Chapter 399: Deciding the Match, and the End of the Battle.
(Note: seems like we're sticking with Ende's group for the start.)
Turning both his arms into blades, Luto charged in.
The [Crystal Armament] of Phrases is, in a word, something that takes the life energy of a ruler-class and projects it outside.
It's something that's actually quite similar to the [Touki] used by Ende and Elze.
With that power, Luto charged at Ende with an explosive force and speed several times greater than earlier.
"Raaa!"
Luto's blade arms were swung down towards Ende. Ende doesn't have the same divine swords Nei and Rize had. If he takes those blades head on, the only possible result would be being cut in half.
Even while understanding that, Ende did not retreat a single step backwards. Following his shishou's teachings, he let out a deep breath, and formed a spiral of magic power below his navel.
"[Touki Release]!"
"What the!?"
An explosive amount of Touki enveloped Ende's body. And they're not normal Touki, either. Divinity is mixed into it. It's not a pure divinity like Touya's, but it's more than sufficient to contend against the evil god's dependants. Exactly befitting a dependant of the Martial God.
Ende received the swung down blade arm by clasping it with his two hands, clad in Touki.
"Haah!"
"Wh!?"
And with a twist, Ende broke off the variant ruler-class' arm. To the wide-eyed Luto, a beautiful backhand strike from Ende—after he tossed away the blade in his hands—landed squarely on the side of his face.
Even as he was being blown away, Luto's broken right arm began to regenerate. While rolling on the ground, he somehow managed to fix his posture and stood back up on his feet.
However, the moment he turned his face towards Ende, an impact from his shoulder rocked his body, as if an invisible fist had landed there.
"Gu…! Wh, what was…!?"
"Missed, huh. Guess my [Hakkei] isn't good enough for actual combat yet."
Ende muttered in a stance with his right fist pushed out. With greater distance, the accuracy falls, and the power is also several stages lower. At its current state, it really cannot be called something that's usable in combat. It's faster to just punch the opponent directly.
"It's my turn now. I'll be returning the debt of last time."
Ende dashed towards Luto at full speed. In his fully-armed state, Luto was able to catch that movement with his eyes this time.
He guarded against Ende's outstretched fist with the arm that finished regenerating. In order for it to not break again, Luto had reconstructed his arm to be denser and more durable.
As such, while Luto's arm raised a creaking sound, it did not break from Ende's punch this time.
And in return, he sent a fist covered in numerous thorns towards Ende's face.
As Ende, who dodged that fist by a hair's breath, made a half-turn, Luto suddenly realized his view became upside-down without notice.
"Guhaa!?"
With a seoi-nage, Luto found himself being thrown on the ground.
When Ende tried to throw a punch down towards the fallen Luto, his eyes caught sight of a light approaching from the side, and he was forced to jump backwards.
A heat ray pierced through the spot where his own head had been a moment ago.
That laser-like ray crashed into the wall of the [Prison] surrounding them, and then disappeared.
Looking towards the source of the heat ray, the figure of Leto, who was gathering light on the tip of her stake-like right arm, could be seen.
"Please die!"
Once again, she released a heat ray from her right arm.
Ende dodged that with a backstep, and got away from Luto.
Using that opening, Luto stood back up and extended his blade arm towards Nei, who had been trying to attack Leto.
"Ku!"
Nei used the divine sword in her hands to repel the blade arm; upon which, the arm extended to wrap itself around Leto, and pulled her in towards the other twin.
Leto flew through the air, and with a rotation, landed besides her twin brother.
"Tch, and I wanted to defeat them while they're still separated too."
Ende clicked his tongue while looking at the twins, who had taken up a stance with their backs to each other.
As twins, their ability to cooperate with each other is superb. With them covering each other's openings, they can perform at a level not just twice, but many times above their original specs both offensively and defensively.
"Our bad. We couldn't hold her down."
"Sorry."
"Can't be helped. I also couldn't finish Luto off, so."
Ende replied to Nei and Rize, who were facing down the twins on the opposite side of him.
Ende then kicked off strongly with his Touki-clad legs. Reacting to that, Luto's sword arm attacked him, but he repelled the slash using his own fist, clad in a mixture of divinity and Touki.
Towards the now-defenseless Luto, Ende unleashed a sharp kick.
However, this time, Leto's sword arm thrusted itself towards him from behind Luto like a spear.
"Kuh!"
