Chapter 197
Chapter 197
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 197
Chapter Title: Link Isn't Getting Married?
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Link, who had inherited the blood of the ancient giants, thought his own head was a bit slow.
Even if he were to share love with some woman, how would he educate and discipline their child? How would he help when problems arose?
Lin, listening to Link's grumbling—or whatever it was—spoke up.
"Don't worry about that stuff. If something happens to Link's kids, I'll come running."
Of course, he immediately waved it off awkwardly and hurriedly added a caveat.
"Just a few times! Not like I'll keep going."
Bell Quirius.
Hurry up more.
Hurry even more.
So the time Rem and Bart had bought wouldn't go to waste.
"You son of a bitch!"
The Dragon Slayer effortlessly deflected Bart's axe blade like it was nothing and sliced Rem's double-shot arrows out of the air, bellowing as he did.
"Block him!"
But roots instantly sprouted from the arrows embedded in the ground, seizing the bastard's ankles. Creating an opening for Bart, who was outmatched.
"So he doesn't pull any tricks!"
A wave of bloody energy spread from Rain's eyes, and upon seeing Milea engulfed in a storm of mana, he felt a surge of crisis.
Come to think of it, where had they gone?
Where did Hermann and Lucia disappear to? Had they already been taken out? By who?
"Understood."
The Demon Slayer broke free of the White Spear Bow's bindings twice as fast and charged straight at Rain.
'Faster.'
He broke down each rune and equation encroaching on Milea's body, reducing them to meaningless strings of numbers and scattering them.
'Even faster.'
A state of extreme focus, like threading a needle through thousands of pinholes without a single mistake—delicate mana control sustained to the end.
Resisting the ritual interference, a grotesque red tentacle burst from Jernix's magic circle.
"Ritual backlash...?"
Valensidis, his body soaked in blood, moved his lips.
"You're really thinking of saving her in this situation...?"
"What're you talking about? Saving her?"
Kora, who had helped Valensidis to his feet, asked in bewilderment.
"That guy's eyes are Bell Quirius... If he can analyze any magic, he can nullify it..."
"What...?"
"But the target's moving that fast and wild—there's no way..."
He rolled his body to dodge the Demon Slayer's chain whipping through the air with a heavy whoosh.
Jeseo Chain Bind: Modify (改).
As the ground trembled from the impact, chains of flame erupted, piercing Milea's flesh.
...!
But the chains of Jeseo Chain Bind, which should have sealed all mana in her body, corroded and melted away.
Zzzzt zzzzt zzzzt!
Jernix's tentacle, raging in backlash against Bell Quirius, corroded and melted them.
"Sis, stop it!"
Miria drew her sword and blocked its path, but there was no stopping a being wielding Link's power.
If she'd inherited not just Rista's looks but her strength too, it wouldn't have been an issue...
The sword shattered after blocking the chain once. The right-hand chain surged to crush Miria.
"Seojinryu, Form 12."
The flow of power twisted, rebounding in reverse to engulf the Dragon Slayer instead.
...?!
Rain, severing the magic circle's framework with Bell Quirius, could hardly believe his eyes.
'Doran Slade—how is that guy...'
Wasn't he using his longsword jammed into the stump of his severed leg like a prosthetic to stand on the ground?
"I'll buy you five seconds."
Regulating his ragged breathing, Doran recalled the memory of that spring when he was eight.
"Unlike me, the gods gave you incredible talent and a healthy body, Doran. You can become like Sir Lin."
A mage who could stylishly extend a hand to those in need...
"Like Lin, who willingly left for the ends of the earth at a young age to help the suffering."
Questions like whether he could or couldn't, or why—he'd buried those along with his sister's ashes that year when she died.
He just did it.
Back then, and now.
Because that's what he'd promised when his sister placed the bowler hat on his head.
"Doran, will you become that kind of mage?"
He hadn't become a great mage like Lin, but he'd tried to live that kind of life.
'With one leg gone, it's time to retire from the front lines anyway.'
Which was why this was the final battle of that life.
In an instant, an ice crystal magic circle flashed around Doran's intact foot.
Chains and arms crossed dozens of times at speeds invisible to the eye, whipping up a gale on the ground they stood upon.
Rutry = 7.22.
The moment he found the data on body possession and sanity erosion, Doran's stance crumbled, and the Demon Slayer's fingertips aimed for his heart.
'Reverse calculation verification starting.'
Just before he could correct the equation binding the Demon Slayer's power to the flesh, just before those fingers pierced the heart.
Zzzzt zzzzt zzzzt!
A dimensional rift tore open out of nowhere, and an arm extended from it, dragging Doran into the fissure.
Valensidis.
After pulling Doran through from the other side, he collapsed in a heap, vomiting blood.
"Finish it... Rain Ludwig!"
He couldn't damage Milea's real body.
Body possession, sanity erosion, memory manipulation... He just needed to sever the rituals forcibly binding Link's power to that body.
