The Summoner of Salvation (83)
"DIIIIIIIIE!!!!"
Sssssshhk!!!
A bundle of blades like octopus tentacles erupted from the creature's arms and lashed out in every direction. Between the strikes, a viscous green liquid dripped like poison, so I burned it all without a second thought.
Fwoooosh!!!
Compressed heat exploded in an instant, searing the ground and carbonizing the creature's arms. The vaporized toxin had no time to linger; the aftershock of heat scattered it to the winds.
If this had been an enclosed space, it would have been the worst possible response — but we were outside, so it didn't matter. And even if we had been sealed in, I could have just blasted a hole through everything with fire anyway.
Fwoosh, fwoooosh...
Beyond the flames, something still moved. I swept my hand through the air, feeding more heat into the blaze. If that wasn't enough, I'd just raise a stronger one.
Burn it all to ash before the poison even had a chance to vaporize.
Do I really need to burn everything?
Maybe before — but I had other options now. I spun the condensed heat once and fired it. Centered on that point, I ignited the Flame of Purification.
I cooled the rising heat itself in one stroke, dropping the surrounding temperature in an instant.
Hissss!
The fire gathered. Was it because I could now push the temperature down to its absolute limit? I had reached a stage where I could reverse the process entirely — sucking the heat away and stealing the temperature of a place for my own use.
Krrrrrk...!!!
"Gyaaaaaaah----?!?!"
The result: the fire that had been blazing just moments before froze solid, and the monster's body shattered as if it were necrotic tissue crumbling apart.
What heat had swollen and expanded could not endure the violent contraction of rapid cooling. It collapsed under its own strain.
At first it had been hard to grasp, but once I got used to it, everything became easy.
This was the heat I had spent so long desperately trying to force out of myself by any means necessary — and now I was absorbing it in reverse and putting it to work.
"...Haa."
Maybe because I had stolen heat equivalent to sub-zero temperatures in a single breath, the air that left my mouth came out as a plume of unusually hot steam. I could feel my insides smoldering on their own.
It made me feel like a steam locomotive. One stoked full of coal, barreling forward at full speed.
I'd had my fun. Time to give the stolen heat back.
Snap!
Mimicking him, I flicked my fingers and kindled a spark of mana.
The image I held was a balloon.
Until now, every application of heat had been something that happened inside my body. Forcing it out had always put a strain on me. But things were different now.
Perhaps because I had stored the Flame of Tranquility within myself, the space it occupied left the compressed heat with nowhere to go. Pushed to its limit, the heat converted into flame the moment it found an outlet and roared to life.
The first time he had demonstrated the Flame of Tranquility, a single thought had struck me. Did I really need to keep the heat only inside my body?
Couldn't I separate the fire and heat outside myself, the way he did with that sword?
In other words — instead of making myself the vessel, if I made the flame the vessel, then the backlash would hit the flame, not me.
Give the flame form, and then turn it into a vessel? Before, it would have been impossible. Or rather, I never even tried. Back then, fire was both my means of attack and my very self.
But the me of now was different. I knew that fire was not merely a weapon — it was a mysterious power I could shape however I wished. Using it only for crude attacks was far too one-dimensional.
I had been arbitrarily setting limits on a power that could become anything. Even I thought it was a waste.
So it was possible. No — I had to make it possible.
What matters in all things is the image and an unshakable will.
With this, I could reclaim the firepower of that day — the kind I could only use by putting my own body at risk.
Little by little. Slowly.
I poured heat into the flame as if growing it. But to keep the two from mixing and detonating, I sandwiched the Flame of Tranquility between them as a buffer.
I built the flame denser and firmer so the heat couldn't leak out through the soft edges.
Every step of the process felt like it would give my brain a cramp. It was delicate, difficult work — but strangely, once the shape took hold, everything after that came easily.
As if to prove that this was my true power, my chest had been stirring for some time now.
I couldn't see them, but I could feel with absolute clarity that something was present around me. The fire spirits, of course.
I felt them swimming around me, feeding strength into the flame. Cold sweat ran down my back at the sudden surge in the fire's mass, but I controlled it with everything I had.
And then, as if asking whether I could handle this too, more and more flame kept adding itself.
Even better.
I gladly accepted their curiosity. I would not forcibly seize their power or exploit them in return. Spirits were delicate beings. I merely received their whims and goodwill — I could never treat that as a right I was owed.
Wooooom...!!
I compressed the finished sphere of fire until it was easy to throw, and it felt as though I were holding a tiny sun in my palm.
The flame kept flickering, clumping, and shifting as if to show off that it was ready to erupt in full glory the moment I gave the signal — making it look even more like a sun.
Throw it? Or strike with it?
The deliberation was short. I aimed the sun forward. I layered the Flame of Tranquility over my entire body. No — not just myself. A barrier of water-hued fire rose like a wall, as if to protect everyone nearby.
