Berserk of Gluttony (LN) - Volume 6 - Chapter 14

Chapter 14:

Flaming Swords and Holy Beasts

IF I RELIED on Greed’s abilities alone, I couldn’t so much as scratch the holy beast. So, I turned to the Fireball spell, but rather than casting it directly, I imbued the black sword in my hand. As I did, the blade blazed with a reddish-black flame.

“This is how you’re going to get the party started?” asked Greed.

“I haven’t just been polishing my swordsmanship. I’ve been working on controlling my magic too.”

“Hmph. Have to admit, you’ve gotten better at it.”

Of course, I hadn’t just sat around doing nothing while we searched for clues to Myne’s whereabouts. Gluttony gave me access to magical skills, ones I hadn’t been born with. I therefore lacked innate control, and I’d really struggled to use them. Until now, I had only channeled them through Greed’s black bow, depending on his support to make the most of the magical spells I had acquired.

However, after enduring Myne and Eris’s training in Galia, I’d found a new goal. In that barren, desolate land suffocated with the stench of death, I’d mastered the ability to use the black bow without relying on Greed to aim for me, and as I grew more confident, I’d become ravenous with the desire to master my own magical spells in the same way.

The most important factor for controlling magic was one’s mind and the ability to clearly picture the desired effect. It was an ability I could hone while in the spiritual plane. Thus, each night as I slept in the real world, Luna and Greed watched over me as I practiced in the pure-white expanse of the spiritual plane. 

Through constant training, I had developed the ability to infuse magical attributes into the black sword. For this battle, I mimicked Miria’s flamberge by using the Fireball spell. Even though I imitated her technique, it was in fact far more powerful than Miria’s flaming sword.

“Let’s get to it,” said Greed.

“I’m ready.”

I dove under the holy beast as I looked for another opportunity to strike. From behind, the darkness crawled toward me, but I paid them no mind. None of them could hurt me because I was in the Domain of E, and I trusted Roxy to take care of them. 

“Fay!” she cried as her sword cut down the darkness around her.

“Thank you!” I called, my eyes still focused on the movements of the holy beast.

I believed in Roxy and knew she would manage the situation so that I could focus on the beast. Then there was Eris. The high-pitched rat-a-tat of gunfire rang out across the desert as several bullets flew toward the scorpion.

“Fate, I’ll open an opportunity for you to attack!” Eris shouted.

“I’m counting on it!”

“I won’t let you down.”

Eris’s bullets dealt no damage against the monster’s Divine Providence, but they did draw its attention, and with my fiery sword in hand, I closed in to make the most of this opening. But that wasn’t the only way Eris played support. She fired a volley of shots at the beast’s legs. Knowing that direct attacks were worthless, she instead sent clouds of sand flying up into the air. This pulled away the sand beneath the beast, forcing it to struggle to keep its footing. If there was a golden opportunity, it was now. As long as the holy beast fought to stay upright, I could attack from any direction without fear of a counter.

“Nice work, Eris!”

“Get in there and cut it down!”

I moved to strike. I made sure that I didn’t sink into the sand as I prepared to put everything I had into my blade. But even as the holy beast struggled to remain standing, its eyes focused on me. A shiver flew down my spine, and in the next instant, the scorpion’s tail appeared overhead. The stinger plunged toward me with blistering speed, intent on impaling. However, I didn’t bother trying to evade it, instead continuing forward. I still had the effects of the Phalanx Bullet buff protecting me.

I held the black sword low when the holy beast’s tail crashed directly into me. The shockwave seemed to compress the very air as a sound like breaking glass echoed across the night. I was unscathed, but the scorpion’s tail was sent flying backward. In that instant, Eris’s buff proved its worth. It was good enough to resist an attack from an enemy this powerful and still take two more hits.

I focused on a direct attack, raising my voice into a martial shout as I closed in. 

“Do it, Fate!” shouted Greed.

The holy beast’s stinger flew back at once, then again, finally eliminating Eris’s buff and leaving me vulnerable to further attacks. I wouldn’t get a chance like this so easily, but I was quicker than the scorpion. I sent the black sword flying toward the holy beast’s underside.

“Grrr…”

I grunted as I felt my blade once again repelled by the monster’s Divine Providence.

“What’s the matter, Fate?” asked Greed. “Is that really the best you’ve got? More, I say! More!”

But I was one step ahead. If this attack didn’t get through the monster’s Divine Providence, then I would increase the flame. I used Undivided Mind, a skill I had absorbed from the undead archdemon, a monstrous fragment of Shin possessing Rafale Vlerick. The skill gave me a pang of nostalgia, linked as it was to my memories of those events. But this wasn’t the time to dwell. The skill boosted my technical and magical skills by five times for a set period of time.

