Sand Castle

“Kikori… Could you possibly be…?”

“I’ll explain later. Orphe, stay back just a little.”

Kikori said that to Orphe as she came toward him, while absorbing the surrounding mana into himself.

This was the same as the absorption and charging the armor had performed until now… no, it was far more powerful.

It absorbed mana into Kikori himself, but of course, that did not mean Kikori’s own mana capacity had increased.

“What are you planning to do!? That’s…!”

“I know.”

Yes, he knew.

He was absorbing a massive amount of mana beyond his own mana capacity.

He knew because it had made him collapse before. This was the kind of thing that could affect his life.

His body, pushed far beyond its limit, had begun breaking from the inside.

It was not the sort of thing the Dragon Crown could adapt to.

Because this was simply a matter of talent.

Even so… he had adapted to the pain.

“I can’t do anything too reckless. That’s why I want to end it in one blow.”

“…If you die, I’ll kill you.”

“That’s scary.”

Overhead, the Great Wyvern was gathering mana.

It was probably trying to blow this entire place away along with Kikori at full power.

That was why Kikori also continued taking in mana.

The pain in his body grew stronger.

The Dragon Crown made Kikori adapt to that pain.

Kikori adapted to pain that would have long since done something terrible to him if he had remained human.

He raised his face as if to confront the Great Wyvern.

“The axes are claws. The helmet and armor are scales. That is my proof as a dragon.”

“What nonsense are you spouting…!”

“Great Wyvern. If you’re a creature like a dragon too, then you should understand.”

There was no way it would not understand.

The proof that made a dragon a dragon.

Even if a wyvern was called a Great Wyvern, and even if it could breathe out something so powerful that humans could not tell the difference, there was something it could never do.

A weapon like a calling card that made a dragon truly a dragon.

A sphere of lightning formed before Kikori’s eyes. Seeing that… the Great Wyvern opened its eyes wider than ever before.

Impossible. One who merely claimed to be a dragon could not do that.

And yet, unmistakably, that was…

“Dragon Breath…”

“Impossible!”

At Orphe’s murmur, the Great Wyvern screamed.

“Impossible, impossible, impossible, impossible! Why!? Why you!? I… I! Even after becoming this strong, I still…!”

“Yeah. It doesn’t suit me.”

The glow of the lightning sphere before Kikori’s eyes intensified, and its sparks grew more violent.

“I won’t accept it! How could I accept thaaaaat!”

The Great Wyvern’s full-power flame breath was released toward the ground.

“Even so, I was crowned. That is the answer.”

The lightning sphere transformed into an enormous flash of light rising from the earth to the heavens.

“A-Aah…”

Seeing the flash of light tear through its own breath, the Great Wyvern realized its end.

“I am…”

The mighty lightning Dragon Breath burned its body.

“Jealous of you.”

Leaving those words behind, it vanished.

The electrified sky eventually scattered its remnants.

Kikori vomited blood and collapsed where he stood.

Even Orphe’s anguished scream sounded somehow distant.

Far away, beneath some distant sky.

A sand castle made by a child was struck by a wave and slightly worn away.