"————"
Hair blazing red like fire, blue twin eyes that held a slice of the clearest sky—from the crown of his head to the very tips of his toes, he was a being sculpted from unadulterated heroism.
A chosen one blessed by the world from the moment of his birth, standing at the absolute opposite end of existence from Aldebaran from the very start.
Standing regally at the center of the vast, chill night sea of sand, Reinhard's gaze sent every hair on Aldebaran's body standing on end.
—The "Sword Saint,"
Needless to say, he was a being without peer—not just in the
The other pillar was none other than
Therefore, among those whose clash was all but certain, the wall that remained was this man.
—Now then. Reinhard van Astrea is the strongest.
The "Blue Lightning"
By any individual category, there were plenty who surpassed Reinhard.
And yet, Reinhard van Astrea's seat as the strongest remained unshaken.—Shattering that iron fortress of supremacy was the absolute condition of victory Aldebaran had been tasked with.
"My situation's pretty damn terrible, even by my standards."
*"You're complaining about a bad hand NOW? Use your joker right, would ya."* "…From me—the Dragon's—perspective, how does the 'Sword Saint' stack up?"
*"Same opinion as me, the human… But I dunno. Maybe this body can actually feel how strong the opponent is, which makes me think it's worse than what you—the human me—figured."* Behind Aldebaran, narrowing golden eyes as they fixed on Reinhard through Aldebaran's frame—lacking the dignity befitting a superlife-form in his manner of speech—was the "Divine Dragon"
Sharing thought, perspective, and even current objectives as if they were a single entity—these two "Aldebarans" were the lifeline for the otherwise isolated and bereft Aldebaran.
The self-proclaimed "Aldebaran" had already announced that he should be played like a joker. Aldebaran had never intended to hold back in the first place, but he resolved to use this card to its fullest.
Yes—at the very moment Aldebaran finished confirming his hand— "—The 'Sword Saint' bloodline. Reinhard van Astrea."
"————"
The prickling sensation, hair rising on end—Aldebaran narrowed his eyes beneath his helm.
Announcing one's name and title to the one you faced—this was the way of warriors in this world. Remarkably, even the Sin Archbishops followed this custom. Some did it out of pride, some out of respect for their opponent, some to revel in their own superiority, some to steel their own cowardly hearts—each imposing this ritual upon themselves for their own reasons.
The reason the "Sword Saint" Reinhard adhered to this custom was plain as day in his eyes.
Reinhard was paying Aldebaran respect in this situation.—Despite having heard from
It was a virtue of Reinhard's, and simultaneously the cause of an insurmountable gulf between them. Which of the two Aldebaran chose to read into it—he had no intention of going into detail, but— "Sin Archbishop of the Witch Cult, representing 'Pride'—
"———"
"Wouldn't that have been funnier?"
—He had decided, firmly, that he would trample upon that respect with nothing but malice.
*"—BWAAAH!!"* An answer like spitting at the outstretched hand. The instant Reinhard's eyes widened, an ugly roar erupted simultaneously with a blast of white light aimed straight at the standing "Sword Saint."
A graceless strike from a dragon shell he had only just taken over, still clumsy with the unfamiliar body—but the power of the "Dragon's" Breath unleashed from that colossal frame was the real deal.
If the one launched in the topmost floor of the
As if to prove the difference in concentrated destructive power, a formless white tidal wave—enough to permanently reshape the deserted sand sea beyond Aldebaran and his counterpart—engulfed Reinhard.
He didn't think he could kill him. But if he didn't do it with killing intent, it wouldn't even be a fight.
Proof of that— *"—Gah, get back, me!!"* "Whoaah!?"
Having exhaled the full breath and carved a massive crater and white smoke into the sand sea, "Aldebaran" snatched Aldebaran up with an outstretched claw and hurled him sideways without a shred of restraint.
Cast aside like a discarded piece—Aldebaran's body was flung through the air, nearly horizontal, and he tumbled, tumbled, tumbled across the sand before grinding to a halt.
Then, spitting sand from every gap in his helm, he raised his head—and saw the truth: "Aldebaran's" action was not betrayal, but cover.
Reinhard, who should have taken the Dragon's Breath head-on, was unscathed and charging at "Aldebaran"—and a kaiju-scale battle royale with entirely wrong proportions had begun.
