Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou (LN) - Volume 12 - Chapter 2

Chapter II: An Outstretched Hand

Even after Hajime had left, Kouki continued glaring up at the clock tower. Eri also cautiously gazed upward to make sure he didn’t suddenly return.

“Wow...so that monster managed to get through. Interesting,” Eri muttered to herself. After confirming that Hajime really was gone, she let out a sigh of relief, though a hint of frustration remained in her eyes.

For a moment, Shizuku was confused by her reaction, but then everything fell into place. But then, she mused, “Was the reason they didn’t use the gate to escape because they couldn’t?”

“Huh? Whaddaya mean, Shizuku?” Ryutarou asked.

“Ehit rejected them...or rather, he thought it’d be fun if we clashed, so he set this up.”

“So he’s pitting us against each other for his own amusement? What a scumbag.”

Shizuku was relatively confident in her hypothesis, especially considering how Eri glared at her after she voiced it.

Sighing, Eri shook her head and pushed Ehit’s games out of her mind for now. While she wasn’t happy about it, right now she had bigger fish to fry. At least she didn’t have to deal with the one enemy she knew she didn’t stand a chance against—Hajime. Her condescending grin returned, and there was no fear behind it anymore.

“You guys are stupid. You should have thrown your pride aside and begged that monster for help. Without him, you don’t stand a chance against us,” Eri proclaimed, spreading her wings and making her gray-colored mana swirl around her in an attempt to intimidate Shizuku and the others.

However, Suzu wasn’t fazed at all, and she casually replied, “You sure got talkative once he left, Eri. Don’t worry. No matter what happens, we won’t try to call him back here, so you can stop quaking in your boots.”

“I see you’ve learned how to talk big,” Eri said, her smile vanishing. She then examined Suzu like she was some strange new creature.

The Suzu that Eri knew was naive, simple, and easily manipulated. It was hard to imagine the person before her was the same one she knew. Suzu looked more determined than Eri had ever seen her before, and she appeared to have more depth to her as well. Eri didn’t like this new Suzu at all. She couldn’t explain why Suzu’s determined, unwavering gaze bothered her so, but it did.

Bloodlust oozed from Eri’s eyes, and in response, Suzu’s eyes flared with fighting spirit. The two were staring at each other so intensely that it felt like sparks were flying from the force of their gazes. It was at that point that Kouki finally returned his attention to the ground.

“Won’t you guys please surrender? I just want to rescue all of you,” he said, sounding utterly sincere. Unfortunately, he was under such a huge misunderstanding that his “help” was no help at all.

Ryutarou scoffed and replied, “You’ve got it backward, man.”

“I do?”

“We’re here to save you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t get it? ’Course you don’t. Because right now, you’re being a fuckin’ idiot. You’re too dumb to see what’s in front of your goddamn face,” Ryutarou declared as he took a resolute step forward, grinning like a feral wolf. Kouki was so overwhelmed that he swallowed his protests. “But that’s why I’m here. I’ve gotta knock some sense into you! You’re my best friend, and that’s why I’ll beat the shit outta you! Grit your teeth, ’cause this is gonna hurt!”

Ryutarou’s deep emerald-green mana swirled around him. There was a lot more of it than before, and it was clear to Kouki that Ryutarou had grown stronger as well. In fact, Ryutarou was now stronger than Kouki had been before his own strengthening. But more intimidating than his power was the sheer determination in his eyes. Kouki took an inadvertent step backward not because of how strong Ryutarou appeared to be, but because of the look in his eyes. Despite the bindings that Eri had placed on his soul, he still cast a longing glance toward Shizuku, the original reason why he’d fallen this far. Even though he was physically the strongest person present, he looked completely desperate and vulnerable. He’d hoped that even while brainwashed, Shizuku, at least, would’ve shown him some sympathy. As he had so many times before, he ignored the reality in front of him and prayed that things would line up conveniently for him.

However, Shizuku cut through his hopes immediately by saying, “I didn’t come here with half-hearted resolve. Don’t expect any mercy from me!”

Her voice boomed through the destroyed city, and as she drew her blade, Kouki’s face paled. What horrified him the most was that Shizuku’s words were directed to both him and Eri. Now, even Shizuku’s scolding was no longer reserved solely for him. Kouki’s heart sank, and he began slowly sinking into a deluge of despair. He had desperately hoped that Shizuku would look only at him and feel guilty about what she’d done to him, but none of that had happened.

“Don’t worry, Kouki-kun. It’s okay. I’ll save you. Remember, I’m on your side,” Eri said in a sweet voice. Her words reached Kouki even while he was wallowing in despair.

“Eri...”

“I’m the only one who’ll never betray you. I’m the only one who’ll always stand by you,” she whispered seductively, tearing Kouki’s attention away from Shizuku.

Kouki turned to find Eri’s face inches from his own. “Yeah, thanks, Eri,” he said as he flashed her a lopsided smile, his clouded eyes seeing nothing.

Eri smiled back at him, her face looking like a cracked pane of glass, and snapped her fingers. A deafening roar resounded, and then numerous figures burst from the nearby rubble, causing it to rain down all around them. The conversation thus far had just been a ploy to buy time. Gray-winged warriors surrounded Shizuku on every side except the one Hajime had obliterated. They were all knights of Heiligh that Shizuku recognized, but they’d been turned into grotesque facsimiles of themselves after Eri had mixed monster blood into their bodies and bound their souls. Shizuku had seen these undead soldiers once before, but they had a shocking new addition this time.

“Gray wings...? Don’t tell me...” she muttered darkly.

“You know it!” replied Eri, clapping her hands. All of her soldiers had been demi-apostleified.

“I call them my Corpse Apostles. They might not be able to take a missile to the face, but simply burying them under rubble isn’t enough to kill them!”

There were almost two hundred of them, and while they weren’t as powerful as the original apostles, they were still among the most powerful beings in existence. Shizuku finally understood where Eri’s arrogance was coming from, especially considering barely three days had passed since their showdown in the Demon Lord’s castle. She probably assumed Shizuku and the others couldn’t possibly have gotten that much stronger in such a short time.

“Did you really think I’d fight you guys fair and square? Hell no. I’m gonna crush you with numbers and—”

“Soul signatures analyzed, coordinates locked. Hallowed Ground - Immortal Prison.”

With a simple twirl of her fans, Suzu completely shattered Eri’s expectations. Geysers of orange mana burst forth from her, trailing the arc her fans had drawn and swallowing all of the Corpse Apostles whole. Hallowed Ground - Immortal Prison was an original barrier spell that Suzu had personally developed. Her fans were enchanted with spirit magic that let her trace the souls of her enemies, as well as spatial magic that allowed her to lock on to specific coordinates. As a result, she could pinpoint multiple enemies at once and trap them in a specially crafted barrier. While the abilities of her fans were impressive, what was even more impressive was her own ability to keep the coordinates of two hundred enemies firmly in her mind and seal them all. Both Eri’s and Kouki’s jaws dropped open. Meanwhile, Shizuku and Ryutarou pressed their advantage.

“Demonic Steel Fist - Giant Slayer!”

“Instant Transcendence - Flash Slice!”

Ryutarou and Shizuku dashed forward with such force that the rubble beneath them was pulverized. By the time Kouki regained his senses, Ryutarou’s fist was inches from his face. Kouki quickly raised his shield, but that wasn’t enough.

“Ngh!” he grunted through clenched teeth.

Ryutarou had practiced karate for years even before coming to this world, and Kouki had always known how deadly his friend’s fists could be. And yet, the force of the punch he’d taken just now was far greater than anything he’d anticipated. Demonic Steel Fist - Giant Slayer was a relatively simple move where Ryutarou concentrated all of his mana into his gauntlets—which were a special artifact Hajime had made for him called Demonic Gauntlets—and used that to exponentially bolster the power of his punches. His gauntlets were enchanted with Diamond Skin, they could generate mana shockwaves on impact, and his job, monk, let him send those impacts through his opponent’s defenses and strike their internal organs directly.

Ryutarou’s punches were now strong enough to pulverize steel, and even with the ridiculous sturdiness that Kouki’s stats granted him, it took all of his strength just to keep hold of his sword. He wasn’t able to brace himself against the attack either, due to how bad his footing was, so he was sent flying. Eri wanted to run to Kouki’s aid, but her instincts screamed at her to dodge, so she reflexively backed away instead. She hadn’t heard any sound or seen even the glint of a blade, but there had indeed been a slash, so dodging had been the right move.

“Ngh!”

Looking down, Eri saw that her claymore had been sliced cleanly in half. Had she not leaped backward and used that sword to block, she would’ve suffered that fate instead...and her instincts had only been able to save her because she’d seen Shizuku’s sword skills so many times while they were in the same party. Even a nanosecond’s delay would have concluded this battle before it even truly began. Instant Transcendence was a form of evolution magic that Shizuku had developed. By activating evolution magic only instantaneously the very moment she struck, she kept her mana consumption low and also made it impossible to tell when she was about to use it. The new katana that Hajime had gifted her helped her control the instantaneous activation of evolution magic, as well as dampen the usual burst of mana that accompanied the use of any ancient magic.

Moreover, because the spell activated for only an instant, Shizuku could use it multiple times in the same attack. Here, she’d used it once on her feet when charging forward, once on her arms when drawing her blade, and one last time on her sword itself to magnify its space-rending properties. As a result, her attack had been silent, invisible, and strong enough to slice through an Ehit-made claymore.

“Looks like your little surprise attack didn’t work,” Eri said, countering with a barrage of gray disintegration feathers all the while. Shizuku didn’t try to push in too far and instead backflipped away to where Suzu was and cut down the few feathers that reached her.

“I knew you’d be able to defend against it, though I had hoped to cut your arms off,” Shizuku said in a cold voice.

Eri summoned another claymore from thin air, a bead of sweat dripping down her forehead, then cooed, “Oooh, how scary. You want to torture me before killing me, then?”

Eri seemed to believe Shizuku and the others were here for revenge. Shizuku and Suzu both opened their mouths to argue, but before they could, Eri sneered and said, “But you know, I think you’re underestimating me here.”

Mana surged forth from the Corpse Apostles that Suzu had trapped. They had the same gray-colored mana that Eri did, but it was mixed with the dark-crimson mana that monsters had. The demi-apostleification process had unlocked the full potential of Eri’s creatures.

“Ngh, I figured they’d be able to use it too,” Suzu gasped as she struggled to keep her barrier from being eroded from the inside. She had suspected Eri’s Corpse Apostles could also use disintegration magic, but she’d been hoping they couldn’t. Judging by the fact that they hadn’t used it immediately upon being caged, it took the Corpse Apostles some time to charge it up, but the fact that they could use it at all was quite a problem. And to make matters worse—

“Dowaaaaaah!” Ryutarou was sent flying back.

“Nimbus!” Suzu shouted, waving her fans. A net made of rings of light then appeared to catch Ryutarou and break his fall.

“Damn, that was a close call. Nice save, Suzu.”

Ryutarou rose to his feet as he thanked Suzu. Sweat beaded down his forehead, and there was a deep cut across his breastplate. His armor, like his weapon, was an artifact made by Hajime, and on top of being unbelievably sturdy, it was also enchanted with Diamond Skin. Ryutarou himself had activated Diamond Skin as well, but his triple defense had still been overwhelmed by a single attack.

“Do you understand now, Ryutarou? You can’t defeat me,” Kouki stated flatly, wind swirling around him as he alighted to the ground. “Shizuku, Suzu, just stop this. Surrender, and I won’t have to hurt you.”

