"Where is Kaguya?"
Lyra asked me as I rejoined them in the fight.
"She is just taking care of some trash. Don't worry, she will join back in a while." I said, throwing another volley of fire arrows at Saphira, which she blocked with her ice.
"Oye oye, you do know we can't afford to do some cleaning work while fighting a level 7 right?" she replied.
"No issues, I will cover for her spot until she gets back," I said and launched myself into a melee with Ryuu and Alise.
"Argh! Why are you so fast? It's so irritating! And how come you're not feeling the heat from my sword? Is that your ice magic as well?!"
"Do not bombard me with questions, child. All it means is that you are weak." The witch's face was laden with disappointment. "However," she said. "Your speed and power have definitely improved, red one. You must possess a rare skill."
Ryuu was also powering herself up with Mind Load, but the increase in Alise's stats was too drastic to explain any other way.
"Heh." Alise chuckled, pulling a smug grin. "How observant of you! Yes, my skill, Rubrud Beckia, lets me—"
"Alise! Don't just blurt out what your skills do to the enemy!" Ryuu silenced Alise before she gave the game away and slashed at Saphira. The witch released Crimson Order and stepped back, avoiding the Ryuu blow.
She jumped back, creating a big distance between us.
I got a bad feeling. And it seems Alise's gut also told her to back off.
"Everyone, back off!"
"Get back, everyone! Get away from her!"
But then the witch spoke in a cruel voice.
"It's too late," she said, lifting one arm in our direction.
"Ignis Gelum Aurora."
First comes the ultra-short chant. And then a light of destruction.
"Volunt ignis!"
I used the magic before the defined time, and all the fire in a fifty-meter radius turned blue and shot forward towards the incoming light of destruction.
The two forces met with the fury of colliding worlds.
My Volunt Ignis that I was preparing as a trump card—every flame within fifty meters transformed into roaring blue fire and compressed into a desperate shield—crashed against Saphira's Ignis Gelum Aurora. The witch's spell was a nightmare made manifest: a beam of impossible light that carried both the searing heat of stellar fire and the absolute cold of the void between stars.
For just a single moment, they held each other in perfect, deadly balance. Blue flames writhed against the paradoxical aurora, creating a sphere of contained catastrophe that made the air itself scream.
Then the equilibrium shattered.
The explosion didn't announce itself with sound—it stole sound from the world entirely. Even the roar of Delphyne became silent in front of the resulting explosion. A sphere of pure white destruction expanded outward, erasing everything in its path. The shockwave hit us like the fist of an angry god, our Twilight Aegis cloaks flaring desperately as they absorbed energies that should have pulverized us.
All of us were flung away by the explosion.
When the maelstrom finally stilled, we lay scattered like discarded toys across a crater.
"…Hey… Any of you still alive…?" Lyra croaked. It was Neze who answered her, one foot in the grave.
"I am…" she said. "But I don't have a clue why. How are we not dead after that?" Saphira's magic had hit us pretty hard. That level of power should have usually far outstripped the meager defense granted by Asfi's and mine accessories. But…
"It was Riveria, Arin, and Ardee magic…!" exclaimed Ryuu. "Without it, we would have been obliterated!"
Hearing her words, I looked down at my palm, where the green glow of Riveria's magical protection had completely vanished. It had saved us from destruction, but faded in the process.
"I see you are all still in one piece," said Saphira. "Has my magic waned that much? …No, it is that high elf and that failed hero who deserves the credit. Riviera has grown strong."
"Hey! I deserved some credit too!" Ardee shouted like a kid. Though she is kinda right, her just being here is giving us a boost in our healing.
"Grh…!" Ryuu screwed up her face in disgust as Saphira drew closer.
Kneeling on the ground, unable to lift a finger, she instead peered up at Saphira. "Do you feel nothing?" she asked her.
"About what?"
"All this. Do you see it and feel nothing?!" Fire flickered against the witch's face, but she showed no emotion whatsoever, as if regarding nothing more or less than the ironclad rules of nature at work. To Ryuu, Saphira's callous disregard must be more than she could bear…or comprehend.
"Your allies are slaughtering people! They revel in death and destruction! They summoned that…that thing…to destroy hope! Doesn't that make you feel something?!"
"The disappointment saddened me," the witch answered, "but that is all."
"Wh-wha—?" she stammered. But Saphira went on.
"A slayer of gods. The end of justice," she said. "There is no doubt this is the incarnation of evil. But if it can erase my disappointment, then so be it." Saphira looked down at her palm. "For my disappointment is the one thing I truly cannot bear."
"…What… What is your disappointment…?" she asked. "What could be so disappointing to make the city's greatest protectors side with evil?!"
