Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou (LN) - Volume 12 - Chapter 7

Chapter VII: Dragon God’s Advent

A few minutes before Tio unceremoniously crashed next to Shea, her battle with Freid had begun to heat up.

“Tch, you’re pretty tough,” Freid spat. He’d initially thought that he’d be able to wear Tio down pretty quickly, but her defenses had held out for far longer than he’d anticipated.

For her part, Tio was continuing to turn Freid’s monsters to her side, heedless of the damage she took. Her blood and scales littered every inch of the battlefield, but she’d gotten even faster at transforming his monsters into her dragons, so she suddenly had quite a sizable army. They’d formed up around her to prevent Freid’s monsters from forcing her into a melee. That allowed her to focus purely on Freid and Uranos...and avoid any attacks that might instantly kill her. Furthermore, any time they tried to charge up bigger attacks to wipe out her army, she skillfully interrupted them with Dragon Claws or her Obsidian Dominator. And, of course, any dragon that was injured was quickly healed with Dragon Queen’s Grace. She was also constantly healing herself as well to make sure she never got so injured that it affected her mobility.

Freid may have called her fighting style pathetic, but the current situation was proving more than anything that her tactics were effective. Plus, she wasn’t just relying on her sturdiness either; she was using her knowledge and experience to accurately predict Freid’s moves even without the help of Shea’s Future Sight.

Loath though he was to admit it, Freid had to accept that Tio was both wiser and stronger than he’d expected.

However, Tio wasn’t winning as handily as Freid might have thought.

I’ll be running out of antidotes soon. Once that happens, it will be more difficult to reduce the amount of damage I take.

While Tio could usually stop Freid and Uranos before they fired off any big attacks, their smaller blows were harder to counter. Freid’s portals and Uranos’s breath made for a deadly combination that even Tio was impressed by. Sometimes, it was Uranos himself who teleported while Freid fired off disintegration beams and feather barrages. To top it off, Freid could also fire off regular elemental magic to slow Tio down and make Uranos’s breath attacks hit home.

Perfectly dodging everything was nigh impossible. There were more than a few times Tio simply had to take a hit. And the more of Uranos’s breath attacks she took head-on, the more her healing magic was impaired, forcing her to drink more of her precious supply of CheatMate Drinks. As soon as she was out, things would get dicey. Her mana supply wasn’t limitless either. Both her Dragon Queen’s Edict and Dragon Queen’s Grace took a decent amount of mana to use, despite her stellar affinity for metamorphosis and spirit magic. Her breath attacks and scale armor took up mana as well.

At this rate, she would run out of resources before she turned the tide. Freid understood that as well, which was why he wasn’t letting his impatience get to him. Despite losing two hundred of his monsters, he was sticking to his plan. Though admittedly, it was extremely frustrating seeing Tio’s fighting spirit remain unshaken even after all the attacks he’d hit her with.

Picking up on Freid’s annoyance, Tio easily read his next attack and somersaulted forward. A second later, a giant pair of jaws closed around where she’d been standing. Uranos had teleported inside her formation to attack her from behind. However, while upside down, she formed her fingers into the shape of a gun and fired a highly compressed breath beam at Uranos. She’d also correctly predicted that Uranos would turn her way after realizing he’d missed, so her beam shot straight through his right eye.

“Graaaaaaaaah!”

Tio’s compressed breath attack was powerful enough to break through Uranos’s spatial barrier, and for the very first time, Tio managed to land a crippling blow on the dragon. However, that also caused Uranos’s anger to reach a boiling point. Enraged, Uranos ignored his pain and roared at Tio, using an absolutely insane amount of mana to convert his roar into a wide-area breath attack.

A wall of light barreled toward her. Goosebumps rose on her arms...and for the first time, she felt a hint of panic. She hurriedly flapped her wings and darted out of the way. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to get completely clear in time.

“Nnnnnnnnngh, now that stings!”

A familiar pain lanced through Tio’s right shoulder, and one of her wings was blown away. The skin beneath her scales was scalded, and a section of the scales themselves was blown off. Still, Tio didn’t let the pain stop her. Instead, she created a foothold for herself with Aerodynamic, then used telepathy to direct one of her dragons to fire a breath attack at the space behind her.

“Tch, you really are perceptive,” Freid spat, hurriedly dodging out of the way. He’d teleported in to hit Tio with a surprise attack, but her dragon’s breath had gone right where he’d tried to attack from.

