Chapter 177

“…This might be a bit of a crisis.”

A massive sword of light stretching over seven kilometers long.

Sensing danger, my intuition as a transcendent being kicked in on its own, analyzing the phenomenon above.

‘The destructive power is one thing… but the level of Mystery is incredibly high.’

Right. According to what my intuition told me, if that thing were to collide with the ground, the impact would be enough to completely erase a whole territory, or an entire city, from the face of the earth.

It was an impressive display of power, but compared to the overwhelming visual presence and sheer pressure the sword of light exuded, the raw destruction felt almost modest.

However… the real problem was the sheer amount of Mystery it contained—its level of Mystery.

‘It doesn’t seem to be at the Defiance Heaven rank… It’s likely just a bit above the Potestates rank.’

Mystery was simply another name for the unknown and the inexplicable.

Just as the unknown or the inexplicable held a natural advantage over things that were understood, a grander Mystery would ruthlessly crush a lesser one.

In other words, even if two forces possessed the exact same amount of raw power, the one with a higher level of Mystery would hold a total advantage over the lower one.

‘If the gap is too wide, it doesn’t just stop at holding an advantage—it can completely ignore or tear right through the lesser power.’

Based on the information gathered through my intuition, a silent question-and-answer session began playing out inside my head.

‘Can the baldies block it with their magic?’

‘Impossible. No matter what they put up, it’ll be torn through like tissue paper.’

‘Can I absorb it with spatial fracturing?’

‘Impossible. With that level of Mystery, it would pierce straight through a regular spatial fracture, even if a dimensional fracture—a fracture with deep spatial depth—might hold it.’

‘What about blocking it with a sword?’

‘Impossible. If my seal were one hundred percent undone, I could manage somehow… but with my power barely at the Archangel rank, attempting to defend against that would be entirely meaningless.’

I let out a soft sigh.

“Seriously… they sacrifice a few 1-cost angels as offerings, and a broken Exodia-level monster just pops out? Talk about a completely unbalanced game. If I were the developer, I would have banned that card immediately. Dammit.”

Disis shook her head at my grumbling.

“That is not quite accurate.”

“Hmm?”

“What they sacrificed wasn’t just their lives. They offered up their karma and status as well.”

“Ah… True.”

Right. Just as she said, if anyone were asked to name the two most valuable things in this universe to use as a sacrificial offering, those two would undoubtedly be the answer.

—Karma. And status.

In other words, those angels hadn’t just thrown away their lives; they had sacrificed twelve individual statuses of the Equilibrium Heaven rank, one status of the Archangel rank, and all the accumulated karma they had built up over their lifetimes.

“…When you look at it that way, I guess the result is actually pretty fair.”

Sure. A lump of pure gold might be a terrible choice for a practical weapon, but its inherent value was undeniable.

To put it simply, instead of swinging a weapon made of solid gold, they had sold that gold to buy themselves a mind-blowingly powerful weapon.

Rumbleeeee….

Despite the absolute emergency of the situation, the baldies standing at attention behind us were pale as ghosts, shifting restlessly from foot to foot while we calmly carried on our conversation.

“Lord Sword God. Lord Demon King. S-Should we not flee from this place?”

That was Red.

“We are facing some magical interference, but I can still manage a teleportation to get us out of here! Just say the word, and I will instantly…!”

And that was Black.

Yeah. To be perfectly honest… escaping this crisis wasn’t actually all that difficult. Just like he said, all we had to do was run away.

It would still take about a minute for that massive thing to actually fall. And a minute was more than enough time to escape, even if we didn’t use teleportation and just ran away on our own two feet.

That is, assuming I was perfectly fine with standing by and watching the tens of thousands of soldiers from the Alliance—the combined forces of the Kingdom and the Empire—who were currently staring blankly up at the sky get completely annihilated.

Taking my calm expression as a silent refusal, the baldies let out heavy groans.

Blue spat out a harsh curse.

“Those miserable bastards. They don’t deserve to be called angels. Divine messengers taking innocent people hostage? What a bunch of absolute garbage….”

