The Giant Wraith's Core
The colossal wraith was a being immune to physical interference. Swords, arrows, even cannons powered by gunpowder were useless against it. Only magic, aura drawn from within the body, or holy power could affect it. Among those, holy power was the most effective, but unfortunately, there was no one present who could wield it.
“Look at the size of that thing.”
Kyle charged toward the wraith, aura blade blazing from his sword. When he reached right in front of its face, what he saw was a toe roughly twice the size of his entire body. If a mere toe was this enormous, just how big was the main body? And what exactly would it take to bring something like this down? He couldn’t even begin to guess.
So Kyle simply did what he could. He converted even the aura protecting his body into an aura blade and unleashed several meters of pure energy.
“Dieeeeee—!”
The aura blade sliced clean through the colossal wraith’s ankle. Whether or not this creature even had an Achilles tendon was questionable, but the moment its ankle was severed, the wraith pitched forward with a sickening lurch. As if it possessed none of the survival instincts humans had, the wraith showed no reaction at all and simply toppled straight ahead.
A wraith dozens of meters tall collapsing forward looked exactly like a building crumbling in a domino effect. If the wraith had possessed any actual mass, a massive crater would have formed along the path of its fall. Instead, the colossal wraith scattered into millions of smaller wraiths, then reformed, repeating the process over and over.
The colossal wraith has no physical form. It cannot be harmed by ordinary weapons. Only magic, aura, or holy power can affect it.
‘This isn’t working, damn it.’
Kyle felt a rare sense of powerlessness as he glared at the wraith. There had been a time when he brimmed with confidence that he would never lose to any opponent. But facing a wraith dozens of meters tall head-on, that confidence had evaporated like morning dew. Just how the hell was he supposed to kill something like this? What could a mere swordsman like him possibly do?
“—How did you stabilize your body using planar coordinates?!”
Which meant that right now, his job wasn’t to fight the wraith directly. It was to protect the mages specialized in dealing with colossal entities like this. That was what Kyle needed to do.
He turned toward Sera, who was chanting bizarre spells in the distance. Watching the wraith being driven back by her magic, he asked her if they had any chance of winning.
“Sera! What do we do now?!”
“What do you mean, what do we do?! I told you we should run away!”
“You want us to just leave that thing alone and run? Do you honestly think that’s the right call?”
“Then what else?! How are we supposed to fight something made of hundreds of thousands of wraiths fused together?! Even if you kill ten at a time, you’d still need to cast magic a hundred thousand times!”
“If you kill a hundred at a time, it’s only ten thousand casts.”
Even as he said it, Kyle knew how absurd the idea was. Swinging his sword once per second would still take ten thousand seconds. That meant roughly three straight hours of nonstop swinging just to take it down. Maintaining an aura blade for that entire duration would already be incredibly difficult, and this calculation didn’t even account for the wraith attacking or defending itself. In other words, simply hacking away at it would require swinging a sword all day long.
“Yeah, that’s not gonna work.”
“Why are you even calculating that?! You hard-headed idiot!”
“Well, don’t you have some kind of spell for this? You’re the Great Witch, right? There’s gotta be some ultimate magic that can take something like that out in one shot.”
Upon hearing Kyle’s words, the Great Witch slowly turned her head to look at him. She was grateful that he had broken the curse she couldn’t undo herself. She had made every excuse not to try—claiming the wraiths would be released, that undoing the curse would kill her, and so on. If not for him, she might have gone completely mad without ever breaking free. She might have remained trapped forever alongside the hundreds of thousands of vengeful spirits buried in this land.
So this boy was the one who had saved her future, even if it had been through sheer stubbornness.
“There is one.”
Holding back her own life at this point would be far too greedy. The Great Witch Liselotte began preparing a grand spell that would risk everything.
“The reason that enormous wraith can maintain its form is because it has a core.”
“A core?”
“It’s the loneliness born from centuries of being buried beneath this land, devouring and killing one another. A single core.”
If that core disappeared, the colossal wraith would no longer be able to sustain its massive body, Liselotte explained. And to destroy that core—
‘I’ll have to sacrifice myself.’
“Okay, so we just need to get rid of the core, right?”
“Huh?”
Liselotte widened her eyes in shock as Kyle suddenly began loosening up his body. Before she could stop him, he dashed straight ahead. How did he even know where the core was? And even if he did, did he really believe he could survive fighting the wraiths guarding it?
