Chapter 39: You're Still Alive
Boom— — — —!!
Ren's body, hanging inverted in the air, became a comet. He was like a fiery dragon descending. His toes tapped on the flying, shattered fragments of the ground, using them as impossible footholds as he shot downward towards the Magic Dragon.
[Akarin's Note: In Demon Slayer, the Thirteenth Form (Jū San no kata) is not a single new attack, but the continuous, cyclical performance of all twelve Sun Breathing forms in succession. This is the ultimate technique, designed to destroy all of Muzan Kibutsuji's 12 vital organs (7 hearts, 5 brains). The name "Reincarnation" appears to be this fanfiction's unique name for this ultimate sequence.]
Magic Dragon Alazam didn't expect Ren to be able to launch such a terrifying, high-speed attack even while airborne, with the very ground exploding around him. His speed was incredible, so fast that the dragon couldn't even react or track his movement before Ren was already in front of it.
However, it wasn't particularly worried. 'This is just like before,' Alazam thought, its mind clouded by rage. 'A fast attack. It will hurt. It will sting. But...'
The opponent's attack would at most cause it some pain, but it couldn't actually harm it.
Ren's crimson eyes were serene, reflecting the image of the massive dragon. His body, his sword, and his spirit became one. He didn't just perform the 12 forms; he became them.
He was the Waltz, the Blue Heaven, the Blazing Crimson Mirror, the Parhelion Rainbow, the Fire Wheel, the Scorching Bone Sun, the Solar Halo Thrust, the Sunflower Lance, the Setting Sun, the Resplendent Sun Halo, the Solar Halo Dragon Dance, and the Flame Waltz, all at once, in one perfect, unending loop.
His body flashed past Magic Dragon Alazam, and the image he left behind was not of a man, but of a spiraling, coiling, Japanese fire dragon, its scales made of pure, solar flame.
"Sun Breathing, Thirteenth Form: Reincarnation!!!"
Ren roared, and the fiery dragon image coiled around Magic Dragon Alazam's entire body, striking not one spot, but dozens at the exact same instant.
Pfft pfft— — — —!!
"AWOOO— — — — — — —!!!"
A sound that did not belong in the mortal realm tore from Alazam's throat. It was a shriek of pure, unadulterated agony.
Magic Dragon Alazam suddenly realized it was wrong. Terribly, fatally wrong.
Ren's slashes landed on its body, and they were not shallow. They didn't just break the skin.
Almost every single slash—each one targeting a spot he had previously struck—plunged deep into its flesh, deep enough to expose the bone beneath. The solar fire cauterized the wounds instantly, burning and vaporizing its draconic blood and muscle.
Not only that, many of its internal organs were damaged by the sheer, penetrating force of the 13th Form. A single strike from the opponent, this one perfect, cyclical attack, had critically wounded it.
"Damn it! How... HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?!" Magic Dragon Alazam roared, stumbling back, its massive body shaking. "Your attacks... you could barely penetrate my Dragon Scales' defense... how can you suddenly... gravely wound me?!"
It stared angrily at Ren, its gaze as if it wished to devour him whole.
Ren, who had landed softly on a distant, stable piece of ground, sheathed his blade. He looked at Magic Dragon Alazam and said calmly, "My previous attacks only broke through your Dragon Scales' defense. But that doesn't mean my attacks can only break your defense."
Alazam's pained, reptilian eyes widened, not understanding.
"Merely breaking through your Dragon Scales' defense, that level of shallow damage... it would only make you angry, not fearful," Ren explained, his voice serene. "Thus, it created the illusion in your mind that I couldn't truly do anything to you."
"So, when you faced my final, strongest attack, you became even more careless. You believed you could just endure it."
"Furthermore," Ren continued, "did you think my previous attacks that broke your Dragon Scales' defense were random? Look at your wounds before you speak."
Magic Dragon Alazam paused, its breath hitching. It lowered its head to look at its smoking, broken body.
Its pupils suddenly contracted in dawning horror.
The new, bone-deep wounds... they were not random. They were all located precisely where Ren had attacked earlier. The 12 shallow cuts from his 12 forms had been markers, weak points.
This Thirteenth Form wasn't a new attack. It was the execution. It was a final, devastating blow that concentrated all its power onto the pre-existing, pre-shattered weak points.
The opponent had calculated this entire battle, this entire sequence, from the very beginning.
"BASTARD!!" Alazam roared, a sound of pure, terrified hatred.
"Alright. Since you know," Ren said, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword again, "you can die in peace."
He prepared to finish the opponent off.
"Damn human! You think... you think you've won?! How could I... the great Alazam... be slain by a mere human?! DON'T UNDERESTIMATE GIANT DRAGONS!!!"
Magic Dragon Alazam roared, then flapped its wings forcefully, ignoring the tearing pain. Its body shot straight up, a desperate, vertical retreat into the sky.
High in the sky, far above the battlefield, Magic Dragon Alazam took a deep, shuddering breath. Its massive chest, even with the smoking wound on it, puffed up, swelling to an impossible size.
A terrifying, deep-purple light began to build in its throat, a light so bright it looked like a new, violet sun had been born in the sky.
On the city wall, Erza's expression changed to one of absolute terror. She knew that stance. She had seen Natsu do it a hundred times, but this... this was the real thing.
"This... could it be..."
Then Erza screamed at the top of her lungs, her voice cracking with panic: "GET OUT OF THE WAY! REN!! IT'S A ROAR— — —!"
Erza and Natsu had known each other for a long time. She was naturally aware of Dragon Slayer Magic. A Roar was a nearly universal magic for Giant Dragons, and its power was incredibly, legendarily terrifying.
