"ROOAAARRR!!"
Kerberos lunged toward them.
Its movements were still threatening. The previous blow should have dealt considerable damage, yet there was no sign of it weakening.
Was Kerberos's mental fortitude remarkably high, or was this level of damage simply insignificant to this Monster?
...Most likely, both.
"—There!"
But now, they had a weapon too. Not another superficial graze — a blade that would truly reach the beast.
—
Ashen World Tree.
The magic he had created for the sole purpose of defeating this Monster.
Its nature was extreme firepower specialization. It had no special effects whatsoever — nothing but a mass of pure destructive force to swing. But that was precisely why it posed a threat to a Monster boasting such extraordinary physical resilience.
Of course, while using it, Ermes couldn't handle any other magic. On top of that, he was devoting considerable concentration just to controlling the greatsword, so his movements were actually slower than before.
Yet he could still fight — all thanks to the movement predictions and reads he had honed through every battle up to this point, and—
"I won't let you!"
It was thanks to Katia, who was still precisely controlling her phantom soldiers, disrupting the enemy's advance and restricting their movements.
"...Are you alright, Lady Katia?"
He asked, threading his words through the narrow opening he'd managed to find.
Normally, if he had time to spare like this, he should have kept up the attack. But the reason he didn't was because he'd noticed.
Katia's face had gone pale, the tips of her fingers and toes trembling — the classic symptoms of impending magic power exhaustion.
"No matter how
'Netherworld of Salvation'
fuel-efficient it may be, if you keep fighting like this—"
"...I'm fine, really."
But she answered with forced composure.
"Thanks to you, thanks to Sarah, I can still fight. Then I'll see this through to the end. You prepared such an incredible spell for me, just like you said. ...And I can at least do this much...!"
"...Understood."
If she'd go that far, he wouldn't say another word.
The truth was, without her support he could well be overrun—so the best thing he could do for her was cut down that Monster as soon as possible.
This time, he pushed every thought of her condition out of his mind and locked his eyes solely on Kerberos.
Hefting his greatsword, Ermes lunged straight in.
"...Amazing..."
Sarah watched the battle from afar, honest admiration spilling from her lips.
Sarah's Bloodline Magic wasn't as fuel-efficient as Katia's. Her magic power had already been depleted, and the damage from having her now-fragile cage of light shattered left her body barely able to move.
All she could do now was watch. Though it gnawed at her—she found herself so captivated by the fight before her that those frustrated thoughts slipped away entirely.
Behind her, a voice spoke up.
"What the hell... is that..."
The soldiers who had likewise collapsed nearby—all of them had their eyes locked on the battle unfolding before them.
"That's an unbelievable spell... far beyond what His Highness—"
"But they were saying it's forbidden magic—"
"It doesn't matter—anyway, if they go down too, we're finished!"
"B-But… for a Flawed Lady and a good-for-nothing to defeat a Monster that even His Highness couldn't handle—that's just—"
They were naturally praying for victory, given that their own lives hung in the balance, but it was all so far beyond anything they had ever known that they couldn't help but feel bewildered.
It was Sarah who called out to them.
"…You all already know the truth of it, don't you?"
She, too, turned her gaze forward, watching the battle unfold once more.
With noble resolve and the power to match it—standing courageously against a grotesque enemy that none could hope to defeat, a menace that threatened the lives of ordinary people.
This was what nobility was supposed to look like—the image every one of them had been taught at least once. And it was abundantly clear that the two people fighting out there right now embodied that ideal perfectly.
That sight was more eloquent than any words could ever be.
"Which one of us was wrong? Which one was the counterfeit? Who was it that had forced their twisted values on everyone while overlooking what truly mattered?"
After speaking those words as much for her own sake as for theirs, she glanced briefly over her right shoulder.
There lay Aster—still conscious, it seemed, but staring blankly, utterly soulless, watching the battle unfold before him.
He probably hadn't heard a word she'd said. She looked away and turned back to face the front.
