A tempest of emotions was swirling within
Fury at having been toyed with by
Rage at watching her subordinates—her personal guards—cut down one after another.
Helplessness, frustration, and envy toward the strong.
Swallowing all of that, every emotion except the swelling surge of jealousy was crushed flat.
She no longer ran wild like before. Nor did she face her enemies with hatred alone. Instead, she observed their very souls.
Good or evil—those labels, in themselves, meant nothing.
What mattered was whether she could overwhelm them, or whether she couldn't. That was all.
The swirling emotions were nothing but an obstacle to Shion.
But the jealousy that should have vanished continued to pierce her heart like a thorn, stubbornly disrupting her thoughts.
She wanted Demon Lord Rimuru to regard her as the most precious existence to him. But that was mere vanity. Precisely because she understood this, it was difficult to erase her jealousy toward those stronger than her or those who served a useful purpose.
Even so—
Shion had been practicing the art of accepting things as they truly were.
By perceiving the essence of things with her soul, just as Rimuru had instructed.
The result was not a dramatic transformation, but Shion had been gradually shifting her very essence.
Grasping power as it truly was, without being swayed by emotion.
Setting aside the thorn of jealousy lodged in her heart, Shion unified her mind and spirit with crystalline clarity.
Not from the body, but from the mind.
Shion's evolution was progressing in forms invisible to the eye.
The battle against Dagruel began.
In that instant, she understood with her soul the depth of Dagruel's overwhelming might—an abyss with no bottom.
When they had met before, she had been unable to perceive it at all: the savage soul hidden beneath that gentle exterior.
Or perhaps it was the very form she herself aspired to—the ultimate perfected state—that made Shion shudder.
If she thought calmly, the gap between Dagruel's power and her own was starkly obvious. This was not even a question of whether the fight could be won.
And yet.
There was no word "retreat" in Shion's vocabulary.
Rimuru's strategy was perfect. It had to be.
If that was the case, then so long as no new orders came, she had no reason to withdraw. That was Shion's reasoning.
Trusting Rimuru purely and carrying out her orders with dogged obedience.
In a sense, it was an abdication of thought. But for Shion, Rimuru's orders were supreme and all-encompassing.
*(He would never issue orders without having a plan in action. Until a new command comes, I simply obey.)*
Therefore, Shion feared no death, holding the line with an unshakable resolve.
Luminous's cooperation had been unexpected.
That noble vampire despised any defilement of her own person.
Her wisdom was keen enough that she must have fully understood there was no possibility of victory in this fight.
If that was the case, Shion had assumed Luminous would flee the battlefield immediately.
*(Surprising. If I were alone, I would have been defeated long ago.*
*Demon Lord Luminous—was my image of her wrong after all?*
*No, perhaps that too—)*
Such idle thoughts flickered through her mind, but Shion shook them off.
She knew full well she had no luxury for such musings.
After all, crossing swords had confirmed it: Dagruel was still holding back his true power.
If he ever got serious, she knew with bone-deep certainty that she would be swallowed by his power in an instant.
If so, then all she could do was scrutinize his essence—however briefly—and resist for as long as possible.
With that resolve, Shion launched her reckless challenge again and again.
Against Dagruel, whose essence so closely mirrored her own.
She swung her blade with every fiber of her being, carving the image of Dagruel—the figure she aspired to become—into her very soul.
And through Luminous's support, dying and being reborn again and again—
—Time stopped in the world around her—
Beyond Shion's perception, a world drained of color spread outward.
*Not yet! It's not over yet!*
She tried to open her mouth to roar, but her body would not respond.
Frozen in place, she could not even stand. Worse still, she could not so much as open her lips.
Only her consciousness continued, thoughts spinning in confusion.
In the midst of it all, the emotional thorn that had plagued her all along—"Jealousy"—pierced deep into her soul, disturbing its very core—
And she felt the root cause vanish cleanly away.
