I don’t like this anymore. After all this power I’ve gained, I still can’t beat these guys…
With enough time, she would surely win. She understood that, but she still couldn’t contain her irritation.
What peeved her most of all was the magic-born Geld. He was no powerhouse compared with Piriod, but he was vexingly tenacious. He should have been near death long ago, after all the killer attacks and direct hits he had taken the full brunt of, but he just kept getting back up over and over again. His eyes, too—so irksome. He must have known the difference in strength between them, but he just kept glaring at Piriod, like he was never going to give up. Almost like he was assured of victory, somehow.
You all really need to stop messing with me, you know. If anyone should be glaring like that, it’s me!
Obela she could understand. They had sent out scout insectors to investigate the cryptids, so they had naturally received reports about the opposing force Obela led. After witnessing her strength in this battle, Piriod knew Obela was a dangerous figure. She had fired off two major strikes to try and exhaust Obela—Piriod definitely had no intention of belittling her. But she hadn’t counted on the presence of a pest like Geld.
He’s only as good as Mujika before Reconstruct Life worked its magic on him, but his sheer durability is incredible. How long is he willing to hold out against me? This is why specialized types like him are such a pain…
Piriod tried to quiet her irritation and keep her composure. Then, as if to vent her anger, she waved a feeler to launch a Cross-Dimension Slash. Most of them, however, were canceled out by Geld’s Chaos Eater; the slashes that remained were also neatly avoided, serving to anger Piriod even more.
This wasn’t a lack of strength on her part; it was just the result of Geld and everyone else risking their lives and putting in the best effort they could. Gobta had conquered his fear, dedicating himself to distracting Piriod. Ranga was joining the effort, fully trusting in his partner. Middray was enjoying the fight, but he also knew death would end the fun quickly. Overcoming his own fears, he was striving purely to finish off this foe. And Carillon and Frey, fully displaying their awakened strength, were raining attacks on her from land and air.
All that training in Ramiris’s labyrinth was really paying off. Without that experience, they would have mismanaged their strengths and been forced to retreat long ago.
Obela, meanwhile, was demonstrating an accurate read of the war situation as she gave her commands. Geld’s continued safety was thanks in large part to her spreading tank duties around the party.
Speaking of Geld, he was about to pass out. Just as Piriod thought, it was a miracle he was still alive. Pure willpower kept him upright. His full-body armor was cracked to pieces, rendered really nothing but a pile of wreckage. His body had long passed its limit, becoming so battered not even Ultraspeed Regeneration could keep up with the damage.
He was only able to fight because of a certain secret behind his powers. Beelzebub, the ultimate gift given to him, included skills like Stand-in, which let him take damage for other people, and Grant Protection, which boosted his allies’ defense. However, combining these two powers granted a completely different effect—basically, he could flip Stand-in around and let other people take the damage he received. This allowed him to constantly adjust and fine-tune the damage to his body, spreading it around to the members of his forces.
Even that, however, had its limits. His troops said they could take on more, but Geld knew they were lying to him. Everyone was at the end of their rope, just like he was. But Geld still held his ground, eyes forward, never looking away from Piriod. Rimuru once told him the first person who looks away in a fight loses—merely a casual remark he made over drinks at some party—but Geld took that to be literal gospel. Whether or not it was actually true, he was willing to use his own strength to turn it into the truth. That was the kind of person Geld was.
But even for him, the end had to come. After another barrage, he finally fell to his knees.
“Mngh… I can’t stand up,” he groaned.
“Hee-hee-hee-hee! Finally down, are you? Well, I commend your effort. I’ll make sure to kill you last.”
Piriod laughed in his face. Her offer to kill Geld last wasn’t out of pity—she just wanted to take her time tormenting him later. It was just an experiment, in her mind, to see how many more of her attacks he could withstand. Besides, focusing purely on Geld would be ill-advised. None of her other foes were nearly as durable, and if they weren’t, it was better to pick them all off before they became worse threats.
