It Comes
It comes. That is coming.
Gracia does not know what love is.
From childhood he had walked the elite’s path with obsessive single-mindedness, and never once had he experienced anything called love. He had regarded it only as a waste of time, a waste of emotion.
He was different from other people. He had to be different. With a father who led a major corporation and was called the Iron Man, and a mother who had always enjoyed only the finest things, Gracia had always been required to be a capable son.
His sole, secret leisure was the game Pangenia.
Extreme difficulty. He had been hooked by the promise that clearing it would grant any wish whatsoever.
There is nothing in this world I cannot conquer.
Whether it was a game or anything else. Once Gracia set his hand to something, he saw it through to the end and always set the highest record. He had expected Pangenia to be no different.
······ Until he met Phantom.
······ In the end, have I only ever walked paths someone else made, only ever chased someone else’s back?
In reality he had chased his father and mother. In Pangenia he had chased Phantom. Therefore he could never overtake them. One who only follows from behind can never pull ahead.
So Gracia resolved to change himself.
I will live as my true self.
He would no longer perform. He would no longer follow anyone’s back!
Therefore, if he kept wanting to see her, if he missed her, that must be love.
Gracia was in love right now.
“Pure White Knight, Serengeti.”
“······?”
“Thank you. Your single word awakened me.”
“What······ did I say?”
Serengeti barely managed to open her mouth. It was the first she had heard of it. She had no memory of ever speaking to Gracia. In the first place, she had never even met him this closely.
Yet Gracia paid no mind to her bewildered reaction.
“You may not remember. But I do. That warm hand you laid upon my face in the Abyss, urging me to come to my senses. That smile.”
“··· Have you gone mad?”
“Thanks to you I recovered my wits. Now I will protect you.”
“It rather seems you still haven’t recovered them······?”
She had never said any such thing. She had never placed a hand on his face, never smiled at Gracia. Of course not. Gracia belonged to the Hero Council that had sabotaged Wilhelm’s Great Expedition. Even if he had broken with Lucifer, Drakestar and the rest, she would have scowled and cursed him; such a scene could never have occurred. Perhaps he had merely dreamed it.
“Imperial First Sword, strongest knight Raiga.”
Gracia turned his head to face Raiga. Raiga merely shrugged.
“Hmm. Finished with the love talk?”
“Thank you for waiting.”
“Ah. I am a patient man, so think nothing of it.”
Sreung.
Gracia gripped his sword.
“I shall introduce myself properly. I am the ‘sinner’ you speak of, and the Sword Saint Gracia.”
He would not hide it. Especially not when the opponent was the Empire’s strongest knight, Raiga.
Raiga tilted his head.
“Sword Saint? First I’ve heard of it.”
“······ Do not play dumb. Did you not set a ‘Death God’ upon me?”
“Death God? Ah, so the Death God Religion has marked you.”
Tsk tsk. Raiga clicked his tongue, then regarded Gracia with a look that said it was pitiful to have been targeted by such vicious people. The Death God Religion believed sinners deserved death, but Raiga himself held no particular opinion on the matter. He was merely curious. Anyone bearing the title of Sword Saint must be at least somewhat skilled.
“Let’s play once.”
“··· Fine.”
Ziiing!
Ziiiiiiing!
A thousand swords rose behind Gracia—swords of still higher quality, still greater power. Some he had obtained himself, but most had been taken from Union’s inventory. Every weapon stored there was of a grade that would put ordinary Myth-rank items to shame. Gracia and Union were highly compatible.
And that was not all.
The me of this moment is strong.
Gracia had reached the realm of liberation. He had cast aside the desire to follow someone, the yearning, even the inferiority complex, and accepted himself exactly as he was. The instant he resolved to live his own life, change arrived.
Heavenly Punishment
Chijik!
Chijijijik!
Blue sword qi bloomed from the thousand blades. At the same moment, light like lightning surged in Gracia’s eyes.
His strongest skill—Heavenly Punishment. An overwhelming assault that drove a thousand thunderbolts into the target and annihilated it!
Charreuk!
Charreureureuk!
A finishing technique that expended every drop of mana and stamina in a single strike. Because of its long preparation time and the fact that once used the body could not move for nearly a week, it was a last resort almost never employed.
Full Bloom
Yet Gracia went one step further. He finally set foot in the realm that lay beyond Heavenly Punishment.
The swords replicated. Every blade projected every other, multiplying until two thousand swords embroidered the empty air. Then those two thousand split once more and became four thousand.
Having consumed the Star of Illusion, transcended another stage, and seized through painstaking effort yet another form of Heavenly Punishment—the strongest poured everything into the strongest. An attack that could never be avoided. Death itself!
Shiiik!
Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwaang!
The spectacle was, without question, overwhelming—the sight of four thousand swords pouring from the sky like a rain of steel. Yet no matter how much one poured and poured again—
“······ A real monster, no other.”
—if it never reached, it was useless.