*"Not even scorched?! That's not just being tough—what the hell kind of principle is this?!"* "I borrowed the power of the 'Dragon Sword.' This blade won't be destroyed even if the world itself ends. It's built that way. So I deflected it."
*"The real answer is that you're the one who's insane, not the damn sword! That doesn't explain why you're not burned!"* "That's the 'Blessing of Sunburn' doing its work."
With that half-hearted answer, Reinhard twisted midair and launched a kick. It collided head-on with a dragon claw swinging with enough force to tear the sky apart, and the resulting crash spawned a deafening explosion like a cannon fired at point-blank range.
The destructive force of either was enough that even a warrior who had honed himself through ceaseless training couldn't withstand a single blow. But what was terrifying was that, for both the "Sword Saint" and the "Dragon," this was just a normal attack.
Meaning—this exchange had no wind-ups, no pauses. It was continuous.
"Damn it—gah—!"
Thunderous, unbelievable detonation sounds chained together, and with each one the shockwave blasted sand across the sea of sand and tried to rip Aldebaran from the ground where he lay prostrate.
The clash between the two most powerful beings on the planet—even watching from dozens of meters away was by no means safe. But Aldebaran couldn't take the option of fleeing for self-preservation. —There was a limit to how often he could update his matrix.
If he strayed too far from the position where his matrix was defined, the territory would collapse, and Aldebaran would lose the few advantages he held against Reinhard.
That had to be avoided at all costs.
"——. Strong. But far too different from before."
Meanwhile, ignoring Aldebaran clinging to the battlefield, Reinhard—still clashing with the "Dragon"—pulled back a large distance, then murmured.
He placed his hand on the hilt of the "Dragon Sword," not even breathing hard, his expression serious. "Aldebaran," equally unruffled, growled, "Huh?"
To that, Reinhard shook his head, saying "No—"
"The other day, when Felt and Lord Ezzo and I went to the Watchtower, I clashed with you—or rather, with the 'Divine Dragon' Volcanica—by misunderstanding. But your movements and intentions now are nothing like then."
At Reinhard's observation, "Aldebaran" fell silent. But the assessment was correct. When Reinhard had fought before, it had been the real "Divine Dragon" Volcanica—the one who had created dragon humans, reduced to an empty shell.
Comparing that to now, the difference was night and day.
Having hit the mark and demonstrated his insight, Reinhard pressed on.
"You are weaker now than you were before. Why?"
*"…Tchk."* "—?"
"No, no, no—of course you'd say that. You're absolutely right. I can't handle this body properly. So if I seem weak, there's not a single damn thing strange about that. But—"
Cutting off his words against Reinhard's innocent doubt, "Aldebaran"—that inhuman "Dragon" profile—still wearing a grin that was unmistakably a grin— *"I just kinda wanted to show you something."* The declaration barely finished before "Aldebaran" spread both wings, whipped up a gale, and took flight.
The distance between him and Reinhard vanished in an instant. Massive, tree-trunk arms swung downward, aimed at crushing him. Reinhard ignored the poor footing—in fact, using the "Blessing of Sandplay" to negate it—ducked inside the attack, evaded, and launched a counter.
*"Guh—!"* Reinhard's kick, legs splayed wide between heaven and earth, struck the "Dragon's" solar plexus dead-on and sent the colossal body hurtling straight upward.
Not by flying with wings, but launched forcibly into the air—Reinhard leaped after "Aldebaran," chasing the airborne "Dragon." No. He surpassed him. He placed his toes on the back of the oncoming "Dragon" and forcibly arrested his upward momentum.
"I'm sorry, but this is where it ends."
Appearing to stand atop "Aldebaran's" back in midair, Reinhard raised his empty hand in a blade—sharper than any famous sword, a weapon of pure lethality.
That single flash might even cut through the "Divine Dragon's" shell, or so it seemed—until— *"I told you I wanted to show you something… Indulge me a little longer."* Just before the hand-blade struck, "Aldebaran"—who had been played like a toy—murmured. Hearing that voice, cunning laced through the pain, Reinhard's brow furrowed ever so slightly.
From a distance, Aldebaran—the one on the ground—gazing up at the superbeings in the sky, spoke.
"—Plan A."
"———"
At that distance, there was no way Reinhard could have heard Aldebaran. And yet it wouldn't have been strange if he had—but there was no point in questioning it.
