His consciousness was fading.
Perhaps that wasn't it, and it was returning to him.
Toroa the Awful was laid out on his back, with both his hands thrown up into the air.
His entire body had been impaled. He had slammed violently against the ground.
His limbs had been singed in the aftermath of the Burning Blade's rampage, and his extraordinary rapid-fire usage of Divine Blade Ketelk had pushed it so hard that the sword itself was close to disintegrating.
If this had been an official match, he would have been judged the loser. Alus the Star Runner likely believed that he had killed Toroa.
Indeed, the wounds he had suffered were near fatal.
After all, these are just techniques borrowed from another.
He recalled what Psianop had said to him before.
The skills of a beast who abandoned himself and succumbed to the will of the blades hadn't been enough to claim true victory.
"I knew all that, though…"
This was different from back then. He knew, and he had pushed them to the limit anyway.
He opened and closed a hand. Toroa's body could still move.
He was strong. He was still alive. He could still fight.
Though his fighting style forced him to abandon everything but his killing instinct, he had a personal reason for getting his enchanted sword back.
"Wicked Sword Selfesk."
The first wedge he had fired toward Alus the Star Runner was still lodged inside Alus's mechanical body. Now that he was part machine, the wyvern likely hadn't felt the sort of pain or discomfort an organic body would. Toroa, using his excessive stamina to maintain a nonstop onslaught, hadn't given the world's strongest rogue the slightest opening to take it out.
With his right hand, he activated Wicked Sword Selfesk's magnetic force. "…!"
The magnetism took hold of Alus the Star Runner's body, and he plummeted to the ground below.
Gunshot retribution. A thunderous magic bullet that winds couldn't deflect. However, it didn't directly hit him.
A wedge from Wicked Sword Selfesk, under Toroa's control, acted as a lightning rod and guided it away.
"…So, you're still alive…"
"That's right. However many times it takes…and however many more after that…I'm dragging you down to the depths of hell with me…Alus the Star Runner!"
From the skies above, more of Rotting Soil Sun's earthen blades fell toward him. Toroa had barely managed to raise his upper body off the ground, but the wedges of Wicked Sword Selfesk flew about at high speeds and repelled all the mud.
Just as he'd calculated, Rotting Soil Sun's position couldn't be changed.
Toroa could easily deal with attacks coming at him from the front.
Nevertheless, Alus the Star Runner was a rogue wielding a limitless supply of magical items.
The flame's coming.
Ground Runner. Alus had devoted his extra limb to dealing with this flame running along the ground. Thus, Toroa aimed for the chance to deliver the fatal blow.
The glint of light was rapidly closing in. The heat encroached on Toroa's face.
However, the flame, seemingly about to consume Toroa as he sat unable to stand, suddenly spread out on either side and stopped.
As if the terrain had been a cliff face, unconnected to what was ahead of it. "…Karmic Castigation."
A single-edged sword with a curved blade. A very delicate subspace sword, not suited for combat.
It left behind spatial fissures along the surface of any material it sliced.
He had experienced Ground Runner's attack several times by now. It was a magic item that sent flames racing along terrain. Taking this into consideration, Toroa then understood that it couldn't traverse over gaps in terrain.
Strangely enough, much like how Mele the Horizon's Roar tried to stop Shalk the Sound Slicer in the seventh match by destroying the terrain itself, Tora the Awful had stopped the Ground Runner's flames with the slightest spatial severance.
Alus the Star Runner descended.
Toroa the Awful watched him from the ground below. Both fighters were rapidly approaching each other. "Venom shot."
"Migration."
The attacks were simultaneous.
The deadly bullet Alus fired, aimed with precision at Toroa's body, even as he was drawn in and unable to move freely, ultimately had its path thrown off by the enchanted wind sword's secret technique, deployed with a twist of Toroa's upper body, and landed on the earth.
The violent gust threw off Alus's flight position even more. Twisting into a tailspin, the wyvern ended up with his back to Toroa. Toroa could see one of his three arms attempting to reach for the Luminous Blade.
"Kylse ko khnmy." (From Alus to Nimi gravel.)
