Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou (LN) - Volume 13 - Chapter 4

Chapter IV: The Truth Behind God and the Final Battle

With Shea’s and Tio’s words of encouragement ringing in his ears, Hajime allowed the pillar of white light to whisk him away. He sped through a kaleidoscope of rainbow-patterned space, then arrived in a world of pure white. It was impossible to tell how far it stretched. He couldn’t see any walls or ceiling or even the ground. Everything everywhere was white, and though he could feel his feet touching something when he looked down, it looked no different from anything else.

If this was Ehit’s throne room, it was a fitting one indeed.

“Welcome to the heart of my Sanctuary.”

Hajime had been longing to hear that voice. It was a bit deeper than he remembered, but it was unmistakably that of his beloved Yue. However, while just hearing that voice brought him joy, it also greatly fueled the rage burning in his heart.

After all, though it was his beloved Yue’s voice, the sardonic tone was one she would never take.

It felt like a drop of sludge had polluted a perfectly pure pool of water, which prompted a sudden urge to hurl within Hajime. But with an iron will, he tamped down on his seething fury. In order to convert his rage into strength, he knew he needed to keep his cool and channel his emotions.

Taking a deep breath, Hajime slowly looked up. A single structure had appeared in this space of uniform white. It was a ten-meter-tall pyramid-shaped altar. Like everything else, it was pure white and Hajime had to strain his eyes to discern it from its surroundings. And when he did, he noticed there was a single black speck on the pyramid’s apex.

“I decided to age the body up a little after taking control of it. What do you think? This mature beauty is the most fitting form for a god, no?”

Indeed, the adult woman sitting on the throne atop the pyramid looked stunningly beautiful in her black dress. Her golden-blonde hair and slender figure were the same as when she’d looked younger, but her face looked more mature, her breasts were much larger, and her legs longer. Her dress was cut low, the shoulders bare, and had a gash through the legs to emphasize her sensual charm. Anyone who saw her would be captivated by her, regardless of gender. One playful wink from her would be enough to melt anyone’s heart or make them prostrate before her in worship. That was how unbelievably beautiful Yue’s adult form was.

Her legs were crossed, and she had a faint smile on her face, her chin resting in her hands, but Hajime showed no reaction whatsoever. All he felt was disgust, since he knew the person inside that body right now wasn’t Yue.

“Blegh! I can’t believe it looks this ugly without the right person to bring out the body’s beauty.”

Yue’s—or rather, the otherworldly god who’d taken over her body, Ehitruje’s—smile grew wider.

“Heh, I can feel your wrath even from here. There’s no point in trying to hide it. I can see right through you.”

“Why do you sound so satisfied about seeing the obvious? I’m warning you now, you’re better off keeping your mouth shut. The more you talk, the more you reveal how petty you are,” Hajime replied lightly, his expression unchanged. It was obvious from the way he said it that he wasn’t just trying to needle Ehitruje and that he truly believed that.

That, more than anything, got to Ehitruje...and his smile vanished.

“I command you in the name of Ehitruje—kneel!”

He used the same powerful Divine Edict that had immobilized Hajime and the others back at the Demon Lord’s castle. It was a spell that forced whomever he cast it on to follow his commands regardless of what they wanted.

Hajime bent low, but before Ehitruje could start gloating there was a loud bang.

“You’ve neutralized my Divine Edict?” he said in a mildly surprised voice, looking down at the bullet stuck in the barrier surrounding his pyramid.

“You already used that trick on me once. Repeating the same act is the mark of a third-rate performer.”

Hajime pointed Donner at Ehitruje, and the self-styled god narrowed his eyes dangerously. Though his smile was gone, his relaxed pose made it clear he still thought he had the upper hand.

He stretched out one hand, and a second later, the space around Donner and Schlag, as well as Hajime’s Treasure Trove, began to warp. This was the same spell he’d used at the Demon Lord’s castle to either teleport away or destroy all of Hajime’s artifacts without any visible portal or spatial magic tell. But again, his attempt ended in failure. There was a slight popping noise and space returned to normal, leaving Hajime’s artifacts completely unharmed.

“I see. So you did prepare some countermeasures.”

“You must be pretty stupid if you were expecting me not to.”

“Don’t get too cocky, Irregular. Just because you found a way of stopping my Divine Edict and Heavenstep doesn’t mean—”

“Shut up, you fuck.”

“......”

Hajime leaped up and used Aerodynamic to land in the air at a height slightly above where Ehitruje was sitting. Then, cracking his neck from side to side, he pulled Schlag out of its holster and tapped it against his shoulder. After that, he gave Ehitruje a piercing glare and coldly stated, “I’m going to rescue Yue and kill you. That’s all there is to it.”

Ehitruje himself held no value whatsoever to Hajime. Even when in front of a god, Hajime’s arrogance didn’t waver.

“Very well,” Ehitruje replied, rising to his feet. “Let us see how long you can keep up that attitude.”

He then flashed Hajime a cruel smile.

“This is my final game in this world. I suppose it’s fitting I take part personally.”

A wave of pressure so powerful it was almost palpable washed over Hajime, and Ehitruje unleashed a burst of platinum mana as bright as the sun. He rose into the air and spread his arms wide, his hair splaying out behind him and the sleeves of his black dress fluttering in the wind.

As soon as he reached Hajime’s height, the altar below began to get farther away. It was as if the two of them had suddenly shot up much higher into the air. In truth, though, it was the ground that had gotten farther away, for Ehitruje had expanded the amount of space in this dimension.

The reason for that soon became obvious. His pulsating mana converged, forming a triple-layered halo behind him that was easily one hundred meters in diameter. After a second, Hajime realized the geometric patterns of lines and circles inside the halo meant it was actually a huge magic circle.

Ehitruje snapped his fingers...and countless bullets of light appeared from the magic circle. There were so many of them that Hajime felt like the entire milky way was bearing down on him. Every single pinprick of light easily had enough force to destroy a building.

Ehitruje smiled, looking truly divine in Yue’s beautiful form with a shimmering halo and a sea of stars behind him. Anyone who didn’t know how awful a person Ehitruje was would certainly think the figure before them was a god. However, Hajime was unfazed.

“Don’t bother holding back, because I won’t be—Limit Break: Overload!”

Hajime’s mana was a stark contrast to Ehitruje’s, a deep crimson that looked almost like blood. And in the center of the raging storm that was his mana, his Demon Eye glowed like a ruby. And with his stats increased fivefold, his mana was powerful enough to push back even Ehitruje’s. Crimson and platinum warred, splitting the dimension into two distinct halves.

Countless crosses appeared behind Hajime—his newest assault artifacts, the Crosswelts. They were pure black, with crimson patterns running down their length. Though they were half the size of his previous Cross Bits, each one of them had far more mana packed into it, and they were enchanted with a more complex array of ancient magic.

Not only were the Crosswelts far stronger than his Cross Bits, but there were a full thousand of them. Lined up behind him, they looked like the graves of all the enemies he’d slain. And naturally, Hajime the Demon Lord had every intention of adding the god Ehitruje to that graveyard.

On one side was a gorgeous platinum halo and countless lights that twinkled like stars. On the other was a violent storm of crimson and a thousand black crosses. It was god versus the monster of the abyss. Air crackled and twisted, breaking apart under the force of these two giants.

Ehitruje’s lips curled up into a sneer and he raised one hand. The rainbow-colored veil that Hajime had stepped through to get here vanished, cutting off his only path of retreat.

The battle began, and it was Ehitruje who made the first move.

“Let the game begin! The first act shall be a dance!”

He elegantly swung his arm down, and the stars turned into a meteor shower as they shot toward Hajime.

“Sorry, but I’m not interested in being your playmate. You can keep playing your stupid games in hell,” Hajime replied coolly, and his Crosswelts all rotated ninety degrees, their muzzles pointed at Ehitruje. Sparks ran down their length, and there was a thunderous boom as a thousand rail gun-accelerated bullets shot toward the barrage of stars. Each of those shots was an Area Burst Bullet, and they exploded in unison halfway between Hajime and Ehitruje, the explosions looking like mini stars in their own right.

But of course, that was just both sides’ opening volley. Ehitruje continued spawning stars from his magic circle, while Hajime’s Crosswelts kept on firing off a barrage of special-made bullets.

“Good, good. It would be boring if this was enough to overwhelm you,” Ehitruje stated with a smile, then snapped his fingers again.

Suddenly, a new threat appeared from within his massive magic circle. Namely, a group of human-shaped figures made of pure light. Upon seeing their twin claymores and the wings on their back, Hajime immediately realized what was going on.

“They’re as strong as regular apostles. Don’t lose too quickly, all right?”

With the barrage of stars still going strong, a veritable army of light-forged apostles surged toward Hajime. Naturally, Ehitruje was able to make an endless supply, and more and more kept coming out of the magic circle as well.

“Who do you think you’re talking to? A battle of numbers is where a synergist truly shines.”

Hajime raised his right hand, his ring-shaped Treasure Trove glowing. The crimson light spread outward, swallowing up the apostles. The moment they entered the light, their charge stopped. Then, there was a loud screech of metal scraping against metal, and the apostles were sent flying out of the bubble of light.

“Oho, an army of...golems?” Ehitruje mused as the light faded away to indeed reveal a large army of golems.

However, they looked strange enough that even Ehitruje seemed a bit puzzled. They were enchanted with numerous ancient magic spells, decked out with all the heavy weaponry Hajime could make, and were clearly autonomous. All of that was normal enough, so the strange thing was their shapes. Six hundred of them had the bodies of lions, wings, and the heads of eagles—the griffin types. These were designed for mid- and close-ranged combat. Another two hundred were shaped like behemoths and had long-range artillery. The last two hundred were shaped like three-legged crows—modeled off of the legendary Yatagarasu—and specialized in speed and flight.

It wasn’t just their shapes that were animalistic either; they had been imbued with metamorphosis magic and were at least partially organic. However, they felt no pain and never grew tired, making them the perfect army for the unstoppable Demon Lord. Hajime had dubbed his thousand golems the Grim Reapers.

Ehitruje and Hajime both commanded their armies at the same time.

“Apostles of light, eliminate those disgusting creatures!”

“Reapers, hunt down those artless puppets.”

The apostles shot forward, and the griffins and crows moved forward to intercept them.

As the griffins moved into place, panels on their back slid open, and together they launched a barrage of six thousand pencil rockets at the apostles. The massive explosions they caused temporarily stopped the apostles in their tracks.