“You’re simply too easy to read!” Tio replied, lashing out at Freid with her whip. The split ends made it hard for Freid to track all of their movements, and as Tio had expected, Uranos flew in at surprising speed to block the blow with his scales. In the meantime, Tio regenerated her wing and scales, then also used recovery magic on herself. However, the damage to her shoulder was slow to heal. She’d simply taken too many hits.

“To think you still had enough strength left to take one of Uranos’s eyes...” Freid muttered, frowning.

The breath attack Tio had hit Uranos with had been her strongest yet. Freid couldn’t understand where she was drawing that power from when her mana, body, and mind should have been exhausted. Only now was Freid beginning to realize that dragonmen’s toughness extended to far more than just their physical stamina. Freid coldly reassessed Tio as he healed Uranos’s eye.

“How many more of those potions do you have left?” he asked.

“Who knows?” Tio said, downing another CheatMate Drink. She obviously wasn’t going to let him know that was the last one.

Curses! Even after enduring all that, I still haven’t reached the point needed to activate the spell! Why did my ancestor have to make such a convoluted activation condition?! Couldn’t you have been nicer to your descendants?!

Only by enduring enough pain could Tio activate her final trump card. The unexpected power-up she’d received when she’d returned home—the legacy of the first Klarus. She couldn’t help but complain a little though, since it seemed she still wasn’t close to hitting the activation condition. Still, she wanted to avoid using that trump card if possible. That way, she could use it to help Hajime in his fight against Ehit. But in order to win without it, she needed more time.

In an attempt to buy that time, Tio asked, “By the way, where are the rest of the demons? Didn’t they all come with you to the Sanctuary?”

It was a strange question to be asking in the middle of a battlefield, especially since Tio didn’t have any real attachment to Freid’s countrymen. Fearing some kind of trap, Freid warily eyed her without responding.

“Come now, the end is near. Why not take a short break?”

Both sides needed to focus on healing, so it wasn’t a bad suggestion to talk about something in the meantime. While she spoke, Tio glanced around the battlefield. In truth, she’d been wondering for some time now where all the demons were. At the very least, she’d expected to find Freid’s soldiers with him. After all, no loyal soldier would abandon their general in combat.

“You’re not going to ask any of them for help?”

It had been a simple question, but Freid took it to mean that she thought he wasn’t strong enough to win on his own, so he narrowed his eyes dangerously.

“There’s no need to worry; my comrades won’t be coming to aid me.”

“Oh? Why not? Wouldn’t it be easier if they fought with you?”

“They are all sleeping in a different part of my lord’s domain. They need to be imbued with his strength before we reach our destination so that they can serve as his vanguard in the invasion of the new world.”

“So they’re being strengthened just like you, huh?”

Tio had only started this conversation to buy time, but now she’d learned something quite disturbing. Fortunately, it seemed things weren’t quite as bad as she feared.

“They’re being given power befitting their new status as God’s chosen people. Though, they haven’t been granted the right to become one of his arbiters as I have.”

“Arbiter? Not apostle?”

“My lord has graciously chosen me to serve as Alvaheit-sama’s successor. He has forgiven me for calling him a false god back when I was ignorant and knew nothing and allowed me to become his most trusted retainer.”

“I understand now. The power you wield and the strength of your familiars stem from the fact that you were granted strength above even that of an apostle.”

“That’s right. I shall become a new god serving under Lord Ehit, thus making my people the people of God.”

In that moment, Freid’s frown turned into an expression of pure ecstasy. Even Tio, the world’s biggest pervert, was disgusted by that expression. But at the same time, she felt a twinge of pity for Freid.

Back at the Schnee Snow Fields, Tio had asked him why he’d chosen to follow Ehit after conquering one of the labyrinths and learning the truth. After all, it was Ehit who’d orchestrated the war that had led to the deaths of so many of his people.

“I feel sorry for the demons who died knowing nothing about the cause they fought for. Do you not care at all about them, or your homeland, anymore?”

The reason Tio had specified “anymore” was because she believed that Freid had at least cared about his people before. She knew the look in his eyes too well. He had the same crazed look that the people who had killed her parents and slaughtered her countrymen had once had. But before Ehit had driven them mad, they had been neighbors and friends, people Tio had known and liked, hence why Tio was certain Freid had also been the kind of man who cared about his people before Ehit had changed him.

No one could conquer a labyrinth with half-hearted resolve, especially not the Frost Caverns, as clearing that required defeating your own negative emotions. A crazed zealot wouldn’t have been able to surmount that trial. Or at least, that was what Tio believed.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Freid replied. “I do love my people and my country. I am their guardian. However, my lord’s will takes precedence over everything else. That’s all there is to it.”

