Infinite Dendrogram - Volume 11 - Chapter 9

Act Nine: Power and Power 
Kingdom of Altar, Nowest Canyon 
Everything, eventually, must end. 
The battle between Gloria and the people of the kingdom was no exception. 
Whether that end would come in the far future or in mere moments depended upon two particular kings. 
While Sechs was beneath the kingdom, fighting to stop Gloria’s revival loop before it even began, Shu was giving his all battling the original Gloria here in this very canyon. 
The battle had begun at the edge of the canyon, but it had now migrated closer to the center. This was because Shu, who was currently controlling machine god Baldr, wanted to hinder Gloria’s supersonic approach towards the capital. Thus, just as with Figaro and Tsukuyo, the battle between the kingdom’s Superiors and Gloria was still confined to that canyon. 
But if anyone was watching this battle, they would all certainly think that by the time it ended, Nowest Canyon would be no more. 
 
“Hyper Blow, set,” Baldr’s inhuman voice announced as the machine god prepared to swing his right arm. 
In response to this blatant preparation for an attack, Gloria went on the offensive with both of its front limbs. 
However, Shu controlled Baldr as if it was his own body, turning the dragon’s strikes aside and directing the attack harmlessly away. 
Gloria’s forelimbs slammed directly into the canyon’s cliff face, leaving a crater with a radius of over a hundred metels and collapsing the canyon’s wall. 
The miss left Gloria wide open, so Baldr... 
“Battering Ram!” 
...Launched an active skill from the Crasher grouping straight into the monster’s side. 
Battering Ram required a charge time, but in return it multiplied blunt damage by six. The immense amount of damage dealt knocked the giant dragon to the opposite cliff face. 
The impact caused even more damage to their surroundings. 
Despite receiving nearly one million HP’s worth of damage, however, Gloria recovered immediately, broke out of the rubble, and sped towards Baldr. 
“Tch!” The machine god sidestepped the charge and as Gloria passed him, the fingers of his left hand — all gunports — fired his few remaining DD Shells into the dragon. 
At the same time, he began charging a skill attack with his right leg. 
Most of the active skills from the Crasher grouping, like Battering Ram, had to be charged, and this one was no exception. This made them impossible to use consecutively, and often left the user wide open in battle. That was one of the reasons why the Crasher grouping was thought to be an anti-object job series, unsuitable for fighting. 
However, Shu — and thus Baldr — was capable of controlling the flow of battle in a way that let him avoid enemy attacks and buy himself the necessary time for these skills. 
“Crag Scraper... SHINEN!” Using a skill that increased both standard and penetrative power, the machine god launched his left ankle into Gloria’s neck. 
His strike broke through scales, tore through flesh, and shattered bone. Gloria staggered so much it seemed like it might collapse, and — in a show of relentlessness — Shu then began charging yet another skill. 
“GHOoOoAaaAAaRrghHH!” But before Shu could do that, Gloria jumped using one hind limb to launch into a charge that combined its weight and physical power. It was so fast that the machine god wasn’t able to react in time, and the force even he couldn’t withstand opened a large crack in his armor. 
“I knew it... Its highest stat is its attack,” Shu said. “It’s sped up, too... But it looks like the thing’s stats are too much even for it to deal with.” 
Despite the desperate situation, he calmly analyzed his opponent. He had been making optimal moves thus far, but that would soon stop being an option. 
Under normal circumstances, he would’ve prioritized the faster, weaker normal attacks over the slow but powerful skill attacks. For this battle, however, he abandoned that strategy shortly after the battle began and now focused solely on avoiding Gloria’s attacks, retaliating only with skills. 
The reason for this was simple — Gloria’s END had already surpassed the machine god’s STR by a whole 30,000. 
Only his skills could deal any kind of damage to it. 
This outcome was inevitable. While Baldr’s stats were at their maximum the moment the battle began, Gloria was still growing stronger. As its HP dropped, its Resurgence skill increased its stats, meaning that its limit wasn’t in the past or present, but in the future. 
Thus, it was only a matter of time until Baldr’s attacks would no longer work on it at all. 
Even Gloria’s speed, which was equal to the machine god’s at first, had now increased to the point that it was nearly twice as fast. Considering that, the actual outstanding thing here was Shu’s battle prowess, which let him fight it as an equal despite the widening gap. 
That, however, would not last. 
This latest exchange of blows had already exposed Baldr’s... the machine’s weakness. 
Machines couldn’t recover HP via magic or items. That was the common flaw of Dryfe’s Magingears, and it applied to this weapon-like Embryo as well. Thus, Shu had no means of fixing Baldr’s armor or preventing the deterioration of the engines mid-battle. 
Gloria’s HP didn’t return, either, of course, but its wounds had all been closed. Even its destroyed neck had completely regrown. 
