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Boom! Bang! Bang!!

Every time Leonos swung his claws, the impact caused the steel deck beneath to dent deeply.

At this rate, the airship wouldn’t be able to endure, so Ion had to continuously change positions while fighting.

Watching this unfold, Heinrich also grew anxious.

“Ugh…! Why…!”

In essence, achieving the original plan was already impossible. Since everything had been unmasked, the situation was a deadlock, and to avoid causing harm to his lord, he at least needed to deal with the Third Princess right here.

The Faceless Hero protecting the Third Princess was unexpected, but Heinrich thought that as long as the princess was eliminated, the Faceless Hero wouldn’t be able to do anything further.

There was also a possibility that he would seek revenge on the royal family, but in that case, he would only be labeled a traitor and become the enemy of the Empire. Based on the analysis of the Faceless Hero’s past actions, there was a judgment that such a situation would be avoided.

Thus, even while pretending to fight the Faceless Hero and giving the order to kill the princess if the opportunity arose, Leonos showed no reaction whatsoever.

Could it be that the connection was severed, and he couldn’t hear me? In the end, Heinrich shouted.

“Kill the princess! Don’t fight the Faceless Hero; I said kill the princess!”

At those words, Leonos let out a roar filled with fury.

“Shut up! I choose my own opponents!!”

Leonos swung his claws violently.

The wind sliced through the air like a blade, reaching towards Heinrich.

“Ugh…?”

Weakened by internal wounds and excessive blood loss, Heinrich was in no condition to dodge.

Swoosh!

In the end, Heinrich was split into four pieces, his neck, chest, and waist severed in half. It was instant death with no time to leave a last word.

Though he was the head of the intelligence department, manipulating all information of the Empire and a Master Class who wouldn’t be surpassed even in the Empire, there was no trace of the noble sacrifice or great mission he had yearned for. It was an utterly futile end.

By now, both Ion and Leonos were completely indifferent to Heinrich’s death, charging at each other and clashing weapons fiercely.

“Back then, you were a beast craving blood! You fought solely to kill without looking back at yourself! What about you now!? You’re fighting to protect someone! Cautious and careful! That’s weakness!”

Ion thrust his spear forward, and Leonos struck down with his claws. A shockwave burst forth, cracking the steel deck like spiderwebs.

Due to the shockwave, both were pushed back, and as the battle momentarily subsided, Ion took a moment to catch his breath and slowly spoke.

“Maybe that’s true.”

“Grraarr… What did you say?”

“By trying to fight for protection, I might have become weaker.”

Ion only slightly shifted his gaze to look behind him. There stood Elizabeth, watching him with a tense expression.

To be honest, Elizabeth was still a student who was hard to read, and there was a bit of doubt in Ion’s heart toward her.

Elizabeth treated everyone kindly, regardless of rank or status. But what difference is there between someone who is equally kind to all and someone who is equally unkind? Sometimes, Ion felt that Elizabeth’s criteria for judging others might differ from those of everyone else.

But even so, an instructor had the duty to protect their students.

Ion refocused his gaze ahead and continued.

“But I don’t feel particularly bad.”

Leonos’s expression twisted with anger.

“How disappointing… My opponent has become so foolish! I wanted to enjoy this fight for as long as possible, but I guess it can’t be helped. Let’s end this now!”

Hoooh—

A rough breath escaped through Leonos’s clenched teeth, and in response to his emotions, dark magic surged forth. The whites of his eyes turned red, and the air around him began to tremble slightly.

Ion understood what was happening.

The Demon Beast Legion Commander Leonos’s ultimate technique.

Artiglio Tempesta.

The storm of sheer annihilation that tears everything apart. Originally unleashed with the storm blade “Stormkarg,” but using it barehanded wouldn’t matter much in terms of power.

If Leonos unleashed his ultimate technique, there would be nothing left of the airship. Everything would be shredded into bits, leaving only scraps of metal and a handful of blood.

“…….”

The reason Ion refrained from using magic was partly because dark magic was generally shunned by people, but there was also a more fundamental reason.

Thus, he wanted to avoid using magic until the very end, but reality showed that it was impossible to conclude matters quickly without using it against a formidable opponent like a legion commander.

It was a moment that required a decisive resolution.