The casualness with which he said he’d throw away everything important to him if Ehit asked was terrifying. Even Uranos’s eyes wavered upon hearing that.

Just then, Freid and Tio turned to look into the distance.

“What?!” Freid exclaimed.

“Oho, it seems she’s reached the final level,” Tio said.

Both of them were staring at a pillar of pale-blue mana that was shooting up to the heavens. The sheer amount of power exuding from that pillar was awe-inspiring. And every time the pillar pulsed, the power contained within it grew. Freid watched with disbelief as the five apostles were overwhelmed by a single person. His earlier ecstatic expression was nowhere to be found.

“Impossible... The apostles are losing? That can’t be. The first five were personally given more strength than any other by our lord!”

“Why are you so surprised?”

Freid had been so stunned that for a moment he’d forgotten about Tio. He quickly returned to his senses and turned back to face her.

“She’s a member of the weakest, most cowardly race,” Tio said. “Not only that, but she’s just sixteen. A year ago, no one even knew who she was, but now she’s conquered the labyrinths and can hold her own on battlefields like this one. Surely you must have realized how exceptional she is well before now.”

“Yes, but...”

“She has no affinity for magic, nor did she have any combat experience until she started traveling with Master. She doesn’t belong to a naturally powerful race like the dragonmen or vampires. And yet, she’s made it this far through the sheer strength of her will. After Master, Shea Haulia is undoubtedly the world’s strongest monster,” Tio proclaimed, brimming with pride as she talked about Shea. “As if a few slightly strengthened puppets made by a so-called god who thinks he’s better than everyone would stand a chance against her.”

Freid seethed when Tio insulted Ehit, but as he watched Shea utterly dominate the apostles, he lost the will to retort.

“Impossible...” he muttered, then turned back to Tio. The only way to overturn this situation was to defeat the enemy in front of him and go to the apostles’ aid.

“I need to help the apostles. I’m done toying with you. It’s time you died.”

“There’s no need to be so hasty. The real battle is just beginning.”

“Enough with your boasts. Your plan won’t work. The difference in numbers is too large to change in time.”

Freid was confident he’d seen through Tio’s strategy. And so, he raised his hand, ready to bring an end to this charade. The moment he brought it down would be the moment of Tio’s execution.

He still had three times as many familiars as Tio did, and he’d confirmed during their conversation that Tio’s recovery speed was slowly dropping. He could see burned skin peeking out from the ripped sections of Tio’s kimono near her waist, she wasn’t able to replenish her scale armor as quickly as she had before, the wound on her shoulder wasn’t fully healed either, and though she put on an air of composure, sweat was visibly pouring down her forehead.

It was clear to Freid that she was nearing her limits. He was absolutely confident now that he’d be able to destroy her before she converted enough of his familiars.

On the other hand, Uranos’s eye had been fully healed, and the dragon let out a triumphant roar. However, Tio just smiled bewitchingly and said, “When did I ever say these dragons were the only ones I had?”

In a commanding voice that echoed even to the depths of hell, the dragon queen declared, “By the power vested in me, I command you to resurrect—Dragon Queen’s Call!”

Tio’s black mana surged up from the ground below. Or more specifically, it surged out of all of the dead monsters that were littering the battlefield. And a second later, their corpses started writhing. They began transforming into dragons, the same way monsters Tio captured with Dragon Queen’s Edict had.

“Impossible...”

“It isn’t just this Obsidian Dominator that can transform creatures into dragons. Just how much of my blood and how many of my scales do you think I’ve scattered across this battlefield?”

“I see. You used your own flesh and blood as a medium...but...”

Freid hadn’t anticipated this. There was so much of her crimson blood staining the ground and monsters below that it looked like a scene out of hell. And now, all the monsters there were returning from the underworld to fight for their new master. They raised their heads to face the sky and let out a series of roars. It really did look as though the gates of hell had just been thrown open.

As the field of monsters were turned into corpse dragons, they took flight with their new wings and headed up to their master.

Dragon Queen’s Call was a mixed spirit and metamorphosis magic spell. Tio had analyzed her own genetics enough to replicate pseudo-dragon souls with spirit magic, then had combined that with the transformation metamorphosis magic spell to give corpses artificial life and turn them into dragons.

The duplicate souls Tio had imbued them with were temporary, however, and once the magic wore off, they would return to being corpses. In that sense, they were more like golems than organic beings. Still, she had in one instant summoned up an army of powerful dragons to bolster her ranks. With all the undead dragons at her back, she looked like the ruler of the underworld.

