True Despair
I greed.
Greed is desire without end.
It is the power that shatters the lines one has drawn, that crushes them underfoot and spurns every limit.
An infinite authority so overwhelming that even the gods envied it.
Incomparable — with nothing that can be set beside it — among all sins, none can dare claim to be more powerful.
Thus, I greed.
I greed, and greed again, seeking pure perfection, the ultimate.
Yet it is neither god nor even evil, but something closer to a more fundamental truth.
Beyond the Gate of Truth, I shall greed for all that exists.
All gods!
Ancient beings of distant ages!
And Ruin!
You cannot dare stop my greed.
Thud.
King Friedrich closed the worn volume inside his lavish carriage.
"Your Majesty. Your expression is troubled."
At the words of the old knight seated across from him, King Friedrich let out a dry snort of laughter.
"Me?"
"Is something weighing on your mind?"
"…Weighing on my mind, is it."
King Friedrich gazed quietly out the carriage window. Reflected in his eyes stood the vast castle of the Balan Kingdom.
Pride.
He was the one who mocked every being in existence, who laughed them to scorn and regarded them as dust. Among all the sins, he was the one who pursued amusement to its extreme. For such a creature to have something weighing on his mind?
It was impossible.
It was something that should never be.
And yet…
Something still nagged at him. To claim nothing troubled him would be a lie.
Of course, the Balan Kingdom itself barely registered in his sight. What endlessly churned through his thoughts was something else entirely.
Greed. That one has definitely been resurrected.
The Seven Demons that existed in this world. Envy had likely been slain by Martial God Karas, and as if to fill that vacant seat, Greed had returned.
But Greed's resurrection was the part even Pride found most incomprehensible. Had it been any other demon, he might have at least found it plausible.
"Do you know of the Seven Demons?"
"Beings similar to Your Majesty, you mean?"
The old knight answered without the slightest hesitation. He knew full well that King Friedrich was the Demon of Pride. He was the Iron Kingdom's strongest knight — a monster Pride had fed countless stars.
Pride slowly nodded.
"Yes. How much do you know?"
"That from the beginning of time there have existed the seven sins — Pride, Avarice, Envy, Wrath, Lust, Greed, and Sloth — and that the Seven Demons are those desires given form. That much, I know."
That was about as much as any human would know. Demons did not operate in the open. As a result, the sum of humanity's knowledge regarding them was pitifully thin.
The reason they moved from the shadows was simple.
Because drawing the gods' attention is a nuisance.
Natural enemies — beings that could truly be called their polar opposites — the gods kept a vigilant watch on every demonic movement. That was why demons could not look up at the sky. The moment they raised their eyes heavenward, the gods would know their location.
These days, of course, nearly every god had been annihilated or stripped of divinity by Ruin, so the demons gazed at the heavens as they pleased. But before Ruin's appearance, it had been an age that could rightly be called the golden era of the gods.
The gods freely shared their arts with humanity. Through divine techniques, humans blossomed the ways of the sword and the arcane, and laid hands upon countless forbidden things. Amid that vigorous exchange and advancement, the demons had no choice but to hold their breath. Hiding within the bodies of weak beasts and humans, remaining as invisible as possible — that had been their only means of survival.
As humanity's ultimate intellectual vanity was satisfied through communion with the gods, the power of the demons — who fed upon human desire — inevitably withered to its extreme.
When every demon was holding its breath… that one alone was different.
Just one. There had been a single demon who did not fear the gods.
……Greed.
That one never hesitated to look up at the sky. Whenever the whim struck, he would lift his head and gaze at the heavens — and if a god came charging to pass judgment, he would laugh with wild delight and meet them head-on.
A demon thoroughly unlike a demon. Perhaps that was why even the gods could not easily touch Greed. In later years, they would walk right past him and pretend not to see. A freak among freaks. A creature Pride simply could not comprehend.
What that one sought was only one thing.
The ultimate of martial power!
Is that supposed to be fun?
It wasn't. He was a truly, maddeningly boring creature. Frankly, Pride had never wanted much to do with him. The other demons had likely felt the same.
After Ruin appeared, everything changed.
Ruin's emergence had been a festival for the demons. A god of destruction that annihilated all things made for excellent company with their kind. Through it, the demons reclaimed the power they had lost, and no longer needed to hide.
To the demons, Ruin was a fine friend. But not, it seemed, to Greed.
Greed was sealed by the goddesses. And in that sealed state, he confronted Ruin and vanished.
The full details were unknown even to him. All he knew was that when Greed appeared before Ruin, he had already been sealed by the twin goddesses, Rhea and Fina. Even stripped of his power, Greed challenged Ruin — and was said to have been annihilated afterward. Ruin would hardly have spared a creature that threw itself at him…
So he hadn't been completely destroyed after all.
He should have been thoroughly annihilated. And yet Greed had resurrected — at a moment no one could have anticipated.
In whose body did he return?
Pride stroked his chin. That much, he could not know. But it was strange all the same. Greed had been a creature like an immortal — kill him and he still would not die. An inexplicable existence even the gods had given up on. So Pride had always entertained the possibility that he might still be alive.
