A curious iron vehicle traveled along the road, surrounded on all sides by steep cliffs. Rushing along without any horses pulling it, it was not a carriage. However, it didn't spit out and steam, making it clearly different from the steamwork vehicles that were being popularized in Aureatia.
It was the product of technology unknown to the world at large—that is to say, the work of a self-proclaimed demon king.
"Did all those merchant types clear out, already? Here I was hoping to swindle 'em outta some high-quality radzio crystals."
The name of the old woman sitting in the front seat of the abnormal vehicle was Kiyazuna the Axle.
Her ultimate masterpiece, Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge, sat in the roofless cargo bed in the back. His colossal frame couldn't fit within the vehicle itself.
Loaded inside the cargo bed was not only the golem, but a variety of tools big and small. They were the goods the two had plundered during their raid on the Old Kingdoms' loyalists. Magic tools that could serve as promising golem material, and rare metals.
The sword that Mestelexil was gripping tightly in his hands was the very symbol of the Old Kingdoms itself—Charijisuya the Blasting Blade.
"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"
"So you've taken a liking to that one, eh, Mestelexil?" "Yeah! Blowing, up rocks, and metal, i-is very fun!"
"For a bunch of small-time upstarts, those Old Kingdoms' punks got their hands on quite the treasure. You see 'em, Mestelexil? All of them got blown away like scraps of trash. Didn't get to use any weapons at all."
"Ha, ha-ha-ha-ha! B-But, I, had fun! They flew, all the way, up to the roof!"
"Ooh, not bad. Fun to send minia flying, eh?"
"Yeah. But, when I, send them flying…and they hit something, it g-gets so messy. Why is that?"
"That's 'cause their entrails come spilling out." "What are, 'en-trails'?"
"…Even non-golems got their stomach stuffed fulla mechanisms that makes them move, see. Unlike you, they're soft and can't be swapped out, though. Not that great, lemme tell ya."
The vehicle picked up speed.
"Better win, Mestelexil! Unlike those entrail-filled fools, you're immortal. You don't have the limited homunculus lifespan, or the life core of a golem! No matter what it is, enchanted sword, or anything else, to the winner go the spoils! Even when you're going up against the Particle Storm!"
"Yeah!"
He suddenly shouted.
"Ah! M-Mama, I found it! The a-a…air…" "Air current!"
Mestelexil spun his ball-shaped head this way and that.
"Yeah! Air current! It's c-coming, from this, way! It, it is close!"
"Perfect, going in the opposite direction of the natural wind… The Particle Storm is close by, per calculations. This proves that my Chariot Golem can catch up with the Particle Storm's pace, even coming all this way from the seaside towns. Woulda loved to rub this in that Miluzi's face."
"Amazing! My, sibling is, amazing! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"
The odd vehicle they were riding was not strictly a vehicle at all. It was the Chariot Golem, specializing in transportation. It was a unit with an irrefutable soul like Mestelexil, but it still used Word Arts to mobilize itself independently and could travel at speeds far beyond the commonly held expectations of the age.
"…You don't have any connection to this stuff, Mestelexil."
A supernatural weather phenomenon on the frontier, one the average person would go a whole lifetime without ever seeing. For her, it was a name she could never forget.
"But it's not just this one, either. A long time ago, you had several thousands of other siblings. In between the Yamaga Barrens, on the opposite side of Itaaki. I had a country of my own. A country of golems."
"R-really?! Big brothers! Mama's, c-country! Amazing!"
"Heh. Incredible, right? But my country got turned inside out and your brothers were all killed, too. That Particle Storm bastard… That cursed thing
came outta the damn desert. Hadn't done anything like it before that, yet it decided to move just to come crush my country. Gotta be why it's heading toward Aureatia, too, I bet. When a minian country grows powerful, that Particle Storm bastard comes out to put it down. Far as I know, it's the absolute worst calamity out there."
