Chapter 146 - Damn Reincarnation

Remnants

Jigollas, the Crushing Hammer.

The weapon took the shape of an enormous hammer, and its power suited that form.

When the hammer struck downward, the sky collapsed.

That was no metaphor. It truly happened. Helmuth's sky was a night in which the sun shone faintly, and that night sky was dark because of the dense demonic energy. The Crushing Hammer ruled the demonic energy in the sky and guided it with every swing.

When it was raised overhead and brought down, night itself—darkness itself—fell. The Demon King of Carnage had ranked fifth, but its sheer, brutish strength surpassed even the higher-ranking Demon Kings.

Even if what was here was not the Demon King itself, but a remnant consisting only of lingering thoughts.

The Crushing Hammer Eward swung drew the darkness with it. All the darkness drifting through the sky above the forest plummeted at once.

Dominic staggered to his feet, his arms crushed and a hole punched through his body. His wounds healed rapidly. Scales covered his arms again and filled the hole in his torso. With a grotesque rasp of breath, he drove the Demonic Spear downward.

Spear Forest.

The darkness beneath his feet spread, and hundreds of spikes shot upward. The attack was incomparably more precise than when he had used the arm torn from the head of the Council of Elders earlier.

Darkness falling from the sky. Spikes beneath his feet.

Neither rattled Eugene. Nor did he retreat.

He held the Moonlight Sword in his right hand and the Holy Sword in his left.

He swung them together. Pale moonlight mingled with brilliant sacred flames. The sky dragged down by the Crushing Hammer tore apart, and the spikes beneath his feet shattered.

Ignition.

The rampaging core formed a ring. Inside the cloak, Mer felt the core revolving and the mana multiplying.

She knew about the Ring Flame Formula.

But she had not known about this utterly reckless technique: deliberately driving the core berserk, accelerating the heart to keep pace with the increasingly violent mana, and awakening even the body by infusing every muscle fiber with mana.

'... Is it... reckless?'

Trembling, Mer watched the raging flow of mana. No one in their right mind would use a technique like this. It would drastically shorten their life. Each rampage would leave the core weaker and less stable. The accelerated heart could stop at any moment. The body awakened to keep pace with the torrent of mana would wear away as well.

That was what should have happened.

'... He's regulating it perfectly.'

The lightning flame.

The spirits of the World Tree that had merged with Eugene did more than simply mix lightning into his mana. They melded naturally with his body, strengthened his core, and confined the amplified explosion within a single “ring.”

That was not solely the lightning flame's power. Even three hundred years ago, his understanding and control of mana had astounded Senya herself. Eugene had understood the lightning flame dwelling within him and made the Ring Flame Formula and Ignition more complete.

Lightning Flash.

A technique difficult to control without Ignition. The reason was simple: his body could not keep pace with Lightning Flash's speed.

With Ignition, however, he could command it perfectly. Lightning Flash had been devised in the first place as an awakening technique stripped of all risk, to be used instead of Ignition.

“I'll leave defense to you.”

Eugene spoke coldly and lowered his stance. He was not speaking only to Mer. Tempest rose behind him and nodded. Mer could not bring herself to poke her head out of the cloak, but she clenched her fists and steeled herself.

The dozens of layers of defensive barriers were all linked to Mer. Tempest summoned a great wind and pushed back the darkness. This battlefield could well be called the worst possible one for him. The forest was already under enemy control. Darkness blocked the wind. Even so, Tempest did not shrink back. He was the Wind Spirit King, and he felt no intimidation before a hated enemy reduced to remnants inhabiting darkness.

That was because the person standing before him was one of the heroes from three hundred years ago. The world remembered him as Hamel the Stupid, but Tempest remembered what a terrible nightmare the human called Hamel had been to demons. On the battlefields of that age, demons had feared Hamel more than Vermouth, the master of the Holy Sword.

Hamel showed no mercy. What he did was neither war nor dueling. On those battlefields, he had killed more monsters, demonic beasts, and demons than Vermouth. He wrought slaughter on the battlefield and butchered his enemies.