—Because the light of stars twinkling in the night sky was raining down upon the "Sword Saint."
△▼△▼△▼△ —Al Shario.
It was one of the outright forbidden spells that the ancient "
Using the property of identical mana drawing together, it dropped the colossal mana masses burning and shining in the far reaches of the sky—the stars—onto the earth. An unbelievable miracle made real.
Naturally, to drop a star onto a precise location required exquisitely refined magical control and an unimaginable volume of mana to make it happen. But in exchange for that difficulty, the mana contained in the starlight rivaled that of a Great Spirit, and it was said that in ages past, even flocks of "Dragons" had been brought down by it.
Its destructive power surpassed even the "Dragon's" Breath—granted the right to destroy the world by its mere roar—and could be called the absolute apex of destruction.
"Magic is a miraculous discipline that holds within it the potential to turn any and all imagination into reality, you know? If a spell powerful enough to make a joke of the 'Dragon's' Breath was born, then if someone desired to surpass it—inevitably, eventually, a spell even more powerful than dropping a star will be born too. Humans are so wonderfully 'greedy,' don't you think?"
That was what the beautiful white-haired "Witch" had told Aldebaran, making that smug face.
That smug face still annoyed him to recall, but he believed it was no lie or bluff. Because the smug "Witch" had made him witness the real thing with his own eyes.
In other words—this was the power that surpassed even the "Dragon's" Breath. The apex of destruction—as it stood now.
"Son of a bitch."
Every pinnacle was vulnerable to being surpassed by new ideas and the magic to realize them.
Al Shario was no exception—and the fact that he corrected himself in his own head, just as the "Witch" had taught him, made him grind his teeth. Aldebaran wished for the starlight's result.
—He hated to admit it, but Aldebaran had studied under the "Witch" and been given every scrap of knowledge she had.
Among the wisdom imparted, a significant portion was knowledge of magic. However, even having mastered the theory and formulae for casting magic, Aldebaran lacked the talent to actually do it.
Knowing how to boil water doesn't let you fill a bathtub with a single cup.
Then why had the "Witch" given Aldebaran knowledge of magic he couldn't use?
Just to show off her smarts and make that smug face? Or to smooth the path for her student, even a little, by ensuring that knowledge of magic could help him overcome impossible situations?
Both were merely secondary effects of the "Witch's" true purpose.
The real reason the "Witch" had filled Aldebaran's head with magical knowledge was— *"—Al Shario."* The incantation from the "Dragon," launched into the sky, called a star down upon the night sea of sand.
The "Divine Dragon" Volcanica—whose soul had been severed, leaving the immense power hollowed out—its dragon shell now housing Aldebaran's "memories," had finally met the requirements to make shine the treasure the "Witch" had given him and he had let gather dust.
In other words, *this* was why the "Witch" had filled Aldebaran with knowledge.
Aldebaran's knowledge, combined with "Aldebaran" who had claimed the Dragon's shell—that was the means by which the greatest wall could be surmounted, at the end of a stone path that seemed to stretch to infinity.
"————"
On the "Dragon's" back, gazing up into the sky, even Reinhard's eyes widened.
The light of the falling star was just as overwhelmingly powerful as the one
Aldebaran shuddered at the "Dragon's" out-of-spec ability to replicate on its own, with no assistance whatsoever, the forbidden spell Sphinx had needed every cheat in the book to achieve—and kept his eyes locked on Reinhard's movements in the sky.
He would not be so naive as to assume Al Shario was undefendable.
In fact, Cecilus Segmunt—called the "Blue Lightning," the equal of the "Sword Saint"—had accomplished the superhuman feat of bisecting a falling star with a single swing of his blade in that imperial capital battle.
That star-slaying had been the product of Cecilus's swordsmanship combined with the power of his "Dream Sword." Reinhard, who couldn't draw the "Dragon Sword," wouldn't be able to replicate it.
But that was no reason to let his guard down.
Therefore— *"Oh, ohhhhh—!!"* Before Reinhard could react to the starlight in any way, the roaring "Aldebaran" executed a half-turn in midair, spun to face Reinhard's exposed back, and hammered a wing strike into him.
Reinhard blocked it on instinct with his elbow and knee, but the "Dragon's" aim wasn't to cut him with the wing—it was to blast him away with the impact, to push him toward the star.
