Mushoku Tensei (LN) - Volume 25 - Chapter 6

Chapter 6:

Kalman III vs. Dead End and Co.

I BOOTED UP THE VERSION ONE, then went after the North God. I devoted myself to the chase. Running through the forest, dodging past trees. As I ran, I dug deep for all the magic left in my body. I’d consumed a decent portion in the fight with the North God, but at that level, I shouldn’t have even used ten percent. I still had magic to spare.

Only, since earlier, the thundering that had gone on without a break the whole time we were fighting the North God had stopped. No matter how well-matched Zanoba and Dohga were to fight him, maybe downing a God-tier opponent had always been out of the question.

I hope they’re okay.

What if they weren’t? Then we’d have both the North God and the Ogre God to deal with. Would my magic hold out? Or would it cut out partway through like it had in the fight with Orsted?

No, the real fight comes now. Stop worrying about what comes next. Start with what’s in front of you, one thing at a time.

First up was my number one goal: North God Kalman III.

***

By the time I arrived on the scene, Sandor had already lost. He was on his butt with his back against a tree, limp, face down. There was no weapon in his hand. That staff of his was bent and lying on the ground nearby.

Alexander looked down at him. North God Kalman III had conquered his predecessor.

“How long are you going to keep playing this game, Dad? You know by now, don’t you? You don’t have a hope of beating me. Not without a magic sword-class weapon.” 

Sandor didn’t answer. Maybe he was already unconscious. Surely he wasn’t dead.

“Or is this another strategy? Playing dead. The eccentrics are all good at that, aren’t they? Doing whatever it takes to win and achieve their goal. I admire that approach. Though if I’m honest, I think Auber and the others went too far… You taught them that, Dad. Why do you reject me?”

Sandor didn’t reply. He just sat there, in silence.

“Well, it’s about time I was going,” Alec said and turned—toward me.

“…What?!” He looked like he’d seen a bear or something. I imagined what was going through his mind. I wasn’t expecting this encounter. There’s no way this guy can be here. That Magic Armor, how? It was broken. That was the sort of face he made.

“Listen here, my son, and I’ll answer that for you.” Only a few seconds had passed. As Alec stood there frozen, Sandor stood up.

“Playtime is over. You’re right, without a magic sword I cannot defeat you. That’s why I borrowed one from Eris. Only, it really is the bare minimum. With just a magic sword, I wouldn’t have much of a chance. So I waited. I held on and on, played dead, and waited. So that I could be sure of victory.” As he spoke, Sandor drew a sword from behind him.

It was Eris’ s second sword. The Magic Sword Eminence.

“You want to know why I refuse to accept you? You want to be a hero, but in that pursuit you sully yourself with deeds unworthy of heroism. If you want to be a hero, act like it. Don’t steal victory through underhanded tactics! Don’t buy fame by beating down the weak. Find an opponent greater than yourself, against whom you have no chance of success. Challenge them, win, and claim your glory. Not as I did, but as the first North God Kalman did.”

Sandor drew his sword from its scabbard with an air of lofty detachment and held it ready.

The Magic Sword Eminence was short. Wielding it, Sandor looked as mighty as befitted the name of North God.

Meanwhile, Alec shot a glance back over his shoulder.

“So that’s it. You were waiting for backup… Geese did tell me not to let Rudeus get into the Magic Armor. All he meant was not to let an opponent get into peak condition. You can’t seriously think you can win with just two of you against me and the King Dragon Blade?”

“Who said there were two of us?” Sandor said. As if in answer, the bushes behind him rustled, and out stepped a man and a woman. The woman had red hair, and the man green. It was Eris and Ruijerd. They must have regained consciousness while I was off getting the Magic Armor. They still had some visible injuries, but both were way tougher than me. Their injuries wouldn’t hinder them in a fight.

Eris glanced my way. The look she gave me was strong and loaded with meaning. It said she trusted me to have her back. Ruijerd gave me the same look. He hadn’t seen the Magic Armor before, but his third eye must have shown him it was me. He unflinchingly trusted me to support him.

And I would do exactly that. I’d support all three of them, including Sandor.

After all the effort of bringing out the big guns, of summoning Magic Armor Version One, all I was going to do was support. It felt a bit pathetic. Then again, this was how we’d done things since way back. Eris was front and center, Ruijerd controlled, and I ran support. We didn’t need to discuss it.

We had one extra in the mix, but we had a kick-ass lineup.