Mana surged around him and his eyes glowed pure silver, which was proof that he’d activated Overload, Limit Break’s derivative skill. Shizuku and the others could tell instinctively that even with all of the buffs they had from their artifacts, Kouki’s stats were easily twice theirs, if not more. From the looks of it, all of Kouki’s stats were over ten thousand.

“Oh, by the way, neither I nor Kouki-kun will ever run out of mana,” Eri said with a grin. Just like true apostles, the two of them were being endlessly supplied with mana from Ehit.

“I-I don’t want to kill you guys!” Kouki shouted, prompting Ryutarou to flash him a confused look.

“Hey, what happened to freeing us from our brainwashing or whatever? You went straight for my neck there. That hurts, man, I thought we were friends.”

“If I can’t convince you with words, I’ll have to kill you, but don’t worry...” Kouki mumbled, pointing his sword at Ryutarou with a sorrowful look on his face. He was really playing up the whole “tragic hero” angle. “Even if I do have to kill you, God will bring you back to life. And when you wake up again, the world will be back to the way it was before. No, it’ll be an even more just world than ever!”

Kouki desperately pleaded for his friends to surrender so he wouldn’t have to kill them, but Ryutarou simply rubbed his head as if to deal with an oncoming headache and replied, “What kinda bullshit did she stuff into your head?”

Half for Kouki’s benefit, Suzu turned to Eri and said, “Hey, Eri, you plan on using your Spirit Binding to turn us all into undead after you kill us, don’t you? That’s the most convenient solution for you.”

“Whaaat? How mean! I would never even dream of doing such a thing...” Eri replied innocently, her lips twitching up into a small grin, ruining the “good girl” act she was putting on. Though, of course, Kouki didn’t notice. Naturally, since Eri wanted to be alone with Kouki, and Kouki wanted to rescue his friends, that was the most efficient way to technically achieve both goals.

“How could you say that, Suzu?” Kouki asked, looking disappointed in her. “Eri’s your best friend...! No, wait, this must be the brainwashing at work. Please come back to your senses!”

“That’s our line, Kouki,” Shizuku said softly, looking Kouki square in the eyes. “Yeah, your soul’s being controlled, but you must have realized the truth by now. Surely you can tell what Eri’s really after, what Ehit means to do to everyone, and that you’re just pushing all the blame onto Hajime because you don’t want to accept reality.”

Shizuku’s cold tone made it clear that if Kouki continued to remain blind even after hearing all that, she would fight to the bitter end.

“Open your eyes. Quit daydreaming and face the truth,” Shizuku said, then took a deep breath and waited patiently for his reply. She wouldn’t avert her eyes, no matter what his ultimate decision was. She had already decided that she would never turn away from reality, no matter how harsh it became. As one final verbal slap to the face, she spoke to her fallen friend, saying, “Stop running away from us.”

Kouki staggered backward, looking as though he’d been struck by lightning. Eri clicked her tongue in annoyance.

“Poor Kouki-kun. Hajime Nagumo took everything from you! And even though Shizuku and the others have betrayed you, you’re still trying to save them!”

“Eri...”

“Unfortunately, it looks like the brainwashing runs so deep that we’ll have to kill them. But don’t worry, Kouki-kun. I’ll take care of everything. I’d never make you do something as cruel as killing your friends!”

After saying that, Eri leaned against Kouki and flashed Shizuku a devilish grin. She was playing up the “devoted heroine” act just as much as Kouki was playing the tragic hero. Shizuku and Suzu both grimaced, but the shoddy act seemed to work perfectly on Kouki.

“It’s all right, Eri. I won’t ask you to dirty your hands for my sake,” Kouki declared, turning to Eri with a reassuring smile.

“Doesn’t look like we’ll be able to solve this with words just yet,” Suzu said sadly.

“Yeah. Eri’s still messing with his head and using Spirit Binding on him. Until we get rid of that, he won’t listen to a word we say,” Ryutarou replied.

“That’s fine. I knew from the very beginning that words alone wouldn’t be enough,” Shizuku stated resolutely. They had said their piece to Kouki already, so all that was left was to see who would persevere in this battle of wills.

Sighing in disappointment, Kouki cast a sad gaze at his former comrades and said, “So you won’t listen to reason, then? Fine. I won’t waver any longer. I... I—”

Kouki raised his sword over his head, and a swirling vortex of white and silver mana appeared at its tip. It looked like a mini-galaxy. The mana was so dense and powerful that it scorched the air around it.

“I’ll kill you in order to save you!”

Pure-white wings spread out from the mass of mana. Next, a thick tail grew from the back, and four powerful limbs hit the rubble with a resounding thud, claws gouging the stone. Finally, a long neck extended from the front, ending in a ferocious head that rested ten meters above the ground. Two horns grew from the forehead, and vicious teeth lined the creature’s jaws. It was a dragon. A huge dragon made of silver light. It stood behind Kouki, glaring down at Shizuku and the others.

“Divine Wrath of a Thousand Forms - Dragon Form. This dragon is the radiant light that shall destroy you,” Kouki declared in a solemn voice. Divine Wrath was the strongest light spell, as well as the hero’s main trump card. Normally, it was just a blast of light, but Kouki had found a way to morph its shape and keep it permanently active. It was Kouki’s strongest spell, something he could only do thanks to his upgraded stats and his limitless supply of mana.

“Shizuku, Ryutarou, Suzu. We’ll meet again when the world is fixed.”

Upon hearing that, the three of them smiled fearlessly and refuted his words.

“Hmph. I’d like to see you try, you weakling!”

“Hah, in your dreams!”

“Our resolve is a lot stronger than you think!”

The dragon let out its first roar, making Shizuku and the others scrunch up their faces. They were expecting an immediate attack, but instead, they saw the dragon gather a sphere of light in its mouth.

“Shizushizu, Ryutarou-kun!” Suzu shouted. The two of them nodded in response, immediately picking up on her intentions without her needing to say anything more, and ran over. A second later, Suzu’s orange mana flared.

“Hallowed Ground - Scatter!”

A dome-shaped barrier appeared around the group, but unlike the usual Hallowed Ground, the mana comprising the barrier swirled around at high speeds. This was a special barrier that both absorbed and redirected the impact of attacks.

A moment later, the dragon unleashed its pure-silver breath, and an attack several times more powerful than Kouki’s Divine Wrath slammed down against the barrier. The part of the beam that was diverted obliterated the party’s surroundings, but the part that wasn’t was still powerful enough to crack Suzu’s barrier.

“Nnnnnnnnngh!” Suzu groaned through gritted teeth.

Divine Wrath ended in seconds, so it wasn’t too hard to block, but this attack showed no signs of stopping. Suzu was already struggling to hold the beam at bay, but then Eri added her own attack to the mix.

“Pathetic, Suzu. Phantom Pain!” Eri exclaimed. Her voice carried surprisingly well through the deafening roar of the dragon’s breath.

Shortly thereafter, Suzu’s entire body was wracked with extreme pain. It was as though a thousand needles had been stabbed into every pore of her skin. Suzu howled in pain, and her control over her barrier faltered. However, she maintained the portion of it that was blocking the breath above them, determined to at least make sure that one attack didn’t make it through. By focusing her efforts on that single spot, she actually succeeded in strengthening her barrier.

Unfortunately for them, Eri had expected that would happen.

“Aha! You guys are wide open now. Die,” Eri said, sounding awfully excited as she thrust out her hand and fired a disintegration beam at the group.

To make matters worse, Corpse Apostles flooded in from every direction but directly above them. They carried a variety of weapons from swords to spears to maces to daggers. From the looks of it, they were organized into a vanguard and a rearguard, and the rear guard had remained behind to cast magic. In seconds, disintegration beams rained down on them from all sides; not just from Eri. Eri was confident this concentrated barrage would eradicate Shizuku and the others, but then, Eri and Kouki heard the three of them talking. This time, it was their voices that carried surprisingly well through the din.

“Come, my sentient swords. Hundred Onyx Blades!”

“Come, my hunter of the abyss! Werewolf Prime!”

“Come, my loyal familiars! Abyssal Swarm!”

Suddenly, countless black objects shot out of the white light, heading straight for Kouki.

“What the—?!” he shouted, surprised by the unexpected counterattack. Due to that confusion, his reaction was delayed by a split second, so he wasn’t able to use his Divine Wrath to defend himself.

Kouki reflexively tried to strike the black objects down with his sword, but he was only able to swat away a few before he was overwhelmed.

“Gah!”

Blood spurted from Kouki’s arms, and his sword flew out of his hands. Though it meant stopping his dragon’s assault, Kouki knew he had no choice but to leap away. He called his blade back with his mind and defensively coiled his dragon’s tail around him.

A second later, ten black katanas stabbed into the light dragon’s thick tail. They pierced fully through, but stopped just short of stabbing Kouki himself.

Cold sweat poured down Kouki’s forehead. Had he tried to use a regular barrier instead of his overpowered Divine Wrath, he would have been skewered. Shaking off the chill that ran down his spine, Kouki made his dragon whip its tail, dislodging the katanas. To his surprise, however, the katanas looked only lightly damaged despite being exposed to the full force of the dragon’s searing light. But what was even more surprising was—

“Th-They’re flying?”

The fact that the katanas were hovering in the air, surrounding him, stunned the hero. And of course, he knew there was only one person who could be their master.

Kouki turned toward where Shizuku was and asked in a shaky voice, “H-How did you...?”

In one place there was a black katana blocking a Corpse Apostle’s claymore. In another, a black katana sliced off another Corpse Apostle’s spearhead. And in yet another, a black katana stabbed right through a Corpse Apostle’s mace.

Dozens of black katanas circled around Shizuku and Suzu, completely halting the Corpse Apostles’ assault. If you included the ten that had attacked Kouki, there were exactly one hundred of them.

Shizuku had somehow made a veritable barrier of blades.

“Cut them down - Instant Transcendence!”

The moment Shizuku gave her command, the barrier of blades turned into a whirlwind of death. Each blade executed one highly precise cut. They were so precise, in fact, that it was hard to believe that Shizuku was controlling all of these remotely.

This was the result of the new artifact Hajime had made for Shizuku, the Hundred Onyx Blades. They had been crafted with the same underlying blueprint as Hajime’s Living Bullets. Gravity magic allowed them to fly through the air, and they possessed a small modicum of intelligence. Essentially, they were golems shaped like katanas. They had more autonomy packed into them than Hajime’s bullets, and they were telepathically linked to Shizuku via her own metamorphosis magic, making them easy for her to coordinate. Most importantly though, Shizuku had spent what little time she’d had before the battle training them all in the Yaegashi sword style, so their skill was comparable to her own. They also were all enchanted with spatial severing magic, making them nigh impossible to block, which was why Kouki had been cut so easily.

An azure aura surrounded the blades as they whirled around at insane speeds. Unsurprisingly, the Corpse Apostles were unable to withstand the onslaught, and twenty of them were cut to bits along with their weapons and armor. Even those who’d managed to back away in time had lost some of their body parts or their weapons.

After the assault ended, the blades returned to their master, their points facing toward the floor. Standing in the center of the formation, Shizuku looked just like one of the heroes Kouki had admired so much. Her ponytail fluttered in the wind and her cold, clear gaze was captivating.

“Beautiful...” Kouki muttered without realizing it.

He was so bewitched that he didn’t notice what was going on around him.

“Awoooooooooooooooooo!”

Upon hearing that roar, Kouki turned to see a black-furred creature with glowing red eyes, sharp claws, and pointed teeth. It was a werewolf, and it was currently attacking Eri. It had appeared at the same time Shizuku’s blades had, and it had cut a swathe of destruction through the Corpse Apostles on its way to Eri.