*"—!!"* Just as in their first contact, Reinhard possessed a means to traverse the sky—the "Blessing of Cloud-Walking," which used clouds as footing. Before he could recover his posture, "Aldebaran's" roar scoured away the surrounding clouds and launched Reinhard further into the sky.
No footing. No escape. Reinhard, defenseless in open air, collided with the starlight.
Far worse conditions than the star-slaying in the imperial capital—no matter how powerful Reinhard was, against a direct hit from the star, there was nothing— "—I've been given this."
The instant Reinhard desperately thrust out a foot, his toes touched the star, and the explosive energy generated there should have swallowed the "Sword Saint" in an extinction-level detonation.
But the expected explosion never came. Instead, Reinhard walked along the surface of the star.
"What."
*"The hell!?!"* The falling star—offered only two options: destruction or evasion—had been sidestepped. The voices of shock from Aldebaran and "Aldebaran" echoed across the sand sea.
Reacting to that double astonishment, Reinhard—who had walked along the star's surface all the way to its apex— "It's the 'Blessing of Ball-Juggling.'"
"Ball… juggling…"
"You're saying he treated it like a fireball?"
At that explanation, they were rendered speechless at the realization that a burst of destructive brilliance had been reduced to "a fireball." But the speechlessness was immediately swallowed by a surging sense of crisis.
If one believed the "Blessing of Ball-Juggling," then a circus performer juggling on a ball didn't simply stand on top of it—they controlled it at will— *"You bastard."* Reinhard's foot seemed to lightly tap the star's surface.
The next instant, the trajectory of the star—the one Al Shario had dropped—changed, and the blazing starlight came hurtling toward "Aldebaran," the caster himself.
Seeing this, the "Dragon" spat a curse and met it head-on with a full-power breath.
"————"
In that instant, white and red light engulfed the sky so brilliantly it could be mistaken for dawn.
The spectacle that should have been produced by slamming Reinhard into the star—the one whose process had been forcibly twisted—converged into the result of the night sky being scorched. —No, it wasn't over yet.
The shattered star became countless glimmering shards, and the sand sea was carpet-bombed by a rain of light.
"Gu…gh—!"
Naturally, Aldebaran—who had been watching from the ground—was blown away as well. His entire body riddled with severe burns, he collapsed into the sand.
A moment later, a tremor different from the star's impact rumbled from some distance away. He turned his barely mobile head and saw "Aldebaran"—one wing broken, the other severed—falling helplessly to the ground.
And then— "It's come to this. What a shame."
Reinhard walked over to where Aldebaran lay.
The "Dragon," half-dead. Aldebaran, hovering between life and death. Reinhard, who had been caught in the cataclysmic explosion of starlight—there was not the slightest trace of wear on him.
It was said the "Greed" Sin Archbishop had once killed Reinhard. How on earth?
Yet the look in Reinhard's eyes was tinged with something like shame, because he was already certain of this battle's outcome. And sadly, Aldebaran had no way to overturn it.
True to Reinhard's assessment.—The eight thousand four hundred and sixty-sixth time, and it was his victory.
But— "—Next."
The instant Reinhard's back was turned, "Aldebaran"—ugly and fallen to the ground—lifted his head and, with desperate fury, launched a Dragon's Breath straight at Aldebaran.
Launched from a damaged state, the breath was a shadow of its full-power self, but Reinhard couldn't ignore it. —Because on its line of fire was Aldebaran, and if Reinhard dodged, nothing but cinders would remain.
"That kind of tactic is inexcusable…!"
Reinhard whirled around, pulled the "Dragon Sword" from its scabbard, and cut the breath down head-on.
The indignation in his raised voice—the anger that filled him—was because "Aldebaran" had launched an attack that endangered Aldebaran, who was supposed to be on his side.
How very kind of him. He would factor that into the plan next time.
Resolved, Aldebaran untied the pouch in his mouth and swallowed the poison.
"Wha—"
Noticing the change, Reinhard turned, his expression hardening. Watching that, Aldebaran convulsed on the ground, drowning in frothy blood, his consciousness fading to somewhere far away— × × × "That's enough."
A clear, cold voice sliced through the frozen air, and a light pierced the "Dragon" in midair diagonally.