“How repulsive,” Freid spat.

“Ha ha ha, it’s a fitting spell, wouldn’t you say? After all, I am the woman of the man everyone calls the new Demon Lord.”

The irony of that wasn’t lost on Freid, the man who’d served the previous Demon Lord.

Tio grinned wickedly at her foe. When she’d shown her new magic to Hajime, he’d responded with, “Wow, recycling the enemies you’ve killed and bringing them back as allies is super efficient.”

Instead of being put off or disgusted, he’d praised her. Not only that, but he’d been genuinely jealous of her ingenuity. As a result, Tio didn’t feel at all ashamed of her rather brutal new magic. In fact, she was proud of it. Though it did look like Freid and Uranos, both of whom were clad in pure white with seraphic wings, were the ones fighting to save the world now instead of Tio, who had her pitch-black mana and an undead army behind her.

“Now then, celebrate the moment of your birth as dragons would...with a roar!” Tio commanded, and all of her dragons—the armored ones, the ones she’d converted, and the ones she’d revived—fired off breath attacks with a series of roars. Freid’s familiars screamed in pain as they were lanced through by the barrage of black beams.

At long last, Tio had turned the tide.

There were only four hundred of Freid’s familiars left after the initial barrage, whereas Tio had eight hundred dragons. The reversal Freid had believed impossible had come to pass.

“Well? Your army isn’t looking too great anymore.”

Though she was covered in wounds, Tio looked every bit like a dragon queen as she stood proudly at the head of her black dragon army.

Freid cast his gaze over the battlefield. He then turned back to Tio and sneered at her. It was an ugly sneer, full of scorn and derision. From his perspective, Tio had simply struggled in vain to grasp at a hope that wasn’t real.

“I told you before—your plan won’t work,” he replied. Then, he raised his hand once more...and the obelisk at the center of the island began to glow, shooting a pillar of light into the air. Similar pillars of light soon shot up from other floating islands in the distance. It seemed there was more than one obelisk in this dimension.

“Now this might be a problem...” Tio mumbled, a coy smile on her face.

She was pretty sure she knew exactly what those pillars of light signified. And a few seconds later, her prediction turned into reality.

“Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

A horde of monsters appeared in the sky and let out a resounding roar. There were so many of them that they covered the sky. And not just the sky above this island either, but the entire sky of this dimension. A few of them looked to be as strong as the Leviathan, even.

Freid’s new army was too large to count. Trying would have been like trying to count the number of stars in the sky. All Tio could say for sure was that there were at least a million of them.

“These monsters are all residents of the Sanctuary. They aren’t my familiars.”

After becoming Ehit’s Arbiter, Freid had been granted the authority to use a few of the Sanctuary’s functions, including the ability to control its monsters and summon them from the other dimensions within the Sanctuary. This was why he had remained confident he would win no matter what.

“I wanted to defeat you with my own strength, but my pride means nothing compared to the importance of the mission. Regrettable though it may be, I’ll use everything at my disposal to eliminate you.”

There was a mixture of frustration and ecstatic rapture in Freid’s darkened eyes.

“Are you prepared to die, Tio Klarus? This is the end!”

He swung his hand down...and the army of monsters surged toward Tio and her dragons. Her black dragons valiantly tried to defend her, but fighting against the army was like trying to push against the tide. In the same way that man couldn’t oppose the might of nature, the dragons quickly started dropping.

There are simply too many of them. My Dragon Queen’s Grace won’t be able to keep up.

Tio dodged Uranos’s breath and slowed Freid down with her whip, then quickly glanced down to see how Shea was holding up. From the looks of it, she’d defeated the apostles, but wouldn’t be able to move for a bit. If the monster army went after her, she wouldn’t stand a chance...and it was entirely possible Freid would send a number of them down to take her out.

Gah, there’s no end to this! But if this truly is the full might of Ehit’s army, then perhaps it’s worth using my trump card here after all!

After a moment of deliberation, Tio decided that now was indeed the time. Unfortunately, she still hadn’t managed to store enough power to use it, though she was close.

There’s no other way. I’ll just have to risk it! I have to be brave!

Tio abandoned the plan of slowly building up controlled amounts of damage and decided to risk an all-or-nothing play. If it was to protect Shea, her friend, she’d gladly take the risk.

“Come, Uranos! Let us decide once and for all if my breath is stronger than yours!”

Uranos turned and saw Tio gathering her pitch-black mana around her outstretched hands. With how much she was compressing into that one attack, it really did look like she was betting it all on one contest.

