Chapter 200. Me…… Wyvern!
With a flashing burst of light, a terrifying roar rang out.
Kwarreureung—
As cloud-like flames viciously devoured the space, Aster unfolded a force field and sprinted straight through the fire.
It wasn’t long before he kicked off the ground and leapt.
Tap!
His body rose high. Infernal’s fist slammed into the empty floor a beat too late. Boom! As the roar shook the air, Aster floated in midair and spread his senses wide.
The presences he caught totaled five.
‘For now, one is…….’
Excluded, since it was recovering after taking Explosive Annihilation.
That meant there were four moving bodies.
Just as he got that—
Whoooong—!
“……!”
Aster kicked off the air and twisted his direction to dodge Infernal’s charging fist.
Infernal’s fist narrowly missed and split useless space instead. Feeling his back dampen without realizing it, Aster’s eyes trembled.
‘This…… might not have an end.’
The fight had started only about ten minutes ago.
But already, suffocating hopelessness was creeping in.
How many times had he smashed Infernal in those ten minutes? From the moment the battle started, he concentrated firepower and smashed it more than ten times.
Fighting it itself wasn’t that hard.
The surging flames and heat were threatening, sure, but the attacks were nothing but simple punches and kicks, and the speed wasn’t that fast.
The problem was that endless recovery.
Ta-at!
Landing and settling his stance, Aster immediately created Explosive Annihilation and floated it into the air. A roar followed.
KWAANG—!
When Infernal’s upper body was blown half apart by Explosive Annihilation, a monstrous heat instantly surged into the space.
Like this…….
‘Recovery and explosion.’
The self-repair that happened the instant it was damaged—and the explosion that accompanied that self-repair—those were the problems.
Self-repair let Infernal move endlessly, and the explosion that unfolded alongside it……
‘Dirty.’
Yeah. It was absolutely dirty.
Every time he broke it, heat surged up so hard it was difficult even to breathe…… it was enough to make him worry he’d cook and die from the heat, not from Infernal.
And that wasn’t all.
Infernal seemed completely unaffected by that monstrous heat, so it was bad conditions in every possible way.
In other words, it was a fight where you didn’t have one decisive strike, and instead you slowly dried out and died.
“Damn it.”
So Aster floated up three more Explosive Annihilations in succession, destroying three intact Infernals.
Soon, with a KWAANG— roar, flames layered and overlapped in the space. Under the flames spewed by five Infernals, Aster hardened his force field and escaped the area.
The moment he slipped out of the flames spilling even beyond the space, something followed him.
[Friend, okay? We, run.]
It was Spirit 1.
Aster took a brief breath, then looked at the Spirit 1 that had followed and asked,
“Why aren’t you leaving?”
[We, friend.]
A dry laugh leaked from Aster’s mouth.
‘Friend, my ass.’
They’d been together for, what, a few hours, and it was calling him friend?
He knew spirits and humans thought differently, but even so, it was hard to understand.
And what?
‘A contract in the future?’
It seemed to be hanging around because of that, but even that wasn’t funny.
With that thought, Aster waved his hand, trying to shoo the spirit away.
He would have—if not for the footsteps boring into his ears again.
Thoom, thoom, thoom.
The sound of the Infernal that had finished recovering first, stepping as it searched for Aster.
Aster immediately brushed himself off and ended the short break.
That was when the spirit asked,
[Friend, why not run? Me, not understand.]
Why wasn’t he running?
“……Who knows.”
To be honest, there wasn’t any particular reason.
He hadn’t thought it through and made a choice.
[Maybe, sacrifice?]
“Sacrifice…… tsk.”
For an instant, Demian and Chenbi, and Myseolne’s faces flickered through Aster’s mind.
Was he stepping up alone like this for them? Had he chosen sacrifice to keep them alive?
He thought about it for a moment, but only a hollow laugh came out.
‘Sacrifice, my ass.’
There wasn’t such a grand reason.
It was just—yeah.
It felt like he should.
Just…… because there wasn’t anyone else who could hold Infernal back like this. That was all.
As Aster reached that thought—
Thoom! Thoom!
Infernal’s footsteps growing closer.
Aster cut off his thinking and fixed his eyes on the spirit.
“You’re not leaving, are you?”
[We, friend.]
“Friend or whatever. If you’re not leaving, then go to the kids and at least pass a message.”
[……?]
“Tell them to get out of the ruins first. Tell Senior Myseolne secretly. Then he’ll handle it, I guess.”
With that, Aster launched himself back toward the hall where the Infernals had gathered.
The spirit tried to follow a moment too late, but Aster was already plunging into Infernal’s flames.
As Aster’s back vanished beyond the surging fire, the spirit thought:
[Friend, sacrifice.]
Then what should it do?
It didn’t really know.
But.
[First, go.]
Go deliver what friend left behind. And after that, think about the rest then.
Of course…… the spirit had no intention whatsoever of leaving the ruins and abandoning its friend.
[Me, Wyvern.]
Because it was a Wyvern.
The spirit went pyororong, flying toward Demian’s group.