This would be enough.
The image was a needle piercing a balloon. Release the heat inside in a single burst and fire it. Add mana to the explosion and it would detonate even more spectacularly, spewing flame in every direction.
Just imagining it, I thought it would be breathtakingly beautiful.
I set my stance. The motion was not so different from when I had used my own body as the vessel. The only difference was the tiny sun fixed on the enemy.
"URYAAAAA--!!!"
The instant I drove my fist forward with everything I had—
Piiiiing----!!!
Light burst.
KAAAAAAAAAAAAAANG!!!!!
A thunderous roar followed. The shockwave lifted my body clean off the ground. For a moment I couldn't breathe. My lungs locked tight. Something inside me was collapsing at terrifying speed.
My throat closed. I pounded and clutched at my chest until, a moment later, a fierce wind rushed in and the breath I had been denied finally came out.
"Hahk, hahk..."
I wasn't tired, yet my breathing had gone strangely ragged. A metallic taste rose from somewhere, and something warm trickled down. When I wiped it with my hand, red blood came away. A nosebleed.
That wasn't all. My throat felt raw; when I spat, blood came with it. My ears were the same. People around me had been murmuring for a while, but I hadn't heard a thing — my eardrums must have ruptured.
It was damage that couldn't be explained by simply failing to breathe for a few seconds. With trembling hands I tipped a recovery potion someone held out into my mouth and thought through the cause.
The first thing that came to mind was a vacuum.
An overwhelming flame had burned every scrap of oxygen in the area, creating a temporary vacuum. That was the most likely explanation.
The second possibility was that I had botched my mana control and the backlash had hit me full force. But factoring in the wind that had rushed in afterward, the first theory was far more persuasive.
I'll have to be careful when I use this.
Failing to account for the vacuum had cost me every ember I had kindled. I could light them again, of course, but to match the previous power I would need to gather a little more heat.
But there was no time.
Even after taking that attack, the enemy was still alive. Stubborn beyond belief. Not that it had escaped unscathed — even now I could see carbonized skin peeling back to bare bone.
The melted ground was still tormenting it, so we had bought ourselves time, at least.
But the ominous mana pouring off it made its recovery speed faster than anything I could have imagined. Like watching a video on fast-forward.
If we were going to press the attack, it had to be now.
"N-now...!!"
I forced the word out through a cracked throat, and as if they had been waiting for it, two figures shot forward.
Mom and the princess — Onohara Erika. To anyone who didn't know better, their assault looked like the seamless work of partners who had trained together for years.
The flow of it was like watching a beautiful dance they had choreographed in advance.
A short dagger tore through the enemy's flesh and shattered its joints; to cover the opening, a naginata swept in a gentle arc and struck the monster aside. Without stopping, she spun the shaft and drove in like lightning, carving out a chunk of meat.
The monster seemed to take that as further insult. It postponed its own regeneration and launched a counterattack.
KRAAAK!!
"Swift Decree. Command – Triple Retribution!!!"
The thrashing was a feint. From a blind spot, a sharp tentacle of bone and muscle scythed in like a blade, aiming for Mom's back.
If Onohara Erika's curse-command hadn't followed in the same breath, the ambush would have landed.
But by the time the tentacle's tip reached them, a translucent hemispherical barrier had already formed around their bodies, perfectly deflecting the strike.
And that wasn't the end of it.
The moment the barrier blocked the attack, it shattered and transformed into blades. With seamless naturalness, those blades turned on the attacker and began their counterassault.
"Grrrk...!?!"
It had delayed its regeneration. Growing frantic, the monster scattered a mass of tentacles in every direction — and apparently satisfied with that, the two of them pulled back at speed.
Rumble...
"Enhance. Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt. Chain. Suppress."
The combination wasn't finished.
Behind me, a vast and differently terrifying mana erupted. In the next instant, a grand magic so devastating I couldn't even imagine trying to stop it was unleashed.
Flash!
An overwhelming radiance that made ordinary fire look like a candle came crashing down from the sky around the monster.
KAAAAAAAAAANG------!!!!!!
"--------!@#!@@$!!!"
A merciless roar that split heaven and earth rang out a beat late, and the monster began thrashing in mad luminescence. That grand magic did not strike once — it hammered down dozens of times in succession.
The light that had painted the world white finally faded, and a magic so overwhelming that even our own side had to cover their ears and brace for defense came to an end.
"D-did we get it?"
Someone let the words slip without thinking, and Shirogane Rui clapped a hand to her forehead. That was one of the lines you were never supposed to say. In Japan, at least, it was practically an unwritten law.
A few people who shared the same thought shot sharp looks at the culprit.
Standing there with a vacant expression was her own little brother. That idiot. Because of him, the odds of the monster getting back up had just gone up.