The werewolf moved so fast that even with her apostle-heightened senses, Eri only saw it as a blur.

But more deadly than its speed was the variety of karate techniques it was using. They all resembled Ryutarou’s techniques, and the werewolf’s assault was so vicious that Eri didn’t even get a chance to take to the skies. She was trying to wear it down with a barrage of disintegration feathers, but the werewolf’s leather breastplate and gauntlets deflected them all with ease. It had the same equipment Ryutarou had too, though it had grown when the wearer’s body had morphed, and its shape was slightly shifted to account for the change in physique.

At this point, it was clear to Eri that this was Ryutarou.

“Tch... You used metamorphosis magic on yourself? God, you really are a musclehead!”

“Can it! You fucked us all over, so now I’m gonna make you pay for it!”

Eri’s guess was right on the money. Ryutarou had used metamorphosis magic on himself to greatly increase his stats.

Transformation was a simple enough spell in theory. The caster ingested a mana crystal taken from a monster, which granted their body the properties of that monster. Until now, Ryutarou had focused on his close combat capabilities and neglected his magic training, so even though he had an affinity with metamorphosis magic, he’d had a hard time getting familiars to follow him. However, after a lot of thinking, he’d come to the conclusion that if he couldn’t subjugate monsters to serve him, he’d just transform into those monsters instead.

But while that sounded simple, transformation was one of the hardest metamorphosis magic spells to master. Ryutarou had been lucky enough to have a natural affinity for body transformation though, and he’d powered through the training with brute force. Eri truly hadn’t been far off the mark when she’d called him a musclehead.

For this transformation, Ryutarou was using the mana crystal from the werewolf king that lived on one of the lowest floors of the abyss. The transformation gave him the special magic of the monster he was using as a base, and in this case, the werewolf king possessed Foresight, Perception Enhancement, Flash Step, No Tempo, and Acceleration. This form was specialized for speed, which was why Ryutarou was able to overwhelm Eri.

Impatience welled up within Eri and she glanced at her Corpse Apostles to see why they hadn’t fired off any disintegration barrages. When she saw what was going on, she shouted, “What the hell are you useless morons doing?! How can you let some bugs get the better of you?!”

Indeed, a swarm of insect monsters had attacked the Corpse Apostle rearguard just before they’d been able to finish casting. Giant centipedes spit out highly corrosive acid that ate through the Corpse Apostles’ bodies.

The Corpse Apostles were obviously fighting back, and the centipedes weren’t nearly strong enough to take a warhammer to the face, but they were still taking quite a few undead down with them. Plus, a swarm of giant hornets the size of babies was firing off a barrage of stingers that exploded upon contact, sowing even more discord among the Corpse Apostle squads.

A group of praying mantises waded into the confusion, firing off wind blades in all directions to wreak even more havoc among the Corpse Apostles. A number of the Corpse Apostles tried to take to the skies to flee to safety, but they got caught in the unbelievably strong webs spun by a group of spiders. However, if they remained on the ground, hordes of ants started overwhelming them. They all rushed out of a group of storage artifacts that Hajime had given Suzu, ones he’d dubbed Pokeyballs. While Shizuku and Ryutarou had kept Kouki and Eri busy, Suzu had thrown them out to every corner of the battlefield. The reason she’d even captured the Corpse Apostles with her barrier was to keep them from noticing the real threat.

Those monsters are way stronger than the ones we saw at the Demon Lord’s castle! Eri thought, panicking slightly. But of course, the monsters Suzu was using now were far stronger than any that lived in the Haltina Woods. These were all monsters from the depths of the abyss, after all...and there were a good fifty of them.

Meanwhile, Suzu herself was protected by an airtight barrier. This was another one of her inventions, Hallowed Ground - Citadel. She’d cast twenty Hallowed Grounds at once, and any time one of the outer barriers was destroyed another would surge forward to take its place.

Protected as she was by such a powerful barrier, Eri and Kouki couldn’t hope to stop the monsters’ assault by taking her out. Moreover, since she was protecting herself, none of her comrades needed to stay back and guard her. As soon as she finished deploying her defenses, Shizuku turned all one hundred of her katanas on Kouki.

“Numbers twenty to fifty, kill Shizuku! Sixty to eighty, support me! The rest of you should attack Suzu! Rearguard, don’t bother trying to charge your disintegration magic, just rush them down!” Eri barked out orders in a shrill voice, her mask of confidence slipping. She could feel the tide shifting away from her. It was as if everyone and everything in the world was rejecting her, which was an all-too-familiar feeling for her.

“Raaaaaaaaaaaah!” Ryutarou roared as he charged at Eri.

“Quit barking, you mutt. Crazed Moon - Full Power!”

Eri unleashed a wave of disintegration magic all around her, causing Ryutarou to stumble momentarily, then used her ultimate dark magic spell to make Ryutarou lose consciousness for a few seconds.

A flickering black moon the size of a tennis ball appeared between Eri and Ryutarou. This was a spell that had worked on even Yue before. The moment Ryutarou gazed into the Crazed Moon, Eri grinned, confident of her victory.

“Thunderclap Blows!” Ryutarou shouted, not even slowing down.

“Wha—?! Gah!”

His fist sank deep into Eri’s solar plexus, sending her flying back into the mountain of rubble. She quickly bounced back to her feet but was left grimacing in pain.

Ryutarou’s Demonic Fists were enchanted with Lightning Field, as well as his own innate ability to make his blows penetrate armor. Thanks to that, he’d sent the spell’s powerful shocks through Eri’s entire body.

Eri couldn’t fathom why her Crazed Moon, which had brought even Yue low, had somehow failed to work on Ryutarou.

“You already used that trick against Nagumo!”

But of course, the fact of the matter was that Hajime had developed countermeasures for it precisely because it had worked in the past.

Are you fucking kidding me?! Eri screamed internally. She hadn’t forgotten how monstrously adaptable Hajime Nagumo was, but she hadn’t thought he could counter a spell after just seeing it once.

Wait, calm down. We’ve still got the advantage here!

Ryutarou launched himself at Eri again, sparks flying off his gauntlets. But she just sneered at him, and a second later, her Corpse Apostles came to her aid. One of them stomped their foot on the ground, and an instant later, the ground under Ryutarou’s feet exploded. Shards of stone bombarded his legs, stopping him momentarily. Then, a second Corpse Apostle appeared. He suffused his tower shield with dark-crimson mana and launched himself at Ryutarou. The mana-enhanced shield bash sent Ryutarou flying, giving Eri some much-needed time to think and heal herself.

Whatever artifact Nagumo gave them was probably meant to actually be a countermeasure to Divine Edict. If it protects their souls from being affected in any way, it probably also has the side effect of defending them from mental attacks. And yet, my Phantom Pain worked on Suzu. Probably because it’s magic that directly affects the senses. In other words, my magic is still effective so long as I limit it to hitting their senses.

Ryutarou quickly got back to his feet, but the Corpse Apostles were on him in seconds. With stunning coordination, they surrounded him and charged at him, their weapons wreathed in their respective special magics.

As Ryutarou desperately dodged a burning red spear, a claymore clad in lightning, and a longsword emitting petrifying smoke, Eri cast her cold gaze on him.

“Oblivion.”

Oblivion was a simple dark spell that covered the target’s vision with a black haze.

“What the hell?!” Ryutarou shouted. He then rushed toward where he’d last seen his opponents in the hope of closing the distance and keeping them from using their longer-reaching weapons, but it was difficult when he couldn’t see.

The spear-wielding Corpse Apostle easily sidestepped him and thrust at Ryutarou’s unguarded flank. And upon seeing that, Eri smirked, certain that Ryutarou was finished.

“Hallowed Ground!” Suzu exclaimed, summoning a group of shimmering hexagonal shields to protect Ryutarou. They didn’t slide into place from somewhere else either; they simply appeared at the exact spot needed to block the attacks.

The spear slid off the angled shield, while another two shields took the other Corpse Apostle’s swords head-on. That wasn’t the end of Suzu’s tricks, however.

“Burst!”

With a single word incantation, the shields exploded outward, blowing the Corpse Apostles away. Then, without missing a beat, Suzu shouted, “Etheria!”

Etheria was a light magic spell that cured all negative status effects.

“Thanks, Suzu!” Ryutarou shouted as he regained his vision. He turned to Suzu and gave her an appreciative nod. As someone who’d fought by her side for quite some time, he knew barrier magic wasn’t Suzu’s only specialty.

In the same way that Kaori had mastered barrier and support magic after a great deal of effort despite having the job of priest, Suzu had also trained hard in healing magic. And she’d done it all to get the chance to talk to Eri again.

Suzu swung her fans over and over from within her magical citadel, protecting and healing her familiars, who were outnumbered by the Corpse Apostles two to one. On top of that, she seized every opportunity she could to cast Immortal Prison and temporarily cage every Corpse Apostle in sight. If they took too long to escape, she could add fire or lightning magic to her imprisoning barriers and kill the Corpse Apostles outright.

Unfazed by the Corpse Apostles’ insane toughness or their plethora of special magics, Suzu soldiered on. While she hadn’t succeeded in defeating too many on her own, her exceptional abilities as both a commander of familiars and a rearguard support allowed her to take on two-thirds of the Corpse Apostles so her comrades could focus on Kouki and Eri.

After a few seconds, Suzu locked eyes with Eri, and Eri’s confident sneer slipped a little. Contrary to her expectations, Suzu was protecting her comrades instead of cowering in fear. In fact, her steadfast resolve seemed the strongest out of everyone’s.

“Don’t act so cocky, Suzuuuuuu!” Eri roared, clearly incensed.

Suzu just smiled back. At long last, Eri was unable to ignore her like she had before. Suzu was no longer beneath Eri’s consideration. Eri’s anger proved that beyond a doubt. She’d been properly recognized as a foe.

“I’ll smash those pathetic barriers of yours!” Eri exclaimed, taking Suzu’s genuine smile of happiness as a provocation as she flew high into the sky.

Eri and her Corpse Apostles were masters of aerial combat. Even if, in werewolf form, Ryutarou could keep up with them on the ground, he didn’t stand a chance in the air. Up there, they could unleash a barrage of disintegration magic without interruption... Or so Eri thought, but after she’d risen into the air, she felt blinding pain in her head.

“Gaaah!”

The pain was so intense that she blacked out for a brief instant.

What happened? Did a monster get above me without me noticing?

Looking up, Eri saw nothing at first, but when she squinted a bit harder, she realized what she’d been hit by.

“A barrier?!”

A tiny, transparent barrier the size of a quarter was what had hit her on the head. This too was another one of Suzu’s original spells, Barrier Maze. By setting up tiny, transparent barriers all around her enemies, Suzu could limit their range of movement. The truly dangerous thing about this spell was that the faster her enemies were, the more they damaged themselves on collision.

In her haste, Eri had flown headfirst into one of the barriers.

“Ha ha, what idiots!” Ryutarou shouted, laughing heartily as he watched the Corpse Apostles that had surrounded him run into similar barriers and fall back to the ground. He then quickly set about slaughtering all of them before they could regain their bearings.

It was clear that his focus was on them, but the timing of his outburst was so perfect that Eri felt as though it had been directed at her. Her grin vanished completely and she snarled, “Fine, let’s see if you can block this!”

Then, she wrapped her gray wings around herself like a cocoon, suffusing them with disintegration magic to protect herself from any attacks that might come her way. After a few seconds, she shouted, “Phantom Pain, Insanity Howl, Oblivion, Decimate!”

