Episode 49

Leviathan’s advance continued. It destroyed one shelter after another. The people did not understand why; they could do nothing and simply wait for the end.

“…What are you going to do?”

“You there, what is that…?”

The one who called out to Zeke was Blood, clad head to toe in armor. His appearance was always unsettling, but now a black, mist-like haze was leaking out from the armor.

“…It is reacting to that thing. This Blood—this armor of grudges—is searching for a powerful existence.”

“Hmph. At least it looks impressive. …If we provoke it carelessly, we will end up trading shots. We need both offense and defense, and all we have here is trash.”

Once more, mana gathered around Leviathan. It opened its huge maw wide and formed a compressed mass of incredibly dense energy. Its aim, it seemed, was the Fourth Evacuation Shelter.

“I-I do not want this… I do not want to die.”

“Lady Maria, please, have mercy on us.”

There were even those who, gambling on a one-in-a-million chance, jumped into the canals to try to survive. But the odds of surviving in such raging waters were vanishingly small. They had lost all capacity for sound judgment.

“This is my fault. This happened because I meddled where I should not have.”

Kratz collapsed to his knees. Whether from frustration or from despair over his own powerlessness, tears streamed from his eyes.

For his family, for the people dear to him—he had risked his life in battle, and it had all been for nothing.

“I am sorry, Zeke. I dragged you into this even though it has nothing to do with you. Because I was useless, I am going to get you killed too.”

Crying, he apologized, convinced that he had pulled the trigger that would erase his own country.

“Do not flatter yourself. Your incompetence did not start today.”

Zeke walked forward at an unhurried pace and took his place at the edge of the rooftop, the spot closest to Leviathan.

“Raise your head and look forward. If you feel guilty, do not avert your eyes. That is your responsibility.”

“…Zeke?”

A surging tide of mana poured off Zeke. The force of it spread out like a current no weaker than the raging canals themselves.

“This is crazy. There is no way a human can fight a god…”

“Are you stupid? Have you already forgotten what I told you before? There is no such thing as gods. That thing is a monster.”

“Inverno Gate.”

From the magic circle that appeared in the sky, a cold light poured down. An icy sanctuary formed, covering the entire shelter, and the surrounding canals froze solid.

“Is this… a barrier?”

“Do not lump it in with the trash you people use.”

Leviathan unleashed its power. The dragon’s breath that turned everything to dust collided with Zeke’s spell.

The impact made everything shake violently, and an extreme difference in temperature filled the air with mist, turning their vision pure white.

When the haze finally cleared, the shelter and its people were still intact. But the cityscape of Wartel around them had been devastated by the shockwave.

“The city… What power…”

“Did that boy protect us?”

A tremor rippled through the crowd, laden with many meanings. The villain hated like poison in foreign lands now appeared to them as a ray of hope.

From Leviathan’s point of view, it had simply been destroying any humans that caught its eye. There had been no priorities; everything was equally dust. But now, for the first time, it recognized something: the existence of an enemy named Zeke.

“—Tch, it is going to fire that again…!?”

“There is no way we can block it.”

As Leviathan launched one breath after another, Zeke met it with overlapping layers of spells. The intense fluctuations in temperature shrouded the area in fog.

The canals around the shelter’s building were sheathed in thick ice, while furious currents swirled around the water dragon.

The battle had shifted from Leviathan’s one-sided rampage to a clash of two opposing forces.

Zeke managed to block every attack, but his mana was not infinite. The icy sanctuary grew smaller and smaller, and the precision of his magic started to drop. The truth was simple: the difference in total mana between a gigantic dragon and a single human was far too great.

“Z-Zeke!?”

Blood dripped from his mouth. The repeated casting of high-level spells was putting tremendous strain on his body.

Perhaps convinced of its victory, Leviathan began to unleash a breath on a scale unlike anything before. The dense, ultra-compressed mass formed into a sphere, its size far exceeding that of the Fourth Evacuation Shelter itself.

People sensed death approaching. Resignation colored their faces. They decided they had merely been allowed to live this long by chance.

“What is with those faces…? Why are you all giving up? …Zeke is fighting with everything he has, all by himself.”

