Infinite Dendrogram - Volume 22 - Chapter 11

Chapter 11: Bringing the Climax

About G

Overlord Invidia, G. Real name: Ginga Fujiwara.

She was born in a rather ordinary Japanese household, but one could easily say she led a charmed life, as she had many friends and got along well with her entire family, including her older brother.

However, starting when she was very young, this same brother had given her a bit of an inferiority complex.

He wasn’t exceptionally smart, nor was he terribly athletic. If anything, Ginga was the more capable one.

However, there was one thing that set them apart: Her brother had been recognized as a novelist at a very young age. He’d made his debut in his teens—when Ginga was still in elementary school—and his talents as a writer were immediately made clear.

Her brother might as well have inhabited an entirely different world, shining almost like a star, and looking up at him always made her feel jealous and miserable.

On an exam, a perfect score was the best you could do. Gym class wasn’t exactly a place for breaking records and standing out, no matter how much effort you put in. Ginga was envious of her brother for having a talent that allowed him to go beyond what most people his age could achieve and shine so much brighter than she did.

He was a wonderful sibling, and she certainly didn’t hate him—quite the opposite, really.

But that didn’t stop her from feeling jealous all the same.

She wanted to shine brighter than he did—no, brighter than anyone in the world.

That was how she ended up on the path of a content creator fairly early in life.

She’d tried being a writer just like her brother, but she couldn’t reach his level, and she didn’t think she was beautiful enough to make it as an idol or a movie star.

However, Ginga did have a talent for photography and film. She was a natural at bringing out her subjects’ charms in her photos and videos, and she found she could easily hone this skill further.

Perhaps if she just focused on the path of cameraman or director, Ginga thought, she might be recognized artistically at a young age, just like her brother had.

But that wasn’t what she really wanted either.

Though she did have a knack for making others shine, she wanted to be the brightest star in the sky herself. The problem with that was that there simply wasn’t anything exceptional about her.

But that didn’t stop her from trying—struggling, even.

A few people called her voice cute, so she tried to harness that. Eventually, Ginga looked into all the related technology she could find and eventually became a devil girl VTuber—G. She streamed gaming content, did karaoke, and made videos using her photography and editing skills.

While that did earn her some recognition, she never reached the level that she wanted.

No matter how she tried to shine like her brother did, he only grew brighter by the day.

She just couldn’t reach him. As more time passed, the gap between them widened, and her jealousy deepened even further.

One day, for a change of pace, Ginga went on a trip to the sea and took a photo of it in the evening. The setting sun and its faint reflection upon the water made for a fantastic shot.

But the sight of it made a thought spring to her mind.

“...This sea is me.”

No matter how beautifully it shone, it was just a reflection—the sea had no light of its own. Even the light it reflected never reached the bottom—all that was there was stagnation.

No matter what the sea did, it would never reach the stars above.

With that thought, she was about to give up on ever matching her brother...

“Infinite Dendrogram will provide you with a new world and your one and only possibility!”

...and that was when she heard an advertisement for a certain game.

This new world—this new stage—would prove to be a turning point for her.

Ginga’s Infinite Dendrogram avatar was more than just a virtual form. It allowed her to live in this world as herself, but with an appearance completely unlike her own.

This was the chance to shine she’d always longed for.

G learned to use the magical filming equipment within Dendro to plan out and execute productions that she starred in.

R’lyeh—her studio—assisted her by painting the world as she wanted it to be.

As her Infinite Dendrogram videos gained a lot of popularity, she eventually joined a clan and started participating in various in-game activities with them.

She garnered more and more popularity, and eventually, the site she was active on sent her something—the silver award given to those who reached one hundred thousand subscribers.

The moment she saw its shine, Ginga—the girl who had always wanted to shine brighter than anyone else—felt as if everything had finally paid off. The next time she logged in, her R’lyeh had become a Superior Embryo.

It was as though that feeling had been the trigger for it.

That was how she became a Superior.

