『... I won't let anyone escape!! I won't let anyone live!! Cranel, die with me, Hero──────!!』
Pitch-black lightning stained the world. A surge of killing intent, relentless and unstoppable, flooded the hall. Its power was truly staggering.
Toxic black vapors rose from Ein's body, which had fully assumed a humanoid dragon form. Al narrowed his eyes as he observed her transformation.
──── I can't win this, even if I give it everything I have.
Even Al, the strongest hero, recognized that he could not defeat Ein in her current state. Yet, no trace of agitation showed on his face; instead, a smile played upon his lips.
A pillar of holy fire erupted. Al stoked the crimson flames surrounding him, creating a sanctuary of sacred heat that evoked the purity of a divine temple. This zone of burning brilliance boasted temperatures that rivaled the domain of the gods.
Al stood firm, staring directly at Ein. Their gazes crossed in a silent, violent clash. With the dignity of a conqueror, Al issued a wordless challenge: Come, show me what you have.
It was uncertain if his intent reached her mind, but Ein moved. In a blur, she vanished. No—she had simply accelerated beyond all physical limits.
Al's response to her supersonic movements was nothing short of a miracle. Threads of black death swept through the air toward him, but he parried them with his black blade. Black gales whipped from Ein's blighted sword as it met his own, yet Al did not falter, stepping forward with steady, heavy strides.
The roar of impact and thunder filled the room. One strike, a second, a third, a fourth. A violent exchange of blades erupted between Al and Ein. Neither retreated. They collided with savage intensity, and Al held his ground against her overwhelming onslaught.
Slashes and black winds tore through the hall, buckling the floor tiles made of Orichalcum and stone. Cracks exploded everywhere. Under the weight of their violent collision, the floor began to fail; tiles shattered, stone columns crumbled, and debris rained down. Only the "One Thousand Year Obsession" ingrained in the structure kept the hall from collapsing entirely, but its fall was only a matter of time.
This was a battle between two transcendent beings—a horrific symphony where life and death intertwined like an epic poem. Ein's attacks in her draconic form grew increasingly ferocious. A single hit meant certain death; even a glancing blow was a terminal injury.
Despite the dire stakes, Al continued to smile. A symphony of lightning rang out, while the melody of clashing steel harmonized with dancing sparks of fire and shockwaves.
"Cra.. nelllllllllll!!"
Ein screamed, her voice a torrent of agonizing emotion. With that soul-piercing cry, she brought down her blighted blade. Al met it with every ounce of his strength, shoving her weapon aside before launching a counter-strike.
Flash-like impacts followed one after another. Al dodged, parried, redirected, and maneuvered around Ein's strikes. Still, he could not evade everything. Shallow cuts began to carve into his flesh, spraying crimson blood.
The physical destructive power latent in the magic energy Ein released was immense. Simply by venting this raw mana—without even casting a spell—she forced Al into a purely defensive stance. Black lightning, heavy with energy, shook the air and rattled the very foundations of the hall.
Blighted winds continuously poured from Ein's blade as her internal magic reactor worked at a near-explosive capacity. Upon contact, the magical energy of her blade caused immediate necrosis, rotting tissue at the point of impact.
"So you can pierce my resistance..."
Al burned away the blighted winds with his black flames, but the wounds did not fully close. The blade's magical energy began to invade his body, gradually eating away at him.
"Aaaaaaaaaaah!!"
The Behemoth poison—the same curse that had afflicted the heroes of the Zeus Familia and pushed Al to the brink of death during the battle on the 59th floor. Ein's blighted blade pierced the resistance he had built and bypassed the protection of the Phoenix. Its power was incomparable to when Revis had wielded it.
Black scales formed from the spirit's curse, membranous wings, claws, fangs, and a dark tail now covered Ein. With her pitch-black horns discharging ebony lightning, she truly embodied the "Black Dragon."
In contrast, Al, draped in crimson flames and celestial lightning while projecting a field of holy fire, looked every bit the Hero of legend. This was the scene the gods had once craved: the revival of a heroic epic. A myth made flesh between a hero and a beast. This was the potential of the Lower World, removed from the whims of the Great God and the schemes of the Evil Gods—two unique points born from a chaotic world.
