Act Six: The Lion and the Dragon
“The kingdom’s Superiors are approaching Gloria.”
“Weeell, it ceeertainly toook them a whiiiile.”
“I have no intention of stopping her, but if she really does reach the capital, we shall have to rethink our schedules going forward. Though, I imagine that the disappearance of a whole country would act as a powerful dose of smelling salts.”
“So you don’t care either way, Jabberwock?”
“Indeed I don’t, No. 3... Queen... whichever you prefer. Though, I would be troubled if we don’t produce a single new Superior.”
“‘Troubled,’ huh? Hmph. I’d say that whether or not it happens is up to the Superiors. Let’s observe the true power of the ones they favor.”
“Very well.”
“Though, no matter how strong they are, Gloria... ‘The Glory SelectE.R.’ cannot be stopped.”
Kingdom of Altar, Nowest Canyon
The Nowest Canyon to the northwest of the royal capital was a place where few dared to tread. Even those who traveled from the now-destroyed city of Claymill to the capital would detour directly south to reach the Wez Sea Route and follow it eastwards.
The reason for taking this roundabout path was simple: the Nowest Canyon was a land of giant fissures as wide as one kilometel, as long as several kilometels, and as deep as several hundred metels.
It was said that this place was unnatural. Many believed that these cracks were the scars of a fierce battle that happened at the sunset of the pre-ancient civilization. Regardless of its origins, though, Nowest Canyon was an unwelcoming landscape rife with creatures of a higher level than the surrounding areas, making it difficult to traverse and even more difficult to build on. That made it a roadless, empty land inhabited only by monsters.
Of course, there were beings that had no trouble passing through the scarred terrain.
After destroying Claymill, Gloria headed for the capital directly through the Nowest Canyon.
The dragon was moving through a fissure large enough to hide its gargantuan frame. Its steps were confident and full of vigor — it had closed its wounds and restored its heart during the day it had dedicated to healing itself. Its wings and tail were still gone, but that didn’t affect its walking speed or the lethality of its Fatal Field, which killed all the creatures around it.
Gloria had surpassed the limits of the animal kingdom, and neither the land itself nor the other monsters could stop it now. Any creature that could stand up to it would have to have similarly transcended those limits.
“...It’s here,” he — Over Gladiator, Figaro — said, sensing Gloria’s oppressively majestic approach. “Yeah... It looks really strong.”
As someone who regularly raided the Tomb Labyrinth solo, Figaro had reached its lower levels many times and encountered a decent number of UBMs there. He’d even come across and defeated several Mythicals, including the most powerful foe he had faced so far — the creature that erratically wandered the dragon area: Extinction Dragon King, Drag-Fin.
Figaro was no doubt accustomed to powerful UBMs, but the pressure emitted by the SUBM approaching him was in a class of its own.
Drag-Fin had been a massive creature fully worthy of the title “enemy of all life,” but it paled in comparison to this ominous golden dragon. The videos didn’t do it justice. Now, seeing it with his own eyes, he understood just how immense it was.
The gap in their power was obvious. Even a berserker like Figaro knew that facing it alone would be sheer stupidity.
Despite that...
“Still... I’ll go first. By myself.”
...He’d resolved to fight on his own. His fatal flaw was one of the reasons for this, but even without that, he would’ve made the same decision.
Figaro had also sealed away one of his specialties.
Dance of Anima — one of the skills of his Superior Embryo — improved his equipment the longer the fight dragged on. Because of this, he had the option of engaging in a warm-up battle to power up and close the gap between them before fighting Gloria head-on.
However, he didn’t want to do that. So, he chose not to. He would fight alone, without any head start.
After all — to him, this was a duel against Foltesla.
Figaro and Foltesla had begun dueling and rising up through the rankings at the same time. They’d piled on victories and losses, coming out ahead or falling behind each other like the rivals they truly were.
They’d become good friends through their dueling. Theirs was the kind of friendship that could only exist between equal, competing rivals, and it was quite unlike what Figaro had with Shu.
But when Figaro defeated the previous champion, Tom Cat, Foltesla became unable to challenge him in a ranked duel. Only the second-ranked duelist could challenge the duel champion, and Foltesla couldn’t get the position due to his incompatibility with Tom Cat.
Despite that, Figaro was sure that Foltesla would eventually take his position.
Many believed that the gap between them had become insurmountable the moment Figaro evolved into a Superior, but Figaro himself didn’t believe that to be the case.
He continued to view Foltesla as an equal.
Figaro believed that while he kept his title and improved himself, Foltesla would also experience immense growth.