Word Arts.
What was his aim in a situation like that? Even if he did unsheathe the Luminous Blade from his current position, buffeted by wind and magnetic force, he would never outpace Toroa's sword skills. What was he doing?
Alus's body was closing in. Toroa could cut him down. Toroa had no time to spare.
"Konaue ko." (Trickling water.) "..."
Toroa swung Karmic Castigation.
It wasn't at Alus. He swung down to his right. Aiming at the ground.
"Kastgraim." (Pierce.)
The needle, instantly formed from the poison bullet, was stopped by the blade of Karmic Castigation.
Craft Arts. If there was any focal point with a reliable position that Alus could confidently use for his Word Arts in this situation, the only option was the very bullet he had just fired.
The single second when the needle was blocked gave Alus the Star Runner more than enough time to readjust and right his positioning.
The strongest enchanted sword of all, prohibiting any sort of defenses when inside its reach…
"Hillensingen…" "Inrate…"
The same moment he intercepted the needle, Toroa swung the halberd in his right hand.
The longest enchanted sword, shaped like a poleax, even then was too slow to stop the Luminous Blade.
"…the Luminous…" "…the Sickle of…" "…Bla—"
There was the sound of fire.
The ultimate enchanted sword, piercing and severing all defenses in its path the moment it was unsheathed, was sent flying faster than it could be drawn by some invisible force.
"…Repose and—"
Inrate the Sickle of Repose. Hanging on the tip of its scythe blade was yet another enchanted sword.
"Divine Blade Ketelk."
This wasn't a secret technique of any kind. It was the Divine Blade Ketelk's
most basic ability—elongated slashes.
There were two enchanted swords that Toroa had unsheathed in that moment. Using the tip of Inrate the Sickle of Repose with its long hilt, he handled Divine Blade Ketelk with even more acrobatic movements. Using the elongated slash and extending it even farther, he had knocked down the Luminous Blade before Alus could draw it. Could even Soujirou the Willow-Sword possibly perform such a feat?
Against the mightiest enchanted sword that rendered defense impossible, he simply needed to cut down his foe before they drew it.
"Don't think you'll be able to best an enchanted swordsman with an enchanted sword of your own."
As the Luminous Blade was swung, Alus and Toroa passed by each other.
The Lance of Faima was reacting.
His father's life, taken from him that day. Retrieving the enchanted sword of light had been his earnest wish.
Toroa reached out his hand. In order to reclaim the enchanted sword, he had needed to take his hand off another.
I'm not letting anyone else take this from me.
The enchanted sword that would let Toroa the Awful stop being Toroa.
Please let me finish this.
At last, he grabbed the falling Hillensingen, the enchanted sword of light.
At the same moment, there was a sharp pain from his shoulder down his back. Metal claws.
His muscles were deeply rent, his veins torn away, and his red-hot vitality was slowly being taken away from him.
No price was too steep for the recovery of the Luminous Blade.
Ahh.
The mud blades from Rotting Soil Sun, now free to find their mark, once again gained momentum and swooped down on Toroa. He slashed with the enchanted wind sword to clear them away, but even with it, there were blades that pierced into his flesh. Swapping out Wicked Sword Selfesk, he couldn't control Alus's movements.
He had thought he could fully handle all of the wyverns' limitless magic items. In truth, Toroa had just done that.
However, there was still one more weapon left over in his enemy's arsenal.
The rogue's bare hands.
What would his next move be? How much longer could he continue to fight?
The majority of his insides were eviscerated. Even his extraordinary physical stamina was reaching its limit. His consciousness was fading, and the cold of the earthen depths seeped into the bottom of his lungs.
"Hmph."
He laughed with a sigh.
"Alus…Alus the Star Runner. I always have nightmares. Nightmares where I fight you, and I'm killed."
He knew his voice might not reach his opponent. Even then, Toroa continued to speak.
"In my desperate fight to the death, I tried to live on. I… Toroa the Awful was searching for the possibility of surviving and going back home. I was always fighting, even in my dreams… I've continued to think solely of ways to kill you."