When Kiyazuna was a child, born with an excellent talent for Craft Arts, she had been in a nigh constant foul mood. The only times she smiled was when she was handling machinery or bringing violence against someone else. Somewhere along the way, she had been named a self-proclaimed demon king, turning most of the minian races against her, and still she was as foul- tempered as ever, feeling neither disappointment nor despair. All other minian people besides her intrinsically displeased her, and just as she hated
the world herself, she readily accepted the world's animosity to her. "Made a damn fool of me. What's wrong with being powerful?"
This was precisely why there were only a few targets she truly focused her anger on.
Even when the scholars crowding the labyrinth she left behind built a city around it, though she was exasperated, she was not angry, simply leaving them to do as they pleased.
Kiyazuna the Axle's true animosity was reserved for anyone who harmed her children.
"Technology is immortal. Science don't give up. Particle Storm, other golems, whatever the opponent may be, you're the child no one can kill… Mestelexil. You can pulverize any bastard that rubs ya the wrong way. You're my invincible child that'll keep on winning forever!"
"Ha-ha-ha-ha! Even if my, big brothers are g-gone, it is okay! Since I-I am the strongest! Strongest! I will make, your wishes, come true!"
"…Yeah. Do that until you get some wishes of your own. Granting wishes, heck, to someone truly invincible, that's a walk in the park. Go show the bastard that some Particle Storm fool isn't even worthy of standing in front of ya!"
Kiyazuna the Axle intended on picking a fight with calamity itself.
Freedom completely unobstructed by any threat—whether that be an enemy beyond all common reason, like a weather phenomenon of slaughter, or the True Demon King himself. That was the wish of Kiyazuna the Axle.
The Chariot Golem she was driving came out into an open area in the ravine. A convenient spot to wait for the Particle Storm to arrive.
However, there was something up ahead… "Hey, who's this fool?"
There was a large silhouette. The Particle Storm was currently closing in on the ravine at that very moment.
It was fair to call anyone standing in such a place, alone and without a carriage beside them, suicidal.
"Mama! Mama! Amazing! So many, swords! Ha-ha-ha-ha!" "…Swords, eh?"
Kiyazuna squinted her eyes to try get a better look at the figure. The Chariot Golem's large frame was knocked on its side.
Mestelexil instantly reacted to the unannounced slash, and jumped away, holding Kiyazuna in his arms. The wreckage of its six wheels, severed with a clean stroke, was tossed in the air before dropping to the ground.
"The hell's with you? That's some way to introduce yourself." "…Hand over the Blasting Blade."
A large-framed dwarf, head bent forward like a wild beast.
He carried a preposterous number of swords with him. The glare of his eyes, like death incarnate, was fixed hard on Kiyazuna and Mestelexil.
That weapon that instantly sliced through the Chariot Golem's wheels was an enormous halberd with a scythe blade.
It was an enchanted sword.
"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! I wonder who, this could be! He, seems strong! Those swords! How c-coooool."
"I'm going to kill you good for that. Tell me your name."
He was an unescapable fate, one that visited all those who held an enchanted sword. Even now, after dying and descending into hell.
"Toroa the Awful."
And now, the owner of Charijisuya the Blasting Blade was…
Atop a cliff, far away from the place of Toroa and Mestelexil's confrontation. There was a person observing the situation undetected by either party,
utilizing the distance and his espionage skill.
At his feet, there was an extremely elaborate map made up of crisscrossing lines depicting the Gumana Ravine.
It was Kuuro the Cautious. He was narrating information through a radzio to headquarters back at the Gumana Trading Post.
"Reporting my current observations. Kiyazuna the Axle and her golem bodyguard are engaging some unknown sword fighter in combat… No. The swordsman is provoking the fight. At the very least from what I can see… he's got an enchanted sword."
The golem's right arm instantaneously transformed into a strange bundle of gun barrels, and a hail of fire sprayed out from them.
