Chapter 465: O Dragon, O Dragon! Part 42

Author's Preface

God Eater 3 finally arrived and it's sucking my life away, it's crazy. Gotta love Lulu.

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"Hey, you bastard! Brace yourself, Siegwurm!! I'm gonna show you the true potential of manpower (Power of Mankind)!!"

『Oh? Then show it to me, this radiance of yours!!!』

A breath! The target isn't us...!? Gh, right, Brunbas!!

"A-Are you kidding me?! Do you know how much that cost?!"

『Fuhahaha!! Now, what will you do, archer?!』

As if posing a question, the unleashed golden light───

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Even if he had been warned a minute in advance that an attack was coming.

"Like hell a guy from a deserted island is gonna flinch at something like that...!!"

Instead of using the Type-Six Magitech Ballista, Yashirobird drew his own weapon, the Magitech Bow, to its absolute limit... and fired. In the exact same moment, he threw his weapon aside and leapt into the gunner's seat of Repnorca, honing his concentration to its absolute peak in a single instant.

The magic arrow collided with the golden light tearing through the whitening sky on a trajectory just barely offset from dead center. In that instant, the spell loaded into the magic arrow, 【Flare Arrow: Explode】, activated.
The magic designed to cause interference between mana sources and influence the opponent's attack seemed to misfire, having practically zero effect against the overwhelmingly disparate gap in power output.

"Gh."

The light pierced Brunbas's hull. However, its trajectory had been shifted just slightly—truly by the slimmest of margins—thanks to the preemptively fired Flare Arrow: Explode.

"I believed in you, Brunbas! I'll chip in for the repair bills too───!!"

Half of his body was scorched by the light, yet Yashirobird's eyes pierced through to his one and only target.
The hull shrieked and went up in flames, yet the shipwright's masterpiece Seafaring Ship creaked as if to declare it could still fight.

"...Right here."

With 90% of his HP deleted, despite half his body being burned—even if it was mitigated by the system—Yashirobird and Repnorca aimed with zero millimeters of deviation.
It was a peak of concentration that seemed to scream such pain wasn't even worth factoring in...

"───Ah, a perfect score."

And it was fired.

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『Gah………!!?!?』

The reply to the unleashed light was an arrow fired as a counter, tracing a line utterly devoid of hesitation, conveying Yashirobird's will far more eloquently than any words ever could.

『My word... Magnificent, truly magnificent!!!』

The shattered upper-right horn danced through the air and faded into particles. The flames visible in the distance starkly illustrated Brunbas's absolute limit and Yashirobird's dropout, but even so, that guy totally pulled it off at the very last second.

One golden hue vanished from the battlefield. Seems the theory about the horns being linked to the clones was right on the money.

"Blow him……… a-waaaaay!!"

Who yelled that? Oh, it was me. The clear score spiked the voltage among the Pioneers into overdrive.
Four horns left! After watching your moves this entire time, it's painfully obvious! The amount of horns is the core behind that annoying-as-hell skill nullification and magic nullification, isn't it?!

"Rei-shi! What about Armageddon?!"

"I have... something even more amazing!"

"Even better! Emul!! Time for the 'trump card'!!"

"Yes! Siiiir!!"

Nostalgic. Come to think of it, when we fought Lycaon's clone, Rei-shi, Emul, and I all started moving simultaneously just like this too.

"I can see you, you pervert! Hand over that 'mana'!! 【Exceed Charge】!!"

"This is my trump card! 【Cluster Magistorm】, desuwa!!"

"───I sing of my black half."

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Yeah, exactly. Full-Dive VR, when you ruthlessly boil it down, is just a system that pumps brainwaves into your head to make you hallucinate a clockwork dream.
So, if someone is watching you, you can recognize it in return. You can't connect a phone call completely one-sidedly; if you transmit, a receiver will inevitably exist.

Which is exactly why, right now, with my tension skyrocketing and my brain firing so hard it feels like it's burning up, I can somehow tell that I'm being bathed in gazes.
Including that strangely sticky, creepy gaze that hasn't wavered from me for a damn while now!!

With my physical strength boosted by the aggressively potent poison from Centipede Type Tausend, I dual-wield the halberd and buckler, hoisting the blooming mirror shield—activated via voice recognition—in the direction of that gaze.

"───"

I can't hear a voice, but the magic that came flying through the gaps between players definitely crashed right into Dis Pater as if being sucked in... and upon absorbing that mana, the Nether-King's mirror unlocked its true power.

"Convert!!"

Shrouded in blue flames for phase one, I let go of Tausend, slipping the back of my hand underneath the slightly airborne halberd before it drops, bouncing it back up again.
In the split-second my right hand is free, I strike my chest, activating Levin Trigger: Hazard.

