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[Translator - Prøks]
[Proofreader - Prøks]
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Chapter 238: I spat out blood.
I couldn’t even get close.
The moment I used spatial acceleration to close the distance, an immense repelling force struck me.
Boom—!
As if he had predicted it in advance, a razor-sharp shockwave erupted exactly where I landed.
It came from the heat of the sword wind unleashed by the Giant God’s flaming blade.
Only after retreating far back did the residual turbulence subside.
I had intended to gauge his level
But it was utterly meaningless.
Like a god overseeing the battlefield,
He remained still, watching me in silence.
Ssss—
My damp, clinging hair kept obstructing my vision.
Grabbing my bangs and pushing them back, I wrung out a stream of water as if squeezing a soaked rag.
Shwaaa—!
The rain only grew heavier.
It was as if someone was manipulating the weather
A furious storm raged.
“This is some real bullshit.”
The battlefield was already a hellscape.
The soaked ground rippled with heat haze, mixing with blood and rain,
A thick, crimson mist blurring the view.
Tatatatat—!
Amidst it all, countless feet splashed through the mud, their steps echoing in the chaos.
Under the torrential downpour, the Crazy Mage Squad, the Lotus Swordsmen, the Giant Tribe, and those Cecilia bastards clashed in a tangled melee.
“Fuck it! Kill them all!”
“You reeking sons of bitches!”
Kraaaah!
Grrrrrr!
The earth trembled and flames and lightning crackled across the battlefield.
On one side, Black fought against both First Fiend and Sword Fiend simultaneously, while the Heavenly Swordsman clashed with the Four Kingss.
Meanwhile, Wolf and Cecilia were locked in a blood-drenched duel.
Ssshhk—.
“Ruin!”
As I looked ahead, through the blood-red mist
The Giant God finally took a step forward.
No longer a mere observer, watching from afar
He swung both arms.
At that moment, two flaming swords shattered through space, appearing right before my heart.
Then
A Lotus Sword streaked in from somewhere, slashing across their path.
“Tch.”
It was Loren.
The Giant God wielded a total of six arms.
Loren was already engaged with one.
And now, she had taken on the two newly manifested swords as well.
“Hooh… This is a real hit to my pride.”
I could hear the strain in her breath.
Each flaming sword wielded unimaginable destructive power
And now, three of them were dancing through the air as if they had wills of their own.
With the art of Sword Control, she countered one.
With her own blade, she parried the other two.
Her expression was grim.
Ah…
The Giant God still hadn’t moved his remaining three arms.
He just stared at me, unwavering.
Beyond him, my gaze was drawn again to the crimson sky.
Even with the rain pouring down, just like before, the sky was gradually being stained red.
Ping—!
Suddenly, a severed, slender wrist flew from the battlefield and struck my face before tumbling to the ground.
A Lotus Swordsman’s arm
Cleft cleanly from elbow to fingertip, still gripping a Lotus Sword.
I bent down.
Forcing open the blood-soaked fingers, I pried the Lotus Sword free.
Viiing—!
7th-Circle, Blink.
As I teleported directly before the Giant God, another shockwave crashed into me.
Unlike when I used 6th-Circle Spatial Acceleration, this time, I had a breath’s worth of time to react.
I immediately reversed the flow of my heart’s circle and poured Yin Dimension mana into the Lotus Sword.
Suuuuuk—!
A dense, spiraling band of darkness flared up along the blade like a drill.
It resembled sword force, yet it was fundamentally different.
Dark Sword.
A force so overwhelming that even the Sword Force of a transcendent knight would be obliterated upon contact.
“Grrr.”
That was when the Giant God swung both arms simultaneously.
The distance between us was mere steps.
A blistering heat surged from both sides, intense enough to melt flesh in an instant.
I waited.
Even as the heat seared through the barrier wrapped around my right hand, I focused solely on the trajectory of his arms.
For a brief moment, there was confusion in his eyes
Then, realization dawned.
His pupils flickered with the faintest trace of deception.
As his arms crossed, two Flaming Swords overlapped, their sheer heat melting even aura blades as they erupted.
The instant that searing sword wind rushed to consume me whole
I thrust my Dark Sword, splitting the weight balance of both Flaming Swords at once.
Saaaaaa—!
For the first time, surprise flashed in the Giant God’s eyes.
But it lasted only a moment.
As if to reaffirm his dominance, he swung his final remaining arm.
Three Flaming Swords now converged in unison.
Pouring every ounce of mana into my Lotus Sword, I thrust forward
And then, astonishingly, the Giant God took a step back, leaving only the three Flaming Swords behind.
Tatatatat—!
I charged after him, splashing through the muddy puddles.
But he had already vanished, leaving only an afterimage
Reappearing far away, as if he had used Spatial Acceleration himself.
Ptoo.
I spat out the blood rising in my throat and glared at him.