Uranos was more than happy to comply. Sparks ran down his entire body as he opened his maw and began charging his own breath attack. A whirlpool of light gathered in front of his mouth. He charged his breath seven times, and by then it was so dazzlingly bright that it blinded Tio.

The two of them loosed at the same time, just like when Tio and Uranos had fought a breath duel back in the Grand Gruen Volcano. However, the results this time were different. Tio’s breath was immediately blown away, almost as if she hadn’t put anything into the attack to begin with. She immediately crossed her arms in front of her and tucked her knees in, taking a fully defensive posture. But of course, that wouldn’t be enough to block Uranos’s ultimate breath attack. However, that wasn’t what Tio was trying to do.

“Huh?! Uranos, wait, don’t—!”

Realizing too late that he’d been duped, Freid called for his partner to stop. He didn’t know exactly what Tio was planning, but he didn’t like the determined look in her eyes.

Of course, Uranos wasn’t able to stop his attack on such short notice, so his breath swallowed Tio whole. The beam of light shot perfectly horizontally through the sky, obliterating all the monsters in its path and causing massive damage to any caught in the radius of its shockwaves. And yet—

“Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnngh!” Tio screamed in pain, but continued to withstand the burning light. It stripped away her scales with its devastating might, so she gritted her teeth as searing pain lanced through her unguarded body. The pain was enough to drive anyone else insane.

Tio could tell the edges of her body were being ground away by the light, and that she was slowly inching closer and closer to death. This was nothing like the joyous pain Hajime granted her while doling out “punishment.” Her body was literally being eroded away, and her primal instincts were telling her to escape. And yet, Tio continued to withstand the pain and hang on to consciousness by a hair’s breadth...until finally—

It’s time.

She reached the threshold. Tio immediately used some of the mana she’d gathered but hadn’t fired earlier to use another breath attack and blow herself out of Uranos’s breath. However, she didn’t have enough strength left to control her fall, so she tumbled to the ground, white smoke coming off every inch of her body. She then hit the ground with the force of a cannonball, kicking up a cloud of dust around her.

“Tio...san?” Shea’s trembling voice asked, prompting Tio to shoot her friend a smile. She was glad she’d made it before the monsters started attacking Shea, but she also felt bad that she’d made Shea worry about her.

Thus, the dragonman kept her tone light and replied, “Yep, it’s...me... Gah! The pervert everyone knows...and loves... Gack!”

“This isn’t the time for jokes! You look half-dead! Besides, no one likes you in pervert mode, Tio-san! The whole world thinks you’re creepy!”

“N-No one...likes my perverse ways? Amazing! Nothing hits the spot like an insult from your comrades! Haaah... Haaah...!”

Shea had been trying to feed Tio a healing potion, but seeing Tio enjoy getting insulted even in this situation was so off-putting that she backed away and gave her a sad look.

Fortunately, backing away was the right move, as a single white feather slammed into the ground where Shea had been crawling a second ago.

“Ow!” Shea yelped, dropping the healing potion. The feather had still grazed her hand, though it was little more than a scratch. The vial hit the ground and shattered, spilling its contents. Looking up at where the feather had come from, Shea saw Freid riding Uranos. The horde of monsters was so thick that no light was getting through from the sky above anymore. Some of them alighted on the ground around Tio and Shea, blocking them off horizontally as well. It looked like a writhing cloud of darkness was giving birth to monsters with how many of them there were and how they came down in streams.

“Your precious black dragons have run away. It looks like you don’t even have the strength left to control your familiars.”

Freid looked down at Tio as if she was nothing more than a pebble on the road.

“This is what happens to fools who oppose God. Die knowing that you fought in vain.”

Shea opened her mouth to argue back, but before she could, Tio started laughing maniacally.

“Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha—gh—ha ha ha ha!”

Shea turned back to Tio, then breathed a sigh of relief. She could tell from the look in Tio’s eyes that she’d purposely taken that last attack, so this was all part of the plan.

On the other hand, Freid glared at her in annoyance and asked, “Have you finally lost your mind?”

“I’m perfectly sane...don’t worry. It’s just so funny...how...confident you are... He he...”

Tio looked like an absolute mess, and her smile made her look even more ghastly, but she was so lively that it was hard to imagine she was on the verge of death. Moreover, the powerful resolve in her eyes hadn’t diminished one bit. Her slit-like draconic golden eyes stared right through Freid, and he unconsciously shrank back a little. The bad feeling he’d gotten right before Uranos’s breath hit her was getting even worse, and he felt a chill run down his spine.