It seemed that the enchanted swordsman's blade couldn't reach the golem, but some sort of interference sent the gun barrels astray and took a sneaky step closer during a gap in the storm of bullets. Touching a different sword, a tremendously powerful fireball appeared right at this location. The ability of the enchanted sword blew up the golem on the spot.
What's going on?
This continuing situation was completely beyond anything Kuuro could have anticipated.
If this battle gets drawn out, the Particle Storm will arrive here. Kiyazuna the Axle…and her unmatched Craft Arts are just going to get tangled up in the disaster and die, then?
On top of that, this identity-unknown sword fighter also happened to be there.
The strength to overwhelm the Kiyazuna-built golem. A master capable of wielding, as far as Kuuro could confirm, three or more different types of enchanted sword all by himself. There was only one person in existence, who he knew, that fit such an exceptional description.
"Maybe a ghost. Hey, or a revenant maybe…"
Hidden inside his coat, Cuneigh couldn't possibly sense the scene of battle, but the information Kuuro was relaying back to headquarters was enough for her to understand the identity of the swordsman.
"…You think a dead monster's been brought back to life? Ghosts and revenants look the same as the body used to make 'em. But, with revenants, their hearts don't beat."
As long as he kept his eyes closed and focused on the fixed location, even
the withering Kuuro could see it for himself. "That guy's heart is pumping."
"Then, um. Uh… An impostor, maybe? After Toroa died, someone might've picked up his enchanted swords by coincidence."
"That might be it… But it might not mean a damn thing whether he's a revenant or an impostor either way."
A jet burner blasted from Mestelexil's back. Toroa evaded the golem's rushes, nearly breaking the speed of sound. Both fighters flew past each other, and with blinding speed, the instant he left the range of his opponent's backward swings, the golem turned the muzzle behind him. The sound of gunfire. The barrel ruptured. The sound of an explosion.
The muzzle was filled with a crystal-like structure. The same moment they passed by each other, Toroa had also aimed for the gun barrel and chucked his enchanted sword. The name of the enchanted sword, which corroded and gnawed life-forms that connected with the blade via minute, frost-like crystals, was Vajgir, the Frostvenom Blade. Even against a golem opponent, its lethality was the same as ever.
When Toroa turned back toward his opponent, he simultaneously drew in an iron wire, and instantly returned the enchanted sword he had thrown moments prior back to his hand. Through the numerous wires strung up over his back, he wielded his numerous enchanted swords all at the same time. A nightmarish technique.
"At the very least, over there…is a monster capable of efficiently wielding numerous enchanted swords and fighting against one of Kiyazuna's golems. It's Toroa the Awful. He's alive."
Kiyazuna the Axle, in an area slightly removed from the battle, was checking the movements of the Chariot Golem and its newly repaired wheels. Although she was confident she had made it durable enough to endure being overturned without anything breaking, given that her intended opponent was the Particle Storm, any unexpected defects could prove fatal.
Defect parts were quickly remolded with Craft Arts and swapped out. Constructing complicated mechanical parts using soil she was treading on for the first time, her Craft Arts were clearly far more brilliant than any normal person could hope to match.
"Now's he's done it. This bastard's really pissed me off."
She clicked her tongue. The battle between the two shura raged on.
Mestelexil was being overpowered.
Mestelexil was obviously superior when it came to physical strength and speed, but in regard to fighting technique and flexibility, Toroa the Awful was the far superior combatant.
"Mestelexil, the crystals! That enchanted sword'll corrode you!" "Wh-whoa, my, arm! My arm!"
The minute crystals that moments prior made him fire accidentally were
extending up his left arm, all the way to his torso. A fiery beam ran across his shoulder, and his left arm fell to the ground. He had amputated it himself.
"My arm! It's gone! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!" "I'm not stopping at just your arm."
Toroa followed through in midair with a different enchanted sword and sent another sweeping slash below him.
"I'll take your life, too."