While the barrage trapped them in place, the crows shot forward on jet-propulsion legs, using gravity magic to enhance their speed even further, and opened their beaks to reveal the rail guns hiding inside. They then swiftly moved into position and started sniping at the apostles from angles that made them impossible to defend against. After that, they flew high into the air and started raining cluster bombs down on the apostles from the Treasure Troves stored in their stomachs.

A few of the apostles retreated away from the bombing zone, which was exactly what the griffins had been waiting for. They surged forward and struck with claws, beaks, and wings, which were all enchanted with spatial severing magic, as well as with the shotguns hidden in their mouths. The shock wave-enhanced, multistage bullets slammed into the apostles, ripping through them.

The main difference with these apostles made of light was that they had no core, so their bodies weren’t as sturdy. Thus, the golems didn’t need piercing bullets to damage these apostles, as regular shock wave bullets were enough to dismantle the light comprising their bodies. But on the flip side, Ehitruje could keep producing these apostles indefinitely as long as his magic circle was active.

Within seconds, Ehitruje had produced a few hundred more. And in response, the behemoth golems fired a long-range barrage from the ground. There were four Gatling rail guns on each behemoth’s back, all of them twice as long as a tank’s turret. They also had rocket launchers attached to their sides, and a 120-caliber minigun sticking out of their mouths. To top it off, their horns were capable of firing hyperfocused heat lasers.

The behemoths were taking the apostles out as soon as they spawned, blasting them apart before they managed to fully emerge from the magic circle, even. Naturally, Ehitruje himself was also being targeted by that barrage, but he didn’t seem at all worried.

“I see. It looks like I’ll be able to have some fun after all.”

All of the attacks that got close to Ehitruje were blocked by some invisible barrier that seemed to extend a short distance out from him in all directions. Ehitruje watched as his apostles got torn apart, and every now and then a golem got so close to being defeated that it self-destructed in an attempt to take out as many apostles with it as it could.

“Just how much ancient magic did you pack into these things? I can’t imagine a human managing such a feat. So this is the power of Transcendence... I must say, it’s been a long time since anyone has appeared with that skill. When combined with ancient magic, it can go pretty far. Though more impressive than that is how much of your old world’s knowledge you’ve incorporated into these designs. It’s truly fascinat—”

“You really just don’t shut up, do you? Are you that desperate to have someone to talk to?”

Hajime interrupted Ehitruje’s ruminations with shots from Donner and Schlag. Two streaks of crimson weaved their way expertly through the barrage of platinum stars, Crosswelt shots, and the pitched fighting of apostles and golems. But while there were only two gunshots and two streaks, the number of piercing bullets Hajime had fired was twelve. He’d simply fired with such precision that each streak was actually six bullets in a straight line behind each other. One streak headed straight for Ehitruje’s forehead, while the other shot right at his heart.

Hajime’s aim was perfect...and it seemed not even god’s ultimate barrier was strong enough to stop these shots.

There was a sound of shattering glass as the barrier crumbled.

“So you can even break through my barrier?! Not only that, but you’re willing to aim at your beloved girlfriend’s vitals without hesitation... You certainly are entertaining, Irregular!”

But while Hajime’s shots penetrated the barrier, they did no damage to Ehitruje. He’d spawned several black spheres around him, using the gravity magic Heavensfall. They were smaller than Yue’s, about the size of a child’s fist, but they were far more effective than hers. He’d also created them way faster than she could, since he’d done it in the time after his barrier had been broken but before the bullets traveling at supersonic speed had hit him.

Hajime’s expression stiffened a little, while Ehitruje’s smile grew deeper. Now it was his turn to go on the offensive.

“Fourfold Void Fissure.”

Spatial tears closed in on Hajime from all sides, each strong enough to rip him apart.

“Nothing you’ve shown me once will work twice!” Hajime roared. He had upgraded his Demon Eye to let him visualize spatial distortions as well, and he—along with twenty of his Crosswelts—was able to escape the area of impact before the Void Fissures went off.

“Heavensfall.”

A high-pressure gravity field appeared above Hajime, but it was unable to knock him down thanks to the necklace he was wearing. There were seven rings on the chain, and one of them glowed for just an instant.

This was his all-purpose defensive artifact, the Guardian Talisman. It was capable of nullifying or at least weakening the effects of all seven types of ancient magic when used against him. And right now, it was nullifying the section of the gravity sheet Ehitruje had created that was near him.

Ehitruje quickly realized what was going on.

“Void Fissure, Soul Shock, Devastation, Beholder.”

He fired off different types of ancient magic one after another. The first was a simple physical spatial explosion, the second was a direct attack on Hajime’s soul, the third was an attempt to destroy his artifact with creation magic, and finally, a bit of evolution magic that touched on the branch of magic’s true nature to fully understand the capabilities of Hajime’s artifact. In response, the rings on Hajime’s Guardian Talisman that corresponded to Spatial, Spirit, Creation, and Evolution magic began to glow.

“Oho...impressive. I suppose I should change tactics, then.”

Chills ran down Hajime’s spine as he heard that. A moment later, vortexes of platinum light appeared in front of, behind, and all around him, shooting out tiny balls of light from all directions.

“You’re gonna have to do better than that!” Hajime shouted, and his Crosswelts formed into groups of four, deploying barriers on all sides except in front of him. He didn’t even have to connect them with wires, since they could all move autonomously. As shimmering barriers rose to protect his back and his flanks, he pulled out a new weapon to deal with the stars coming from dead ahead.

At first glance, it looked like his Gatling gun, Metzelei. However, it was nearly thrice as large, for this was his new and improved Gatling cannon, Metzelei Disaster. Basically, he’d stuck six Metzeleis together and called it a day. Still, that made it six times as powerful...and allowed it to shoot six times as many bullets. And frankly, seventy-two thousand shots a minute was nothing to sneeze at.

There was a whirring noise as it spun into action, spitting out bullets so fast they made a stream and raining a torrent of spent shells to the ground below. The storm of bullets tore through the platinum stars, the vortexes that birthed them, and even the apostles in Hajime’s line of fire, to head straight toward Ehitruje.

“That’s quite the weapon. Very well, let’s take things to the next level.”

Platinum vortexes appeared on either side of Ehitruje. But unlike the others, these were for sucking things in rather than spitting them out.

The stream of bullets split down the middle and changed course, each half sucked into one of the two vortexes. Had those vortexes been mere Spatial Severances, they would have been overloaded, but it seemed while these vortexes shared the same properties as that spell, they were much sturdier.

“So even this isn’t enough, huh?”

Hajime called over another contingent of Crosswelts and had them shoot down the remaining vortexes that were spitting silver stars at him. The Area Burst Bullets continued to be effective, and they handily dispersed the platinum vortexes. The Crosswelts then changed formation and formed a rough sphere around Hajime.

“Still, that defense of yours isn’t impenetrable. If that wasn’t enough, I just need to up the destructive power.”

Hajime stowed Metzelei Disaster back in his Treasure Trove and instead pulled out his 88-millimeter rail cannon, Schlagen AA. The shots from this gun were powerful enough to rip through even earth’s battleships. The bullets’ size, speed, and power were at the level of a tactical warhead. Hajime doubted that even those platinum vortexes would be able to suck these shots in.

However, Ehitruje remained unruffled as he replied, “By the way, Irregular, how did you manage to kill Alvaheit? Though he didn’t have quite as much divine power as me, he was still a god, and you were on the verge of death.”

His tone was conversational.

Indeed, even Hajime’s most powerful rifle, Schlagen AA, couldn’t harm Ehitruje. The moment he fired a shot, Ehitruje deployed a fivefold barrier. Unlike his previous one, this one was visible and shimmered with platinum light.

His bullet penetrated through four of the barrier’s layers, but it only managed to put cracks in the final one. However, Hajime didn’t seem dismayed in the slightest.

“Hah, don’t make me laugh. That piece of shit wasn’t even close to a god. He died begging for his life like a coward.”

He just looked down on Ehitruje and moved on to his next trump card. He deployed an Orestes portal behind Ehitruje and fired Schlagen AA directly to his side, through the adjoining portal.

Another powerful bullet sped toward Ehitruje from behind. Of course, Ehitruje had his giant halo-cum-magic circle behind him, but Hajime was hoping he’d be able to destroy that first, if he was lucky. Since he wasn’t going directly after Ehitruje himself, he thought maybe the so-called god would be slower to react.

“You make it sound so easy. Ufu fu, there’s no point in trying to hide it. You had to use Concept Magic, didn’t you?”

However, Ehitruje didn’t even need to defend his halo. The bullet caused it to flicker a little, but did no lasting damage whatsoever. Moreover, the bullet wasn’t even able to pass through it, confirming that it was a barrier in its own right.

In response, Ehitruje swung his hand down and a powerful laser shot out of the halo. Hajime could tell at a glance that it was disintegration magic, just of a different color than the apostles’.

The beam cut through the battlefield, demolishing a good number of Hajime’s Grim Reapers and Crosswelts. Hajime himself leaped away to avoid it, then swapped out his Schlagen AA for his rocket launcher—Agni Orkan—to take care of the apostles and platinum balls that had flooded through the newly opened hole in his Crosswelt defense network.

“What?!”

But just then, a spear of pure compressed lightning lanced toward him from out of nowhere. It was so condensed it looked solid. This was one of the spells Ehitruje had developed, Thunder God’s Lance. The attack was so sudden that even with his Demon Eye, Riftwalk, and evolution magic to enhance his senses, Hajime hadn’t been able to see it coming. Still, he was able to react fast enough to get his Agni Orkan up to shield himself.

Unfortunately, the attack was powerful enough to blow up his prized rocket launcher.

“Gah!”

Agni Orkan had already been loaded with several missiles and they all blew up with it, creating a massive explosion. On top of that, Thunder God’s Lance burst as it impacted Agni Orkan, sending lightning sparking off in all directions.

The combined force of those two was enough to pierce Hajime’s Diamond Skin, as well as his coat, which was made of a super-sturdy alloy, to damage him directly.

I guess he’s still got a few tricks left up his sleeve.

Wary of his surroundings, Hajime immediately started bounding away. He knew if he stood still, he’d just get hit with more attacks.

“As for the concept you created...it was probably the power to kill gods, right? Let me guess, that’s the trump card you’re hoping to use against me. This whole time, you’ve been eyeing me like a hawk, waiting for an opportunity to use that little thing you have hidden in your pocket, haven’t you?”

