Chapter 423: The Power of Love, and the Molted Evil God.
In order to defend against the ball of light, I tried to activate [Teleport], but stopped due to sensing another flow of magic power that occurred faster.
A second crater was created together with a tremendous explosion and huge tremors. If everyone had been there, not even a trace of them would've been left.
I breathed a small sigh of relief. Beneath me, everyone's Valkyrias were standing on the ground.
The instant the ball of light was fired, they used [Teleport] to move to where I am.
It's not Sakura's power. The aforementioned "Mochizuki Touya" app had also been distributed to everyone's phones as well. They used [Teleport] through that.
"Touya-san, so you were alright."
"Sorry everyone, I was shut away by that idiot Yura for a bit. It took me a bit to try to get out."
For the moment, I apologized to everyone. They probably worried quite a bit. Huh, wait a second?
"Where's Ende's group?"
The ones here are only the nine Valkyrias. Ende's group… Him, Mel, Nei and Rize are not here.
"We asked Mel and the others to go help defeat the variants. The Dragoon was pretty badly beaten up, and fighting against the evil god using only their own bodies is a bit, you know."
Elze, inside Gerhilde, answered my question. True, even with the "Mochizuki Touya" app, fighting against the evil god with just your own body is quite reckless.
"So that's the evil god-degozaru ka…"
"I like big things, but I hate bugs-ja."
Everyone looked at the evil god which is slowly turning this way. The large compound eyes looked directly back at us. I can't feel any emotion or will from that guy. As I thought, it should be moving on nothing but instinct.
Sparks began flying off the tips of the large antennae on the evil god's head. It's coming!
"Everyone, spread out!"
The moment I shouted, all the Valkyrias activated [Fly] and evacuated to the skies.
Right after that, a huge lightning bolt shot out from the evil god's antennae and struck the place we were at just now.
Every one of its attacks are huge. What a nuisance, this guy.
"Touya-san, um, there's actually something I want to, ask…"
"Eh, what is it?"
"This power that's been flowing into us since a while ago, is this Touya-san's, power?"
"Eh?"
When I squinted my eyes towards everyone else after hearing Linze's words, platinum-colored divinity was drifting of everyone's frame like heat hazes.
Wait, doesn't that look just like my divinity…!
Is my power flowing to everyone due to them being my dependants?
"How should I say it… It's a warm power."
"I can feel King-sama beside me. I definitely won't lose now."
"Fufu. Basically, it's darling's love."
"Touya-sama's love! We are invincible now, as long as we have this!"
What is that, so embarrassing. Stop it! I mean, it's actually kinda true, but it's hella embarrassing if you say it out loud like that!
"Well then, in order to respond to this love as well, everyone, let's beat that evil god with all our strength!"
Everyone nodded to Yumina's words and released the divinity within themselves. They're still below mine, but those are indeed pure divinity.
I suddenly came to a shocked realization. The girls were already determined. To accompany me on my path as my, as a god's dependants. They had no hesitation about it.
That means I was the one who was the most indecisive… I don't have the face to face them.
"Alright, let's go!"
The vanguard was Elze. While flying towards the evil god with [Fly], she nimbly dodged the lasers it shot at her.
"[Touki Release]! Finishing move! [Cannon Break]!"
Gerhilde's pile bunker smashed into one of the evil god's limbs. Due to the sheer size of the limb, it wasn't broken off in one go, but she did manage to put large cracks into it.
The numerous cracks did not regenerate as they produced black smoke. Elze's divinity is, no doubt, preventing that from happening.
"Deyaaaaaah!"
"Haaaaaaaah!"
The ones who charged in towards that were two frames, colored purple and orange. Yae's Schwertleite, and Hilda's Siegrune. Holding a tachi and a broadsword clad in a platinum glow, they flew towards the limb cracked from Elze's attack.
"Kokonoe Shinmeiryuu Ougi, Ryuuga Retsuzan!"
"Lestia-style Sword Technique, Sixth · Thunderclap!"
The two frames slashed into the cracked limb in an X shape while crossing over each other.
Like a piece of glasswork, the limb broke into pieces, and fell onto the ground.
While black smoke is coming out of its wounds, the evil god turned to the three Frame Gears that had cut off one of its limbs, and shot out another giant thunderbolt from its antennae.
However, the three of them immediately retreated using [Teleport].
As the evil god was using its compound eyes to search for the three that disappeared, a crystal bullet with [Mega Explosion] enchanted on it landed right on one of them.
Gigigigiii-!
The evil god's upper body rocked from the huge explosion. And right then, another crystal bullet struck its throat. Another set of flames and shockwaves assaulted the evil god.
"As expected, it's really easy to hit when it's that big."