While the series of movements were part of a slashing attack, it didn't touch Mestelexil in the slightest. However, the inside of his amor was sliced up with countless cuts. The Divine Blade Ketelk. The invisible elongated slash that ignored any barrier in its path was able to directly shred inside his armor—where a golem's weak point, their life core, resided.
"I-I haven't, lost yet!"
Toroa evaded the sudden gunshots. Mestelexil showed no signs of deactivation.
…Did I miss his life core? Where is this golem's core, then?
The fireball enchanted sword he had got a direct hit with earlier—Nel Tseu the Burning Blade—had no effect on this opponent's armor. The automatic reflexive defenses from the Lance of Faima proved unreliable against the fearsome high speed and continuous gunfire.
The enchanted swords that could handle this enemy were Vajgir, the Frostvenom Blade, which corroded anything it came into contact with via a crystalline substance, and Divine Blade Ketelk, with its elongated and invisible slashes.
That was plenty.
"I don't care. I'll just chop up your whole body until you hand over the Blasting Blade."
"Hmm… Wh-whose child, are you, T-Toroa?" "What…?"
It was an unanticipated question. With the framework for his tactical approach set, normally his best course of action would be to send his sword at him without a moment's delay.
"I am, Mestelexil! I-I have, fought against, m-many types of constructs!
T-Toroa was, created by your mom, too, right?! Y-you're really strong!" "…I'm Toroa the Awful."
Even as he sent out one lethal and cruel attack after another, the golem
showed him no hostility. Toroa was the side of the conflict with a reason to fight.
"Hand over the Blasting Blade!"
The swordsman charged forward, with speed seemingly indifferent to the enormous weight he was under. He aimed to come from the left, where Mestelexil had lost his means of defending himself, and used the sword of poison and frost to crystallize his torso directly.
In response to his approach, it was possible the golem would make use of its jet propulsion again to open up space. When he did, Toroa would time the moment of the golem's acceleration with a thrust of Divine Blade Ketelk's long-range jab, Peck, and ruin his balance, toppling him over.
Mestelexil remained motionless.
What's this…
The auto-intercepting enchanted sword, the Lance of Faima, suspended on a chain around his waist, reacted. A projectile from below. He used the Frostvenom Blade to knock it down. It was Mestelexil's left arm, in the advanced stages of crystallization.
He tried to infect me with it instead! So he can still move severed parts of his body, too?!
"Exil io mestel. Nastera mena. Futeno kueto. Likorecthion." (From Exil to Mestel. Mercurial fish fin. Voracious mirror. Match the scales of the sea of clouds.)
In the moment Toroa defended himself from the left arm projectile, the golem had finished an almost impossibly intricate operation. Mestelexil had reassembled and changed the structure of his right arm. The back section was a long, outstretched pipe, resembling a cannon barrel. It was affixed with a box-like attachment and viewing sights. Toroa brandished the enchanted sword in his other hand.
"—einshart. (Obey). FIM-92 Stinger RMP."
"Peck!"
Just as he had held out against the initial Gatling gunfire, the Divine Blade Ketelk's long-range thrust diverted the sights of the weapon away from Toroa. The terrifyingly fast projectile launched straight up into the air.
—It was a small missile that moved at two-point-two times the speed of sound.
The heat source it was tracking was Mestelexil's left arm that Toroa had
swatted away.
The golem had severed the corrosion creeping toward his torso, stopped Toroa's attack by using it as a long-range projectile, finished a Craft Arts incantation, and forced the Grim Reaper with his near limitless available options to exhaust all possible ways to deal with his opponent.
I'm in trouble.
Faster than the Lance of Faima could react, the sound cutting through the air alerted him to the approaching missile. However, it was already too late.
It was right after he had launched the Peck of the Divine Blade Ketelk. "Oooooooh! Shrill…Cry!"
He swung Nel Tseu the Burning Blade while it was still fastened to his upper arm.