The halo behind Ehitruje switched up its attack pattern and started shooting out numerous disintegration beams at random intervals. The light spheres coming out of it also split into two sets, the usual small stars and slower, larger ones that took longer to come out. Compared to the tiny ones, the large ones looked more like shimmering bubbles than stars. They covered a large portion of the battlefield, making maneuvering annoying...especially because they exploded any time one of the Grim Reapers touched them.

If the tiny stars were like bullets, then the larger ones were like bombs. And to make matters worse, the bubbles moved in unpredictable ways. The fact that Hajime was still able to weave his way through this dense minefield proved once again that his skills were nothing short of godlike.

“You probably think you’ll be able to use that to separate me from your vampire princess and destroy only my soul, don’t you? He he he...”

As Ehitruje laughed, an Orestes portal appeared directly over his head and several Crosswelts rushed through it. They fired a sweeping barrage at him, while Hajime continued pressuring him with superbly accurate shots from Donner and Schlag.

Ehitruje swung his arm above his head, bisecting all of the Crosswelts that had teleported over. Whatever invisible blade he’d used, it had spatial-rending properties. Before the Crosswelts could fall, they self-destructed, pelting Ehitruje with shrapnel. However, the metal fragments were all knocked away with another sweep of Ehitruje’s arm before they reached him.

The bullets Hajime was firing off with Donner and Schlag were sucked into the vortexes on either side of Ehitruje and spit out right back at him.

Ehitruje was quite strong, just as Hajime had expected. He could cast faster than Yue, and his spells were stronger than hers. Anyone other than Hajime would have been instantly killed by his attacks. And from the looks of it, Ehitruje wasn’t even using his full strength yet.

Hajime pretended to look thoughtful for a moment, then sighed.

“So you’ve noticed. Well, no point in hiding it, then. If you’re so confident that won’t work, why not let me hit you and see what happens?”

“Ha ha ha ha... Big talk for someone who doesn’t even realize what the problem with that is. Oh, this is just rich.”

Ehitruje laughed heartily, stopping his attacks for a moment just to torment Hajime with what he believed to be the truth.

“They were exquisite, you know?”

“Huh?” Hajime mumbled.

“The screams of that vampire princess. What was her name again? Oh, yes, Yue.”

“......”

Hajime’s face went blank.

“She fought well...for someone who’d had their body stolen and been reduced to nothing more than a soul. I watched her final moments. She was trembling in fear and screaming in pain. As the last vestiges of her soul faded away, she whispered, ‘I’m sorry, Hajime.’ Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!”

“......”

“You’re too late, Irregular. There was no hope of ever rescuing your girlfriend in the first place. Mwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” Ehitruje cackled, but Hajime’s resolve remained undaunted.

Calmly, he resummoned Schlagen AA and fired. But of course, Ehitruje blocked it with his shimmering barrier and frowned at Hajime.

“How boring. She was the person you cared about most in the world, wasn’t she? Why are you so unfazed?”

“On the contrary, what makes you think I’d believe anything you say, you wannabe god? Only an idiot trusts their enemy’s words,” Hajime replied with a sneer.

Ehitruje gave Hajime a searching look. Hajime’s insults meant nothing to him, but the fact that he’d denied his divinity, and more importantly sounded like he truly didn’t think Ehitruje was a god, had given him pause.

“What makes you believe I’m a wannabe? For all your bravado, you have yet to even scratch me. Can you not tell that this is the difference between man and god?”

“Oh, I can tell. Tell that you’re no god, that is.”

Surprised, Ehitruje asked in a curious voice, “Oho, and what makes you so sure?”

“Simple. You weren’t able to tell Yue was still alive when she was trapped in the abyss, and you hadn’t noticed some of the dragonmen had survived and fled beyond the continent. For someone who supposedly created this world, your reach doesn’t extend very far,” Hajime stated flatly. Then, like a philosopher stating self-evident truths, he added, “Besides, you clearly need a physical vessel, both to manifest in this world and to travel to other ones, which means your true state is one of flesh and blood.”

In other words, Ehitruje had spent all this time until now as just a soul because something had forced him to, not because it was how he naturally was. Hajime suspected the Sanctuary existed to help extend his life span while he was stuck in that state, which meant that while Ehitruje possessed extraordinary powers, he wasn’t a god.

“You’re human.”

However, he was clearly a very different kind of human from the people living in Tortus. Moreover, even Yue and Tio hadn’t considered the possibility of other worlds existing, and yet Ehitruje had come up with the idea of summoning people from one. Unless he’d coincidentally discovered one, there was only one explanation for how he’d cooked up such a plan.

“And like us, you probably came from a different world.”

Hajime doubted all of the various ruins of past civilizations he’d seen during his journey through the Sanctuary had once existed on Tortus. Some of them were just too different, too alien, so he’d arrived at the most logical conclusion.

Impressed, Ehitruje actually clapped and replied, “You’re the first person to realize that. But allow me to correct you on one point.”

Ehitruje unleashed a massive burst of mana.

“Ngh!”

Hajime had to cover his face and leap a few dozen meters back, and the Grim Reapers that were too close to Ehitruje were obliterated instantly. However, this mana burst was no attack. Ehitruje had simply unleashed his true power, and this had been the shock wave of that.

I figured he’d be able to use a Limit Break of some kind. Either that or it’s some sort of evolution magic, anyway.

The three-ringed halo grew larger, then started glowing brighter. A wave of crushing pressure washed over Hajime.

Ehitruje raised a hand into the air. Lightning, flames, wind, ice, and white smoke came out of his magic circle and started coalescing into different forms.

Hajime had seen this before. Though, the power of these elemental dragons was far greater than anything Yue had ever managed to create.

The most terrifying thing of all, however, was that these dragons also had glowing red eyes.

“You transformed them into monsters?”

Using his Demon Eye, Hajime could see a pulsing red stone in the center of each dragon. A magic stone, the heart of every monster. It seemed that by using spirit and metamorphosis magic, Ehitruje had pushed Yue’s dragons to a whole new level.

“There is a secret technique that uses the power of faith to elevate one’s existence to a higher level...and that technique has undoubtedly granted me divine might. Therefore—”

Ehitruje’s five monster dragons coiled around him. Inhabiting Yue’s body, he looked every bit like an imposing goddess with a host of dragons at his beck and call.

In a solemn voice, he intoned, “I am a god.”

The five dragons let out bloodcurdling roars, and Ehitruje once again resumed his magic circle’s barrage. Balls of platinum light shot toward Hajime...and legions of apostles made of light surged forth.

Hajime was losing more and more of his Grim Reapers and his Crosswelts, but Ehitruje’s forces were limitless. Moreover, thanks to whatever Limit Break he’d used, his attacks had grown faster and more powerful.

Feeling pressured for the first time, Hajime broke out in a cold sweat, his expression stiffening.

Well, I was prepared for this from the start.

Shrugging his shoulders lightly, he took a deep breath. Things were finally getting serious, and he had no intention of letting his guard down.

“As a prize for discovering my origins, I’ll tell you a bit more about my past. Do try not to die before I finish.”

Ehitruje’s tone was graceful and elegant, but he couldn’t hide the ugliness of his character. He smiled arrogantly, and Hajime glared at him.

“Do whatever you want,” Hajime spat, firing Schlagen AA at him.

There was a loud crack...and Ehitruje’s thunder dragon disappeared. Moving as fast as a bolt of lightning, it reappeared at Hajime’s side.

“In my home world, humanity mastered exceptionally powerful magic. We had researched how to bring the stars under our dominion and channel the natural forces of the world. That should give you an idea of how advanced our civilization was.”

This time Schlagen AA’s bullet was only able to break through two layers of Ehitruje’s barrier. Hajime had followed up with another shot from Donner, but even that second bullet failed to penetrate much farther.

Meanwhile, the thunder dragon that had come in from Hajime’s flank let out a roar and tried to swallow him whole. However, Hajime brought his Crosswelts around and had them deploy a barrier.

Tch, not even my Guardian Talisman can completely neutralize this thing!

The Crosswelts’ barrier creaked under the pressure of the dragon’s jaws, as well as the gravity field around them. While they were deflecting the storm of lightning for now, in another ten seconds, his Guardian Talisman would become overloaded and the barrier would be destroyed.

He quickly reloaded Donner and aimed at the thunder dragon’s mana-stone heart. But before he could fire, there was another crackle and it disappeared.

Damn, it’s fast!

Hajime didn’t even have time to catch his breath. The five dragons swapped places with perfect coordination, and next up he had to deal with the flame dragon bearing down from above.

“Unfortunately, it is the fate of all advanced civilizations to eventually be destroyed by their own hubris. My world was no exception.”

The pure-white dimension they were fighting in suddenly turned into a giant television screen, showing a vision of space, with stars twinkling in the distance. Ehitruje was using restoration magic to recreate a scene from the past, it seemed. He looked over at one of the stars, which was emitting an erratic, unnatural glow.

But of course, Hajime didn’t have the leeway to pay much attention. He darted through the air, taking aim at the fire dragon with Schlagen AA.

Not even Ehitruje’s souped-up dragons would be able to survive a hit from his prized rail cannon.

Unfortunately, just before he could pull the trigger, Ehitruje launched another Thunder God’s Lance at him from just a few meters away...and the spear penetrated Schlagen AA’s barrel right as he pulled the trigger.

The bullet managed to get out, but it was off course. The crimson streak shaved off half of the flame dragon’s body, but that was all. The dragon then regenerated within seconds, while Hajime’s Schlagen AA was destroyed, just like his Agni Orkan.

“You see, we eventually came to understand the underlying principles that govern the very universe. The things you call ancient magic—but what we referred to as the Universal Laws. Naturally, we were curious to see what wonders we could accomplish with this new power under our control, but of course—”

Ehitruje shrugged, his expression completely devoid of remorse. He looked more like a mildly disappointed child that had broken their own toy. The recreated vision of the past then showed people running as the earth split open and streams of unknown particles shot out of the fissures, destroying everything they touched. It looked like a scene straight out of hell.

The wind dragon flew over the vision and fired its lightning breath up at Hajime, who was above it. And at the same time, the stone dragon closed in from behind and the ice dragon from the left.

Hajime quickly manipulated his Orestes, hoping to redirect the wind dragon’s breath. However, the ice dragon predicted his movements and froze his Orestes before he could open the portal.

“Pinpoint attacks, huh?” Hajime muttered.

Indeed, the ice dragon was capable of freezing any specific point as long as it knew the coordinates of the location. Bereft of his defenses, Hajime watched as tens of thousands of wind blades shredded his Orestes and swallowed him whole.

“Tch!”