“Bring it.” At Sandor’s words, our second round with the North God began.

***

The first to attack was Eris. She struck at her typical top speed along the shortest possible arc toward Alexander.

Alec parried it. As the attacks continued, too fast for my eyes to follow, he parried them without breaking a sweat, from time to time throwing out a counter strike. There were no breaks between Eris’s attacks, but that was because I couldn’t keep up—there were openings.

He countered, but all his counters were rebuffed. That was Ruijerd. Every time Alec tried to exploit a hole in Eris’s defense, Ruijerd swung his spear and stole his chance. Ruijerd had become Eris’s shadow. No matter what misstep she made, so long as Ruijerd was there she had no weakness.

Except for how Alec sometimes ignored gravity. Just when you thought you had him off balance, he’d make some bizarre contortion leading straight into an unpredictable move. Immediately after doing a big, acrobatic maneuver to evade, he’d suddenly plummet back to the ground and be back on the offensive.

Even Ruijerd couldn’t keep up with moves like that. Those were the ones that Sandor blocked—Sandor, or the North God Kalman II, who was more familiar than anyone with gravity manipulation.

Must’ve been tough for little Alec. Sandor targeted him at the point he hit the ground, or when he was in midair. Alexander dodged the attack itself, but he couldn’t move the way he wanted. By burning energy on simple mischief, he ended up taking more hits. If he tried to put some distance between them, he’d get a faceful of my magic. He might be able to use the King Dragon Blade to throw off my Stone Cannon, which even the great Orsted hadn’t been able to dodge completely. By using the Stone of Absorption a split second beforehand I could delay his reaction and reliably get a few grazing shots on him. I wouldn’t get a direct hit, but an obviously dense barrage would slow him down and stop him from putting distance between himself and Eris. Alexander had deflected the Electric I’d cast with timing I thought was sure to hit, but I wouldn’t give him time to catch his breath. Thus, he wouldn’t have to time use his ultimate weapon from earlier.

“Ngh…!”

Alexander was faster and stronger than anyone else here. Maybe because he was in a hurry, maybe because he was panicking—he was sloppy. Every move he made was starting to show roughness around the edges. Our team, on the other hand, was sure and steady, and we were doing reliable damage. The battle was swinging in our favor. There was no need to do anything reckless—and besides, it’s not like there was any one big move that would definitively take him down.

So if we just kept on fighting like we were—eventually, he’d come apart. Both endurance and magic became depleted the longer you used them. Who’d pushed themselves the hardest since the fight began? Who’d had the least left in the tank beforehand? As the fight went on, those things always became clear.

A blow caught Eris across the face. It was only a scratch, but as time went on, the scratches mounted. Was she running on fumes?

No. There was a definitive weak point. Sandor. North God Kalman II, formerly of the Seven Great Powers, was our weak point. What could you expect? The third North God had hit him with his ultimate attack, after which he’d protected Eris and Ruijerd, then he’d gotten beaten to a pulp keeping North God Kalman III in place until we showed up. Even looking on from the sidelines, it was obvious that the vigor had gone out of his movements. He was still moving. He was still doing his job. Possibly he was keeping up purely because Alexander was being sloppy. He was human, after all, and humans have limits.

Eris was a given, but even me, with my Demon Eye of Foresight that let me read my opponents’ moves, and the legendary warrior Ruijerd were getting out of breath. This was a grueling fight. With every attack and counter, we walked on a razor’s edge. Another ten minutes might see Sandor reach his limit.

Thankfully, we had power to spare. Unlike before, I was wearing the Magic Armor Version One. My light of sight was elevated, making it easier to see the situation and expanding the area I could support. If Sandor went down, I’d shift from what I was currently doing to support him.

Timing it to his pattern of attack, I wove together an Earth Lance from directly below with a Vacuum Wave from directly above. I also upped the frequency of Stone of Absorption. Alexander could ignore gravity to move in three dimensions, but only because he had the King Dragon Blade. I had verified that the Stone of Absorption worked on the King Dragon Blade’s power. By using it more I’d be supporting less, but Alec’s range would be limited. That’d take about a third of the load off of Sandor. A big chunk, sure, but still only a third. It wasn’t enough for him to get his strength back and end the fight. Victory was still a long way off. I had to think harder.

