Demonstration Arena (4)
Gagagagagak—!
The sword that had served me so well all this time did not betray me now. It was the same blade that had cut through everything the Chief threw at it—everything except the Original Chimera's carapace—and it held firm against his assault too. It bent as if about to snap, shrieking with a violent tearing sound, and even though the blade had no physical form, the sheer weight behind it was almost more than I could parry. My arm was forced backward.
"Ughhh—ahh!"
Clang!
By sheer luck, I deflected the Chief's attack just before the sword gave out entirely. I could feel the invisible blade twisting off its path, careening elsewhere.
"Haah... haah..."
Only seconds had passed since the clash began, yet my breath was already ragged. I'd blocked exactly one attack, and my hand was already trembling uncontrollably.
"Kikik."
"!"
The Goblin Chief—a creature less than half my size. Judging by appearances alone, he looked like some pitiful, weak trash mob, yet somehow he'd already closed the distance to point-blank range. This time, as if determined not to let me slip away, he wasn't relying on ranged attacks; he stretched out his own hand and lunged for me directly. I kept my eyes wide open, refusing to give up until the very end, but his speed was simply too much.
I can't dodge—
Shuaaaaaak—!
Kwaduk!!
Just as my life was flashing before my eyes, a long spear appeared out of nowhere with a scream of splitting air. Aimed precisely at the Chief's temple. Unfortunately, it only went as far as skewering his elbow before stopping.
Still, Arwen's timely support had saved my life.
His defense must be weak.
"Krruk..."
Crack—!
The Chief brutally tore the spear out of his arm and snapped it in two. But for all his defiant display of indifference to pain, his right arm had gone completely limp. Something was clearly wrong with it.
Where's the Original Chimera? What's it doing? Oh—it's in bad shape.
I rolled my eyes in search of the Original Chimera. Its condition was obviously poor. While I'd been killing the shaman, it must have taken a tremendous beating from the Chief—it lay collapsed in a corner, and though the surviving chimeras were propping it up, it would clearly need time before it could rejoin the fight.
So in the end, I'm the one who has to face him?
"Ka-ha!"
Having realized that time was not on his side, the Chief began advancing toward me slowly. Perhaps because he couldn't use his right arm, his footsteps were far more cautious than before. Blood trickled steadily from the hole punched through his elbow.
He's strong, sure... but with one arm out of commission, I can handle this.
"...Incredible."
Arwen, gazing blankly down at the floor below, murmured to herself without thinking.
Chae-chae-chae-chaeeng—!
A metallic ringing rang out through the Demonstration Arena, utterly impossible to believe it came from sword meeting claw. Ha Jun and the Goblin Chief were already moving at speeds a normal human eye could only catch as afterimages. Small sparks flew every time their weapons collided.
Ha Jun has far, far surpassed the performance of an ordinary Enhanced Human. It's honestly an absurd talent... he's growing stronger even as he fights.
Saak...
Pa-pang!
She watched Ha Jun slip aside from the Chief's invisible strike. Unlike before, there wasn't even a rough burst of air this time—the only evidence of the attack was the yellow fluid on the floor near him splattering in all directions.
That's... Hwagyeong? Diverting an opponent's force? I haven't even taught him that yet. Did he figure it out on his own?
The power with nowhere to go could only churn uselessly around Ha Jun's body, unable to leave so much as a scratch on him.
However—
Chaeng!
"Kuoooh—"
The gap in their raw physical abilities forced an unfair fight on him. Unable to withstand the barrage of attacks with his still-unfamiliar deflection technique, Ha Jun was gradually being pushed back.
I have to help him. If I time it right, we have a chance.
Arwen loaded one of her two remaining spears onto her launcher and fixed her gaze downward. She aimed with the ideal posture of an Olympic athlete, her arm drawn back to its very limit, ready to hurl the spear at any moment.
"He's too fast."
But she couldn't release it. The Chief was moving at a speed that made aiming impossible. Even with one useless arm dangling at his side, he bounded in every direction like a rubber ball.