At that exact moment, the "White Ice Dragon"
What mattered was that the obstructing emotion had disappeared. That was all.
*(As expected of Lord Rimuru! You foresaw even this!)*
It was an overreaching conclusion born of Shion's own conviction, but to Shion, it was the truth.
Joy and admiration filled her heart, and she felt an impossibly vast power welling up from within.
Pure violence.
The power of destruction.
Tyranny that knew no good or evil.
*Individual Name: Shion has undergone an ability evolution.* *Ultimate Skill "King of Tyranny" acquired.*
The Voice of the World echoed through her.
In the next instant, Shion's field of vision opened.
It was a world without color, but that posed no obstacle to her perception.
In place of sound, will passed directly between them. Words were unnecessary.
In the Frozen World governed by its own special rules, Shion adapted instantly.
The Ultimate Skill "King of Tyranny" made it possible.
The groundwork for this evolution had already been laid.
*(Thank you, Lord Rimuru!)*
It was the work of
The freshly acquired Ultimate Skill "King of Tyranny" settled into Shion with effortless precision, already in its optimized state.
For Shion, who had been evolving on a spiritual level, controlling a raging torrent of energy was trivial.
If anything, it was precisely because she could do so that she had awakened to this ability.
The spirit transcends the body.
Therefore, the evolution of her spirit had also triggered a racial awakening of her physical form.
Into a Fighting Demon (Higher Sacred Demon Spirit), one whose primary attacks are physical.
A Spiritual Life-Form possessing a body capable of infinite regeneration through magicules. However, its attacks could also destroy the very spirit.
Shion had evolved into an existence that could be called the natural enemy of Spiritual Life-Forms.
She drew upon the energy she had borrowed from Veldora to make up the shortfall.
And then—once more—Shion remade her physical form. Into a body further optimized for combat.
It was only then that she realized she had been drawing power from Veldora on a subconscious level.
Her awareness, which had been wandering through the fog on something close to instinct, suddenly became as clear and vivid as a cloudless blue sky.
Shion understood: she had fully awakened.
Shion raised her beloved sword, the Shin Gourikimaru, and took her stance.
"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting. But as promised, I'll make this a bit more entertaining for you."
She addressed Dagruel in a polite tone.
In the Frozen World, the true battle between Dagruel and Shion began.
Sword flashes blazed.
It was a metaphor, of course—in a world without light, no blade could gleam.
But with a sharpness that could only be expressed that way, Shion's strike descended upon Dagruel.
Dagruel hardened his body harder than diamond and caught the blow with both arms.
But the force of that downward stroke drove him to his knees, both of them sinking into the ground.
Dagruel's eyes went wide.
In the Frozen World, no vibration occurred in the air.
Because the connections had been severed, energy could not propagate.
It was as if his body were parting molecules by brute force alone.
He could not kick off the ground to gain momentum, either. The force of impact would simply gouge into the earth and trap his feet—exactly as it was doing now.
In the Frozen World, the laws of physics did not hold.
As for the laws of magic, it was nearly impossible to activate any of them at all.
Combat under such extraordinary conditions was naturally far removed from the ordinary.
Dagruel clicked his tongue, exhaled a torrent of overwhelming power, and deflected Shion's blade. This time, it was Shion's feet that were driven into the ground.
After several more exchanges of sword and fist, the two fell into a natural rhythm.
Dagruel had regained his instincts, and Shion had learned through the flow of battle.
The fight grew more intense.
Not just in the ferocity of their physical clashes, but in the clash of their abilities as well.
Dagruel did not possess an Ultimate Skill.
His very existence was already ultimate, and he was a being close to the Dragon species.
His fists alone could override the laws of physics and manifest destructive force, and his unique wavelength interfered with the earth and atmosphere, setting off localized devastation.
But those superpowers were meaningless within the Frozen World.
"Shion, I don't know how long my sister will keep time stopped.
