Chapter 384: Explosion

"..." We push our swords against each other as energy is released around us, subtly shifting the environment, making rocks crack and tree branches fly. Fortunately, my attack lands a critical hit, forcing him backward.

"You're slow." I deliver a powerful strike against his sword, mocking him, trying to throw him off balance.

"Weak." I keep striking his sword, trying to break his wrist and turn his fighting style into something unsteady.

"Ineffective." I pair the pressure with taunting words to try to destabilize him, but despite that, he manages to react well, even though his combat style is pretty rough on his body.

"You talk too much, Eve. If I'm so weak, you should've beaten me by now, right?" He throws a kick, but I block it with a knee strike, and I use the impact to raise my kick and hit him in the face, pushing him back.

"...What was that? Hahaha." I laugh at him when he uses that to launch a slash at my wings, but the cut just passes right through — unlike Evelyn-sama, I'm not a dragon.

Even though my transformation gives me traits that resemble a dragon, it's all just plasma, so the tail, wings, and horns aren't something you can hit and cut off.

"...!!" He starts flying upward, seemingly deciding to use some kind of magic. Unfortunately, I don't have many spells since I focused heavily on strengthening myself, but instead of retreating, I take a stance.

Holding my sword back, I charge as much magic and energy as the blade can handle. I look up and see a kind of golden magic circle being fired at me.

The spell is massive, like an enormous net impossible to dodge. I swing my sword, releasing all the magic into a single powerful slash.

The strike becomes another critical hit, and the purple color shifts to an intense dark green. There's a strange smell, like metal being melted, as the slash collides with his attack.

The collision is intense as the magic forms edges around the plasma. The wave of Hikishin literally alters the color of the sky, which takes on a greenish hue while the nearby trees die.

Soon, both attacks generate a massive explosion, hurling me backward and launching the king of the angels upward. From up there, I see thousands of golden swords forming and being fired in my direction.

I flap my wings with all my strength, propelling myself upward. I pass between the swords, skillfully dodging them as I close the distance between us.

I start spinning, defending against all the slashes from the golden blades and finally getting close to him. He attacks me with his blade, but I grab it with my hand.

It obviously slides through, cutting my hand, but I manage to immobilize his sword by getting close enough.

"Boom!" I make the sound mockingly as everything around us glows purple. He realizes it, but there's no time to retreat, and everything around us explodes in a massive ball of highly concentrated heat.

The intense brightness and heat form a "small sun" that shines in the sky, outshining the real sunlight and changing the sky's color to a pale lilac.

When the heat explosion dissipates, I look at the king of the angels, who's relatively fine, but without his Hikishin armor protecting him.

"Haa... this is so inconvenient..." He speaks with disinterest, and I see that my own condition is relatively okay, since I managed to contain the explosion around me reasonably well.

"Are you going to keep up that disinterest? You're a worm. Even now, you're still trying to fight in such a passive and cowardly way." I speak, already getting irritated. He just got blown up, but his lack of interest frustrates me.

I do understand that there are different fighting styles and that some require a more passive approach, but he's not taking this seriously, and his passivity isn't part of his fighting style — it's just him trying to drag out this frustrating fight as much as possible.

It's already been three hours of fighting. Three hours, and neither of us is barely injured or tired — not because we have energy to spare, but because he won't let the fight reach a point where we need to spend more.

"Look, girl, I'm not a warrior, as you must have deduced from the insults. I'm not the type who fights. I'm just buying time for my queen. If you're incapable of killing me, that's on you."

'How disgusting... he has as much power as I do, and yet he acts like this... he's a disgrace to anyone who dedicates themselves to becoming strong...'

"My sister is the one really in charge of everything, understand? That's how things are. I'm not in the mood to go all out against you and risk the chance of dying." His cowardice is infuriating.

"Then why don't you run?" If only he would flee, I could go back to be with Shizuka and help her against the queen of the angels, but if I try to go to them, this bastard gets in the way.

"Because I still need to help my wife, and to help her, it's easier to just keep you here. I imagine she'll need quite a while for whatever she's doing."

'It's getting hard to stop...' My instincts, because of the skill, are urging me to keep fighting, but something is wrong.

"What is your maniac wife trying to do to Evelyn-sama?"

"...I don't know. You'll have to beat me to find out." I take a deep breath.

"You know what, forget it. I don't need to conserve energy anymore." I've understood enough. Ending him here and now is more important than letting him stall this fight until help arrives for him.

He won't change even if I try to pressure him with force. Even if I get serious, he'll just keep up that arrogant passivity.

I decide to use everything. I use all the magic I have to reinforce my body to the limit, and I even use the blood on my hand to strengthen my sword, coating its entire length with unstable plasma.

My muscles bulge violently, contracting because of all the Hikishin in them. The wings grow, as do the horns and the tail, while the heat around me becomes so absurdly high that the air seems to blur.

"U-Urgh... a-are you crazy? You'll fry your body with all this heat." The king of the angels backs away, starting to sweat. I'm sweating too from how hot the environment has become.

'Five minutes, that's the maximum I'll endure.' In an instant, I'm in front of him with absurd speed and an immense feeling of freedom in my heart from being able to use everything at once. A single simple swing of my sword, upon colliding with his, generates a small but powerful explosion that throws him to the ground.

"!!!" My movement is so fast that I reach the ground before he even falls. I deliver another sword strike that he barely blocks, cracking his blade. I keep pressing him with violent attacks.

He even tries to use more power, but almost every strike I land is a critical hit, and the explosive power of the plasma means that even when he blocks, he takes damage from the explosions.

My hands even start to burn from how hot it is, while sweat turns to vapor almost instantly every time I swing. He gasps, being affected by the extreme heat.

Thanks to my speed, he has no time to recover or launch an attack. I'm literally throwing him from side to side with my sword, until I hear a crack.

I accelerate my movements even further, swinging my sword with almost no technique at all. There's so much power in each strike that the need for precision has dropped, and he himself can't handle each explosion of energy and heat that occurs.

"!!!" His sword breaks, and I manage to impale his heart with an attack. He still manages to use the broken sword to stab me in the chest while my sword vibrates chaotically, trying to explode inside him.

"This is your end. Your cowardice and your stupid way of fighting, just trying to buy more time, is the cause of your death." I say to him, knowing that him hitting my heart isn't enough to kill me. Evelyn-sama can fix me later.

I hear a loud buzzing as the sword turns red, entering a critical state of energy.

"H-Hahaha." He laughs at me, leaving me confused.

"I-I admit, if I had fought for real, this wouldn't be the result... but it doesn't matter. I've already done what I had to do..." He has a rather manic look on his face.

"!!!" He grabs my hand as his entire body glows gold, and I realize he plans to blow himself up with me instead of trying to escape and survive.

"A-Are you crazy?"

"Just returning what you did." A barrier appears around us so I can't get out, and when the energy in my sword explodes, he also detonates his magic, covering the entire area inside the barrier with energy.

"!!!" I feel my body practically turning to dust, unable to escape the barrier. When the attack ends from a lack of magic, my body falls to the ground outside the barrier.

"Haa..." I cough blood, seeing that my body has been completely carbonized to the point of being unrecognizable. Everything starts to go dark as I know this body has "died," and that Evelyn-sama would have to bring me back.

'I-I'm sorry, Evelyn-sama... I-I failed...' I wished I could have been more useful to her instead of just having the power to face the king of the angels.