However, both the silver award and the Embryo evolution were nothing but milestones to her. She’d once considered giving up on her dream, but now she wouldn’t even consider it.

Becoming a Superior had given her new powers, and at some point she was made leader of her clan. She intended to use everything she could get her hands on to make videos that would make her shine.

For that purpose, she did a lot of things she had never done before and recorded it all.

She’d braved the Depths of Jealousy to become Overlord Invidia and claimed the throne.

She’d orchestrated plans to fight the corrupt order of Legendaria and rebelled against it.

She’d formed an alliance with other anti-Legendaria Superiors and collabed with them.

She’d challenged Legendaria’s idol and head of state and battled her with song.

And now, she had picked a fight with the world’s most famous newbie and tried to avenge her brother.

A girl who would do anything to promote herself—to make herself shine.

That was Ginga Fujiwara—Overlord Invidia, G.

◇◆◇

Encroaching Sea-Altar, R’lyeh, Depths of Jealousy

“Ah ha ha ha ha! Let’s go! Let’s do this! Here I come!” Brandishing her trident and filled with fighting spirit, Overlord Invidia charged at Juliet.

The girl’s eyes widened. Juliet had a wealth of combat experience, but the largest opponents she’d faced thus far were the Armordragon King she’d battled during the Exodragon King incident and Rosa after using her ult to create an exoskeleton.

However, G was now larger than either of them—and had stats that surpassed them both. Her trident thrusts were more like the charge of a battering ram. They left her completely open to attacks, but the overwhelming strength of her massive form shattered the stonework whenever she moved. She was like a natural disaster in human form.

But she also had a technique that no natural calamity could possibly possess.

This was demonstrated by the thread of light extending from the tip of the trident and connecting to Juliet’s body.

Ah...! The pull’s even stronger than before! Juliet thought. Harodihg Gnik’s force apparently scaled with the wielder’s STR. Held by G in her second form, it could attract its prey with over ten times more power than before.

The fearsome pull left Juliet so unbalanced that she couldn’t even cast her dark magic to block G’s sight.

That thread of light was now a nigh unavoidable death sentence.

“Purgatorial Flames!”

Ray, however, would not let that sentence be carried out. Extending his left hand, he made his Miasmaflame Bracer spew its fire.

With G’s vision blocked, the thread of light was severed, allowing Juliet to escape the charge.

But a moment later, the trident was swept sideways, tearing through the fire as it flew in Ray’s direction.

His eyes widened. G’s thread of light had only been a feint, intended to bait Ray into trying to block her line of sight.

Not minding the flames whatsoever, she broke through and closed the distance between them.

“Ah ha ha ha ha! What’re you gonna do now?!” As her reversed and enhanced Poison debuff regenerated her bunt flesh, G swung her trident at Ray.

He didn’t have the time to meet her weapon with his—and her mighty sweep would’ve simply shattered the halberd in any case.

“Counter Absorption!”

Instead, Nemesis quickly transformed into her greatsword form and blocked the attack using her barrier of light. Though the barrier creaked at the impact, the Overlord’s trident didn’t break it.

“There’s more where that came from!”

But the moment both of them stopped moving, G reactivated the Attraction Anchor, connecting it to Ray this time.

Ray was abruptly dragged out from behind the barrier of light and flew straight toward the tip of the trident...

“I won’t let you...!”

But this time, Juliet attacked G with her magic, severing the filament of light.

Ray used the opening to switch back to Nemesis’s Flag Halberd and backed away from the Overlord.

“Ah ha ha! Almost nobody lasts this long after I transform! You two are pretty good!” G laughed and praised them, but neither Ray nor Juliet were in a state to appreciate it.

One wrong move and a single hit would break them. G’s massive stat increase had also made Harodihg Gnik far more fearsome than before.

If Ray and Juliet didn’t coordinate to block G’s vision continuously, defeat was inevitable.

“Your party’s gotta be in perfect sync or you wipe,” Ray said. “What is this, an MMO raid?”

