fell like rain. Sacrificing his demons to hold the line had reached its limit.

There is······ a way.

Isera turned his gaze upon the Dragon God Lucaria. No ordinary method would get him out of this danger. But an extraordinary one just might.

Cannibalism of his own kind.

Of course, merely tearing off flesh would never be enough.

I devour everything — down to the heart.

If he consumed even the heart, it would be possible. Possible to escape this crisis and kill that damned bitch.

Isera's eyes gleamed. A Dragon God's heart was originally a tribute meant for the Demon King. To eat it was tantamount to betraying the Demon King himself. But for the sake of his own survival, Isera would do anything.

I sat in place and slowly closed my eyes.

The war with Isera was not over, but I paid it no mind.

Enlightenment. Enlightenment, huh.

Something more important demanded my attention right now. When the Blade Queen Hana entered the Shattered Heavenly Egg and received a Dragon God's karma, I too had connected to a single consciousness and gained an enlightenment.

It was not some numerically defined thing — more like a vague clue. A subtle truth one could never touch so long as one regarded this world as nothing more than a game.

The Gate of Truth······.

I had seen it clearly. In the instant the Dragon God's karma was bestowed upon the Blade Queen, the Gate of Truth had opened for the barest fraction of a moment. That gate, which held and conferred every qualification existing in the world, had without fail revealed itself before both the Blade Queen and me.

I have the same thing inside me.

And that gate, even as it granted Hana the Dragon God's karma, had looked at me. More precisely, it had locked eyes with something inside me. I still did not know what that something was, but the moment the Gate of Truth opened, that something had shown clear displeasure.

A sense of alienation — similar, yet different.

Who are you?

Thump.

I quietly struck my chest with my fist. There was something in here. Another existence that stood on equal footing with the Gate of Truth itself. Had I not connected consciousnesses with Hana and brushed against the Gate of Truth, I would never have known.

The reason the Blood King could not invade me was because of this thing.

When the Hidden Trait King of the Blood Clan became God of the Blood Clan, I gained the ability to read the flow of consciousness of every Blood Clan member. Along with it came the residual consciousness of the Blood King who had died inside me.

The Blood King had been far greater than I had imagined — great enough that I finally understood why Jormungandr had reacted the way it had.

In pure martial might alone, the Blood King would not be outclassed even by Wilhelm.

In a certain sense, even Wilhelm might not have been able to defeat him. He had been the strongest being to ever dominate the world through sheer force alone. And yet even that terrifying existence had knelt before the something inside me.

Stop hiding and come out.

Had I never known, I would have ignored it. But now that I knew, I could not look away.

Eyes closed, I slowly ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠observed myself. I descended endlessly beneath the surface of my own mind, reaching the final edge of the residual consciousness the Blood King had left behind.

To find this place already — impressive.

······At that end, there was a vast eye and a vast mouth.

······Power boiled up inside him.

The sensation of every single cell coming back to life. A pleasure incomparable to merely devouring flesh crashed through him in waves.

"Aaaaaaah!"

Isera trembled violently. He had eaten the Dragon God Lucaria whole — flesh and heart, every last scrap.

Kuuoooooooh!

When Agnes raised his arm, a flame spear of a size beyond anything before took shape. Just looking at it felt as though one might melt away.

KRAAAAAAASH!

The spear flew, and half the sky was erased. Without the slightest exaggeration — erased. As Isera's rank had risen, so too had the Spirit King Agnes's power.

"Behold! That precious legion of yours is nothing special after all, is it?"

Composure restored, Isera smiled thinly. No longer could that bitch's self-destruction harm him. What use was a weakness when they evaporated before they could even reach him?

For an instant, the Blade Dragon God Hana's eyes trembled finely.

"Agnes. Burn them all."

KRAAAAAAASH!

Spears of flame streaked endlessly across the sky. The Dragon God Hana tried to block them, but stopping such a vast barrage alone was impossible. Immunity applied only to the points of contact — it did not mean she could nullify every attack entirely. Spreading her blades made no difference.