“What can you possibly do in that state?” Freid asked. It sounded like derision, but at the same time, he couldn’t stand not knowing what was causing those chills.

Tio got to her feet, blood dripping from all over her body. Her tattered kimono was still barely covering the bits that mattered most, but her limbs were all bare. They were in an awful state too, with the flesh shorn away and the bones visible. Tio’s entire body creaked every time she moved. However, her confident smile was that of one who knew she still ruled the skies.

“Let’s put an end to this. You’ve lost,” Tio declared, pointing up at Freid all the while. A pulse of power then spread throughout the entire dimension, and all of the monsters momentarily stopped, as did Freid and Uranos. They all felt like they were suddenly staring up at a towering mountain. They watched on as a surge of black mana greater than any before erupted from Tio, not even realizing that they were unconsciously backing away. Instinctively, they knew that if they looked away from her for even a moment, they’d be obliterated.

Fear and awe washed over them. Just one pulse was enough to terrify them and make Tio seem like a looming monster, so naturally, the second pulse had an even more striking effect. As it washed over the monsters, pockets of them started tumbling to the ground, with those already on land collapsing. They couldn’t handle the overwhelming pressure Tio was releasing.

Then, the third pulse went out. The weakest of the Sanctuary’s monsters turned tail and fled when faced with its power. And it was at this point that Freid finally snapped back to his senses. As much as he didn’t want to believe it, he could clearly tell that the amount of power rolling off Tio far surpassed that of even his greatest creation, Uranos. Worst of all, her strength was still growing. In fact, the pressure was so suffocating that Freid’s entire body shivered in trepidation. His instincts were telling him he needed to get as far away from Tio as possible.

Wh-What’s happening? She should be on the verge of death! And yet...she’s as terrifying as that Irregular!

Tio picked up Shea, who was still having a hard time moving properly. Seeing Shea’s relieved expression was what made Freid finally realize that he may truly have been on the verge of defeat.

Shea turned to Freid and grinned at him while giving him the middle finger. Meanwhile, Tio stood surprisingly straight, her wounds seemingly not hurting her at all, and put a hand to her chest. In a quiet, somewhat reverent voice she muttered, “Thank you, ancestor.”

“Ngh, attack! Don’t let her do whatever she’s about to do! Kill her now!” Freid shouted, angry at his own cowardice. He couldn’t believe he’d been so overwhelmed that he’d actually given his opponent time to prepare her attack. He should have been bombarding her with constant blows to keep her busy and unable to set up whatever she was doing. Sadly, it was too late for regrets. Besides, though he didn’t know it, the result would have been the same regardless.

Uranos and the divine beast-tier monsters responded as fast as they could to Freid’s command, but it wasn’t fast enough.

“Behold,” Tio proclaimed as a rush of aurora breath attacks, gravity blasts, spatial shockwaves, and powerful lightning attacks rushed toward her. Not a single one of them reached her, however.

Tio’s mana transformed from pure jet-black to the glittering black of a starry night sky. It spiraled up from her in a resplendent pillar, deflecting any and all attacks, while also obliterating any monsters that happened to be directly above her.

Dumbfounded, Freid inadvertently took a few steps back. But just then, a booming, solemn voice echoed throughout the entire dimension.

“This is the pinnacle of power that I, Tio Klarus, have reached.”

As Tio’s mana reached the zenith of its ascent, it spread outward in waves, covering the sky like a veil of night.

“Impossible... You can control the weather?” Freid muttered. Strictly speaking, that wasn’t exactly what Tio was doing. Rather, she was creating weather from nothing.

A second later, flames filled the sky. They spread out to cover the dark canopy Tio had created, and within seconds, the entire dimension was dyed a flaming red. Tio had turned the sea of clouds into a sea of flames.

That was otherworldly enough as it was, but she wasn’t done yet. Tio then added lightning to her flaming sea, creating a roiling storm of death.

The roar of flames and the crackle of thunder drowned out all other noises. The monsters in the storm’s path were brutally, mercilessly, helplessly cut down without even a chance to defend themselves. Most of them had started panicking and trampling each other already, but Tio was just getting started.

Suddenly, there was a deafening boom...and Freid caught a glimpse of some giant thing waiting within the storm of flames and lightning. He saw it for only the briefest of moments, but he knew for sure he’d seen something covered in black scales.

“What...? What is that?”

There was, of course, no one who dared to answer his question. But at that moment, the creature swimming in the sea of fire and lightning revealed itself.

“Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

With a roar that seemed to rip through the very fabric of reality, a massive dragon with scales black as the night flew out of the storm, clad in a nimbus of fire and lightning. It was long and serpentine, like an Oriental dragon instead of a more traditional Western one. In fact, it looked more like the Leviathan that Hajime and the others had fought earlier than any dragon on Tortus. However, it was twice as large as the Leviathan had been. Moreover, it was a thousand times more imposing.

The black dragon—though it was so far above and beyond other dragons, even Uranos, that it was probably more fitting to call it a black dragon god—was, of course, Tio Klarus herself.

This was Tio’s ultimate spell—Dragon God’s Advent. It was the true nature of the power Tio had gained upon conquering the grudge remaining within the scale left behind by the very first Klarus. In exchange for amplifying the user’s destructive impulses and robbing them of all reason, it granted them enough power to transform into a dragon god.

After a fierce mental battle, Tio had mastered the scale and absorbed only its strengthening aspects without losing her reason. She’d then shaped that power to make sure the transformation put her in a form that suited her best. However, it took an enormous amount of power to activate this final transformation with the rage fueling it gone. Artifacts and evolution magic weren’t enough, which was why Tio had continued to endure Freid’s attacks. She’d been using the derivative skill of Draconification that only she possessed, Pain Conversion, to turn all the damage she received into energy. By pushing herself to the brink of death, Tio had finally stored enough power to activate the transformation.

This transformation worked similarly to Limit Break, massively boosting her mana reserves and increasing her stats over tenfold. As a result, Tio could now wield the almighty thunder magic of her ancestor, as well as her own specialties—wind and fire magic—which had been upgraded. She could cast spells of those three elements as much as she wanted without depleting her mana, and control any magic of that element within a five-kilometer radius around her. She could also control the weather around her and even freely change the shape and size of her transformation. Furthermore, she could use ancient magic with greater precision and strength than ever before.

She truly was fit to be called the dragon god. Unfortunately, she hadn’t practiced this transformation enough, so she could only keep it active for a minute. Plus, once it was over, she’d be as drained as Shea.

All that means is I need to end this fight within one minute!

She coiled around herself, her golden dragon eyes looking down on the remaining monsters. Most of them lost the will to fight just from that. Uranos roared in defiance, but even his eyes were clouded with fear.

Tio then let out another roar...and fire and lightning rained down on the swarm of monsters. Flaming tornadoes also rose from the ground, whipping up gale-force winds around them. Back on Earth, they would have been classified as F5 tornadoes. Entire clumps of monsters were sucked into the tornadoes, then reduced to ash by the blisteringly hot flames.

“Impossible! Impossible! Impossible! Impossible! Impossible! Impossible! This can’t be happening!” Freid shouted as lightning crashed down around him and tornadoes stripped away all the monsters surrounding him.

Tio had called herself the new Demon Lord’s woman, and it truly was a fitting moniker for the person who’d brought hell itself right into God’s domain.

Freid’s overly zealous faith couldn’t accept that Ehit’s authority was being overwhelmed in such a manner. Tearing out his own hair, he turned to his greatest creation and shouted, “Stop her, Uranos! Someone like her cannot be allowed to exiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiist!”

“Graaaaaaaaaaaah!”

With a roar, Uranos flew off toward Tio. He then opened his maw wide and fired off the strongest breath attack he could. However, even his strongest attack was hopelessly outclassed.

“This is the end for you, white dragon.”

Tio fired off a breath attack of her own, and this time, it was hers that won out. White and black clashed for only a second before the black came out on top, swallowing up Uranos along with his breath attack. Uranos wasn’t even given time to scream.

The beam shot straight through one of the floating islands down below, blowing a good chunk of it away, and continued onward to push below the sea of clouds. All that remained was the upper half of Uranos’s body, which was now broken on the ground next to where Tio’s breath attack had passed through.

“Ura...nos?” Freid muttered in disbelief, staggering backward through the air. However, no matter how many times he called out to his beloved partner, there was no reply...nor could he feel anything from his bond with Uranos.

When the reality of what had happened finally sank in, Freid screamed, “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

He didn’t even care that his millions of monsters were being wiped out at an unbelievable rate. Instead, he beat his pure-white wings and rose high into the sky. In that moment, he was so enraged that he didn’t even care about Ehit’s orders or what his faith demanded of him. And so, he unleashed the strongest disintegration beam he could at Tio while firing off as many spatial blasts as possible, not even caring if the excess burden fried his brain.

“Fool,” Tio said, though there was no contempt in her voice. It sounded rather cold, but there was a hint of pity in it. She then let out a roar, dispersing all of Freid’s attacks.