“Huh? It kinda is, isn’t it?” G asked.

“...Yeah, you’ve got a point.” Dendro was definitely an online RPG, and G was very much like a boss monster, so Ray couldn’t help but agree. “I can see why she’s called the most Overlord-ish of them all.”

“She really does look the part of a horrifying monster,” said Nemesis as she looked up at G, now standing three metels tall—not quite sizable enough to be truly monstrous, but enormous for a person.

As though she’d heard that, G froze as if shocked and laid a hand on her chest.

“I mean, it depends on how bad my debuffs are, but this is generally how I end up. Whenever I transform, my clan and all the comments on my videos often tell me to change back. Personally, I think both my forms are fine...”

“I-I do think it looks cool and sexy, though...” For some reason, G was starting to look a bit sad, so Juliet couldn’t help but share her honest thoughts in the hope it would make her feel better.

Ray, however...

“I mean, if they like the cute design of your first form, of course they’d want you to turn back. You really don’t pass as a ‘charming devil’ right now. You’re more like some kinda hulking demon or something.”

...wasn’t as kind.

“Thanks, Julie! Unbreakable, though... You’re dead meat!”

“As if you weren’t trying to kill me anyway! Bring it on!” G was in the middle of trying to PK Ray and taking his arena. His rebuttal was entirely reasonable.

But unfortunately... he thought. Fighting her head-on might be a bit hard now.

They had about ten minutes left until the arena was taken.

G had grown a lot stronger, and she quickly regenerated most damage done to her. If there was any way for Ray to defeat her, it was by using Counter Absorption to stock up damage for a fatal use of Vengeance, or...

Wait. If all I want is to prevent her from taking our arena, I should forget about G herself and go for...

“Oh? Are you looking for the trapezohedron?” G asked, noticing that Ray was looking around.

Ray’s eyes widened. Indeed, that was exactly what he’d been thinking—if they just needed to stop her ult, they could ignore G and for that instead.

“If that’s what you’re planning, then I’ll do...”

Reading his intentions, G took the trapezohedron from her chest...

“This.”

...and swallowed it whole.

“Huh?!”

“Wha—?!”

“Aaand nooowww... You have no choice but to fight me! There’s no escape!” As Ray and Juliet were struck dumb with shock, G flashed a mischievous—but belligerent—smile. “Now! Let’s go! Let’s do this! It’s bombing time! Ah ha ha ha ha!” With a loud laugh, G resumed the battle, firing countless black light projectiles.

It was the same low-rank spell she’d used before, far from the strength of a job ult, but...

“Ah!”

“There’s so damn many...!”

When released by G’s second form, there were too many projectiles to count—easily hundreds of them. Ray’s and Juliet’s eyes widened as the projectiles flew toward them. Dark magic could only be blocked by dark or its opposite—holy.

Juliet began to throw out every dark spell she had while slicing at the bolts with her Gradsoul empowered by Darkness of Valediction, while Ray fought the barrage with his halberd imbued with Purifying Silverlight.

“I can keep this up all day! How long will you last? What will you do next? I’m dying to see it!”

However, just neutralizing the attack didn’t do anything to stop it. There was simply no end to G’s hail of darkness, even without any chanting and with the ever-increasing MP cost she must have been incurring to bypass the skill declaration.

Normally, such careless magic would quickly use up the caster’s MP, but she was an exception. As Overlord, she had high MP to start with, and not only had it been enhanced further by her transformation, but her MP was constantly regenerating thanks to the reversed Magic Drain.

Her spending and regeneration were perfectly balanced, enabling a perpetual barrage. They might’ve been low in power, but the volume of these projectiles made them into something fearsome indeed.

This is bad...! A cold sweat started to bead on the back of Juliet’s neck. However barely, she was still holding on.

But if this went on for much longer, she would run out of MP long before her opponent, and the rain of projectiles would grow even more intense. Neither Ray nor Juliet would be able to withstand that—they would quickly be overwhelmed.

