novelraw Chapter 132 : Full-Power Throw (3)
Chapter 132 : Full-Power Throw (3)
Chapter 132: Full-Power Throw (3)
Two kinds of red mana, having mutually annihilated each other and turned to dust, spread across the area.
The dense residue of magic power leaking from the intense collision drew the attention of all participants at once.
The shocking sight unfolding over there—
The personnel from the Dellowell side couldn’t even close their mouths.
As if he had been waiting for this moment, Gustav shouted toward his subordinates.
“Now! Fire!”
Boom! KWAANG!
KWAAAAAANG!
The Executor of Blood—one of the strongest beings in Dellowell, the Orthodox Church, and even the Empire.
To them, the three Executors were faith itself, and pride.
They gave certainty that they would never lose, and the courage to throw themselves willingly into a noble death.
And yet—
That Executor, Karen Rosefield of all people, had suffered such damage.
In that brief moment when the shaken believers failed to respond to the pouring magical bombardment—
Frederick Lake drove a Mana Fist into Betty Scarletwood, whose gaze had briefly turned away.
Thooong…!
Despite a perfect clean hit aimed at an opening, not even a scratch appeared on her body.
But—
Even if it couldn’t wound her, it could disorient her.
‘Of all places… the jaw!’
And then—
The leader of Karbenna and the strongest proxy of Mallet did not miss this golden opportunity.
“Amplify Field.”
“Storm Nova!”
A storm rising from the ground met an amplification magic circle and surged even higher into the air.
The rising storm lifted Betty’s entire body dozens of meters upward with its force.
At the same time, Frederick, who had also leapt up, gathered all the mana circulating within his body into his right hand.
“Uraaaaah!”
He thrust forward a manifestation of mana shaped like a drill, together with his fist.
Betty instinctively twisted her body to avoid her vital point—
But the rapidly spinning Screw Fist literally shattered her thick breastplate.
The strike didn’t stop there and immediately advanced into her body.
Normally, even his powerful right arm wouldn’t have been able to leave a mark on her body.
But the result was the exact opposite.
With the sound of flesh and skin being torn apart, his attack pierced deeply into Betty Scarletwood’s side.
“You… bastard…!”
Frederick squeezed out every last bit of his remaining strength and blasted her all the way toward the right outer wall in a single strike.
KWAAAAAAANG!
“…Finally landed a hit, damn it.”
Tactically, in terms of power, and mentally—the two Executors were like absolute pillars.
With both of them having suffered critical injuries at the same time, the previously firm enemy formation began to slowly retreat.
The members who had desperately endured, believing even a draw would be a miracle, now pressed the enemy harder with the conviction that victory was within reach.
“It’s not over yet! We need to finish this for sure!”
“Reform the lines! Protect the two of them!”
Betty Scarletwood at the right outer wall, Karen Rosefield at the left outer wall.
One side ran to kill, the other ran to protect.
“What are you doing, Carter?! Finish it already!”
“…….”
“Our attacks don’t work! Just cut off her head!”
At Gustav’s urgent shouting from behind, I simply lifted the unconscious Francia onto my back.
“…Don’t tell me you’re letting her live? That monster?”
“I told you. It has to be a draw. The winner becomes the loser. If we win here, we’ll lose in the end.”
“You… you crazy bastard…!”
“Don’t worry. The battle ends here.”
“What kind of nonsense is that—”
“He’s right, Gustav.”
At the sudden familiar voice, Gustav snapped his head around.
The man who had approached right beside him bore a deeply missed appearance.
“Aleph… sir.”
“Further slaughter is meaningless. We must stop here. It’s the only way to survive.”
“They won’t want that! Those bastards think of us as devil worshippers!”
“Well, let’s hear what they think.”
Aleph slammed his old, worn staff into the ground and shouted loudly.
“Mind Hallucination Field!”
At that moment—
Across the entire plaza, an impossible sight began to appear.
---
Aleph Abdiel, also known as Master Aleph.
A pioneer who had led Duel—Mallet for 40 years, and the only candidate for Great Sage in Mallet.
He was the one who saved my life when I was poisoned after being attacked by Delusio Corpse in the Forest of Delusion, and the reason Clina White had willingly accepted sealing in the past.
Compared to Gustav, the eccentric and selfish second-in-command, he was incomparable in both character and skill—the current strongest mage of the Empire.
If his participation had been guaranteed, I wouldn’t have devised such a desperate strategy.
That was how overwhelming this old man was.
“…Well, since you came to help decisively at the end, I’ll stop complaining here.”
“Thank you, Carter.”
After handing Francia over to the rear support team, I focused on the strange phenomenon unfolding in the plaza.
Both enemies and allies began to lower their weapons one by one, as if entranced.
Before their eyes, a horrifying hell was continuing.
Even I could clearly hear those desperate voices.
Words that should have been faced—yet were never meant to be heard.
“S-Stop…!”
“Please! Let’s stop this! Why must we tear apart fellow citizens of the same Empire?!”
“We’ve already killed enough! People who could have been reformed—we just killed them! And now we have to do it again? Until when? Until no one resists? Is that truly the will of God? Does God really want that?!”
“Aaaaargh!”
“Run, Meriel! Survive—and spread word of this tragedy!”
“Please don’t kill us! This child knows nothing! I made her do everything! Please, at least spare the child…!”
“…Why are humans slaughtering each other like this instead of beasts?”
“I don’t know… Is there really any value worth protecting by going this far…?”
Mind Hallucination Field.
A wide-area status effect that plunges all living beings within a certain range into hallucinations and auditory illusions.
What they were seeing, what they were hearing—
Were experiences they had once faced.