Clicking his tongue, he quickly brought his Crosswelts over to create a barrier. He also ordered a few of his behemoth golems to start focusing on the dragons instead of the apostles to try to slow them down a little.

His crow golems were continuing their bombing run on Ehitruje, but the silver stars he kept firing out of his magic circle shot them down, turning them into nothing more than a pretty fireworks display.

Ehitruje barely even seemed to notice the attacks; he was too focused on reminiscing. He looked down nostalgically at the slideshow flashing on the floor and the walls of this artificial space.

“We took things too far. In the end, we destroyed the rules that governed the natural order of the universe. Humanity, and the very star we lived on, was doomed to destruction, so only the chosen Enlightened could survive.”

Hajime had his Crosswelts deploy multiple barriers and started firing through his Orestes in all directions to keep Ehitruje’s dragons at bay.

In response, the five of them unleashed lightning, fire, wind, ice, and smoke breath attacks simultaneously.

The behemoths down below fired heavy barrages at the stone and ice dragons, but while the attacks could blow apart the dragons’ bodies, unless their cores were destroyed, they could just keep reforming. Still, those attacks managed to weaken the power of the dragons’ own attacks. They also slowed the two dragons down a little, granting Hajime an opportunity to try to aim for their cores.

However, the moment he did so, he felt a chill run down his spine. Turning around, he saw a ball of blue-white flame heading straight for him. His instincts warned him to get out, but he’d noticed too late. The fireball passed straight through the barrier and hit him square in the chest...

“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

For the first time in this fight, Hajime actually screamed in pain. And honestly, considering what had hit him, it was hardly surprising.

That was Yue’s Divine Purgatory!

Thanks to the spirit magic in the spell, it would only impact the soul it was targeting and pass through most everything else. However, Ehitruje’s version of the spell was powerful enough to pass through even Hajime’s spatial magic barrier and harm not just him, but also his equipment, which wasn’t strictly part of him. Honestly, it was different enough that it was basically an entirely new spell.

Unable to maintain the barrier, Hajime dispelled it and tried to flee from the flames. He used a series of mana shock waves to push the fire back, but the damage was already done. Not only had his body been badly burned, but even his soul had taken a significant amount of damage. The pain was intense, the maximum amount of mana he could control had been lowered, and his recovery rate significantly reduced.

Naturally, the dragons tried to take advantage of his moment of weakness, and Hajime’s griffins had to use themselves as meat shields to protect him. While they were exploding one after another to keep him safe, he poured some mana into the bracelet on his right wrist. It was an artifact imbued with spirit and restoration magic, known as the Resurrection Bracer. Though it couldn’t perfectly heal the extreme damage he’d taken, it still started closing up his wounds quite quickly.

“The Enlightened was the name for the individuals who understood the true nature of the ancient magic everyone had learned to use. We few escaped the destruction of our star by traveling to a different world.”

“What kind of freak sounds so happy about the destruction of their world?”

The screen below was showing a group of white-robed figures conversing with each other, and Ehitruje was looking down at it proudly.

Hajime glared at him, his expression almost bestial. He summoned Metzelei Disaster into his right hand and a Hyperion—his solar laser weapon—into his left. This Hyperion was a lot smaller than the one he’d used to kill the apostles back on Tortus, but it had to be to make it portable. Moreover, while its effective number of shots and overall range were lower, the actual power of the laser remained the same.

Hajime kept the fire and wind dragons at bay with his Gatling rail gun, and spread his Crosswelts out to target the lightning dragon. Meanwhile, he aimed Hyperion at the ice dragon that was being continually bombarded by the behemoths.

“You guys are starting to annoy me,” he said, firing Hyperion. A beam of solar light then swallowed up the ice dragon, and even the absolute zero temperatures that surrounded it wasn’t able to nullify the power of the laser. Its body and its mana stone were destroyed in an instant.

Getting annoyed with the behemoths’ constant attacks, the stone dragon quickly dove down toward them. It bathed them with its breath, petrifying a few dozen instantly, and then swallowed another one with its jaws. But while it was able to send the behemoths into disarray, that proved to be a fatal mistake. It wasn’t just Hajime’s Hyperions that could harness the power of artificial suns. The petrified behemoths’ horns started emitting sparks, and a few seconds later, they self-destructed.

Tiny suns bloomed in quick succession as the behemoths had released all of their energy at once. The stone dragon wasn’t able to withstand the force of those blasts and was swiftly obliterated.

As Hajime expected, Ehitruje responded to the destruction of his dragons by launching another Thunder God’s Lance at him. Or rather, another thirty, coming from all directions at once.

Unfortunately, while Hajime had predicted Ehitruje’s next attack, avoiding it still took every ounce of his concentration. He wasn’t able to save his weapons either, which were too bulky, and so both Hyperion and Metzelei Disaster got turned into pincushions.

“The world we arrived at was disgustingly primitive. Powerful beasts roamed the land, and the humans here hadn’t even developed primitive civilizations yet. Can you imagine? Humans, living in fear of nature!” Ehitruje exclaimed with a hint of outrage.

Wanting revenge for its two fallen comrades, the lightning dragon let out a furious roar and zapped its way over to Hajime at light speed.

“That’s what I was waiting for!” Hajime roared, redeploying his Crosswelts’ barriers. They weren’t there to protect him, but rather to trap the lightning dragon in here with him.

Inside the large space created by twelve Crosswelts’ barriers, Hajime and the lightning dragon crashed into each other. Hajime kept the dragon from biting down on him by summoning his shield artifact, Aideon, but the force of the dragon’s charge still pushed him all the way back to the barrier. Hajime then opened the barrier just enough to let him slip through, then plugged the hole with Aideon. As soon as that was done, the barrier started shrinking—and the few dozen spatial disruption grenades Hajime had dropped into the barrier before he left—exploded at once.

Twisted beyond all recognition, the lightning dragon also met its end.

“It’s true they were humans from a different world, but it was still unacceptable for them to be living like savages. And so, we decided to guide them to enlightenment. We slew the monsters that threatened them and led them to an age of peace and prosperity. Though we might have failed to create a perfect utopia once, that meant we understood better than anyone what a true utopia needed. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Upon seeing the images Ehitruje projected onto the screen below, all Hajime could think about was how utterly selfish, and foolish, this self-styled god was. It was true that the people on the screen were living simple, primitive lives, but at the same time, they were living in harmony with nature...and it was Ehitruje who had destroyed that harmony.

However, before Hajime could say as much, the wind dragon swallowed him whole.

“You turned into pure air?!”

Indeed, the wind dragon had dissolved its body of its own volition and turned into an invisible force of air. It had also waited for the exact moment that Hajime eliminated the lightning dragon to attack in order to ensure Hajime wouldn’t notice its approach. By the time he realized what was going on, there were already hundreds upon thousands of wind blades cutting at his skin.

Hajime used a full-powered Diamond Skin to try and protect himself, but the blades of wind were sharper than swords, and the pebbles kicked up by the gust moving faster than cannonballs. The wind blades cut at his less-protected limbs, while pebbles pelted the coat that protected his torso and vitals.

“Don’t...underestimate meeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

Making sure to avoid just the lethal attacks and letting his Resurrection Bracer take care of all other injuries, Hajime pulled out his rail gun-enhanced Gatling pile bunker. As his blood sprayed all around him from the wind dragon’s torturous assault, Hajime gritted his teeth and pulled the trigger.

Compared to his other weapons, the pile bunker had the shortest range, but he was already inside the dragon’s body, so he didn’t need any. All he needed was power, which the pile bunker had in spades. The pile bunker started shooting and retracting its jet-black stake with blistering speed, and no mere storm was able to withstand such a ferocious barrage. It looked like Hajime was eating his way through the wind dragon’s body with the way he advanced.

Unsurprisingly, the wind dragon was soon devoured...and the last remaining dragon, the fire one, let out a roar of anger.

“There were those who couldn’t understand our glorious vision. Both among the primitives living here, and our own ranks,” Ehitruje continued. Hajime didn’t even need to ask to know that Ehitruje had likely eliminated anyone and everyone who’d disagreed with him.

Indeed, the vision below started showing Ehitruje killing even his close comrades if they dared to question him.

“After a few thousand years, this world finally reached an acceptable level of civilization. It was then, though, that those who had shared my vision began to give up their immortality. It was preposterous! What did they mean ‘that’s enough’? Had we kept on pushing that civilization further, it would have eclipsed even our former glorious society!”

Ehitruje sounded genuinely frustrated at what he clearly thought had been folly on his comrades’ part. That, more than anything, showed just how foolish he was.

As Hajime fought his way out of the wind dragon’s remnants, Ehitruje snapped his fingers and Hajime pitched forward. A block of shimmering platinum light was encasing his Gatling pile bunker. Ehitruje had used spatial magic to lock it in place, and the spell was powerful enough that cracks were appearing in the spatial magic ring on Hajime’s Guardian Talisman as it tried to neutralize it.

It was clear Ehitruje was still mad about the fact that his comrades had left him all that time ago.

Shit!

There was a hint of trepidation in Hajime’s expression. The Guardian Talisman did finally succeed in neutralizing the spatial magic holding his pile bunker in place, but it took a second too long.

Void Fissure explosions started closing in on him from all directions, each one far more powerful than any he’d seen thus far. The force of the impact nearly knocked him unconscious, and various parts of his body were twisted or crushed quite painfully.

Coughing up blood, Hajime fell to the ground along with the shattered remnants of his spatial-magic-neutralizing ring. His Resurrection Bracelet hadn’t been able to repair it in time, and it would take some time before it could heal him too.

“I don’t even remember how many years I spent alone after that. All I know is that one day, I was looking down at the people offering me prayers and the grand civilization they had thanks to my efforts and thought—I want to destroy it all.”

Hajime barely managed to activate Aerodynamic and make a platform for himself to stand on before he hit the ground. He was covered in small wounds, bleeding out of his eyes, nose, and ears, and panting heavily. He glared intensely at Ehitruje, but the so-called god was entranced by the vision of his past self laying waste to the civilization he’d helped create.

Since Ehitruje was in Yue’s body, that rapt expression would have been quite captivating, except that Hajime was seething with rage because he knew Yue’s body was being defiled.

“Don’t you see? Everything in this world reveals its true beauty only in the moment it’s destroyed. Nothing can match the pleasure of that moment of devastation. Trampling all over the people you’ve guided and protected for thousands of years was a joy like none other. Many of my memories have faded with time, but that moment where the people reached out to me for salvation, their despairing screams filling the streets, that one moment is burned vividly into my mind.”