Now that her main obstacle was gone, her victory was assured. If any uncertainty remained, it revolved around Piriod’s master Zeranus. He had entered into battle with the demon lord Milim, and there was no way yet to know how that would turn out. That battle was part of the plan, but Milim’s total power was unknown. Piriod didn’t doubt for a moment Zeranus would win, but they couldn’t afford any unpleasant surprises. She wanted to go over and help him as soon as possible, just to be sure.
But now that this stubborn fool is down for the count, the rest of these wimps should be much easier.
Convinced of her victory, Piriod prepared to launch a finisher move against Obela and the rest—but then she stopped. A cold chill had just run down her spine. Someone—or something—had entered the space controlled by her.
How…?! Only a small handful of people could ever come in here…
Even among all the great powers she had been told about before, entering this controlled space from the outside was supposed to be nigh-impossible. Even if they broke the space open like Milim did, she should have noticed someone meddling with the barrier long before they breached it. But here was this person just waltzing in, like that barrier was thin air. There was no way anyone could do something like that. If there was, it couldn’t be any ordinary type of life-form.
Piriod nimbly determined the intruder’s position and turned her eyes in their direction. Then she saw a golden glow—the gleam from the barrel of a gun, the muzzle of which was pointed straight at her. Holding it was Jaune, the Original Yellow, someone Piriod had dismissed as permanently sidelined. Another figure—the intruder Piriod detected—was standing close to Jaune, almost supporting her, his eyes fixed sharply on Piriod’s head.
They were clearly trying to do something so threatening, it even made Piriod shudder.
“Stop—!!”
Before she could say any more, the bullet shattered her head, unerringly reaping the life from her very existence. And so, without even a moment to leave a few regretful words, she was gone.
Zeranus sensed Piriod’s disappearance. Her presence was gone—in other words, she was dead. It was an alarming situation.
“Time to move on,” he muttered, finally committing to his retreat.
“Hmm?” a dubious Milim asked.
“I said that any further fighting is pointless.”
Piriod’s passing was an unexpected development for Zeranus. It threw a wrench into the entire plan of operation, and he could no longer worry about winning the battle presented to him. If he kept fighting Milim, the result remained a coin flip. He only kept tangling with her because Piriod was supposed to kill off the horde of enemy leaders, seize their powers, and then support him. If she collected the power of all the warriors together and invoked Reconstruct Life on herself, the results wouldn’t outclass Zeranus, but she’d almost certainly be reborn as an intensely powered-up version of herself.
All that was off the table. He was devoting himself to a fight he wasn’t sure he could win. And Zeranus wasn’t so assured of himself that he was willing to introduce such an element of uncertainty into his plans.
And he had an even bigger worry to contend with, too. This space was covered by a combined barrier meant to reduce the damage to this planet. But thanks to the death of Piriod—one of the figures supporting that barrier—it was palpably weaker than before. Milim had been hiding her full force, and Zeranus, too, still wasn’t fighting all out. But then he decided continuing the battle any longer could lead to unforeseen problems.
“You’re running?” Milim remarked.
“Ha.”
Zeranus snickered at Milim’s provocation. Milim was no fool; she knew she wouldn’t be able to exercise her full force if the barrier disappeared. That was why she wanted to wrap this up quickly—and since that failed, she didn’t have much reason to keep Zeranus anyway.
Milim truly was hiding her power. She hadn’t used a certain skill imbued within her yet, but if she did, she didn’t see defeating Zeranus as that difficult. But the fallout from that would be a headache. Once Milim’s skill was invoked, it was difficult to stop. It’d put her past her limits, causing her to lose all reason and go into an out-of-control rampage. Frey once described it to Clayman as a Stampede, and she wasn’t lying—it really would happen that way. Milim had described it to Frey casually, like she was talking about a passing case of the sniffles, but there was no denying the truth behind it.