Mm. I completely agreed with him on that point. The only reason those bastards chose such a slow-moving attack method was because they had calculated that I would deliberately collide head-on with the sword of light just to save those people.

However, there were two major things they had completely misunderstood….

First of all, I wasn’t nearly kind enough to throw away my own life just to save a bunch of strangers.

“Baldies. Get your teleportation ready. The moment there are ten seconds left, we bail.”

And second, I was a whole lot more ridiculous than they gave me credit for.

“But… before we resort to that, let’s at least try to block it once. I feel like it might actually work out if I play my cards right in my current state.”

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“Hey. First, go finish off the rest of those guys. I need to use my bomb.”

I pointed toward the remaining Equilibrium Heaven angels and the Archangel up in the sky who were desperately maintaining the artifact-disrupting barrier, issuing a sharp command to my avatars.

Recognizing the gravity of the situation, the avatars drew their swords without a single word of complaint and shot straight up into the air.

Boom! Slash!

—Aaargh…!!

Creeeeaaak!

—Gaaaaah!!

What followed was a completely one-sided slaughter.

As the radiant blood of the angels bloomed and scattered through the air like falling petals, I quickly organized the plan I had put together in my head.

‘There’s no reason to take it head-on. Just twisting its trajectory and forcing it to bend sideways will be more than enough.’

‘If my status is too low to withstand it… then I just need to shave down the Mystery of that holy sword until it reaches a level where my current self can handle it.’

How exactly do you shave down a level of Mystery? Simple. You use an entirely different Mystery to chip away at it.

I reached out and pulled out about three kilograms of refined orichalcum, which I had recently received back from Lumina as a reimbursement expense.

‘I brought it along just in case… and I’m definitely glad I did. This should do the trick.’

When it came down to sheer Mystery, my Direct Matter-Energy Convert technique was certainly no pushover. After all, it even came with Lumina’s official guarantee.

Of course, that was looking at it strictly from my own perspective… but even so, it shouldn’t fall short against a technique like this Heavenly Tribulation.

I stepped firmly onto the empty air, rapidly leaping higher and higher into the sky.

Ever since I achieved transcendence, flying had become second nature to me… but because jumping like this was significantly faster, I rarely found myself actually flying around.

Soaring upward by a hundred meters with every single step, the falling sword of light—stretching a massive eight kilometers in total length—instantly loomed right before my eyes.

‘About thirty seconds left? I need to hurry.’

I immediately activated the refined orichalcum and hurled it directly in front of the descending trajectory.

‘Go, Mystery-flavored Tsar Bomba Mark II.’

Hmm? Why Mark II, you ask? Because it got an upgrade, obviously.

Not only did my mass-energy conversion rate increase when I stepped up to the Archangel rank, but unlike before, when I just released it blindly, I could now control the direction of the energy discharge to some extent.

And at the exact moment the sword of light and the refined orichalcum collided, a light that seemed capable of swallowing the entire cosmos brightly illuminated the Western Continent.

Flash!!!

Boooooooom!!!

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Rumbleeeee….

It had been about ten seconds since the upward-controlled explosive force engulfed the holy sword.

The holy sword ultimately pierced through the immense concentration of light and heat stretching across several kilometers, continuing its free fall downward once again.

‘I was hoping it would neutralize it completely… but I guess that was asking for too much.’

But it was fine. As expected, the holy sword that emerged from the explosion looked completely different from before.

First of all, its size had shrunk.

The dimension that had neared eight kilometers was now down to less than five kilometers.

Next, the blindingly incandescent white light had turned into a dark, dusky orange with hints of crimson.

At that sight, my intuition whispered to me.

The level of Mystery has dropped. We can handle it at this level.

I layered my Pure Spiritual Power over Astraphe, manifesting a sword of Pure Spiritual Power that stretched over a hundred meters long.

Then, matching its free-fall velocity, I leaped downward and pressed my sword of Pure Spiritual Power against the sword of light.