Eri had cast a series of dark magic spells in quick succession. Phantom Pain, which distorted the target’s sense of touch and caused them to suffer extreme agony rushed toward Shizuku. Insanity Howl, which caused auditory hallucinations and interfered with the target’s sense of hearing hounded Ryutarou. Oblivion, which blinded the target, and Decimate, which dispersed the mana of the spells the target was casting, struck out toward Suzu.

Shizuku grunted slightly, while Ryutarou, whose hearing had been heightened considerably due to his transformation, howled in pain and covered his ears.

Blinded, but acutely aware that her barriers were beginning to crumble, Suzu twirled gracefully, her fans dancing through the air.

“All targets locked... Etheria! Gather around me once more, Hallowed Ground - Citadel.”

Suzu healed herself and her two comrades instantly while simultaneously redeploying her fortress. Then, she once again locked eyes with Eri and replied, “Looks like I can, Eri.”

At long last, Suzu was able to stand on equal ground with Eri, without having to rely on anyone else.

There was a brief moment of silence, then Eri covered the battlefield in destructive gray light, which Suzu met with her protective orange light.

The two surges of mana clashed around Shizuku, with Eri seeking to destroy her and Suzu seeking to protect her.

I guess this counts as a conversation of sorts... Shizuku thought to herself with a small smile. Like Ryutarou, she had absolute faith that Suzu would be able to protect her from anything Eri might try. Plus, even if she hadn’t, she had her hands full with Kouki already, so she couldn’t exactly do anything about Eri.

“Instant Transcendence!”

Kouki’s dragon of light fired its breath at Shizuku, and she used Instant Transcendence in combination with Flash Step to dodge in the nick of time. She then landed a good ten meters away, pivoted on her right leg, and shouted, “Roar—Lightning Blade!”

Drawing her katana with lightning speed, she sliced at the two Corpse Apostles that had been closing in on her from behind. They managed to stop themselves just in time to avoid getting cut in half, but Shizuku had predicted they would. After all, the real power of Lightning Blade was the paralyzing shockwave it unleashed, not the force of the blow itself.

“Flash Slice!”

Indeed, the shockwave caused the two Corpse Apostles to stiffen for a second, and two of Shizuku’s blades flew in from behind to split them from head to toe.

That’s five!

Thirty Corpse Apostles had come to Kouki’s aid, and Shizuku had already slain five of them.

Shizuku had grouped her hundred blades into ten groups of ten. The first group was focused on protecting her, while the remaining nine split up into even smaller groups of three, with each subgroup handling a Corpse Apostle.

Unfortunately, it’s getting harder to kill them with just my Hundred Onyx Blades.

Unlike true Apostles, the Corpse Apostles weren’t merely puppets. Though they were bound to serve Eri as her loyal slaves, they still retained much of the skills and tactical knowledge that they’d had when they were alive. And as a result, they could adapt to Shizuku’s techniques.

Luckily, now that she had downed five Corpse Apostles, her third group had some leeway to further impact the battle. At the same time though, five of her blades had been brought down by the Corpse Apostles’ disintegration attacks—which they’d sacrificed their own comrades to buy enough time to charge up—and their oscillation-related special magics. Still, Shizuku was the one dealing proportionally more damage.

“Divine Wrath - Ten Celestial Flashes!” Kouki roared as he unleashed a series of shockwaves to trap Shizuku in place while his dragon rained a beam of light down on her.

At a distance, the sparkling display of pure-white light looked rather beautiful. But to Shizuku, it was the light of annihilation. If any of those attacks hit her, she’d be reduced to ash, which was precisely why she advanced rather than choosing to dodge. She placed her faith in the artifact her beloved had given her and marched boldly forward into that rain of death.

“Blades one and three, attract. Blades seven through nine, repel.”

Two of Shizuku’s katanas moved diagonally in front of her. The gravity magic imbued in her blades allowed them to draw things toward them, so Kouki’s shockwaves of light changed course as they entered the katanas’ gravity fields. Meanwhile, three other katanas soared over Shizuku’s head and, like an umbrella, repelled the dragon’s breath to fall all around Shizuku instead of on her.

Using a combination of Flash Step and No Tempo, Shizuku closed the distance between herself and Kouki in an instant.

“I’ve already analyzed all of your movements, Shizuku,” Kouki proclaimed, swinging his sword down at her. His arm had already been healed. The apostleification process had increased his natural healing rate exponentially, and there was a Corpse Apostle with powerful healing special magic at his side as well. Even cuts deep enough to sever his muscles healed in seconds.

As Kouki swung his sword, his dragon also tried to stomp down on Shizuku with its foreleg. Each of its claws was a Celestial Flash unto itself, but with how densely packed the mana in them was, Shizuku would have been crushed far before she was cut apart.

Kouki seemed to think he could just bring his friends back after killing them, but Shizuku idly wondered if that would still be possible if they were annihilated on the molecular level.

I bet he hasn’t even considered that. After all, he just ignores any truth that might inconvenience him. Sorry, Kouki, but I’m the one who’s analyzed you.

“Group Three, defend me! Shock Impact!”

Shizuku’s katanas formed a round shield above her, and their azure auras pulsed with power. The katanas were enchanted with the ability to convert mana into shockwaves, which allowed them to withstand high-density attacks.

Of course, they could only last an instant against the massed might of Kouki’s mana, but an instant was all she needed.

“Limiter Removal!” Shizuku exclaimed, using evolution magic to boost her strength even further and surge forward while her katanas were crushed behind her. She then weaved her way through Kouki’s barrage of attacks and reached him so quickly that it looked like she’d teleported.

“Flash Lightning!”

Shizuku drew her blade with blistering speed, bolstering her iai slice with lightning magic to unleash a slash powerful enough to split even Kouki’s holy armor.

But of course, Kouki reacted in time to avoid being bisected. A loud metallic clang resounded and sparks flew as he blocked Shizuku’s attack with his holy sword. The lightning that arced out from her blade was absorbed by his armor as well, leaving him completely unaffected.

However, Shizuku had been expecting that. She already knew how heavily Kouki’s stats dwarfed hers. And so, she tilted her katana and slid it up the length of Kouki’s blade to slice at his head.

“Ngh!” Kouki grunted. He jerked back his head just in time, but Shizuku’s katana still grazed his cheek.

However, Shizuku followed up by going for Kouki’s knee with her sheath.

“Force Impact!”

Kouki just barely lowered his sword in time to prevent his kneecap from being shattered. Unfortunately, the force of the blow caused his sword arm to stiffen for a moment, and Shizuku did a returning downward slash with her katana. But just before her blade hit Kouki’s shoulder, her instincts screamed at her to run, so she forced herself to leap backward. Her legs groaned in pain at the exertion, but it was worth it, since a beam of light blasted right through where she’d been a second ago.

Kouki’s dragon had lowered its head to the ground and fired a horizontal blast of breath at her. It had kept the attack small so as to not accidentally hit Kouki as well, but by focusing its breath, it had made it even more deadly. The beam hit a building a few kilometers away, passed right through it, and then passed through another dozen buildings behind it.

“You’re strong, Shizuku. You almost had me there.”

“You’ve just grown weaker. You’re a disgrace to the Yaegashi Sword Style.”

Shizuku and Kouki locked eyes. Kouki’s gaze was almost tender, while Shizuku’s was ice-cold. He should have been able to respond to Shizuku’s attack using his own Yaegashi Sword Style techniques. Like her, he could have used his sheath as another blade. But instead of relying on the skills he’d built up himself, he’d clung to the power Ehit had given him and used his superior stats to weather Shizuku’s assault.

Sadly, Shizuku’s scolding fell on deaf ears. Rubbing the cut on his cheek, Kouki narrowed his eyes at Shizuku and said, “Poor thing. You’ve been brainwashed so badly that you can’t even tell how huge the gap in strength between us is.”

He clearly had absolute faith in his light dragon. The limitless supply of mana and increased strength he’d received had made him overconfident. He didn’t even register the fact that Shizuku’s swordplay was far superior to his own.

“But it’ll all be okay soon enough. I won’t let Nagumo hurt you anymore. After I revive you and remove the brainwashing, I’ll protect you from him.”

Kouki’s words were so empty, so devoid of emotion, that they were hard to bear. Shizuku let out a disappointed sigh. She hated seeing her childhood friend like this. Even knowing her words wouldn’t reach him, she couldn’t help but try to convey her feelings to him.

“Protect me, huh? You said that before too, but honestly, I don’t think you’ve ever actually protected me even once.”

“I see... So Nagumo’s messed with even your memories, eh? Well, you might not remember, but I’ve always been there by your side, protecting you. Though I guess my words can’t reach you right now.”

“That’s my line!” Shizuku exclaimed. She could tell Kouki had genuinely thought that even before Eri’s brainwashing, which pissed her off more than anything.

Kouki raised his sword high and stated, “I’ve finally gotten used to this power.”

A moment later, his dragon’s light grew even stronger. Like Eri, he hadn’t had much time to get used to his newfound power. Fortunately for him, he had an innate knack for battle, so he’d finally figured out how to optimally use his power to strengthen his dragon.

Of course, Shizuku wasn’t just going to sit there and let him power up. She gathered the ten swords of her first group around her and prepared to charge at him once more. But before she could, she felt a chill run down her spine.

“Ngh!”

Diving forward on instinct, she rolled just in time to hear something whoosh over her head. Turning around, she saw one of her katanas pointed at her. She tried to turn away before it could stab her through the head, but fortunately, a barrier appeared to protect her.

Looking around, Shizuku saw a number of her other swords being similarly blocked by barriers. But while she was safe for the moment, she couldn’t afford to relax. There was no reason her blades would be attacking her, so the situation at hand made zero sense to her. But then, she saw the veneer of gray mana covering the blades as they quivered, and everything fell into place. A second later, a wave of orange mana came to cleanse her swords.

“Sorry, Shizushizu! I wasn’t able to stop her in time!” Suzu said via telepathy.

“Well, you saved my life, so I’d say you still made it in time,” Shizuku replied, similarly via telepathy.

Since Shizuku’s katanas were biological golems, they were susceptible to status effects like any other living organism. Of course, Hajime had made sure to protect them from Divine Edict and other spirit magic, but they still relied on their visual and auditory senses. He could have made them rely solely on soul sight, but then they wouldn’t be able to sense creatures that had no souls, like the apostles. And so, while they had no eyes or ears in the traditional sense, they were imbued with magic that granted them all five human senses.

Eri had been clever enough to figure that out and take advantage of that weakness. And unfortunately, Suzu hadn’t been expecting an attack like that.

Of course, Eri’s dark magic worked just as well on Suzu’s familiars as well, so she was struggling to keep up with protecting them all. There was a huge gap in skill between Suzu, who had simply picked up healing magic as a side skill, and Eri, who was a master of dark magic and possessed the strongest dark magic job of all, necromancer. Furthermore, Eri had a limitless supply of mana, whereas Suzu had to rely on mana-restoring artifacts, which caused there to be a slight delay every time she ran low. This was why she’d had to use a barrier to protect Shizuku before she could switch to healing magic to fix her swords.

Whatever the case though, Shizuku had lost her chance to stop Kouki’s power boost.

“Divine Wrath of a Thousand Forms - Advent of the Dragon Horde.”

A bunch of smaller dragons split off from the giant light dragon. But even the smaller ones were easily a meter in length. And like their origin, they too were composed of the spell Divine Wrath. What’s more, there were fifty of them in total.

“The problem with my initial dragon was that it wasn’t very good at making tight maneuvers,” Kouki said, pointing his sword at Shizuku. “This is the end, Shizuku. Even you can’t deal with this many attacks at once. This will hurt at first, but don’t worry, I’ll nurse you back to health in no time.”