High above, Alazam's voice boomed: "VANISH FOR ME!!!"
The Magic Dragon roared, then opened its mouth and spewed its ultimate attack downwards.
A massive, impossibly huge purple energy wave erupted from Magic Dragon Alazam's mouth. It was not a beam; it was a tidal wave of annihilation, a descending sun of pure, violet destruction.
It rushed towards the forest, towards Ren, towards the entire city.
Boom— — — — — —!!
An incredibly terrifying explosion erupted. The world went white, then purple.
A hemispherical purple light impact, miles wide, instantly vaporized the forest where Ren stood. It rapidly expanded outwards, a wall of pure energy.
Wherever the purple light impact passed, everything was annihilated. The ground, the trees, the rocks... all were turned to dust, then to molten slag.
Crack crack— — — —!!
The hundred-meter-tall city wall, which had been damaged by the dragon's earlier attack, was struck by this wave. It didn't just break. It disintegrated. It shattered from the top down, the stone walls turning to sand under the impact of this explosion.
"Ugh ah ah ah ah ah!"
All the soldiers and swordsmen, who had been hiding at the base of the city wall, were struck by the cataclysmic shockwave. They were sent tumbling like ragdolls, their armor shattering as they were buried in rubble.
The terrifying impact surged directly into the city.
Boom boom boom boom boom boom— — —!
Everything in the path of the impact was destroyed. Houses and streets... homes that had stood for a hundred years... were submerged in an instant, wiped from existence.
After a long, agonizing minute, the explosion slowly subsided. The violet light faded, replaced by a gray, choking dust.
A terrible, ringing silence fell over the world.
Crash... crash...
Many people emerged from the rubble, coughing and bleeding. The King was pulled out by his guards. Arthur and Clay clawed their way free.
But as soon as they came out, everyone was terrified into silence by the sight before them.
"The city... the city... is destroyed!!!"
Most of the entire city was... gone. It was simply gone, replaced by a smoking, expanding crater. Only the arena, located closer to the center, remained relatively intact, its magical barrier flickering and cracked, having barely withstood the blast.
Just the aftershock... just the edge of the blast... had destroyed a city.
They finally, truly understood why legendary Dragons were said to be capable of slaughtering cities and annihilating nations.
If the opponent had used this attack from the beginning, no one in the entire city would have survived.
"Ren!!"
Erza, her armor cracked and broken, quickly scrambled to the edge of the shattered city wall and looked outside.
Outside the city wall... there was no "outside." A massive, molten, glass-lined crater had replaced the battlefield. The entire Demon Beast Great Forest was gone, turned to sand.
This attack alone showed how terrifying a Giant Dragon's Roar attack was.
"How... how could this be?!" the King whispered, falling to his knees.
"Mr. Ren... wouldn't..."
Everyone fell silent. The destructive power of the Giant Dragon's Roar was so absolute, so terrifying, and its attack range so vast...
The probability of Ren's survival had reached one hundred percent.
He was dead.
"Hahahahaha!! You damn brat! You're finally dead this time, aren't you! Nothing left but bones, aren't you! Hahahaha!!"
Magic Dragon Alazam's mocking, pained voice echoed in the sky. Everyone who heard this felt an immense, crushing sadness and a burning, impotent anger.
Ren, the World's Strongest Swordsman... the man who had saved them not once, but twice... was killed just like that.
Then, Magic Dragon Alazam rapidly descended, its massive, heavily wounded body crashing onto the ground in front of the city's ruins.
Boom— — — —!
The ground trembled violently, causing many of the survivors to lose their balance and fall.
"It's... it's the Magic Dragon!!"
Everyone looked at the colossal, bleeding, smoking Magic Dragon with shock and anger. Although the Magic Dragon was heavily wounded, its body riddled with gaping, sizzling wounds from the Thirteenth Form, they knew that even a critically injured Magic Dragon was not something they could trifle with.
"This time, that annoying brat is completely gone," Alazam growled, its voice thick with pain and triumph. "So all of you... go die for me!!!"
Because of its severe injuries, Alazam had lost interest in playing with humans. It intended to kill everyone in front of it and then find a place to heal its wounds.
Magic Dragon Alazam gathered magic power in its mouth, a simple Dragon's Breath, intending to annihilate these last survivors.
Suddenly!
— — — —!
A thin, black line appeared in the empty air, right between the dragon and the humans.
It was followed by a sound like tearing cloth. Zzzzzrriiippp!
Everyone, including the dragon, froze.
They saw the space along that black line tear apart like strips of fabric, ripping upwards and downwards.
Soon, a black, void-like cavity formed in reality itself. And from within that darkness, a figure in white appeared, his hands in the pockets of his white pants, looking relaxed and at ease.
His face was pale, his expression empty, and his green, tear-like markings were unmistakable.
Ren raised his hand and smiled—a cold, hollow, emotionless smile—and greeted them: "Oh? What a coincidence. Everyone's here."
[Akarin's Note: Ren has used Garganta (Spanish for "Throat"), the Bleach ability to open portals between worlds (or in this case, to a pocket dimension), to dodge the Dragon's Roar. He has now switched from his Yoriichi Tsugikuni form to his Ulquiorra Cifer form.]
"REN!!!"
Erza, who had been weeping in despair, gasped his name, her heart leaping with a joy so sudden it was painful. Arthur, Clay, and the King stared, their minds completely broken by the events of the day.
The human side was greatly delighted.
Which naturally meant someone else was greatly sorrowful.
Magic Dragon Alazam's jaw, which had been open to spew fire, snapped shut. Its golden, reptilian eyes widened in pure, abject terror, its face changing drastically.
"You... you... you're still alive?!"
[Akarin Note:
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