His rival would eventually surpass Tom Cat and fight Figaro for the title of champion. Figaro believed that with complete confidence, and the two even swore that they would one day face each other in that battle.
However, now it was clear that the day of their showdown would never come, for everything that Foltesla held dear to his heart had vanished along with the fortress city.
Figaro was sure that his rival would never return to this world. Thus, he knew that this would be their final battle.
“Let’s do it, Foltesla,” he said, as Gloria came into view.
Despite its powerful presence, Figaro actually didn’t see Gloria as his true foe. To him, it was just a target... a tool in his duel with Foltesla. The dragon was nothing but a means through which he would battle his rival in a time attack.
“Let’s begin. You were defeated, so you have no time attack record. Your notable acts include taking its wings, tail, heart, and right eye. To win against you, I will go beyond that.”
Time attacks tracked how well the duelists did against a monster of the same type, and they received a score even if they were defeated. To surpass Foltesla, who went as far as destroying a heart, Figaro had only one possible target.
“...I’ll take a core,” he declared, deciding that he would aim for the part that gave the most points on monsters that possessed it.
And Figaro already had his eyes set on a single head out of the three.
He’d chosen the one-horn. It released the devastating breath of light that had destroyed all those defending Claymill, clearly making it the head with the greatest offensive power. As long as that head existed, Gloria would have the ability to instantly kill anything in the path of its light breath, and every wound dealt to it would potentially be fatal to its attackers.
Logically speaking, if you wanted to defeat this dragon, the one-horn had to go first.
However, Figaro’s reasons for targeting the one-horn weren’t strategic. He was looking directly at the head’s right eye.
There was a deep wound there, along with a scab-like covering of mythical metal — the molten remains of a greatsword. It was all the proof Figaro needed that this was the head Foltesla had fought until the bitter end.
It was the head the King of Swords had tried to conquer, and the head that had finally defeated him.
That was the only reason Figaro needed to target it, and the reason he would give everything he had to tear it off.
“Let’s do this,” the champion said as he brandished a spear in his right hand.
“FfrRrrRrrrRrRrrRr,” Gloria rumbled, acknowledging its enemy and rearing up on its hind legs.
“Fight.” Figaro declared the start of the duel.
“FRHSssSSsSsHeeEAAHhhHH!” The dragon unleashed its breath of light as the champion charged towards it.
Gloria’s breath melted a part of the canyon, causing a cliff to crumble. The sound of it could be heard even outside of the Nowest Canyon.
“...It’s started,” said the man standing atop a giant battleship — King of Destruction, Shu Starling.
He had it parked outside the canyon and waited in it, silently.
“Sure ya shouldn’t help the prince?” There were 34 people gathered around Baldr. They were all members of the kingdom’s top clan, The Lunar Society. All the clan-cult’s level 500s and above had gathered to fight and defeat Gloria. Naturally, the leader and sub-leader — Fuso Tsukuyo and Eishiro Tsukikage — were among them.
“I’m pawsitive. In fact, I don’t want you getting anywhere near them until his battle ends,” said Shu.
“But going against it alone is suicide. Solo-only players are so annoying.”
Shu, Tsukuyo, and Figaro. Albeit for different reasons, the three top rankers of the kingdom had all gathered in a single place.
Figaro had been the first to arrive, and he’d immediately jumped into a crack in the canyon to face Gloria alone.
Shu was close behind him. As Figaro’s good friend, he had an idea why the champion would challenge and fight the dragon alone, so he knew it was best not get in his way.
Tsukuyo and her clan were the last to arrive, and Shu also took it upon himself to keep them from interfering with Figaro’s fight. They had no real reason to listen to him, so at first they had tried to follow Figaro, but Shu struck a deal with them to keep them out.
“So, trash panda, we can go right after that sickly noble takes out the one-horn, right?”
“Fur sure.” Indeed — they’d agreed on an order. Thanks to the data gathered by the Babylonian Battlegroup, they had a fairly good grasp of Gloria’s nature. The one-horned head released an evaporating breath, the two-horn spread out a deadly field, and the three-horn increased its stats as its HP went down.
The one-horn had to go first, as it made Gloria more dangerous the more wounds it received.
The second one that had to be destroyed was obviously the three-horn, as it increased the dragon’s power as it came closer to death. There was no good reason to leave it until the end and allow Gloria to become as powerful as possible.
Finally, with the one-horn and three-horn gone, only the two-horn would be left, and that had no effect on those who were max level or above. Without the one-horn and three-horn, the two-horn would be easy pickings, for without the head that enhanced its power, Gloria could only become weaker.