The fissure in the frozen soil of the Mali Wastes had now been etched with ruptures and destruction on par with the terrain on the surface.
A storm, just like the Particle Storm that day—or perhaps even more intense
—continued to rage between the two shura. "But I wonder why…?"
Vengeance for the father he thought had died—or perhaps vengeance for himself—still lived within him.
His father's nemesis, thought to be long dead… Though perhaps Alus was
his nemesis now.
Toroa had believed that a fiercer, uncontrollable darkness had taken root in his soul. To take revenge for his father. To reclaim his own life. To be stirred by the impulses of the enchanted swords.
"Alus the Star Runner. I feel that…I have a different reason for wanting to kill you."
Was there anyone who could kill Alus the Star Runner as he was now?
He had a magic item that would regenerate his body, even after his neck had been almost completely sliced through. Even against Vajgir the Frostvenom Blade, which extinguished lives slowly over time, Alus was able to freely move the portions of his body that sprouted deadly crystals.
There may have been a critical point that served as the magic item's core, but Toroa the Awful didn't have the sort of sixth sense that would let him see through to it. There didn't appear to be anything like it, either, judging from Alus the Star Runner's behavior.
Nevertheless.
…I can kill him for good.
As was true for the other enchanted swords, Karmic Castigation had a secret technique of its own.
It was an enchanted sword that made minute, incorporeal cracks across the surface of whatever it slashed, spatially rupturing it.
It then pried open those minute spatial ruptures and created a trench that expelled it from this very world—it was called "Beak."
Anything that fell into one of the tiny spatial rifts would never be able to return from whence it came.
"All right. This is where it really kicks off."
Though the moment was long enough for a only few deep breaths, it was enough rest for both of Toroa's legs. He could stand again.
Stepping firmly on the ground, he could use the enchanted sword's secret technique.
He had been blessed with incredible tenacity from birth, the ultimate sword skills from the parent who had raised him.
It's not over yet. These wounds are nothing. I'm still fully conscious. My organs are only a bit injured, my bones aren't broken, and all my tendons are still intact. I'm only just getting warmed up.
Hillensingen the Luminous Blade.
The ultimate enchanted sword, which he had long searched for, was finally in Toroa's hand.
This had been the sovereign duty that Toroa, the enchanted blade beast, could not die without completing.
Now that he had recovered it… "Time to go all out."
"..."
For that brief interval, Alus the Star Runner made no move to attack Toroa. He was staring up at the sky beyond the edge of the cliffs.
"…There was something…" Alus murmured.
The one who had possessed more than anyone else now had lost absolutely everything.
At the edge of an isolated, frozen hell, he faced off against the monstrous Toroa.
"…I needed to do. I collected everything…for that purpose." "I gleaned as much."
Karmic Castigation was stabbed into the earth. A crevice, threatening to
swallow Toroa's opponent whole, yawned wide.
The deep black crevice seemed almost like a path through the underworld connecting Alus and Toroa.
"Alus the Star Runner, you don't have anything like that anymore." "…I do."
"You no longer need to take from others. You could even head back to your homeland and live out your remaining days in peace and quiet. This…"
Toroa wondered just how strong the influence of a magic item could be. Treasures that had consumed an innumerable number of lives and hearts. They each possessed too many such treasures.
"…This ends here. It ends with us." "It's my treasure."
Ground Runner's flame had returned to Alus and settled into the small pot that was meant to contain it. It appeared he had already collected Rotting Soil Sun as well. The metallic wedges which were stuck into his body must have fallen out during the previous clash.
Toroa could sense that another flurry of magical item attacks was fast approaching. Alus would send both Ground Runner and Rotting Soil Sun to hit him directly this time, without driving them across the terrain. Or like when he battled against Toroa's father, he could use the flash of the flame to momentarily blind him.
Toroa was confident. This next clash of theirs would be the last. "Come, Alus the Star Runner! This ends now!"
Alus kicked off the ground and flew into the air.
Though Karmic Castigation carved a deep fissure into the earth, it didn't hinder Alus the Star Runner's fighting ability in the slightest.
This rogue's strengths had been his magic items and his rifle attacks from the skies. His one-sided barrage had left no room for counterattack.