In the end, under Agnes's onslaught, the Blood Clan were wiped out to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the last.

"That legion you boasted of has burned to death without a single survivor. Now it is your turn to die."

He had killed every last one. The Blade Dragon God's legion no longer existed. If his prediction was correct, the invincibility should have lifted by now.

"······Ah."

Then the Dragon God Hana began to shake violently, her entire body convulsing. Her expression twisted little by little. Hana's head drooped low.

Watching her, Isera burst into booming laughter.

"Hahaha! What? Are you so sad you might cry?"

"Aaaah······."

"No matter how invincible you are, if your actual ability falls short, there is nothing to be done. Quietly resign yourse—"

"AAAAAAH······!!!"

When the Dragon God Hana lifted her head again, tears of blood streamed down her face, and both her pupils had turned a deep, bloody crimson.

Thuk! Thuk! Thuuuk!

Then the bladed wings drove straight into Hana's entire chest. Blood exploded outward from her breast.

Has she gone mad and started harming herself?

Could the condition have been that she died along with her legion's annihilation? It had been an absurd condition to begin with. For a Dragon God to possess a legion and bind a condition to the death of that entire legion was a weakness no other Dragon God had ever held.

"Hm?"

But it did not seem to be simple self-harm. The bladed wings that had sunk into her flesh wrapped around the Dragon God Hana like armor. The blood that poured out traced countless lines across her entire skin like tattoos.

A final struggle, then.

Isera defined the state in a single phrase.

Kuuoooooh!

Agnes threw another spear of flame. It pierced the sky and struck the Blade Dragon God dead-on. With her weakness exposed, Isera could already picture her being run through and killed — or evaporating like the rest of those Blood Clan insects.

"···What?"

But Isera's expectations were not met.

"······The annihilation of the legion was not the weakness?"

···The flame spear still failed to inflict even the slightest damage upon the Blade Dragon God. The condition he had taken for granted had been wrong. His mind plunged into chaos. Then what condition did she possess?

Flash!

In that very instant — in the blink of an eye — the Blade Dragon God lunged at Agnes.

Shraaaak!

As the Blade Dragon God worked both hands, blood-blades elongated like long claws tore Agnes apart in a wild frenzy.

Huh.

Had she truly gone mad? She was no beast — what was this behavior? Agnes was fire itself. Clawing him should not have been able to tear him.

But once again, Isera's assumption was shattered without mercy. After being raked dozens of times by those blood-claws, Agnes was reverse-summoned as if he had come apart.

Forcing a spirit into reverse-summon?

Isera's pupils shook violently. Something that should have been impossible had just occurred. So long as the summoner's mana remained, a spirit could not be forcibly reverse-summoned. Its body was not its true form to begin with, but a shape given substance by the summoner's mana. And the mana dwelling in Isera's heart right now was more than sufficient — it was overflowing.

Yet the form of none other than the Spirit King of Fire had been shredded to pieces by those blood-red claws and reverse-summoned. Did that make any sense?

"Agnes!"

He called the name again, but received only silence. Agnes did not answer the summons — as if he were afraid.

Ssssshk.

The frenzied Hana's eyes met Isera's.

"······."

"Stop."

Dragon Speech. The most powerful authority Lucaria had possessed. Among the Dragon Gods, an exceptional force of the spoken word!

······Even Dragon Speech does not work at all.

But that beast still did not stop.

Snap!

Using Miron's Silence made no difference either. Nothing worked. Perfect immunity. Erasing the legion had not been the Blade Dragon God's condition.

Isera's eyes shook roughly. He could not discern the weakness no matter what. On the contrary, by wiping out the legion, he had only awakened a hidden destructive instinct. It was no different from unlocking her chains.

What good was overflowing mana? He could not use it. And even if he did, nothing got through.

Watching the red-eyed beast that had already drawn within arm's reach, Isera screamed his final words.

"Just what the hell are you······!"

Shraaak!