Should I go down there myself?
No.
After a moment's consideration, Arwen shook her head. She was moving her body with the enormous strength of her artificial muscles, but that was only a stopgap measure. Her fundamentally heavy frame made Ha Jun's kind of agile movement impossible.
He'll be cut in two in a matter of seconds. Then what is this feeling...?
She had clearly made the best possible choice, and yet watching Ha Jun struggle below made her chest ache. She wanted nothing more than to leap down and help him right this instant. It was obvious now—the speculation had been true. Nova's soul had been absorbed into her.
"If I go down now, the only thing I'll accomplish is revealing my position. And then the surprise attack becomes impossible."
Arwen murmured words meant for no one, and her wavering heart gradually settled. Doing her best to ignore the cold knot of anxiety still curled in the corner of her mind, she watched for her opening with eyes sharp as a hawk's.
I had no idea how much time had passed. At least dozens of exchanges into the fight, my whole body ached numb. The hand gripping the hilt had lost all feeling long ago. If I let my grip loosen even once like this, I was sure I'd never get back up.
Chacha-chang—!
"Ughhhk!"
I groaned as I frantically beat back the Chief's claws. He came at me with the erratic, bouncing movement of a superball, and every time I blocked one of those raking claws, the massive impact felt like stopping a great hammer swung at full force—it sent my whole body swaying.
Clang!
I parried a strike aimed at my thigh. His body was so absurdly small that defending my lower half was extremely difficult, and the Chief exploited that to the fullest, targeting my legs relentlessly.
But as time passed, his irregular movements began registering in my eyes. Thanks to that, I could now easily block even his feinted attacks.
"Kraak!"
Just once! If I could just sink my claws in once! Why won't it land?
"...Judging by that look on your face, that's exactly what you're thinking. Heh heh."
"Krrrr?"
"You're easier to handle than I expected. Guess I worried over nothing."
I taunted the little green runt with bravado I didn't remotely feel. Admittedly, the reason I could fight the Chief on roughly even terms was maybe sixty percent thanks to Arwen, whose opening ambush had dealt him a serious wound—but watching the fires of fury spread through the Chief's eyes at my words, that little fact hardly seemed to matter.
Click.
As I readjusted my grip on the sword, I heard the sound of metal shifting against itself. Another sound that hadn't been there before. The blade was failing. If it snapped at this rate, it was all over. I had to end this fight, fast.
Can't I infuse aura into the blade? He coats his claws with it—why wouldn't a sword work?
The thought I'd been nursing ever since I saw the Chief's glowing claws surged up once more. But no matter how I tried in the gaps between exchanges, the aura merely crept around the blade, testing it, refusing to sink in. I just needed a little time—that was all...
"Krroo..."
Despite my provocation, the Chief suppressed his rage and steadied his breathing. He was wary of another one of Arwen's spears. He looked, somewhere deep down, thoroughly exhausted.
Right. I'm not the only one struggling. He's lost a lot of strength too.
His skin was such a deep green that it didn't show much, but the blood he'd shed so far was considerable. He had to be nearing his limit.
"Khh—"
His ragged breathing was proof enough.
Swaek!
Kwajik!
The moment the Chief paused, Arwen's spear came flying in from afar once more. Having been on guard for it since the start, the Chief deflected it without trouble. But perhaps that was the price of pushing his body so brutally hard—
"Keuk!"
Recoiling to absorb the impact, he stepped onto a chimera's spilled entrails and slipped, skidding.
The chance of a lifetime!
Tat!
"Diiie!"
Without a moment to think, I launched myself forward on pure spinal reflex. The staggering Chief closed the distance in an instant. I aimed for his limp right arm!
Kwajik!
"Heup!"
Against all expectation, the Chief poured every ounce of his psychic energy into that near-crippled arm and batted my sword aside. It was effectively the act of abandoning the limb—but the ferocity of that blow was enough to manifest all the fatigue the sword had accumulated.
