Chapter 137
Chapter 137
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 137
Chapter Title: Rescue Operation - 2
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As if reacting to that shout, Adin spoke up.
“Why have you come here again?”
We all readied ourselves for battle.
I responded with deliberate mockery.
“Looks like your performance this time is pretty lackluster?”
“......”
“Not greeting us from the skies like last time? And speaking out loud, no less.”
“Hmm.”
“If you’re going to put on such a sorry display, you might as well stay hidden. What, is it one of the world’s laws that you have to make a grand entrance with trumpets blaring?”
In that instant, his white form wavered.
It was obvious to anyone that he was shaken.
But he forced a calm tone as he opened his mouth.
“Laws... Who told you about that?”
“I didn’t need to hear it from anyone. It was obvious enough just looking at you—absolutely powerful, yet so severely limited in what you can do.”
“......”
“No more chit-chat. Hand over Agril.”
Adin sneered.
“If I were going to give it back just because you asked, why would I have taken it in the first place?”
“You’d be better off handing it over politely. Who’d believe that pathetic sight belongs to a heavenly god?”
“......”
“By stealing Agril, you’ve crossed the line from ‘passive cooperation,’ haven’t you? That’s why the world’s laws are punishing you now.”
He expressed agreement through silence.
Jenia spoke up in a sharp voice.
“Agril is our comrade. The only place that child belongs is by our side.”
“This is the gift I bestowed upon humanity during the Second Era.”
“If that’s true, what kind of petty thief takes back a gift?”
“Your language is awfully crude for a holy knight. What did you do with your reverence for the gods? Sell it?”
“I didn’t sell it. I threw it away. No one was buying.”
It was unusually cynical coming from Jenia, who rarely lost her polite demeanor.
And her final words properly enraged Adin.
We had succeeded in agitating him, just as planned.
He raised a finger.
“I see you’re getting cocky, relying on that flimsy shield spell of yours.”
“......”
“Or are you planning to threaten me with Imperium’s name again?”
“Who knows.”
“It won’t work like last time. I heard that was all just your bluff.”
......
‘Heard?’
From who? About what?
I wanted to ask, but there was no time.
“Coming to the starting line was a mistake. Here, I can kill you all without facing any repercussions.”
“......”
“Rest easy now, Fake Hero.”
Divine radiance shot from his fingertip.
-Kuung. Kugugugwang.
It began effortlessly shattering the hundreds of layers of shields we had set up in advance.
Three seconds.
In a mere three seconds, half the shields were broken.
“Neril!”
“On it!”
Neril gripped the Withering Jewel tightly and swiftly formed hand seals.
“Transcendent Decomposition.”
The same Transcendent Decomposition she had unveiled back in Atrium territory.
That time, she had created thousands of decomposition lances and erased a mountain.
But this time, Neril conjured only a single lance.
A massive one stretching dozens of meters.
She held it aloft with both arms, then hurled it toward the divine radiance.
At that exact moment, the remaining half of the shields shattered.
-Chiiik. Chaaat!
The Transcendent Decomposition lance clashed against the divine radiance.
“Eek. Ngh.”
“Neril!”
“Hang in there!”
Just as we had planned, Jenia and Serein supported Neril from behind.
By the time it had flown this far, Neril had already completed a crash course with Iori, whom Adwin had summoned.
The secret technique to convert holy power into mana.
“Ngh.”
The vital energy of the Withering Jewel.
The monstrous holy power from Jenia and Serein.
The mana power Neril herself possessed.
Even combining all of it, the transcendent lance was being relentlessly pushed back by Adin’s radiance.
Chaak.
The ground beneath Neril’s feet cratered deeply.
“Ugh. I-I don’t think I can hold much longer.”
“Just a bit more.”
“Maide...”
“Not yet. Hold on a little longer.”
Neril bit her lip.
Blood trickled down, but determination filled her eyes.
“Haaaah!”
The transcendent lance, powered by all three, swelled once more.
It held out in a tug-of-war with the divine radiance for a few more seconds.
[Not yet? Still?]
‘Yeah. Not yet.’
[Neril doesn’t look like she can hold out much longer.]
‘Not yet. Wait.’
I stared intently at Adin’s pristine white form.
When I had seen it through the Eye of Omniscience, he had briefly reverted to human shape.
Back then, the time he spent firing that radiance at Agril was five seconds.
But now, it had been at least twenty.
He was desperate too, but he had to be reaching his limit soon.
That’s when it happened.
“Ngh. Stop struggling and die, you vermin.”
In the next moment, his radiance shone even brighter.
I pierced through that light and saw it clearly.
His left arm, which he had lowered.
The radiance had vanished there, exposing his skin.
I hurriedly signaled Adwin.
He had already finished his incantation.
[Connected! To Agril’s soul!]
Hearing that, I shouted without pause.
[Bite his left arm, Agril!]
Offense was already hiding behind Agril’s massive bulk.
He had been here for a while.
When Adin’s divine radiance shattered half the shield spell, Maide had said,
[Now. Move to Agril’s shadow.]
[In this hellscape?]
[Neril’s preparing Transcendent Decomposition. And Adin’s noticed.]
‘......’
[He won’t have any attention left for Agril. Move now, and you won’t be spotted.]
Offense trusted Maide’s instincts.
Those instincts were different from Trail’s Eye of Omniscience as the hero’s voice or his time-manipulating abilities.
A power unique to Maide Mohan.
Without another word, Offense shifted into Agril’s shadow.
By the time he hid behind Agril’s bulk, the shield spell had broken, and Neril’s prepared Transcendent Decomposition activated.
‘He really didn’t notice.’