He snapped his fingers again, and Hajime leaped away on instinct, expecting another Thunder God’s Lance. However, he’d guessed wrong. It was indeed an attack that was teleported in, but rather than a lightning spear, it was the fire dragon that was teleported.

Hajime’s hair stood on end...and a second later, he felt a wave of heat and a powerful gravitational pull at his back. He didn’t have to turn around to know the dragon had its jaws open right behind him.

There was no time to dodge. Even if there had been, Hajime’s body wasn’t able to move as fast as his mind anymore with all the injuries he’d sustained. The most he was able to do was bring one set of Crosswelts over to deploy a lone barrier.

The dragon’s jaw clamped down, and Hajime was surrounded by flames on all sides.

“I don’t know how many years I’ve been alive now, but the pleasure I felt when destroying everything is something I’ll never forget, which is why I decided to turn this world into my playground. A stage for my games.”

Ehitruje had finally finished reminiscing. He looked down at Hajime, who was being swallowed up by the flames, and smiled.

The white-hot flames were compressed and heated to such an extreme level that they were melting through the Crosswelts themselves, despite the fact that they were made of the sturdiest material Hajime could create. Moreover, the gravity field in the fire dragon’s maw was so strong Hajime couldn’t move even with his Guardian Talisman neutralizing some of that gravity magic.

“Nnnnnngh!”

A small scream escaped through Hajime’s gritted teeth. The worst thing about this predicament was that a tiny portion of the flames was able to slip through the barrier and hit Hajime. It seemed Ehitruje had enhanced these flames with spirit magic as well, though not as heavily as a proper Divine Retribution. However, the flames were focusing on his Resurrection Bracer, melting it into nothing.

Bearing the searing pain, Hajime swapped out the bullets in Donner’s chamber for sealstone-tipped rounds. He’d used the majority of the sealstone he’d excavated for Shea’s equipment, so he’d only had a bit left to make a precious few sealstone-tipped bullets.

Hajime had dubbed these Anti-Magic Bullets, and he pulled the trigger, firing one of them through the tiny hole in his barrier that he’d just made. A normal bullet would have melted immediately, but the magic-repelling sealstone bullet was able to shoot through the sea of flames and pierce the fire dragon’s heart. Its mana stone then shattered into a dozen pieces, and the dragon began to disperse.

“This is all just a game, Irregular,” Ehitruje stated as he snapped his fingers once more. The half-dispersed flames then started writhing like living creatures and snaked their way into the four Crosswelts forming Hajime’s barrier. A second later, they exploded from the inside.

“Gah!”

The shock wave from the explosion and what little flecks of Divine Purgatory remained washed over Hajime. He quickly summoned a vial from his Treasure Trove, and with trembling fingers pulled out the stopper. But just before he could down the contents, a Thunder God’s Lance shot the vial out of his hand.

“Dammit. That was my last bit of Ambrosia too,” Hajime said in an annoyed voice.

Ehitruje’s lips curled up into a grin.

“What do you think demons and beastmen are?” he asked suddenly, his voice coming from right behind Hajime.

Chills running down his spine, Hajime fired a blast out of the elbow portion of his prosthetic arm to turn him around at lightning speed. As he whirled around he took aim with Donner, but there was no one there. Instead, he felt a presence to his left. In his periphery, he watched as Ehitruje caressed his Gatling pile bunker. A second later, Hajime’s last bit of heavy weaponry crumbled to dust.

At point-blank range, it seemed Ehitruje could destroy objects before the creation magic ring on Hajime’s Guardian Talisman could do anything.

“Tch!” Hajime clicked his tongue and fired Donner at Ehitruje, but the crimson streak shot through empty air.

Ehitruje once again reappeared behind Hajime. Only the smallest of the three rings of his halos was at his back now, and he had a claymore made of pure light in one hand.

I knew it, he can use that ability to instantly teleport things without portals—Heavenstep—on himself too, not just other things!

Hajime had already seen Ehitruje teleport Thunder God’s Lance and his fire dragon, so he’d expected that the man would be able to use it on himself too. However, just knowing about it didn’t make instantaneous teleportation any less of a threat.

Trusting his instincts, Hajime dashed forward at full speed, using his prosthetic limb to propel himself out of the claymore’s range. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough.

“Agh!”

Hajime felt a searing pain shoot diagonally across his back, from shoulder to hip. He flipped around, blood spraying in all directions as he did so. Despite the distance, and the protection of his coat and Diamond Skin, Ehitruje had managed to cut him.

Looking over, Hajime saw that halfway up, the claymore’s blade vanished through a ripple in space, its tip in a different spot a good distance away. The ripple glowed, the tip retracted, and a whole claymore was once again in Ehitruje’s hand.

It seemed that the sword could stretch and squish freely, move through space, and also pass through everything but Hajime himself to hurt him directly. It was quite an amazing magic sword.

“Your god asked you a question. Answer, Irregular.”

Ignoring him, Hajime sent a portion of his Crosswelts and Grim Reapers at Ehitruje. Of course, since they were busy dealing with the light apostles and the stars the magic circle was still shooting out, a lot of them were sacrificed because of this move, but Hajime had no other choice.

Seeing the golems rushing at him, Ehitruje simply narrowed his eyes and swept his hand in an arc. A second later, the space around everything except Hajime and Ehitruje fractured and split like a mirror being shattered. This was Thousand Sever, a spell that split a connected space into many separate ones. Though the spell had thousand in the name, the amount of spaces Ehitruje had created numbered well over ten thousand. In fact, there were so many spatial fissures that Ehitruje damaged his own light apostles and spheres of light, but he also managed to destroy every single one of the Grim Reapers, as well as all of the Crosswelts except for the four around Hajime.

With the visions of the past gone, the room returned to pure white and the explosions of Hajime’s artifacts filled the air. More and more light apostles and spheres of light continued to pour out of the still intact second and third rings of Ehitruje’s magic circle in the distance.

He didn’t look the slightest bit exhausted after having done that. In fact, he wasn’t even breathing hard. It was clear that he didn’t even consider Hajime a threat.

Meanwhile, Hajime was covered in wounds from head to toe, his black coat—which was tougher than any metal in the world—was tattered and soaked in blood. Even his white hair was matted with blood. There was no part of Hajime that wasn’t mostly red. This was far from an even match.

Gritting his teeth in frustration, Hajime decided to answer Ehitruje’s question in order to buy himself some time.

“Haaah... Haaah... Weren’t they just the native races...already living here?”

“Wrong. Both demons and beastmen are the product of crossbreeding humans and monsters. They are races I, a god, created.”

“Why would you bother...? Oh, I see. You were experimenting to try to create a vessel for yourself.”

“Oho, you’re quick on the uptake. Correct.”

Ehitruje swung his claymore through the air and smiled. He went on to explain that his original body had been unable to withstand the ravages of time despite all of the magical technology at his disposal. Moreover, since his soul had grown larger after he’d converted the people’s prayers into power, regular bodies could no longer hold him for long, hence why he’d tried to create a superior vessel.

With beastmen he’d focused on physical strength, while with demons he’d tried to make them as magically compatible as possible.

“Dragonmen and vampires ended up pretty good, but they weren’t quite strong enough. The dragonmen I just gave up on halfway. It was fun watching those stuck-up honorable fools get betrayed by the people they said they’d protect, though.”

Ehitruje shrugged as if he thought nothing of persecuting and exterminating an entire race. Thinking back to how much Tio had suffered because of this man, Hajime’s rage grew.

Ehitruje gave him a knowing look, then smiled and continued, “There were a rare few like Alvaheit or the Liberators who possessed the proper affinity to serve as my vessel, but...”

“Affinity, huh?”

“They were all distant descendants of my former companions who strongly expressed some of those old genes. But while they would have been able to withstand bearing my soul for a little bit, they always ended up getting eroded before long.”

“So that’s why...you waited here in the Sanctuary. You were toying with the world to pass the time until a proper vessel appeared.”

“Exactly! And then it finally happened! Three hundred years ago, I finally found the perfect body!”

Ehitruje spread his arms wide to show off Yue’s body. In response, Hajime sneered.

“Is that why...you destroyed the vampire kingdom? You were pissed because you thought they’d killed your...precious vessel? Then you’re definitely no god,” he replied as he readied Donner and Schlag.

Ehitruje gave Hajime a cold smile and placed one hand on his chest. He knew how ironic his gratitude would come off as, which was exactly why he gave it.

“I have to thank you, Irregular. Not only did you find my vessel for me, but you also gave me such wonderful entertainment. As a reward, I’ll kill you with my own two hands.”

“I’d like to see you try!”

Ehitruje just laughed in response, and a second later, he vanished.

Hajime fired off all of Donner and Schlag’s bullets at once, and they passed through one of the Orestes he summoned to reappear behind him. As expected, that was where Ehitruje was as well. Having seen Ehitruje’s fight for this long, Hajime was now able to predict exactly when he would reappear and where. He’d spread his aim out a little though, just in case Ehitruje tried to dodge.

However, Ehitruje looked neither surprised nor at all worried. His arm blurred, and there was a series of platinum flashes as he cut through all the bullets faster than the eye could see.

Being able to aim for those bullets that had been accelerated with a rail gun with such pinpoint accuracy was unbelievable. No matter how fast you were or how good your reaction time was, that was something that exceeded physical limits. Body strengthening alone couldn’t get someone to this level, which of course meant something else had...and Hajime knew exactly what spell it was.

“Godspeed, huh?”

“Oh, is that what you named it? I like it. I think I’ll call it that as well.”

His expression grim, Hajime had his Crosswelts fire at random to try to distract Ehitruje for a second. Each of the Crosswelt’s bullets gave off powerful mana shock waves on impact, so he figured they would do something at least. However, a second before they reached Ehitruje, he vanished without a sound.

Once again trusting his instincts, Hajime canceled his Aerodynamic and let himself free-fall. A second later, two swords passed over his head like a pair of giant scissors.

“Two claymores, huh? I thought I recognized your fighting style even with one, but now I get it.”

“Is that truly surprising? There is no technique my apostles can use that I cannot, including swordsmanship. The original owner of this body may have been inept at close combat, but my skills are of course, godlike.”

Loath though Hajime was to admit it, Ehitruje wasn’t just boasting. He was as good as he claimed, if not better.

Ehitruje closed in and launched a flurry of slashes that were so fast they looked like streaks even to Hajime, who was using Riftwalk. Worst of all, they were all capable of bypassing his defenses and hurting him directly.

