I swung my sword endlessly.
Against Abraham, none of the illusion magic I could use had any effect.
Even [Sensory Distortion], which reversed the sensations of his limbs, was overcome so naturally that it looked as though he hadn’t been affected at all.
In truth, it wasn’t that it failed to work.
It worked. He simply adapted to it too quickly.
Those were the senses of a man who had stood at the front lines of battle for centuries.
Even if the Empire had become relatively stable and he no longer had to wield his sword personally as often, those senses had never dulled.
“Whew…”
The air was absurdly hot.
Before making a contract with Mephi, I probably wouldn’t have been able to stand on the same battlefield as him.
The proof was that the other knights could only watch from a distance and couldn’t even approach.
I suppose that was the minimum requirement for fighting Emperor Abraham.
No wonder the leaders of every terrorist organization had desperately avoided an all-out confrontation with him.
I knew how strong he was.
I understood it.
But he was beyond anything I had imagined.
That was all there was to it.
“Hup!”
Approaching carelessly was dangerous.
Just a spark flying from his sword had been enough for me to experience my entire body burning.
If that blade were to cut me directly…
“Your soul would be burned away along with your body.”
For Mephi who was drunk on her newfound power to issue such a stern warning, it had to be something truly terrifying.
Come to think of it, what was it she said?
“That sword is destruction forged from the Demon King’s body. Just where did he get something like that…?”
The Demon King’s corpse.
Seriously, that bastard seemed to have caused trouble everywhere.
His soul had been scattered and turned into demons, and his body had been forged into a sword and placed in the hands of a monster.
Not even a speck of him was left alone. Every part was parasitizing someone else.
His mind, body, and spirit were all scattered apart, huh?
“If that sword gets you, there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to come back, even with that strange magic of yours.”
“This isn’t easy…”
It felt like discovering a fatal weakness in the trump card I had finally brought out.
And of all times, it had to happen now?
Nothing ever goes smoothly for me.
Then again, that’s how it’s always been.
And considering who my opponent was, I suppose it made sense.
“For now, keep your distance and pressure him with sword energy.”
“I don’t know how to do that.”
How exactly am I supposed to do it?
Why are you saying that like it’s obvious?
Even Dietrich can’t do that.
“You can do it. It’s not that you can’t… no, forget it. I underestimated your talent. Just do whatever you want. The great me will support you.”
“You should’ve said that from the start.”
“Why is this bastard so confident when he’s completely incompetent?”
“Because it’s my soul.”
If you want to take it after we fulfill the contract, then earn your keep properly.
Just remember that if you half-ass this, you’ll be burned to death right alongside me, okay?
“I’m going in.”
I charged straight at Abraham once more.
Be careful of the sword. Above all else, avoid direct contact.
“Speed up your movements.”
Whoosh!
My body moved even faster than I expected.
“Slow down your perceived time.”
Even so, I wasn’t thrown off by the increased speed. As I became faster, everything around me seemed slower, solving the biggest problem I’d always had.
No matter how powerful a weapon I’d obtained in the past, there had been many times when I couldn’t use it properly because I couldn’t react fast enough…
A Great Demon really was a Great Demon.
Even before our contract, she could stop time. Could she wield every authority related to time?
“This is the best I can do. You know why, don’t you?”
Mephi had originally been able to stop time itself across an entire area.
But that depended on her opponent, and the reason she wasn’t stopping time now was obvious.
Because her opponent was the Emperor.
Even if the contract had strengthened the power she could exert, stopping the Emperor’s time would be no easy feat.
“The only time I can affect right now is the time around you.”
It didn’t matter.
I might have wished for more, but there was no denying how incredible this power was.
Clang!
Sword met sword.
A blade that normally would’ve shattered long ago was being protected by Mephi’s power.
I could see sparks flying from Abraham’s sword toward my body and the ground. It looked as though someone were hammering a piece of red-hot iron.
I was the one attacking, yet I still had to worry about the aftermath…
“Is that all you’ve got?”
The moment I moved to avoid the sparks, Abraham’s sword bent at an impossible angle and dropped toward my neck.
Fast.
Even with Mephi manipulating my time, the blade was at my throat in the blink of an eye.
Tick!
At that moment, the clock moved.
In an instant, my body returned to the position it had occupied before I charged at Abraham.
“Oh? What an interesting ability.”
“I lived, Mephi.”
“But our trump card has been exposed. Just be aware that the situation is far from favorable.”
“That’s fine. I’ve never thought it was favorable to begin with!”
There was no time to rest.
Abraham still hadn’t lost his composure.
I charged in again and swung my sword.
“Next.”
And I felt it with painful clarity.
Even if my power had increased enough to contend with his, the gap in skill remained undeniable.
My attacks were blocked, and as though it were only natural, the Emperor’s sword came for my throat.
The exchange never lasted more than a single move. My full-powered attack was stopped instantly, and every strike Abraham launched unfailingly targeted a vital point.
What the hell is this?!
“Don’t charge in alone.”
Boom!
Through the opening created by the sword coming at me once more, Lobelia rushed in.
A fist crackling with lightning slammed toward Abraham’s blind spot.
“An Emperor ought to be ruthless. If you had waited for the moment that boy was struck down, it might actually have worked, Lobelia.”
The punch was blocked.
Abraham’s free hand smoothly caught her fist.
Lobelia had saved my life, but at the same time, it sent a chill down my spine.
It wasn’t strange that I was being overwhelmed.
I was wielding power far beyond my station, but my actual skill hadn’t changed.
But Lobelia’s attack had been stopped in exactly the same way.
Just how wide was the gap between them?
Abraham’s specialty wasn’t even hand-to-hand combat. It was swordsmanship.
And yet he could treat Lobelia like a child…
“Next. Start over from the beginning.”
