Valoran Subjugation Battle (Complete)
Beneath a pitch-black sky, a radiant tide of divine power washed across the barren wilderness, spreading wide.
The test subjects it touched no longer screamed like humans. Their final death rattles were those of monsters as they dissolved into the wave itself and scattered.
At the heart of that tide, a violet aura raged with savage force, sending massive ripples outward.
Hermila slipped past a cunning mix of feints and killing blows without ever stopping, until at last the completed Master filled her vision.
Her body was a mass of wounds—hardly a patch of unmarred skin remained—yet her eyes and her presence burned undimmed, fierce and terrible.
In that instant every test subject that had been charging Rubia wheeled toward Hermila instead.
“Ha.”
Her jaw cracked from the force of her clenched teeth as her body shot forward.
Blood-soaked golden hair whipped behind her. Murderous purple eyes contracted to pinpoints.
Crack!
Fists met heads and shattered them to pieces. Legs lashed out and tore bodies to shreds.
“All of you die!”
The snarl tore from her throat as the rank of annihilation surged sharp and high. Every test subject it touched twisted, broke apart, and piled into a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.
At the same moment dozens of spells streaked toward Hermila. Rubia poured every scrap of her divine power into a vast barrier around her.
BOOM! The spells, heavy with overwhelming mana, struck the divine veil and lost their force, scattering into nothing.
“Kh… ghk… nngh…”
The backlash left Rubia’s body empty. Dozens of arrows and more than a dozen spear blades punched into her flesh.
She swallowed the blood that surged up her throat, lifted trembling arms, and reclaimed the divine power she had focused on Hermila, sweeping it outward against the enemies that ringed her.
Every time those slender arms—ready to snap at any moment—carved through the air, a dozen test subjects toppled like cut grain.
When the last of them had been driven back, Rubia ripped the blades from her own body and looked toward Hermila.
Hermila had finished every last test subject and now stood directly before the mage.
In the same breath her fist, driven with everything she had left, burst the mage’s body into nothing—not a single scrap remaining.
Seeing it, Rubia swept her arms again, clearing the test subjects that still clustered around Hermila.
Rumble—!
The divine power that spilled from the dying test subjects fed the tide, swelling it larger still.
For Rubia, who commanded divine power, it was the perfect battlefield—if only the crimson veil standing firm behind her had not been there.
Hours more crawled past.
When every enemy that had encircled the mainland was dead, Rubia tipped the last stimulant into her mouth and collapsed where she stood.
“Haa… how many hours has it been…?”
She put the question to Hermila as the other woman approached, then yanked the remaining blades free and finally let herself fall flat.
“Hah… hahh… roughly fifty-two hours.”
“The situation…?”
“…Not good.”
Hermila wrapped her hands in a scrap of cloth that had been rolling on the ground in place of proper bandages and sat, staring toward the place where screams still filled the air.
“Still, thanks to Lady Ser, the Sanctuary of Memory doesn’t seem to have fallen.”
Rubia followed her gaze.
Above the Sanctuary the sky was still painted with multicolored spirits—half as many as at the start, yet still an overwhelming host.
“Is Noah… all right?”
“…Yes. She’s alive.”
With pale fingers Rubia gripped the thread that linked her to the inside of the veil and closed her eyes.
“But… she seems to be suffering terribly…”
The emotions flowing through the thread that bound her to Noah were a solid mass of despair, every negative feeling gathered into one. Feelings dredged up from the bottom of a bottomless abyss.
“I… see.”
Hermila ground her teeth, checked her own wounds, and pulled out a potion.
Rubia slowly pushed herself upright and poured divine power into Hermila’s body.
“I could just patch it with the potion…”
“It’ll scar.”
“Mm… yes. Thank you.”
“It’s nothing.”
Once every wound had vanished cleanly, Hermila drew a strip of dried jerky from her coat.
“Lady Rubia, you can’t turn something like this into a steak, can you?”
“Of course not…”
“Well, they say gods can do that sort of thing. Since you borrow a god’s power I thought I’d ask, just in case.”
A pointless joke.
But Rubia caught Hermila’s intent—to loosen the tension even a little—and answered with a small smile.
“…You’re right. There’s some sense in that.”
She accepted the jerky and let a thin stream of divine power seep into it.
“Ah, it’s a little warmer now.”
Then she snorted and stuffed the jerky into her mouth.
“Does it taste different?”
“Warm garbage.”
“My… then I’ll eat mine cold.”
In the quiet ruins the sound of chewing jerky—crunch, crunch—echoed.
“Still no word from the Urusphier reinforcements…?”
“None. They must have run into those things on the way. Whether they’re alive or dead…”
Hermila pulled a cracked crystal from her sub-space pouch and swallowed the last of the jerky.
“Still, they aren’t the sort to die so easily. And once their forces reach us the tide of battle will swing hard. Though… it may already be too late.”
Rubia hugged her knees, lowered her head, and let out a trembling breath.
“Honestly… even if we went right now, things on that side would improve a lot.”
“True. But if we did that, Lady Ser would be furious, wouldn’t she?”
“Heh… that… yes.”
“I can already hear her: ‘I am a genius. There is no way a genius like me could fail to stop trash like this. Are you looking down on me? Get back where you belong this instant. Go, and return with Lady Noah.’ She’d grumble and chase us off.”
“Oh… that was remarkably close.”
At that moment an overwhelming presence erupted from the place where Ser stood.
A created Master.
Not a completed Master—true Master power.
Completed Masters could be called strong, like the genuine article, yet real Masters stood on an entirely different plane. The experience they had piled up, the battlefields they had crossed with their lives on the line, became overwhelming experience points. And the mental images they had honed over long years created a gulf that mere fabrications could never bridge.