She was silent for a moment, then finally she spoke.
"Very well," she said. "Since you have made it this far, I shall tell you." She peered upward through the cavernous stone roof to the battlefield of her fellow conqueror and the apocalyptic skies that lay above it. "Tell you the tale…of our disappointment."
"Our disappointment," said Saphira, "is weakness. Powerlessness. A feeling you must all know well."
"Weakness? Powerlessness? Whose weakness?!" asked Alise. The witch's black hair was framed against the sparks.
"Orario's," she said. "This whole world's. And above all, our own." For a moment, a trace of pity almost seemed to cross the witch's face.
"What're you talkin' about?!" groaned Lyra, barely able to stand. "Explain it like we're a bunch of babies!"
"Explain our weakness?" Saphira replied. "Is it not painfully obvious? We slayed the Behemoth. We felled Leviathan. But against the Black Dragon, we were powerless."
Ryuu gasped. "The Three Great Quests!"
Saphira did not deny it. "So mighty were we that even the gods recognized our strength," she said. "Yet we were nothing compared to that foul beast. It was a massacre—I have never witnessed one like it, before or since."
"Grh…!"
"The Black Dragon tore us to shreds and devoured us. Those of us who lived recall only the rivers of blood merging into a single crimson sea."
"In the end," she said, "we fled. Those of us who did not die." For the first time, Saphira looked angry. Angry at herself and the other so-called heroes who deserted their task.
"It was then that I realized something," she said. "These methods can never succeed."
"…What do you mean?" Alise was only barely able to speak, but Saphira ignored her. Her words burned with a righteous, indignant tone.
"Adventurers. You cannot handle true despair. Your hope is a lie—to yourselves, and to the world. We cannot escape the end! Not while we cling to our gods!"
"A thousand years," said Saphira as she let her thoughts drift to the past. "A thousand years since the gods came to earth and gave mortals their blessings. A thousand years to devise a course of action against the ancient beast, and what do we have to show for it?"
Her words were a confession. Hollow guilt wrapped in a cloak of silence. All the girls of Astrea Familia bore witness. "Everything our familias wrought… Everything our gods wrought… It was all for nothing!"
"Never had there been a man of such majesty as him! Never had there been a woman so fearsome and noble as her! Yet I watched their blood spill! Their limbs fly! I listened to their death cries! All of it, gone in an instant, leaving me with nothing but despair at this world and everyone in it! Even ourselves!"
By this point, there was no stopping her. The words spilled forth uncontrollably, fiery with hate, and Saphira spat them at the ground as though she could burn away all the sins of her past. After a while, she regained her composure and lifted her gaze.
"But all is not lost," she said, calm again. "A heroic tale can still be written." Mired in despair, the witch spoke of the same idea her fellow conqueror had described.
"In ancient times, there were no Falna. Though the spirits aided them, humankind repelled the monster threat with nothing but their own skills. Is that hard to believe?"
It was the truth. The people of old laid the foundation for the modern day, including the city of Orario itself.
"Starting with the first hero, a line of great men and women performed impossible feats…culminating in the robbing of the Black Dragon's eye and the removal of monsters from the surface world."
"Those heroes did what we could not. That alone speaks volumes."
When Saphira finished her tale, the girls of Astrea Familia just stared at her in shock. None of them could find it in themselves to say a word. The roar of flames continued in the distance, and in the end, it was Ryuu who spoke up.
"Then what you're saying…" she said through trembling lips. "Your despair… Your goal… It's…!"
"No hero born of gods will ever suffice," Saphira answered. "We must cast them off and raise a true warrior. We must return to the Age of Heroes."
"Wh-what…?!" stammered Neze. "Then the reason you're trying to destroy Orario…"
"It is to save the world."
"If you are doing this, find someone worthy enough to slay the dragon, then I will do it, and I think I have proved myself enough; I may not be Hero material. But who says only a hero can kill the dragon?" After hearing her whole story for the first time, I spoke.
Saphira's gaze lingered on me for a long moment, her dark eyes seeming to weigh something beyond mere physical strength. When she finally spoke, there was a flicker of something—perhaps acknowledgment—in her voice.
"At least you possess self-awareness, Failed Hero," she said, her tone carrying a hint of what might have been approval. "You do not delude yourself with grandiose titles or heroic pretensions. That honesty is... refreshing."
She paused, her head tilting slightly as if considering some distant possibility.
"And I will not deny that you possess considerable strength. Your magic burns brighter than most, your resolve harder than steel. You have proven yourself capable in ways that many so-called heroes could not. In another age, perhaps, you might have stood among the worthy."
Her voice grew more analytical, clinical. "But therein lies the very problem."
