As it had been with Rotting Soil Sun, within a magic item dwelled a presence that formed connections to living creatures and released its power in accordance with its user's thoughts.
It was said this connection differed depending on the user. There were some who perceived it as a figure, or a formula, and others as a voice possessing its own will.
To Alus, it was like a light flickering between his nerves. This light had vanished.
The city, enveloped in a hopeless blaze, instantly fell silent, without even the heat or smoke being left behind, as its state from moments ago had all been an illusion.
He understood that Ground Runner, somewhere down on the surface, had vanished.
The undying magic item, endlessly increasing the force of its flames from a tiny spark, had come to an all-too-anticlimactic end.
There's another something here…
There was someone who had extinguished the magic item of flame, not even possessing a shape of its own, by directly interfering with it.
Alus understood the fact of this reality, and nothing more, in his mind. Then he moved sharply to evade the streak of fire that burned up the sky.
He didn't have a spare moment to think about the meaning behind the fire- extinguishing phenomenon he had just witnessed.
Even when compared to such an abnormal state of affairs, he faced an even more imminent problem. Right now, Alus was completely trapped by Mele the Horizon's Roar.
Even in Alus's eyes, which had borne witness to several legends, including Lucnoca the Winter, Mele was an unbelievable archer.
From his firing location in Gigant Town to here, the second borough of the Eastern Outer Ward, it must have required him to aim past the limits of the horizon, even with his irregularly colossal body. On top of that, he gave bends
and distortions to his earthen-made arrows and continued to fire them in arcs that avoided all the high-rise buildings that stood between the two of them.
Of course, Mele wasn't necessarily able to directly get his eyes on Alus as he ingeniously wove between the shadow of cover. Similarly, with Alus's mobility and judgment, he was able to continuously avoid the rapid-fire arrows of instant death flying his way.
…But he's not letting me escape.
He could tell that by manipulating the range of their tremendous destruction to block off his path of retreat, to drive him back, he was trying to put Alus up against a wall. He couldn't get outside of the second borough of the Eastern Outer Ward. He couldn't increase his altitude and evade his shots, either.
A network of antiair fire, curiously similar to the day he'd battled Regnejee in the New Principality of Lithia, had been constructed by a single individual. It was not only Mele's fighting technique, but his strategic eye, that lay in the realm of the deviant and supernatural.
He was strong, Alus thought.
To rogues, the most truly fearsome enemy of all was an intelligent enemy.
"If only I had the Cold Star…," he murmured as he continued to evade. He couldn't fire back at Mele's position with his gun, but the Cold Star might have reached that far.
When had he laid eyes on that treasure?
Even these memories were growing vague in Alus's ever-eroding sense of self.
Two simultaneously released arrows closed in on Alus from the left and the right to trap him.
He needed to dodge wide. The atmospheric vortex that the arrows generated as they passed was more than enough to easily tear the tiny body of a wyvern apart.
"…Greatshield of the Dead."
He wouldn't evade them. He was able to make that judgment without any need to think.
Instantly activating the Greatshield of the Dead, he took a grazing blow from the meteoric arrow.
Immediately after, a bright beam of light passed in front of Alus.
Oh, right.
Horizon's Roar wasn't the only one aiming and sniping at Alus. His indistinct sense of self bubbled up into his mind.
The Cold Star was over there…
The path of the two arrows, seeming to scoop up from below, moved Alus forward, guiding him into a position that made it easier to aim the Cold Star at him. Directly below him, the only available path left…
"Legend killing's real exhausting."
Shalk the Sound Slicer was waiting for him. Now, with the flames that had been blocking his way extinguished, Shalk the Sound Slicer could instantly appear at any location in the city.
Even descending down to lower altitudes wasn't possible.
"You don't like it now that you're the one cornered, Alus the Star Runner?" That was exactly it.
If I die…then I won't be able to get my hands on anything, right?
He wanted to keep fighting. Because he wanted treasure.
That was why he had started his journey, flying however far he needed to, traversing over everything and everyone.
However, ever since he had awoken in the depths of the Mali Wastes, it seemed like something big was missing.
"It's…somewhere."
"…Not really having a conversation here, are we?" He heard Shalk's voice.
A hollow landscape. The sky spread out into the distance, yet he felt like he couldn't go anywhere. He looked at a grubby shack by the river right below him.
"…I want treasure…"
Where did he plan to go once he obtained treasure? He didn't know where he was supposed to return to.
Everything was beginning to disappear. " "
Light exploded. A direct hit.
With his movement stopped, Alus was hit with Mele's arrow.
He must have understood that he couldn't let himself stop in place for a single second.
He was aware of that. In other words.
…I failed…
Alus the Star Runner still remained in one piece.
From his defensive moments earlier…Alus had, unconsciously, continued to activate the Greatshield of the Dead.
The same Greatshield of the Dead that was originally supposed to be impossible to use continuously for an extended period of time or to use while in motion.
"…Hold on. That's not how this is supposed to go," Shalk the Sound Slicer muttered on the surface.
What was the problem here? At this point, he was beginning not to understand anything.
He was continuously activating the Greatshield of the Dead. He thought it was impossible to maintain its defense while he was flying, but he was able to move his wings. Why hadn't he tried to do this up until now?
"This thing…"
An intense heat surged from his flank.
The light beam from the Cold Star. His body was uninjured. He realized that, in this state, he could fly like normal.
Alus shot a magic lightning bullet toward the tower containing the Cold Star sniper. Mele's arrow got in the middle and blocked the lightning. At the same time, Alus took a direct hit from another arrow. Light. Concussion. Destruction.
A vortex of destruction that seemed to disintegrate everything except Alus. Once, Izick the Chromatic had created the ultimate construct, named Tu the
Magic.
A mimic with impenetrable defenses, possessing magic item cells that blocked any and all methods of attack by using a magic item known as the Greatshield of the Dead as the foundation. Its base body needed to be that of a mimic.
This was because they needed to possess an ability to maintain themselves by using their ability to transform their own cells, in order to repair the cellular degeneration that was inevitably generated according to the theory behind the Greatshield of the Dead's usage, stating that the user generated a divergence in spatial phases.
In which case, what would happen if the user of the Greatshield of the Dead adapted it to a magic item that continuously repaired his body—Chiklorakk the Eternity Machine—and continuously activated it in combination?
To Alus, controlling magic items was a natural act, like light flashing between his nerves.
It was an abnormal degree of aptitude, and with it, he was able to use all the types of weapons the world had to offer.
"The bastard…moved while using the Greatshield of the Dead. Star Runner's
going to escape!"
The voice sounded like it was coming far down below him. He was free.
In the middle of a tempest of destruction, which seemed like it would destroy entire stars, Star Runner flew off once more.
"…Attacks aren't going to have any effect on him anymore!"