Every attack was heavy.
There wasn’t a single one I could properly block.
I had to deflect them all, twist my body, and roll across the ground to avoid them.
There were so many chains I couldn’t even count them.
A monster really was a monster.
Just holding them off took everything I had, to the point where I couldn’t even imagine counterattacking.
“Damn it, I should’ve taken a break first.”
I was out of breath, and my arms were trembling.
If the Oracle hadn’t sealed Faust’s spatial movement, I’d have been turned into minced meat long ago.
Though at this rate, I might end up that way soon anyway.
I’m somehow buying time, but I’m reaching my limit.
Anyone would do. Just hurry up and regroup with me already.
“Ugh!”
Another attack I couldn’t avoid came flying in.
I kept as much distance as possible while reading his attacks, but I couldn’t dodge everything.
Clang!
I swung my sword with all my strength and knocked away the chain right in front of me.
Blood burst from my grip, and the sword slipped from my hand and went flying.
I had lost my weapon.
If the next attack came like this, I wouldn’t be able to hold out.
“Johan Damus!”
Noticing my situation, the Oracle hurriedly cast a spell to protect me.
But she didn’t have any room to spare either.
“Ah?!”
In that opening she created, Faust’s chain slipped in.
She barely managed to dodge, but I could see her clothes quickly and vividly staining red.
It was a fatal wound.
She had put herself in danger trying to protect me.
“Idiot!”
Protecting me like that had been a stupid move.
At worst, I just dropped my sword. It’s not like that was my only option.
“Ugh!”
I evaded the chain flying at me again with the assistance of the Helical Gear.
Using the Helical Gear’s mobility, I move to retrieve the sword I dropped. The injury in my grip is fine. The Bevel Gear just overheated, that’s all. It’ll self-repair soon enough, so there’s no real problem.
The problem was the Oracle.
Faust was increasing the frequency of his attacks, trying to finish off the critically wounded Oracle first.
If she goes down, I’m done too.
Should I go support her?
Can I even make it?
I wanted to at least calculate the odds using [Thought Split], but even that wasn’t easy right now. I was barely holding on as it is, and I didn’t have the leeway to divert [Thought Split]’s processing power elsewhere.
“……”
Should I reveal my hand?
If I draw the one hidden trump card I’ve been holding back, there might still be a chance.
But if I use it and still fail to save the Oracle, it’s over.
A fleeting moment of hesitation.
And something even faster than that.
Boom!
A radiant light broke through.
“Ha!”
Enduring all this time had paid off.
The light that breaks at dawn drives away the darkness in the blink of an eye.
Bathed in a radiant aura of divine power, the Sword Saint reversed the situation in an instant.
By the time I registered the light, Dietrich had already sent Faust flying. When I spotted Dietrich launching himself into the air with the recoil, I finally felt a sense of relief.
“Whoa!”
Still airborne, Dietrich swung his sword forcefully toward the ground just before landing.
At that, the cursed shadows spread across the ground scattered.
It seemed Faust had attempted a counterattack in his own way. Unfortunately for him, he’d picked the wrong opponent.
“Senior, are you alright?”
“Thanks to you, I’m alive.”
At this moment, Dietrich felt more reliable than even His Highness Theseus.
Dietrich was a monster.
Up until now, he just had unfavorable opponents, but he was more than strong enough.
But the fact that his opponents were unfavorable wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Thinking himself lacking likely pushed him to strive harder. The higher the goal before you, the stronger your drive to improve.
Dietrich’s growth won’t stop. And this time, his opponent is exactly what you’d call a perfect match. Faust is a dark mage, while Dietrich is a holy knight.
The cursed shadows that once bound Theseus couldn’t even approach Dietrich, who wields divine power.
Simply put, the matchup was in his favor.
“Senior, be careful. I alternated between [Trace] and divine power and struck him five times each, and he still didn’t die. That thing is seriously absurd.”
“I think what’s even more absurd is that you managed to carve Faust up ten times in that short span.”
At Dietrich’s tense voice, I examined Faust.
Faust was slowly rising to his feet, with Dietrich’s ability, [Trace], and divine power embedded in his neck, heart, and each of his joints.
He really slashed and stabbed him that many times in the blink of an eye?
If Faust were the same as before, that ambush might have decided the fight.
“It might just be an issue of output.”
A youthful voice rang out.
Boom!
At the same time, a brilliant light poured down over the dark, somber graveyard.
An absurd wave of light, as if the sun itself were delivering judgment, radiated down with Faust at its center.
“Helena, you…”
The Oracle Helena Hereticus was reaching out toward Faust.
A holy nail made of light was driven through her wrist.
Blood pooled and dripped from the tip of the nail that had pierced her slender wrist.
Each time that blood touched the ground, the divine power descending from the sky seemed to intensify.
“Since when…?”
“Of course, from the very beginning. I was always a vessel for the relic, after all. Becoming the Oracle doesn’t change my nature.”
I remember Kult.
I remember the power of the Prophet who bore four holy nails in his body.
Even now, just recalling it makes my skin crawl. That overwhelming power.
Combined with Kult’s inherent strength, the addition of the relic made any kind of direct confrontation impossible.
Of course, Helena was only using one holy nail right now. It doesn’t compare to Kult back then, but…
“I can’t hold this for long.”
She was clearly stronger than Kult before he obtained the relic.
“And…”
Helena’s complexion turned pale.
The fact that she only has one holy nail, and that she said she couldn’t hold on for long…those things suggested she still couldn’t withstand this power.
It was a force so immense that even she couldn’t fully endure it.
Even so…
“Then I guess it wasn’t an issue of output.”
Within the blindingly radiant light, a shadow began to take shape.