And this wasn’t even the only thing G could do.

“Is it too much?! You can handle this, right?! I’m sure you can!” Still firing the dark magic barrage with her left hand, she used her right to ready Harodihg Gnik.

Judging by the way she charged forward, the buff from Paradigm Shift had only made her more excited.

Their hands full with the dark magic, Ray and Juliet were unable to dodge, and Nemesis’s Counter Absorption would surely be wasted on the projectiles.

The Overlord cackled as she approached, looming over Ray and Juliet like a towering bear. She swung her trident at them.

As death drew closer, Ray prepared to make his final gamble...

“Maddened Blade, Sip Their Blood—Ipetam.”

...but then, a hundred blades sliced through the air, aimed straight at the Overlord.

“Oh? Oh my.” The blades failed to even pierce G’s skin, but she still stopped and looked at where they’d come from—the mouth of the passageway leading into the throne room.

“Kept ya waitin’, didn’t we?”

“So she’s not just stupid huge, but stupid tough now too! And I thought the octopus was bad!”

The two figures who appeared were people Juliet knew very well.

“Chelsea! Max!” The moment the barrage stopped, Juliet and Ray backed away from G.

The Overlord didn’t mind and looked over the four with a smile.

“You took care of the mermen?!” Ray asked.

“Yeah!” said Chelsea. “They just stopped comin’!”

G had been manually sending out the APMs using R’lyeh’s powers. However, when she started fighting Ray and Juliet, she wasn’t able to keep the process up, and as a result the flow of mermen stopped. This allowed Chelsea and Max to finish any that were left and come to help Ray and Juliet.

“Eh heh heh. This is good. This is great, even! Things are heating up!”

The enemy received reinforcements, but the Overlord wasn’t flustered in the slightest. The shallow wounds opened by the hundred blades had already healed, leaving only small drops of blood that she licked away with a smile.

“Everyone’s here! The party that will fight the Overlord is complete!” Despite the fact that there were more enemies now, a change in circumstances that was entirely a disadvantage to her, G laughed as if she were truly happy. “Now! You have five minutes left! Gather your courage and fight me!”

At the peak of excitement, she shouted out loud.

“This is the climax!”

The preface was over—this was the real start of the battle.

G welcomed her enemies—her costars on the stage—with nothing but pure glee and anticipation.

This was her territory, and the pressure of the power she wielded as Overlord made her a match for any Superior. Her voice alone was enough to shake the air and send chills down the spines of those before her.

“...Yeah.” However, Ray remained unshaken, prepared to face her directly. “The arena, getting back at me, and turning all of that into content... You really just do whatever you want, huh?”

He held up a finger for each of G’s goals...

“But you’re right—this is the climax. The curtain’s ready to fall on your stage.”

...but in the end, he curled his hand into a tight fist.

“We’re winning this game. I hope you’re ready, Invidia.”

“You’re the best, Unbreakable!” G heard his declaration loud and clear. He was meeting and exceeding her expectations.

Thus, the final battle began, and G made the first move.

“Leeet’s gooo! Harodihg Gnik... FULL DRIVE!” Three threads of light extended from the tips of the trident, capturing Ray, Juliet, and Max.

Their eyes widened. This was the weapon’s secret trick—Attraction Anchor could be used on several targets at once. G had kept this hidden while fighting just Ray and Juliet, but she’d decided that now was the time for the big reveal. She knew how strong those two were, and she knew that Max had cut down her Cthulhu in a single slash, so she chose to pull and bind them by force—an effective move.

However, this could only bind three people at most...

“Ohhh? You’re leavin’ me free? Really underestimatin’ me, aren’t ya?”

And she had four foes.

G’s eyes widened. She’d seen Chelsea’s sparring and knew her strategy. Because of that, she didn’t think that the pirate would be much of a threat where there was little water and she couldn’t summon her ship.