…Should I just continuously deploy the Stone of Absorption? We’d lose my long-range attacks, but with the Magic Armor Version One I could do close-range combat too. If I shut down his acrobatic moves, that’d put us in a more favorable position…right? No, scratch that. Right now, Eris and Ruijerd and Sandor were confronting him at point-blank range. There was no room for the massive bulk of the Magic Armor. Even if I could match them for power and speed, without the skill to go with it I could just as easily trip them up.

What about buying time? I could give Sandor the chance to retreat and recover his strength. A few minutes, tops. That’d make a big difference, right?

Hold on… Alexander was still the North God. Even if he couldn’t control gravity, he’d still have the skill to fight. Duh. Gravity control wasn’t the core of his power. Even if, by shutting it down, I brought him down a rank, I was still two, or three, or maybe even more ranks lower than Sandor in close combat. Even with the Demon Eye of Foresight I couldn’t follow all Alec’s movements. I might end up placing a massive burden on Ruijerd and Eris. They were already starting to take minor wounds. The difference of a fingertip, a hair’s breadth, could lead to a severed artery.

Eris was fighting at full pelt. Since early on she’d been attacking without pause, and yet every strike went wide. Alec was just that good. It was possible she was tired from her fight with the Sword God, or that Alec’s ultimate attack from earlier had injured her somewhere, but as far as I could tell, Eris was giving the best performance of her life.

Only, I didn’t know how long she could keep it up. Ruijerd had only just recovered from the plague. I knew he’d been bedridden until only a few days earlier. His form was good now, but it was possible he’d suddenly collapse.

What should I do? We won’t lose, carrying on like this, but we can’t win, either. I’ve got my magic, but Sandor’s going to hit his limit some time. What should I do? How can I do this?

I agonized. Do I deploy a max-power Stone of Absorption and risk going on the frontline? Or should I try and break the deadlock with a different spell? Reset the board?

“Oof!”

Just then, Alexander’s target shifted from Eris to Sandor. Because he wasn’t blocking Eris’s blows as much, cuts striped across Alexander’s body. But of course, none of them could be a decisive blow.

I could see what he was after. He’d picked up on it too. If he took out Sandor, that would break the balance. If he just paid less attention to Eris and focused on bringing down Sandor, he could wrest victory from inevitable defeat.

Something chilling ran down my spine. Sandor would die. Then, Eris would die. Then Ruijerd and then, in a one-on-one fight, he’d kill me too.

We’d lose.

You should probably win this quick, then, don’t you think?

Panic flooded me, which I simply couldn’t afford right now. Anxiety made me doubt my actions and misjudge things. I started making little errors. Ruijerd managed to cover for me all the same. I was obviously a burden on him. This wasn’t working. I needed something, one decisive play.

Right as I thought that, it happened. The decisive blow came, right out of the depths of the forest.

First came a lump of gray iron. It came hurtling out, rolled like a ball, then crashed into a tree and stopped. The hunk of iron soon moved—its helmet was askew, its heavy armor was dented. Blood ran from its head and poured unceasingly from its nose. Its face was dazed. Still, it kept hold of its weapons, scrunched up its simple and honest face with all its might, and glared at the opponent that had thrown it.

It was Dohga. The next one to come hurtling along was a slim figure. He’d already lost his armor and was naked from the waist up. His scrawny frame looked like it might come to pieces the way he came hurtling by. He crashed into Dohga.

Zanoba.

Then came the decisive blow. It had red skin and long fangs and was close to three meters tall, a mountain of muscle that dropped down from above like a monkey. A weird sound, neither bam nor thud nor crash, resounded when the musclebound brute hit the ground nearby.

It was Ogre God Marta. The second I saw him, my whole body froze and a shudder ran through me. Disordered thoughts whizzed through my skull.

We were in a delicate balance. Why were they here? Could we win? Were we doomed? Should we fall back? Or should we attack?

“Hey there, Ogre God!” Alexander looked thrilled with this turn of luck. As soon as he laid eyes on the Ogre God, a beaming smile spread across his face. Seeing it made me wonder if he’d been panicking the way I had.

Right, we weren’t the only ones struggling. That delicate balance we’d had meant he must have been struggling himself. He wanted to press on but we’d pinned him down. He wouldn’t lose, but at the same time, he didn’t have a plan to break through. He wanted to use his ultimate attack, but he couldn’t. Dragging on in those conditions would take a mental toll even on him.

“Great timing!” Alexander said. The Ogre God looked grumpy. Grumpy, and like he was wondering what the hell we were doing here. Earlier, Alec had looked at me like he’d seen a bear. The Ogre God now looked like a bear seeing a human.

