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Chapter 281

Unknowingly, I swallowed dry saliva. Was drawing my sword against that thing really the right answer? Right now, wouldn’t retreating while it didn’t show any murderous intent be the better option?

The presence of the Demon King pressed down on my entire body, almost painfully. The mana filled the arena to the brim, making even a single step feel like a struggle.

‘So I will have to fight something like this for my life…?’

A wry smile escaped my lips. Feeling mana that far exceeded my cognitive limits, I couldn’t help but feel flustered.

Of course, this wasn’t my first encounter with the Demon King. I had met the Leviathan and faced its immense mana directly.

But that was merely a scare tactic; it didn’t genuinely wish to kill me.

However, the Demon King before me was different. Noticing my presence, it slowly lifted its upper body. With a face wrapped in blood-soaked bandages, it turned to face me.

I realized that it had taken an interest in me. I also understood that what awaited at the end of that interest was death.

Despite not feeling any actual intent to kill, I could instinctively grasp that fact.

“You.”

The lazy voice of the Demon King echoed across the arena. My body tensed up involuntarily, and I drew my sword.

Clearly hostile, it seemed unconcerned as it started to stagger towards me.

“Looks like you’re having a fun time?”

With a sudden jerk, as if someone were snapping the neck of a doll, the Demon King’s head twisted ninety degrees. Sinister purple hair spilled out in a cascade.

I narrowed my eyes at that statement. Saying I was having a fun time wasn’t exactly a common thing to blurt out.

But knowing that my opponent could manipulate the flow of time made the statement’s underlying meaning clear.

Dragons and similar beings had a tendency to sense my regression naturally, and the Earth Serpent was a prime example.

I had no idea why it referred to me as a turning point, but it easily noticed my regression.

The act of regression seemed to pique the interest of the Demon King of Shuyo. If I had sparked their curiosity, perhaps I could find answers to my questions. Swallowing another dry gulp, I slowly spoke.

“Why are you attacking this city?”

At my words, the Demon King’s head tilted slightly to the other side, as if contemplating the meaning behind my question.

Watching it, I was glad I had left the Children behind. Every movement was quite an unpleasant sight.

After several seconds of bobbing its head like a doll from a horror movie, the Demon King eventually answered.

“I’m hungry. In fact, I’m still hungry. Because you’re in the way, I haven’t been able to eat anything.”

Was that it? The Demon King continued, its crimson tongue licking across its lips.

“You look really delicious. Can I eat you?”

Caught off guard by the sudden declaration, I snorted. I wasn’t exactly sure what it meant, but it was clear it was close to the idea of physically eating me.

“…No way.”

“How unfortunate.”

The Demon King shrugged and took a few steps back. Then, black tentacles surrounding the arena began to converge.

Swoosh, an unsettling sound as the Demon King’s snakes wrapped around me.

“However, I’d prefer killing you and then eating you. You look really tasty.”

With the Demon King’s laughter, snakes came plunging down from all directions.

The speed and destructive power were laughable, far exceeding what I had faced when battling on the ground. It seemed that the closer I was to the Demon King, the more influenced I became.

No matter what, it would be impossible for me to take on countless snakes right where I was standing. Fortunately, this arena was wider than I had anticipated, so I could probably repeat evasion and a single-point breakthrough.

The heat from the fierce battle I’d recently been in cooled within me. The engraved senses within my body swiftly relayed surrounding information to my brain.

Rotating my body towards the mass of tentacles, I raised my sword above my head.

“Haah.”

Rather than prioritizing efficiency, I focused on power as I swung my Aura Blade down. Crashing!! The sound of breaking space echoed as the leading snake barreled towards me, splitting in two.

Forced to absorb the recoil of my swing, I hurriedly slipped through the gap I had created.

Looking back as I escaped, I could catch a glimpse of the Demon King through the densely packed snakes. It was lethargically yawning, devoid of any tension.

To it, I probably didn’t even register as a target of caution.

Not even being seen as a foe was, well, too obvious to consider shocking, but the fact that it didn’t even use its powers and had yet to directly intervene was unexpected.

‘Uh-oh, this isn’t good.’

With that thought, I fished around within my clothes using shadows.

In my grasp was a stone, slightly larger than my fist… or so it appeared, but it was actually a fragment of the Earth Serpent’s shell I had obtained from Gorum’s mouth.

Since then, I had tried various methods to process it, yet ultimately, the best I managed was attaching a handle.

It had unfolded after plenty of effort, but crying out “processing” would be an embarrassing stretch.

The shell of Gormeira, one of my trump cards. A powerful item designed to repel an intense physical attack, which could turn the tide of battle.