Cut it off.
'The link to that barbaric ritual that trades sanity for superhuman strength and regeneration...!'
Make it converge to zero—an equation with no meaning at all.
'It might be too late.'
He couldn't erase the sorrow and pain Link's descendants had endured for eleven years.
'It might be far too late.'
He couldn't fully lift the bitterness Miria had carried deep in her heart since childhood.
"Don't worry about that."
He knew.
He knew it well.
"If something happens to Link's descendants."
The past that had slipped away couldn't be touched. A botched past shaped the present as it flowed.
"I'll come help."
But...
He could twist the course of this wrong present, change the future. Open a new one.
He peered in, analyzed, understood, then shattered it. The door blocking the path to the future.
"It's a promise, Link."
So the river of the present could flow onward.
"Link, Link, Link."
The instant he thought he'd broken Jernix's equation, his vision exploded in white.
"Where...?"
For a moment, reality vanished from his sight, replaced by a space flooded with blood up to his ankles.
'My eye level's lower.'
This body, this outfit... Had his spirit manifested as Lin?
As he confirmed his changed form, a stifled sob echoed from somewhere.
In the center of this endless blood ocean, a girl who looked about ten years old hugged her knees.
The child locked in this horrific space for eleven years. Always, waiting for someone...
"Stop crying and come here."
The girl looked up at the voice, her eyes swollen with tears, her voice hoarse.
"Who... who are you...?"
How should he explain who he was?
The moment he pondered that, a memory voice sketched in ink-wash style etched into his mind.
Link's foolish laughter as he carried him piggyback on that massive frame.
"I'm Link's friend."
Saying that, he probably wore a very sad smile. Wearing that smile, he knelt before Milea.
"You look just like Link."
"Me...?"
"Yeah, you give off this nostalgic feeling."
Whether from those words or the smile, Milea hesitated before taking the offered hand.
"Alright, shall we head outside?"
The moment their hands clasped, cracks spread through the illusory space, shattering it into countless fragments.
'Back to reality...'
Red tentacles wailed in agony before being expelled from Milea's convulsing body, soaring into the sky.
"Correction complete."
At that instant, the pillar of light scattered into tens of thousands of particles, fluttering like snow across the night sky.
Beautiful—so fantastical that someone might mutter it dazedly.
Then the particles reformed into a pillar of light, diving toward Miria—or precisely, toward Gin's sword.
Boom────!
A deafening roar that dulled the eardrums, an impact wave carrying a dust storm exploding outward.
'What the.'
Silence.
And more silence.
'What just happened?'
From Gin's Shammansword, which had clearly been broken, a sword-black aura of crimson-black formed along the blade, then vanished.
'That.'
Rain, who knew the source of that power, had to doubt his eyes in shock.
'Why did Link's power move there?'
At that moment, Milea's convulsions stopped.
"Miria! Sis Milea!"
Snapping to at Kora's call, Miria rushed to Milea's side and cradled her head.
The eyes, once eerily rolled back in whites, fluttered shut then opened weakly...
A faint light of reason flickered in those pupils.
Milea stared at Miria for a moment before a raspy voice leaked from her lips.
"Miria...?"
There was no time for Miria to doubt her own ears.
"Not bad for small fry!"
A sharp boom—the Dragonbone Spear shattered Bart's black-iron helm and slammed him into the ground.
Then the heart-sword formed in his left hand spewed intense lightning.
At speeds the eye couldn't follow, it bisected the surrounding space, neutralizing every arrow flying in from afar.
'Is this guy really human like me?'
At the same time, he spun the Dragonbone Spear with one hand, striking Bart's black-iron axe seven times in rapid succession.
"But!"
The moment the axe yielded to the spear's overwhelming pressure and his stance crumbled, Arthur's foot slammed into Bart's abdomen.
"You picked the wrong opponent!"
Leg power amplified to its limit crumpled Bart's breastplate, hurling his heavily armored body far away.
"That's what this means!"
Mid-air, unable to recover, Bart was met by the Dragonbone Spear spewing lightning aura.
He might have burned to death in that transcendent bolt.
If the dragon's flame hadn't intruded onto the battlefield then.
...!
A spell mimicking a dragon's breath, maximized for pure destructive power and unleashed in a burst pattern.
Blazing Sky Flame Cannon.
The Dragon Slayer furrowed his brows in surprise at the ferocious flame breath scorching the area as it charged.
'That guy's checking me? What about that useless Demon Slayer bitch?'
Looked like she had some trump card after all—had he freed her?
Didn't matter.
Kill these guys here, then beg Master or Jernix again. Including reviving his dead brothers.
"You did great, Bart."
Bart turned to Rain, gasping raggedly.
The clash with the Dragon Slayer had lasted a mere ten seconds, but his body was already at its limit.
Rain gave Bart a thumbs-up, then spun his stone staff to ready his stance.
"I'll end it in thirty seconds. Cover me."