Leave a comment

Cutting, striking, puncturing, dodging, blocking, cutting. Seletina ran through space. For her, there was no retreat. She couldn’t allow herself to make that choice. With deft control over the great sword of light and the grand shield of light, Seletina charged towards the heart of the darkness.

Amidst the onslaught of hundreds of spears closing in to bring down the Angel, there was only one direction to go… forward.

The great sword of light traced a sharp semicircle with a pinkish afterglow. The spears were cut down by the sword’s holy power, unable to fight back. The protective magic bestowed upon Seletina to ward off the darkness illuminated her presence with intense light.

She slashed, slashed, and slashed. The angel who’d now transformed into a warrior of light was cleaving through the sky. The spears of darkness, which had been cut down, fell powerlessly to the ground, changing into a liquid.

The once hard spears turned to liquid, then evaporated into fog. The darkness which had lost its form fell to Ulbdor below.

“…?!”

A thick fog of darkness descended. Seletina held her breath slightly as she followed its movement with the corner of her eye. The soldiers on the ground changed the moment they were exposed to the black fog.

It was like having ice water poured down one’s back, or a great number of caterpillars crawling up one’s legs, or an unbearable itch all over one’s body, or… Although each person reacted differently, and each could be explained with a different metaphor, there was one word that summarized their behavior – frenzied.

Some of them slammed their bodies into the cobblestones, others laughed hysterically with tears in their eyes and expressions of pain, and others started hurting the ones next to them… Everyone had gone insane.

“Is this anger?!” Imitia, who was slightly exposed to the thick fog, muttered as she held her head with her left hand, feeling as though it might split at any moment.

Anger. It was an image of anger that stimulated the brain and invaded the body. The anger of others was shared directly through telepathy, and the pollution caused by this rage inflicted a brutal assault on both body and mind. This brought an overwhelming burden of discomfort, deeply linked to physiological disgust.

The black fog beginning to stain this Ulbdor was the very anger that Lichter harbored. It invaded, corroded, and caused unbearable pain to the minds of those touched by his extraordinary anger.

Imitia understood that Lichter’s infinite anger was the very source of the darkness’ power. However, this was no time to just be sitting by and watching. Imitia looked up while holding her head and shouted angrily at the bewildered Seletina.

“Orthus! Don’t mind us! Do what you can!”
“Imitia…”

Seletina’s body stiffened up as she heard her trusted friend’s voice. Imitia urging her not to worry implied that she had concluded it would be silly for Seletina to pay attention to her.

Seletina let out a small breath and pushed forward, her pinkish armor shining with even more strength.

“HYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!” She moved with speed and strength, fully demonstrating the power of her flickering protective armor, she flapped her wings of light wide open. The angel’s presence was so brilliant that it made one forget the fact that this place was a hell filled with raining spears.

But as the distance between them decreased, the darkness grew increasingly unrelenting. The hundreds of spears grew to thousands. They were both big and small, thick and thin, but the one thing in common between them was that they shot at Seletina’s body in an attempt to devour her.

The spears were extremely fast and tracked their target’s body with such force that an ordinary warrior would be obliterated in less than a second.

Shield in the right hand, sword in the left. Seletina had only two ways to deal with the thousands of spears. Naturally, her hands couldn’t keep up.

“Urgh…!” Seletina groaned as her left wing was pierced sharply. Her posture and ability to fly were disturbed by the damage, and her body stumbled slightly.

As if waiting for this very moment, a great number of spears rushed towards Seletina.

“Orthus!” Imitia clenched her fists and shouted with all her strength. If she were hit only once, she wouldn’t be able to escape being skewered by the remaining thousands of spears.

Imitia’s throat had stiffened, her heart had clenched, and only a strained voice escaped her powerful body. The image of Seletina being skewered by the spears was vivid in her brain, and so was the case for Seletina.

Her heart was too beginning to tighten but she was not rushing. She didn’t have a speck of fear in her heart. The heart of the hero Orthus, which was more solid and noble than steel, would not be entangled by the demon of fear.

“HAAAAAAA!!!” Experience, prediction, and reaction. Seletina’s supreme swordsmanship, honed by her training in her previous life, guided her to the best.

Switching the light-clad Elyutinias to her opposite hand, she twisted her body sharply without losing altitude or speed. Hiding behind the large shield, Seletina barrel-rolled and kept pushing forward.

She looked just like a drill. She excavated and scraped away at the soil that had been stampeded with death without fear.

The spears were quick to react. However, Seletina, who poured everything she had into advancing, was even faster. From drill to spear, spear to arrow, arrow to bullet. With increasing speed and power, Seletina was determined to move forward, and finally, she reached her goal.

“HYAAAAA!!!” Seletina slammed into the dark sphere. Then she thrust the sword of light, holding it in a reverse grip, to pry it open and destroy it.

Lichter was just within reach, trapped in the darkness.

“Lichter!!!” Seletina threw down her large shield and reached out to Lichter.