Crack!
Abraham’s fist shot toward Lobelia’s face.
A perfect counter.
At the same time, Abraham’s sword scraped across the ground.
I thought the distance was safe.
I thought Lobelia had saved me.
The instant that momentary lapse in vigilance took hold, my vision flashed white.
Crack!
Space shattered, and time rewound.
I awoke from a terrible dream and returned to the moment I first cast the spell.
“Ghk!”
Only then did I draw a breath.
I had died again from that single attack.
No, calling it an attack wasn’t even accurate.
Abraham had merely scraped the ground with his sword and shaken off a few sparks.
The glowing crimson blade was impossible to measure.
Just flicking away a few sparks was enough to kill me over and over…
I couldn’t even begin to imagine what would happen if it touched me directly.
“Will you give up?”
“Do you really think I will?”
Faced with Abraham’s relaxed smile, I gripped my sword once more and charged.
Lobelia, who had been lying on the ground, seized the opportunity to attack again.
And this time, Lapis rushed in from behind as well.
In her hands were shards of purple-glimmering ice.
I didn’t know what they were.
Probably some power of Hell that she knew how to wield.
All right, this time there were three of us.
I attacked from the front.
Lobelia came in from the flank.
And Lapis charged from the rear.
With all three of us attacking simultaneously—
How would Abraham respond?
Clang!
Abraham brought his sword down.
The sparks falling from the blade scattered in every direction.
“…….”
This time, I wasn’t caught off guard.
I tracked every single spark, weaving through them within the slowed flow of time.
Of course, that alone wasn’t enough.
Those sparks could unleash enough firepower to burn the entire world the moment they touched the ground.
Thud!
But this time would be different.
As Lapis finally entered the battle in earnest and stomped her foot down, the world itself seemed to be overwritten around her.
Probably one of the Hells she commanded.
A purple snowfield spread outward, swallowing up the sparks Abraham had scattered.
Ssssss!
The snowfield melted away almost instantly.
But Abraham’s sparks failed to ignite.
For now, that was enough.
That alone was enough…!
Tap!
“I’ve been curious about something for quite a while.”
“…..!”
At that moment, Abraham grabbed Lobelia by the face.
Ignoring both the sword I was swinging and the shards of ice Lapis was launching, Abraham seized the nearest target Lobelia and, with a cold expression, activated his power.
Fwoooosh!!
In an instant, the Hell Lapis had manifested began to boil away.
And just as the tip of my sword pierced Abraham’s shoulder—
Thud.
Engulfed in flames, Lobelia dropped to her knees and collapsed.
“You bastard…!”
Abraham had killed Lobelia.
Despite causing all of this because he wanted to make her his successor, he burned her alive without a moment’s hesitation.
This couldn’t continue.
I couldn’t let her die.
Crack!
I awakened from the dream.
This time, not because I had died, but because I chose to unravel it myself.
Not a return of myself—
A return of space.
“Hah?!”
I returned to my original position.
Beside me, Lobelia also drew a sharp breath, as though waking from a dream.
And Abraham, who should have had his shoulder pierced by my sword, smiled.
“So there are limits to the exceptions you can make. What you can rewind is either an individual’s well-being or time as it affects an entire space. Is that correct, Johan Damus?”
“…….”
“That silence is answer enough.”
Abraham had just killed Lobelia.
The reason was to see whether even Lobelia could be brought back through my magic.
And beyond that, I wanted to find out what would happen to the events that occurred in between when I rewound not only my own moment, but someone else’s as well.
Abraham remained calm and composed.
In that state, he was methodically uncovering each card I held.
“Thanks to you, I now have a rough idea of how much restraint I need to exercise.”
This time, Abraham had personally killed Lobelia to gauge how much leeway he had with the power he could wield.
Now that he was certain I could bring her back to life, he would likely use that power with even less restraint going forward.
“What would you have done if I hadn’t been able to bring Her Highness back?”
“Would that have been a problem? I’ve already lived for centuries. A few more centuries added onto that would make little difference.”
That was madness.
For hundreds of years, he had waged wars, killed people, and raised successors.
And after all that time, he had finally reached the moment when his efforts would bear fruit.
Yet Abraham said he could abandon even that.
He said he was willing to do it all over again. That he would gladly fall to the very bottom of Hell and claw his way back up from the beginning.
Even setting his ability aside, the strength of his will was terrifying.
“Now then, let us continue, Johan Damus. I hope you are still confident.”
His composure remained unbroken.
His calm did not waver.
It felt like staring up at an impregnable wall.
No, perhaps that was exactly what it was.
The wall called Abraham, built and reinforced over centuries, was far sturdier than I had imagined.
It was frightening. I couldn’t even begin to see where its limits lay.
Abraham still had not fought with his full strength even once.
His awakened ability had been capable of killing Lobelia instantly, and the sword he wielded had yet to reveal its true worth.
I had to admit it.
I could not surpass Abraham’s centuries.
No matter that I had spent more than a decade continuously using [Thought Split], I could still feel the difference between us.
But that was fine.
“Whether I’m confident or not doesn’t matter. I never left myself a way out to begin with, so there’s no reason to stop.”
When had I ever accomplished all those things because I was overflowing with confidence?
Besides, the battle had only just begun.
“I’m going, Mephi.”
I was beginning to grow accustomed to the power Mephi wielded.
At last, I could truly grasp the magnitude of that overwhelming power and speed.
Which meant I was finally ready to unleash my own strength in earnest.
“Exercise the Demon King’s power.”
“Foolish.”
For the first time, Abraham frowned and rebuked me.
Naturally.
“Fight as though losing today means the end of the world.”
After all, this was the power of the Demon King, a being whose very existence could bring about the world’s destruction.
Come now. It was time to turn the final page of the Apocalypse.
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