This collision was etched into the world as an encounter that no mortal could halt.
●○●○●
"This.. is────"
What was this? What was that monster?
A black beast, drowning in darkness.
Due to the intense emotional strain, Ais's vision blurred and flickered. She fought with everything she had to remain conscious. Her mind screamed in pain, and her heart trembled.
Images overlapped in her mind: Al fighting in his crimson flames to protect them, and her father in "that time," leaving her behind to hold back the Black End. The image of Ein in her draconic form merged with the image of the black calamity that ends all things.
What was this? What was happening? She didn't understand. All Ais knew was that the thing before her was a "Dragon."
Though her body was exhausted and her spiritual energy dry, the fuel of murderous intent was tossed into the fires of her hatred, forcing her to stand once more.
I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I'll kill it. I'll kill it. I'll kill it.
I'll kill everyone.
Something inside Ais snapped. Her heart hammered, her blood surged, her pupils dilated, and her breath turned ragged.
He will be taken from me.
Everything will be taken.
Just like her mother and father—if this continued, that "Black Dragon" would strip everything away. She would never allow it. That thing, specifically, was something she could not accept under any circumstances.
Therefore, she would kill it.
In response to this feeling, Ais gathered the final dregs of her strength and stood. Blood began to seep from her entire body as her magic energy sharpened beyond her physical limits. The energy, exceeding her bodily vessel, began to rage, tearing her apart from the inside. She did not care. If this would save Al, if it would protect him, it was fine.
Ignoring the pain that threatened to rupture her organs, Ais began to chant. She would let no one stand in her way. She would allow no one to hurt Al any further.
The space around Ais began to warp. The laws of the world were being rewritten.
"── O, Black Wind."
The roar of sovereignty from "the one who lost everything" stained the atmosphere. The dark winds that devour the world were unleashed.
"────?!"
The gazes of both Al and Ein snapped toward the source of the sound. An impact, a roar, and a crushing pressure hit all at once. Immediately, a massive shockwave struck Ein. The howl of the black winds shook Ein's body violently, drawing the eyes of everyone in the room.
There stood a lone girl. But the aura surrounding her was abnormal. Magic energy, compressed to such high density that it became visible, exploded from her body in a raging storm.
"..... Sword Princess?"
Ein muttered, her face a mask of confusion. The response came not in words, but in a blast of black wind that served as the answer.
The overflowing magic energy did not stop. That uncontrolled power was shredding Ais's body. But to the current Ais, such a thing was trivial. All she wanted was to kill the "Dragon" before her.
Ais lowered her body, preparing to spring. The black wind—the black cyclone—began to consume her. At the moment the dark gales obscured her form, the wind suddenly split.
"────── I won't let you take anything else from me."
Therefore, I will kill you. This was Ais's declaration.
And then she launched. Ais shot in a straight line toward Ein, cloaked in the black wind. Accompanied by gales that resembled a celestial disaster, Ais closed in. Her movements no longer seemed human.
"Vanisssssssssssh!!"
Ein swung her blighted blade out of instinct, but Ais slipped beneath the strike and breached Ein's guard. With that momentum, her holy wind exploded at point-blank range. The black wind sent Ein tumbling back, carving a path through the surrounding floor tiles.
Ein recovered in mid-air and landed, but her expression was sharp. Ais's movement was utterly unnatural.
(..... What just happened?)
The wounds weren't deep. No matter how strong the holy wind was, it couldn't shatter Ein's body at the peak of its power. It was impossible for a girl stuck at Level 6 to resist the strongest monster—a creature even Al couldn't defeat.
Yet, the current Ais had undoubtedly damaged Ein in some way. A damage that could be fatal if she wasn't careful. The dense magic energy overflowing from Ais, who moments ago had been a broken corpse, was unimaginable. The threat she hadn't felt before was now clear and present.
How was she standing? What was this power? Was it resolve, or preparation, or faith? Her wounds were not the kind that could be ignored through simple emotion.