Ion took a deep breath. Ezetus’s spear tip aimed at Ion’s heart. At this sudden act of suicide, Elizabeth’s eyes widened, and Leonos bared his fangs, growling.

In an instant, Ezetus’s spearhead plunged deep into Ion’s heart.

A horrific scream soon filled the space.

“GAAAAHHHH―!!”

At the moment his heart ruptured, a tremendous amount of magic exploded, and a black flame erupted like a furnace.

Enveloped in black flames, Ion’s entire body was meticulously covered in black armor without a single gap, and the only thing visible was the golden light shimmering from the eye holes of his helm.

Heaving aside the black flames with his arm, the clattering sound of armor echoed as Ion slowly advanced forward. Flames flickered up in response to his footsteps.

Seeing that immense dark magic and ominous aura, Elizabeth’s heart sank.

Who could possibly consider that person a hero?

Only then did Elizabeth realize.

A foreboding star. The Faceless Hero.

She understood why he was dubbed with such a title by others.

“Have you finally decided to fight properly! My long-time rival—!!”

Leonos burst into a savage laugh, wielding his arms like he was welcoming back an old friend momentarily returned. Surely Leonos had two arms, but in that brief moment, it appeared to Elizabeth as if he had eight flailing arms.

That was but an instant, and soon the arms increased to sixteen, then thirty-two, sixty-four… continuously multiplying as they stirred up a storm in the skies of the Capital City. It was a storm of death that would shred everything it touched to pieces.

Against such a beastly king, the man in the black armor grasped the spear and quietly lowered his stance. And just as he took a short breath.

A flash of blood surged like a storm.

On one side was the image of absolute destruction that tore everything apart.

On the other side was the image of absolute nullification that turned everything into nothing.

Once, during a time when Grand Masters were viewed as legendary levels, the outcome of opposing ultimate techniques colliding had been a long-standing debate among Master Classes.

And the answer was here.

Ultimate Techniques are what the strongest individuals who have reached a far higher plane use, shaping their thoughts of absolute supremacy like techniques. Sharpening one’s imagination like a sword and unleashing it like a shield—that’s what an ultimate technique is.

Naturally, an ultimate technique with a more precise and solid imagination could push away the opponent’s ultimate technique.

Elizabeth stared blankly at the scene.

“The storm… is calming down?”

As Ion swung his spear against the blade storm, every spearhead of Ezetus accurately pierced the storm’s focal points one by one.

With each stabbing of the spear into the air, the center, dubbed the eye of the storm, vanished, causing the raging storms to collide with each other. Thus, the storms that had filled the skies of the Capital City were slowly dissipating.

Calm waters. The serene image that even the massive ripples created by throwing a stone gradually settled.

That wondrous sight felt almost artistic, like a perfectly functioning machine with no margin for error.

Then, as Ion rapidly spun his spear and swung it fiercely at the last focal point, the sound of air tearing echoed, and an absolute stillness opened in this high altitude.

A perfect domain of calm. The blood-colored tip of the spear was thrust directly through Leonos’s heart.

Amidst the serene stillness, Leonos coughed up blood.

“It’s… much different from what I knew… the ultimate technique….”

Ion replied in a calm tone.

“There’s been a change in mindset.”

“The ultimate technique… can it really be mastered so easily?”

Leonos’s mouth twisted into a feral grin. It was a smile that looked both defeated yet oddly relieved.

“I thought you had weakened… but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Instead, you’ve grown stronger.”

“……”

“That power… I see… the armor isn’t for defense… but a restraint to suppress your strength… If you were to carry such power within you… you could hardly call yourself human….”

Ezetus, which pierced Leonos’s heart, possessed the power to sever all magic. Hence, the necromantic forces that had revived him were increasingly dissipating and fading away.

“Grrr… At first, I must’ve been much stronger than this… Even if I grow stronger at speed, it’s too fast….”

Leonos gazed at the blue sky before his final moment. Unlike the dim sky of the continent, the sky of the Capital City was bright and clear.

“This much… isn’t so bad….”

With those last words, Leonos’s body transformed into a handful of ashes. The oncoming wind gently blew them away.

Ion quietly added as he watched the ashes carried away by the wind.

“…It’s calm.”

It was a sky without a cloud in sight.

 

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