"Among you, there must still be some who can move… I won't demand that you fight. I don't think I could even bring myself to rejoin the battle out there, either."
In other words, she wasn't trying to stop anyone from joining the fight—but not a single one of the soldiers who could still stand had risen to their feet.
That, surely, was their limit right now.
She had one final thing to tell them—and unlike them, a faint note of frustration bled through into her voice.
"Then at least… watch over them until the end. Watch the strength of people who, despite their doubts, chose to trust their own convictions in the final moment—and see how it ends."
Ermes's greatsword cleaved through Kerberos once more.
"GRAAAGH!"
He quickly backstepped to dodge the follow-up counterattack from the hind legs. Rebalancing his stance, he kept his focus sharp and once again looked for an opening with care.
Already, countless cuts both large and small had been carved into Kerberos. Ermes's
Ashen World Tree
also harbored flames, so the smoke seeping from the wounds would only hasten its depletion.
Kerberos should have been capable of recovery, yet it showed no signs of doing so. Perhaps the magic power consumption was too great, and beyond that — it could clearly see that during any attempt to heal, it would suffer more damage than it could mend.
In truth, Ermes intended to do exactly that — and not merely outpace the recovery, but sever its neck the very instant it attempted magic.
As if sensing this, Kerberos too was not careless enough to make a move.
If so, then as long as they kept landing solid blows and wearing it down, it should eventually fall —
"...Th...is..."
— and that held true for Ermes and the others as well.
"When... are you going to... fall... already...!"
Ermes, panting and heaving on his feet, couldn't help but grumble.
Whether Kerberos had a limit or not, Ermes certainly did — one known as physical exhaustion.
Sarah, who had been easing that burden until now, was no longer here, and with the lightning strike from earlier, the limit was drawing even closer.
And it wasn't just Ermes. Katya, who had been continuously deploying her phantom soldiers, could run out of magic power at any moment.
That was why they wanted to end this quickly, but Kerberos wouldn't let them land a single blow deeper than the first.
No matter how much they whittled it down, it showed absolutely no sign of falling, giving Ermes and the others the impression it was virtually immortal.
"Ooooohhh...nnn..."
...Well, that probably went both ways.
It kept getting back up no matter how many times they knocked it down, and moreover, it grew stronger with each recovery. By now, these humans who had come bearing weapons capable of killing it were nothing short of a lethal threat.
The breaths from the three heads were growing noticeably labored, and while it was tough to a level that bordered on immortal, it was now unmistakably clear that it was not, in fact, indestructible.
In short — evenly matched. Not the stalemate from when the battle first began, where neither could land a blow, but the final stretch, where both sides were grinding away at each other's dwindling vitality and stamina.
──Then it all came down to a contest of willpower.
"──!"
"WOOON!!"
They exchanged sharp breaths and roars, crossing blades for what could have been any number of times.
Slash. Collide. Swing. Parry. Dodge. Graze.
Countless exchanges. A clash of souls. A collision born of wishes and killing intent, of things neither could surrender, was in a sense the most intimate conversation imaginable.
One that seemed as though it could last forever ── or rather, as though it would be allowed to.
The miraculous infight they displayed dragged on far longer than anyone had predicted.
His wish, born the moment he came into existence, and the killing intent harbored by Kerberos.
Perhaps there was no difference in the strength of their resolve.
And that was precisely why the balance broke.
"WOOON!?"
The blade of flame bit deeper than before.
Kerberos sensed something off and retreated a half step, but the unease didn't end there.
Gradually, yet unmistakably, his swordsmanship was growing sharper.
The answer to that question was delivered by none other than himself.
"…Ah."
He let out a strained breath, yet one that carried the sense of having grasped something at last.
"…
…I've finally
,
started to figure out how to use it
"
A shudder ran through him.
Kerberos's presence shifted, as though gripped by a sudden chill.
He.
In a situation pushed to its absolute limit—where all his nerves should have been devoted to repeating ingrained movements while his mind went blank. In fact, that was exactly what Kerberos was doing, in a moment where he had no other choice.