Yumina's Brunnhilde, holding up a rifle-type equipment, fired a third crystal bullet. This one landed on the evil god's abdomen, and triggered yet another huge explosion.
While the bullets did not cause great damage to the evil god, they did create cracks on its body.
Following that, an explosion also occurred on the evil god's shoulder. This one isn't from Brunnhilde; it's from Luu's Waltraute. The emerald green frame was equipped with the C-unit for bombardment purposes.
"It's true, it really is easy to hit. Even I, who has worse accuracy, can hit it easily."
Gigigigigigigigiiii-!
From the evil god's wings, an unpleasant dissonant sound is produced. Together with the unpleasantness, our frames were also assaulted by some kind of shockwave. It seems like those sounds are laden with divinity. Just like the effect of [Gravity], the frames were pressured by an unknown force, and raised creaking noises.
It's probably done in order to not let us approach it; unfortunately, we have a songstress in our midst here.
"Won't let you."
From Sakura's Rossweisse, a strong singing voice was projected out.
I'm pretty sure that song was the one used to find the variant advanced-class' core locations last time.
This song, which has the simple, straightforward title of "the Power of Love", was also the theme song of a famous movie about time travel. The power that makes the world spin. That's the power of love.
Nothing can hold a candle to it. That includes, of course, the evil god.
The dissonant sound was erased by Sakura's singing, and the pressure on our frames disappeared.
"Next up is me-ja!"
Suu's golden giant, Ortlinde Overlord took "that" out of the [Storage].
Anti-advanced-class specialized giga gravity weapon, [Gold Hammer]. A gigantic golden ball with vicious spikes all over it.
Holding the handle connected to the ball by a long chain, Ortlinde Overlord began swinging the ball in a circle furiously. From a vertical spin to a horizontal spin. The magi-graviton created via [Gravity] and [Prison] began steadily accumulating inside the main body of the hammer.
Gigigigigigigigi!
Reacting to the divinity that's swelling up from Ortlinde Overlord, the evil god rained down lasers upon it. While Ortlinde looked to be defenseless at first glance, Suu and the others have the strong helper known as the "Mochizuki Touya" app.
"[Reflection]!"
A translucent wall was created in front of Ortlinde in midair, and reflected all the lasers pouring down at it, sending them far beyond the horizon.
Suu threw the golden hammer, which had begun releasing sparks, towards the evil god with every ounce of her strength.
"Turn to dust—ttt!"
The golden ball, which had turned into a mass of magi-graviton, flew towards the evil god. It probably sensed the danger; the evil god used its long snake-like tail and tried to slam it down.
The moment they contact each other, a blinding flash and tremendous explosion sounds assaulted us.
Gigigigigigigigigi!?
Around half of the evil god's tail turned into gold sand and drifted away together with the wind. The Gold Hammer also disintegrated with it.
"Muu, I messed up-no."
If it was before, Ortlinde would've been forcibly shut down due to being unable to withstand the reaction of using the Gold Hammer. However, with the various revisions done to it, plus the magic power supply coming from the "Mochizuki Touya" app, it's still able to move right now.
"I want to make it eat another Gold Hammer, but that was the last one I had-no."
"It's enough. Just leave the rest to us."
Both Suu and I looked backwards as we heard Leen's voice.
Over there, Leen's Grimgerde and Linze's Helmwige could be seen propping up a gigantic cannon.
Giant magic gun [Brionac]. A final weapon designed for anti-advanced-class combat. It's a cannon that shoots out a drill bullet, requiring a ridiculous amount of magic power and fine magic control at the same time.
If used with my Reginleiv, it becomes hard to control, and with Leen and Linze, it can only be fired once due to their total magic power capacity; it's an unruly weapon.
It takes a long time to fill it with magic power too. It's a weapon that's truly hard to use, but it seems that the two of them had already foresaw something like this happening, as they've been pouring magic power into it since the beginning of the fight. The meter on the side of the cannon is already at full charge.
"Charging rate is 100%, desu!"
"Firee!"
The giant drill bullet that was fired out together with a huge boom shot towards the evil god's abdomen in a straight line.
The drill bullet then began to rotate at high speed. While crushing the evil god's abdomen mercilessly into pieces, the drill continued flying forward.
Gigigigigigigigigigigigi!?
While staring at the drill bullet piercing into its abdomen, the evil god let out a death cry-like noise.
The drill bullet, which was crushing the evil god's metallic body as it proceeded forward, finally completely pierced through its abdomen and came out on the other side.
If this was a human's body, that would be the equivalent of having a gold ball-sized hole opened up on your stomach. Normally, you'd die pretty quickly from that, but the evil god doesn't have things like internal organs. However, the damage from the divinity in the attack should still be substantial.