Oh, this was bad. This was a delicate situation, ready to collapse given another ten minutes, and now our enemies had increased.

“Mind helping me out here?” Alexander asked.

The Ogre God nodded.

***

We no longer had any power to spare. I had to provide support against two targets now, so I was constantly running around the battlefield. I caught an opening and managed to heal Dohga and Zanoba. Both of them had been losing against the Ogre God. He moved with unbelievable speed for his huge frame, and every attack sent one of them flying. Zanoba ripped up a nearby tree and threw it at him, but the ogre came back and tossed him away like it hadn’t done any damage at all. Dohga attacked with his giant axe. He might as well have been a mosquito for all the marks it left, then the Ogre God punched him back and he went sailing into the air as well. Dohga and Zanoba weren’t powerless, and yet he brushed them off like dust. His power was overwhelming.

Alexander kept his attack up without change. Sandor was eking out the very last of his strength to keep going, but somehow, he was holding his ground.

Okay, not “somehow.” Sandor wasn’t giving ground, but Ruijerd was getting tired. He was pushing himself too hard. This was bad. Real bad. We weren’t looking for a way to break the deadlock anymore. In a few more minutes, our line was going to collapse. We had to retreat. There was nothing behind us. We’d end up taking the fight to Orsted. Orsted wouldn’t die, of course. He could swat them like bugs…this time.

Are you sure, though? Are you sure about this? That means you lose. Are you really okay with that?

Was there really no way to improve the situation? I had to stop one of them at least. Think, Rudeus. There had to be something. If I used every trick I had, I had to be able to fight back.

After losing almost all my scrolls, I’d managed to get the Version One back. I had its gatling gun, its bulk, its speed, its power. Wasn’t there something I could do? Something, anything?

Anything…!

“Ugh!” Finally, Sandor fell to his knees. I stared at the Ogre God in despair. This guy was a runaway train. We would be doomed if I didn’t stop him here. I wanted one more idea. Just one more. We’d had a small and precarious advantage, now we were being pushed into a precarious disadvantage, but I could still turn it around. If I could do something about the Ogre God, Zanoba and Dohga could change out with Sandor, and we could bring him back to the backline to let him recover.

I just needed one idea. Just one.

“Aaaahahahahahaaa!”

Just then, a voice echoed around us, and at the same time, my shoulder grew hot.

Both Alec and Sandor’s heads shot up and they looked around, like they recognized the voice.

“Things are getting pretty interesting here, huh?” the voice said. A second later, something black leapt from the undergrowth. The figure, clad in black armor and with a sword in one hand, faced the Ogre God head on.

“Graaaaah!” They swung at the Ogre God. There was incredible noise, somewhere between a clang and a crack, and the sword broke. Blood gushed from the arm the Ogre God had used to guard against the blow and he tottered back a few steps.

“Haaa!” The black figure didn’t pay any attention to their broken sword. They closed in and threw a straight, sharp punch into the Ogre God’s gut.

“Oof…” The Ogre God doubled over for a second and the figure threw a left hook. His head snapped around and he stumbled, but he didn’t fall. Raising his uninjured arm, he punched the black figure. They went flying a few meters back, then spread their wings in midair, and landed lightly on the ground.

“Fwaaahahahaha! Good, good! I like that!” That was demon tongue, coming out of that black figure. I gulped.

“Lady Atofe…!”

It was Immortal Demon King Atofe. The most feared being on the Demon Continent was here in front of me.

“Why…”

She looked around at me and her face contorted into a savage grin.

“Heheheh. I smelt you were in trouble through my offshoot, so I thought the big fight must be close! I got here fast as I could! I’ve got no idea what’s going on at all, but I made it in time! The Ogre God and Alec…Heheheh, fwaha…ha, fwaaahahahaha!” Atofe cackled so hard you had to wonder what was so funny. Her unsettling laughter echoed around the forest and left Alexander stunned.

Offshoot? What offshoot…?

Oh, right. She was talking about the arm. Apparently, it hadn’t accurately conveyed the situation to her, but still, she’d made it. Atofe was here. We had all the firepower we needed.

We could win this!

“I, Immortal Demon King Atofe, will wipe every last one of you from the face of the earth!”

Not every one of us, please! Ah, crap. Moore isn’t around.

What about the rest of her personal guard? There’s no one to rein her in! She’s on the loose!