Union, watching the battle, was struck with astonishment. As the Empire’s first Court Mage he had lived long years, yet he had never seen a monster like Raiga. The man was incomparably stronger than any previous generation of the Palga. He had not been this powerful before; had he grown still stronger in the interim?
“It was quite an entertaining game. Sinner··· hmm, what was your name again?”
“······.”
After Heavenly Punishment Full Bloom ended, Gracia stared at the completely unharmed Raiga and his eyes trembled violently. He had been certain he had grown stronger. Yet he still fell short of the true strongest—short of that inhuman monster called Raiga.
Having poured out everything, he no longer possessed the stamina to fight.
Chwaak!
In an instant both of Gracia’s arms were severed.
Puk!
“Keuk······!”
Raiga then drove his blade deep into Serengeti’s abdomen.
Jwaak!
He twisted the sword and blood streamed out in sheets.
“Answer me, Isabella. Isabella von Dercian. What happened that day?”
That day—the day he had entered the Abyss region. Raiga had lost the knights of the Palga, lost his memories, and faced death itself. Something capable of erasing the memories of a being of equal caliber. Something tremendous must have occurred there.
“If you do not answer, every one of you dies. Isabella—because of you.”
He shifted the blame and forced an answer. Yet Isabella remained silent. The events that had taken place there—the battle against the monsters on God’s Island, the Skin Hybrid of God, the appearance of the Eternal Lord, the Gate of Truth, and another Randolph. How could she possibly speak of all that?
There was, however, one thing she could say.
“··· You were defeated.”
“······? I, defeated?”
“You opened the Fifth Gate and entered battle, yet in the end you were a defeated loser.”
“········· You claim I lost even after opening the Fifth Gate?”
Raiga’s brow furrowed. Opening the Fifth Gate was invincible precisely because it premised death. In that state he never lost. Yet she said he had been defeated.
“By whom, exactly?”
“That is······.”
······ To her master, Randolph. He had been defeated by another Randolph.
At that moment—
Chwaang!
Raiga twisted his body and struck aside the opponent charging at him with a sword face.
Gunggi.
Kuuuuuuung!
At the same instant the ground shuddered. Dae-to-ryong. The massive dragon was gathering mana—to attack Raiga.
Why were the main forces helping the humans? Or had they judged his strength spent and decided to check him?
“······ This is growing bothersome.”
Stupid fools. Raiga frowned. There were more interrupters than expected. At this rate he would never hear a proper answer. He still could not believe that he, who had opened the Fifth Gate, had been defeated. So the timing was convenient.
“If I kill them all, it will be less bothersome.”
They fell.
Gunggi and Dae-to-ryong. Even Isaac and Saintess Seia. They could not stop Raiga at all. He was an Absolute. Scattering blood, their entrails scraping across the floor, they were slowly dying—for the crime of standing in an Absolute’s path.
Who on earth had defeated such a monster?
“Do you lot also intend to stop me?”
“······ No.”
Laktusha answered. The Dark Elf Lord shook his head as well. Former Champion Sancha likewise seemed to have little interest in fighting Raiga; his sole concern was the current Champion.
Raiga shook the blood-soaked sword once.
“Now then······.”
“Uuu, uuuu······.”
“······?”
“Uwaaaaaang! Scary! Scary! Scary!”
Just as he turned again toward Isabella, a child’s wail filled the twenty-fifth floor. Dragon God Lucaria. The small girl had begun to cry, tears falling one after another in sheer terror.
“Ah—no······.”
Watching the weeping Lucaria, Isera was thrown into confusion. He even rose and took a step backward—an attitude utterly different from the way he had been comforting the frightened girl until now. Isera, who had seemed to fear nothing in the world, was flustered and even afraid.
Shishishishi.
With a sound like something laughing, black smoke surged from Lucaria’s entire body. Then darkness covered her face as though a mosaic of pure black had been laid over it.
At that transformation Isera shouted urgently.
“R-run! ‘That’ is coming······!”
Kururururung!
The tower shook. The epicenter was the upper floors. From the precariously swaying summit, black smoke began to boil upward in mad torrents. The smoke shaped itself into a vast hand that wrapped around the entire tower.
Kkaak!
Kkaaak!
Enormous crows screeched and fled the tower in panic. Something was clearly happening inside—something of an entirely different order from everything that had occurred so far.
“Wh-what?”
“What’s that black smoke?”
“What’s happening in the Tower of the War God?”
Everyone watching the tower spoke while trembling. A vicious curse that made the body shudder merely by looking at it. They had never seen anything like it. It was as though the curse itself had been given form—a giant doll of curse. No: a god of curse.
Yet an even stranger thing followed.
‘Serengeti’ challenges ‘Eternal Randolph’.
Activated — Target has been dominated.
‘Isabella’ challenges ‘Eternal Randolph’.
Activated — Target has been dominated.
‘Laktusha’ challenges ‘Eternal Randolph’.
Activated — Target has been dominated.
‘Union’ challenges······
······
······
······
‘Raiga’ challenges ‘Eternal Randolph’.
Activated — Target has been dominated.