Sizzle.... Crackle-crackle...
Sure enough, when the chain of lightning ended, the monster was still standing at the center of the enormous crater it had left behind.
Its entire body was charred black, and high-voltage current still raced across its surface in real time — yet it twitched and writhed, making its continued existence unmistakably clear.
"...Truly persistent. Well, even in the old days, that tenacity of his was the one thing worth acknowledging. Everything else was a complete wash."
"Grrrk, grrrr..."
Had it understood the insult? The monster ground its teeth and fixed its gaze squarely on Mom. Even under that thick killing intent, she snorted with a perfectly composed face.
But I knew better. Mom was the kind of person who put on a show of calm and provoked the enemy when she was cornered. Look closely and you could tell — her posture was slightly off, and a sheen of cold sweat stood on her skin.
The same was true of me, and of everyone else.
In the end, we were all exhausted. We had poured out every scrap of mana without rest, and still the enemy showed no sign of falling.
"This is starting to get dangerous..."
Would he hurry back already? If he were here right now, I wouldn't be feeling this uneasy at all.
"...Worry. Useless."
As if responding to my words, a pale-faced girl with white hair — collapsed on the ground from overusing her mana — pointed a hand toward the far side.
And in that same moment, I saw two figures racing toward us, wrapped in enormous mana.
...What on earth was that?
My eyes saw two people, but the presence I felt was only one. I stretched my senses further, but no matter how I looked, only a single presence registered.
It was as if the two of them appeared as one vast person. Was it an ability? A skill? I didn't know. The one thing I envied was how happy the two of them looked.
A soft, starlike radiance lit the dark night.
"Guh, uwaaaa, aaaa!!!"
Spotting them, the monster screamed and thrust its tentacles toward the pair. Without the slightest hesitation, both drove their swords forward — and the blades met.
Kang!!
To an outsider it might have looked like their attacks had clashed by mistake, each striking the other. The result was something else entirely.
The colliding blades shoved each other aside and cut down the tentacles coming in from the blind spots. A strange performance that looked like coincidence. Anyone with even a modest grounding in martial arts would have recognized that it was no accident — it was thoroughly calculated intent.
No way...
The combination Mom and Erika had shown earlier had been beautiful enough to look like a dance. But what was this?
The two of them moved as one. There was no gap between them; they filled each other's openings without fail and prepared an even stronger strike.
Even the mana control running through the process was as clean and beautiful as a perfect work of art.
Combo. Combo. Another combo.
No openings. No rest. If I were on the receiving end of that assault, could I even dodge? No — could I even respond at all?
The monster's body, which had seemed capable of regenerating forever, was gradually carved apart and began to collapse. From its torso, the flesh of other beasts burst forth. A body armored in various minerals with an emphasis on hardness — it looked like a turtle's shell.
The purpose was probably to stop the oncoming assault.
As if they had been waiting for exactly that, the two of them joined hands. Using one person's body as an axis, the other spun. In an instant they shifted to the side without a shield.
The attack that followed. They even showed the meticulousness of striking the shielded side so the enemy's attention wouldn't wander. A combination that incredible, and they still threw in a feint?
I'll be honest — I had no way to counter that.
"----------!!!!!!!!!!"
The monster screamed. I could tell the emotion in it was fear. Its body was no longer regenerating. What that meant was simple.
"Riri!!"
"Prep complete."
At the man's shout from across the field, the white-haired girl — Riri — rose from the ground and moved her hands.
Silent casting.
Characters of pure mana assembled, and in an instant an ice spell composed of three runes was complete.
It was a spear of cold forged from absolute ice. The form of an ice crystal, as if a piece of winter itself had been cut free, made my hair stand on end.
It was on a completely different level from the fake cold I produced.
...To use grand magic like that and still casually create something this monstrous on her own. The others were remarkable in their own ways, but this child was a being beyond even their scale.
"I'll help too."
"Command – Gratitude."
Violet mana settled over the ice spear, and a single line was drawn. Synchronized with the flow that ran in a straight line toward the monster, the spear of cold was honed even sharper.
Jade-colored standards rose around the spear and began to repel the corruption nearby. That alone was enough for the surroundings, warped by powerful mana, to stabilize at speed.
...I couldn't just sit here and watch either. As a senior, leaving everything to the juniors would be a disgrace.
"I'll hold its feet."
Those two were overwhelming the monster, yes — but they weren't pinning it in place.
The creature kept trying to flee around them, and the two of them were racing back and forth just to keep it from escaping.
The image was a mire. Melt the ground with flame, then steal the heat and harden it. A blue light flickered through the fire wrapped around my fist.
Blue flame burning at high temperature — and over it, water-hued fire was layered.
The entire process had to happen in an instant, so I had to steal the heat before the enemy could recover its wits and run.