Toroa needed it to be this way.
Just as Alus took off from the ground, the area right above his head became a true blind spot. Without a sound, a short sword fell.
"…Trembling Bird!"
Skewering Alus's torso, it pinned him to the surface. This was Trembling Bird's true secret technique.
"Harrier!"
If the wielder of the blade knew nothing of its unique characteristics, its hidden potential, the sword would remain silent. But in the hands of Toroa, it
sliced through the air with a shriek.
C'mon move! Kuuro the Cautious protected these legs, didn't he?!
Even with blood gushing from his wounds, Toroa ran, tracing the spatial fissure carved into the surface. Trembling Bird's secret technique was a surprise attack he could use only once. In the brief moment he was able to stop Alus's flight, he needed to close the distance and cut him down.
Merely knocking him down into the fissure would never be enough to kill Alus. If the magic item really did make him immortal, he wouldn't have needed to dodge and defend.
Nel Tseu the Burning Blade. Mushain the Howling Blade. "Gathering Clouds! Migra—"
Yet Toroa stopped just before launching the attacks, using the combined incinerating techniques of wind and explosive flame. The moment he touched the Howling Blade's hilt, he could tell the sword's center of gravity had shifted ever so slightly.
Mud.
In that midair clash, Alus had deployed Rotting Soil Sun at point-blank range against the Howling Blade. Right after reclaiming the Luminous Blade, Toroa had defended against the barrage of mud shards with the Howling Blade. And just before that, he had used it to deflect the magic poison bullet in order to throw Alus's stance off.
Alus had made the mud adhere to the sword in order to delay the release of its ability by a fraction of a second—quicker than a flash of light.
All of this was premeditated in order to ensure that Toroa grabbed a different sword.
"Wicked Sword—"
As he scorched Alus with the Burning Blade's heat wave, his other arm held Wicked Sword Selfesk.
The maneuver to effectively utilize the wedges was simultaneous assembly. The wedges that had been fired into the stone crag to provide Alus with footing peppered the Star Runner from all directions.
The metallic shards became embedded in Alus's spread wings, and the magnetism dragged him in along with them. This was how Toroa was trying to close the distance.
Toroa couldn't stop his forward momentum. If he stopped his legs now, they would never move again.
"You're…different. You're not Toroa the Awful."
"No, I'm still Toroa the Awful!"
Alus had deployed the mud blades and Ground Runner's flames. He lost a finger and an eye as he persisted. With his body wreathed in flames, he pushed forward. His prioritization of autonomous magic items was proof that he didn't have any reprieve to aim his musket.
If Alus was prepared to take any attack thrown at him, Toroa had to be ready for the very same. If he took a moment to defend himself, his legs would stop entirely. He already had the enchanted sword prepped for his attack.
Don't stop.
The enchanted sword with the farthest reach, bringing absolute death, as well as the fated start of it all.
If Dad hadn't been a leprechaun… If his arms had been just a little bit longer and he'd been able to get to the Luminous Blade first…
"Kylse ko kyakowak." (From Alus to the Hillensingen blade.) An attack that needed no stance.
He had to laugh. Given that Alus the Star Runner had been in possession of the Luminous Blade all that time, of course this would be the case. He could even use it as a focus for his Word Arts.
If Dad had just had the power to shoulder several enchanted swords at once!
"Kestlek kogbakyau. Kaameksa. Koikasyaknoken. Kairokraino." (Hail to heaven and earth. Axis is the left ear. Changing ring. Rotate.)
This wyvern was a jack of all trades, possessing an aptitude for everything. At almost the exact same moment Toroa took his next step forward, the wyvern had finished invoking his Word Arts on the Luminous Blade.
Hillensingen the Luminous Blade was moved by Alus's Force Arts… "The one who lost that day, Alus…"
And even then, it yielded to the skill of its wielder, Toroa. He stepped forward.
Drawing the sword. Light. The range. "…was you!"
The light from the sword's slash severed Alus the Star Runner in two, vertically.
At the same time, Toroa coughed and spat up an immense amount of blood.