[“You could do it.”]

Tempest's wind pushed Eugene's back.

[“Now that you have reincarnated, you could fulfill the cherished wish even Vermouth could not achieve.”]

The storm still yearned to head north. That was why it could not fade away in a place like this. Eugene felt Tempest's fierce resolve.

The cherished wish even Vermouth could not achieve.

Those words made Eugene smile. Vermouth was not the only one who had cherished that wish and failed to fulfill it. Everyone who had wandered the demon lands with him had wanted it.

“... You lot...”

The moonlight in his right hand shone. Perhaps to compensate for its insufficient power, this incomplete Moonlight Sword devoured enormous amounts of mana. When Eugene had first held it in the tomb in Nahama, he had barely managed two or three swings.

Not anymore.

“I've already been past you.”

The moonlight shone even brighter. As he swung, the curved crescent filled out into a half moon. Even that was not enough. Eugene spun all the way around, swinging the Moonlight Sword, and the arc it traced became a full moon.

“So you can't stop me.”

The full moon scattered. Light that destroyed everything surged forth. He did not know the Moonlight Sword's true nature. Sealed deep beneath Helmuth, it was destruction in the shape of a sword whose existence even the Demon Kings had not understood.

ROOOAR!

Every spike of the Demonic Spear under Dominic's command was pulverized. Whenever moonlight struck him, his body was destroyed, and the more it was destroyed, the more scales grew. With each repetition, his consciousness dimmed.

Yet though his consciousness faded, he did not fall. Freed from its conscious control, his body moved with even greater sharpness and precision. It was not the techniques Dominic Lionheart had learned that guided him, but the remnant dwelling in the Demonic Spear.

'... I... '

Dominic stared ahead with vacant eyes. Flashing light. His body jolted violently whenever something swept past, but there was no pain.

'... What am I doing here...?'

He remembered plunging his sword into his grandfather's chest. He had stabbed, twisted, and caught the falling body. His grandfather had drawn the Demonic Spear to retaliate, but never swung it. He had merely turned back with an expression of disbelief.

That expression had delighted Dominic. His grandfather must have thought he would obediently follow in his footsteps. Head of the Council of Elders? Yes, in a sense, the council head was the master who ruled the entire family.

... Had Eugene Lionheart never appeared, Dominic too would have dreamed of someday becoming head of the Council of Elders and been content with that. The council could wield greater power than the main family because its head, Doynes Lionheart, held greater generational seniority than anyone in the main family and was universally acknowledged as the Lionhearts' strongest fighter.

Dominic could not do that. He had no confidence that, when he grew old enough to aspire to the position, he would be respected as the Lionhearts' most senior elder and greatest master, as his grandfather was.

'... Why...?'

Just before his consciousness broke off, Dominic felt only an overwhelming question.

'... Why am I dying?'

The question remained unanswered.

Eugene's sword killed Dominic. However bizarre and dazzling the spearplay performed by those four arms, that “spear” already existed in Eugene's mind. Lingering thoughts without a developed self. What was difficult about facing techniques reproduced solely from memory? The battle against the Demon King of Cruelty had lasted three days and nights, and Hamel had stood on the front line alongside Vermouth, meeting the Demon King's spear.

He could not forget it even if he wanted to. He knew how the spear would move. He knew where to deflect it and where to slip inside to land a cut. If the Moonlight Sword lacked power, he simply had to wield it so well that the lack never mattered.

It had not taken long to slice off all of Dominic's arms and split his belly open. All of it happened in a single instant. Eward flew into the sky, brought the Crushing Hammer down, and immediately afterward, Dominic's mind was destroyed.

Eugene passed him by. Behind him, however, the dead Dominic rose again. His mind had already been consumed and destroyed by the remnant, and his body was damaged beyond saving. Yet scales joined the shattered body together and filled it with flesh.