And if he were alive…
I was certain Wilhelm was Greed, but…
Beads of sweat formed one after another across Raiga's brow.
With every passing moment, it's becoming more complete.
He could no longer afford to fight halfheartedly. This was no longer a simple clash of Sword Gang against Sword Gang. It was a struggle of kill or be killed. There was no room to breathe. No room for a single other thought.
It had been that way ever since the Goat completed that. He simply could not spare attention for anything else.
He's compressed the energy of the Gang one more time. That is unmistakably Sword Hwan…!
A sphere of power condensed at the tip of the blade! The energy of Sword Gang, already concentrated to an extreme degree, compressed yet again into a single form. It looked almost like a luminous jewel. No larger than a thumbnail — yet the terrifying force sealed within it needed no demonstration to be understood.
The moment it detonated, a radius of dozens of meters would evaporate without effort. Literally evaporate. If he were caught in that range, his own life would hang by a thread.
According to the records left by the first generation of the Palga, Sword Hwan is a power called the Jewel of the Gods — force enough to slay even deities!
Raiga swallowed hard for the first time, tension tightening his throat. But Sword Hwan consumed enormous mana. The Goat would not be in perfect condition either.
……So it's a mutual kill, is it?
The simple contest of Gang against Gang was over. The moment that thing had been brought out before him, they had crossed a river from which there was no return. If something like that detonated here, Shinrok and everything belonging to the Palga would be obliterated — that much was certain.
Zaaaaaah!
At the same instant, Raiga's Sword Gang swelled to enormous size. It bloated like the weapon of a giant, its presence beginning to tear the world itself apart.
The Sword of Annihilation that butchered all things. Raiga's secret art — the technique even the lords of the Abyss feared!
KRAAAAAAANG!
The moment the blades swung and collided, the world shook with a roar like thunder.
There's impact.
Even a wielder of Sword Hwan could not take his true strike head-on. As proof, the Goat's right arm — the one holding the sword — buckled under the shock, unable to withstand it.
But then Raiga looked down at his own arm.
A reflection effect…
Just like the Goat's. No — in a form even stranger than the Goat's, his own arm had been bent out of shape.
What was this? For a simple reflection effect, the damage was far too severe.
It reflects damage at double the force. But my strikes are supposed to ignore such reflection effects…
…It was absurd. The Goat clearly possessed a damage-reflection effect — yet Raiga himself carried the ability to nullify damage reflection. In other words, that reflection ranked far higher than his own nullification.
But how could such a thing even exist?
And that's not all. The impact is lighter than expected. This bastard also has some degree of resistance to piercing effects.
……Pierce stood at the absolute apex of all abilities. Raiga's piercing power was enough to ignore every armor and every shield in existence. But the Goat was different. He clearly possessed pierce resistance. Whether such a thing truly existed, Raiga did not know — but his instincts were never wrong.
……Unbelievable.
Damage reflected at double force, and pierce resistance he had never even known existed in this world. These were abilities even Baal did not possess. This bastard… just what was he?
If I kill him, I die too.
Raiga gave a slow nod. This kind of tension was something he hadn't felt in a very long time. He couldn't even remember the last time he had been this taut with anticipation.
And so — it was fun. His thirst finally felt as though it might be quenched. An oasis in a barren desert. What a joyous thing this was.
"Fine then. I'll kill you."
Raiga bared his teeth in a grin.
I grip the sword.
I swing.
A sequence of motions — blocking, cutting, thrusting. Before, I had merely relied on Wilhelm's memories. Not anymore. I was becoming Wilhelm himself, surpassing him, carving out a new path.
Not enough.
But I soon realize the truth. This is not surpassing Wilhelm. Too much is still lacking to go beyond him. I have glimpsed what lies past that threshold — but fully containing it will take time.
Pierce Resistance from Archetypal Armor has activated.
Damage Reflection 210% from Archetypal Armor is applied.
Bleeding status is ongoing.
You have fallen into a Near-Death State.
At this rate, I cannot defeat the one standing before me. I am outmatched.
Of course, it isn't as though there is no way to win. Simply stop challenging. Acknowledge that this is my limit, and accept the reward! If I claim the compensation called "Wilhelm," my instincts tell me I could escape this situation.
But—
I refuse.
I still have so far to go. I greed. For more power. For more possibility! Even if death waits at the end of this path, I will never regret it.
Insufficient mana to form Sword Hwan.
HP is continuously being drained.
You will die if bleeding is not stopped.
You will die if all mana is exhausted.
The warnings to stop never even registered. Stopping now would be no different from dying.
My consciousness is slipping. Even standing on my own two feet takes everything I have. But I do not stop. Absolutely not. No matter what happens—
I will keep moving forward.
Crack!
In that instant, Raiga's blade struck the goat mask. The mask was a shape assumed by the Archetypal Armor. Under normal circumstances, it should never have been destroyable.
Crrrack!
It split in two and began to shatter.
Thud.
And as the mask broke apart and fell to the ground—
"What the hell… is this…?"
In my eyes, I saw Raiga's eyes — wide with shock. Shock, and at the same time, fear.
And I soon understood why.
Wearer's condition has reached the critical threshold.