In a situation where the very survival of the city was at stake, a foreign boy was standing at the front lines, literally staking his life in the fight. Yet the very people of the city, the ones truly involved, had given up on everything and were quietly accepting death. Kratz felt a deep, burning shame and anger at that.

“There has to be something we can—”

“Hey. How long are you going to make me wait?”

“…I am late.”

The one who answered Zeke’s voice, cutting off Kratz’s words, was Blood. In his hand he held a massive spear. He poured into it all the grudges seeping out of the armor, all the black miasma leaking from it.

“…This is as long as I can stay sane. Do not expect too much.”

“If you have time to run your mouth, then do it already.”

He did not need any special windup. The one wearing the armor found the optimal motion and, with a smooth, efficient movement, threw the spear.

Zeke partially dispelled his spell in time with the attack, opening a path along the spear’s trajectory. Their timing was perfect, as if they had agreed on it beforehand.

Leviathan had been poised to attack and had never considered the possibility of a counterstrike. The spear, packed with the Yaksha’s grudges, pierced its torso and sent it reeling. Caught in the blast of its own misfired breath, it was swallowed by the raging waters and vanished.

The pounding waves drastically altered the canals and inflicted further damage on the city of Wartel.

“Did they… take it down?”

“A-are we saved…?”

The armored warrior who had felled the colossal dragon—a symbol of destruction—seemed to many like something out of a storybook.

“Blood…”

Blood dropped to one knee. His expression could not be seen beneath his equipment, but the way he panted made it clear he had pushed himself to the limit.

“…What happened?”

“It looks like the dragon sank. I suppose we have avoided the very worst…”

The black haze began to spill out of Blood once more, as if trying to swallow the one wearing the armor.

“Zeke? Maybe you can let the spell go now? The canals are still rough, but from up here on the high ground, I do not think it will reach us…”

“That thing is no god, but it is not just some dumb beast either. …It is coming.”

A roar like thunder boomed, and the canals churned violently.

The water dragon surfaced again. Its eyes brimmed with rage, holding nothing but the desire to slaughter.

“N-no way… It is almost unscathed…”

It did bear wounds, and there was visible bleeding. But it was only in one small area, and it was not even clear whether it came from the spear or from its own misfired breath.

“Hey, spear-thrower… One more time.”

“…You can see for yourself. It barely did anything.”

Perhaps wary of that last throw, Leviathan now attacked primarily with quick spells and brutal physical blows from its massive body.

Zeke could do nothing but defend. With a sharp crack, fissures opened in the icy sanctuary. The limit was near.

“Are you an idiot? You think something like your attack is enough to sink that?”

“…I do not follow. What is it you want?”

“You pierced the barrier wrapped around it. That alone is enough.”

While maintaining his spell, Zeke began to refine his own mana. He manipulated different wavelengths of mana at the same time—a high-level technique difficult even for dedicated mages. Those watching held their breath.

“…Ngh!? What are you doing?”

The mana he had refined surged forth and wrapped around Blood. It clawed its way into the hard armor as if prying it open from within. Blood flinched at the sensation of the mana forcibly linking itself to his, dragging it out.

“I see. So you still have a lot you have yet to show.”

“…This is… surely…”

From that rough connection, their shadows slowly overlapped. The two different forces gradually became one.

“I am busy over here, testing myself—keeping this magic going. So I will lend you some power. Be grateful.”

“…To think it could change me this much. This Unison Link…”

A spear smaller than the first appeared in Blood’s hand. The ominous black hue blended with cold, shining now with iridescent light.

The armor’s previous owner had drowned in its power and become a murderer. Now the villain suppressed that lingering grudge and turned it into a new strength.

He no longer needed to surrender himself to those resentments. For the first time in years, he could feel freedom and will of his own—and with a comrade he could entrust his life to at his back, he was ready.

“Extinction Ice Gungnir.”

The holy spear traced a rainbow arc as it hurtled toward the raging water dragon. With absolute power, it pierced and froze every spell the dragon cast.

Without the slightest deviation, as if drawn in by a magnet, the spear drove straight into the center of Leviathan’s brow.

In an instant, sub-zero cold spread through its entire body, painting the world in rainbow light as it froze solid.

The dragon lauded as a god, dragged from slumber by human schemes, was once again sent back to the underworld—by human hands.