“Uwooooooooooooh!”

Using his prosthetic arm to fire off another propulsion blast, Hajime quickly leaped away. He then used a combination of Aerodynamic and Supersonic Step to keep making minute adjustments to his position and had his Crosswelts rapid-fire to try to slow Ehitruje down a little.

Ehitruje escaped the barrage and chased after Hajime with a series of short teleportation hops, smiling confidently all the while. Hajime kept on trying to counterattack by firing his bullets at impossible angles through his Orestes, but Ehitruje cut the bullets down with ease every single time.

Finally, Hajime showed the briefest of openings...and Ehitruje pounced.

“Hah! Looks like you’ve lost another one of your precious artifacts!”

Ehitruje sliced through a Crosswelt with blistering speed, and then also cut into Hajime’s shoulder for good measure.

“How does it feel having your artifacts stripped away from you one by one? I beat you in a battle of numbers, and it seems you can’t hold a candle to me in close combat either!”

“What, so you want me to fall into despair? That’s almost as bad a joke as your entire existence.”

Irksome as it was, Ehitruje wasn’t bothering to send his light apostles or star showers at Hajime right now. They were simply surrounding the battlefield, acting as a silent audience to watch as Ehitruje beat Hajime in a duel.

The situation was certainly quite desperate. Hajime’s body was in tatters, his attacks couldn’t reach Ehitruje, and he kept on taking more and more damage.

“How many more artifacts do you have? Or are you all out? If not, you better bring them out now or you’ll die! I’ll destroy them all for you and make you taste true despair!”

“Ngh!”

In the second it took Hajime to groan, Ehitruje swung another ten times. Hajime dodged them all purely on instinct, but his evasion wasn’t perfect, so the blades grazed him here and there.

All of his Orestes were destroyed, so Hajime hurriedly pulled out a bunch of grenades and scattered them everywhere with a mana shock wave in a last-ditch attempt to get Ehitruje off of him. Ehitruje cut down only the grenades nearby enough to hurt him and let the rest explode harmlessly in the distance. As always, he emerged unhurt.

Smoke and flames filled the battlefield, but they did nothing to hamper Ehitruje’s vision. Any time Hajime moved, Ehitruje appeared right next to him, attacked, vanished, and reappeared. It was like fighting a specter. With how quickly Ehitruje was teleporting around, Hajime felt like he was being attacked from all directions at once. He tried his best to pinpoint Ehitruje’s movements, but he couldn’t.

Slowly but surely, like someone stuck in an inevitable checkmate scenario, Hajime was stripped of his trump cards and pressured into a corner.

“What’s wrong? Not going to use your god-killer artifact? If you pray hard enough, you might get a lucky hit in, you know?”

“Shut up!”

It was just empty bravado at this point. Hajime didn’t have the strength to formulate a proper response to Ehitruje’s taunts. Because of how long he’d kept his Overload going, and because of how much blood had run into them, Hajime’s eyes were starting to lose focus.

“Hmm... Seeing as you’re not bringing out any new artifacts, you really must be at the end of your rope... I suppose it’s time, then.”

Ehitruje snapped his fingers, making twenty Thunder God’s Lances appear next to him. They lined up in a row and shot forward at regular intervals. However, much to Ehitruje’s chagrin, Hajime managed to just barely avoid or shoot down the core of each of them.

His survival instincts were second to none, but unfortunately, his resistance could only go on for so long. Though Hajime was able to keep himself safe, he couldn’t do the same for his Crosswelts, which took direct hits and exploded, shooting lightning everywhere.

“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

Screaming in pain as the explosions hit him, Hajime crashed into the ground, white smoke rising from his body. He bounced a few times before coming to a stop facedown on the white floor. There was a huge puddle of blood underneath him, and his body was covered in burns and cuts. Parts of his limbs had been so badly burned even the bone was blackened. He looked half-dead already.

Ehitruje alighted soundlessly to the ground in front of him. He raised one claymore, looking at Hajime like a toy he no longer cared for. This was the end. But before he could swing it down, Hajime’s fingers twitched.

“Oh?”

Ehitruje looked down at him, impressed. Despite how much he was bleeding, Hajime still managed to struggle to his knees.

“Despite having faced the full might of a god, you still possess the determination to rise to your feet once more?”

“I’ll say it as many times...as I have to... You’re...no god. In fact...you’re...ugh...even weaker than the regular people fighting back on...Tortus...”

“Really, petty insults? Just look at the state you’re in.”

Ehitruje shook his head in mild exasperation. It was true that Hajime was so weak that it looked like his pulse might stop at any second. Thus, from Ehitruje’s perspective, it really did just seem like Hajime was trying to get in one last cutting remark. It was unbecoming of someone who’d fought so hard, at least to Ehitruje, but Hajime didn’t stop talking. Even though every word made him cough up blood, he said his piece.

“It’s true...that you’re powerful... I’ve never felt this close to death...since I left the abyss...”

“Don’t you realize you’re contradicting yourself? If I’m—”

“But that’s all.”

Hajime’s words were dripping with conviction. Though his consciousness was hazy, his eyes were still burning with light. His will hadn’t died out just yet. And as he spoke, Hajime’s voice grew stronger and stronger.

“You lack...drive... The desire to overwhelm your opponent. That’s why you...can’t shake my resolve... You’re not scary at all.”

“Stubborn to the end, I see.”

Ehitruje looked disappointed. On the other hand, Hajime looked off into the distance, the same way Ehitruje had when reminiscing about the past. He thought back to all the people he’d met in this world, then spoke in a kind tone that didn’t seem fitting for this harsh battlefield.

“I know of a girl who, despite being a member of the weakest race, was able to challenge the world’s greatest trials thanks to the strength of her will.”

Though she’d cried the whole way through the Reisen Gorge, she had been determined to stay with Hajime, and so the young rabbit girl had forged on.

“I know of a girl who continued moving forward despite tasting the ultimate despair.”

Even though no one else had believed Hajime had survived falling down that hole, she’d never given up hope. She’d kept searching for the boy she loved, and after she found him, she’d changed even her body in order to gain enough strength to support him.

“I know of a woman willing to use her own body as a shield to protect those she cares about.”

Hajime had lost track of the number of times that wise, kind dragonwoman had saved them all. Though she normally played the fool, she was always there for her comrades when they needed her most.

“I know of a girl who had the strength to stay with her friend even in the face of death.”

Even though she always prioritized the feelings of others, even though she actually hated fighting, she was so kind that she was willing to stand on the front lines for her friends.

“I know of a woman who stuck to her own beliefs even as the world around her changed and her naivety was exposed time and time again.”

She’d been scared, hurt, worried, and even unsure at times, but in the end, she had decided that this was who she wanted to be. She was also the one and only teacher who’d given Hajime pause and caused him to reconsider his own beliefs.

“I know of a young girl who stood in the line of fire to stop her stupid father, even though she had no power of her own.”

Though she was only four, she’d had courage even after being kidnapped, and even stopped the rampaging monster of the abyss before he’d taken things too far.

“But most of all, I know of a girl who’s still fighting, even though her body has been taken over.”

Hajime had absolute faith in Yue’s strength. And though he had been utterly dominated until now and was on the verge of death, his piercing human gaze still gave Ehitruje pause. He took an involuntary step backward, not even realizing that he’d been mentally overpowered. Hajime’s gaze was as hard as iron, as calm as a still pool, and burning with a will so vast it seemed all-encompassing.

“Even the monsters of the abyss at least had bloodlust in them, but you don’t even have that. You’re empty. You’ve been empty ever since that moment you destroyed everything you and your comrades built together.”

Hajime was back on his feet now. He wasn’t staggering either, his stance was firm, Donner and Schlag ready and waiting in his hands.

“I was listening to your story. It taught me that you’re a spoiled brat who failed to learn anything from the past or from the warnings of your comrades, and got pissed when they left you all alone, so you threw a tantrum.”

When Ehitruje’s companions had said “that’s enough,” they must have thought that civilization would be able to thrive just fine without them and that the people of the old world were no longer needed. And so, in order to prevent the tragedy that had happened to their universe, they chose to live and die as humans rather than as gods.

They’d tried to warn Ehitruje as well, but in his hubris, he’d ignored the warnings and eliminated dissenters by force.

Everlasting life and the glory of the past were the only things that made up the being known as Ehitruje. That was why he could never truly connect with another being, and why he’d been defeated by solitude. No matter how powerful he became, no matter how long he lived, in the end, he was just a child. And that was why—

“Hmph! Are you trying to rile me up with such petty taunts? You’re out of trump cards, so just accept your defeat. You fought well, I admit, but you won’t be able to hit me with that god-killer artifact.”

Hajime knew his words wouldn’t reach Ehitruje. After all, Ehitruje’s comrades hadn’t been able to reach him either.

Hajime moved one leg back, lowered his center of gravity, and brought Donner and Schlag up.

“That’s right, I can’t defeat you,” he said, agreeing with Ehitruje. But then, he added, “As I am now, at least!”

A second later, a huge amount of mana spiraled up from him. He’d multiplied his stats by five once again, even though he was already using Overload. The crimson tornado of mana that spiraled up from him was so powerful it obliterated all of the light apostles and light stars directly above him and even destroyed a good chunk around the raging tornado. At that point, even Ehitruje was forced to teleport away.

“Impossible. How did you get so much stronger?”

For the first time, Ehitruje looked a bit nervous. That left him open for a second, and Hajime disappeared and reappeared behind him. He had, for the first time, moved so fast that Ehitruje hadn’t been able to follow him.

Donner fired with a bang at the exact same moment that Ehitruje activated Heavenstep to teleport away. But as he did so, he gasped in surprise.

“What?!”

And of course he was shocked, since Hajime had appeared right in front of him using the very same teleportation technique instead of any high-speed movement.

“Did you just use Heavenstep?!”

“What made you think instantaneous teleportation was something only you could do?” Hajime asked as he quickly fired off six of his Living Bullets—which were capable of changing their own trajectory—at Ehitruje.

“Ngh!”

Ehitruje tried to cut them down while using Godspeed, but he saw them change direction too late, so he quickly crossed his twin claymores in front of him to block instead.

There was a shock wave as all six of them impacted, and Ehitruje was blown backward. Indescribable rage welled up within him as he realized he’d actually been pushed back, but Hajime’s offense was far from over. He once again teleported behind Ehitruje and fired off another round of Living Bullets.

“I’ve seen through your petty trick. You’re swapping places with other artifacts!”