It was an unmatched sword stroke, completely catching the midline of his enemy.
"Koff…gahak."
Toroa was spitting up blood. He felt a heat in his gut, as if something was
invading his very nerves.
He heard a voice. "…Magic poison bullet." "Ahh."
Whatever the extent of his immortality, if he was completely cleaved in two from his head through his torso, it shouldn't have been possible for him to speak and aim his musket to shoot Toroa.
"…I get it. Right from the start."
The strength in his knees gave out, and he nearly collapsed.
This was the spot where Alus had let the Greatshield of the Dead fall during their first clash, when Toroa had showered the wyvern with his combined secret technique of explosive flame.
He had understood that in this position, where he could extend the arm holding the Greatshield of the Dead, he would enter the Luminous Blade's area of effect.
Even as Toroa broke through the attacks from Rotting Soil Sun and Ground Runner, and drew the wyvern toward him, Alus never adjusted his stance to launch another attack. That was because his only aim was for Toroa to touch the magic bullet, fallen on the ground where he stood.
While Toroa tried to make Alus wary of the ground with the secret technique of Karmic Castigation, Alus did the exact opposite.
Even the successive attacks from Rotting Soil Sun and Ground Runner had merely been to turn Toroa's attention away from the ground below and to cloud his vision.
"I get it…"
Hillensingen the Luminous Blade possessed the ultimate cutting ability. Even the Greatshield of the Dead, a tool of absolute defense, couldn't fully guard against it. However, what Toroa had cut through after slightly piercing through this defense was the mechanical half of Alus's body, converted by Chiklorakk the Eternity Machine.
Even now, with Chiklorakk the Eternity Machine cut from him, Alus hadn't withered in the slightest. His judgment, his thinking, and the fighting prowess he had accumulated from repeatedly coming up with counterplans for these prolonged battles, and the growth that followed, remained truly all-powerful.
The mangled visage before Toroa was all that remained of Alus the Star Runner.
"I'll live. I'm…I'm going to live," Toroa murmured.
Toroa didn't hesitate in the slightest. Using Vajgir the Frostvenom Blade, he sliced open his own stomach. The cells infected by the poison began to crystallize. Thanks to this, he gained the briefest possible moment of respite.
Now missing a finger on his right hand and unable to move it properly, he slashed.
Defeating Alus the Star Runner was all that mattered to him. "…I know," Alus murmured.
His whip bent, and Toroa's right arm was severed at the elbow. This was Kio's Hand, previously torn apart by Lucnoca. It was torn to shreds, so it could barely still be called a whip, but it was more than powerful enough to kill Toroa in his current state.
"Koff… I want…to live my life…"
He restrained Alus against the rock wall with his right shoulder, pressing all of his weight into him.
He brandished Inrate the Sickle of Repose. A silent sword. The one his father had been the most skilled with.
Alus drearily replied, "You're not even…Toroa the Awful."
The gunshots echoed in rapid succession. Though they were nothing but normal bullets, Toroa's left thigh and knee were shot through.
Even then, Toroa continued slashing at Alus's body. When he cut him open from his stomach to his hips with the sickle, the wyvern's fleshy organs slithered out.
He lashed with the whip—Alus was trying to sever Toroa's left arm. This was a fair trade. He thrust the crystal sword hanging from his arm, Wailsever, into Alus's abdominal cavity.
He used this sword, with its shocks and rapid vibrations, at maximum output. "Incubation!"
Alus the Star Runner would be blasted apart from the shock waves within his body, along with Wailsever itself.
…However, it didn't happen.
Alus the Star Runner had three arms. With his body recovering over time, he touched the Greatshield of the Dead lying on the ground. No matter how many times Toroa put his life and body on the line to attack him, nothing would come of it. Even he understood for himself that there was no longer anything he could do.
"It's over…and it's the end…for you, too."
"Not yet… It's not over yet. My life…my life still hasn't begun!"
Alus lashed the whip.
His right leg had been severed, but he wasn't done yet. A leg was a small price to pay for the sake of living another second. He would keep fighting for as long as it took, even if it meant gripping an enchanted sword in his teeth.