I cloaked my whole body in mana. Fire mana fundamentally carried the properties of Destruction and Activation. I lowered the proportion of Destruction and strengthened Activation instead.
If my old self had used it this way, more than twice the heat needed for high-speed movement would have flooded my body and dropped me on the spot — but now that I could regulate temperature, I could distribute it properly.
Rather than cooling completely, I set a moderate compromise and circulated it, pushing my speed even higher.
I drove power into my legs and kicked off, and in a blink I was at their side. I had no intention of inserting myself into their combination. They seemed to understand; from a short distance they launched sword-ki to keep the pressure on.
I immediately slammed the ground and injected flame into it. Heat rode the cracks and raced through, and the moment it arrived the ground exploded and melted. Blue fire flared over my entire body and hardened in an instant.
Krrrk!
"D-die—?"
Its feet suddenly bound, the creature panicked. For a moment the monster's body stopped cold. It could have pulled free if it put its strength into it — but it was already too late.
KRAK!!
Winter drove itself into the creature's body. Confirming that, I threw myself backward at once.
At the same time, the cold that erupted eroded the surroundings and froze the creature solid from head to toe. Even as its skin necrotized and died, it desperately forced out attacks.
What on earth had driven this monster to such desperation?
...We would never know. Right now, it was time to put an end to this interminable night.
Fwoooosh!!!
Mana glittered behind me. Above the swords the two of them held, blades of brilliant light erupted — bright enough to split even the darkened night.
One from above to below, the other from below to above. Drawn in opposite directions, the intersecting trajectories of an X were etched with perfect clarity.
""HYAAAAAAP!!!!!" "
The instant their cries overlapped as one, light burst in a cross, and the monster's form was swallowed by radiance.
"Y-you think I'll die like thiiiiiiiiiiiiis-----------!!!!!"
But the monster — Yashiro Hisame — would not yield.
Whether he had reclaimed his ego at the very last moment, or whether the monster's power had weakened enough for his thoughts to spill outward, a vast killing intent crushed down hard on everything around us.
"Kill, kill, k-ill, kill, kill!! Kill!! All of you die!!!!! DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIE--------!!!!!"
The more the killing intent swelled, the more Yashiro Hisame's voice twisted into something grotesque. The monster's body shrank. What had been roughly human but closer to a beast contracted until it was almost the size of a person.
One hand was still warped into a sharp blade like a monster's, but the previous terror was gone.
Perhaps the killing intent left in his instincts had shaped it that way. Rather than a uselessly massive body that couldn't move, he had chosen a small one that could act immediately.
"KAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-----------------!!!!!!!!!!!"
Letting out a howl that could no longer be believed to come from a human throat, the monster swung its blade. In response, the two fighters' mana shifted to one side.
As the light that had dimmed somewhat after the great technique concentrated toward the man, it shone with a brilliance that, if not quite what it had been, was radiant once more.
Reverse...
Kang!!
The man — Ban Taewung — crossed blades with the monster.
KWOOM!!!
That alone cracked the ground and forced him to his knees. The form may have shrunk, but the previous weight had not vanished. If anything, the compression made it harder to gauge and all the more dangerous.
Krrrk...!
Ban Taewung took the full force of that attack. Immediately after, the mana around him shifted rapidly to black and gold. A violet light flashed in his eyes — and the momentum reversed.
King.
The blade twisted, and the monster's sword slid along the flat. The stance that had been pure endurance flipped in an instant. Toward the monster's neck, left wide open, the smoothly recovered sword swept in.
Reverse Counter!!
Ting!!
A light, clear sound rang out, like a fingernail flicking hard iron. But the destructive force that followed was anything but light.
KAAAAAAAAANG!!!
A wound matching the trajectory of the thrust was carved into the earth. A vast pressure erupted as if it had always been there, shredding the killing intent to pieces.
At the center of that scar, the monster's neck slowly fell.
A body that had already hit its limit long ago turned black. As if something that should never have existed in this world were vanishing, the extremities of its form gradually split and weathered into dust.
"..."
Ban Taewung watched the monster's final moments through to the end.
Leaving not a single trace, crumbling slowly yet completely as though it had never been here at all — everyone present witnessed it clearly.
"Ah..."
Someone let out a sigh.
It was over.
A moment of silence. The absence of the monster. That was the signal flare announcing the end of the battle.
""WAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!" "
At that realization, everyone roared in triumph.
Some wept as they mourned fallen comrades; others threw their arms around those who had survived beside them, rejoicing simply in the fact that they were still alive.
Watching that scene from behind, I pulled Mom into a tight embrace as she came to my side. If I had my way, it would be his arms I wanted to fall into — but there was nothing to be done about that.
He had gone to a front line more dangerous than this one for the sake of his family. I couldn't complain here.
Like those two...
I sincerely hoped that someday I, too, would be able to savor the joy of victory in his arms.