Ehitruje was indeed correct. Any time one of the bullet casings that littered the floor disappeared, Hajime appeared in their place.

It wasn’t just his bullets Hajime had turned into artifacts, but their shells as well. Those cartridges were made of metal, after all, meaning they could be enchanted with magic. He’d dubbed them Exchange Cases, and they were imbued with evolution and spatial magic to allow them to swap places with an origin point, which in this case was a jewel embedded into the shoulder portion of Hajime’s prosthetic arm.

Ehitruje immediately took flight, bringing the battle back into the air. There were too many casings on the ground, so he couldn’t predict which ones could be teleported to, and if they could all be used, then he wouldn’t be able to tell which one Hajime would utilize next.

Unfortunately for him, the air wasn’t safe. Hajime pulled Schlag’s trigger, and a bullet whizzed past Ehitruje’s head. The moment it was behind him, Hajime teleported to it...for he had Exchange Bullets as well as Exchange Cases.

The moment Hajime appeared behind Ehitruje, he once again fired Living Bullets out of Donner.

Ehit dodged out of the way with Godspeed, then swung his distance-ignoring claymore at Hajime. His sword sliced Hajime in half, but then another Hajime fired off another shot from Donner from behind the first’s body.

“An illusion?! Impossible, how can you deceive my eyes?!”

Ehitruje once again fled, using Heavenstep to move to the side as he watched the fake Hajime dissipate into nothing, while the real Hajime was, of course, left unscathed.

Ehitruje launched a series of slashes, all of them ignoring space and distance, but they all passed right through Hajime. One sliced his neck, but then the real Hajime once again appeared safe and sound a few dozen centimeters behind the illusion. Another sliced his arm, but that also vanished and was replaced by his real arm.

Hajime was using one of the special artifacts in his prosthetic arm, Ghost Projector. It was a small jewel imbued with spirit magic that allowed him to project astral bodies. All he was doing was putting a copy of his soul into a visual illusion of himself, but the presence and mana it emitted felt completely real.

Used in conjunction with Hajime’s extremely tricky and fast movements while teleporting all over the place with teleporting bullets, it was more than enough to confuse Ehitruje. All the would-be god could slice through was afterimages and illusions. To make matters worse, all of the empty cartridges on the ground were now floating into the air. They all had gravity magic in them, allowing them to move around the air like shooting stars. And naturally, Hajime could teleport to any one he chose.

“You bastard, you were hiding some of your trump cards still?!”

Ehitruje’s voice was laced with a hint of panic. It seemed even he hadn’t expected Hajime to keep a few trump cards in reserve after being driven that far into a corner.

No matter how well you planned something like this, when a normal person was put in a situation where they were a hair’s breadth away from death, they’d throw their plans out the window and use everything at their disposal. It took unbelievable mental conditioning to not do that.

Hajime’s unbreakable will and persistence were terrifying enough to put fear into even Ehitruje’s heart...

“Uwooooooooooooh!”

With a spirited battle cry, Hajime pushed his offense even further. The tables had turned completely. Hajime teleported around so fast that it looked like he was in every place at once, firing from all directions.

“This won’t change a thing! When will you realize your struggles are in vain?!”

Ehitruje used Heavenstep and Godspeed in conjunction to match Hajime’s speed. He swung his platinum claymores in all directions, cutting through the bullets heading for him. But unlike before, this was no longer a one-sided match. No, this was a true battle between gods.

“What? You’ve nullified my Godspeed? And you’re reading my movements? How are you able to process all that infor—that Demon Eye!”

Using Godspeed didn’t require that Ehitruje be close to his target, but if he wanted to swing his claymores while using it, then he did. After all, if his weapons didn’t touch his enemy, they couldn’t do anything. In that case, what Hajime had done was simply create a zone around him where Godspeed was nullified.

The restoration magic ring on his Guardian Talisman had the power to defend against Revival Reversal—the spell that brought back old injuries—but it also had an Hour Crystal fragment in it, which prevented time from being messed with in Hajime’s immediate vicinity.

Moreover, Hajime had finally begun to analyze Ehitruje’s swordplay. All of the evolution magic put into his Demon Eye let him analyze information at a prodigious rate, and he’d also enchanted it with foresight, which helped him predict Ehitruje’s movements. It wasn’t quite as powerful as Shea’s Future Sight, but it was still giving him a split-second advantage.

All the time Hajime had spent studying and dissecting Ehitruje’s fighting style was finally beginning to pay off. At long last, it was time for him to go all out and bring this wannabe god down. He started alternating the timings of his attacks, targeting the gaps in Ehitruje’s perception, and kept his movement patterns random to make his Ghost Projections more effective. By reading Ehitruje’s swordplay and teleportation habits, Hajime was able to predict where he would show up next and fire off counters right as he got there.

Hajime’s close combat skills had reached even greater heights than before. Now it was Ehitruje’s attacks that weren’t connecting, while Hajime’s started getting closer and closer to landing a decisive blow.

It was clear from his expression that Ehitruje was getting steadily more frustrated. He’d started sending his light spheres and light apostles at Hajime, which was proof that he was feeling pressured. The barrage of apostles and stars scattered Hajime’s Exchange Cases, reducing his teleportation options and delaying his movements slightly.

“Hah, I’ve got you now!” Ehitruje shouted, swinging one of his claymores down at Hajime. There was nowhere for him to dodge, and since Ehitruje’s claymores passed through anything that wasn’t Hajime himself, he was confident Hajime wouldn’t be able to block... And yet, there was a loud metallic clang as his claymore impacted against Schlag’s gun barrel.

“What?!” he shouted, shocked. It made no sense. No object should have been able to stop his claymore. Thus, he swung his second one down as well, and Hajime blocked that one with Donner.

Sensing danger, Ehitruje immediately teleported away to gain some distance.

“How? How are you able to block my swords?”

“It just took a little Transmutation, that’s all.”

Ehitruje’s claymores used spirit magic to pass through everything except for the soul of their intended target. With that in mind, the solution had been simple; Hajime had just given his guns copies of his soul, the same way he’d given his organic golems fake souls. In doing so, he’d tricked the claymores into thinking the guns were also him, and therefore targets that shouldn’t be passed through.

By the time Ehitruje had figured all of that out, Hajime had teleported right beside him...and he could feel his Godspeed being blocked.

Hajime took aim at his head and heart with Donner and Schlag. Though Ehitruje could have teleported away, his pride wouldn’t allow him to run. Instead, he tried to cut down the bullets like he had before, not even realizing that this attack was a feint.

His focus solely on the gun barrels, Ehitruje was caught by surprise when Hajime didn’t pull the trigger. A second later, he felt a sharp pain in his abdomen.

Letting out a groan of pain, Ehitruje doubled over as he was sent flying a few dozen meters back. Hajime had roundhouse kicked him. And with his stats amplified this much, even a simple kick had as much power as his pile bunkers. Still, Hajime’s kick shouldn’t have been able to pierce Ehitruje’s barriers when even his strongest rail gun rifle couldn’t. And yet, Ehitruje had taken damage.

“You...” Ehitruje muttered in surprise.

“Looks like it worked.”

There was a trickle of blood spilling from the corner of Ehitruje’s mouth. Hajime’s kick had gone through his barrier and damaged him directly.

Stunned, Ehitruje looked down at Hajime’s boots, which were still emitting crimson shock waves.

“Impossible...you completely analyzed my barrier in the middle of battle?!”

Ehitruje’s barrier was a powerful spell that combined multiple ancient magics to create the ultimate shield. Aside from overwhelming brute force, the only other way to break through it would be to use a similarly complex combination of ancient magic to counteract the barrier’s effects.

Indeed, that was exactly what Hajime had done. In the middle of battle, he’d created an improvised artifact capable of nullifying Ehitruje’s barrier, proving that it was his abilities as a master synergist that made Hajime so fearsome, not the ancient magic he’d acquired or the skills he’d absorbed from monsters.

Of course, making improvised artifacts imbued with ancient magic was only possible thanks to Transcendence, the final derivative skill of Limit Break. There had only been a handful of people in the history of Tortus to ever acquire the skill, and among them, Hajime was the only one who was also capable of using all seven types of ancient magic. There would likely never again be anyone capable of transmuting ancient magic into artifacts on the fly the way Hajime could.

Ehitruje had foolishly assumed mass-producing weapons was where a synergist’s true strength lay, but that was only one part of what made synergists so powerful. A synergist’s greatest asset was their adaptability.

Sparks ran down the length of Donner’s and Schlag’s barrels as Hajime took aim once more.

“I think I’ll call these Godpiercer Bullets.”

Hajime had reforged his ammunition to be capable of penetrating Ehitruje’s barrier. Now every single one of his bullets was a deadly threat, capable of dealing heavy damage. And more importantly, this also meant that Hajime’s god-killer artifact could now easily reach Ehitruje.

Upon realizing that, Ehitruje instinctively took a few steps back...and when he realized he was cowering, he glared at Hajime. His furious expression ruined Yue’s good looks.

“Damn you, Irregular! Just how much were you holding back until now?!”

Ehitruje wasn’t just referring to the new artifacts Hajime had started creating. Hajime’s stats were also much higher than they had been a few minutes ago. That was the reason a simple kick had been able to actually damage Ehitruje.

Overload was the strongest version of Limit Break as far as stat increases went, and there shouldn’t have been any way of multiplying one’s stats further short of sacrificing their own life force. But somehow, Hajime’s stats were over tenfold what they had been at the start, and he looked healthier than ever.

In other words, when he’d first activated Overload and told Ehitruje he wouldn’t be holding back, that too had been a lie.

“You must be pretty stupid if you actually believed anything your opponent said,” Hajime stated with a shake of his head, then went on the offensive.

Of course, Ehitruje thought that first activation of Overload had been a bluff, but in truth, Hajime had actually used Overload there. What was increasing his stats even further now was the same artifact he’d handed out to every soldier fighting for Tortus back on the surface. His own Last Seele. There was no way he’d make an artifact that powerful for other people and not keep one for himself. Naturally, he’d ingested a few CheatMates as well.

By combining his Last Seele with his own innate Overload skill, Hajime had been able to magnify his stats beyond what would normally be possible. That was what was allowing him to match Ehitruje’s godlike specs.

At the level they were fighting at, the light apostles and spheres Ehitruje’s magic circle was mass-producing could barely even do anything to intervene. Hajime’s high-speed movement and constant teleportation, combined with his highly polished gun-kata fighting techniques, forced Ehitruje to focus all of his attention on close combat, not giving him time to do anything else.