It was important to remember, though: Chelsea hadn’t needed those things to become eighth in the duel rankings of Altar—the holy land of duelists. Water or not, there were plenty of things she could do.

“Golden Bull Tsunami—Poseidon.” A crushing waterfall of liquid gold flooded over G’s head.

“This is pretty! A bit light, though, don’t you think?” Despite sustaining a direct hit from an ult, though, G barely even missed a beat. Her immense STR and END made her far too powerful for this volume of gold to crush her. Its nature as a pure physical attack rendered it incapable of doing much damage here.

However, damage wasn’t what Chelsea was aiming for.

“Next up... World Reversal Waterfall!”

“Oh?”

Chelsea topped off her ult by surrounding it with an upward waterfall veil. G’s threads of light were undone, making it difficult for her to lock on again... But that wasn’t all Chelsea had done.

The attack had reduced G’s vision in every direction, giving Chelsea’s companions a chance to land their most devastating attacks.

“Eh heh heh. It’s...a bit too basic, I think!”

However, G remained unshaken. She held the trident by the butt end and spun it for one massive swing.

In one gigantic sweep of her oversized trident, the veil of water around G vanished. Anyone caught in the trident’s arc would surely have been obliterated.

However, it was only water that sprayed in every direction. There was no blood to be seen.

“Your feet are wide open, ya big baddy!”

A voice rang out from the lower half of the scattered veil.

Accelerated by Ipetam’s blades, Max approached G from a low trajectory, allowing her to avoid the trident’s sweep and get close.

Then, she used Bladecloud Convergence to empower Sekiun and slash at the Overlord.

The Famed Blade sunk into G’s lower leg...

“Not bad!”

...but it was stopped yet again by her muscles and tough skin—STR and END.

Max quickly let go of her weapon, but she was blown away by a trident strike. Sent flying to the wall, she suffered an impact powerful enough to shatter her Brooch.

However, Sekiun was still stuck in G’s left leg, hindering the Overlord’s movements.

Now, if Maxie went for the legs...

The real attack would surely come from the other two.

“Here...!” The first of the two to take to action was Juliet. Brandishing her sword, she flew in for close combat.

“That’s! A bad idea! Doncha think?!” G faced Juliet head-on, swinging her trident to meet Juliet’s blade, and the two weapons clashed.

As a result, the sword began to creak.

Juliet’s eyes widened. “This is obvious! It’s just what you’d expect! My buffs are way superior to yours!” Forged by G’s clan, Harodihg Gnik was designed to be tough enough that she could wield it after using Paradigm Shift. That was also the reason for its massive size.

And Paradigm Shift’s buffs were far greater than that of Gradsoul’s Curse Conversion.

Despite her lower stats, Juliet continued to struggle, avoiding the fatal trident strike, but this accumulated damage upon her weapon, and finally...

“Oh my...”

With those words from G and a widening of Juliet’s eyes, the sword reached its limit and shattered.

Though a bit disappointed that it had ended this way, G knew what she had to do. She launched a finishing blow straight toward Juliet.

The battle between Overlord Invidia and the Fallen Knight was about to meet its expected end—with the latter speared upon the former’s trident.

“I remain unbroken.”

But that would not come to pass.

A moment later, with a roaring, metallic impact, the trident was knocked aside.

What had parried the fatal strike was...

“It’s fixed?”

...the same blade that had broken just moments ago.

It was now completely restored, seemingly without a single scratch. In fact, it now shone with a light more sinister and powerful than before.

This was Gradsoul’s second skill, “Unbreakable Blade.” When it was destroyed, the wielder could pay half of her HP to instantly restore it.

“I didn’t break it during the sparring match, did I?” said Juliet. G had watched Juliet spar, but this feature was still unknown to her.

No matter how many times it shattered, Juliet’s sword would remain unbroken and rise again. Reminiscent of a certain someone, it was Juliet’s new partner.

“That’s a great weapon! Also...” The unexpected restoration had caught G off guard and allowed Juliet to deliver a hit.