Everyone’s exhausted right now. Some of them’ll be in real danger if their treatment’s delayed any longer. Instead of forcing myself to beat this guy, it’d be smarter to step back and regroup.
That was the conclusion Milim came to. She opted to let Zeranus off the hook.
Carrera saw Piriod was gone. It made her smile.
“Hee-hee-hee! Look. We won.”
She turned around to speak to Kondo. He wasn’t there. He had never been formally summoned by Masayuki’s skill—instead, he forcibly manifested himself, using the Golden Gun he gave Carrera as a medium. One could feasibly describe him as a mirage, an illusion, created by the fervent hopes inside Carrera’s mind.
“Heh,” she said. “Oh, I know. I’m so clearly worthless in your eyes, so you got worried for me and rushed on over, right?”
She kept smiling as she spoke to the empty space. It was sad, but Carrera could endure it. Now she was determined to become even stronger, so she wouldn’t have to go through this charade next time.
Gobta let out a victorious war cry, Ranga howled in triumph to accompany him. They actually resembled each other a lot in a charming way. Geld, completely out of energy, collapsed, with Obela helping him up and congratulating him on his effort. Carillon and Frey nodded at each other, lending a hand to Obela as they shared a laugh with Geld.
Gabil and his team hurried to the scene, placing Geld on a stretcher and sprinkling copious amounts of potion on him. They were making quite a scene, but he didn’t seem to be in critical danger, at least.
As Geld and the others were being carried back to Tempest, Middray muttered to himself, the emotion clear in his voice, “We won.”
“We sure did, Middray,” Carrera agreed. “Well done.”
“Heh. It feels a tad awkward, being praised by a Primal who’s lived longer than me.”
“Well, is that bad? If I see talent in someone, I want to pay them my respects.”
“I’m honored.”
The conversation stopped there. Middray and Carrera basked in the afterglow for a while.
Given all the wounded, it was difficult to call it a complete victory, but no one on their side was dead. That alone was enough for Carrera. As far as this battle was concerned, she had given strict orders to the demons under her command to retrieve the souls of anyone who died. The lack of casualties this time allowed her to cope with the damage, but if they had been hit by something like Obela’s powerful wide-area attack, the number of wounded and dead would’ve been too great to reverse. The fact they were all able to celebrate their safety like this was a great victory.
“I’m going to get stronger,” Carrera vowed.
“Hmm. The demons I heard about were these heartless monsters who couldn’t understand the human heart…but actually talking to one like this, it’s surprising how much we resonate with each other.”
“You bring that up now?”
Carrera laughed at Middray’s frank analysis. Middray smiled back at her.
“If you’re aiming for more strength, I certainly can’t let you outdo me. If getting just a little serious in battle is enough to rattle me like this, I still have a while to go with my kung fu.”
“Ha-ha-ha! You’re already pretty much a master, aren’t you? And you’re still trying to improve?”
“Why not? I’ll need to push my mind and body to their upper limits so I can break out my full power for longer periods of time. And along those lines, Carrera, I think you’d make a great partner.”
“Sounds good to me. I was just thinking I needed to further train this body my master gave me. I’ll take you up on that offer.”
Carrera and Middray exchanged a firm handshake. They both wanted to reach the next level, so there was no reason to turn down the offer.
Then, as usual, Milim butted in.
“Hey! No fair! Lemme get in on this!!”
There was no denying that smiling face—not that she would’ve accepted no for an answer.
“Whoa, Milim,” said Carrera. “Surely you don’t need to get any stronger, do you?”
“Yes, Lady Milim, you are already the strongest. Why would you need any more training like that?” Middray asked.
Carrera was mind-blowingly strong, but there was always someone better out there. Everyone knew Milim was an anomaly among anomalies, something Carrera had come to understand all too well now that they were acquainted. Carrera was still sensible enough to treat Milim’s nonsense like the joke it was, but not Middray. Unlike Carrera, he really was concerned that the one he worshipped was about to aim for a higher plane of existence.