『I shall evaluate the reckless bravery of standing before me clad in Genesis... However!』

"Ghh......... What I dream of is the abyssal source, the black god solitary in his arrogance."

That's right, no need to stop your chant. Even as his scales were being chipped away by Emul's hailstorm of magic, his eyes glared solely at Rei-shi, energy akin to fire spilling and overflowing from the edges of his maw.

"...Phew............... Look at that, it's dawn."

I plant Tausend into the ground, and the light of dawn strikes the hoisted Lumeridian.
Instantly, the crimson curved blade vanishes as if crumbling away. In its place, snapping and crackling, an azure straight sword blade generates from what was the pommel during the night.

"Are you sure you want to be looking away from me, Siegwurm? Because right now, I'm going to... cross the critical point."

I see, so I'm not even on your radar. Then... there's no time left for regrets!!

"Bradyon!!!"

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Step one. My body instantly accelerates off the ground, exposing me to a world of such high speed that, without the skill's assist, everything would stretch out and blur into absolute nothingness in a microsecond.

The fully swung Lumeridian slams into Siegwurm's horn, and my body rockets away from him at an even greater speed.

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At first, Psyger-100 mistakenly thought Sunraku had used a teleportation spell. And before she could even mutter "Why?", the first sound echoed out.

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By the time the opening attack landed, my body was already moving to prepare for the next one.
Step two. Stepping onto the sky with heaven and earth inverted. Unlike canceling out momentum by accelerating in the exact opposite direction upon landing, this was, so to speak, forcing my retreating body to comeback straight toward Siegwurm in an extremely sharp, acute turn, like a superball bouncing off a wall.
Long time no see, been about 0.5 seconds? Here, it's not much, but please accept this Sever and Divide.

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Rust witnessed the spectacle. Because she was positioned slightly back from the absolute frontlines, she could see it from a bird's-eye view.

Something like a bullet was fired from the ground, only to somehow ricochet off absolutely nothing in midair...

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Vash was right on the money. Truly understanding the properties of the materials is the key to fully mastering a Re-Legacy weapon.
Tausend's enhancement method relies on poison intake. Meaning, letting go of the weapon doesn't instantly cancel it... Instead, the buff runs out exactly when the poison injected into your body is depleted.

That's why I'm gonna make it in time. I scrape together the remaining dregs of the buff lingering inside my body and sprint completely through this singular instant. I slam the third hit in... Ah crap, Lumeridian slipped right out of my hand. Oh, but man, I'm good; my hand is already operating the window.

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Deep Slaughter couldn't stop laughing. I see, taking bidirectional recognition into account, it wasn't impossible, but to think he actually saw right through my presence!!

Ah, it truly is Sunraku. It has to be Sunraku.

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Even the time it takes for a weapon to transfer from the Inventoria feels agonizingly slow. Ah, I can't wait anymore. I grab Duxram, which had only completed deploying on one side, and smash it into the exact same horn I'd already hit three times. A critical hit. I can't actually see it since my body is blasted away in the very next moment, but I can tell from the tactile feedback.

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Psyger-0, while continuing her incantation in complete faith of Sunraku, undeniably saw it.

"The throne is but one, the logic is also but one. Therefore, my right half is the black......... logic."

So vivid she nearly botched her chant on instinct—a "star" of visual effects drawn across the sky───

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That was unequivocally a pentagram carved by clashing blades. An ultra-hyper-speed maneuver that can only be pulled off when three things align: Bradyon, Quantum Gaze... and absolute peak, maximum tension. This time, it's the kamikaze attack version with zero regard for survivability! Eat this—an effortlessly annihilating Greed-Fueled Slash...!!!

I slam down the fully deployed second blade with every single ounce of my strength. Drop your component crystals, you bastard!!

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The players saw it. The NPCs saw it.

"Vluegh!"

The small shadow that let out a bizarre sound and got blown away after drawing a pentagram in the sky.

『What………!!!?』

And the sight of two of Siegwurm's horns shattering into pieces, leaving him genuinely astonished and completely speechless.

And then,

『Specified speed observed. Conditions met.』
『You have acquired the Title 【Speed Holder (Maximum Speed)】』

The exact moment that an unprecedented, completely vacant seat was finally filled.

Author's Afterword

A pervert flying off with the trajectory of a boomerang thrown by an amateur.
Conditions met via the 5th step of Bradyon + Tausend's buff + Dis Pater's buff + Overflow's self-doping. If you do this indoors, there's a 60% chance you'll become a stain on the wall or floor.

By the way, the effect of Dawn-Glowing Blade is "Deals additional damage to the attacked part based on the amount of moonlight absorbed during Night-Glowing Blade mode." It explodes when you slash.

Translator's Notes

• [1] GE3: God Eater 3 released around the time this chapter was originally published. Lulu (Lulu Baran) is one of the main characters.