“Or, that’s what I’d like to do…” she muttered. She faced off against the Ogre God. He was close to twice her size. Atofe was tall for a woman, but the Ogre God was huge in every dimension.

“Ogre God Marta!” Atofe cried.

“Am I to fight you next, then?” the Ogre God replied in fluent demon tongue. He spoke with a dignified air that didn’t match his exterior. That’s God-tier for you, I guess.

“My personal guard has conquered your puny Ogre Island! Leave here quietly, or we slaughter them all!”

The Ogre God stared at Atofe in shock. He was trying to work out the truth. Was she lying? There was one thing I knew. There was no way Atofe was smart enough to lie.

“Me, I’m happy to kill them all! In fact, I like that way best! Yes! Killing them all is best! Now fight me!”

Atofe spread her arms wide and stood ready to fight. Maybe the Ogre God got the sense from her posture that Atofe was for real. His next move was dramatic. He seemed to coil…and then he leapt, like a monkey, up into a tree. He looked down at us from his new vantage point.

“Hey…! Mister Ogre God?!” Alexander spluttered. At that moment, the Ogre God looked at Alec for the first time. Like he couldn’t care less.

Then, he said, “Me, go home. Island in trouble.” He spoke in human tongue. He had a strong accent, like he’d only just learnt it. I guess the Ogre God was better at Demon Tongue than Human Tongue. Still, he was bilingual, so good for him. Atofe couldn’t speak human tongue at all! And she was fluent at speaking the Demon Tongue, but listening? No good at that in any language.

With that, the Ogre God jumped away from tree to tree and disappeared into the forest. Alexander watched him go, stunned.

He wasn’t the only one. Ruijerd, Sandor, and I all stared after him, wide-eyed.

Then there was one. Alexander, all alone. Left surrounded by me, Eris, Ruijerd, Sandor, Zanoba, Dohga, and Atofe.

The Ogre God had gone home. Just like that.

“Right, our enemy is alone!”

“G-Grandmother…”

His dad was his enemy, and his grandma couldn’t be reasoned with. You couldn’t help but feel a bit sorry for him in this situation, standing there, dumbfounded. He looked lost.

There was one person here who wasn’t sensitive enough to pick up on that sort of thing.

“Gaaah!” Eris saw an opening and struck Alec with all her strength.

“Ngh!” Alec guarded. He guarded. He didn’t evade or deflect, he tried to guard. He tried to guard against the Sword God Style’s ultimate attack, the Sword of Light. He tried to guard against an ultimate attack that was impossible to guard against.

Before I knew it, Alexander’s left hand was flying, spraying up blood. Around and around it went.

“Oh.” The arm landed with a thud on the ground. That became the sign for the fight to recommence, the decisive move. There was hardly any structure to the fight as it started again.

If Alexander had had both arms, maybe he could have turned this around somehow. But alas! The hand holding all his cards had been cut off and sent flying. Without a left hand, this high-level, precariously balanced conflict wouldn’t even be a fight anymore. And it wasn’t. It only took five minutes. Alec, covered in wounds, went running pathetically away.

***

“Hah…hah…”

It wasn’t a tactical retreat. With fear and ragged breathing, he fled as if from death itself.

This was the North God. You wouldn’t believe he was one of the Seven Great Powers. He was like a new hire who got into a good high school, then a good university, then got hired at a good company and only then for the first time experienced a setback. His flight was pathetic and frantic.

That was it for him. He had nowhere to run. After fleeing pathetically for an hour, Alexander was forced to circle back to the ravine. He was cornered. Five of us had been able to join the pursuit. The moment Alec ran, Zanoba collapsed and Dohga slumped where he stood. There were still five of us, though: Sandor and Atofe, Eris and Ruijerd, and me.

I could see the ravine. We weren’t at a narrow point you could jump across, but at a precipitous cliff at least three hundred meters to the other side.

There was nowhere to run, and we had all the strength we needed.

“Damnit…”

Was he backed into a corner? Was this an act? Alexander came to a stop at the edge of the cliff, breathing heavily. He looked like he was at his limit, but we couldn’t let our guard down. He’d lost one arm, but he’d started off wielding the King-Dragon Sword one-handed. When he had the King-Dragon Sword with its gravity manipulation powers, one hand wasn’t the disadvantage we needed for decisive victory. He might be hiding something up his sleeve.

I was one to talk, after getting my own arm cut off.

Alexander’s face looked frozen by fear. Still, he was the North God, so I couldn’t let my guard down.