But none of that came across to Milim.
“Wah-ha-ha-ha! Don’t be silly! If you guys are having fun, I’m not about to let you shut me out of it!”
So it was settled.
Gobta could sense the danger already—or the writing on the wall, that is. He had secretly overheard their conversation as Milim descended from high above, and the subject disturbed him. He could already predict he’d be dragged into this group before long, so he found it high time to make a strategic retreat. It was a truly virtuoso assessment of his situation.
“I’m gonna go report on our victory, guys!” he shouted as he climbed on top of Ranga—they had de-Unified a while back—and rode like the wind from the battlefield. His keen eye on his surroundings, and his knack for picking up on useful information had saved him once again. Ranga trusted him on that, too; Gobta’s insight into danger ahead had saved his life many times, so he followed his lead without question. He, too, was safe.
As for the others…
“Huh? Whoa, whoa…”
“Wait, Milim, are you trying to pull me into this, too?”
Middray and Carrera, the first to be corralled, weren’t alone. Carillon and Frey were being forced to participate, despite their resistance.
So although the war in this region had caused a great deal of damage, it seemed to have come to an end without any fatalities.
Or so it seemed.
“Freeze everything in place, my blizzard, and put it to sleep.”
The world was instantly covered in white; it was as if this moment was waiting to happen until everyone had their guard down. A blizzard of despair swirled in from the outer edges of the field toward the center, encircling everyone inside before they could escape.
“No way; are you—?”
Milim was the first to notice. It was already too late to do anything. All of them were caught completely off guard. Not many people could trick a demon lord as crafty as Milim. But if it was her—Velzard the Ice Dragon, eldest sister of the True Dragons—it was far from impossible.
“Long time no see, Milim,” Velzard said.
“What’re you doing, Velzard?”
“Hee-hee! Just here to see my darling niece. I needed your help with something, you see.”
“Quit fooling around. If you wanted a favor from me, you could at least act the part. Stop this blizzard at once. Then we can talk!”
Milim held back her anger as she tried to intimidate Velzard. Her friends were going to be in danger before long—in fact, those on the outer rim of the battlefield were already ice statues. They weren’t dead, but all their vital signs had been frozen in place. You could say they were cryogenically frozen, ready to be revived at any time, but a mere whim from Velzard would instantly smash them to pieces.
Clearly, she had aimed for the moment Milim would be off her guard, right after the battle with Zeranus. But Frey felt even more concerned. If Milim flew into a rage and went out of control, the whole place would be reduced to ashes. The scale of the damage would be unimaginable, and she couldn’t guess how many people would survive it.
I need to make a decision…
Frey felt it would be dangerous for Milim to let Velzard do whatever she wanted. The longer Frey delayed her decision, the worse things would get. So without Milim’s approval, Frey sent an order to her Heaven Fliers:
“Strike Velzard down!”
With that signal, the Heaven Fliers moved at once. No one was unaware of the terror Velzard wielded. This was a suicide attack, and everyone involved was prepared for that. Milim, their beloved master, was too kind to them—almost fatally so. With every person put to sleep in the ice, Milim’s patience would be tested more and more. If it broke her limit, there was no turning back. Milim was already enduring a lot out of consideration for Frey and the rest. If things got any worse, she’d have no choice but to do Velzard’s bidding for the sake of her hostages.
As far back as Frey could remember, the only time Milim had gotten fully serious with a fight was against Guy, destroying a whole country before Frey was even born. If she got that serious again—looking to kill, with no regard for her allies—she’d never have a hard time against any opponent. But Milim never went that far again.
In a way, all the people around Milim hobbled her. She was so kind all the time like that—even now—that Frey wanted to ensure none of her friends dragged her down.
