Chapter 73
Chapter 73
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 73
Chapter Title: Every Moment, Every Time (2)
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――――――― Kwa-ang!
The grotesquely swollen calf muscle slammed down on his heel, crushing the stone slab beneath his foot. Shards and cracks exploded outward in his leap, and Kadim's divine form—crouched behind the pillar—left only a red afterimage as he closed the distance to the demon in an instant.
The mask's pattern flickered into a chaotic shape for a split second. The demon hastily swung his scythe in a cross pattern.
――――――――――――― Sse-geong, sse-geong!!
It didn't even graze him. The scythe's afterimages failed to slice so much as a hair on Kadim's body, merely gouging the walls and pillars. Kadim rebounded off the momentum of his retracted body, launching himself like a predator pouncing on prey straight at the demon. He buried his axe roughly into the neck of the foe who hadn't yet grasped the situation.
Peu-geok!
But the moment the axe blade sank in even a fingernail's depth, the demon's form vanished completely.
――――― Huu-woong!
A devastating axe swing cleaved through empty air. A fierce whirlwind trailed the blade's path. Kadim scanned his surroundings without a hint of agitation. His eyes, shaken with crimson fury, emitted scarlet flashes where sclera and pupil blurred into one.
He spotted his target in an instant. On the dais, the demon clutched his throat, tracing a vortex of chaotic patterns. Kadim let out a feral roar and charged again.
"Krhaaaaaaargh!!!"
- …….
The demon released his throat. Composing himself, cold flames flickered from the mask as he steadied his stance and fended off the approach with a flurry of scythe swings.
―――――――――― Sse-geong, sse-geong, sse-geong!!
These were attacks of exceptional range, destructive power, and speed. In the time it took to draw a single breath, multiple afterimages flew forth, snapping pillars and savagely tearing into the walls.
――――― Kwa-gwagwagwa-!
Even worse, every afterimage launched by spinning the scythe haft returned to him, so dodging once wasn't enough. Black line segments that severed space shot back and forth like arrows, weaving a dense net of slashes.
Yet the berserker's body remained unscathed.
Sse-geong, sse-geong, sse-geong ―――――――――― !!
Kadim moved to evade before his blood-red vision could even track the afterimages. His senses, amplified to the extreme, read the flow of demonic energy and anticipated their trajectories. No rational thought or strategic judgment entered the equation—only raw bodily instinct.
The returning afterimages were no different. Kadim didn't memorize their paths from before. In every moment—launch, return—he sensed them with near-prophetic clarity and threw his body aside. Even when multiple afterimages crossed, he deftly found blind spots. Beastly acrobatics, reliant solely on rampaging senses and reflexes, unfolded one after another.
- …….
The demon halted his swings, as if dumbfounded. Kadim, as if waiting for that very moment, hurled his axe.
"Grraa, krhaaaaaaargh!!"
――――― Jwae-raeraeraeraeraeok!!
No amount of hawk-like dynamic vision could track its trajectory. It sliced through demonic energy like a gale, a crushing disc that triggered collapse and destruction.
――――――― Kwa-gwagwagwang-!!!
Beyond the fog of dust, the axe was visible, embedded deep after pulverizing the wall. Vibrations spread across the entire surface like an aftershock, and the mangled pillars swayed precariously. It was less an axe and more a mass weapon empowered by supernatural force.
But it hadn't cleaved the demon's body as intended.
――――― Jwae-raeraeraeraeraeok, kwa-gwagwang!!
He retrieved and threw the axe again, but the result was the same. The demon had shifted elsewhere in the blink of an eye. Evasion bordering on teleportation, leaving no afterimage or trace.
Spinning the clock attached to the scythe with a flick, the demon spat mocking derision.
- ……You're quite the sight, thrashing about like a dog with its tail on fire. Yes, let's see how much longer you can keep it up.
"Krhaaaaaaargh!!"