However, if my opponent wasn’t moving at all, it changed the equation entirely.

The Demon King’s snakes were ultimately just cannon fodder. While they fit the description of a destructive weapon due to their overwhelming numbers, size, and regeneration, they were hardly daggers designed to kill strong opponents.

Using the shell against them would only expose my strategy. And if I merely kept running from this overwhelming mass of foes, eventually, I would lose all my stamina and die.

‘Then…!!’

Silver mana enveloped my body. As if I was about to leap off the arena into the air, I floated gracefully.

The moment I stopped in mid-air on my mana platform, countless tentacles surged towards me.

While simply slicing them all at once was one option, I knew that the severed tentacles would regenerate into more snakes, which would be a real nuisance.

Adjusting my mana platform diagonally, I twisted my body and leaped upward. I dodged the incoming mass of tentacles, spiraling around like a whirlwind.

I couldn’t dodge all of them, so I had to swing my sword to slice through a few, but it was undoubtedly the most efficient way to evade.

Slipping past the colossal cylindrical mass of tentacles, my body shot straight towards the center where the Demon King stood.

Regardless of being the Demon King, if I got close and swung my sword, I could induce some response.

But holding back during that strike just wouldn’t sit right with me. If I wasn’t going to test my full power here, then when would I?

The sword raised high above me was charged with all my strength. I could feel my arms, gripping the sword, strangely morphing.

The mana of Courage began to support my strike. Suddenly, what seemed to be a fabric exhaust pipe grew out of me, making it feel like it had been attached from the start.

I perceived that boosting the speed would be the most effective way to amplify the power of my strike. Mana, filled with heat, began spewing forth from the exhaust pipe.

“Eh.”

However, I was taken aback when my body began to spin vertically due to mana expulsion.

Of course, I did understand that centrifugal force was more efficient than simple acceleration, but even a superhuman Aura Expert like myself found it difficult to maintain a clear sight while physically spinning.

As I spun like a top, swinging my sword, it struck the Demon King’s body hard.

To be honest, “striking” isn’t quite the right expression either. It felt more like scraping wood with a carving knife, a dull sensation.

Even though it was an all-out strike from me, I still felt that the power was ridiculously lacking.

With my incomplete techniques, such as the Full Moon Slice and Moon Cross, I had to wonder if I could even inflict damage.

Observing the opponent who had brandished a sword against itself, the Demon King rolled its eyes. Seeing that reaction, I couldn’t help but chuckle.

“That doesn’t seem like the reaction you should have after being slashed.”

“Is that so? Hard to say. Well, you put in the effort.”

The Demon King tilted its head, seemingly puzzled. It raised its right hand and pinched its thumb and index finger together.

It readied the gesture for a classic “flick”. With its remaining hand, it slowly began to peel back the bandage covering its eyes.

“I’ll slowly devour you later, so just watch from below.”

With a grin, the Demon King’s finger stretched out. The immense mana gathered at its fingertip burst forth like a flash of light.

──Boom!!

I was catapulted out of the arena at breakneck speed. Watching me being flung, the Demon King chuckled.

“Look at you being all cute.”

With my hand now sore and marred in shades of red and purple, I flailed it about. Despite my injuries, the Demon King didn’t seem to care as it discarded its bandages with both hands.

“Aah, I’m so hungry. I can’t hold back anymore. You’ll forgive me if it gets a little messy, won’t you, everyone?”

At the Demon King’s soliloquy, the surrounding tentacles writhed as if responding. The snakes danced, while the Queen groaned sluggishly in the midst of it all. It was chaos, like a ritual to a deity.

Slowly, the Demon King’s eyes, previously hidden by its eyelids and bandages, began to emerge. They shone with an ominously indescribable light, reflecting the world within.

The underside of the arena, which the Demon King had been standing on, lit up.

───Crash!!

With the clock tower as the center, the arena shattered into dozens of pieces, akin to breaking glass. Nobody knew that different scenes reflected in each fragment of the shattered world. No one could escape the aftermath of the world’s destruction.

All of us, without exception, were trapped among the shards, remaining suspended in time itself.

*

“…Ugh, that hurt like hell…. Where am I?”

The power behind the strike was one that would have certainly killed me had I not blocked it with Gormeira’s shell.

I had successfully managed to deflect it, but in doing so, I knocked myself out from the resulting shockwave.

Rubbing the sore spot on my head, I stood to find ethereal lines drawn in the air around me.

“…Ah, damn it, I know exactly what this is.”

With a troubled expression, I wiped my face with a sigh. I remembered all too well that this was the atmosphere following the incidents in the city after the Regression.

(To be continued in the next episode)

 

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