Gigigigigigigigigigi... Re… Ka… Nari…
"What?"
The evil god's movements stopped, and a voice I recognize could be heard from it. That voice is…!
"I am a god… The absolute and supreme god… I will not forgive anyone who dare to disobey me… Foolish bugs crawling on the earth who dare to defy god, receive divine punishment!"
Light began flowing out of every part of the evil god's body. Together with a rainbow-colored haze, cracks began appearing all over the evil god.
Its back, from which the wings grew out of, split vertically with a large motion. The silkmoth- like wings fell off and struck the ground, shattering into pieces.
From within the split-open back, something grew out. Rainbow-colored particles flowed out like the rainbow lights that appear when you look at the back of a CD or DVD, and formed the shapes of large bat wings.
Three pairs, six wings in total. While its shape is that of a bat's wings, somehow, it gives people an artificial impression.
An angular-looking back followed those wings. And after that, six new limbs that withdrew themselves from the old body like throwing away an empty shell. These six limbs aren't the
thin insectoid ones like before. They're thick and muscular, with the forearm until the elbow covered in a black armor-like exoskeleton.
Equally thick and armored legs broke out from the snake-like lower body as well. A new, thorn-filled tail also sprouted from the now-halved tail.
An armored helmet-like head was at the top, with two sinister-looking horns on the sides.
The former silkmoth-like body gradually fell off in pieces like a snake shedding its old skin, and "that" finally showed its full figure in front of us.
Different from the dark golden glow its old body had, the current one was clad in a rainbow light.
After having a look at its whole body, I felt distinctly that it did not give off an organic feeling.
It's like… No, it most definitely had a largely mechanical design. It's a rainbow-colored evil god that looked as if a Frame Gear was twisted and merged with a living being.
While it looked somewhat similar to Hekatonkheire, that one had a strong image of being devilish. However, this one has some vestiges of Phrase-like design in it. If Hekatonkheire was a robot, then this evil god would be an android, something like that.
While it tried to look like a living being, it's not. A distinct unpleasantness like that was present on that body.
"Foolish beings who defy god… Useless humans who can do nothing besides ravaging, corrupting, and draining everything from the earth they live on… Foolish… Foolish foolish foolish foolish foolish! Even though all would've been well if you had shut up and obeyed me!"
This voice… There's no doubt. Tch, so he didn't perish?
"You seem well, NEET god."
"…? You bastard…! That brat from back then! How dare you, it was your fault!"
"Stop trying to push it onto others. You reaped what you sowed."
"Shut uppppp!"
From the tip of the horns on its helmet, a three-pronged lightning strike flew towards me.
"[Shield]!"
If I used [Reflection], I might hit everyone else with the stray shots, so I used a protective wall instead to block the attack.
While white smoke was coming off it, the evil god took one step forward. The long, spiked tail behind him also moved in tandem.
"Each and everyone of you, trying to get in my way! You incompetents! If you leave everything to me, I would've been able to create a perfect world! Without war or poverty, a world where everyone is equal, governed by just laws; why would you reject such a world! All that live on this world are gods' servants; what is wrong with managing them!? Isn't it a god's duty to guide the foolish ones!?"
I was so amazed I don't even have words to refute him, looking at his way of acting, as if him being right was an universal truth. World God-sama made a very good call in not raising this guy up from his position as a subordinate god. He might've hoped to see his thought pattern change for the better in the past, but there's probably no more need of that now.
"Mode change: Dagger."
The greatsword held in Reginleiv's hands changed into forty-eight daggers in an instant, and began circling around the frame like satellites.
Platinum divinity was clad around each of the daggers, looking like they were aflame. There's no forgiveness here for an enemy of the world.
"[Gladius]."
The 48 platinum meteors that flew away from Reginleiv pierced through the mechanical evil god's arms, wings, legs, chest, head, one after another. It was a fierce onslaught by 48 arrowheads at their full power.
After the attack finished, the 48 daggers returned to their positions beside Reginleiv, and once again began orbiting it like satellites.
"Guogagagagaa! Damn you! Damn you bratttttt! A mere human dare to pretend he's a god, and stand up to a legitimate god such as myself…!? Unforgivable! I will not forgive you! I will tear you apart! You inferior existence who only amounts to something created by the gods!"
"Shut up. I'll teach you something. On Earth, we call a world where a single ruler controls everything a dystopia. Remember that."
The 48 daggers orbiting Reginleiv once again began blazing with a platinum aura. This guy will be crushed here by me. I'll destroy this thing, the result born of a self-centered and delusional god. Neither myself, nor the world, are nice enough to let him continue sleep talking when it's already way past daybreak.
"[Gladius]."
Once again, a group of platinum meteors assaulted the evil god.