Also, it was likely that Gloria had a core in each head, and with standard UBMs, the core’s destruction was a major factor in MVP selection. After the recent incident with Twin Moby Dick in Granvaloa, it had become widely known that SUBMs gave out several MVP special rewards. Gloria was presumed to have a core for each head, meaning it may give a special reward for each core.
That meant that you could become MVP multiple times. This was just a theory based on very few examples in the past, but even the chance of it being true convinced Tsukuyo to aim for the destruction of both the two-horned and three-horned heads.
However, the one-horn stood in the way of that goal. Its deadly breath of light made fighting it extremely risky, especially for group fighters like The Lunar Society.
Because of this, Shu and Tsukuyo had agreed that after the one-horn fell, he would let The Lunar Society take both the two-horn and the three-horn.
If Figaro was defeated after taking out the one-horn, Tsukuyo would go next.
If Figaro failed, Shu would give his all to finish off the one-horn, then leave the rest to Tsukuyo.
Thinking that two battle-focused Superiors had a good chance of taking out a single head, she had gladly accepted this deal.
“But what if Prince Meathead attacks one of the other heads?” Tsukuyo asked.
“Ain’t happening. He’ll fight the one-horn,” Shu replied.
As his friend, Shu knew Figaro well; he was fully aware of Figaro’s relationship with Foltesla. Thus, he didn’t doubt his own judgment here one bit.
“Hell, you should be worried about him taking out all three of the heads.”
“There’s no waaay. That’d be inhuman.”
“It would be, fur sure. But...” Shu acknowledged Tsukuyo’s words before continuing. “...You know he’s the kingdom’s strongest, right?”
His words were brimming with confidence in his friend’s ability.
The battle between Figaro and Gloria began with the dragon instantly releasing its breath of light.
The monster’s Fatal Field came with the ability to gauge the levels of its targets, which told it that Figaro was the most powerful creature it had encountered thus far. In addition to that, it could feel the immense Resources he carried in the form of MVP special rewards — the remains of other UBMs.
Gloria had no reason to hold back against a foe like that.
“OVERDRIVE!” Its single horn glowed red as the head beneath it released the breath that had extinguished the tian elite and the entire city of Claymill.
The neck danced, and the fatal light moved along with it.
“I know this,” Figaro said, narrowly evading the lightshow of certain death as he closed in on Gloria at beyond supersonic speed.
Figaro’s thoughts — no, his battle instinct — told him that, while the breath moved at the speed of light and was thus undodgeable, the head releasing moved far slower than the speed of sound. As long as he watched the creature’s movements and kept running at supersonic speeds, the head would never hit him. He simply had to focus on taking advantage of the slowing of experienced time caused by supersonic movement to avoid the subsonic beam of light moving towards him.
The slightest touch and it would be all over for him. But by putting that thought out of his mind, he was able to approach Gloria without any hesitation.
It was a manifestation of the battle sense and instinct that he was born with, but could never use in his real life.
“I’ll start with this. ■■■■, ■■ ■■■■ — ■■■ ■■■■■■!”
Figaro muttered something and threw the spear in his hand at Gloria.
It was a Legendary item with fantastic stats, but it didn’t scare Gloria in the slightest. No matter what skills it had, the dragon knew that something like that would never kill it.
It wasn’t an incorrect assumption. Dragonhowl Spear, Drag-Song had the ability to destroy matter using shockwaves, but it wasn’t powerful enough to be effective against Gloria.
The one-horn head was so confident that it almost smiled as the spear approached its long neck... and it took a moment for it to realize that the spear had torn a good half of the flesh away from its neck.
“Ggha... ah...?” With half of its mass gone, the neck folded forward so far it nearly crashed into the ground.
But when the one-horn’s third eye noticed Figaro’s approach, it quickly recovered, supported its head, and released its breath on him.
Figaro evaded the attack before using Instant Wield to equip a new weapon — an Epic throwing ax called “Whirlwind Ax, Fulgore.”
As he avoided the storms of light, he swung and threw it, just like he’d done with the previous weapon. It spun at immense speeds as it flew towards Gloria’s neck, drawing an elliptical trajectory and gathering wind that soon became a storm.
This also didn’t seem capable of dealing any significant damage to the dragon, but the one-horn had learned the hard way that appearances could be misleading.
“FRHhSshhEeeEAAhHhhhHHhh!” The one-horn showered the ax in light, evaporating it and instantly eliminating it from the world. However, before it vanished, it created a disturbance in the air strong enough to shake even Gloria’s massive body.
It forced the dragon to totter straight towards...
“Gouging Draconic Spinfang: Drag-Spiral.”