He could no longer unleash their secret techniques, but he still had the spatial fissure he had opened up with Karmic Castigation. He just needed to grab Alus with his remaining left arm and drag him down into it.
He would be the beast of legend that dragged the villain into the abyss with him.
One more step. This will be the end of it. If I can just…kill Alus with this…
He didn't need any glory. This wasn't for revenge. Toroa took pity on Alus the Star Runner.
Stuck at the bottom of an abyss without ever dying, it was as if Toroa was looking into a mirror.
He had thought that killing Alus would be the end of his days as Toroa the Awful.
He had wanted to save the wyvern, but that was out of the question now.
Toroa could fight to the bitter end. As long as he didn't give up, he could keep fighting like a rampaging demon.
However, if they were both to become monsters and descend into the pits of hell…
Could that really be considered salvation?
I…I wanted to live out my life in the Wyte Mountains. I could've kept on living exactly as Dad had wanted, without harming anyone. I…the whole time.
His tears spilled over.
He had no idea when they had begun.
He was supposed to have been the monster from a horror story that brought tears to children's eyes.
"Enchanted swords…aren't yours…" " "
Not taking from anyone, while not letting them take from him. He knew how to break the cycle.
It was something that he was sure his father had known from the very start. "They're not mine, either."
He stretched out his hand with the last of his strength, and Trembling Bird flew back into it as if it had a will of its own.
Birds. The names of the sword skills his father loved.
The young man had a gift allowing him to listen to the voices of his enchanted swords.
"You're coming with me, huh?"
The rogue didn't even try to take this one from him.
The colossal body of this nameless dwarf staggered and fell.
Into the abyss—together with the reclaimed Luminous Blade and all the other enchanted swords he had collected.
…Dad. I'm coming…to join you…
Into a darker, and deeper, hell than the bottom of this frozen wasteland. This was, after all, a fitting resting place for a monster.
Twentieth Minister Hidow the Clamp, on standby in the central assembly hall, received an emergency report from the Fifth South Communications Tower.
This tower had been reserved by Hidow even before the start of the second match just in case—and to prepare for the truly worst-case scenario—and provided observation reports of the Mali Wastes region.
"I'm issuing an anti-dragon alert," said Hidow to his attendant, the very first words out of his mouth after exiting the communications room.
"The location is the Mali Wastes. Gather every single soldier that can be deployed. They might immediately get sent out to fight, but don't let anyone move on their own until they get the order from us. Did you prepare the line?"
"While you were receiving your report, we opened up radzio lines in the second switch room to all the rooms in the assembly hall, Master Hidow! Would you like to head there immediately?!"
"Good job. In that case, I'll inform everyone in this building directly about the current situation! For the other Twenty-Nine in outside ministries, you're to split up and get in contact with them. The order of priority goes Haade, Jelky, Rosclay, Flinsuda! That's still not going to be enough for this. Reach out to Dant, Sabfom, and Cayon, too! You got that?!"
They were currently preparing themselves.
One part of the rules for this Sixways Exhibition had been decided after Hidow had introduced the idea.
Anyone who deliberately wrought destruction unrelated to the sanctioned matches and anyone who opposed Aureatia as a self-proclaimed demon king…
…was to be crushed by the remaining Hero candidates.
Before the beginning of the Sixways Exhibition, Hidow had steered the assembly meeting to decide these rules.
The "process we discussed" that Hidow had relayed during the second match referred to Rosclay the Absolute's scheme to use these rules to dispose of threats outside of any match.
…I didn't expect we'd be using it on this guy instead of Lucnoca the Winter.
Drawing his arms through the sleeves of his Twenty-Nine Officials overcoat, Hidow quickened his pace. A bead of cold sweat ran down his cheek.
This matter didn't only affect him. If this enemy couldn't be defeated, everyone would die.
Aureatia had a long, long day ahead of it.
"Alus the Star Runner is approaching from the Mali Wastes! Send an word to all hero candidates! I repeat!"
Alus the Star Runner versus Aureatia.
"Gather all the hero candidates! There's only one enemy! Self-proclaimed demon king Alus!"