Ende had to twist his body sideways in order to dodge that, and retreated from that spot.
Leto had moved without even looking in Luto's direction. She had sent the interception earlier towards Ende—who had been attacking Luto directly behind her—while her sight never left Nei and Rize in front.
"As troublesome as ever… These two…"
"That's my line. To think we would be done in to this degree by a bunch of small fries. Yura's going to laugh at us for sure if he knew about this. Leto! Let's end this already!"
"Right. I'm getting fed up with this too. I'm also getting irritated by that woman who's just enjoying the show back there. Let's do it, Luto."
Leto smiled fearlessly as she glared at their former [Sovereign], who's standing behind Nei and the others.
With *baki baki baki* sounds, crystal-like metallic pillars appeared from under the two's feet in a radial pattern, in the form of a bamboo shoot.
The multiplying metallic pillars covered the feet of the two in but a moment, and began pushing them upwards.
The metallic substance eventually merged together into a single form; a body with eight legs showed itself before Ende and the others.
The form of a spider. On top of its head, the bodies of the twins—from their waists up—could be seen.
In this world, a demonkin species called Arachne exist: the upper body is that of a woman, and the lower body is that of a spider. Their current form resembles an arachne, but no arachnes with two bodies of different genders exist, and arachnes also don't have metallic-looking bodies.
"So, that's your true form, or something like that?"
"This is also a power given to us by Yura. The idea of using this is a bit offensive to us, but whatever. We'll kill you all before absorbing you one by one."
Although it seemed like Luto is the one speaking, there are traces of Leto's voice in it as well. It seems like they've become one in the truest sense of the word.
Ende could see the flow of magic power inside its body. The two cores that were in the throat areas of the twins had moved to the location of the spider's heart. The two cores were functioning as one.
Leto's right arm, and Luto's left arm began changing drastically. After a while, two giant pairs of scissors appeared from their arms.
They're not the pincers of crabs or scorpions. Their forms are of the cutting tools used by humans, long, metallic scissors.
"Here!"
The tip of the closed scissors rushed towards Ende.
As Ende jumped backwards, it pierced deeply into the ground he was standing on a moment ago.
"I'll have you be cut into halves!"
This time, the voice sounded like Leto's with a bit of Luto's mixed in.
The right arm—which is now in the form of a pair of scissors as well—of Leto, who shouted out, mercilessly stretched towards Rize and tried to cut her in half.
"Rize!"
Nei reached her hand out towards her sister, whose reaction was too slow.
Leto's scissors weren't trying to bisect Rize's body; it was aiming for her neck. She's trying to kill Rize by cutting apart the core inside a ruler-class' throat together with her neck.
If the core is destroyed, even if you're a ruler-class, you would no longer be able to regenerate. That would mean death.
At the moment Leto's scissors closed themselves towards Rize's neck and tried to bisect it, they stopped with a high-pitched sound. No, they were stopped.
"Wh…!"
Directly in front of Rize, a crystal pillar had emerged from the ground and interfered with Leto's attack by placing itself between the blades of the scissors.
"This damn…!"
As Leto poured the evil god's divinity into the pair of scissors and applied more force, the crystal pillar was easily cut down. However, Rize had already escaped from the reach of the scissors during that time.
"How dare you get in my way…!"
Leto turned and glared at the person responsible for that crystal pillar earlier. The Phrase [Sovereign] calmly standing off to the side, Mel.
"This battle was something that Endymion and the other two wished for. That's why, I had planned to silently watch over it… Maybe I do need to reaffirm my will regarding this matter. Somewhere in my heart, I might still be thinking of you two… As comrades… No, I might've been."
"Hah. We've long thrown away the boring life of a Phrase. With this power, we can do whatever we want."
"We are no longer bound by the existence known as Phrases. We're free! Free to kill whoever pissed us off, free to rampage around as much as we want, free to live however we want! We'll never listen to you, the [Sovereign], ever again!"
"Truly… My voice doesn't reach the two of you anymore, does it…"
Mel lowered her face for a bit; but immediately, she lifted it back up, and gazed at Leto and Luto who's in front of her.
"As the Phrase [Sovereign], I shall put an end to your rampage. [Prisma Chain]."
Receiving Mel's power, crystalline pillars burst out of the ground one after another. Those pillars changed their forms into chains, and stretched out to bind and immobilize Leto and Luto's body.