“Hah. Man, this regeneration is broken,” said Shu. “Though, I guess it’s allowed because the HP itself doesn’t come back. It’s basically just for structural integrity.” 
The ultimate dragon was always at its best and only became better, while the machine god had nowhere to go but down. 
The gap would only grow wider as the battle went on. 
Despite that, Shu’s eyes held not a hint of despair as he took up a stance within Baldr’s head. 
“...Grrh,” Gloria growled, glaring at Baldr with eyes that said, “You’ve still got an ace up your sleeve, don’t you?” 
In a canyon that hardly deserved the name anymore, the machine god and the greatest of dragons faced one another. They both understood that their next exchange of blows would decide the course of this battle. 
“Baldr, how many shells we got in the cannons?” 
“Three in the right, zero in the left.” 
“Connect the left one to the ammo storage.” 
“Roger.” As he gave the order to Baldr, Shu took up his stance. 
It was strange — he was pulling both his arms back in such a way that both his elbows ended up at his sides. 
With both him and Baldr in that position, he wouldn’t be able to reliably block any enemy attacks, nor put enough torque into his own. It was a highly unreasonable stance for a martial artist to take. 
However, Gloria knew nothing of martial arts, so it was only able to sense that it was a sign of something terrifying. 
It knew that its enemy’s most powerful attack yet would be launched from that stance. 
At the same time, it could see exactly how the attack would go. Even if it was in the path of that assault, it could easily avoid it. 
Shu himself was aware of that, as well. 
And for that exact reason... 
“Stardust Genocider... Fire!” 
“Roger.” The armor on the machine god’s shoulders slid open and launched countless missiles. 
Gloria was so close that even Baldr was affected by them. However, these weren’t damaging missiles, but the F Warheads employed earlier — the blinding flash bombs. 
A moment later, their surroundings were drowned in light, and Gloria couldn’t see anything — including the machine god that was ready to launch his final attack. 
It was clear that he was intending to finish Gloria off while it was blinded. 
“Ghrrhh...” the dragon growled in disappointment, as if saying, “How foolish.” 
After all, Gloria had already closed its eyes and dashed behind the machine god. 
The dragon had expected this from the moment the missiles were launched. Thus, Shu’s final attack would miss, and Gloria would finish him off. 
Certain of that outcome, it swung its front claws at the machine. 
“...GHHR!?” But then, although unable to see, Gloria nonetheless sensed that the machine god had turned around and was now facing it. 
Shu had expected that the dragon would move behind him if it was blinded. 
“Final Blow...” He undid the seal on this skill. 
The King of Destruction had no equal when it came to sheer destructive force, and this was the ultimate attack that could only be used by a few of those who’d acquired the job. 
It was a supreme power that could only be achieved by KoDs that had 70,000 or more STR. 
Bear witness to the strike that shatters realms. 

“World Breaker.” 
He punched with both arms simultaneously, aiming straight for Gloria’s abdomen, and when the pure carnage of both punches met, a calamity was born. 
The machine god’s fists broke space itself. 
The Right of Destruction skill, which allowed him to destroy indestructible targets with endurance lower than his attack power, wasn’t limited to solid targets with resistances and damage negation — it also worked on liquids, gasses, and even barrier abilities. 
Combined with World Breaker, it allowed the King of Destruction to destroy even the very space supporting this world. 
However, it didn’t stop there. To fill the void created when the very universe was broken along with Gloria’s body, the surrounding space began to contort. 
The distortions caused by the world trying to patch up the hole in itself tore any object to shreds, regardless of how tough they were. 
Gloria — the living being with the greatest END of all — was no exception. 
Even the machine god that had initiated this distortion was being broken apart by it. 
It was a “final” blow, after all — it was only natural that it would destroy the user, as well. 
The other Kings of Destruction who had used it in the past had all died from it, after all. 
Space bent as it healed itself, tearing up the strongest dragon and the machine god alike. 
And by the time space had completely restored itself, only one of the two was left standing... 
“Ghr, oargh...” 
...And it was Gloria. 
There was a large hole in its torso, cracks all over its body, and its HP had fallen below a measly 100,000. 
Even so, it was alive, while the machine god was gone. 
The machine god had seemingly shattered and vanished without a trace in the wake of its spatial destruction. But even though it came at the cost of its own annihilation, the machine god’s final attack wasn’t enough to defeat Gloria. 
“...” Even if it was able to speak, Gloria wouldn’t know what to say. It had realized that a single mistake, or just one more attack, would now be enough to banish it from the earth. 
This was a pyrrhic victory, and the end of a battle it would never be able to forget. 
Even this memory would eventually vanish once it died. Gloria’s backup would not possess the memories of the battles this Gloria had experienced today. 
The dragon also realized that it wouldn’t last long as it was. 
It had taken too much damage. Even a large group using fixed damage attacks would be able to overwhelm it now. 
“Ghroaahh...” But... there was still something it had to do. 