But there's one thing I know for certain: your only chance of victory is within the Frozen World. Outside of it, in the normal flow of time, Dagruel's ability restrictions are lifted. Be warned."
Veldora's words reached Shion without sound, passing directly as thought.
"I appreciate the warning, Lord Veldora."
Shion offered her thanks, though she did not truly grasp the deeper meaning.
On an instinctual level, however, she understood the danger.
Right now, the destructive impulse packed into Dagruel's fists affected only the points of contact. That was why Shion could respond and trade blows with him.
But she suspected that Veldora's warning meant that in normal space, those attacks could come from every direction at once.
She couldn't say for certain without taking one head-on, but she could imagine the danger.
It was not the kind of thing she would ever want to test.
Shion aimed for a quick finish, raising her blade speed by another level.
Dagruel, his body now hardened to an extreme, deflected every one of Shion's strikes with his bare hands.
"Oh? Even after all this clashing, your blade shows no sign of chipping?"
On the contrary, Dagruel praised Shion's unyielding sword.
His admiration was genuine, and Shion could tell he was sincerely impressed.
"Of course. This is my beloved blade—a gift from Lord Rimuru.
I polish it with care every single day. At this point, it's practically a part of my body."
True to her words, Shion polished her blade daily and attuned it to her own Demon Aura.
It was no exaggeration to say it was a part of her body, and along with Shion's own evolution, the Shin Gourikimaru had evolved to Mythical-grade as well.
That was why it had survived even before Dagruel's weapon-destroying ability—a stroke of great fortune for Shion.
And the true stroke of luck lay in the similarity of their abilities.
Shion's ability was the Neutralization ability that could be called the natural enemy of Spiritual Life-Forms.
Its effect extended even to ordinary physical attacks like sword strikes, draining the target's energy. Even a single hit carried this impact.
Moreover, as had been proven by her ability to absorb Veldora's energy, she could redirect stolen energy for her own use.
Though there were limits to how much she could store, she could also drain energy from her opponent to compensate for her own losses.
It was an ability that strongly expressed Shion's own immortality.
And true to the name of Tyranny, the ability to control that raging energy was the true essence of Shion's power.
That Shion could even exist before Dagruel—a being who was essentially a mass of energy—was entirely thanks to the awakened "King of Tyranny."
In contrast, Dagruel's very being could be called a phenomenon unto itself.
Hardened defense, weapon destruction, existence annihilation, magic negation, attribute neutralization, defense penetration—
And numerous other effects and traits belonging to an ultimate life-form.
Normally, engaging Dagruel in hand-to-hand combat would be an act of suicide.
He was an existence beyond both physical and magical laws—a god of destruction. That was Dagruel.
But the awakened Shion's Ultimate Skill "King of Tyranny" granted her the power to stand against even Dagruel.
In other words, they possessed abilities of the same kind.
The Unique Skill "Chef's" ability—"the power to produce a confirmed, desired outcome"—evolved further into complete Causality Manipulation.
This was an absolute ability, far beyond the Demon
It could not merely predict; it could manipulate outcomes to match one's intent.
The reason pre-awakening Shion had been able to move within the frozen time at all was thanks to the Unique Skill "Chef."
Causality Manipulation was invincible within a world of stopped time.
Since both cause and effect existed on the other side of time's flow, within this world, Shion's will took absolute priority over everything.
"—Impossible… You've surpassed my own abilities…"
Against Dagruel, whose Maximum Existence Value was several times Shion's own, the reason she could fight on equal footing was precisely this.
But even with that ability, Shion could not overpower Dagruel.
That, in turn, was proof of the similarity between Shion and Dagruel.
Compare abilities alone, and Shion came out ahead. But in overall power, they were even.
Through further exchange of blows, Dagruel had come to realize this as well.
His expression turned bitter as he glared at Shion.
He had noticed that his abilities were being completely neutralized. That was because Shion's ability shared a similar essence to his own.