Behind it, the roar created by Aster and the Infernal pack thundered on.
How long did it fly?
Then the spirit saw them.
Far ahead—three people approaching down the corridor.
[Human! he…re?]
The spirit started to call out to the three in delight, but then it realized something was strange and its body trembled.
‘Something, changed?’
The aura of the three was clearly different from before.
As the spirit tilted its head at the unfamiliar feeling, the oldest spirit stepped forward and asked.
[Savior, where?]
[You are…….]
[Me, oldest spirit.]
[……!]
The spirit had to be shocked once at the oldest spirit’s appearance.
Because his form was no longer a shapeless lump of light.
Taking the shape of a brown-tinged tiger, the oldest spirit asked again.
[Me, now ‘Gaius’. Guide. Savior, where?]
At the question that carried hardness, the spirit fluttered, trembling, and answered in a rush.
[N-no. Friend, said. Leave.]
Demian, Chenbi, and Myseolne all remained silent, but the spirit could easily tell their purpose.
The firm resolve sitting in their eyes proved it.
So it tried to stop the three somehow—
but that was when Gaius spoke.
[Now, save. We, savior.]
No more questions were needed.
They already knew the hall where the savior would be. They had asked only “just in case.”
Even if it wasn’t the same place they’d seen in the future, if they simply chased this enormous roar, they would reach it without difficulty.
……And so.
Behind Gaius leading the way, the three began to walk.
And behind them…….
[We, brave.]
[That, agree.]
[We, sacrifice.]
Spirits like a cluster of stars in the Milky Way surged after them.
The spirit could say nothing, standing there blankly.
But only for a moment.
[Me…… Wyvern!]
The spirit hurriedly joined the group.
Aster and Infernal’s battle was flowing in a monotonous pattern.
Could this be called a “battle”?
It was simply one-sided destruction.
Boom, KWA-BOOM! Boom!
Aster floated Explosive Annihilation, destroyed the Infernals, then sat still in the flames that filled the space and focused his mind.
He couldn’t see, but his sensory perception and sense of space—driven to the limit—held the entire situation in his mind.
The five Infernals did not move. They were fully concentrating their power on repairing the destruction.
And Aster sat a little distance away, his hand periodically forming Explosive Annihilation to strike the Infernals.
The Infernals recover.
Aster breaks them.
There was nothing else.
At a glance, it looked like Aster was overwhelmingly in control, but the truth was not like that at all.
‘……Hoo.’
The heat, hot enough to sear skin, choked him.
He wanted to open distance and rest, but if he went any farther, he couldn’t break the Infernals in a single strike.
Their flames were flames that shook one’s energy, so even Explosive Annihilation lost strength before those flames.
So Aster stayed as close as he could endure, destroying the Infernals.
But on the other hand, it was a question.
‘How much longer can I hold out?’
His magical power was sufficient.
But he couldn’t guarantee his mental endurance.
He had to keep a force field sturdy enough to block Infernal’s heat while also using Explosive Annihilation, and at the same time, he had to repair a body being cooked by the heat using healing light.
A situation where not a single part could be done carelessly.
He could endure now, but if he slipped even a hair, his mental endurance would collapse hard, and it would become dangerous.
In other words…… yes.
If the fight with Destrow was a battle on a blade’s edge, then this was a fight against endless time.
As he fought time, a regret rose up.
If……
‘……Transcendence (超越), if only I could handle it fully.’
Then stopping the Infernals’ function wouldn’t be impossible.
Transcendence—the pillar of flame that even overwhelmed Destrow—if he had that, even Infernal could be destroyed completely.
But.
It was impossible.
‘For an instant, it’s possible.’
Only…… for one instant.
Could he neutralize five Infernals with that fleeting flame?
Still…… it would be impossible.
So Aster simply endured.
He suppressed the pain of skin being cooked, pushed his brain to exhaustion, and pressed down despair at a bleak situation with no visible end.
As he said, it wasn’t sacrifice.
This was…… just, yeah.
Because he could.
Even now, Aster didn’t think, even for a moment, that he would die.
……But sadly, this was one of the many possible ways Aster dies.
In the future the spirits saw, Aster holds the Infernals back alone like this, eventually feels his mental endurance reach its limit, and opens Transcendence.
And due to the backlash of that forced Transcendence, he is fated to meet death in the end.
However, a variable occurred at that very moment.
Shaaaaaa—
From behind Aster, a bright mass of light surged in. That light mass pushed back Infernal’s flames that filled the space, expanding its domain—and Aster noticed the change right when that light wrapped around his body.
‘……This is?’
A light mass that, for some reason, invigorated his body. Mana? No, it was clearly a different energy than Mana.
This was, in other words……
‘……Spirit power?’
The moment Aster grasped the nature of that energy—
he sensed someone behind him.
“Friend.”
It was Demian.
And behind him stood Myseolne and Chenbi, and even the spirits, now existing as lumps of light radiating their presence.
When Aster’s eyes took in that entire sight,
Demian spoke.
“When we play, we play together.”
……In every future up until now, it was a scene that had never appeared even once.