The army of small dragons rose into the sky. They then opened their jaws simultaneously and began gathering light. From the looks of it, they were targeting the entire battlefield. Shizuku, Ryutarou, and even Suzu were in their line of fire.

“Shizushizu! Ryutarou-kun! We’re switching it up!” Suzu shouted, prompting Shizuku to spin on her heel.

“Sorry, but there’s only one guy I want nursing me back to health...and it isn’t you,” Shizuku replied curtly before she started running. She then recalled all of her blades and used No Tempo and a series of Flash Steps to zigzag her way between the torrent of light raining down on the battlefield.

Ryutarou threw the Corpse Apostle he’d just killed at another Corpse Apostle, then similarly disengaged from the battlefield.

“Aha, you sure you want to let my Corpse Apostles run free?”

Now that they no longer had to defend Eri and Kouki, the Corpse Apostles were free to chase Shizuku and Ryutarou. Sure, a few of them were shot down by Kouki’s indiscriminate barrage, but they didn’t seem to mind in the slightest. If anything, it spurred them on even more, and they did their best to try to take Shizuku and Ryutarou down with them. And obviously, Eri had fired off her disintegration feathers, and Kouki had unleashed Celestial Flash after Celestial Flash at the retreating duo as well.

It was an overwhelming onslaught. But because Eri and Kouki were focusing solely on Shizuku and Ryutarou, Suzu no longer had to heal status effects or protect her familiars.

“Dance—Hallowed Ground - Cherry Blossoms!”

Fluttering cherry blossoms appeared in the air as Suzu danced. But while they looked pretty, they were far more dangerous than actual cherry blossoms.

The petals whirled around Shizuku and Ryutarou, creating a tornado of orange light around the two of them. The barrage of attacks hit the tornado and smoothly slid right off it. Also, any Corpse Apostle that rushed into the tornado came out on the other side as a true corpse. Their bodies were sliced to bits, and in places gouged deeply. Some of them were simply missing their heads.

This was another one of Suzu’s original spells, Hallowed Ground - Cherry Blossoms. As the name implied, she’d taken the powerful barriers from Hallowed Ground and shrunk them down to the size of cherry blossom petals. Those tiny barrier fragments could slice through anything that passed through them while also deflecting attacks by clumping together. With every wave of Suzu’s fans, the storm of cherry blossom petals undulated and turned from a tornado, to a stream, to a wall, and back again. The spell’s only real flaw was that it took time to cast. But once it was out, she could use Hallowed Ground Reversal to keep the spell running for as long as she had mana.

While she protected her friends, Suzu swung down the fan in her other hand at Eri and asked calmly, “Are you sure you should be getting so cocky?”

At that point, Eri noticed something fluttering at the edge of her vision. Turning around, she blinked in surprise when she realized what she was looking at.

“What are these? Butterflies?”

“You spent so long hiding behind your wings that you didn’t even notice.”

The black butterflies fluttering above Eri had crimson magic circles engraved onto their wings. There were so many of them that they blotted out the sun, yet more and more of them kept pouring out of the jewels set into the base of Suzu’s fans, spreading out to cover the entire battlefield.

Suzu looked like a shrine maiden doing a sacred Shinto dance. Every single time she swung her fans, more black butterflies and orange cherry blossoms appeared in the sky. It was a bewitching sight. So bewitching, in fact, that even Eri found herself entranced.

“You know, I recently learned the perfect phrase for this situation,” Suzu said in a cheerful voice, snapping Eri out of her reverie. Beating her wings furiously, she silently seethed at the fact that she’d been entranced by Suzu, even if only for a second.

Eri glared daggers at Suzu, but Suzu just smiled fearlessly and said, “I’ve given myself infinite turns.”

“You little...”

Suzu couldn’t remember if it had been Hajime or Kaori who’d taught her that phrase. Both of them were avid gamers, so it could have been either of them. Regardless, Suzu’s taunt angered Eri so much that she didn’t realize what was really happening until it was far too late.

“Ngh, my body’s—”

“Kouki-kun?! Is that...poison?! This must be the work of some kind of special magic!”

Looking back up, Eri realized the butterflies were dispersing their scales over the battlefield. Of course, by the time she figured out it was some kind of special magic, it was already too late. Kouki and all of the Corpse Apostles had been paralyzed.

Moments later, Shizuku and Ryutarou leaped out of the storm of cherry petals, Shizuku charging at Eri and Ryutarou heading for Kouki.

Kouki didn’t even have time to curse his own carelessness. He reflexively manipulated his dragon and protected himself with its tail, while having it counterattack with its claws. Sure, Ryutarou was unbelievably fast in his werewolf form, but he wasn’t particularly sturdy or strong. Kouki was confident his dragon would be able to fend him off. But to his surprise, Ryutarou didn’t even bother trying to dodge the claws heading straight his way. Instead, Ryutarou simply transformed into a different monster, one better suited to defense and clashes of pure strength.

“Come, my steel demon—Transformation - Ogre!”

Emerald-green mana swirled all around Ryutarou, and his muscles bulged to twice their usual size. His skin took on a greenish tint, his height grew to over two meters, and his canines turned into pointed fangs.

Ryutarou parried the dragon’s claws with his left hand, then redirected them with a fluid flick of his wrist. The sheer amount of energy condensed in the dragon’s claws singed his left side a little, but that was all.

“What?! Ryutarou, how did—?” Kouki stammered.

“Damn, that stings! But hey, I blocked it! And now it’s my turn!” Ryutarou roared, pulled his right arm back, and stepped forward with enough force to crack the ground under him.

Kouki was still protected by his dragon’s tail, but Ryutarou seemed determined to punch right through it. The ogre boasted one of the highest durability and power levels of any monster in the abyss, and its special magic was Impact Manipulator.

Ryutarou’s fist slammed into the dragon’s tail with an explosive boom, quite literally disintegrating it. The force of the impact passed right through it and sent Kouki flying as well. In fact, he didn’t even have time to scream before he slammed into the building behind him, passed right through it, and then through a few more buildings after that.

“Kouki-kun—” Eri exclaimed, launching a barrage of disintegration feathers at Shizuku to try to get past her and save Kouki.

“Sorry, Eri, but I’m just the bait,” Shizuku said, calmly dodging out of the way.

“Inaba-san, you’re up!” Suzu shouted.

“Squeak, squeak!” a shrill noise rang out, answering Suzu’s call.

Eri turned and saw a fluffy white creature with crimson eyes and crimson streaks running down its fur heading straight for her. The prominent ears on its head made it clear what kind of animal it was. This was the strongest of Suzu’s familiars, the Kick Rabbit, Inaba. Though it was a monster from the shallowest floor of the abyss, it had spent a long time feeding on the Ambrosia that Hajime had spilled and eventually gained sentience. After that, it had trained as hard as it could to chase after its role model, Hajime, and made it all the way to the bottom of the abyss. On top of that, Hajime had armed it with powerful strength-enhancing greaves, ear cuffs that further raised its intelligence, and a sturdy vest made of metal threads. With such powerful artifacts at its disposal, Inaba was as fast as Shizuku under the influence of evolution magic.

Eri was barely able to make out its afterimages as it charged toward her. A second later, there was a rabbit foot right in front of her face. Like Kouki, she didn’t even have time to scream as Inaba’s kick sent her flying into the building opposite the one Kouki had slammed into. She, too, passed right through it and then through a few more.

The Corpse Apostles had managed to neutralize their paralysis with disintegration magic, but suddenly found themselves too stunned to move instead. Moreover, they weren’t sure whether they should go after Eri to protect her or try to stop Shizuku. Without orders, they had a hard time making decisions.

Meanwhile, Shizuku and Ryutarou returned to Suzu’s side.

“Here you go, Shizushizu, Ryutarou-kun,” Suzu said, taking portable ration blocks that looked like poisoned CalorieMate out of her Treasure Trove and tossing them to Shizuku and Ryutarou.

“Thanks. I’m already starting to get the shakes. I doubt I’d survive without these guys.”

“You sound like a drug addict.”

Ryutarou ignored Suzu’s comment and plopped the whole thing into his mouth. A second later, he stopped trembling and the exhaustion left his voice.

“In all fairness, these things do look like some kinda drug,” Shizuku replied, swallowing her own block.

This, too, was one of Hajime’s artifacts. The food-type artifact, CheatMate. He’d made it by enchanting minerals that the human body needed, like iron, with metamorphosis and evolution magic, then combining the powdered minerals into a solid block. These blocks both raised a person’s base stats and increased their entire body’s sturdiness.

The party was also all wearing necklaces enchanted with evolution magic, which, combined with the blocks, doubled their stats. It wasn’t as good as actual evolution magic, but it was still quite the boon. Shizuku and Suzu could only multicast all these spells at once thanks to those artifacts, and similarly, Ryutarou was only able to withstand the effects of his Transformation because of them.

Unfortunately, the CheatMate’s effects didn’t last very long. They’d each taken one before their assault on the gate to the Sanctuary, but the fierce fighting had already eaten through their effects, so now they each needed another.

“All right, we managed to split them up. Now we just have to keep them from regrouping. Suzu, you take care of Eri,” Shizuku said.

“Okay. Honestly, it was getting kind of hard dealing with her status magic,” Suzu replied.

Shizuku’s Hundred Onyx Blades, and even Suzu’s own familiars, were susceptible to Eri’s tricks. Suzu wouldn’t be able to do much else if she was busy undoing Eri’s status magic, so it made more sense for her to fight Eri away from the main battlefield. That way, Suzu didn’t have to worry about protecting everyone from her. Besides, the plan had always been to let Suzu and Eri duke it out on their own. That way, they could separate Kouki from her Spirit Binding’s influence.

“I’ll leave my familiars with you. They already know to follow your orders, so make good use of them.”

“Gotcha... Be careful, Suzu,” Ryutarou said, his kind voice at odds with his current ghastly appearance.

Smiling, Suzu nodded at him and replied, “I’ll be fine. After I’ve asked her all the questions I need answered and told her what I want her to know...I’ll make sure to give that idiot a good beating!”

“Heh, sounds good. You’ve got this, Suzu!” Ryutarou said.

“Indeed, you’ve already made it this far. Now you can go wild. That’s what we’re going to be doing at least,” Shizuku added.

A moment later, the three of them tapped their fists together. Ryutarou’s fist was bigger than Shizuku’s and Suzu’s combined, which made the two of them chuckle a little.

Inaba leaped up onto Suzu’s head, at which point the Corpse Apostles finally got moving again. Of the hundred and fifty that remained, half stayed back to stop Shizuku and Ryutarou, while the other half went over to help Eri.

“All right, see you later!” Suzu shouted, riding her wave of cherry blossoms toward where Eri was waiting.

Suddenly, a pillar of light exploded upward from where Kouki had landed, and the buildings near him collapsed. The dragon and mini-dragons had disappeared when Ryutarou had sent Kouki flying, but they had finally returned.

Kouki walked out of the rubble, his eyes devoid of emotion. He pointed his sword at Shizuku, and his dragon let out a roar and unleashed its breath at her.

Unfazed, Shizuku simply said, “Ryutarou, let’s put an end to this!”

“You don’t gotta tell me twice!”

The two of them resolutely strode forward directly into the deadly blast.

Suzu made her way between the graveyard of skyscrapers on a wave of cherry blossoms with Inaba resting on her head and her butterflies flitting about her. She saw no sign of Eri, not even in the third building that Eri had crashed into. Not only that, but she couldn’t even find the Corpse Apostles that had gone running to their master’s defense.

It’s fine. I already know Eri can’t afford to ignore me at this point...

