"Die! Die! Die! Die!!!"
Geno brandished his longsword, all the while his mouth ceaselessly chanting the slogan of "die."
Dagalle, who sensed a familiar power emanating from Geno, was, at this moment, actually not all that anxious.
It simply blocked Geno's offensive single-mindedly, not caring in the slightest even if it got wounded in the process.
The collision between the two sides ultimately devolved into a tug-of-war: either Geno would kill Dagalle before his Night Demon power was spent, or Dagalle would exhaust Geno's Night Demon power and then use the power of Filth to manipulate Geno.
Geno realized this problem as well—if he kept dragging it out, his odds of winning would only grow slimmer and slimmer, and so he decided to stake it all on a gamble.
"Haaah!!! Dimensional Slash!"
Concentrating the whole of his Night Demon power together, he then used the Dimensional Slash technique to drive it into Dagalle's body, shattering the core within it all at once.
This was the choice Geno had made.
A massive surge of blue energy gathered upon the blade, and as Geno swung it, a long streak of blue sword-energy went flying out.
Dagalle raised its spear crosswise to block, never imagining that this move would fly straight onto its own body.
In its panic, its entire body was cleaved in two.
Then the power of the Night Demon took effect, reacting violently with the Filth inside Dagalle's body and producing a tremendous explosion.
After a thunderous boom, the gathered onlookers had finally awaited the end of this epoch-defining battle.
Seeing that there was no longer anything in their way, everyone hurriedly ran over in the direction of Geno and Twiggy.
And then they began to fret over the conditions of Geno and Twiggy.
"Geno, are you all right…"
"Don't come over here!"
Anby, who had just been about to check Geno over, was startled by the sudden roar; then she saw that Geno's eyes were utterly bloodshot, his face brimming with an agonized expression, as if he were struggling against something.
'Become one with me! Go and liberate the great Lord!'
"Shut up!"
'Become one with me! Become one with me! Become one with me!!!!'
The Filth in his mind whispered without end, like the murmuring of an ancient god, driving one's reason into collapse.
Geno held onto his sanity as best he could, dragging his body in an effort to press toward the depths of the Hollow.
He didn't want to hurt the others.
"O most faithful servant of the Lord! Release your power!!"
!!!!!!
A voice that caught everyone off guard—Dagalle was, incredibly, not yet dead!!
What the explosion of Night Demon energy had destroyed was only Dagalle's lower body, while the upper body, where the core resided, remained perfectly intact.
Seeing this, Number 11 and Anby instantly drew their blades and lunged forward, and Trigger pulled her trigger as well, meaning to finish Dagalle off once and for all.
A resounding clang!
Number 11's blade struck a shell of deep, murky red; this shell formed of Filth had completely shielded Dagalle.
"Filth Shield! The power of the Lord is beyond anything that can stand against it!"
Dagalle manipulated the Filth to condense a Filth Shield before itself, so that the attacks of Anby and the others were all blocked, while it kept trying, again and again, to communicate with the Filth consciousness inside Geno's body.
By this means it stalled Geno's advance, seeking to seize complete control of Geno in its grasp.
Powerless before the impregnable Filth Shield, everyone could only watch, wide-eyed and helpless, as Dagalle endlessly bewitched Geno, and as Geno, trying to resist, contorted in unbearable agony.
"Wait! Twiggy! You're okay!?"
While the three of them could find no way to intervene in the situation, Yanagi Tsukishiro, off to the side, had already begun examining Twiggy's corpse early on.
The red strangulation marks that Dagalle had throttled into her were receding bit by bit, and at the same time her chest began to rise and fall—had Twiggy actually come back from the dead?
But before Yanagi Tsukishiro could rejoice, another change in Twiggy made her jaw drop.
"Ether Corruption!"
A great mass of Inert Ether crystals grew out across Twiggy's body, like little black stones sprouting up beneath her skin.
At the same time, many colorful striped fissures began to appear on Twiggy's neck—this, too, was a sign that she was on the verge of entering Etherealization.
"Hold on! Twiggy! You have to hold on!"
Yanagi Tsukishiro rummaged through her waist pouch, hoping to dig out one more vial of anti-corrosion serum from somewhere.
But they had already been inside the Hollow for the better part of a day—where could there possibly be any spare serum left to use?
Then, Twiggy's chest began to gradually cave in, while a dazzling Ether core was steadily taking shape within it.
Yanagi Tsukishiro's pupils shrank—was it, after all, too late to stop it?
An expression of reluctance flooded her face, but at this moment, putting Twiggy down so as to keep her from turning into an Ethereal seemed to already be the best choice.
And so Yanagi Tsukishiro raised the blade in her hand, preparing to finish Twiggy off then and there.
"I'm sorry… Twiggy, truly, I'm sorry…"
And this very scene happened to be seen by Geno, who was still in his frenzied state.
"Stop! Let go of her!!"
Geno cast everything aside and, heedless of his own safety, charged in Twiggy's direction.
Even though the whispers of the Filth had wracked his head with splitting pain and wiped his mind blank, he still remembered the one he loved.
Seeing that Yanagi Tsukishiro was about to behead Twiggy, Geno rushed at Yanagi Tsukishiro and sent her crashing away.
Fortunately, she was caught directly by Trigger and suffered no serious injury.
Then they saw Geno slowly bend down and gather Twiggy into his embrace.
"I won't… let you all… hurt her…"
Reason was drifting ever further from Geno; relying on subconscious action alone, he held Twiggy firmly in his arms.
But the most dangerous thing right now was nothing else than the Ether and Filth ceaselessly corroding Twiggy.
The cracks on Twiggy's neck multiplied more and more, the region of her chest steadily breaking apart, and then a deep, fathomless core condensed forth within it.
The chaos of the scene left everyone at a loss.
And Dagalle, still endlessly exerting its power, saw this and felt that the steering wheel it had only just barely managed to grasp had once again been flung out of its hands.
Watching Geno and Twiggy, like a pair of star-crossed lovebirds, Dagalle's rage meter shot straight to full, and it was on the verge of unleashing every last bit of power it had left.
It refined and condensed itself, offering up its entire being to the great Lord, so that it might accomplish this grand and glorious mission of delivering Geno to the Lord.
But before it could even let loose, a streak of cold light abruptly appeared before its eyes, and then the world it saw next had become somewhat different.
It was as though its whole field of view had been split into two halves down the middle, one half high and one half low.
And before its eyes, a figure stood there.
With pointed fox ears, clad in the uniform of Anti-Air Section Six, holding in her hand a tachi not yet slipped from its sheath, and a little summoned spirit drifting at her side.
"Anti-Air Section Six Section Chief, Hoshimi Miyabi, here to provide support."
This was the last sentence Dagalle heard; before long it lost consciousness entirely, returning to the embrace of the Ether Sea.
"All right, the crisis is over. Now then, as for what comes next."
Hoshimi Miyabi cast a sidelong glance toward the two who were still on the ground, clinging to each other—the pair looking nothing at all like proper human beings.
"Do you need my help?"
____
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