At the very bottom of the cavern, Andares was rummaging through the mountain-like heap of stone spikes with its giant pincers, searching for its enemies.
The tremor from moments ago had told it they were not dead yet.
Its hatred for the gods was so deep that it wanted nothing more than to swallow that goddess whole. It had never seen her before, but monster instinct told it that its thousand years of suffering had something to do with her.
If not for those two infuriating pests constantly jumping around and getting in its way, it would already have devoured that accursed goddess.
After searching for a while, irritation gradually overtook its desire to eat her. Just as it was considering whether it should stop looking for them and simply unleash its power once more to wipe everything out instead, a disturbance suddenly came from the top of the stone spikes.
Two figures burst free from within.
"Point."
Duncan held his spear in his left hand and lightly pressed his right thumb to his forehead.
Invisible power began to rise from within him.
This was the Enhancement Magic he had rolled that day, a spell capable of greatly amplifying skills and magic alike.
And the obvious target was his strongest skill.
"Tongue."
This time, his thumb touched his lips.
For the first time since he had begun using short-chant magic, Duncan started a long-form incantation.
Unlike short-chant magic, long-form spells demanded far more precise control over both magic power and精神力. Fortunately, the monster did not press the attack, giving Duncan the rare chance to finish the entire chant.
Sharp Swift Heaven's Advance.
As the incantation and the mental trigger fell into place at the same time, both the spell and the skill activated together.
The force already surging through his body multiplied explosively after draining his mental strength dry. Duncan clenched his teeth, desperately restraining that rampaging power, then used his trembling right thumb to tap the center of his chest once more.
"Condense."
The turbulent energy that had been roiling outward rapidly contracted, sinking into Duncan's body.
So light.
His body had never felt so light before.
The weight of his injuries and broken bones vanished. Even the pain from his wounds disappeared.
A strange power coursed through every inch of him. Even his mental fatigue seemed to ease.
But before Duncan could enjoy it for even two seconds, the power began to ebb.
"Flow!"
It was fading far too fast.
Duncan did not dare waste another instant.
Like a man charging toward certain death, he shot forward without caring whether Letsa or Andares was ready.
With a thunderous explosion, the stone spikes collapsed.
His charge, wrapped in power, was so violent that even the spikes could not bear the force of his footing. The moment he pushed off, the mountain of stone beneath him shattered apart.
In the next instant, Duncan was already above Andares.
Sensing danger by instinct, Andares immediately gathered every trace of its red magic into the shell protecting its upper body. Its four auxiliary limbs had no time to move into position before Duncan's spear tip struck the armor covering its core.
"Break."
Specks of light converged at the spear tip.
His body, completely drained, instantly withered. Even the hands gripping the shaft shook uncontrollably.
And in exchange came this single strike, bared in all its deadly brilliance.
The impact of the two forces roared like thunder.
The black shell turned deep crimson, its strength rapidly eroding beneath the spear.
At the same time, the magic-vein patterns winding across its body surged toward the shell. The rest of its body, once covered in those crimson magic lines, turned utterly black.
Its four auxiliary limbs lashed out, stabbing toward Duncan's body.
A flash of sword-light cut across the battlefield.
Letsa leapt down from the spikes, severing the four limbs that were about to skewer Duncan.
With its magic no longer reinforcing them, the rest of Andares's body was no longer as hard as steel.
But that final swing also drained the last of Letsa's strength. She could no longer even stand, and the shockwave from the clash between the two powers sent her flying.
At the final moment, Letsa had still chosen to spend her last bit of strength saving Duncan rather than preserving it for the finishing blow.
Whatever consequences that choice would bring, the fact of it could no longer be changed.
Duncan, wholly focused on overpowering Andares, had no spare attention for anything else.
His body was little more than an empty shell now, yet he still tried to drive the spear point deeper into Andares's body.
But in the end, his nearly exhausted body could not force the spear even one centimeter farther through the shell.
The Andares that had been pinned motionless beneath his power slowly began to raise itself.
Though it could no longer regenerate its four auxiliary limbs after having poured all its magic into defense, everyone had forgotten—or perhaps refused to remember—that a scorpion's deadliest weapon had never been its limbs.
Its black tail lashed out like an iron whip.
Duncan, defenseless, was struck together with his spear and blasted away, smashing into the rock wall.
The impact embedded him in stone.
It felt as though every bone in his body had shattered. His spear slipped from his grasp and clattered to the ground.
His extraordinary Endurance kept him from blacking out, but the agony kept him painfully conscious.
That desperate strike had still failed in the end.
If he had used it from the very start, with everyone helping and with the enemy still underestimating them, maybe it might have worked.
But there was no such thing as a reset.
For adventurers, the body always moved faster than the mind in battle.
If he had still been Level 2, that blow alone would have been enough to send him straight into another reincarnation.
His damned body refused to pass out, no matter how badly it was broken. Even in death, it insisted on forcing him to watch the manner of it unfold. It was cruelty in the purest sense. Couldn't it at least let him lose consciousness before killing him?
Even with death right in front of him, his mind grew more and more active, thoughts scattering everywhere like some grotesque parody of a death flashback. His body was spent, but his brain raced wildly in the opposite direction.
In just a little over a year in this world, he seemed to have stood at death's door again and again. Maybe he had already seen enough "life flashing before his eyes" to last several lifetimes.
Perhaps the King of Hell was friends with the god who had thrown him into this world—otherwise why had he never been taken in all those times?
Watching Andares slowly crawl toward him, Duncan let his eyes drift to Letsa.
She lay motionless atop the shattered stone spikes, her fate unknown.
A trace of guilt surfaced in his gaze.
Neither Artemis nor her Familia should ever have suffered this calamity. Because of his recklessness, they had nearly been wiped out.
Just yesterday at this same hour, everyone had still been joking and chatting in the Great Tree Sea.
Now they lay here like discarded rags, dying in its depths.
Duncan was afraid of death.
No one wasn't.
And the more one had seen of death—as adventurers did—the more one treasured life.
The more of an adventurer you were, the less you could afford to gamble with your life.
That saying, apparently, had circulated through Orario for ages.
Too bad he had never gotten to see that city where gods and mortals lived side by side.
As for his own death, he could almost accept it.
He had hunted so many monsters. One day, it was only natural that a monster would hunt him in return.
But for the lives lost because of him—this guilt would probably last until the very end.
After what felt like an eternity, Andares finally reached him.
A tail thicker than his torso pointed straight at him.
The breath of death was right in his face.
And yet the expected pain, the expected piercing sensation, never came.
A breeze swept through the deep cavern and brushed against Duncan's face.
Orange-red firelight descended from above, interposing itself between him and the stinger.
From within that dazzling blaze came a bright, energetic female voice shouting at the top of her lungs:
"Justice has arrived!"
....
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