There was a slight possibility that Eri had slipped past her and gone to rejoin Kouki, but Suzu doubted it. After all, Eri Nakamura was no longer capable of ignoring Suzu Taniguchi. Not only because leaving Suzu to roam free would have been a horrible strategic move, but because Suzu was confident Eri was more pissed off at her than anyone else at present.

Eri had derided, ridiculed, and humiliated Suzu. She’d made it clear that Suzu wasn’t even worthy of her attention. And yet, that same pathetic Suzu was now running circles around her.

She’s probably fuming... Suzu thought, stiffening a little as she imagined Eri’s wrath.

Aside from the muffled explosions she heard in the distance from where Kouki, Shizuku, and Ryutarou were fighting, there was an eerie silence in the streets. She nervously wiped the sweat off her forehead with her sleeve as she looked around, trying to find Eri.

While she had gathered her resolve well before coming here, she was once again reminded that this battlefield could potentially end up her grave...or Eri’s. This was a major turning point in her life, so she couldn’t help but get a little tense. It was only after meeting Eri again and fighting her on equal terms that Suzu had finally figured out what she wanted to say to her.

But will my words get through to her? If they don’t, I’ll have to be the one to...

“Squeak, squeak.”

“Oh! Thanks, Inaba-san... I guess I got too wrapped up in my thoughts.”

Suzu could interpret his squeaks, so she knew he was saying “Don’t be so nervous, Suzu my girl. Ye’ve got me on yer side and there ain’t nothing that can stop me.”

She let herself relax, and Inaba patted her forehead with his foreleg as if to say, “Good girl.”

Smiling a little, Suzu nevertheless remained on guard for surprise attacks. A second later, Inaba let out a startled squeak and did a flip on Suzu’s head, messing up her hair. He then pivoted on his forelegs and delivered a powerful kick to the rear with his hind legs.

There was a burst of sparks and a loud clang of metal clashing against metal as Inaba’s greaves hit a glowing gray claymore.

“God, that bunny’s annoying.”

“Eri,” Suzu said, turning around. Her eyes met Eri’s, which were full of murderous rage.

Had Inaba not blocked that swing, it would have taken Suzu’s head clean off. Eri had used dark magic to hide and rush Suzu with a surprise attack. She was dead serious about killing Suzu.

“Squeak!”

Inaba twirled atop Suzu’s head like a break-dancer and launched another kick with his second leg that created a spiraling shockwave. He was using one of his special magics, Air Dance’s derivative skill, Cyclone Burst.

Eri flapped her wings and somersaulted away to avoid the attack.

“I heard it takes a lot of time to power up monsters with evolution magic. How’d you make that one so strong so fast?” Eri asked, narrowing her eyes in irritation.

“Oh, Inaba-san’s just special. I haven’t powered him up much; he was just this strong to begin with.”

“Sounds like a load of bullshit to me. Either way, I’ve got you outnumbered. I bet you don’t have too many other familiars that are that strong! Gloom Field!”

Inaba’s sense of sight and hearing were obscured by Eri’s spell. A black sandstorm blocked his vision, while his ears were assailed by a cacophony of scraping noises. Meanwhile, Eri unleashed a disintegration beam at Suzu and a barrage of disintegration feathers at the butterflies fluttering around her.

“Hallowed Ground - Etherian Citadel!” Suzu exclaimed, casting another original barrier spell. However, this was one she’d come up with on the spot. It was a multifold barrier that created a status-cleansing aura within it.

Five of the barrier’s layers were shaved off instantly, but it bought enough time to cure Inaba’s vision and hearing. However, since Suzu was riding on her cherry blossoms, she couldn’t brace herself against the attack, so she was sent flying. That left her butterflies bereft of her protection, and the disintegration feathers started tearing through them.

“Ngh, I see you took your time to prepare!” Suzu shouted.

“Not just me!” Eri replied, and a second later, a horde of Corpse Apostles swarmed out of the buildings behind Suzu. All of them had fully charged their own disintegration magic. Their mana surged as they prepared to launch a simultaneous assault on Suzu. Unlike before, they were going all out.

Suzu used Aerodynamic to create a platform for herself midair and braced herself. The storm of disintegration magic cut through half of her twenty layers of Hallowed Grounds in an instant. But in that same instant, another ten appeared from within her adaptable citadel to replenish those that had been lost. Suzu’s fortress was powerful enough to keep up with the rate at which disintegration magic shaved it away. She was taking on the combined attacks of nearly eighty Corpse Apostles as well as Eri’s own punishing bombardment without any trouble at all.

Fucking hell, how are her barriers this sturdy?! Eri thought, fuming. If she didn’t know from experience how dangerous it was to let her emotions control her, she would have flown into a rage already.

“Break already—Scatterdust!” Eri exclaimed, using her strongest mana disruption spell, which not only disturbed the mana of the magic Suzu was using, but even messed with her internal flow of mana.

The twofold interference spell should have sealed Suzu’s fate, but—

“Nnnnnnnnngh! I can’t lose heeeeeeeeere!”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me...” Eri murmured, shivering in fear. Despite her best efforts, Suzu’s fortress remained unbroken. In fact, Suzu seemed to be bringing her barriers out even faster than before.

“You’re good, Eri! I guess I’ll have to go all out after all!”

“All out? Don’t tell me you were holding back before?!”

“No, not exactly. It’s just now that I don’t have to worry about protecting everyone, I can focus on my own fight!”

Regardless of the veracity of that claim, Eri was forced to admit she’d misjudged Suzu. True, Suzu had a lot of artifacts helping her out, but her own magical skills were also far greater than Eri remembered.

How hard did she train to get this good?

Eri was so shaken that, for a moment, her control over her own magic wavered. Her disintegration beam weakened, as did her mana disruption spell. And since Suzu was within her own status-curing barrier fortress, the effects of Eri’s mana disruption were cured instantly.

“Dance, my petals!”

The cherry blossoms that had been lying dormant around Suzu rose as one and swallowed the Corpse Apostles.

“Hah, those petals are impressive, I’ll give you that! Still, they’re too puny to break through a disintegration magic barrier!” Eri shouted.

Eri knew the disintegration barriers surrounding the Corpse Apostles would work just as well on Suzu’s cherry blossoms as they had on the butterflies’ paralyzing scales. And as she had expected, Suzu’s petals couldn’t break through the Corpse Apostles’ defenses. However, that hadn’t been Suzu’s aim to begin with. She hadn’t brought these petals here to cut up her enemies.

“Bloom into flowers of light—Stardust Flowers!”

There was a blinding flash of light, followed by a deafening explosion. Suzu had made the mana within her cherry blossoms explode all at once. She’d effectively cast a Barrier Burst from all sides and all angles on every single Corpse Apostle.

Momentarily blinded, Eri instinctively backed away. She covered her face with her arm and cocooned herself with her wings. After a few seconds, her vision cleared up, so she unfurled her wings...only to discover that half of her Corpse Apostles had been so badly mangled that they were barely recognizable. And of those that remained, a good chunk were damaged enough that they couldn’t fight effectively.

Eri gritted her teeth in frustration, but she didn’t even get a chance to curse before Inaba came bounding toward her.

“Squeak, squeak!”

“Tch!”

Inaba’s eyes glowed angrily, and he seemed to be saying, “How dare ya hurt my girl! I’mma make you pay!” The rabbit hurtled toward Eri with such speed that she could barely even follow his afterimages.

Inaba twirled three times and launched a blisteringly fast roundhouse kick at Eri’s head. With how much speed he’d built up, Inaba’s kick was nearly as strong as a blow from Shea’s war hammer.

Relying on her enhanced reflexes, Eri brought her swords up to block. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to absorb the impact of the blow, so she was sent flying with such force that it felt like she’d been hit by a train.

“Squeaaaaaaaaak!”

“You stupid beast!”

Ears fluttering in the wind, Inaba chased after Eri. And as soon as he caught up, he blasted her with a barrage of highly precise kicks.

High kick, low kick, back kick, roundhouse kick—Inaba didn’t let up for a second. Spinning like a top, he threw in a series of spin kicks next. Eri wasn’t able to block them all, and more than a few of the kicks hit her reinforced dress. With each blow, it felt like her internal organs were being run through a blender.

Finally, Inaba finished the assault with a kick so fast that it broke the sound barrier and caused a sonic boom. The sword Eri used to block it was pulverized by the blow.

“This is ridiculous. Even Freid doesn’t have a monster this strong!”

Despite how quickly Eri was flying away, Inaba was able to keep up with just Aerodynamic.

This is one sick joke.

By the end of Inaba’s second assault, Eri’s dress was in tatters and she was on her third sword. Had she not used necromancy to inherit the swordsmanship of a dead swordmaster famed for his defensive techniques, she would have been turned into mincemeat already.

Incensed, Eri let one of Inaba’s kicks shatter her arm, and in return, she unleashed a wave of disintegration magic all around her. Not even a monster as powerful as Inaba could withstand disintegration magic, so he quickly leaped back to Suzu’s side.

Panting, Eri glared at Suzu through the gap in her bangs. Her remaining Corpse Apostles had, of course, been unable to break through Suzu’s citadel. In fact, their numbers had been whittled down even further as Suzu had isolated the injured ones and destroyed them with Barrier Bursts. There were barely twenty Corpse Apostles left in fighting shape.

“How? How am I the one being pushed back?” Eri muttered, prompting Suzu to face her. “I have a new body, new abilities, and an army of Corpse Apostles, so...why? Why am I the one who’s losing? I’m not even fighting that insane monster Nagumo. It’s just Suzu. I just have to beat the dumb idiot who’s always smiling and doesn’t have a care in the world...so why? Why are you the one standing there?”

Eri shouted hysterically. She tore at her hair with so much force that Suzu thought she might actually pull a few strands out. She would have looked like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum if she didn’t seem so utterly insane.

Suzu stared directly into Eri’s madness-stained eyes, her own eyes as serene as the surface of a lake. Then, in a gentle, soothing voice, she said, “Well, that’s a simple question to answer. I’m standing here because I want to talk to you.”

“Huh?” Eri mumbled, confused. Then, after thinking about it for a few seconds, she drew her own conclusions and said, “Oh, I get it. You want me to grovel at your feet as punishment for what I did to you, right? That’s what you worked so hard to do? Ha ha ha, I guess you’ve become just as twisted as me! Fine, go ahead and laugh. I’ll grovel all you want.”

Eri sneered at Suzu, her eyes full of venom. Suzu might have considered them best friends, but Eri had seen her as just a tool to be used, so once Suzu had outlived her usefulness, Eri had thrown her away. On top of that, she’d even laughed at Suzu’s belief that they’d ever truly been friends. If Suzu had come for revenge, that made things simple. It proved to Eri that Suzu really was just a shallow, stupid girl, and that made her easier to manage in Eri’s mind.

But contrary to Eri’s expectations, Suzu replied, “Laugh at you? That’s not what I came here for. After all...I used you just as much as you used me, Eri.”

“What do you mean?” Eri asked, narrowing her eyes. As Suzu had hoped, Eri was genuinely curious.

Inaba switched his attention to the Corpse Apostles to make sure they didn’t interrupt this important conversation. However, Eri had also commanded them to stand down for now, so they remained at a distance. The battle had come to a halt.

In a heartfelt voice, Suzu said, “You’re right, Eri. I was a smiling, shallow idiot who only cared about making sure no one hated me. The thought of being alone scared me. Loneliness was the one thing I couldn’t stand, so I made sure I was always surrounded by a circle of friends.”

“Yeah, that’s the Suzu I know.”

“Right. But that wasn’t enough. I needed a ‘best friend’ as well. After all, what’s the point of being hated by no one if you’re not close to anyone either?”

