Even a Supreme Peak master will go down if he gets kicked in the balls. No matter how strange or powerful a monster is, its weaknesses are much like a human’s.
Blow its head off, or burst its heart.
Of course, there are exceptions to everything.
Some Trolls can put even a shattered head back together. Golems won’t fall until you destroy the core hidden somewhere inside them.
A Lich, both undead and a skilled black wizard, might store part of its soul in a Life Force Vessel.
But as far as I knew, there wasn’t a Lycanthrope anywhere that could survive having its head cut off.
Not even an S-rank monster that had earned the title of Champion as the strongest warrior of its kind.
“I’m here, Jin Sama1!”
“……”
I looked back and forth between Yamamoto Genji, who was chattering so loudly he was spitting, and the headless body of the EXP… No, the Lycanthrope Champion.
No, fuck…
What kind of bullshit was this?
It had been the perfect time to level up. The meal was already laid out in front of me, and some bastard had swooped in and gobbled it all up.
I was so furious my hands and feet felt ready to shake.
Beep.
System
Status abnormality Convulsions has been applied!
Status abnormality Poisoned is worsening!
Manticore Lord’s Venom must be removed from your body as soon as possible!
“……”
Right. No wonder my hands were shaking so much.
I was already in bad shape, and the anger made my vision blur for a moment.
If things had gone as I’d calculated, I’d have leveled up by now and recovered completely. Since that hadn’t happened, I had no choice but to use another method.
“Uh? Jin Sama1, is something wrong?”
“Do I look like I’m all right, you fucking idiot?”
“Ah. Oh…”
That shut Yamamoto Genji up. I gave the command in my head.
Open Inventory. Summon.
The System manifested in response to the command.
Shk.
The moment my trembling fingers touched something cold, a clear chime rang out, different from the earlier ones.
Ding. Ding. Ding.
System
Equipped Myriad-Poison Ring.
An unknown energy washes over your entire body!
The Myriad-Poison Ring has absorbed Manticore Lord’s Venom!
Status abnormality Poisoned has been removed!
Status abnormality Convulsions has been removed!
As the chimes rang one after another, my vision cleared and the convulsions stopped.
The Myriad-Poison Ring had drawn in the poison spreading from my collarbone through the rest of my body. It gleamed with its familiar black light.
I didn’t level up, but thank God I had the Myriad-Poison Ring.
It was a good thing I’d ended the fight quickly. The venom the Manticore Lord had carried was truly terrifying.
With Scorching Yang Qi, which was the natural enemy of poison, and a top-grade potion, I could have been cured without much difficulty. But a potion ultimately worked by paying in advance with the body’s energy and vitality to maximize its recovery.
With so many enemies still out there, a risk-free level-up would have been a hundred times better.
Of course…
“A-are you all right?”
Some bastard had been hanging back, watching for an opening, then rushed in and stole the last hit from me.
“Forget it. Don’t worry about it.”
But what could I do?
The bus had already left, and I didn’t have time to stand at an empty bus stop waiting for the next one and slap Yamamoto Genji across the face.
The one bit of good news amid all the bad was that the Skeleton King was the kind of excellent monster who knew how to finish his assigned job on time.
Crack-crunch!
We’d gotten quite far apart while fighting our respective opponents, but I could clearly see—and hear—the Death Knight, well over two meters2 tall, crumple along with his armor.
I heard its final scream, too.
—GRAAAAAAH!
Fwoosh!
That was the end.
Black mist flowed out from beneath the helmet pulled low over its face. The Skeleton King absorbed the Death Knight’s soul as it escaped just before Erasure, as though sucking it in. Then he grinned at me as I approached using qinggong3.
“You monster.”
He spotted Yamamoto Genji tucked under my arm like a piece of luggage and added, “That fucking bastard.”
I agreed. If that little shit had held up the Lycanthrope Champion for even a moment, everything would’ve ended much more smoothly.
But kicking Yamamoto Genji in the joints in the middle of a battle involving thousands—tens of thousands—of fighters would be something only a lunatic would do. If I had time for that, I needed to use it to save one more person.
“Let’s go.”
With that brief word, I shot forward. My limbs creaked, proof of the fierce battle that had just taken place, and my internal energy was considerably depleted.
Even so, I had to go. I had to fight.
Shweee—BOOM!
The spearhead of White Flame, sent flying with tremendous force, swept through the rear of the monster army swarming like ants.
A muffled boom swallowed their screams, and flames burst out, burning the living monsters’ limbs.
One more.
I kept running without slowing down.
I pulled another spear from my Inventory, gripped it in a reverse hold, and hurled it.
Boom!
A thunderous crack split the desert.
The spear didn’t carry as much internal energy as the first, but the sheer force and speed behind its spearhead were enough to pierce dozens of monsters.
Crack-crunch!
—GRAAAH!
Even a glancing blow burst heads like watermelons and sent severed limbs flying.
The monster army, which had seemed as though it would never shrink no matter how many I killed, began to falter.
Boom!
—Grrk, gaaah!