Skewered from end to end, Aldebaran clung to the dorsal protrusion of the "Dragon's" back by conditioned reflex—forged through hundreds of falling deaths—avoiding a skydive without a parachute and hurtling straight down to earth, to earth, with "the other half."
And— "I advise you to surrender. I have no desire to cut you."
"Stop being so dramatic, Hero. I'm the one who wins. —The star was the problem."
—The eight thousand four hundred and sixty-seventh battle of Aldebaran began.
△▼△▼△▼△ —A chance encounter with the "Sword Saint" Reinhard van Astrea, beginning in the skies above the nighttime
The fight began with being skewered by light and falling—and Aldebaran took it simply as the moment arriving, not at all surprised by Reinhard's entry into the battle.
He might have thought the moment came slightly sooner than expected, but it was a fight he knew would happen.
If anything, he welcomed the chance to fight at a moment of minimal exhaustion.—He could put on such a brave face only because he had yet to hear "That's enough" a hundred times. After eight thousand-plus rounds of "That's enough," even that bravado crumbled away.
In truth, even before the first "That's enough," he had been told "That's enough" over a hundred times before finally being soft-caught by the "Dragon's" wings and safely deposited on the sand sea.
Before that, he had been killed by falling and breaking his neck or spine, only to be returned to "That's enough" each time, forced into endless retries for reasons he couldn't understand.
"When I realized this 'That's enough' was *Reinhard's* 'That's enough'… man, there was this weird rush of emotion…"
The state of not understanding what on earth was happening to you was psychologically brutal.
For Aldebaran, physical suffering was unpleasant but not the worst. What he feared more than bodily harm was damage to his spirit.
On that count, discovering the true identity of the repeated "That's enough" had felt like escaping a labyrinth. That said, the relief evaporated quickly.
"I guess I'm lucky it didn't end in a checkmate save…"
In the worst case, his one true weakness was that he might set his matrix right before an unavoidable death. So far, miraculously, he had never done it—but he couldn't count on that holding.
Moreover, right now he was redefining his matrix at fifteen-second intervals as a precaution against unforeseen events. Thanks to that, he had been able to return to just before Reinhard's "That's enough" each time. But if he had set his matrix's starting point at "That's e—" instead of "That's enough," he might have begun at "nough" and been unable to do anything while his mind was hollowed out.
Once a matrix was updated, it was impossible to revert to an earlier task.
Meaning: Aldebaran had to clear the "Sword Saint" Reinhard van Astrea with a matrix that began at "That's enough."
To that end, he had already repeated "That's enough" over eight thousand times.
An exhausting battle, like a tortoise challenging a mountain of despair by inches. But with "Aldebaran's" help, it wasn't entirely hopeless against Reinhard.
As a result, the preparations for beating Reinhard were steadily progressing.
To defeat any enemy—not just Reinhard—the key was decomposition of elements.
Disassemble the elements that made a thing what it was, and you would naturally approach the opponent's core. Reinhard wasn't simply the strongest. —There was a reason for his supremacy.
Aldebaran decomposed these elements one by one across the categories of "Mind, Technique, and Body."
Body.—Reinhard's outrageous physical ability, unaccounted for by any blessing, stemmed from the sheer excess of his innate Od, which naturally channeled mana from inside and outside his body without the slightest loss—and indeed in a synergistic, explosive fashion.
There existed a technique called the "Flow Method," which used circulating internal mana to strengthen the body, mastered through talent and years of training. Reinhard, born with a "Mana Excess Circulation Constitution," wielded this instinctively from birth, maintaining his enhanced state as the default.
It was close to saying that Reinhard's ordinary breathing had the effect of hundreds of deep breaths for a normal person, and even then he still had room to breathe deeper.
Technique.—From Aldebaran's prior knowledge and the data of eight thousand collisions, Reinhard possessed two hundred and fifty-one blessings. Ranging from the "Blessing of the Sword Saint" that served as his namesake, to combat-useful ones like the "Blessing of Preemption" and "Blessing of Arrow Avoidance," to environmentally adaptive ones like the "Blessing of Mist" and "Blessing of Sandplay," all the way to absurd ones like the "Blessing of Shoelaces" and "Blessing of Layered Clothing"—the range was extraordinary.
Reinhard held so many blessings—each one rare and powerful enough to represent an entire nation—that he could fill both hands and still have fingers left over. His adaptability was so far beyond the norm that even a trap designed to defeat the world's cleverest "Witch" would be broken through with ease.