“Oof, too late, huh? Guys, you can run if you want to, but if you’re staying, you better be ready,” Carillon warned the people around him.
“One crisis after another, isn’t it? And now it’ll be against my master’s aunt. I hate to fight a war I can’t win, but if it’s for Lady Milim’s sake, I can’t afford to whine about it,” Middray added with a laugh.
No one in the Flying Beastly Knights was leaving, either. Even the warrior priests led by Hermes had abandoned their medic roles and switched to battle mode.
Everyone serving under Milim was rushing toward Velzard.
“H-hey! Stop, all of you! You need to retreat from here at once!”
Milim’s shouting was drowned out by the flurry of magic and spirit attacks on Velzard.
“Lady Milim is certainly well-loved,” Obela muttered to herself. “I wish I could have served her sooner.”
The battle against Piriod had drained Obela. Though she was all but completely out of energy, Obela stood back up, firmly glaring at Velzard.
Here was this absolute force in the world; it didn’t take much thinking for everyone to know they had no chance of winning. Frey knew that, too. If survival was all that mattered to her, she would’ve ordered her forces to scatter and exit the area. So why didn’t she? Chances were…
Hee-hee! Sly as always, I see. I never hated her to start with, but I sure respect her decisiveness, thought Obela.
Frey’s aim was to make Milim shed her self-doubt. If her friends were killed by Velzard, Milim would have no reason left to hesitate. Instantly, Frey decided that if Milim survived, that was all that mattered in the long run. Carillon and Middray followed suit as well, and all their troops also decided without hesitation to share in their fate.
Every one of them loved Milim. Obela felt the same, so she could understand. She had a healthy respect for those who made the same decision as the troops she lost—and she, too, was prepared for the eventuality that this was where she’d make her last stand.
Carrera, too, was still there, thinking about what she needed to do. Trying to engage the completely flawless Velzard in a drawn-out battle wasn’t going to happen. Velzard wasn’t nearly as kind as Velgrynd. She’d offer Carrera no way to win; indeed, it was a matter of luck whether Carrera would even be able to escape alive.
Not that escape was ever an option to her.
Well, whatever, she thought. I might wind up disobeying my master’s orders depending on how this turns out, but I should really join in this. I sure can’t complain about having Lady Velzard as an opponent. Might as well try as hard as I can!
The decision was made quickly. It wasn’t great luck for the demons serving under Carrera, but in any case, there wasn’t any escape from there for anyone. Victory over Velzard was the only way out…but everyone knew that wouldn’t happen. All Carrera and her demons could do was guide the souls who’d be streaming out of there shortly, diverting them away from their true death.
“Brace yourself, guys. Make sure we don’t miss any.”
Carrera’s words were met with a collective nod from her staff. By this point, healing meant nothing. All the other demons gave up on the bodies they were incarnated into as well, going back to their roots as spiritual life-forms. That would reduce their influence on the material world, but if leading the dead was their next great task, it was better carried out in this form.
So in a very short time, everyone was ready. But in the next instant…
“How foolish.”
These frigid words echoed through the minds of everybody on hand. It was a quiet voice, liable to be drowned out by the blizzard, but the waves of thought that carried it were worryingly loud.
As if to respond to this voice, the blizzard turned into a maelstrom, bringing white-out conditions to the whole battlefield. It was a beyond unfair form of violence, a supernatural disaster on a level beyond anyone’s control—any attempt to resist would have been met with shrill laughter.
“Now, go to sleep.”
The white ice and snow raged wildly.
All the ground-level soldiers were the first to be frozen solid. They were followed by the squad captains, then the top officers. Soon, only a few were left conscious—those who had reached the Million Class, with an EP of one million or higher. Even for them, though, it was only a matter of time.
Witnessing this hopeless turn of events, Frey prepared for her own death. So did Carillon and Middray. They remained upright only because Milim was protecting them all—otherwise the energy released by Velzard would have done its worst on Frey and her friends long ago.
