After That

In Simurg-san’s estimation, the strength of the Blaze Wood Golem and Ice Wood Golem was roughly around C-rank.

And the strength of the Frazard Wood Golem created by combining those two… was at the very top of B-rank, powerful enough that it could even reach A-rank.

But in exchange, its cost performance was absolutely terrible.

Unbelievably, creating just one of these consumed 7,000 Smile Points.

Thanks to that, my remaining points were now completely drained.

So here and now… I absolutely had to finish it off!

“Aim for the face!”

“…”

The Frazard Wood Golem’s height reached all the way up to the Tycoon Wolf’s face.

From its flaming right half, a viscous, magma-like liquid spurted out, while the snow welling up from its left half howled past in a blizzard.

The giant of ice and flame did not utter a word.

It simply gave a small nod at my words—and vanished.

No, I just couldn’t follow it with my eyes.

Before I knew it, the Frazard Wood Golem had slammed its fist into the Tycoon Wolf’s snout.

“Gyaah!?”

The Tycoon Wolf reeled back.

A powerful blow, one that Nadja’s delicate swordsmanship could never produce, lifted the Tycoon Wolf’s body into the air.

The Tycoon Wolf was kicked upward.

But up there, the Frazard Wood Golem was already waiting, its right leg raised.

THUD!

The heel drop connected squarely.

The Tycoon Wolf was slammed straight down into the ground.

The snow the Frazard Wood Golem had created molded itself into the shape of a wolf.

The Tycoon Wolf’s entire body was burning.

The destructive power of the Frazard Wood Golem’s magical attacks was on a completely different level from that of an ordinary Element Wood Golem.

Rush, rush, rush.

The Frazard Wood Golem’s assault did not stop.

“Gyah, kyah, yipe!”

With every single blow, the Tycoon Wolf recoiled, was sent flying, or was knocked upward.

The impact of each strike left its body in tatters, yet the next blow came immediately, never giving it a chance to shift the trees that made up its body.

Even though the Frazard Wood Golem was relentlessly focusing on its face and attacking one-sidedly, its own body had begun to crumble piece by piece.

Its body had started to react in rejection to housing two opposing forces—fire and ice—within it.

The strongest piece I could put on the board, the Frazard Wood Golem, had one major weakness.

It was that its body simply could not keep up with the strength of its own power.

In exchange for gaining combat ability that rivaled even an A-rank monster, the Frazard Wood Golem burned and scorched and froze its own body more and more the longer it fought.

Its time limit was… roughly three minutes.

The giant of ice and flame could only keep fighting at full power for a mere three minutes.

After that, the mana leaked out of its body, and its combat ability dropped sharply.

Punches, kicks, flurries of thrusts.

Straight punches, hooks, uppercuts.

Fists that surpassed even the explosions of Element Fruits rained down in a relentless shower.

Their speed and power completely overwhelmed the Tycoon Wolf.

Its speed fell short of Nadja’s, but it was still far faster than the huge-bodied Tycoon Wolf.

On top of that, its punches and kicks had the weight of blunt weapons, so every single blow caused a knockback.

Every time it took a hit, the Tycoon Wolf’s body snapped backward, and as a result it failed to defend and immediately ate the next blow.

Caught in that loop, the Tycoon Wolf had become nothing more than a sandbag taking hit after hit.

Even so, the Tycoon Wolf’s breathing never ceased.

The one who hit their limit first was the Frazard Wood Golem.

“Use the last of your strength!”

“…”

Realizing that its own limit was near, the Frazard Wood Golem made a new move.

It actually lunged at the Tycoon Wolf, whose body was larger than its own, and shattered both of its forelegs.

Chilled by the Frazard Wood Golem’s ice and seared by its flames, the Tycoon Wolf’s strength had clearly dropped.

But that was where its own limit lay. The Frazard Wood Golem simply clamped down and grabbed the Tycoon Wolf.

And right up to the very end, it continued to hinder the beast’s movements.

Looking closely, I saw that the Tycoon Wolf’s head had been completely destroyed.

Inside, there was a red, gem-like object gleaming faintly.

That was without a doubt its core.

Yet despite having taken that unending barrage and even several clean hits, the core did not have so much as a single scratch on it.

How hard was that thing?

There was no way I could stand up to it as I was now.

But that was not a problem.

Because I was not alone!

“Woody, we’ve taken your assistance! The rest—”

“Please, leave it to us!”

The first thing unleashed was a spell from Aira.

What appeared was—a world of ice.

The traces of the fierce battle from moments before were sealed inside that ice in an instant.

The Tycoon Wolf’s movements were completely halted.

It was as if the world itself had stopped breathing from the overwhelming cold.

Before I knew it, my own breath had turned white.

The frigid air that had reached us here was so intense that a single wrong breath might well have frozen my lungs.

For the Tycoon Wolf, taking this from point-blank range had to be absolute hell.

It was on a completely different level from what the Frazard Wood Golem had been putting out earlier.

So this… was Aira’s true power.

Yet even with its entire body encased in ice, the Tycoon Wolf did not cease its life functions.

If anything, that monster even tried to extend vines from all over its body to move.

However, Aira stopped every one of those movements.

And right in front of the Tycoon Wolf—there stood the Sword Saint, gathering and focusing all of her power to destroy that core.

“Haaaaa…”

She exhaled deeply, then drew in a breath.

Strangely enough, even though Nadja had taken far more of the cold than I had, her breath was not white at all.

She held her sword straight out in a middle guard.

Its blade shone a pure, dazzling white.

Was that… mana?

In any case, I felt an unimaginably strong force of life from it.

It was an overwhelming energy, as if the very concept of power itself had been given form.

I was certain that what I was seeing for the first time… was the greatest strike Nadja could unleash right now.

Assailed by the battle aura pouring from Nadja’s entire body and, above all, by the overwhelming menace radiating from the sword she held, the Tycoon Wolf desperately tried to flee.

But Aira would never allow that escape.

Then—Nadja’s eyes flew wide open.

“Hyah!”

In the next instant, Nadja appeared right before the Tycoon Wolf and brought her slash crashing down on its core.

And then…

Crack!!

The Tycoon Wolf’s core, which had never been damaged in the slightest no matter how many attacks it had taken until now, was split cleanly in two in the blink of an eye.