And now those things—
“Two… there are two of them right now.”
“…Seems so.”
Two of them existed on the battlefield where Ser stood.
“They only just joined, I think, but…”
Hermila’s voice trailed off as she looked at Rubia.
Meeting that gaze, Rubia nodded at once and spoke.
“Go.”
“…Will you be all right?”
“Of course. Honestly, with that much, even Lady Ser won’t complain.”
Rubia smiled freely and drew a roll of bandages from her coat, holding it out to Hermila.
“Take these.”
“…These?”
“Mm… there’s someone near me who uses bandages. I packed extras just in case. They’re new, not used… so use them.”
Hermila tilted her head for a moment, then said “Aha…” and gave a short laugh.
“I was the one who taught her how to tie the knot. Is she good at it now?”
“Yes. She fumbles around on her own and ties them just fine.”
For a fleeting second Rubia pictured Noah’s cute little motions, and her chest gave a sharp, aching throb.
“Here, take them and go. Don’t die out there… just hold on.”
Hermila nodded slightly, accepted the bandages, and rose.
“If anything goes wrong—”
“It won’t.”
Rubia cut off Hermila’s grim words with firm finality and shook her head.
“Noah will win and come back. Without fail.”
“Understood.”
Bandages wrapped around her hand, Hermila glanced once at the crimson veil, then turned her back.
“I’ll be waiting.”
“Yes.”
Step. Step.
Hermila’s footsteps faded into the distance.
A short while later, when her presence had vanished completely—
Something Rubia had kept secret from Hermila happened.
Someone stepped into the wide divine barrier she had spread.
A human whose mouth was stitched shut with wire, wearing a roughly sewn hide over their head.
Completed Masters.
Three of them.
Rubia exhaled a breath full of resolve and rose to her feet.
She had to hold this place.
She had to endure for however long it took.
With her undying body.
With this monstrous flesh.
By any means necessary.
Splash—
Three people.
One footstep.
The other two—
Whoosh—!
She raised a divine veil against the spear shaft that suddenly lunged. Clang! The shaft stopped in midair with a harsh whistle of displaced air. She turned her head and thrust her hand toward the sword already rushing in from the front.
Crack— The blade, gleaming with murderous light, sliced through the skin of her palm and scored the bone. She poured divine power into it at once, seizing the edge that was driving deeper and forcing it to a halt.
Pain so intense it blanked her mind kneaded her brain. She chewed down the scream that tried to burst from her lips and gathered every scrap of divine power scattered around her.
Then she stomped, detonating the power that had converged into a single point.
BOOM—!
A silent ripple raced across the rough earth as fierce divine power swallowed their bodies.
Next she loosed arrows of divine power honed to the absolute limit at the distant mage, then lifted a finger.
The arrows’ straight trajectories wavered and began to swim through the air, following her fingertip.
They slipped past the mage’s barrier, pierced the defensive shield, shattered spells, and flew on—
BOOOOM—!
The instant Rubia clenched her fist they exploded.
Through the sandstorm that left nothing visible she raised another veil to block the magic that came flying, then sent more arrows after the ones who had escaped the divine tide.
Clang— One of them casually swatted the arrows aside with a spear shaft—and vanished.
Then— CRUNCH—!
“Ghk… ugh…”
The spear tip smashed through her ribs, pierced her lung, and burst out her back.
No movement.
A spear shaft that disappeared and reappeared.
Spatial transfer.
After that—
Crack— A sword blade carved into her shoulder.
ZZZT— Current raced along the ground, entered her veins, and burned outward.
Every breath she exhaled was laced with metallic agony. Every time she writhed against it the sword buried in her shoulder chewed deeper into muscle and bone. Every time she tried to raise divine power the current flowing through her body interfered.
Her vision blurred.
Her knees buckled.
Her back bent.
Her mind clouded.
Still.
She had to endure.
Because when everything was over and she came out—
Noah might feel lonely.
Might be suffering.
Might be wounded.
Might be shedding tears over that despairing emotion.
So she clenched the impossibly thin thread linked to her hand and forced divine power to bloom.
Indescribable pain tore her entire body apart.
Crunch— The teeth clenched inside her mouth shattered.
Her lungs swelled around the spear shaft and ballooned.
Blood erupted—from the hole in her back, from the shoulder where the sword was buried, from her eyes, her nose, her mouth, her ears.
Even so she dragged the divine power out and held on.
She accelerated the healing.
She forced strength into buckling knees.
She jolted her fading mind awake.
And the divine power that had gathered until it shook the very space—
CLANG—!
She detonated it.
A radiant tide so brilliant it was hard to keep her eyes open rolled across the wilderness.
Drops of dazzling light that gently illuminated a world that had known only darkness settled over the land.
The three bodies surrounding her melted away, and as if time itself had rewound, every wound on her body vanished cleanly.
And then—
Splash—
Splash—
Splash—
Splash—
Splash—
More completed Masters walked toward her.
Twelve in total.
Their presence closed in on her.
They ran, vanished, reappeared.
And when they reached her—
Swords carved.
Spears thrust.
Arrows rained.
Hammers fell.
Greatswords crushed.
Halberds swept.
Daggers lunged.
Magic bloomed.
Fists extended.
Spikes erupted.
Curses activated.
Harpoons shot.
When every form of death arrived before her eyes—
Crack—
The veil at her back split open.
Ziiip— click—
In a space where time itself seemed to freeze—
“I missed you, Rubia.”
The voice of the person I loved more than anything rang out.
“No…ah.”
“Yes… it’s Noah.”
A gentle voice.
And eyes that held the opposite—something eerie, something haunted.
With those eyes Noah faced the dozens of deaths frozen in midair, and Frey swept through her hand.
Along the path that blade carved—
the sky itself flipped over.