Eward looked down at the sight and smiled. Manipulating corpses was shunned even in black magic. Yet he delighted in crossing that forbidden boundary.

'Mother.'

He thought of Theonis and everyone in Count Bosar's household. Would they all have rotted by now? They must have. Eward had not been a black mage then, so he had been unable to make the corpses into proper undead. Killing them without wounds... and infusing them with darkness to make them move little by little without falling apart had been his limit.

“Magic...”

Eward moved his hands, his shoulders trembling with ecstasy.

“...is so wonderful. So enjoyable.”

The spirit of darkness let out a spine-chilling scream. Darkness resonated with it and gathered around Eward. When he moved his fingers, blood-red light drifted through the darkness, tracing a spell formula.

The darkness drifting around Eugene became countless hands. They rushed at him in unison, trying to seize him. Eugene slipped away from their grasp and swung the Moonlight Sword and Holy Sword together.

Darkness spread beneath his feet once again. Dominic—no, the monster whose face was covered in scales—drove the Demonic Spear into the ground with squeaking rasps of breath.

CRRRACK!

Spikes shot upward. The ground became a forest of spears.

Eugene stood unscathed at its center.

FLASH!

The full moon pulverized the spikes. Lifting his cloak, Eugene took a step back. Eward's “black magic” compressed the space around him, trying to choke the life out of him.

[“Ngh...!”]

Mer groaned inside his head. The magic was ominous and as tenacious as a curse. She blocked it with defensive barriers, analyzed its formula, and cast Dispel.

He had said he would leave defense to them. He saw Dominic staggering along. He had killed him quite a few times, yet he kept getting up. Did he have to burn the bastard to ash without leaving a trace? Eugene had mana to spare, but swinging the Moonlight Sword with that much output would be a waste.

'A mere corpse.'

From inside his cloak, he drew Pernoa, the Lightning Bow. This one also gobbled up a hell of a lot of mana, but since he had obtained the lightning flame, its mana waste had decreased greatly, allowing him to fire rapid volleys with little mana.

CRACKLE!

He did not even need to hold it or draw the string by hand. Flickering flames held the Lightning Bow, and the lightning spreading from those flames became arrows.

One, two, three, four, five... Ten bundles of lightning were set upon the string.

Then they all fired at once.

KABOOM!

Amid explosive thunder and flashes of lightning, Dominic's body crumbled and scattered. Eugene advanced and swung the Holy Sword. With the addition of sacred flames, Dominic's body vanished without leaving a single fragment.

The Demonic Spear remained, however. Ignoring it as it fell to the ground, Eugene kicked off and leaped upward. With an enormous magic circle behind him, Eward held the Crushing Hammer high.

“... Hahaha!”

Laughing, Eward brought the Crushing Hammer down.

ROOOOM!

An immense force poured down upon Eugene. Hands reached from the darkness, trying to seize his body. The magic circle behind Eward rippled. A pair of enormous hands emerged from it. They spread behind him like wings, then closed around his body as if grasping it.

“Good to see you.”

Eugene knew those hands. They were black magic the Demon King of Carnage had used. Even attacks unleashed with all his strength had struggled to pierce a single finger. Each of the ten fingers possessed magical power, and moving them unleashed great spells.

The force commanded by the Crushing Hammer pressed down on him, as if to slam him to the ground and crush him. The defensive barriers Mer controlled broke one after another. Supporting Eugene's body, Tempest tried to push back the hammer's power, but darkness mingled even with the storm he summoned, and it began to scatter.

Eugene put away the Lightning Bow.

The force bearing down on him was strong, but he did not bend at the waist. He saw Eward looking down at him, wrapped in the enormous hands. The bastard smiled as though certain of victory.

How pathetic.

What exactly had Eward done since the battle began? He had isolated this space with darkness and blocked support from the Black Lions. That had been quite effective. Drawing Cyan, Ciel, and the others in first and taking them hostage had been effective too.