Mind.—Finally, there was the spirit of the man who bore the role of "Sword Saint."
His self-identification as a scion of the "Sword Saint" bloodline was likely proof that he felt he had yet to reach his own ideal of what a "Sword Saint" should be. But for those placed in opposition to him, working at cross-purposes, Reinhard's self-consciousness was irrelevant.
Regardless of what Reinhard himself believed, his actions and sense of duty were worthy of the title "Sword Saint," and he would not let a single enemy of the Kingdom—no, of the world—go unchallenged.
The "Sword Saint" Reinhard van Astrea was a gear designed to slay the enemies of the world.
That was Aldebaran's breakdown of Reinhard's "Mind, Technique, and Body."
To defeat Reinhard, it was essential to crush each of these decomposed elements one at a time.
Therefore— "That's enough."
And from the moment the "Dragon" was pierced by light, Aldebaran's next battle began.
△▼△▼△▼△ —Eight thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight.
"That's enough."
He had grown certain of it through the repeated battles: for Reinhard's body—the "Mana Excess Circulation Constitution" that drew in ambient mana and circulated it through his entire being—the Augria Sand Dunes, riddled with the miasma of corrupted mana, were quite simply the worst possible battlefield.
In other words, across the entire world, there was no field that could weaken Reinhard as effectively as the Augria Sand Dunes.
Even after hitting him with Al Clam, generating extreme gravity, and engulfing "Aldebaran" in a gravitational field intense enough to crush him under his own weight—and even after Reinhard broke through that by brute force—his physical abilities were at their absolute weakest here in the Augria Sand Dunes.
"—Next."
× × × —Twelve thousand twelve.
"That's enough."
Using light refraction, concealing the walls of ice that enclosed the surrounding area. Filling that sealed space with mist, then vaporizing all the water inside at once, causing it to detonate.
A pressure collapse within the sealed space caused by a steam explosion—an attack combining magic and science in a way whose result couldn't be predicted and whose cause couldn't be fully identified at the civilization level of this world.
Not simple fire, not water, but steam—an attack designed to simultaneously deceive the "Blessing of Fire Avoidance" and the "Blessing of Water Avoidance." But Reinhard was granted the "Blessing of Fireplay," which neutralized explosions, and the "Blessing of Waterplay," which negated water damage, and broke through that as well.
"—Next."
× × × —Sixteen thousand and eight.
"That's enough."
Creating lightning clouds using the temperature differential between fire and ice magic, then wrapping the "Dragon Sword" in electrical current via an application of wind and earth magic. Guided by the principle of a lightning rod—except there was no escape—lightning rained down upon Reinhard.
Even Reinhard couldn't outrun true lightning speed. The irregular bolt—reminiscent of Cecilus's sword speed from the Empire, which had transcended human limits—pierced through him.
Reinhard nullified it completely with the "Blessing of Thundercloud." The lightning couldn't catch him—but it caught the "Dragon Sword," and the blade acquired a powerful magnetic charge.
He turned that to his advantage and proceeded to his next prearranged plan.—Using the magnetism, he would seal the opponent's movement with the iron sand abundant in the sand sea, then strike at the fatal opening.
But that too was evaded using the "Blessing of Sandplay" and the "Blessing of Mud Evasion," and ended in failure.
"—Next."
× × × —Sixty-four thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine.
"That's enough."
He'd forgotten the conditioned reflex he should have seared into his soul—an instant's lapse caused by the previous failure responding so well.
The moment he forgot the routine of clinging to the "Dragon's" dorsal protrusion, his body was enveloped in weightlessness, the wind swallowed him, and he lost all sense of up, down, left, and right, tossed about helplessly.
Far away, he couldn't catch Aldebaran. Only the roar of the "Dragon" reached his ears.
He probed the inside of his mouth with his tongue and once again released the lethal poison he had swallowed—how many times now?
From that height, a fall meant certain death. But if, by some fluke, this happened to be the run where it actually mattered, it would be a problem. So just in case, Aldebaran took the poison.
The agony—his entire body's blood boiling—whited out his mind before he hit the ground— "—Next."
△▼△▼△▼△ —One hundred and thirty-two thousand and forty-four.
"That's enough."
Sadly, repeating battles that averaged less than two minutes each—over and over and over and over