“Gah!”

As Tio’s roar washed over Freid, he felt as though he’d been shaken to his very core, making him involuntarily stiffen up.

A second later, a bolt of lightning shot down at him. He tumbled to the ground, unable to even redeploy his wings. As he fell, he stretched a hand out toward Tio, who was flying far above his reach. Freid hit the ground hard, bouncing a few times before coming to a stop. As he went flat on his back, he watched as his prized army of monsters was reduced to a number he could easily count.

He realized now that this was the end. His rage leached out of him, leaving him feeling empty.

Thoughts like, I’m God’s Arbiter; I can’t give up here, and At the very least, I should be prepared to take her down with me as I die a martyr, flitted through his head, but he remained in place. It wasn’t that he was too hurt to move; it was just that he couldn’t muster the willpower to try.

“Do you have any last words?” Tio asked in a rumbling voice as she looked down at him.

“I...”

Freid looked like he was about to say something, but in the end, he trailed off, unable to find the words. Instead, he simply shook his head, looking as though he’d given up on everything.

Tio said nothing more. There was a high-pitched whine as she gathered her night-black mana, and she fired a beam down at him.

Though that beam was dark enough to suck in the surrounding light, it also glimmered like a starry sky. Freid looked up at the light of his doom, enchanted.

“Hm?” Tio muttered...and suddenly, something jumped in front of Freid.

“Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

With a pained roar, Uranos bodily blocked Tio’s breath attack for Freid.

“Uranos!” Freid exclaimed. His beloved familiar should have already died. And yet, despite having only half of his body left, Uranos had coated his entire body in aurora light and was holding back Tio’s breath attack. While he was still slowly being burned away, considering the fact that Tio’s first attack had instantly bisected him, it was truly surprising that he was holding out at all. He was squeezing out every drop of his remaining life to protect his master.

As he was slowly burned away, Uranos turned to look at Freid. With the bond between familiar and master broken, Freid couldn’t hear Uranos’s words no matter what kind of metamorphosis magic he used. And yet, he could clearly tell what Uranos was saying.

“You want me to run?”

The look in Uranos’s eyes made it clear that he wouldn’t let his master die, no matter what.

In that moment, Freid thought back to why he’d volunteered to brave his first labyrinth, way back when he’d just been a regular soldier and not a general.

All I wanted was to save my people...to provide them a safe haven where they had nothing to fear, no war to fight... I simply wanted to be their guardian...so when did it all go wrong? When did I start putting the will of God above the safety of my own people?

Uranos was slowly being pushed back, so he glared at Freid, who was making absolutely no move to run.

After struggling desperately through the labyrinth and nearly dying dozens of times, the first monster Freid had turned into his familiar after acquiring metamorphosis magic had been Uranos. They’d been inseparable ever since. Even though that last attack should have killed Uranos, he’d somehow defied all logic and squeezed out the last of his strength to protect Freid. Even without magic to tie him to his master, their bond was still as strong as ever. And Freid had originally had a similar bond with all of his comrades.

He’d once had comrades who’d fought and died for a war that had been set up by the same god he now served. Upon realizing that, Freid shook his head. He’d finally returned to being the demon army’s top general instead of Ehit’s Arbiter.

“I’m sorry, but we’ll die together, partner.”

“Scraaaw!”

That tiny roar almost sounded like a, “If that’s what you want...”

“Could it be that you two have finally—?”

“The time for words has passed,” Freid said, interrupting Tio. He then reached a hand out toward the obelisk, and though he couldn’t quite touch it, it still began to glow.

“Very well, then. I shall make your death swift and painless.”

A second later, Tio’s night-black breath swallowed up Uranos and Freid. Not a trace of them remained, and Tio had no way of knowing what Freid had tried to do at the very end there...or perhaps succeeded in doing. However, judging by the resigned expression he’d had at the very end, like a mass murderer facing the punishment he knew he deserved, Tio doubted he’d been trying one last futile struggle. Or perhaps he had, but only to ensure Tio wouldn’t hold back against him.

No, I must just be overthinking things... Tio thought to herself as she stared at the spot where Freid and Uranos had just been.

“Had you not let yourselves be led astray by Ehit, you would have made a truly splendid pair.”

Tio didn’t regret killing Freid and Uranos one bit. However, they’d revealed themselves as worthy foes at the very end, so she wanted to give them the respect they deserved.

“I, Tio Klarus, shall never forget your final moments,” she said, offering a small prayer for their souls.