...Figaro himself, who’d used Gloria’s momentary focus on his ax to close in on the dragon.
He shoved the lance in his hand into the dragon’s left heel.
The name of this weapon was “Drilldragon Lance, Drag-Spiral,” and it was an MVP special reward he’d gotten from an Ancient Legendary “Drilldragon King” of the same name.
“Gouging Draconic Spinfang: Drag-Spiral” was its only skill, and all it did was penetrate matter. The drill-like tip easily pierced Gloria’s tough scales and spun around rapidly, scattering flesh, shattering bone, and rupturing the entire hindlimb.
“FHRrruuUUuAaaAAaaAArRrgGHHHhhHhH!” The sudden, unexpected loss of an entire limb made Gloria collapse.
If it was capable of words, the only thing that would’ve gone through its mind would be “Impossible!”
Knowledge of UBMs and special rewards had been etched into its instincts. Therefore, considering the ranks of the UBMs that had become the rewards, there was no way they could have done this much damage to it, even when used by someone as powerful as this particular wielder. This could only mean that he had some mysterious other ability that was capable of closing the gap.
Its instincts were exactly correct.
Figaro had already used an ace up his sleeve that brought him closer to Gloria’s level — an ability that was a double-edged sword.
As it collapsed, Gloria noticed that the lance that had destroyed its limb had shattered. As an SUBM, Gloria understood what the lance was, and concluded that it was looking at an empty shell.
The concept, the soul, the Resources that made up every special reward — none of it was there anymore.
The remains of the lance left no hope for its recovery.
It was as though the entire special reward had been used up for one single attack.
“Gh...” Figaro staggered in pain right where he stood.
“It... It really does hurt.” Gloria hadn’t actually hit him once so far. Despite that, his body was criss-crossed with wounds, as though it had been burned all over.
Gloria’s breath of light didn’t allow any heat to escape, making this kind of burning impossible; upon closer inspection, one might notice that he had no external wounds at all.
All these burns had been caused by something within him. It was as though the blood running through his veins had become pure fire.
This was the price he paid for the ace up his sleeve — lost special rewards and countless burns.
“The thirty seconds are up. Judging by my max HP... I have two more uses.”
Figaro had pain set to on, so to him, he really was being burned alive from the inside.
Even so, he showed no fear. Bearing the injuries, fighting the pain, and losing his weapons, Figaro glared at the one-horn with fighting spirit in his eyes.
“This is the second one.” He wielded his double-edged sword once more, speaking the name of his life in this world...
“Burn, My Soul — Cor Leonis!”
...And the name of the Superior Embryo based on the star known as “the heart of the lion.”
Sometime In the Past
On a particular day a few weeks after defeating Tom Cat and becoming the duel champion, Figaro woke up in Infinite Dendrogram, as usual, and noticed he had changed.
The body he woke up with was completely unlike the body he’d gone to sleep with.
The Extinction Dragon Spear went straight into the one-horn’s forcefully-opened throat, infecting all of the one-horn’s cells.
The concept of Drag-Fin’s power was forcefully initiating apoptosis — the self-destruction of cells. In exchange for the spear’s obliteration, the power of this skill was amplified such that it spread faster than you could blink.
“GHH.” The three-horn was quick to act.
It went and tore off the one-horned head before the infection spread any further.
All things considered, it was too late to save that head, anyway.
It crumbled, turned into light, and vanished, not leaving a single word or sound behind.
This was the conclusion to the battle with the one-horned head. Gloria had lost one of its heads, as well as its greatest weapons — Overdrive and Fang of Gloria.
However, Figaro was fading fast because of his own ability, too.
The one-horn and Figaro had effectively defeated each other.
“Foltesla...” he muttered. This was also the conclusion to their duel. However...
“...Which one of us won?”
Figaro was the one who’d defeated the one-horn. However, Foltesla had given him the necessary data, as well as his final chance at victory. That meant that this time attack was invalid.
“I can’t say that I won this on my own...”
And...
“Let’s... Let’s have another duel.” ...Figaro was certain that this wasn’t their promised fight, after all.
“One day... when you return to this world... let’s have a real duel.” As he hoped for the day to come sooner than later, Figaro’s body dissolved into particles of light.
The ultimate skill had burned off all of his HP. All that was left was for him to vanish, and as he did, he looked out of the canyon — at the person who was watching over his duel.
“This is it for me. I leave the rest to you, Shu.”
Entrusting the battle to his other good friend, the Over Gladiator, Figaro, took his leave from the battle against the Tri-Zenith Dragon, Gloria.
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