A deep wound had opened in the Overlord’s left side.

“Oh...! It’s stronger too!” G said.

Indeed. In exchange for making Juliet unable to heal the HP she’d used to restore Gradsoul, Unbreakable Blade increased Curse Conversion’s stat bonuses from 50% to 200% for ten minutes.

Juliet’s weapon had shattered and she’d lost an enormous amount of HP...but this had only made her more powerful.

High risk, high reward builds—there were many RPGs that rewarded this kind of dangerous play.

“I can do this!” Juliet now had three times the stats of a typical vanguard SJ. Though she still didn’t reach Overlord Invidia’s level, her combat experience allowed her to come close.

“Not bad, Julie! You surprise me, Julie! But...” Though shocked that Juliet could keep up with her despite the vast gap in stats, G was still confident that she would win.

The wound in her left side had already closed. The reversed Poison was now a healing-over-time buff. While Juliet had lost HP to pay for the skill and was gradually losing more as they fought, G was quickly regenerating all the damage done to her.

It was simply impossible for Juliet’s blade to outpace the healing and defeat G before her own life expired. Juliet’s HP was critically low—it had dipped down to just ten percent of her total.

“Looks like you’re still fated for defeat!” G said. It almost felt like there was a question implied by her words: “What will you do, then? Can you still shine on this stage?”

“Even if I am fated to fade...” Juliet replied as she deflected G’s attacks. “Even if the ending of my tale has already been penned...”

She had only one response.

“That is merely one wave upon the vast sea of possibility.”

She wouldn’t even think of giving up.

“And beyond that...is the possibility I truly seek.”

Juliet’s shining eyes never wavered, fully fixated on the horizon past what was possible.

“Thus, here and now, upon this battlefield...the flames of life burn ever bright!”

And with that cry, something on Juliet’s chest began to shine.

It was a necklace hanging from her neck—the MVP reward she’d acquired in the event alongside Ray, before she’d even obtained Gradsoul.

It was the Ancient Legendary “Light of Finality, Climax.”

Once belonging to the Sacred Blazer, Aslan Faldreed, it was an accessory that could only be used at less than 10% of your total HP.

It had only one skill, “Like a Flash: Climax.”

Usable only in the most dire of situations, the skill tripled the final number of all the user’s stats, and dropped the MP and SP cost of skills to zero.

It was perhaps the ultimate ability for a risky low HP build like Juliet’s.

And now...

“What...?!”

“I can reach you...!”

...the Fallen Knight was finally on the same level as the Overlord.

Now evenly matched, their battle accelerated. Though Juliet had barely enough HP to survive another hit, with their stats being equal, she could now use her battle prowess to its fullest.

This was the biggest difference between them. Juliet was a natural duelist, standing next to the likes of Figaro and Kashimiya.

Meanwhile, G’s talents didn’t lie in combat. Her fighting abilities were on the same level as that of most players—simply something given to her by high-rank sense skills.

So now that their stats were matched...

“HHAAAAAAAGHHH!”

...G’s system-limited strength was outmatched by Juliet’s system-surpassing skills.

Juliet’s HP stopped decreasing, while G’s HP began falling faster than it regenerated. The tables were turned. If this battle continued like this, Juliet now had a chance of winning.

“Ah ha ha ha! This is amazing! But is it enough to finish me off in time?!” G still thought that she could survive long enough for her ult to complete, winning her the battle.

But she also thought that would be boring.

Winning and losing was secondary—she wanted this to be even more exciting.

This stage was superb and the cast second to none. An anticlimactic finale was simply unacceptable.

“Not yet! It’s not over yet! More! MORE! You still have something, right?!” The Overlord continued to insist that they all could shine even brighter.

“Yeah. We do.”

It was the other knight who responded.

G looked up to see Ray, galloping through the air astride Silver.

“Juliet!” As he called out, Juliet backed away...

“Hellish Miasma!”