As a result, they canceled each other out, nullifying each other's power.
In the Frozen World, where their superpowers that could manipulate cataclysms were sealed, Shion and Dagruel were locked in a perpetual contest with no decisive blow.
The damage that should have bypassed defenses entirely was deftly evaded, never landing a killing strike.
Each was draining the other's energy, devouring it hungrily.
It seemed as though they would remain locked in this eternal battle within the frozen flow of time.
But that equilibrium shattered in an instant.
Yes—time had resumed.
In that moment, Dagruel was certain of his victory.
The superpowers that had been suppressed were now released. That meant he could wield the full arsenal befitting his epithet, "Wrath of the Earth."
Dagruel unleashed an omnidirectional assault upon Shion.
Abilities that had been evenly matched within the Frozen World now operated under entirely different conditions within normal physics.
The Laws that needed to be dominated were now multifaceted, and causality influenced events across countless dimensions.
Perfect foresight and Law dominance became far more difficult. Against an opponent of equal strength, doubly so.
As Veldora had warned, Shion's only chance of victory was within the Frozen World.
The earth convulsed with violent tremors, generating quakes powerful enough to make standing impossible. At the same time, the atmosphere roared like a living thing, spiraling into vast vortexes blazing with lightning.
All of it converged upon Shion simultaneously as a direct attack.
Endowed with the absolute ability to negate defenses, it was all aimed at claiming Shion's life.
Even with the Ultimate Skill "King of Tyranny," neutralizing every last attack was impossible.
*(The overwhelming gap in our Existence Values is a wall neither of us can surpass!)*
Dagruel's silent scream never reached Shion.
Every attack carried a lethal will behind it.
And Dagruel was certain of his victory—
**"True Heaven-Earth Annihilation Rebirth!!"**
His eyes went wide with shock.
Shion had turned to counterattack.
Shion had accepted that perfect defense was impossible, abandoned all defense entirely, and poured everything she had into offense.
*(Impossible! Does she have a death wish?!)*
Dagruel thrust his left hand forward to neutralize the blade rising toward him from below—but the blade vanished into a blur, and confusion flickered across his face.
An instant later, a searing pain—the first he had felt in thousands of years—erupted from the crown of his skull.
Shion's lethal strike had threaded the gap in Dagruel's consciousness and reached his body.
However—
Piercing Shion's body as well were the countless attacks generated by Dagruel's superpowers.
Even for the evolved Shion, this should have been instant death.
**"Rebirth!!"**
A cool, clear voice rang across the battlefield.
Shion, who had been doomed to die, was pulled back from the abyss of death by Demon Lord Luminous's Ultimate Skill, "King of Lust."
If time was flowing, then Luminous's support could be expected. Shion's gamble had paid off.
Shion had bet on the fact that Luminous would not flee—that she would revive her instead.
"Heh heh heh, thank you ever so much, Demon Lord Luminous."
"You fool… You foresaw that I would save you, didn't you?"
"Yes. I believed in you, Demon Lord Luminous."
"Call me Luminous. From today onward, I shall call you Shion as well. Do you object?"
"No… No, Luminous. From today onward, I too shall consider you a friend."
"Hmph! Do as you please!"
As she said this, Luminous's face was flushed bright red. Shion's was the same—
The two glanced at each other, then turned away in mutual embarrassment.
A localized tension had eased across the battlefield.
Fighting continued in various locations, but the fall of the enemy commander had an immediate impact on morale.
The giant army wavered, and the front lines were tilting in favor of the defenders.
Glossarte and
The defeat of their eldest brother, Dagruel, must have affected them as well.
And in the midst of it all—
"Bwahahahaha!"
Someone laughed without reading the room.
It was Veldora.
"Magnificent! Truly magnificent, Shion! Well done—you've exceeded even my expectations!"
Veldora laughed, clearly delighted.
Luminous glared at him.