Carrera, a short distance away from Milim, was no longer able to shed her own physical body. The lord of all demons was unable to move an inch, and none of her servants fared any better. It went without saying that Frey’s Heaven Fliers, Carillon’s Flying Beastly Knights, and Middray’s warrior priests were all little more than ice sculptures by that point.
Velzard had not even attacked any of them, and this was the result. The blizzard itself was nothing more than her releasing her aura. For those who understood this, the experience was like feeling a helpless despair from which there was no escape.
Milim, protecting the survivors, was unable to move. If she abandoned Frey and the others, their fates would be sealed.
Ahh, Milim, always so kind, thought Frey. You’re such a sweet girl after all. I love you.
Frey believed that with every fiber of her being.
Feeling a gaze upon her, she turned her attention to Carillon. He was defiantly smiling. Middray sighed deeply and nodded with him. Obela was engaged in silent prayer, as if apologizing to those she held dear. These were all people resolved to their fates.
(I guess we’re ready for this?)
(Yeah. We’ll all do it at once. As flashy as we can.)
(Indeed. If we’re going to go, I want to go while giving Lady Milim one last show of my courage.)
(Hee-hee-hee! Now, at least, I think I understand how those who served me feel. No, they didn’t die in vain at all. Now let’s see if I can have something to brag about when I see them again.)
Milim’s Big Four were united in mind at that moment. Then…
“Wait, you guys…?!”
Milim, picking up on this, tried to stop them—but they were already on the move. The four of them moved with expert coordination, as if they’d been fighting together for a millennium. They closed in on Velzard, landing a series of blows, not a single missed strike among them. Sadly, none of it worked on her.
“I’m glad,” Velzard said. “I really am. You were as strong as I thought you’d be…and so I managed to handle you without any mistakes.”
Velzard laughed as she calmly stood there. In front of her were four brand-new ice sculptures.
Then it was Milim’s face that froze. Every emotion had been drained from her expression—except one. Her look was sheer rage. Robbed of her companions, she was furious.
“This won’t stand. You took my friends away, didn’t you? I’ll never let you live this down!!”
Milim’s cry pierced the battlefield. As it did, her ultimate skill—Satanael, Lord of Wrath—was activated at full power. It took in all the surrounding magicules, pouring in all its own magic force to generate further power. Using Milim’s intense rage and magicule count as its fuel, this ultimate force turned into a magicule-generating machine, producing more and more by the moment.
This was Satanael’s true nature; it was a magicule reactor that was too powerful to ever fully use. The magicules fed into it were processed and outputted as even more power—a multiplicative process. As long as it was active, the magicule count within Milim would continually balloon higher and higher. No matter how much she consumed, the count would never go down. True ultimate power.
She was called the Dragon Princess, the child of Veldanava, and that was no joke. The demon lord Milim was a single person who wielded unlimited force.
And she was roaring again. The heavens shook; the ground broke under her. The God-class armor around her body transformed into an ominous-looking robe, as if reacting to the fury. It wasn’t built to protect her from external enemies, but to prevent her from being destroyed by the power within her. The overflowing torrent of power merged with the armor, transforming it so it covered Milim’s entire body—and with that, the conversion was complete.
A pair of jet-black wings was on her back, the single red horn on her forehead shining with even more dazzling radiance than before. Strange patterns, etched atop tough dragon scales of dull, shifting colors, covered her skin outside of her face. This was Milim’s default state—the form of the true Dragon Princess. Her body might have been human, but the power housed inside exceeded any True Dragon, making her a pure embodiment of absolute destruction.
“My, my, I think it’s the second time I’ve seen this,” Velzard remarked. “Since you’re here and all, why don’t I play with you a little?”
“Die.”
No one was left to stop Milim. The planet trembled at the wrath of this ancient demon lord. And a moment later, it was exposed once more to the ultimate dragonoid’s rage.
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