Memories they had denied in order to survive, in order to fulfill their roles.
Those memories were forcibly dragged out and made to confront them.
Except for the very few who had faced and overcome their trauma head-on, no one could escape this magic.
With the two leading Executors retired due to critical injuries, and most of those in the plaza losing their will to fight—
Now, we could open negotiations.
A negotiation table overwhelmingly advantageous to us.
—You’re a ruthless man.
‘Well, it’s better than getting wiped out, isn’t it?’
—That thoroughness is exactly what makes you ruthless.
‘…I won’t deny it.’
If lives could be saved this way, I’d do it as many times as needed.
I intended to save them—
But I had no intention of being satisfied with just that.
To prepare for the coming Apocalypse, the more capable fighters we kept alive, the better.
With those thoughts, I walked through the collapsing participants who were losing consciousness.
‘There’s still one more step.’
Fortunately, she still hadn’t fully manifested her abilities as a successor.
‘Because she’s been denying it herself.’
Her complete awakening as a successor was inevitable.
And it was my job to bring her to that stage as quickly as possible.
No one here would want her revival.
They’d call me insane. Say I’d lost my mind.
But it had to be done.
If I didn’t awaken Karen now and free her from Dellowell’s shackles, we would never survive the disaster to come.
Of course, this was a huge gamble for me as well.
Even against Karen who hadn’t fully awakened, I had struggled just to keep up.
Francia had pushed herself to unconsciousness to land a decisive blow that significantly drained Karen’s stamina. I couldn’t hope for more.
At this point, the only one who could stop her once she began to rampage—
Was a single person.
If that person appeared here, then this choice would be proven right.
So I had no choice but to do it.
If I couldn’t trust them now, then I had no future either.
I staggered forward, picking up Lukezax lying in the distance.
Squeezing out what little mana I had left, I stepped into the range of my slash.
Right then—
A scream loud enough to shake the entire plaza began to echo right before me.
And it wasn’t coming from Karen.
It came from the severed flesh that had been cut off earlier by the Aura Blade.
---
Krrrgh…
Krrrgh—AAAAAAAGH—
KRAAAAAAAAAAAAGH…!
A grotesque scream, with no identifiable gender or age.
“Ghk!”
“W-What is this…?!”
Those trapped in hallucinations couldn’t hear it at all, but everyone else in the area clutched their ears in agony.
I was in pain as well—but I could endure it somehow.
‘I’ve been exposed to dark magic quite a lot…’
I stared at Karen, who had lowered her head, and the lump of blood emitting the sound.
Vital Collapse.
One of the representative authorities of Akasha, the Blood Guardian Deity.
It activates regardless of which body part is severed, and causes status abnormalities and shockwaves in the area until all mana and life force contained in that part are exhausted.
An ability that buys time for recovery when the successor suffers a fatal wound.
A flashy and oppressive power—but in reality, just a common stalling technique.
…Though, since humans of this era lack resistance to dark magic, most of those present would be immobilized for quite a while.
That’s why I wasn’t particularly shaken.
The reason I was surprised… wasn’t that.
Compared to the in-game timeline, things had advanced much earlier, but it was still early.
Even Karen, who was considered complete from the start, still had room to grow at this stage.
‘For Karen to have that ability already at this point…’
The deafening noise that seemed endless suddenly died down.
As Karen slowly stood up, touching her wound, I asked casually.
“So you weren’t a survivor… but a judge?”
Within a radius of twenty meters, only the two of us remained standing.
Karen pressed her forehead and spoke through gritted teeth.
“…You don’t need to know.”
“Maybe not. But it seems like you already know better than anyone—who granted you that power.”
“…….”
“Don’t tell me… you still think that power is God’s blessing?”
“You dare…!”
Karen charged again.
If she were at full strength, I could never have taken it—but now, her trajectory, power, and timing were all sloppy, making it easy to deflect.
“Ghk…!”
Without even looking back, I shouted loudly.
“Leave only the Golems and fall back! If you stay here, you’ll all get caught up in it!”
“No, Carter! Even if you’re not killing her, shouldn’t you at least restrain her so she can’t act?!”
“Just fall back!”
“But—!”
Aleph stopped Gustav from pressing further.
“I’ll assist here. Take the fallen soldiers and evacuate them first. We must not increase the casualties any further.”
With no other choice, Gustav withdrew with the agents.
After glancing at that scene, I pointed at Karen’s wound.
“See that?”
“…….”
The body part that had been nearly severed was already more than halfway regenerated.
The skin hadn’t fully recovered yet, but from bone to flesh, everything had already been restored.
A regeneration speed that would require at least ten top-tier healing mages working together.
Even among beasts, such self-recovery without any mechanism or spell was rare.
Looking at Karen, who seemed shaken, I continued.
“Doesn’t it seem strange? The massacre at Traniel. In the middle of that chaos, a ten-year-old girl survived alone.”
“You…!”
KWAANG! KWAANG!
Her furious halberd strikes were neither as fast nor as sharp as before.
Easily evading them, I continued laying out the truth.
“Were the ones they worshipped really foreign entities? Was the result they received truly judgment?”
“…Shut up.”
“The SS-rank beast sleeping there—Nibas of Hallucination. Was it really the villagers who awakened it?”
“Shut up! Shut up! Don’t you dare test my faith any further, Eugene Carter!”
“Still not awake yet… then one last question.”
I didn’t intend to go this far.
‘But now that it’s come to this, I can’t hold back.’
Letting out a sigh, I gave her a cold smile.
“The smell from Heinrich Peregrine that day… wasn’t it very familiar?”
So familiar. So nostalgic.
“Like… family.”
At that moment—
Karen Rosefield’s pupils turned completely white.