And yet, he hadn't stopped thinking?
He had been iterating, refining—making his freshly learned magic sharper, more efficient.
Learning and evolution.
His essence. His strength. The fact that he never stopped doing it from the first moment of battle to the last—that may have been one of the reasons he'd made it this far.
"…I think it's about time I decided."
He drifted into motion.
—If this keeps up, he'll lose.
Sensing this on pure instinct, Kerberos—leapt.
"—!?"
A sudden, massive jump backward. Ermes was startled, but also puzzled. If he'd had that much energy to spare, why hadn't he used it until now—
"—No. That's not it."
There was no such energy to spare. In fact, Kerberos had collapsed the moment it landed, unable to move a single step from where it fell.
Clearly, that last movement had been a desperate overexertion. If he pursued and closed the gap now, it would be over. But what could it possibly hope to achieve by pushing that hard—
—That question, too, was answered almost immediately.
"—Aaooooouuuuuuuu—nnn!"
The right head, the one with golden eyes, let out a wail.
"…I see."
He understood instantly.
If they kept trading blows like this, he would lose. Having made that split-second judgment, Kerberos forcibly created distance and squeezed out the last of its strength.
It was coming to settle things with its ultimate strike—a lightning magic attack.
"Bring it on."
He would stand and take it. There was no hesitation in that decision.
In truth, dodging was impossible. That spell covered a wide area and came from above—there was truly no fleeing or hiding from it in his current state.
This was it. The real final stand.
He poured every last drop of remaining power into his body, dropping his stance low.
Waiting for the bolt of lightning, he clenched his hand tight—right at that instant.
—Crack.
"…What?"
An ugly sound echoed through the air.
His eyes darted to the source. His right-hand sword—the greatest contributor that, despite its unwieldy appearance, had been landing effective hits on Kerberos this entire time.
—Along its blade,
A crack
had formed in it.
(This is bad—)
It was, without question, the very scenario he had feared.
Ermes' magic was one he had only just created. Improvised, ad hoc — in other words, a stopgap in the most literal sense.
There was every risk that flaws would surface, that it would hit its limit... but of all the times for that to happen, why now.
There was no time to make corrections. Forcing magic power through to halt the collapse would only backfire. With a fully completed, resilient spell it might have worked, but on this unstable magic, such a move would only widen the fault lines and shatter it to pieces in an instant.
While he agonized over this, the magic power gathering above Kerberos continued to swell in density, steadily and relentlessly.
This was truly dire. Against an opponent like that, even giving it his all with his sword was no guarantee of victory — and now he couldn't even manage that.
What to do. He couldn't think of a single option. Unlike every battle before this one, he had absolutely no margin for error this time. He had staked everything on this magic.
And with the flaw already showing, there was nothing Ermes could do. The lightning overhead was seconds from firing. This was, genuinely, checkmate—
—But then, several things happened at once.
First, something warm flowed into his right hand.
He looked, and saw it was a purple, mist-like substance. The hue and the aura it radiated told him who was sending it — Katia.
She was converting her spectral soldiers into a mass of magic power, just as she had before, and wrapping it around Ermes' sword. One would think doing this to the sword in its current state would accelerate the collapse — but that was not the case.
Because one of the core elements that comprised
Ermes' Ashen World Tree
was none other than a mass of magic power utilizing the
Netherworld of Salvation.
In a sense, Katia's support was supremely compatible with Ermes' sword. Having fought by his side, she had seen through to that truth and sent him the last of her strength.
From far away, he could sense that she had exhausted her magic power and collapsed — but in her place, Ermes' sword blazed with even greater brilliance. Bright enough to rival even that bolt of lightning.
Then came another change — a cage of light was enveloping the blade, as though reinforcing the sword itself.
The one who had cast this magic was, without a doubt, Sarah.
Even after withdrawing from the front lines, she had kept watching over this battle.