Saphira's expression grew colder, more final. "You say you are not hero material, yet you still cling to their methods. Power without purity is merely destruction wearing a noble mask. You carry the stench of divine blessing upon you—Falna coursing through your very soul. Every feat you achieve, every victory you claim, is tainted by the gods' influence."
Her lips curved in what might have been a sad smile.
"Whether you call yourself a hero or not is irrelevant—you are still a product of their system, their world, their failure. Your determination, your fire, your very willingness to face the dragon—all of it stems from what the gods have made you, not what you chose to become."
She turned slightly, her white dress pristine despite the chaos around us.
"A true hero needs no blessing but their own heart. They need no magic but their own will. As long as you operate within their framework, as long as you depend on their gifts, you are merely another weapon forged by the very beings who have failed to solve this world's greatest threat."
Her words hung in the scorching air like a funeral dirge.
"The dragon cares nothing for your humility, only for the divine stench that clings to your soul. Until that changes, your strength—however impressive—remains fundamentally inadequate. But I acknowledge this much—among the god-touched, you burn the brightest. Perhaps that is why your failure disappoints me most of all."
"I think your knowledge of High Human is lacking, woman. While it is true that I am getting stronger at a fast rate because of the Falna, I can grow stronger even without it as well. It is just a faster method, that's all."
Her voice sharpened with something approaching disappointment. "Your Falna may be faster, but it is still a crutch. It still binds you to their failing system."
She took a step closer, her dark eyes boring into mine.
"You have the blood to transcend their limitations, yet you willingly shackle yourself to their mediocrity. That makes you a failure, not just disappointing—it makes it tragic. You could have been what this world truly needs, but instead you chose convenience over purity."
Her lips curved in that cold, sad smile again.
"Perhaps that is the most damning evidence of all—that even those born to surpass the gods choose to remain their slaves."
"Ouch! That hurts. But like I said, Saphira, I am no hero. If I have a shortcut, I will take it. Besides, if killing the dragon is the goal, why care how it is done?"
Saphira's eyes widened slightly, but before we could converse further, it happened. The wind howled, and the air shook.
"Wh-what was that?!" cried Neze.
"Look over there!" yelled Iska, pointing to the center of the floor. There, some mysterious force caused the winds to swirl at an incredible pace.
"A tornado?! Here in the Dungeon?!" cried Lyra, her voice barely audible over the noise.
"What monster's doin' that?!"
The whirling winds stretched all the way to the cavern roof, taller still than Delphyne itself. All of us turned and stared.
"None of them…" said Alise at last. "That's no monster!"
Sh*t, Ais is going berserk.
"Girls, hold her off for 2 minutes. I will be back shortly," I said and started sprinting in the direction of the wind.
"What!! Do you want to kill us!!"
I stopped some distance away and told them what they had not noticed yet.
"Saphira is weakened right now. I think you can hold her off for 2 minutes at least." I informed them and started running.
____________________________________________________________________________
Hearing Arin's words, the girls turned to face Saphira and noticed the veins on her hand had turned black, and her ears, hidden by her long black hair, had started bleeding.
They observed until another loud wind turned their attention back to the one fighting Delphyne.
"The Sword Princess…" muttered Ryuu. "She's fighting that thing by herself!"
"She's just one human!" yelled Lyra. "How the hell's she doin' that?!"
Meanwhile, Saphira looked on in admiration. "Exceptional," she said. "The black wind. Unparalleled power. No wonder Hera wanted it."
Despite her distance from the raging battle, the winds emanating from it extinguished her voice. They scattered the flames and sundered the earth. Saphira needed to shout for the girls to even hear her.
"See that?" she cried. "That is the power of loss! Of fear and despair! That is the pinnacle of mortal strength, which can only be achieved by those who walk the darkest path!"
"Hrh…?!"
"Those are the heights our ancestors attained! That is the peak they gazed upon! Like her, we must know sacrifice! Like her, the many must die so that the chosen few can ascend higher! Only then will we find the strength to slay the Black Dragon!"
This was the reasoning behind the conquerors' choice. Ais was living proof that their quest would bear fruit, and that a return to the Age of Heroes was the only way.
"No! That's not right!" yelled Alise.
"Is it not? Then show me." Sapfira turned and addressed the girls. What she wanted was very simple. "Show me a greater power. Show me proof, I cannot deny."
"""!!"""
The black wind was born of rage and despair. It was Saphira's argument made manifest. To dissuade her, the girls needed to surpass it.
"Justice! Determination! Willpower! If these are so important to you, then show me why!"
The woman who had been defeated by the Black Dragon stood firm, defying the girls to answer.