No, it didn't matter. Ein knew the hidden potential of adventurers in moments of despair. That she had "stood up" was fine. Whatever the reason, it wasn't the biggest problem. The problem lay in the quality of the magic energy cloaking Ais and her significantly heightened physical abilities.
What in the world was this? What were these black winds circling her as if devouring her?
They were entirely different from what she had worn before. Those had a terrifying power capable of bridging the level gap, but this didn't even compare. Despite being cloaked in the wind, Ais had no chance against Ein before she consumed Revis's stone. Now, however, things were different.
She possessed a strength that allowed her to challenge Ein, who had reached a new magical peak after devouring the stone. What had happened? How did she get this power? The questions were endless, but there was no time for calm thought.
───── What Ein could not know was that these black winds were the essence of the "Sword Princess," Ais Wallenstein.
The winds of vengeance born from her love for the parents stolen by the "Black Dragon." The black winds released by a girl who fell into the abyss of hatred because of love.
Certainly, Ais at Level 6 could not match the current Ein. However, the skill [Avenger] changed everything. Its effect was a massive boost to attacks against monsters, and beyond that, an extreme-scale boost against the Dragon species. This effect increased proportionally with the magnitude of Ais's hatred toward the Black Dragon. The hate of a girl stripped of her loved ones, her grief, her despair, her killing intent—all of it transformed into power.
Seven years ago, in the Great War between Good and Evil, facing the black monster born from the Evil Gods in the dark Lower World—a monster that was the incarnation of destruction and had rendered many Level 1 adventurers helpless—Ais, at Level 3, had obtained the power to face it.
Now, Ais was using it at the rank of a "Semi-Hero." That power was now almost reaching Al───.
"───── There is no way you can reach me, you trasshhhhhhhhhh!!"
With a scream full of rage, Ein shattered the ground beneath her. Attacks faster and sharper than before rained down on Ein.
But.
"──── Don't underestimate me!!"
"──────!!"
Despite being cloaked in the black wind and launching lightning-fast consecutive attacks, they were not strikes Ein couldn't parry as long as she had seen them once. The logic was unknown, the reason incomprehensible. Despite her confusion at Ais's sudden power, the current Ein was capable of handling it.
Black lightning tore through the black winds. Ein's black claws reached out to shred Ais. The winds meant for dragon-slaying were halted by the dragon's body.
"Kgh, oh─────"
"I'll say it again."
─ It was "Art" and "Maneuver."
It wasn't brute force, but the technique that was the privilege of adventurers that tormented Ais. Ein's techniques brushed aside the winds, pierced through them, and parried them. The high-level anti-personnel combat style, which Ais—specialized in monster hunting—could not replicate, gave Ais no chance to counter-attack. Ais desperately tried to control the black winds, but Ein predicted every movement.
"Don't underestimate me!! Don't think trash like you will reach me──── or reach Cranelllllllllllll!!"
Ein screamed with a flood of emotion. The current Ais only stood because of a distorted power that did not fit her body's vessel. This was nothing but a momentary power of despair. With something like this, it was impossible to reach Al Cranel, the true Hero.
Ein would not allow such a thing to be acknowledged. To acknowledge it would be a denial of everything she had done until now. To have a small girl like this stand beside Cranel───────
"─── Divine Verdict of Holy Lightning."
Before Ein's blade could tear Ais's throat and shatter her wind armor, the holy lightning cut it down.
●○●○●
... Well, I was a bit surprised.
Anyway, Ais will die if this continues. Since the timing is perfect, let's heat things up even more.
●○●○●
"Cranellllllllllllll!!"
Ein had only fought Ais for a few seconds. But in that moment, Al had regained his "Full Health."
The miracle of the "Saint" (Airmid), chanted in the gaps of that terrifying defense and offense, had wiped away all the toxins eating at Al's body. Ais had unintentionally contributed to Al's battle in the best way possible.
The Saint's abilities were vast; severe injuries, curses, lethal poisons, and even physical exhaustion... all vanished with a single spell.
"──── Sorry, but I am the one who decides who stands beside me."
But that didn't matter. Only those words reached Ein's ears. Her mind refused to process them, and she felt as if a crack had formed in her heart.