“Come now, give it up. You can’t do it. You can’t get out of this.”

If Sandor was saying that…did that mean he really didn’t have a way to turn this around?

“That’s right! Now accept your death quietly!”

“Mother, I’m talking to Alec right now, so be quiet a minute, okay?”

“Hrmm…oh…”

She shut up at a word from Sandor. Atofe did what he said. Watching them, I was reminded again that these guys were family. Even if there was zero resemblance.

“Ahem… When you got your arm cut off after keeping your power in reserve to fight Orsted, you lost. I told you long ago to never, ever underestimate your opponent.”

He was defeated. He held back, and that was a mistake he couldn’t recover from. It happens a lot, y’know. Especially when you underestimate someone.

“Throw down your sword and surrender yourself. As your father, I will see you don’t come to harm.”

Kind words from Sandor. As your father. These past few years, I’d gotten weak to those words. Really, I couldn’t let it slide that this guy had attempted to slaughter all the Superd. He wasn’t a direct disciple to the Man-God, more like a disciple of Geese’s, and it was only attempted slaughter… If little Alec gives a tearful apology, then I guess… Though, hm. Even then…

He looked young. Just like Paul had been young. I didn’t know his actual age, but he had to be far younger than Paul was when I was born.

You could even call him a child.

Maybe…maybe if he applied himself to learn to be better from now on…

Then it hit me. Was a child like that going to quietly listen to someone talking down to him?

“I won’t!”

Yeah, thought not.

“I didn’t even fight with my full strength! The thing with my left hand was just luck! If the Ogre God hadn’t run, this would never have happened!”

“That’s why you lost.”

“What, so I shouldn’t rely on my allies?! You’re one to talk, fighting in a group like that!”

“A hero does not blame his allies. Your allies will aid you in your time of need, but even if you should lose their aid along the way, you win anyway,” Sandor said decisively, as though this were the only correct answer.

It was a strangely persuasive argument, perhaps because of that tone. I wasn’t up on the details of the kind of heroic legend he’d made for himself…but clearly, this man was a legend.

“That wasn’t the only reason you lost. Your strategy was flawed. You should have fought us with your full power and then retreated temporarily to fight again once you recovered.”

“As if chances to fight Orsted just show up every day!”

“Who told you that?”

Alec was struck silent with a look that said Sandor was right on the mark. It had to have been Geese. The Man-God couldn’t see Orsted, and Orsted had been widely believed to be missing for a long time. It was only because of who I was that I knew any old adventurer could go to Sharia if they wanted to see him. Maybe it was inevitable Alec would think he could only find him here, that this was his only chance to fight him. He was still so young. His claims to want to be a hero and his desire to surpass his father? I bet those stemmed from his youth, too.

There was no next time. He had to grab every chance that came before him. Of course he’d think like that. He was a bit aggressive with it, but I understood his mindset. Or at least, I assumed I did.

“You ought to have found some like-minded friends—or rivals—your own age.”

“Shut up!” Alec yelled, disgusted with Sandor’s pity. He raised his sword. Eris and the others raised their own swords, and I readied myself to cast more offensive spells.

Five against one. There was no hope he could win. Yet—

“No! I haven’t lost, not yet! Now, now’s when a hero turns the battle around! I’ll take you all down! Kill all the Superd! Then Orsted! I’ll kill the Dragon God and become a hero!”

The instant I saw some aura emitting from his sword, I raised my left hand.

“Arm, absorb.”

Gravity distorted, but only briefly. For a moment, I felt weightless, like when an elevator starts to move, but then I felt myself sucked back to the ground.

“Raaaaaa!” Next second, Alec swung his sword. All five of us, including me, scattered, leaping back.

Alec wasn’t aiming at any of us.

“Gah!”

His target was the ground. He struck the earth with the greatblade and broke it. An eruption of dust filled my vision for a second. Is he going to attack from behind the smokescreen? I wondered, bracing myself. Then, the Eye of Distant Sight caught a gap in the dust.

I saw Alexander falling backward, into the ravine…

No way, did he self-KO? Did he push himself into the ravine with his own attack…?

That wasn’t it. There was a smile on Alec’s face. A nasty smile. A victorious smile.

Oh…right.

Alec had fallen off the bridge, but he’d be back. The King Dragon Blade’s power was gravity manipulation. Even if he fell all the way to the bottom of the ravine, he’d have no trouble getting back up.

The next second, I jumped.

I jumped after Alec, into the ravine.