"What? You were here all along?
You dragon nuisance!"
she spat.
Veldora flinched for a moment, but then straightened up with a puff of his chest.
"Of course I was! I was watching over you because I was worried about all of you!"
He said it with an air of wanting to be thanked, but Luminous's cold attitude did not change.
In truth, he had been putting in considerable effort behind the scenes. During the Frozen World, the clones he had been using to hold off Glossarte and Fen—specifically the one handling Fen—had sent out distress signals multiple times, but he had ignored them. After all, having had the bulk of his energy drained by Shion, he simply didn't have the bandwidth. And all of those clones were parallel existences of Veldora himself.
Yet now, the atmosphere was hardly one where he could boast about it. Veldora faltered.
Cold sweat trickled down his back, and before Luminous's frigid gold-and-silver demon eyes, he could not find the words.
*(Guh… Grrr… Why am I always treated like the villain here…)*
It was hardly surprising that his eyes were beginning to glisten.
"So, what did you come here for? It's already over," Luminous said coldly.
Veldora felt like fleeing from those icy words.
But what saved him was none other than Dagruel—the very man Shion had just defeated.
"Fufu… fufufufufu! For the first time in over a thousand years, I've been brought to my knees.
More than that—no one since
Be proud, Shion!"
So saying, Dagruel rose from where he had fallen.
The blood flowing from his head showed no sign of stopping, a result of Shion's ability.
And yet, Dagruel's fighting spirit was only growing stronger.
"Hmm. As expected of Dagruel.
Shion, rest there.
It seems this one is a job for me alone."
Veldora stepped forward before Dagruel.
And then—
"Return to your true form! Let us settle this with everything we have!"
His declaration rang out, bold and clear.
Dagruel nodded.
"Fufufu. Dragon or Giant—let's find out who stands above.
No holding back, Veldora!
Glossarte, Fen—come! Now is the time to show them our true power!!"
He responded to Veldora with a thunderous roar.
The overwhelming fighting spirit emanating from his body. And an atmosphere that was utterly unnatural.
The pressure was so immense that Shion and the others could not even speak.
Veldora cast a brief glance at them.
"Shion—once the battle begins, put everything into your defense.
Adalman, Albert—all of you, pour everything into maintaining the barrier.
If you hold back, you'll all get caught in the crossfire and be obliterated—"
He spoke as though stating the obvious, delivering his instructions as settled fact.
But given the gravity of the situation, neither Shion nor even Luminous raised an objection.
Veldora continued.
"Dagru, Ryura, Debra—watch what unfolds here with careful eyes.
I am going to kill your father. Burn this battle into your memory.
What begins now is a Mythical-grade battle. Bear witness—"
Quietly, Veldora finished speaking.
"—!?"
The three siblings were struck speechless by this side of him they had never seen before.
But they understood that something extraordinary was about to happen.
"Understood, Lord Veldora!"
They answered in unison, affirming their compliance.
Veldora regarded them with satisfaction, then turned back to Dagruel.
There, Dagruel and his siblings had finished their preparations as well.
"Unseal—Trinity!!"
With Dagruel's cry, the ancient seal was broken.
Dagruel, Glossarte, and Fen—the three brothers—were enveloped in blinding light.
It was the return of the Destroyer Gods from the age of myth.
A three-faced, six-armed colossus bearing an inconceivable Existence Value manifested before them.
Even a single glance told Shion and her companions that this was not something they could handle.
Unless, of course, they were facing the strongest of the Dragon species—the one who stood before them now.
"Bwahahahaha! So that's your true form, is it, Dagruel!
Very well! I'll match you with everything I have!!"
Veldora transformed into his Dragon Form.
And the Mythical-grade battle between two beings of supernatural power began.
And in the midst of it all—
*(Oh thank goodness! I was starting to worry there wouldn't be anything for me to do—)*
Not a single soul perceived the truth behind Veldora's triumphant laughter.