...and Ray closed the distance, taking Juliet’s place as he held up his right bracer and released a dark-purple poison mist.

That’s the... Well, it doesn’t matter. It can’t do anything to me now, G thought.

Indeed, this meant nothing to Overlord Invidia. The mist had three debuffs: Poison, Weakness, and Intoxication. She’d already taken on the first two herself, while Intoxication wasn’t worth worrying about.

Hellish Miasma wouldn’t do anything to her.

“Ah! Wait! This is a smoke screen...!”

But the fact that it was a colored mist made it capable of blocking her vision. That made it effective at preventing Harodihg Gnik’s Attraction Anchor.

But what will he even do if he gets close?! My stats are way higher than his! And I made sure not to give him ammo for his special counterattack thing!

G had only hit him once, when Nemesis had put up her Counter Absorption. Doubling that damage would barely scratch her.

Is he playing this like his other battles, then? Looking for an opening to take advantage of...? With that thought, G prepared for whatever trick Ray had in store for her.

However, there was no trickery here. None at all.

If anything, it was the opposite—he was fighting her face-to-face.

“I’m a bit late in saying this, but... Thanks for the buffs, Overlord.”

And with that, Ray broke through the dark-purple curtain, equipped with a gas mask—his Storm Visage.

In his left hand, there was the Flag Halberd...

“Thanks to you, I can use this at least once!”

And in his right, there was the nameless axe, wrapped in curse-cloth, fresh out of his Inventory.

It was Ray’s strongest weapon, and the world’s greatest double-edged sword. When he’d tested it in the arena, simply holding it up was enough to tear his arm to pieces.

He was doing the same now—but although the flesh on his arm cracked and bled, it wasn’t fully destroyed. Reversed by Nemesis’s skill, the seven debuffs of the Depths of Jealousy enabled his body to withstand the price of wielding it.

Continuously bleeding, but healing just enough to keep going, Ray held up the axe...

“EAT THIIIS!”

...and swung it down as hard as he could.

G’s eyes widened. Whether she actually felt the axe’s power or if her sense skills had simply forced her to act was unclear, but she held up her trident to defend herself—only for the axe to cleave straight through it and sink into her right side.

“Ah?!” The axe opened a wound on her right shoulder, slicing through her arm, the right half of her torso, her right leg, and even split the stonework beneath.

Ray gritted his teeth—the price he’d paid to destroy the Overlord’s weapon and flesh was the absolute pulverization of his right arm.

But his eyes were still burning.

He knew what he had to do next—and who to call upon.

“JULIEEET!” “Right!” The unbreakable knight’s call was answered by the knight with ebony wings.

At some point, she’d become surrounded by a vortex of countless black feathers. It was a sign that she was using her ultimate, but something was different this time.

Normally, Juliet’s ult would release these black feathers after they circled her arms. Instead, the feathers now surrounded her as she flew through the air.

“Corpse-Eating Bird—Hræsvelgr...”

It was as though she herself had become the black wind.

“PENETRATOR!”

Putting all her power into the tip of her blade, she became an umbral vortex.

Her target no longer had a weapon to turn Juliet’s sword aside. Faced with the vortex coming to pierce her, the unarmed Overlord...

“AH HA HA HA HA HA! YOU’RE ALL THE BEEEST!”

Even as she threw her left fist toward Juliet, she laughed and laughed.

The wounds—the injury-based debuffs—she’d received empowered Paradigm Shift further, making her fist even stronger than her trident.

This would no doubt be her last stand—the final exchange of the battle. Whoever’s attack landed would shatter the other.

And so, not even a moment later, blade met fist.

It was an immense impact that shook not only the surrounding air, but all the waters of R’lyeh.

A knight and an Overlord. A pre-Superior and a Superior. Two girls shining with a dazzling light.

Only the Black Crow kept on flying beyond the horizon.

The dark vortex shattered the Overlord’s fist and pierced through her torso.

And, after a brief silence, R’lyeh collapsed.