I had enough trouble controlling my Domain of E stats as they were, and the Undivided Mind skill made this even harder. I didn’t use the skill anywhere near the kingdom because I feared what might happen. However, here in the middle of the desert with Roxy and Eris by my side, I could unleash everything I had without any such risk.

“Nothing but desert as far as the eye can see,” said Greed, reading my thoughts. “So you can finally unleash the skill in all its glory!”

“I can already feel the surge in my magical abilities.”

“Don’t expect to be able to control it. It’s too much for you right now. Just focus on unleashing it. All of it.”

Greed was right. The rush I felt was beyond my ability to control. It was a power unlike anything I had ever experienced. The fire running along the black sword’s blade turned an impossible shade of bright yellow. I’d never seen a fire like it. This was a flame that could not exist in nature, glowing a color that could only be seen through magic. I stabbed it right into the beast’s Divine Providence.

This… It’s working!

I felt some resistance at first, but then the black sword began to gradually overpower the scorpion’s defenses. However, as I lost myself in destroying the scorpion’s shield, I heard Roxy cry out.

“Fate! Behind you!”

I felt a sudden, terrible premonition, but by the time I realized it, the scorpion’s tail had already snuck up on me. Without Eris’s buff as protection, the tail’s stinger would impale me with ease. In the next instant, several gunshots rang out.

“Hurry, Fate! I’ll keep the tail clear while you destroy its Divine Providence! Go!”

“Eris!”

With Eris’s suppressive fire, I returned my focus to wielding Greed. I knew that Roxy would in turn cover Eris by keeping the darkness off her. The sounds of her sword syncopated with Eris’s gunfire. They did everything they could to back me up, so now it was up to me not to let them down.

“Greed, you ready?” I asked.

“Who do you think you’re talking to?”

“In that case, I don’t care what kind of ‘providence’ this is. Let’s cut it down!”

Greed and I roared in unison as I poured all my power into my blade.

The blade pushed in faster as huge flames poured from it. The wall of light around the holy beast began to dissipate. When my blade at last came to a stop, the monster’s defenses had all but vanished.

“Keep at it!” said Greed. “We’re not done yet, are we?”

“We’re just getting started.”

Greed was talking about Undivided Mind, and he was right. We still had time before the buff faded. It didn’t only enhance magical skills, but technical skills too. In other words, it enhanced my tech-arts. The skill to use now was obvious. Still in my low stance, I leaped into the Sharp Edge tech-art.

Sharp Edge was a swift double-slice attack. First, I sliced upward, launching the holy beast’s huge red body flying into the air. Then, with Greed still alight with bright yellow flames, I brought the blade down in a devastating hard slash.

The scorpion came crashing back down into the desert sand, the impact sending shockwaves around it like an earthquake.

“Did you kill it?”

“You always act like you wouldn’t know right away. Quit it already.”

Greed’s words were meant to encourage me. But I couldn’t believe the strength of the holy beast’s exoskeleton. The black sword had cut through every enemy I encountered until now, but against the scorpion it did no better than leave a mere scratch.

“We’ve barely dented that thing’s armor,” I said.

“But no dents in my blade either, and you know what that means.”

“Yeah, yeah. You want to tell me I’m still not strong enough, right?”

“You read my mind. But at least you’re warmed up now. This place brings back memories, doesn’t it?”

It sure did. This was the desert where I’d first started training to control my Gluttonous urges. Back then, I’d intentionally starved and kept myself on the edge of hunger, only picking at the wandering sandmen like eating the crumbs off a plate. It had been excruciating, and each monster had hurt as much as a single drop of water for a desert-parched throat, but I grew used to it. I endured it until it was nothing at all. I had no intention of going back to those days, but it was time to feel that hunger again.

I took a deep breath and brought forth half of my Gluttonous hunger.

“Gah!”

A pain arced through my head like a thunderclap. Focusing on my stats, I felt instinctively that I had better control of them, even as I struggled with this strange sensation. Once I entered my half-starved state, my stats were under my control. The sudden strange headache subsided, and I was ready to go.

I watched the holy beast as it crawled out of the sand. The Sharp Edge attack had sent it deep into the dunes, but it climbed out with such ease that it was as if nothing had happened. The monster snapped its two claws in my direction, a threat. As it did so, it also lifted its tail, aiming its stinger directly at me.

The holy beast was different now. I felt a pressure emanating from it, telling me that it was in attack mode. Perhaps the change had come from breaking its Divine Providence, but I sensed that wasn’t the only reason. As soon as I unleashed the power of my Gluttony, I’d noticed a change in the way the scorpion moved. It brought to mind how Eris had become inexplicably nervous when she first heard me utter the words “holy beast.”

Eris bore a Skill of Mortal Sin, just like me. If there was some link between the holy beasts and our skills, then perhaps the monster standing in front of me had some kind of past linked to my particular power. But I could worry about that after I felled it. I tightened my grip on the still-flaming sword and settled into a battle-ready stance.