Every hair on my body stood on end.
I could feel a chillingly distinct sense of death growing clearer by the moment.
Flash!
In that moment, the divine power pressing down on Faust vanished in an instant.
Helena had acknowledged that what she was doing now was meaningless and withdrew her strength.
No matter how strong she was, it didn’t matter. Once it was certain she couldn’t kill him, pouring in more power had no meaning.
“…What a monster.”
Helena muttered under her breath.
She had brought out a hidden trump card of her own. And yet, she still couldn’t bring her opponent down, so her bewilderment was understandable.
“That’s only natural. The world is already nearing its end. In a situation like this, how could the Apostle of Beginning possibly wield their power?”
“……”
The Apostle of Beginning. Faust referred to Helena that way.
In a sense, it was only natural.
If she was the god who created each world, then she would surely symbolize the “beginning”.
“There’s no need to feel powerless. A Prophet is bound to grow weaker with each successive generation.”
A ghostly wail echoed through the air.
At last, the man who harbored hell began to spread his shadows.
Not chains, but another means of attack. It was the moment Faust began to use dark magic in earnest.
***
Curses that drove people toward death, and illusions that gnawed at the nerves.
Faust’s dark magic wasn’t particularly threatening, but it was deeply unsettling.
“……”
If I had to compare it to a game, it was purely for debuff purposes.
There were practically no direct attacks, but that didn’t make it any less troublesome to deal with.
“Why did you leave me to die?”
“……”
“You could have saved me!”
An illusion of Immun appeared.
Covered in blood, he was condemning me.
It was a cliché, overused method.
But being cliché also meant it was a proven and reliable tactic.
I couldn’t hesitate here. A curse with form was always ready to close around my throat.
Then what should I do? The answer was quite simple.
Slash!
I cut down the illusion of Immun that was blaming me.
My hand trembled. I know it’s fake. I also know the real Immun would never speak like that.
But even knowing that, an unease steadily piled up in my heart.
“How cruel. You really are a cruel person, Johan.”
“……”
This time, it was Luda who appeared.
Monia’s older sister, and the one who died for my sake.
The damned illusions created by dark magic were something even I couldn’t deal with.
Even for me, someone deeply versed in illusion magic, there was no escaping them.
The difference in method was simply too great.
“If I had known you were this kind of person, I never should have done it!”
“…You’re right. You shouldn’t have.”
This time, I found myself agreeing with the curse. Luda never needed to risk her life for someone like me.
Slash!
Once again, I cut down the curse.
With my own hands, I struck down the woman who had died for me.
“Johan. It’s because of you. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have died.”
“……”
Raven appeared before me.
It truly was a dreadful curse.
It reached directly into the regrets I had buried deep within my heart.
The what-ifs I had imagined, the regrets I had wished could have been different.
It stirred all of them without exception.
Slash!
With every illusion I cut down, something continued to build up.
It wasn’t guilt.
It was an indescribable discomfort, steadily piling up, pushing aside every other emotion.
“Johan.”
My hand trembled.
I fidgeted with the hilt of my sword, forcing myself to ignore the hesitation.
“Johan!”
This time, it was Alice.
Alice didn’t blame me. She simply called my name.
But I couldn’t even bring myself to face her.
I squeezed my eyes shut and cut down the curse before me. That was all someone as weak as I am could do.
“Haa… haa…”
It was hard to breathe.
The weight of everything that had been building up felt like it was suffocating me.
“Johan.”
Once again, she called my name. Was it because Alice’s presence was especially effective that this kept happening?
If so, he was mistaken.
Instead, I gripped my sword tighter and swung it toward Alice.
“Are you out of your mind?! Johan Damus.”
“You…”
But something was different.
My sword failed to cut through the illusion, and the “illusion” glared at me like I’d lost my mind.
No… it wasn’t an illusion.
“Oracle?”
“Let’s start with whether you’re in your right mind. And try not to go crazy and swing your sword at me again.”
“How are you here…? No, wait, something’s off.”
I thought I had fallen under a curse. That’s why I kept resisting the illusions, cutting them down over and over.
But the Oracle standing before me now was unmistakably real.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s not dark magic. Right after his shadow swallowed the surrounding area, the very nature of this space changed.”
“……”
This wasn’t an illusion cast on a person.
Nor was it a mirage created by bending light and sound.
It was a large-scale phenomenon affecting space itself. No… the space itself had changed.
“This is…”
Lapis had said it before.
The hell Faust stole was a place where the most horrifying memories from one’s life resurface.
“Cocytus?”
Faust had become hell itself.
There had been something strange about it.
For one, he had left me alone even though I was practically defenseless. If he had killed me while I was floundering in those illusions, it would have been simple.
But Faust didn’t do that. Or rather, he couldn’t.
Because this entire space was Faust.
He had swallowed us into himself. Which meant he couldn’t interfere directly. All he could do was wait for us to be slowly digested.
“What about the others?”
“I don’t know. They’re probably somewhere. I just followed the screams.”
“Screams?”
“Yes, screams. Didn’t you notice? Johan Damus, you’ve been screaming this whole time.”
“……”
I slowly wiped my face.
Something foul had been steadily building up inside me.
It was the feeling of self-loathing.
“Still, I’m glad you’re safe. Is your neck alright?”
I stared straight at the Oracle.
Just moments ago, I had almost cut her down.
Because I had mistaken her voice for Alice’s.
Because she…
“Alice.”
“…What? What’s gotten into you all of a sudden, calling me that? That’s seriously creepy.”
Because she was Alice.
Yeah, only then did I understand. It wasn’t a coincidence that she found me.
Her very existence, in a way, was my hell.
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