A creature capable of such fluid evasive maneuvers…
Suddenly, I recalled the old tale
How the Giant God vanished into the Land of Death in the midst of chaos, slipping away when the Demonic Dragon perished.
This bastard…
He would not be an easy opponent.
Boom—!
A crushing pressure coiled around my heart.
I had pushed too hard. I had poured everything into that first exchange
And I had failed.
The Giant God still had five arms left.
The opportunity to take his head had ended with just one severed limb.
Yet, rather than faltering, he surged with even greater intensity, as if he had finally met a worthy adversary.
Demonic energy flickered in his gaze.
“Hoo.”
Suddenly, the battlefield fell silent.
All sound vanished, my vision narrowing.
There was only him.
The Giant God.
The deity of the Giant Tribe.
His name was no exaggeration.
Before the Demon Tribe, he was once humanity’s greatest threat.
He wasn’t a demon
But he had already reached a level rivaling a high-ranking one.
How had they managed to corrupt even the Giant God?
Or rather…
Could that even be called corruption?
“Tch.”
Shaaah—!
I spat out blood
And only then did the sound of rain return.
The stench of blood was overwhelming.
Like trying to see underwater, everything was blurred.
I slicked back my rain-soaked hair
And finally, the battlefield came into focus again.
The rain had turned the land into a grotesque river of blood, bodies floating in the crimson flood.
“Hey.”
“……”
“I said, hey.”
I slapped the back of the Heavenly Swordsmaster, who lay face-down in a pool of blood.
No response.
I turned him over by force.
His lower half was gone.
“…So the Four Kings got him.”
The battlefield was still an inferno of carnage.
The Giant Tribe’s numbers had dwindled
But there had been too many to begin with.
More than half of the Lotus Swordsmen who followed Loren had already fallen.
“Heads! Twenty-five!”
“I got twenty-nine!”
“Damn it, heads! Twenty-six!”
“Seismic Wave!”
Only the Crazy Mage Squad’s wide-area incantations were keeping the front line from collapsing.
But exhaustion was written all over them.
And now, with the Four Kings, the very one who had slain the Heavenly Swordsmaster, joining the fray.
The battle had turned even more desperate.
Black was being pushed back by the Three Evils.
Loren, her hair in disarray, had already lost the use of one arm, shredded beyond recognition.
I turned my gaze toward the sky behind us.
Nothing.
No signs of reinforcements.
It was suffocating.
A merciless gambit.
I had known that the Myriad Demon Assembly was moving quickly.
But I hadn’t expected them to make their move like this.
This entire situation…
It was their trap.
Julius… isn't coming.
Gaion, Solsar, Ziek, Haiarc.
Before I could react, an overwhelming force slammed into me
My body lifted off the ground, weightless for an instant
And then I was sent tumbling across the blood-soaked battlefield.
Kwa-kwa-kwang—!
“Tch.”
The moment I crashed into the sludge of blood and rain, the nauseating stench of iron filled my lungs.
But even as I lay there, I could see it
That pristine white shield, still standing firm before the Giant God, utterly unshaken.
It wasn’t a shield.
A memory surfaced in my mind.
That pure white barrier
It wasn’t magic.
It was a wall of raw, unyielding aura.
The Shield of Heavenly Pressure.
“Arihama.”
Still on the ground, I kept my gaze fixed forward.
The rain lashed down in torrents, but I didn’t blink
I didn’t look away.
Beyond the Giant God, now stripped of all five arms
A man was slowly approaching.
A towering figure, clad in heavy armor.
A massive, inverted-triangle shield strapped high on his back.
One of Arihama’s Guardian Knights.
The five crests engraved on his shield marked him as a commander of the northern legions
But I couldn’t take my eyes off his mask.
“…Asura.”
The moment I spoke, a force like a collapsing mountain crashed down upon me.
“Luin!”
Loren, her body battered and drained, unleashed her blade and charged forward
Only for a massive surge of demonic energy to explode from the Giant God’s ruined body, swallowing her whole.
And through the swirling black mist
The aura of Asura’s shield bore down upon me, crushing the air from my lungs.
I spat out the words, forcing them past clenched teeth.
“...Tch. That bastard.”
I tried to ignite my heart’s circle, to push mana into my limbs
But my body was spent.
Even my fingers refused to move.
Damn it.
I was too close.
Paaaaang—!
I braced myself
Eyes wide open, body frozen
Ready to take the onslaught head-on.
And then
Splurt!
A stream of blood splashed across my face.
“…Fuck, Captain.”
“You reckless idiot…”
Zion stood over me
Coughing up blood, barely holding himself up with both arms, legs trembling from the force of Asura’s attack.
When the hell did he get here?
How the hell was he still standing?
Rage surged in my gut.
Our eyes met.
His pupils, red.
And in his gaze
I saw my own reflection.
My pupils, red as well.
Zion spat out more blood and spoke.
“I will remember the crimson rain.”
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[Translator - Prøks]
[Proofreader - Prøks]
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