It had to obey the two missions carved into its very being and destroy the royal capital. 
Now that it was so close to death, Gloria’s stats had grown so much that it was foolish to even measure them. 
In less than a minute, it could reach the capital and level it to the ground with a single blow. 
Once that was done, it would be free. 
The first thing it would do then was go to The Skycrown and destroy The Skydragon King. 
Letting its wounds close, Gloria imagined that future, when suddenly... 
“Bit too early to start fantasizing about retirement, ya overgrown lizard.” 
...It heard a voice that shook it to the core. 
It could recognize that voice anywhere by now. This was the same voice it had heard from the machine god — the voice of King of Destruction, Shu Starling. 
However, the machine god was nowhere in sight, so where could it be coming fr—? 
“...!” Gloria suddenly made a profound realization. It began to come to a realization that it would have rather not ever contemplated. 
The enemy was... 
“No matter how damn fast you are... There’s no way in hell I can miss you from here.” 
...Inside the wound that had just closed. 
Gloria didn’t know when, exactly, he had been able to get there. 
It couldn’t know that it had been right after he’d used World Breaker. 
It couldn’t know that right after using it, he’d left the cockpit, used the ammo storage to enter an empty cannon barrel — or rather, finger — on the left arm, and gotten inside the dragon using that. 
And it couldn’t possibly know that he’d acted as he did because he’d anticipated that everything would play out exactly like this before he had even activated World Breaker. 
“Cough...” Of course, Shu wasn’t exactly unscathed. Passing through the shattering space left him covered in heavy wounds. 
Despite that, he had arrived at his destination — the inside of the dragon. And though the machine god had vanished, his Embryo hadn’t — it had become a cannon fixed on his left arm. 
That was the first form of the War God Ship, Baldr, and the only weapon that could defeat Gloria as it was now. 
Baldr was an Embryo that had “power” and “weapons” as its core characteristics, and the power of its first form was simply called “Strength Cannon.” 
It was a deadly, once-a-day ability that released a destructive ball of light which dealt multiples of Shu’s STR’s worth in damage. 
Specifically, it multiplied his STR by 5... back when it had first hatched, anyway. 
Now that it was a Superior Embryo, it actually did 35 times Shu’s STR’s worth of damage, and his STR was currently over 100,000. 
An attack that dealt an obscene 3,500,000 damage was too much even for Gloria’s current END. 
There was a reason why Shu hadn’t used a skill this powerful right away — it was simply far too slow. 
So slow, in fact, that even someone moving at subsonic speeds could easily avoid it. It could never hit a being that had surpassed the speed of sound several times over. 
However, the current circumstances made that impossible, for nothing could evade an attack from within. 
Baldr was covered in cracks — the effects of the damage it had sustained as the machine god — but it was still able to launch this one final attack. 
It would end this once and for all. 
“GyYyYYGhHhhhHAAaAAAaaARrgghHHhh!” Feeling the waves of power gathering within its body, Gloria swung its claw towards itself to crush Shu... only to stop midway. 
The reason why should be obvious. 
Gloria’s HP was so low it was truly on the verge of death, so attacking Shu within itself would be fatal. 
Shu had anticipated what would happen if World Breaker wasn’t enough to defeat Gloria. He knew how high its stats would climb and just how much the gap between his offense and Gloria’s defense would widen. 
Gloria could recover from any injury, but that only applied to its physical form. Its lifeforce — its HP — stayed low, and it was still technically on the verge of death. Gloria was now so fragile that its own power, having grown as it had, could easily kill it. And if it wanted to kill Shu, Gloria had to attack with enough force to break through its own defense. It had to somehow shatter its own defense and kill Shu without accidentally killing itself, and Shu knew that it had grown far too powerful in far too short a time to have the precision necessary. 
Basically... Gloria had become too strong, too quickly. That was why Shu chose to end their battle like this — by either his Strength Cannon, or Gloria’s own hand. 
Regardless of which it would be, Gloria was done for. 
If you were to identify the one factor that had most influenced this outcome, it would have to have been Gloria’s awareness of this turn of events — or lack of it. 
The dragon had only realized its predicament moments before ending itself. 
Knowing that its fate was sealed, it wanted to at least take Shu with it, but its brief pause had already made that impossible. 
“Let’s... end this.” A split-second before the claw crushed Shu, he fired the ball of light. 

The deadly orb hit its target the moment it was fired, and instantly wiped out Gloria’s remaining HP. 
The three-horned head, the upper body it was connected to... its entire structure vanished as if it was never there. 
The claw that was about to crush Shu was gone, as well. 
A moment after the dragon vanished, the particles of light left behind almost seemed to be a giant pillar reaching towards the sky. 
Thus concluded the sequence of battles against a living calamity... and the demise of the SUBM known as “Tri-Zenith Dragon, Gloria.”