The idea of treating everyone equally and fairly sounded nice, but normal people weren’t like that. Besides, being labeled a people pleaser was something Suzu had wanted to avoid as well.

“Of course, I didn’t make a conscious choice to make you specifically my best friend, but ultimately, you’re the person who filled the role of ‘best friend’ in my life.”

Suzu had tried to pretend she didn’t realize it, but even before Eri had betrayed everyone at the palace, she had suspected in the back of her mind that Eri might not really have been her best friend. Back in the Great Orcus Labyrinth, when she’d seen Shizuku and Kaori struggle to stay together even when their death was all but assured, Suzu had realized she and Eri didn’t have that kind of truly close-knit relationship.

“So? What’s your point?” Eri replied brusquely, making Suzu lower her head.

“I’m sorry,” Suzu said quietly. “You said I was just a tool for your own ends, but I don’t even have the right to be angry about that. After all, I treated you the exact same way.”

“Hang on. Don’t tell me you came all the way here just to tell me this pointless crap. You really think I give a shit? If so, you’re even stupider than I thought. Now that I have Kouki-kun in my grasp, you’re less than worthless to me, Suzu,” Eri stated, shooting Suzu a condescending look. She couldn’t believe Suzu had come here to waste her time with this.

But then, Suzu looked up at her, grinned, and replied, “Yeah, I know. I’m doing this for myself, not you. I just wanted to apologize to clear my conscience.”

“Well, you’ve definitely gotten cheekier since the last time I saw you, I’ll give you that. So, are we done here?”

“No, there are still some questions I want to ask you. Hey, Eri, why did you fall in love with Kouki-kun?”

“Huh?”

Suzu had brought that up as if they were just making small talk on their way home from school. Eri honestly couldn’t believe that was Suzu’s big question, but before she could even say anything, Suzu fired off a barrage of follow-up questions.

“Also, were you having trouble at home? You came over to my house a bunch, but you never let me visit your place, so I figured maybe things weren’t so great there. You also never talked about your mom or dad. Did they not get along? Oh, wait, did Kouki help you out when you were having family problems? Is that why you fell for him?”

Suzu was really tempting fate by asking all of those probing questions. She hadn’t been this bold in the past, so she’d never worked up the courage to ask such personal questions before. Moreover, her guesses were surprisingly close to the mark.

While Suzu had pretended not to notice anything, she had actually been paying quite a lot of attention to Eri. She just hadn’t wanted to strain their relationship, so she’d avoided saying anything. Contrary to appearances, she was rather perceptive. In fact, the reason Suzu had unconsciously chosen Eri as her “best friend” might have been because she sympathized with Eri’s plight.

Suzu’s own family situation hadn’t been the greatest growing up. Thus, she’d sensed something similar from Eri, which might have been why she’d chosen Eri.

Either way, Eri was not at all happy that Suzu was reopening old wounds with a smile on her face. And so, instead of answering, she blasted Suzu with disintegration magic. Suzu’s smile grew even bigger, as Eri’s reaction told her that she was guessing correctly. She then casually summoned her citadel to defend herself.

A haphazard attack launched in frustration had no chance of breaking through a barrier master’s defenses, so it obviously failed to reach Suzu.

“Come on, Eri, tell me. I want to know more about you. I called you my best friend, but I never really tried to get to know you, so now I want to change that.”

“You’ve turned into one mean bitch since I last saw you, Suzu. Or wait, were you always like this? Either way, I—”

“Quit changing the subject, Eri. What happened? What made you so twisted? Why are you so obsessed with Kouki-kun? Please, tell me.”

“Oh, shut up!”

Calm down! I need to keep a clear head. My enemy’s just a weak human. I don’t need huge attacks to take her down. One concentrated, precise burst is all I need... Eri repeated such calming thoughts over and over in her head as she started gathering mana at the edge of her blade.

“Haaah!” Eri roared. Gritting her teeth, she rose high into the sky and reversed her grip on her sword. She then launched herself at Suzu, sword held out in front of her.

This was one of the sword techniques she’d inherited through necromancy, Falling Fang. Normally, you were supposed to use wind magic to launch yourself up and then use your body weight to accelerate the falling thrust and break through the enemy’s barrier at a single point, but Eri could, of course, fly instead, and she was also enhancing her thrust with concentrated disintegration magic.

“Even this isn’t enough to break through?!” she exclaimed in shock as Suzu’s barriers halted even her prized thrust.

“I can focus all my mana on a single point too, you know?” Suzu replied cheerfully. There was no scorn, anger, or hatred in Suzu’s expression. It was clear that she genuinely did just want to learn more about Eri. However, that just pissed Eri off even more.

“Besides, you said you’ve been apostleified, but you’re at least twenty, no, thirty percent weaker than an actual apostle. Kaori showed me firsthand what real disintegration magic can do.”

“Are you saying I’m inferior?!”

“It’s just an objective analysis. You’re not even using two swords at once. That’s because you can’t, right? You weren’t able to copy a real apostle’s swordsmanship. It looks like you used necromancy to master Meld-san’s instead, but his swordsmanship was focused on defense. Well, it’s thanks to that defensive swordsmanship that you were able to survive Inaba-san’s assault, so it’s not like it’s useless.”

Once again, all of Suzu’s conjectures were right on the mark.

“Don’t get cocky!”

A tendril of fear crept into Eri’s voice, but she quickly shook it off, unwilling to accept that Suzu, of all people, could have overwhelmed her. She then put even more strength into her thrust and added more mana into her disintegration magic. And yet, she couldn’t pierce through Suzu’s sturdy barrier. It was like facing off against a physical manifestation of Suzu’s resolve.

“I’m not going to avert my eyes any longer. I’m tired of losing the things I care about because I pretended not to see the truth. I’m tired of losing the things I care about because I didn’t try to fix my own ignorance! So please, Eri, tell me more about yourself!”

“Shut up! There’s no point in learning about me now!”

Eri kicked off Suzu’s barrier and flew away. Realizing her sword couldn’t break through, she fired another disintegration beam at Suzu. She was trying to force things into a battle of attrition. Her limitless supply of mana was the biggest advantage she had over Suzu, after all.

Eri’s Corpse Apostles also jumped into action, as did Inaba.

“Yes there is,” Suzu said firmly, heedless of the disintegration beam striking her citadel. “I want to learn more about you, to know about how you think so that...I can be your friend once again.”

Eri was so shocked that her disintegration beam faltered and she asked, “What did you just say?”

That was the last thing she had expected Suzu to say. After all, she’d betrayed Suzu in the cruelest way possible, killed a bunch of people, and was trying to kill her right now. Only an insane person would ask to be friends again after all that. If this was some kind of new mental attack, then it was working. There was nothing that could have caught Eri off guard as much as that statement.

“Do you think it’s weird?” Suzu asked. “I mean, it definitely is. You did all those horrible things...and you’re trying to kill me even now.”

“Did you finally lose your mind?”

“No, I’m perfectly sane, thank you very much. I know it’s weird to still want to be friends after everything that’s happened, but it’s how I really feel. I mean, I still remember...”

“Remember what?”

“Your smile.”

Eri seemed even more confused by that response, but Suzu didn’t seem to mind. Her smile turned nostalgic and she added, “Your smiles were normally so reserved, and I realize now that those were probably all fake, but you know...there were times when you came to sleep at my house, or when we were talking on our way home from school, or when we went to the park on the weekends to kill time that you’d make these kinds of lazy smiles, or give me this sardonic grin, where it felt like you really were having fun. I remember those smiles.”

“......”

“If you really were just putting on an act the entire time, you wouldn’t have smiled like that, right? Weren’t those glimpses of emotion that showcased your real feelings? Wasn’t the only time you were even a little happy when you were hanging out with me? I think that’s the case, at least.”

Eri said nothing in response. Her bangs hid her eyes, and the light of her disintegration beam made it difficult to make out her expression.

Now that Suzu was no longer afraid of being hated, her words carried an immense amount of weight. She was willing to risk losing Eri completely because she knew that if she didn’t force herself down this thorny path, she’d never truly get what she wanted.

“Come back to us, Eri. You and Kouki-kun can still join us. Living in a world with only you two in it is far too sad. I want to be with you, Eri. For as long as possible, even. And I want us to be actual best friends this time around.”

“......”

Suzu flicked one of her fans closed and put it in the holster at her waist. She then held her hand out toward Eri.

“If you take my hand, I swear I won’t let anyone hurt you. No matter what anyone says, even if Nagumo-kun turns against me, I’ll protect you, Eri!”

Suzu’s determined voice echoed through the ruined city. She was dead serious. This was her true heart’s desire. If Eri took her hand, she would never go back on her word.

Eri’s disintegration beam continued to grow weaker and weaker, dwindling into a thin thread and then disappearing altogether. The Corpse Apostles stopped moving, and Inaba likewise stood in place, waiting to see what would happen.

Suzu dismissed her citadel. She didn’t want any walls between her and Eri. The black butterflies were all that remained, fluttering gently between the two girls.

It was like a scene from a fairy tale, the two of them staring at each other as butterflies fluttered through the air like cherry blossoms.

Suzu stretched her arm out as far as it would go, hoping, praying that her feelings reached her. She kept her gaze fixed on her as well, determined to make Eri her best friend once more.

After what seemed like an eternity, Eri finally looked up. However, her eyes were filled not with joy, but with cold, hard scorn.

“You really are a moron.”

“Ah!” Suzu yelped and stiffened up. Her fingers trembled, and her eyes welled up with tears.

A second later, a bright light appeared far overhead. She reflexively looked up and saw a huge magic circle filling the sky above her.

“That gray light... When did you—?”

Indeed, that magic circle was made up entirely of gray feathers. In other words, Eri had made it herself. She’d realized that she couldn’t break through Suzu’s barrier a long time ago, so she’d decided to play along to get her to lower it herself.

“Honestly, I wanted to fuck you up with my own two hands, but you deserve this for getting so damn cocky.”

Thick black miasma started spewing out of the magic circle in the sky. It looked exactly like the stuff that had flowed out of the fissure in the sky that had appeared above the Divine Mountain. And much like that one, this magic circle was a summoning spell.

After a few seconds, what looked like black rain began falling on the city. And as the downpour grew closer, Suzu realized what she had thought were droplets were actually monsters. Eri had summoned forth a horde as strong as the swarm of monsters that inhabited the abyss.

“I’m tired of your crap. Drown in a sea of monsters and die.”

“......” Suzu remained silent, refusing to respond to Eri’s remark.

How does Eri truly feel? Does she really not care at all about anything I said?

Suzu couldn’t figure out the true meaning of Eri’s cold, inscrutable stare.

The monsters had fallen far enough that Suzu could make out their individual characteristics. Most were wyverns, but there were also four-legged beasts that were using special magic to create footholds in the air for themselves. Hundreds had already come out of the magic circle, yet more spilled forth each second. For as strong as Inaba was, even he couldn’t handle such a huge army on his own.

Based on the explosions in the distance, Shizuku and Ryutarou were in no position to rush to Suzu’s aid either. At this rate, she would be overwhelmed with numbers.

Eri had thrown away her pride and resolved to kill Suzu by any means necessary, even if it meant relying on more than just her own abilities. But even though Suzu’s words had failed to sway Eri’s heart, even though the hand she’d offered had been brushed aside like dirt, Suzu refused to give up.

“Inaba-san! Take care of the magic circle!”

“Squeak, squeak!” Inaba exclaimed as he kicked off his aerial platform and shot up toward the magic circle. As he rose, he kicked against the air multiple times, accelerating his ascent to ludicrous speeds.