───── What is he saying?
Who? And what is he talking about? She knew nothing of the "Sword Princess." Compared to her and the Hero, the "Sword Princess" was a trivial existence not worth mentioning. It was impossible for Al Cranel to acknowledge her. It was impossible for him to recognize such a small existence as "a partner who stands beside him."
Therefore, this was a mistake. This was just an auditory hallucination. Yes, it had to be.
Amidst her confused thoughts, Ein was certain only of this. But as if to deny her thought, Al stood beside Ais, facing Ein. And Ais, too, stood there, as if Al's back was protecting her.
Why was that back protecting her? Why was she entrusting her sword to that man? Ais's calm features, as if her previous rage were a lie, made her look like a different person. Those expressions stained with hatred—expressions "of the same kind"—were no longer there.
That face, those eyes, and this "place"──────
●○●○●
"───── It is not you."
Crack!; she imagined she heard the sound of something breaking.
The vision that had been darkened by hatred began to clear. Power began to radiate from the depths of Ais's body. Her heart was strangely calm.
Warm.. my heart, which was so cold a moment ago, is melting and being freed as if that coldness were a lie.
A single word, just one word from Al melted her heart. As he always did, naturally, he protected her. What was different was "me" now. The current me isn't content just being protected; I can fight beside Al.
The Black Dragon before us is terrifyingly strong. But for some reason, I don't feel like we'll lose. Al is here. Al believes in me. And that made me happy. Why does this simple thing make me so happy? I don't know.
But it's fine for now. I'll stand beside Al and fight. That's all there is to it.
I won't make a mistake anymore. I won't be afraid. I will never tremble again. I won't fail to see what I must do now. Beside Al, I believe I can face any monster.
"Ah, I made a mistake here. I didn't expect to miscalculate the opponent's strength like this."
"... Ais."
"?"
"Focus all your strength only on not dying────"
───── Huh?
Before Al could finish his sentence, "something" flew through the air. The moment I realized it, my vision was stained a deep, visceral red. I don't understand what happened at all.
I saw "something" flying backward, scattering red droplets. That "thing," which had been holding a red sword, tumbled on the ground while drawing a circle. I didn't process what had occurred.
Al's body was covered in numerous wounds. His clothes were soaked in blood. Al's arm (the left) was twisted in a strange direction. His forehead was split, and blood was streaming from it.
Al.. pushed me.. and instead of me.. was cut.. and flew.. and was injured──────── my mind refused to understand.
I don't comprehend. I don't understand the meaning.
A moment later, comprehension reached my brain. After a few seconds, I realized the meaning.
In defense of me, Al's right arm─────
─────── had been torn from the shoulder.
────────────────────────────────────────────────
Note:
[The Al Cranel Kill Plan That Anyone Can Execute]
Just to confirm, you possess Level 9 strength or higher, right?
First, ensure Airmid Teasanare is not around. If she is, killing Al is impossible unless you kill her first. However, bypassing Al's defense to kill Airmid is like finishing Sekiro blindfolded without a single death—it's impossible. If you do kill her, Al will kill you in a fit of peak rage, so if she's there, just restart (retry).
Is there anyone from Al's camp besides Airmid? If there's no one, retry. Al in "Am I an idiot to die in a place where no one is watching?" mode is nearly immortal, so Ais or others must be present for the dialogue to even start.
Nullify Al's "Grace." Fighting Al while he has his Grace is a fool's errand. Try any way to sever his link with Loki. Sending him back (banishment) will result in your death, so avoid it. (Legacy Mode is not considered).
Equip a weapon of the "Divine Tool" rank. Fighting Al with ordinary weapons is a task for masochists. Try to secure weapons like the Behemoth Greatsword, Antares Bow, or similar Divine-grade gear.
Be an Elf. You'll get an additional bonus.
Direct an instant-kill attack toward Al's comrades. He will automatically protect them. Note: If you are Level 8 or lower, he will simply parry the attack.
Eliminate the luck factor. Fundamentally, the world is designed for him to win, so the moment a luck factor enters, you will lose.
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