That was the extent of what Eward had done “well.” He had contracted with a spirit of darkness, a remnant of a Demon King. He ruled the darkness in this space, wielded the Crushing Hammer's power, and had gained the ability to use advanced black magic by resonating with the remnant.

With so much at his disposal, all he did was...

'This paltry shit.'

Bring the Crushing Hammer down. Grab with hands. Make spikes with the Demonic Spear... He had used several other spells as well, but his use of his newfound abilities was clumsy.

CRACKLE.

Lightning coursed, and a mane streamed out.

The Crushing Hammer's oppressive force was pierced. Eward's blackened eyes clearly perceived what happened before him. When the Moonlight Sword radiated light, it pierced the hammer's power. Eugene accelerated along that path and twisted his body right before him. The Holy Sword drawn from his cloak cut a “finger” first. Then the Moonlight Sword struck the weakened finger.

“... Ah...”

The fingers clasping his body split apart. Darkness billowed up and flowed like blood. Eward looked down at his tilting, collapsing body. The angle looked wrong.

It could hardly have been otherwise.

The successive slashes had cut his body in two.

“Aaaaah!”

Eward screamed in terrible pain. Darkness burst again and again. The magic circle warped. It hurt. Why? He had been cut. Severed below the chest. Was he dying? He would not die. Darkness joined his body together. Darkness filled him instead of blood. More gathered within him. The fingers twitched. Kill him. Kill him! Trembling violently, Eward spat the words out.

The widely spread fingers poured magic at Eugene. The assault was so savage and fierce that it was hard to believe it came from the same person as before. Raising a mana shield, Eugene broke straight through the magic. Raging winds pushed the spells away, and Mer intercepted them.

“Kaaagh!”

Gripping the Crushing Hammer with both hands, Eward charged. The wavering hands behind him flicked their fingers toward Eugene.

BOOOM!

A powerful burden weighed on Eugene's movements. Without showing it, he stepped forward. An explosion within his body—Eugene swung the Moonlight Sword without slowing.

KABOOM!

The Crushing Hammer and Moonlight Sword collided. He could not cut through it. The sword still lacked power. Indeed, in a direct contest of strength, he was the one who would be driven back. Instead of resisting that force, Eugene flowed with it and spun. The Holy Sword he drew through a gap in his cloak thrust into a gap between the fingers surrounding Eward.

“Aaaagh!”

His neck was cut. Eugene had not severed it completely—barely halfway through. Again, no blood sprayed, and Eward's voice did not falter. Screaming at the top of his lungs, he swung the Crushing Hammer and fired spells wildly.

BOOOM!

Ignition had not stopped. But its backlash was beginning to set in. Blood trickled from Eugene's tightly pressed lips, and his movements stiffened for a moment. Tempest and Mer devoted themselves to defense, but the Crushing Hammer's power broke through and crushed down on Eugene's left arm.

“Ha... Hahaha!”

Eward saw blood burst from Eugene's left arm. Had the force been just a little stronger, the whole arm would have been torn off. Even if it had not gone that far, the injury hurt. And Eugene could not heal his wounds as Eward could.

“It hurts, doesn't it? Huh?! You don't have to hold it in. Go ahead and cry. Scream too!”

“Cut your dick off.”

“... What?”

“If you scream because this much hurts, cut your dick off, you fuck.”

Sneering, Eugene moved even closer to Eward.

The hilt in his right hand.

Its eerie moonlight was nowhere to be seen. ... What was that? Eward could not understand what Eugene held. It did not matter what it was. At this distance, his attack would definitely hit. He would not let his guard down. He hated pain. Fingers wrapped around his body, and another spell appeared from the magic circle behind him.

'... Why?'

Darkness tugged at his body.

'... Dodge...? That's just... a stick.'

The spirit's faint voice delivered a warning.

'Don't... order me around. I can do this myself. Trust me. I'll feed him to you as a sacrifice without your help.'

Time, which had seemed to stretch endlessly, stopped the instant the Moonlight Sword's hilt touched the “hand” protecting Eward's body.

Moonlight burst forth.