The clash continued, too fast for ordinary eyes to follow even the afterimages. Attacks that would pulverize bone and flesh on a graze flew ceaselessly between them. Had they not been foes, one side surely wouldn't have left even a corpse behind.
Yet neither bore a single scratch. The berserker relied on evasion fueled by senses pushed to their limits; the demon on inscrutable authority. Fatal blows invariably missed their mark.
Kwa-gwagwa, kwarrurur-!!
Innocent space alone suffered from the clash of these monstrous powers. Pillars and thrones lay in splinters; walls and floors bore marks like those from a rampaging giant. The right corner had already collapsed into a pile of rubble. With neither landing damage and deadlock persisting, it seemed only a matter of time before the space itself crumbled.
Change came when the bloodlust dominating Kadim's mind and body began to ebb slightly.
- How much longer…… th……at…….
"……Grhk."
The demon's voice distorted into mush, replaced by unintelligible whispers burrowing into his ears. Kadim realized his buffs were fading and madness creeping in.
Yet he wasn't fully subsumed. Instead, between rampaging bloodlust and encroaching frenzy, he reached a state of crystalline clarity—like the eye of a storm. Drawing on experience, he inferred the demon's authority.
'It couldn't reverse the flying axe or shattered bricks. That power must manipulate time only for "living beings" or "demonic energy." It probably includes itself too. So the way it evades attacks in a flash is…….'
Kadim fractionated his senses and consciousness to the utmost—fractions of a tenth, a hundredth of a second. Then he glimpsed it faintly. The moment he threw the axe, the clock hand embedded in the scythe spun furiously, and the demon seemed to step backward into disappearance.
Position. Rewinding its own time instantly to return to its previous spot. That had to be it.
"……."
An absurd authority. Not content with aging humans or promoting demons, it could wield tricky offense and absolute evasion.
He wondered why it didn't use it directly. No need for this tedious struggle—just age him outright for an easy win…….
'……Some condition to activate it? Or holding back to match my full power…….'
Either way, with buffs lingering and the demon not activating it, now was the chance. Kadim accelerated cognition, splintered consciousness repeatedly, and perceived his surroundings.
- ……Slo-ow-w…… wha-t……i-is…….
Time sense stretched into infinity. Space flowed murky, sluggish, heavy—like submerged in a blood sea.
Kwa-a-a-a-ang!
Within it, Kadim crushed another slab and leaped at the demon again.
This time, it was clearer. The hand spinning the scythe haft, the whirling clock hand, the demon's steps rewinding backward. The direction evaded this time was to the right of his charge path.
Kadim instantly braked, twisted his swollen core muscles, and shifted his inertial axis rightward. To the demon, it defied physics entirely. The mask's pattern rippled like waves of agitation.
The demon spun the haft again; Kadim twisted his direction in another impossible maneuver. After several such shifts, the demon stopped rewinding time. Instead, it pulled back the haft, gathering all previously launched scythe afterimages at once.
―――――――――― Sse-ge-reong, sse-ge-reong!
Even in slowed time, black afterimages streaked like beams of light—utterly unavoidable.
Kadim didn't dodge.
Sse-ge-re-oong!
Sacrificing his leg, he closed to the demon's throat. Then he drew the sword at his waist and slashed down like a crimson bolt.
Jje-geok.
Crimson trajectory erupting from the blade, space segmenting, bloodlust exploding.
―――――――――――― Kwa-ga-ga-ga-ga-!!
A razor-sharp slash followed by a raging torrent of blood. The ferocious bloodlust devoured all it touched, bisecting the demon and carving an indelible gash from floor to ceiling before dissipating into bloody mist.
Ku-rururung…….
Shocks cracked ceiling and walls, bringing them down. The demon's mask split with a jjeogeogeok, its flesh beyond cleaved like under a massive guillotine. It crumpled, spilling bones and organs from ragged cross-sections.
The taut tension snapped. Time sense normalized.
"……Kgh."
Kadim rolled once across the floor and pushed up from the ground.