And she had been thinking the entire time. She could no longer return to the front lines. Even so — desperately, she wondered whether there was still some way she could be of use.
The result of that was the current phenomenon. She had only ever used the
Spirit Veil
for defense — but this was the first application of wielding it for reinforcement. A sign of the same evolution as his, born from the girl who had yearned for Ermes' way of being, reaching the end of her thoughts.
It was only a sliver, but right now it was the most meaningful piece of all. With this, he could swing one more time with everything he had.
Last was the lightning overhead.
If Ermes hadn't been mistaken... it was only for an instant, but the bolt seemed to have hesitated before firing.
It wasn't their own will. If that was the case — then it could only have been Kerberos' will.
Ridiculous, it might have been a misreading. Maybe the other side had simply been off its game.
But Ermes believed it. Through the faint understanding born from countless exchanges of blade and fang, he could sense it.
—
He waited
for me. One-sided resolutions won't be tolerated — come at me with everything you've got. It felt as though that was what he was being told.
Katia's understanding, Sarah's evolution, and Kerberos' will.
Nudged by all of them bit by bit — the stage for a head-on clash was set.
"——"
Ermes raised his sword. With both hands, held it vertically before his eyes, as if offering a knight's salute—paying his respects to something.
Then he drew it far back over his shoulder. In response, the magic power above his head blazed with an extraordinary brilliance.
"——WOOOOOOOOOOOOON!!"
"——HAAAAAAHHHHH!!"
A piercingly sharp roar, and the fiercest fighting spirit he had ever shown.
Lightning boomed, and a hellfire of flame was unleashed. The two collided midway, raging against each other, locked in a fierce stalemate.
Their wills. Everything they carried on their shoulders. The power they had cultivated.
All of it exploded, devoured, clashed violently—and then.
"……Ah."
The flames consumed even the lightning.
Rising straight toward the sky with unstoppable force, where they vanished, leaving behind a vivid, clear blue.
"What a beautiful spell."
He offered his highest praise to the magic that had collided—for him, the greatest compliment he could give.
Without hesitation, he charged forward. He gripped his teetering sword, gave himself a stern reprimand that there was still one final task remaining.
Toward the monster—toward the resolution.
There had been something that puzzled him.
Why had Kerberos not tried to flee?
Surely Kerberos had understood that in the end, his own life was in mortal danger—that there was someone before him who possessed the means to kill him.
And in terms of pure physical ability, Kerberos far outstripped them all. They were covered in wounds; if Kerberos had simply chosen to run, they would have had neither the means nor the will to give chase. He could have survived that way, and any wild animal would have certainly taken that approach.
So why hadn't he?
—And through that battle, and through that moment's hesitation in the final exchange, I came to understand the answer.
Kerberos couldn't move a single step from where he stood. Yet his three heads were still held high, their gaze fixed on the approaching Ermes.
What those three pairs of eyes held was the same as from the start.
Cold, cruel—yet,
pure killing intent and
what goes by the name of
feeling.
To seize everything you possess. To surpass every power you hold, every means at your disposal, and devour it all without remainder.
Such a fierce, terrible—but never once did I think it grotesque—intense will.
Naturally, there was no accepting it.
Yet... as one who understood the power of feeling, I believed it deserved recognition—and I wanted to recognize it.
Finally, he reached Kerberos. Raising his sword while guarding against a counterattack.
Despite being on the verge of death, Kerberos showed not the slightest resistance.
In those eyes, there seemed to dwell killing intent that would never run dry until the very end—and beyond that, a will of some kind that was almost noble.
"..."
"Beast Tamer of the Prison Realm"
"..."
For the first time, he called his opponent by name.
The sword pierced through his heart.
"You fearsome, beautiful devotee of killing intent. —From the depths of my heart, I give you my gratitude and respect."
Having heard Ermes' sincere words, at last those three pairs of eyes fell shut.
The curtain came down on the battle.
Settled. Next chapter will be the aftermath — and there will be consequences to pay.
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