A momentary heat wave rushed across the sky. The stinger missile's path was disrupted by the abnormal heat signature, similar to a flare, crashing into the sheer ravine cliff face and exploding.
He forcibly activated the enchanted swords' secret techniques without using his arm, relying solely on the strength of his upper body.
The outstanding technique would be impossible without Toroa's bodily physique.
Since it could change its trajectory in midair, the split-second judgment that it was being propelled toward a heat signature had been the deciding factor between life and death. Though ultimately, it wasn't a heat-induced explosion, like he was aiming for, and instead the heat he produced itself, which proved effective.
"Aresot hechat locoysodbroitenent pit abmalsbideklais saiber—" (Recollections of world-engulfing fire trickle, to the arterial underbelly gaining arcane colors, speckled beaks unseen—)
That settles it.
Mestelexil was reverting the structure of his right arm, as he constructed his lost left arm from the soil.
…This golem definitely doesn't lack intelligence. He's seen all of my skill and speed, and he's keeping up with all of it.
With the sights from the heavy weapon he had just crafted, the golem was learning that Toroa's Peck would hinder the beginning of his attack. Therefore, he had chosen to use a guided missile, which he could fire easily, even if he took his eyes off the sights.
"Ha-ha, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! I am, strong! M-Mama said…no one, will kill, me. That is why, I will not be, killed!"
Still void of any hostility, but with mechanical precision, he could select the absolutely best fighting method available. Toroa imagined there wasn't any other opponent more formidable. In fact, he was like yet another death god, made of steel.
If I don't entrust everything to the enchanted swords, I'll lose.
His right arm moved instinctively. The enchanted sword repelled the hail of bullets coming at his flank.
With this sword, constructed out of several conical rivets, its magnetically linked layout could be rearranged, transforming into both a sword and a shield. It was the Wicked Sword Selfesk.
The attack just now had come from a different direction than where Mestelexil stood.
"Stealing enchanted swords? Give up the fool's errand, lad."
…She uses weapons, too?
It was Kiyazuna the Axle. She was sitting back on the roof of the fully repaired Chariot Golem.
The submachine gun held in her hands was technology that unequivocally exceeded the standards of this world, and impossible to manufacture without Mestelexil.
"Especially my enchanted sword, ya hear? We're busy right now. If you want an easy death, now's the time."
"…Did you come chasing the Particle Storm?" "Yeah?"
"Just who…told you what course it's taking? Is it really a coincidence we met up here?"
"Well, well, what's all this? That's some tantalizing talk there. But it's too late."
The wind was growing more intense. Something blowing against the natural air currents was closing in.
Behind Toroa, a section of the ravine crumbled and fell. Though the colossal boulder was the size of a house, it didn't make any sound when it fell.
It had been pulverized in midair.
There was a wall. It was a tremendous amount of dust, stretched high up
into the air and swirling like a vortex. "The Particle Storm's here already."
Toroa the Awful couldn't take his eyes off the enemy in front of him.
Faced with Mestelexil's ever-changing attacks, a momentary delay in response meant death. Nor could he ignore the abnormal firepower and rapid- fire capacity of Kiyazuna's gun, either.
On top of all that, at his back was a storm of slaughter, turning everything into dust.
The ravine eroded away, and both sand and stone began floating amid the violent winds. Kiyazuna the Axle fixed her eyes on her destined enemy.
"Finally showed up, Particle Storm. Been what, eighteen years?"
She called out to the weather phenomenon, as though it had a personality, and they could communicate with each other through Word Arts.
Like the small village in the Yamaga Barrens had.
"Well…there are those who know of me even here, in the outside world.
Then, rejoice."
In reality, the phenomenon had a will of its own.
Unseen amid the horrifying curtain of dust and sand, the being, both god and storm itself, made sure his voice was heard.
"The day of my guidance has come for you, as well." And so, the disaster arrived.