As they fought, Ehitruje noticed one other anomaly.

“Your wounds, they’re...”

Indeed, they were healing at an unbelievably fast rate. The numerous burns and lacerations that had covered Hajime’s body were mostly gone, and his breathing was steady. At first, Ehitruje thought Hajime must have made another healing artifact, but he didn’t sense any restoration magic being used. There was only one other explanation for why Hajime was healing so fast.

“So you lied about that vial of Ambrosia being your last one too,” he said with a frown.

“Well, it was the last one in my Treasure Trove.”

Of the two Hajime had left, he’d put one inside a capsule and swallowed it so that it was sitting in his stomach. Eventually, his stomach acids had melted the capsule and the healing liquid had started spreading through Hajime’s system.

Claymores and guns clashed, sending sparks flying everywhere. His eye twitching with barely suppressed rage, Ehitruje asked, “Why save it for so long?”

“To make sure I would win. From the very start, I knew not to underestimate your strength.”

Hajime’s god-killer artifact could only be used once. Thus, he couldn’t afford to use it until he knew the full extent of Ehitruje’s capabilities. In order to make sure his trump card would hit, he needed to be sure he’d seen all of Ehitruje’s powers and devised suitable counters for them. What Ehitruje had been trying to do Hajime for fun, Hajime had also been trying to do to Ehitruje, though for entirely different reasons.

In truth, Ehitruje’s strength had still surpassed Hajime’s expectations, and he’d felt the specter of death looming over him more than once during their fight, but in exchange for most of his artifacts and a great deal of pain, Hajime had finally succeeded in making Ehitruje show off all of his skills. Meanwhile, he’d managed to preserve the most important of his own trump cards.

“If you’re so certain you haven’t underestimated me, let’s see if you can handle this! Behold the full might of a god!” Ehitruje shouted, creating a series of spatial explosions all around him. It was a desperate attack, one hardly befitting someone who claimed to be a god.

Hajime quickly neutralized the explosions near him with a series of mana shock waves and used Diamond Skin and Aideon to block the ones that got through. Though he was able to avoid taking any damage, he was still forced to stop moving for a few seconds. And in that time, Ehitruje used Heavenstep to return to the center of his three-ring halo.

A second later, there was an explosion of platinum light as the halo that was also a magic circle began to glow. The three rings also started to pulse, growing in size. Once they were over a thousand meters in diameter, the second and third rings started rotating in reverse.

The light apostles and spheres started flooding toward Hajime to try to slow him down while Ehitruje intoned, “This is the true divine might! The light of destruction that not even my brethren could stand against! There’s nowhere for you to run, Irregular!”

Platinum light filled the room, blotting out Hajime’s vision. The wave of light that spread over a kilometer wide made its way to him like an avalanche of epic proportions. This was Ehitruje’s ultimate trump card, the move he’d used to overturn the game board whenever things weren’t going his way. And yet, in the face of such destructive might, Hajime simply grinned.

“Well, if I can’t run, I’ll just punch right through it.”

He took a resolute step toward the almighty light. He then rocketed forward at tremendous speed, turning into a crimson blur, and took out yet another artifact that he’d kept in reserve. This artifact looked like a huge lance, but its pointed tip had spiral grooves in it, and it was rotating at high speed like a drill. The tip was also quite wide like an umbrella, covering most of Hajime’s body.

This was Hajime’s lance drill artifact, Laobenschiram. He’d used the majority of his remaining sealstone to coat the surface of the drill, and the superdense alloy that made up the rest of its volume was enchanted with all seven types of ancient magic, making it the strongest offensive and defensive artifact in his possession. It had the power to drill right through anything, whether it was physical or magical.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

The light was so powerful that it stripped away the sealstone coating in seconds, and though the restoration magic in the artifact repaired it nigh instantly and spatial magic protected Hajime from as much of the impact as possible, he still took a serious amount of damage from the shock waves that erupted as his drill slammed into the tsunami of light. Many of his wounds reopened and blood spurted in all directions as slivers of light grazed him. Even his internal organs took a good amount of damage, and he coughed up blood as he screamed.

Hajime’s muscles tore, his bones cracked, and his skin was ripped off. But even so, he kept charging forward. Screaming as he went, he didn’t let the light slow him down for even a second. It didn’t matter how overwhelming Ehitruje’s might was; Hajime would push through it with sheer force. That was how he’d overcome all obstacles in his path so far, and he wasn’t planning on stopping now.

“Your power’s mine!” Hajime shouted, and a second later, Laobenschiram began to glow with a platinum light.

“Impossible! This is the pinnacle of god’s might! How could you possibly have appropriated it for yourself?!”

Laobenschiram had been enchanted with spirit and metamorphosis magic to make it half-alive, just like Hajime’s golems. Its sole purpose was to absorb whatever ultimate final attack Ehitruje might attempt and make that power its own. While it had been drilling through Ehitruje’s light, it had also been breaking it down and analyzing it with evolution magic. And now, Hajime had enchanted Laobenschiram with Ehitruje’s own power.

This was the culmination of Hajime’s magical talent and synergist skill. Plunder Transmutation. The ability to analyze an attack he was hit by and immediately incorporate that same attack into his own artifacts.

Normally, something like that would have been impossible, but the Transcendence skill combined with his massively boosted stats had allowed Hajime to do the impossible in just seconds. Creation magic was all about creating new artifacts. And though Hajime had possessed no affinity for the other six types of ancient magic, creation magic had been different.

Creation magic was practically made for synergists, and it synergized with Transmute in a way nothing else did. It was the one field of magic that Hajime had any natural talent for, and he’d utilized that talent to its fullest. Thus, right now Ehitruje’s Divine Will was being countered with his very own Divine Will.

“Ah!” Ehitruje gasped in surprise as his light was destroyed, and Hajime glared at him.

Though he couldn’t hear Hajime from this distance, he could tell the young man was saying,

“I have you now.”

Fear seeped into his every pore, and he instinctively tried to run away. Ehitruje activated Heavenstep, but of course, Hajime wasn’t about to let him get away. He used Laobenschiram’s gravity magic to charge forward at breakneck speed, then fired Donner and Schlag in rapid succession.

A second later, the space around Ehitruje began to twist and warp. These were yet another of Hajime’s special bullet types, the Spatial Distortion Bullets. They possessed no offensive power, but they destabilized the space around where they exploded. Heavenstep required extremely precise spatial coordinates to work, which Hajime was fully aware of, so these bullets did a perfect job of preventing Ehitruje from using it.

Moreover, Ehitruje wasn’t capable of using Godspeed either because Hajime had also fired Delay Bullets at him. These bullets were made with fragments of the Hour Crystal and prevented anything they hit from using time manipulation.

“Ngh! You still have other artifacts left?!” Ehitruje roared, his expression stiffening.

Hajime kicked Laobenschiram’s handle, launching it like a ballista bolt. It shot past Ehitruje and slammed into the three-ring halo behind him. The halo then began to flicker, and Ehitruje turned back just in time to see Laobenschiram blast apart a chunk of it, causing the light of destruction to stop pouring out of it. The monster of the abyss had completely and utterly defeated god’s strongest spell.

Shocked, Ehitruje turned back to Hajime. Hajime’s glare pierced right through him, and Ehitruje swung his twin claymores down with all of his might. He was well and truly desperate now.

Unfortunately, his twin blades cut through only air.

“An...illusion?!”

The image of Hajime he’d sliced through broke apart like a pane of shattered glass, and Ehitruje’s eyes went wide.

Until now, Hajime’s illusions had only worked when he was within a foot or so of them, and Ehitruje had swung over such a wide area that even if the Hajime he was seeing was an illusion, he should have hit the real him too. But this time, the real Hajime was a good few meters behind his illusion.

Looking closer at the shattered illusion, Ehitruje noticed that this one had a small blue crystal floating at its center. This was another of Hajime’s artifacts, the Ghost Doll. It augmented the Ghost Projections Hajime could make by increasing their effective range.

By the time Ehitruje realized he’d been tricked, it was too late.

“Raaaaaaaaaaaah!”

In his shock, he’d stopped moving for a second, which was a fatal mistake.

With a spirited battle cry, Hajime charged at Ehitruje. The fingers of his prosthetic arm extended forward, looking like a skeleton’s bony digits. He grabbed Ehitruje by the collar and slammed him into the three-ring halo, which was already beginning to fall apart. The force of the impact shattered it completely, and Hajime continued his charge, heading straight for the ground. His clawed metallic fingers kept a tight hold on Ehitruje, keeping him from escaping. Hajime even shot out tiny spikes from his fingertips, trapping Ehitruje’s upper half in a makeshift iron maiden. He also shot a spirit-magic shock wave out of his arm to shake up Ehitruje’s soul and used spatial magic to trap him in place even more securely.

“How dare you, lowly human?! Unhand me!” Ehitruje screamed.

“Shut up and die.”

Ehitruje tried to cast a spell, but Hajime unleashed a superdense blast of pure mana at him, disrupting the flow of mana in his body and interrupting his attempts to cast. Hajime had retrofitted his mana cannon into his prosthetic arm for this very purpose.

Finally, the two of them hit the ground, and there was a thunderous roar as cracks spread out across the pure-white space. The two of them had slammed into the surface like a meteorite, and both of them were momentarily stunned by the impact. However, it was Hajime who recovered first. Straddling Ehitruje, he took aim with Donner. A single bullet wrapped in an overpowering sky-blue aura appeared in the air. He had reshaped the god-killing dagger he’d received from Miledi into a bullet. Supposedly, it had the power to harm god and only god’s soul.

Hajime could sense Ehitruje’s trembling through his prosthetic arm. Though Ehitruje glared at Hajime, there was more fear in his eyes than anger.

Hajime spun Donner’s chamber, loading the god-slayer bullet. He then pressed the revolver’s barrel against Ehitruje’s chest.

“Let’s see how you like the taste of the god-slayer artifact the Liberators made while drunk off their ass. This is checkmate, you bastard.”

“Wait—”

The sound of a single gunshot reverberated throughout the pure-white dimension. At long last, Hajime had hit god with his trump card.

Ehitruje’s body bucked, and after a small moan, he closed his eyes and went limp. In the distance, the three-ring halo dissipated into particles of light.

Silence filled the room, and after a minute that felt like an eternity, Yue’s eyes opened. She looked up at Hajime, who was covered in wounds from head to toe, and said, “Too bad, Irregular.”

“Agh!”

A second later, Hajime’s prosthetic arm shattered, and he was sent flying, blood spraying from a new hole in his chest.