Spark! Spaaaark!!

“Urgh…!”

Sparks flew wildly. An overwhelming burden pressed down on my body.

But I could manage this much. Without giving in, I fell alongside it while slowly beginning to force it to bend sideways.

Screeech! Screeeeech!!

Rumbleeeee….

At this speed, we had fifteen seconds left.

The bustling crowd of tens of thousands down below came into view.

Far from feeling the terror of death, their ignorant eyes showed they hadn’t even grasped what was happening yet.

‘Tsk. At this rate, half of them are going to die. Even with its reduced power, I need to push it back by another two or three kilometers… is it not possible…?’

Just as I was conflicted between pushing myself a bit harder and being satisfied with saving only half of them… my avatars suddenly flew in from below.

“Main body!”

“What are you doing all by yourself!?”

“Are you stupid?”

They then matched the free-fall velocity as well, swinging their own swords of spiritual power to begin pushing the holy sword away.

Boom boom boom boom boom!!

And ten seconds after that.

Flash!

Boooooooooom!!

At the very last moment, we escaped the area using the dragons’ teleportation. Looking back at the orange pillar of light exploding in the distance, we let out low sighs.

“…Ah, so that actually worked.”

“You couldn’t have done it if we didn’t help.”

“You guys are a part of me too, so in the end, I’m the one who did it.”

“Booorrring….”

“That’s a cowardly excuse.”

“Seriously, if you had just wiped them out before they did all this nonsense, it would’ve been fine. Always trying to show off….”

“But honestly, I think I would’ve done the same thing if I were him.”

“Ah, true.”

“Well, he is our main body, after all.”

I scowled deeply and flipped them the middle finger.

“You’re all making my head hurt, so shut the hell up.”

…These chuunibyou-afflicted bastards, see if I ever create them again.

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While the unidentified sword of light conjured by the angels descended, The Demon King who had soared into the sky forced it aside, and a cross-shaped pillar of light shot up from where the sword struck, piercing the heavens,

“Uh….”

“Mmm….”

Unable to keep up with the unfolding situation, the leaders of the Royal‑Imperial Alliance could only stare blankly at the sky, breaking out in a cold sweat as they looked at one another.

“What in the world just happened?”

“It appears the angels… were trying to wipe us out… and the Demon King blocked it for us….”

“Unless my eyes are playing tricks on me… that is what I saw as well.”

“Ha… just how are things turning out like this….”

A heavy silence weighed down on the surroundings.

Everyone’s eyes turned simultaneously toward the two prime ministers. Having taken the battlefield today not as the prime ministers of the Kingdom and the Empire but as an Archmage and a Master, the two also let out troubled sighs.

Archduke Leclerc, the Prime Minister of the Empire, spoke first.

“…Archduke Octavian. What do you plan to do? Our plan to align ourselves with whichever side was more advantageous… everything started and ended far too quickly.”

The veiled elf spoke with a sigh.

“Huu… thinking we could actually do something in the first place was nothing but arrogance. Those beings didn’t care about us from the very beginning.”

“…….”

“The only role assigned to us was to serve as hostages at the final moment to tie down the Demon King’s feet. This is the first time in nearly four hundred years that I have felt such a profound sense of helplessness.”

“So… I ask you again. What should we do?”

“What should we do, you say….”

Silencing himself for a moment, the elf spotted the Demon King’s party approaching from a distance. Lifting his veil, he stood up from his seat.

“…Is it not obvious?”

With a forced smile on his face, the elf politely fell to his knees toward the Demon King.

“…We have no choice but to beg for mercy.”

“……!”

“……!!”

“……!!!”

“…What are you all doing? If you don’t want to see your nations ruined, slam your heads on the ground immediately.”

As I approached the Royal‑Imperial Alliance forces alongside my companions… a beautiful elf who exuded an air of long experience stepped forward.

“Welcome, O Exalted One.”

Falling to her knees, she pressed her forehead against the dirt floor.

“…It is truly an honor to meet you like this.”