Chaang!
The blade that had endured so faithfully broke clean in half.
All I could do was stare blankly as the severed fragment spun through the air, drifting like a ghost.
"Kahaha—"
At last, a sneer spread across the Chief's face, and he thrust his unharmed left hand straight toward my abdomen.
"No—!"
Kwaduk!
I raised the broken sword on reflex, but a blade snapped in half was far too short to block his attack. A scream from someone and the Chief's jeering laughter crossed in the air as his claws punched through my belly. An agony beyond imagining, shredding my insides! Hot blood gushed out in steam, spilling from my body. The death that had been circling me since the very beginning snapped the distance between us shut.
"Heuk!"
When the Chief wrenched his hand free, the world flashed white and every ounce of strength drained from my body. The hilt I'd been gripping so hard my knuckles had gone white had long since tumbled to the floor.
In the movies, people take a sword or spear through the gut and keep fighting just fine. Yeah. Movies are a scam.
Am I dying again?
I pressed a hand against my gushing abdomen and looked down at the Chief before me. He was laughing with obvious relish, licking my blood from his hand. And yet, at the sight of him, no fury boiled up at all.
If I'm going to die anyway, then this time, at least—
What filled the space where rage should have been was something like a sense of duty. The only thought that wrapped around me was that I refused to meet a second death with nothing accomplished, drowning in regret.
...What can I do?
This time, a true life-flashing-before-my-eyes moment really did sweep past. But instead of savoring a year's worth of memories in that stretched-out time, I thought about what needed doing before I died. The pain must have been scrambling my thoughts—nothing came easily. But I didn't need to agonize long. The answer was obvious.
Sending Arwen up to the surface. That's the best thing I can do right now, isn't it?
I had no idea what would come after that, but if fortune favored me, I might gain both a soul and a power source. And even if things went badly, at least whatever time remained could be spent in peace. As long as this bastard was dead, that is.
"So... you have to die here."
"Kikik?"
The moment my goal crystallized, my mind grew clearer than it had ever been. The suffocating agony radiating from my belly receded past the far edge of consciousness, settling into a dull, heavy pressure. And to that mind—a spirit holding its purity without a single stray thought—the aura responded with a violent surge.
I feel like I could do anything...
Tak.
I picked up the hilt I'd dropped at my knees. A strange, mystical heat rose at the border between life and death. The aura, hotter than blood itself, flowed into the broken blade as naturally as if it had been longing to do so all along.
Shuaang
Silver light layered itself over the severed stub of the blade. In an instant, the sword was longer than it had ever been. Astonishment flooded the eyes of the Chief, who had been sneering at me with crescent-shaped eyes. He scrambled to move his hand and behead me—
Sorry, but I'm faster.
Seogeok—
...
"Ha Jun!"
From a distance, I could see Arwen rushing over in a panic. She must have seen the state I was in—her face was smeared with tears. So she even had artificial tears, huh?
"The infirmary... where was the infirmary? Fourth floor? That's too far!"
Arwen cradled my belly, blood and entrails spilling from it, and spiraled into full panic. Most of that would be Nova's emotions, I supposed.
"It's okay... kek!"
I tried to say something, anything, to reassure her, but the blood rising up my throat choked the words before they could form. Strange—it felt like déjà vu.
Well... I lived this life hard, at least. It was short, but still.
I'd even finished what I had to do, right up to the end... It'd be a lie to say I had no regrets, but my heart felt strangely light.
"#@$!!!"
Ah... so this is really it. I'm really dying now.
My consciousness was fading. Arwen's cries no longer resolved into words. A black territory crept inward from the edges of my vision, closing in. The aura that had blazed so hot had long since gone cold.
I readied myself, calmly, to meet the end.
"...?"
But what came to me at the very, very last moment was not the cold sensation of death. It was a warmth—soft and encompassing, wrapping my whole body like a mother's embrace.