The shadow serpent's shriek shook the ground, making the loose gravel dance.
Kaylar landed with her knees deeply bent, her rust-colored armor letting out a dull metallic groan as she hit the ground.
She looked up, watching the massive purple serpent that blotted out the sky twist its body, crushing the already devastated woodland into utter ruin.
Now, the serpent's target had shifted back to Esper.
Leave it to me.
Kaylar took a deep breath. The Hyperventilation Technique circulated through her body, the searing heat rushing through her pathways stronger than ever before.
The Overloaded Furnace was still running, pumping more oxygen into the hearth with her every breath.
Still not enough.
She stepped into the path between the Serpent to be Shunned and Esper.
The shadow serpent didn't know how to detour; it would simply keep charging.
But it did know there was a speed bump in its way.
Crack—
Its head snapped around at a speed that defied the laws of physics, its jaws stretching open to a near-flat angle as it lunged toward Kaylar.
Kaylar sidestepped to avoid the first bite. The serpent's snout snapped shut less than a foot from her face, the resulting shockwave blasting her backward several feet. The metal plates on the soles of her boots plowed two shallow furrows into the ground.
A tail swipe followed immediately after.
Unable to see the tail's movement, she could only hear the sound of tearing air rushing from her left rear, barely managing to hold her longsword horizontally against her left hip.
With a loud clang, the blade blocked a section of the tail thicker than she was tall, the impact pushing her nearly ten feet to the right.
“Tsk...”
She stabilized her stance and gripped the hilt tightly once more.
Quite a lot of force.
The shadow serpent opened its massive maw once more.
It coiled its body and reared its head high. Everything around it seemed to warp and pull toward its head, gathering into an expanding, dark purple vortex.
“...What on earth is that?”
Kaylar had never seen this move before.
Esper had said this thing's ability was 『Temptation』.
Oh, Kaylar seemed to realize something.
Hollow Purple?
No, not that. Wrong franchise.
—A black hole?
That's even more ridiculous!
No... anyway, it's probably something similar to that...? Maybe?
“They call it Temptation, but this is literally gravity control, isn't it?! This has nothing to do with temptation anymore! These conceptual abilities are getting way too ridiculous!”
Calm down. In modern anime and light novels, black holes are basically just holes that suck things in. The thing in this serpent's mouth is probably similar...
“Dammit.”
Even if it was just “similar,” it was still incredibly troublesome!
Kaylar cursed under her breath, holding her longsword horizontally in front of her.
She looked down at the golden flames swirling along her blade, then looked back up at the giant serpent preparing to strike.
Some crazy phenomenon seems to be happening on the other side. Esper looks like she's in the heat of battle? No rush, let me think of a strategy first...
The essence of an Authority is a concept, and the concept of the Furnace is a crucible that creates and destroys all things.
The underlying raw material that drives this concept is 『Fire』.
『Creation』 and 『Destruction』. These two Authorities made up too small a portion of the 『Furnace』 she had received. She couldn't fully manifest either of them.
But fire was usable.
“No need to create anything... and no need to destroy anything either,” she muttered softly, tightening her grip on her longsword. “I just need to burn.”
『Incomplete Authority: Fire』
The first flame. The very first ray of light ignited by the Creator.
Creating nothing, destroying nothing. It simply burned there, heralding the beginning of the world.
This power did not belong to creation, nor did it belong to destruction, and it had no need for a furnace to reconcile any contradictions.
It only needed to burn to illuminate the darkness.
...
『Connected to Authority: 「Furnace」』
『Unlocking Incomplete Authority』
...
“『Authority Manifestation: First Light』”
Golden flames began to peel away from the surface of Kaylar's body, wrapping around her longsword layer by layer.
As the flames condensed, their color shifted, changing from the dark gold of the furnace to a pure white brighter than the sun.
The temperature did not rise, the air did not warp, and even the dirt beneath her feet remained unscorched.
Unlike the Wild Hunt Army's 『Crimson Thunder』, this was not a fire meant to incinerate all things.
It was a fire meant to illuminate the darkness, a fire that heralded the first dawn—the fire that lit up the very first sky when the world was born.
The Serpent to be Shunned. Born of jealousy from the Abyss, a curse spawned by envy, an evil beast that tempted all things away from their proper paths.
It was a beast born of shadows, the very shadow that tempted the Human Ancestor to eat the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, one of the original darknesses.
And fire would dispel the darkness.
The vortex in the shadow serpent's mouth erupted. Dark purple light radiated outward from its head, making the entire space seem to warp and twist.
Kaylar did not dodge.
She raised her longsword, its tip pointing straight forward at the shadow serpent's open upper jaw.
The pure white flame condensed into a tiny speck at the tip of her blade.
A speck so small that it would be easily missed if one did not look closely.
Then, she took a step forward.
The small, rust-colored figure tore a straight white trajectory through the purple vortex.
Fire burned within the vortex, igniting all the shadows in its path.
The ignited shadows did not disappear; they merely struggled violently within the light before being swallowed by even more radiance.
She pressed forward, and forward, until the tip of her sword pierced into the serpent's maw.
The darkness within the Serpent to be Shunned's mouth continued to erupt, but the pure white flame had already set it ablaze, and Kaylar plunged deeper and deeper into the dark.
The pure white flame began to spread from the shadow serpent's throat, sweeping over its massive body layer by layer.
Like a piece of paper set on fire, the light spread outward from the center, burning the shadows to ash bit by bit.
The serpent's shriek turned into a sharper, more twisted sound—the final wail of long-repressed malice evaporating in the flames.
Its colossal body began to disintegrate starting from the head, deep purple fragments drifting into the sky like snowflakes, burning away to nothingness before they could even leave behind ashes.
The serpent's remains vanished, leaving only a patch of ground covered in white flames, and Louis, who was curled up on the ground in front of Kaylar, trembling all over, with only a single horn left on his head.
“Give it back... Give it back...”
He clutched the Skeletal Crown tightly, his deep purple eyes completely devoid of color as he mumbled the same words over and over in a tremor.
Shadows still swirled around him, but they recoiled in fear of the flames, not daring to step forward.
“Time to finish the job—”
Kaylar swung her sword and stepped forward.
Then, from the other end of the battlefield where Esper and Landon had vanished, a massive sound erupted, nearly startling Kaylar out of her boots.
She whipped her head toward the noise.
“...Shit!”
Even if Louis was severely weakened, he wasn't someone that a few scattered armor spirits could deal with.
The current Serpent to be Shunned was like a round-headed old man hiding under a cabinet; though heavily wounded and only capable of attacking close-range targets, it still possessed some fight in it.
“Consider yourself lucky...”
Kaylar grit her teeth, spun around, and sprinted toward Esper's location.
Rate on N.U.
