Chapter 890: December 20th: Legend Has It, Certain Victory Lies In Flight.
Author's Preface
As a result, if I update 4 chapters...! The books will be balanced...!!
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The Imperial Gold Sword reflects the properties of the consumed metal directly onto its blade. As a rule, it can only consume one ore at a time, meaning I can't just feed it a hundred ores and call it the strongest sword on earth.
But the thing I fed it this time is Amursidian Quartz. In terms of sheer hardness, it sits at the absolute top class for a single metal.
The most necessary thing in this matchup is a blade that won't buckle even when clashing head-on against that tower shield!!
I could've used the Final Blade of Aspiration's End With the Hero...... no, to be completely honest, I just don't have the confidence to consistently land critical hits against Garunose.
Infinite durability fueled by critical hits is impossible in PvP against a guy who excels at "taking hits"...... especially against a shield user, unless I overwhelm them with a sheer difference in levels.
Shield, shield, shield, huh......... if it was just that single shield, I'd have the option of forcibly smashing through it, but realistically, he's not going to let me do that so easily. I could break his guard and immediately hammer in an attack, but...... this is a guy who can parry with his elbows.
If that's the case, well, guess I'll just go with the original plan.
"Alrighttt!!"
I forcefully hurl the Imperial Gold Sword I had just so boastfully shown off straight up into the air.
And at the exact same moment, Garunose charges madly toward me. It looks like a brisk walk at best, but I've already experienced firsthand how that movement can suddenly accelerate or execute sharp turns. In that case, I'll do this!!
"!!"
The thing I had pulled out at the exact same time I threw the Imperial Gold Sword...... Garunose's eyes snap wide open at the throwing knife.
"What're you gonna do, Mr. Security Guard! Can you deflect this!!"
I throw it just like that. Is it merely a lump of metal, or is it a weapon capable of killing a person in a single devastating hit? That binary choice flies straight at Garunose.
"Tch..."
Seeing the ordinary throwing knife get deflected with a sharp *clink*, and watching Garunose take the hit on his shield while still advancing, I can't help but click my tongue. Did he see through the bluff, or did he charge in "believing it was a bluff"?
Whatever, the sword is falling back down. And I'm already in stance.
"Kick off and fly!!"
Before Garunose can catch me in his range, my roundhouse kick "fires" the Imperial Gold Sword first.
Kick Art "Distorts Trigger". The gold cloaked in a pitch-black wind looks exactly like the moon amidst gathering clouds. Because he had also been closing the distance, the kicked sword clears the practically point-blank short range in an instant and closes in on Garunose.
"Ooooh!!"
However, he manages to deal with the Imperial Gold Sword bearing down on him while spinning and twisting like a bullet. He raises his guard, but the light of a skill dwells in the slightly angled tower shield.
Instead of taking it head-on and repelling it, he angles it to deflect and redirect it. Far from just handling it easily, he's micromanaging the damn thing perfectly...!!
However.
"I'll advance the history of Kick Arts by a hundred years, this is the new era!"
While putting distance between myself and the approaching Garunose with a backstep, I extend my left hand forward.
Around the back of my left hand, strictly speaking, a medal-like disc floating in a way that looks attached to the Inventoria equipped on my left wrist. It is a cheat that I cannot use purely on my own.
Did Garunose notice? That Saina had moved from Brunbas's deck to the bow of the ship and was staring intently in this direction.
Originally, it's the gadget "Retriever" used by Conquest Dolls to retrieve items. But the actual operation can be handled by the player!!
I shift my gaze to the Imperial Gold Sword that had flown off in an entirely wrong direction and activate the Retriever. All that's required is to "look at the target" and "activate it." That's it.
With just that───
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It was truly by coincidence that Garunose was able to react to that...... Truth be told, he hadn't actually reacted to it......... but his reflexes forced him to respond.
Kicking a weapon away—an attack method he had never seen before. It was a "weapon kick" by Sunraku—one that left Garunose marveling that the guy had acquired a long-range attack method like some soccer kid on top of already possessing a gun-like sword.
Precisely because it was used in the continuous kumite before the duel with Garunose began, Garunose had grasped the possibility and was able to deal with it.
A parry executed by treating the tower shield not as a "wall," but as one side forming an angle. He deflected the golden sword, and while catching in his peripheral vision that the light emitted from Sunraku's left hand—which Garunose recognized as a laser—had missed its mark, he closed the distance to Sunraku in one breath.
The character build known as "Garunose" skews towards a sluggish, heavy stat distribution. However, it relies heavily on surprise-attack counters via rapid approach within a 2-meter radius using skill-based movement.
When a player holding a tower shield suddenly closes in, it forces an "instantaneous choice" from the opponent, against which he launches an offensive or defensive counter.
Therefore, having deflected and dodged Sunraku's actions—the kicked projectile and the laser ambush—Garunose determines "If I'm going to attack, it's now" and swings his mace back.
The follow-up strikes of the ectoplasmic weapons generated by "Deadly Decapitation Technique" act as multi-hits that pierce through luck-based endure skills... fulfilling the role of an essential skill in Shangri-La Frontier PvP.
(Gotch──────)
───Garunose's consciousness was completely and entirely painted with the intent to attack.
However, a slight surplus of thought that opened up......... an intuition bordering on the unconscious, sent a prickling burn down Garunose's spine.
"!!!!!?"
Was it the fact that the laser he concluded had missed hadn't disappeared?
Or did he feel something unnatural about the movement of that laser's (?) light?
Or perhaps......... he sensed that Sunraku's demeanor wasn't that of a cornered prey.
No, absolutely not. Those were mere fragments of perception that couldn't even form thoughts, "irrelevant factors" that barely reached his brain as information. Thus, the true identity of what triggered Garunose's intuition was, ultimately, his memories of Lone Wolf.
A boss monster appearing in Lone Wolf 2. The hidden boss, universally decried as the absolute most bullshit in the series' history, "Praying Divine Sword Fragaria"............ The shadow of that boss, who launched swords on autonomous trajectories and freely manipulated them while simultaneously engaging in close-quarters combat itself, flashed across Garunose's mind for a split second.
That was exactly why, the moment he saw the beam of light he thought was a laser grab onto the sword that had flown away and pull it back, he managed to deal with it by a hair's breadth instead of freezing up entirely.
Even so, being caught completely off guard left an opening that was simply unavoidable.........
"Shatter in brilliance...... Radiant Sword of Devoured Blades!!"
In that fleeting instant before its shape as a blade melted and scattered away, Garunose saw, heard, and with his own body felt the searing brunt of their holy sword—beholding the pitch-black blade generated by the golden sword melt and vanish into light, and feeling the expanding golden light carry intense heat.
Author's Afterword
・Radiant Sword of Devoured Blades
Drops the durability of the formed blade to zero, unleashing it as a light-and-heat slashing attack with power corresponding to the remaining durability percentage and the material used.
It acts as a reset for a blade that hasn't fully used up its durability, while simultaneously serving as the Imperial Gold Sword's high-firepower damage technique.
That brilliance is the Emperor's fire, a golden gleam illuminated by the moonlight. However, it is not something that can be controlled by human hands, and thus its radiance lasts only for an instant.
It behaves a bit like a blowtorch, so its range becomes slightly longer during activation.
The manga version of Shangri-La Frontier goes on sale October 17th!
The manga is on the 17th! The anime is on the 1st! The 1st, I tell you!! The mini-anime is airing too!!
A little trivia: I was brainstorming the scenarios and doing various things for the mini-anime while I was in France.
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