Accelerated cognition prolonged pain several-fold. But no worry of losing the leg. Glancing at the stump, his tibia and fibula were already regrowing. Thanks to the lingering effect of 'Hydra's Tattoo.'
The 'Blood Ghost' that spat blood and slaughtered foes hummed with satisfaction. That slash's power could bisect even high demons without fail. With its body halved like that, no regeneration could save it.
Flesh now clung to his leg enough to stand, if not walk. Using his sword as a crutch, Kadim slowly rose.
Then froze.
His prediction missed.
As if never severed, flesh floated back together in midair, robes cleansed and mended, mask rejoined.
The demon restored itself to their first encounter in an instant. Fireworks patterned across the mask as it slowly clapped.
- Congratulations on felling "me from 32 seconds ago."
Kadim's eyes trembled like beads on the verge of shattering.
Pebilatus spread his arms in theatrical flair.
- So now, try toppling "me from one second ago."
Chal-kak, chal-kak, chal-kak…….
The pocket watch in the demon's hand indifferently ticked away the seconds.
*
The demons and beasts before Soltana's gates still rampaged ferociously.
- Prey, catch the prey!
- Not escaping this time!!
- Kiehehehehehek!!
The bad news: this guest was no pushover either.
Huu-woong, jjeogeogeogeogeok!
The massive axe blade mowed down beasts like bundled straw. Agon's Furious Horn wiped blood from his cheek and glanced behind.
"Stick close behind me, merchant. Fall behind, and you die."
Duncan's ears rang deaf to it. Surrounded by grotesque demons and beasts, his mind blanked. After seeking safe havens and evading demons, to end up like this! Fate seemed to mock him.
- Don't target the big prey! Go for the small one!!
- Kieeeek!
- Just give me five fingers! No, six! That's all, then I'll go!
"Ahaak! U, uheuk, kheul-luk, kheul-luk, get away! Get away, you monsters!"
Hwaruruk, hwaruruk-!
"……."
Terror-stricken, Duncan drew his hellfire dagger and flailed desperately. Agon's Furious Horn eyed it curiously. For a mere merchant, it was unusually potent.
Duncan's wild swings yielded little. At best, scraping goblin flesh that shoved too close. Ultimately, Agon's Furious Horn alone butchered the demons omnidirectionally as the pair advanced on Soltana's gate.
Suddenly, the ground quaked violently.
Kugugugugu…….
Demons and beasts flinched to a halt. Agon's Furious Horn paused his axe. The tremors didn't stop—ringing continuously, like a buried behemoth writhing.
Agon's Furious Horn furrowed his brow gravely.
"Damn, looks like the central demon's already fighting…… Cling to my back, merchant. We're breaking straight for the gate."
"……Pardon?"
What was he saying? The gate's shut?
Duncan got no explanation. Agon's Furious Horn hoisted him effortlessly, knelt, and intoned solemnly.
"[Vanguard of the Indomitable Legion, Atala. Look upon your great warrior, raise the torch to guide to the battlefield, grant strength against the unclean foes…….]"
⟨ Judgment of Atala ⟩
Uuuuuuwoong…….
Duncan's eyes bulged. As the prayer ended, sandy yellow energy seeped from the battle axe like a dust storm, enveloping robust forearms and broad shoulders, ultimately gleaming like golden armor around the warrior's flesh.
With the Father of the Wilderness at his side, fear vanished. Empowered by divine arts, Agon's Furious Horn roared the war god's name and charged like a raging bull.
"A-tal-la-!!!"
Peugeogeogeogeok-!
- Kieeeek!!
"Uwaaaaaaargh!!"
Demons and beasts struck by his bulk crumpled and flew like under chariot wheels. Duncan, gripping the shoulder, flapped like laundry in gale winds. Piercing the encirclement, Agon's Furious Horn reached the gate, hefted his axe haft high, and leaped skyward.
"For the Father of the Wilderness!!!"
――――――――――― Huu-woong, jje-geong!!!
As the axe descended, a tawny afterimage surged, cleaving the firmly shut gate like paper.