The screams drew closer by the moment. The stench grew stronger.
By the time I hurled a third spear, hundreds had already fallen. I kicked off the air and soared upward, flung Yamamoto Genji from under my arm toward the ground, and reached out.
Come.
Shweee! Snap!
White Flame answered my call through the Middle Dantian and flew into my hand.
Its grip had become so familiar that I could recognize it without looking.
As soon as I reclaimed it, I poured in Scorching Yang Qi. The transparent spearhead took on a reddish glow.
Fwoosh.
Flames. Wind. A world moving slowly.
And… the eyes staring blankly at me as I soared through the air, with the entire battlefield laid out below.
Whoosh.
The wind brushed across my body. Time, which had stopped, gradually returned to its usual pace.
I saw opposite emotions appear in countless wide eyes.
There was joy in some. In others, despair was slowly sinking into reality.
Humans and monsters. Monsters and humans.
No one there needed to be told which side felt which.
Fire Dragon Divine Spear. This form.
I drew in a breath.
My body descended slowly, keeping pace with time as I perceived it, while the flame-filled spearhead rose high, as if to pierce the sky.
Fwoosh.
At that moment, when the space around me warped under the extreme heat, a massive shadow that had been circling over the Hunters surrounded by monsters shot toward me.
—Screee!
A piercing cry rang in my ears.
I didn’t have to look to sense its approach. Unlike the other monsters, it flew toward me like a streak of light. The gale raised by a single flap of its wings carried immense magical power.
The leader of the Griffins.
Yeah. It had to be.
As a flying monster that ranged through the sky as if it owned it, it was one of the most troublesome opponents in its own way.
But…
It doesn’t matter.
Ignoring the Griffins rushing at me with a gale of magical power, I brought the spearhead down.
Heavenly Strike.
Whoooooom!
Flames poured over the spearhead of White Flame, wiping out the gale of magical power rushing toward me and cleaving through space.
A fierce, razor-sharp slash like a dragon’s claw descended on the center of the tightly packed monster army.
Fwoosh!
The heat and flash were so intense they seemed capable of melting everything before they even touched it.
Hellfire engulfed hundreds—perhaps a thousand—monsters and exploded.
BOOM! Rumble-rumble!
A rain of fire poured down. Screams and death flowed like lava.
Neither the hides of the upper-level monsters—unmarked even by bullets—nor the quick-footed lower-level ones who sensed danger and tried to flee could escape it.
Death was equal for all the monsters, and the leader of the Griffins watching the scene let out a roar like a scream.
—Kyaaaah!
Whoom. A heavy pressure pushed against my whole body.
I raised my head. The leader of the Griffins, already overhead, was shooting toward me.
Even within its massive shadow, which blocked the sunlight, the monster’s beak shone like the sun, packed with immense magical power.
If I met that attack head-on?
Even I wouldn’t come away unscathed.
At the fork in the road I’d faced a moment ago, I’d chosen not to fight it, but to break up the monster army’s formation.
But—
“I don’t have to be the one to do it. Right?”
—…!
At the Demon Realm language carried through the System, the flying beast’s pupils narrowed into vertical slits.
A moment’s hesitation at the very end.
And those who had been waiting for that moment didn’t let me down.
Shwoop! Clang!
The Griffin leader knocked aside something that flew up from the ground with a sharp crack, then staggered under the force of the blow.
That’s…
A spear made of bone.
As it fell to the ground, its job done, I thought of one person—or rather, one monster.
The Skeleton King.
That bastard never got tired, yet he was so much slower than me. He’d finally made it here.
But the person I’d really been counting on was someone else.
Rumble.
The air all around us shuddered. Everyone here, not just me, felt the battlefield’s atmosphere grow heavy.
I felt the wind die down in an instant, and the enormous mana rising from somewhere deep below press down on the battlefield.
—Screep?
The leader and around a hundred Griffins looked at one another in confusion.
They were no longer beating their wings.
No. Someone had bound them in midair.
“Rise, then crash back down.”
The voice that followed held none of its usual cheer. It was bleak and subdued.
“Reverse Gravity.”
And then—
Whoooooom!
Gravity within the area went wild.
Mana seized the remaining flying monsters with measured precision and slammed them into the ground.
—Screee!
As I listened to the Griffin leader cry out, a thought struck me.
What did you call the sight of around a hundred massive Griffins plummeting from hundreds of meters4 up like streaks of light?
A spectacular view? Or…
Magic?
At least one thing was certain.
The Grand Mage who’d staged this incredible end to the battle deserved to be called the world’s greatest War Mage.
Rumble! Crack-crunch!
The flames spread without end. Chaos took hold. Countless monsters were crushed beneath the Griffins’ huge bodies as they rained down like a meteor shower.
I looked over the monster army, its center utterly broken, and shouted with internal energy behind my voice.
“Formation! Change!”
This battle was already won.
“Kill every last one of those bastards!”
A mighty roar shook heaven and earth. A thousand spears and blades, still sharp, surged forward like a wave.
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