Up close like this, it was clear.
His face was unreadable, wrapped in white radiance, but Adin’s focus was entirely on the decomposition lance.
Click.
He very carefully, very cautiously uncapped the potion.
Serein’s words from yesterday came to mind.
“You don’t need to rub it on the wounds. Just sprinkle it over Agril like you’re scattering it.”
“That works?”
“Yes. This is a potion I made properly, with care. I’m thinking of making it my business’s trademark later.”
“......”
“For reference, I’m pricing it at around a hundred gold coins.”
Offense had chuckled at the absurd price then, but now he had changed his mind.
‘I’d buy it even for a thousand gold.’
It was practically a resurrection potion.
Agril’s breathing stabilized.
The bleeding stopped, and the split skin knitted back together.
It felt like time was rewinding.
Offense greeted him through the soul link Adwin had established in advance.
[You okay, Agril?]
[Grook?]
[Shh. Don’t make a sound.]
[Grrr.]
[Maide will call the timing. When he does, bite the spot he shouts.]
With that, Offense pulled a tool from his pocket.
The same one he had used to draw blood from Hyren before.
A tool that could extract fresh blood even from dried, dust-covered spills days old.
A few seconds passed like that.
Suddenly, Maide’s voice rang through the soul link.
[Bite his left arm, Agril!]
“Groooaaar!”
Agril charged at Adin’s arm, unleashing all its pent-up rage.
By that moment, Offense had already hidden in the shadows.
Adin’s shocked voice rang out.
“Agril? How are you...! Ngh!”
Kwaak.
Agril’s sharp fangs sank into Adin’s arm.
It was poised to rip it clean off.
With fangs the size of a man’s forearm on a beast like Agril, it wasn’t a bad plan.
But it only barely pierced his skin.
Even so, it was fine.
It had pierced skin, not radiance.
“You filthy beast!”
Adin kept firing radiance from his right hand while swinging his left arm wildly.
That alone sent the dozens-of-meters-long Agril flying across to the other side.
-Kugugwang.
Agril crashed, uprooting five trees.
Adin raised his left hand, pointing at him.
To literally kill the beast that had bitten its master.
But.
Whoosh.
Agril’s unconscious body floated into the air.
It looked like someone was puppeteering it with strings.
Adin’s eyes widened as he shouted.
“A spirit? No, a spirit invisible to my eyes?”
He channeled a bit of his power into his eyes.
Soon, a familiar figure appeared there.
“Mime!”
“You’ve picked up some strange abilities in the meantime, Adin Press.”
“Ngh. You bastard.”
Tap. Tap.
Adin hurled a few orbs of light at him.
But Mime dodged them all with ghostly speed and flew toward Maide.
From that sight, Adin understood everything.
He bellowed at Maide in fury.
“This was all a ruse from the start! To reclaim Agril?”
Maide replied glibly.
“You’re a bit slow on the uptake.”
“Ngh.”
“No, really slow. It wasn’t just about getting Agril back.”
“What?”
“What do you think this is?”
He shook a small vial.
A vial filled with thick brown liquid.
‘That’s... no way, the Jewel of Greed?’
He had ‘heard.’
That Idria had lost the Jewel of Greed to Maide.
The scratch Agril had just inflicted on his skin came to mind.
Blood. No way, my blood?
‘Who the hell.’
That’s when Adin spotted the man stowing away a tool behind Maide.
Bright Death Offense!
“Ah, even if I was distracted... you got right up next to me without me noticing?”
“Then what about Neril, struggling against your radiance?”
“......”
“What about Jenia and Serein backing her up? Or Adwin, who can even connect to a non-human like Agril’s soul? Or Risel, commanding a ducal spirit like Mime?”
“Ngh.”
“Even a heavenly god can take a hit when we all work together. How’s that feel?”
That’s when Neril spoke.
“Maide. Enough taunting. Finish the plan already.”
“Yeah. We’re really about to die here.”
“Time to bail!”
“Right.”
Maide uncapped the vial.
Adin let out a monstrous roar.
“Uwaaaah! No! Stop!”
Gulp.
Ignoring him, he downed the greed liquid.
Grimacing all the while.
“Second time already. Damn it.”
Humans are creatures of adaptation.
The second swig of greed sludge was... passable...
[Drinkable?]
‘I was about to say that but backed off. Felt like I wouldn’t be able to take it back if I did.’
[Too late.]
Shut up.
The moment I swallowed the sludge,
“Ngh.”
A groan escaped Adin.
I had stolen his ‘divine radiance firing ability.’
Naturally, the light from his fingertip vanished.
Seizing the opening, Neril’s Transcendent Decomposition lance flew at him.
But he hastily leaped aside, dodging it.
‘Too bad.’
At least he ended up tumbling ingloriously.
Adin said,
“To think... I’d get dirtied like this.”
“Who told you to roll on the ground? You could’ve just taken the decomposition lance.”
“Ngh. Don’t think you stole all my radiance!”
Gasp.
His mouth gaped wide.
I hurriedly shoved Neril behind me.
“Get behind me.”
“Hah... hah... Sorry.”
“What are you talking about? You did great up to now.”
I gripped my sword.
The greed sludge was a wondrous thing.
Just like when I stole Consumarse’s ability, I instinctively knew how to wield it, without being taught.
‘Even so, I didn’t expect to steal a god’s power.’
[He’s a fake god. Plus, he bled after turning human. Guess Adin Press was never on the Demon King’s level to begin with.]
As I was about to nod,
-Kuwaaaaah.
An even vaster light than before poured from his mouth.
“You’re getting less dignified by the second!”
I thrust the Fake Hero’s sword toward Adin.