"Ku! Something like this…!"
The spider body began tearing at the crystal chains binding itself. The two, who focused on that, were late in noticing the youth with a swaying muffler behind him, who stood in front of them.
"Wh…!"
"Bushin-ryu Secret Art, Shinra Rasensho."
Ende, who held up a palm, made a powerful half-step forward and drove that palm together with a spiral of divinity into the body of the spider.
Although a large *pan!* sound could be heard from the strike, no observable change occurred on either Leto or Luto.
"And with this, my debt is paid."
"What are you talking…!?"
"Eh? Don't tell me, this… This can't be! What, what is this!?"
The dark-golden bodies of Leto and Luto began melting down.
They understood then, that the palm strike made by Ende earlier had broken the cores inside their bodies. With no damage being done to the other parts of the body, the shockwave had specifically targeted their cores, and destroyed them instantly.
The divine protection of the evil god, which had been shielding the cores, couldn't stand up against the power bestowed by a real god in the end.
As the spider body crumbled while raising black smoke, Leto and Luto found themselves sprawled on the ground. Their bodies, too, began melting down, unable to maintain their shapes any longer.
They opened their mouths, as if to shout out something, but nothing came out.
Even though they had sold their souls to the evil god, they were her past companions; Nei closed her eyes as she faced their last moments. There's a possibility that she could end up in their positions, too, if she didn't choose the correct path to take before.
When Nei opened her eyes again, she could only see some sooty substance piled on the ground while raising black smoke. The twins, once ruler-classes like her, had completely disappeared from this world.
"Nei… Alright?"
"… Ahh, I'm fine."
Nei gave a short answer to Rize, who called out to her. Even though their relationship was bad, they still spent several tens of thousands of years together. It's natural for Nei to have complicated feelings right now.
And as if to cut apart those feelings, a single Frame Gear dropped down before the four of them. It's Touya's Reginleiv.
"Seems like you guys are done here."
"You too."
Ende raised his hand and replied to Touya's voice, which was projected out from Reginleiv's external speakers.
As if responding to that voice, the walls of the [Prison] around the four disappeared like light snow.
"All that's left is cleaning up the leftover variants. Sorry, but could you go out in the Dragoon again?"
"Touya sure is harsh on people as usual. Well, it's fine. Remember to pay me well for my services, okay."
"Aah. I'll treat you guys to whatever you want, katsudon, tendon, unaju, anything."
"Why's it nothing but food… No, I mean, I get it but…"
Ende glanced back towards the three ruler-class girls behind him. Even though they don't gain any energy from it, the three of them eat a lot. Of the money Ende earns from working at the Adventurer's Guild, an overwhelming majority ends up disappearing into their stomachs.
The three of them could possibly finish off a whole dragon by themselves.
Ende reconsidered his options, and figured that if he receives gold as a reward only for it to become foodstuff later, it might actually be better for him to just receive food as a reward directly.
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(Note: POV change, back to Touya.)
"And, guess we're done with everything this time."
I sat back on the seat in Reginleiv's cockpit, and called out the surrounding map data from my smartphone, placed on the central console. Number of remaining variants, zero. We've cleared up everything.
While we have suffered some damages, there are no casualties. The biggest damage would be the two Chevaliers which were taken in by the sea anemone variant, and Suu's Ortlinde Overlord, I guess. Well, there are several other Chevaliers which have suffered serious damage, too.
My head hurts thinking about dealing with the aftermath. First up would be a discussion about our future plans in the two-world conference, I guess. The monarchs of the western world… The western continent, they should've understood the severity of the situation from the large invasion this time as well.
If you think about the captured Frame Gears, as well as the movement pattern of the variants up until this point, it wouldn't be strange for Frame Gear-type variants to show themselves sooner or later.
We would have to think of something that would allow us to have an advantage over that… I'll just chuck this matter to the professor.
If Ende's group is right, with this, the only variant ruler-class left should be Yura.
However, during the instant before the sea anemone variant disappeared, that humanoid shadow I saw… That didn't feel like Yura…
Had he called new forces over from that [Phrasia] place Ende and the others talked about? Mm, I have no idea…
Thinking about it now won't help, I guess. I'll just do whatever I can.
I switched the chat channel to open access inside Reginleiv, and projected my voice out to everyone.
"Operation complete. I'll be activating transfer magic, so stand by at your current position. Henceforth, all machines would be heading back."