Meanwhile, Suzu pulled out the fan she’d put away and spread it out in front of her, shaking away the tears in her eyes.

“Was it really a good idea to send your bodyguard away?” Eri asked with a sneer, ordering her Corpse Apostles to attack while she gathered her mana to fire another disintegration beam at Suzu. She wanted to end this farce as soon as possible, so she chose to go all out.

However, Eri never managed to actually shoot that beam.

“What?!” she exclaimed as a few of her own Corpse Apostles turned to fire their disintegration attacks at her. She sidestepped out of the way, then noticed that the Corpse Apostles that weren’t attacking her rose up to intercept the wave of monsters.

“How? Why aren’t they following my orders?!”

“They spent too long looking at my butterflies,” Suzu replied.

“What’s that supposed to mean?!”

Eri had made sure to shoot down as many butterflies as she could, and she had kept a close eye on them to ensure their paralyzing scales didn’t incapacitate her Corpse Apostles. Those paralyzing scales should have been the butterflies’ only special magic, since monsters were only supposed to have one variety of special magic. They could have had derivative skills that stemmed from that root special magic, but whatever was going on clearly had nothing to do with paralysis.

Suzu swung her fan down, and one of her butterflies landed on her hair, adorning it like an accessory.

“These butterflies’ real special magic is the power to cause hallucinations in anyone who sees the patterns on their wings. The paralysis scales were just a front,” she explained.

“No way...”

“Yep. Right now your Corpse Apostles think you’re me and that your monsters are my familiars.”

The special magic didn’t activate immediately when someone saw the butterflies’ wings. It was a slow hypnosis that took time to take root in the victims’ minds. The paralysis scales had been nothing more than an illusion, a holographic projection that was one of the derivative skills of the butterflies’ main hypnosis special magic.

Once again, Eri was shocked by how prepared Suzu had been. However, she still held the upper hand. While the Corpse Apostles were powerful, they were vastly outnumbered. A mere twenty apostles weren’t enough to protect Suzu from the horde. Eri kept telling herself that to shake off her unease, but then she heard a series of massive explosions. Fireworks bloomed in the sky above the ruined city. The butterflies that had flown up to meet the army of monsters had exploded upon coming into contact with them.

Eri covered her face with her arms as a wave of heat washed over her. When she could finally look up again, her enhanced vision showed her a torrent of blood and flesh raining down, while Inaba smashed through the magic circle she’d worked so hard to build.

Inaba had charged straight through the army of monsters, so his armor had taken quite a beating, but he’d successfully reached his destination and completed his mission nonetheless. Due to his efforts, no more monsters came through the summoning circle, and only five hundred or so of the initial army remained.

As blood and gore rained down around her, Suzu quietly murmured, “Did you really think I’d managed to turn thousands of butterflies into my familiars over just three days?”

“If the paralysis was a front, then... Oh, I see. The rest were all fakes. They were golems, like those swords, right?”

Suzu nodded with a smile, admitting to her ruse. The vast majority of the butterfly swarm had been made up of biological golems that Hajime had made. The paralyzing effect of the scales had actually come from the toxic spray that they’d been spreading constantly.

“Oh, and all of the fake butterflies have tiny Treasure Troves attached to them filled to the brim with explosives. Nagumo-kun said the explosives could blow up anything a dozen meters around them. It’s pretty scary stuff, honestly.”

Suzu’s fans began to glow as she spoke. Orange light radiated from their center, spreading out to the ribs of the fans in a beautiful geometric pattern.

“Hmph, I’ve still got more than enough monsters to bury you,” Eri replied dismissively. “As long as I keep them away from the butterflies, you—”

Suzu didn’t even wait for her to finish before chanting, “Enclose them all, great barrier of isolation. Bring forth a dimension of unending desolation. Heed my call, inescapable cradle of death—Hallowed Ground - Shrine of Oblivion!”

That was the longest incantation Suzu had recited yet. Orange mana spread out radially around her, covering everything up to a kilometer out and two kilometers above her. Then, a huge, cylindrical barrier shimmered into existence at the edges of her mana burst. All of the monsters Eri had summoned were encased within it. Only Inaba—who’d known what was coming—had managed to escape the barrier’s reach.

Panting, Suzu waved her fans with trembling hands to draw a barrier around herself as well.

“This is a spatial barrier. Trying to break it will cause it to destroy the space around you.”

Suzu had whipped out her ultimate trump card. It was clear from how pale she was that she’d used the vast majority of her mana on this spell, but it was well worth it.

Eri lowered her sword and stared at Suzu. Even though her Corpse Apostles were killing her monsters and Suzu’s butterflies were exploding periodically, the battlefield felt eerily silent.

“Is this really the end of the line? Ha ha ha, I don’t believe it. To think it’d be Suzu, of all people, who’d mess up my plans. You should have just been cowering in a corner while Ehit destroyed the world. This is all that unstoppable monster’s fault.”

“You’re right. Nagumo-kun helped us out a lot. Honestly, I wouldn’t have gotten this far without his artifacts. But you know...” a note of longing mixed with determination entered Suzu’s voice as she trailed off. “I’m here because this is what I decided to do. I’m here because I knew that if I didn’t force my way here, I’d never see you again. And if that happened, you’d lose even the smallest traces of happiness you used to feel.”

“So, what, you’re saying you did all this for me?”

“Yeah, that’s right. Though I also did it for my own selfish reasons. I want to be your friend again, so...”

This was the last chance Suzu had to get through to Eri. She didn’t know why, but she was certain it was. Not caring if she screamed herself hoarse, Suzu shouted with all the determination she could muster, roaring, “Take my hand, Eri!”

Eri once again fell silent. She looked up, her empty eyes reflecting the sky and her lips curled up in the faintest hint of a sardonic smile.

“I’m done...” she muttered, gray mana flaring up around her. She once again prepared to launch a disintegration beam, her face twisted into a painful snarl as tears of blood streaked down her cheeks.

Eri had never tried to harness this much mana at once, but she knew unless she did, she’d never break through Suzu’s defenses. Thus, she sent her feathers out to create yet another extremely intricate magic circle.

“I’ll grind you into duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuust!” she exclaimed as she unleashed a composite dark spell that messed with all five senses at once and also disrupted the flow of mana within her target to make it go berserk.

As soon as she fired off the spell, she desperately charged at Suzu with her claymore, yelling, “Dieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

Eri had poured everything she had left into this final attack, and it was her strongest one yet.

She wanted to make it crystal clear that Suzu had only two options. She had to either let herself get killed or kill Eri first. No matter what happened, Eri refused to grab hold of Suzu’s hand.

Sensing her resolve, Suzu bit her lip so hard she drew blood. Unfortunately, her determination hadn’t been enough. Despite how hard she’d struggled, her hand hadn’t reached Eri.

“Why did things have to end up like this...? Actually, I guess that’s too cliché even for me.”

Forcing a smile through her tears, Suzu watched as Eri’s claymore tore through her barrier and pierced her chest. An insane smile appeared on Eri’s fearsome visage as she grew sure of her victory. But then she watched Suzu break apart and turn into a flock of black butterflies.

“Ah!”

Eri’s eyes widened in surprise. She then caught sight of another flock of butterflies at the edge of her vision and turned to see the real Suzu appear behind them. This was the Suzu who’d actually cast Shrine of Oblivion.

It took Eri only a moment to realize what had happened. She’d been staring at the butterflies too, so it only made sense that she’d been affected by the hallucinations. While Eri had been gathering her mana, Suzu had had ample time to leave a decoy in her place and get behind Eri. The concentration that was required to cast such a powerful spell had worked against Eri.

While Eri was fuming, Suzu looked surprisingly dispassionate as she raised her hands into the air. However, her fingers were trembling...and not just from exhaustion.

“Return to the light from whence you came—Shrine of Oblivion - Final Seal,” Suzu proclaimed as she swung both her fans down, prompting the massive barrier Eri and her monsters were encased in to flicker.

Eri lowered her sword in defeat shortly before a blinding burst of orange light overwhelmed her. The accompanying explosion and shockwave stopped at the edges of the Shrine of Oblivion, and no sound escaped the barrier either. Nothing could have survived that maelstrom of spatial destruction. Except, of course, Suzu, who was protected by her own spatial barrier.

Eventually, the storm of orange light faded, leaving silence in its wake. Lumps of monster and Corpse Apostle flesh littered the ground, covered by the rubble of pulverized buildings. The remains of Eri’s undead creations were barely recognizable. And Eri was there as well, bleeding out atop a pile of rubble.

Inaba lightly hopped on top of Suzu’s head and tenderly patted her forehead with his foreleg. Suzu tried to give him a reassuring smile, but all that came out was a choked sob. And after a few seconds, she finally flew down to Eri’s location.

Thanks to the sturdiness granted by her apostleification, Eri had managed to barely cling to life.

“Gah... Kill...me...” she gasped, her empty eyes gazing off into the distance.

“Eri...”

“Friends? Hah, don’t make me laugh... I’d rather die than...be your...”

“......”

Eri had made her choice, and unfortunately, she was just as stubborn as Suzu.

“This is all so stupid. I just wanted...”

“Just wanted what? Tell me, Eri.”

“......” Eri clammed up, refusing to divulge any more of her inner thoughts to Suzu. Vitality slowly leaked out of her, and if Suzu did nothing, she really would die in a few minutes.

Suzu pulled a small vial out of her Treasure Trove. The restorative draft inside wasn’t quite as powerful as Ambrosia, but it still had the power to save Eri from the brink of death. But when Eri saw what Suzu was trying to do, she glared at her with more strength than Suzu thought she had left in her.

Though Eri said nothing, her gaze spoke volumes. She refused to accept charity from Suzu, even if it meant her death.

Suzu squeezed the vial tight, gritted her teeth, and thought, Is this really how things are going to end?

Of course, she’d come here prepared, knowing this might be the outcome, but that didn’t stop it from hurting. Feeling a stabbing pain in her chest, Suzu nevertheless prepared to deal the final blow.

If Eri didn’t want to be with Suzu, then dragging her back by force would accomplish nothing. Suzu had to make peace with that fact. Half-assed measures would simply lead to a repeat of the tragedy at Heiligh Castle.

Suzu knew from painful experience what happened when you averted your gaze from reality and clung to convenient lies. If her words had failed to reach Eri, the least she could do was put an end to this herself. After all, for all that their relationship had been built on lies, Suzu and Eri had still been best friends. And it was precisely because Suzu still wanted to be a true friend to Eri that she steeled her resolve and stowed the vial. Gripping her fan instead, she looked Eri in the eyes. However, before she could deal the finishing blow, an explosion of mana resounded out in the distance.

Kouki’s giant white dragon grew to even larger proportions, then transformed into the shape of a man.

“Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

It was hard to tell whether that roar was one of defiance or a pained cry.

“Kouki-kun?” Eri muttered, her eyes fluttering open. If nothing else, she’d clearly interpreted the roar as the latter.

The light giant swung its fist at the ground, causing an earthquake that could be felt all the way over where Suzu and Eri were. For a few seconds, they just stared in awe, but then the light giant dimmed and vanished...almost as if that attack had been its owner’s last, desperate attempt to struggle for his life.

“Kouki-kun... Kouki-kun!”

“E-Eri?!”

Despite her mortal injuries, Eri managed to wreathe herself in mana and materialize her wings. Forcing herself to her feet, she lumbered into the air and flew off toward where the giant of light had vanished, toward Kouki.

Suzu simply stared in shock for a few seconds, but then she regained her senses and hurriedly pulled out her Skyboard. Forcing her exhausted body into action, she flew after Eri.