‘I’m the one who’s supposed to risk her life here…’
The Great Witch hesitated for a moment, then belatedly realized why Kyle had charged forward like that. He trusted her. He believed that the Great Witch would ensure he could reach the core safely. That was why he had run ahead without hesitation.
“……Honestly.”
She couldn’t betray that trust. Liselotte immediately drew upon every ounce of her mana and began chanting. The mana scattered across the world began to darken into black mana, which then transformed into pitch-black curses that flew toward the wraith. They struck down the spirits approaching Kyle before he could, clearing the path ahead of him.
“Go.”
Go and save everyone, boy.
Thinking that, the Great Witch wrapped the colossal wraith’s body in layers of curses.
"By the ancient pact of shadow and grudge,"
"By the endless solitude buried beneath the earth,"
⟨ Curse of Binding ⟩
* * *
Kyle, who had charged toward the colossal wraith, climbed up its body following the pitch-black curse that guided him. Although the wraith itself could not be physically touched, the curse provided him with footing. When he finally reached the heart of the wraith by riding the curse, the very same curse that had served as his platform forcibly pried open the creature’s chest.
It should have been an empty, hollow space, yet astonishingly, an unknown subspace existed inside the wraith’s chest.
—Kiiiyaaaaaaaah—!!
A piercing scream rang out, and hundreds of wraiths poured from within. Kyle unleashed his aura blade to erase them, then stepped inside the chest cavity.
There, just as Liselotte had described, was the core. And guarding it were hundreds of wraiths.
“This’ll be easier than taking out a million of them.”
Swinging his sword once per second to kill a hundred wraiths would still require three straight hours to reach a million. Compared to that, wiping out the ones here would take only a few hundredths of that time. It seemed both Kyle and the wraiths had realized this fact.
—We… will… kill…
The hundreds of wraiths that had been split apart began merging into a single entity. Before long, a wraith clad in armor slowly revealed itself. Though it was a mindless wraith incapable of speech, the memories and experiences from its living days remained. It carefully drew the sword hanging at its waist.
Watching its stance, Kyle instinctively realized this wraith had not been an ordinary human in life.
‘A master…?’
The vengeful spirit of an ancient master who had been taken prisoner on the battlefield centuries ago and buried alive. With a surge of anticipation for what this ancient master might show him, Kyle unleashed his aura blade.
In response, the wraith also began emitting dark energy from its blade. Unlike aura, which was created from life force, this was a soul blade that burned using souls as fuel. With an overwhelming abundance of vengeful spirits nearby to use as fuel, the soul blade looked far more majestic than Kyle’s aura blade. Staring at it—
Kyle grinned.
“Let’s go.”
After all, the more experience, the better.
Immediately after, Kyle’s sword clashed with the ancient master’s blade.
* * *
“Haa… haa—”
“M-Miss Witch. Would you like some water?”
“Please… yes…”
While Kyle fought the guardian protecting the core, outside, Liselotte was doing everything she could to halt the wraith’s advance. The curse wrapped tightly around the wraith’s entire body prevented it from moving from its spot. However, it was no easy task for a single individual to restrain a colossal wraith formed from millions of spirits and standing dozens of meters tall.
Liselotte broke out in a cold sweat as her mana drained away like water from a broken jug. Sera, who could only use second-circle magic and was unable to provide any real help, did her best to cheer her on or occasionally destroy the lone wraiths that came to harass Liselotte.
“Can she… really do it?”
“Believe in her! Miss Witch! You can do it!”
“It’s too hard…”
“It’s not about believing in the witch! It’s about holding on!”
“Holding on?”
“Yes! Just trust!”
Sera pointed at the now-motionless colossal wraith’s chest and shouted.
“That guy may not be very smart, but he’s never failed at something he said he’d do! Trust Kyle! Or if not, trust me for trusting him!”
“…What an interesting thing to say.”
If even these children were trying so hard, she supposed she ought to endure a little longer. Thinking that, the Great Witch began squeezing out every last drop of strength she had left. And her endurance bore fruit.
Before long, the colossal wraith had completely stopped moving.
“……Huh?”
Liselotte let out a dazed groan as she watched the colossal wraith’s body shatter into pieces. The millions of wraiths ascended into the sky, gazing down at her.
“Ah… aah. Aaaaaah—”
The long-cherished wish she had carried for over several hundred years had finally been fulfilled.