The pile of rubble trapping Silva underneath stirred, until it finally collapsed, and he came out as if nothing had happened.
‘Hahahaha!’
Blood trickled down his temple as he laughed, his voice parched, but his jocular disposition of earlier had changed completely. His bloodshot eyes were fixed on Alina.
‘I dared not think that there could be someone who could send me flying. You’re not half bad, hammer girl.’
Alina felt an odd bloodlust emanating from him and took a combative posture, but the Demon God, seemingly unperturbed, took a step, then another, towards her.
‘And that man over there. To endure my savage attacks for so long—splendid. You’ve entertained me greatly.’
As he approached, Silva’s body became shrouded in light, and his wounds healed before their eyes. When she saw that even the trickle of blood from his temple vanished, Alina raised her eyebrows in disbelief.
‘How is he healing?’
‘He is using the skill he stole from Rururi. As long as it is active, any wound he suffers will heal.’
‘What the hell! Isn’t that cheating!?’
‘Cheating? Not at all. I am merely omnipotent.’
Silva lifted the corners of his mouth into a cruel smile.
‘Perhaps I should get a bit more serious.’
As he said that, skill-light gushed forth from the eerily glowing black stone in his pit.
‘I call upon thee: “Dia’s torment”!’
Silva grabbed the silver spear and made a fierce charge at Alina, who, sensing that she couldn’t evade in time, promptly stepped forward and swung her warhammer at the spearhead as it came at her in a sharp thrust.
Their weapons collided head-on, sending a shockwave rippling through the room as their crossed arms trembled in a struggle to gain the upper hand.
‘Ugh!’
Alina’s warhammer was blocked from completing its swing. No matter how much force she put into it, she couldn’t push any further, as if a large wall were erected between them. Instead, her firmly planted feet were gradually being pushed back.
‘Hahahaha! What’s the matter, girl? Where has that spirit gone? I call upon thee: “Dia’s Judgement”!’
Four magic circles appeared in the air behind Alina and four blades emerged, bearing down on her exposed back.
‘Tsk!’
‘Miss Alina! Get down!’
Alina vanished her warhammer and slid under the outstretched spear, dodging the thrust by a hair’s breadth and evading the blades as they lunged at her from behind.
‘“Dia’s Torment”!’
She materialised her warhammer again and moved to counterattack. Kicking off the stone floor, she took aim at Silva in the brief moment of immobility that followed his wild thrust.
‘Haaa!’
Alina’s warhammer struck Silva square on the face. She unmistakably felt her attack hitting the Demon God’s body.
‘Did I do it!?’
She couldn’t see him through the cloud of dust stirred up by their clash of force. She had felt the blow land. Surely, even the Demon God couldn’t escape unharmed from the vicious strike that had thus far laid waste to nearly all her enemies in a single blow.
A shiver ran down her spine.
It was pure instinct that made Alina jump backwards. A beat later, a fierce flash cut through the dust beyond the grey veil.
If she’d been even a second too late in her judgement, her waist would’ve been cut in half.
She managed to evade by a hair’s breadth, but the violent winds whipped up by the attack broke her posture and she rolled across the floor like a dry leaf caught in an autumn storm, her vision turning and tumbling, only coming to a halt when her back slammed into the wall. When she lifted her head, she saw that she had been thrown a considerable distance.
There was a burning pain just below her eye, followed by the sensation of a lukewarm liquid running down her cheek. It was nothing short of a miracle that she survived with such minor wounds after being caught between two attacks.
‘All you alright!?’
Jade hobbled over to Alina’s side. Even though his wounds were far more serious, when he saw the trail of blood running down her cheek, his face twisted into a bitter grimace.
‘That was a superb attack. It’s a pity that I’m your opponent.’
Silva calmly said. Alina was convinced that her own intuition had been correct. She cast a bitter glance back to where the Demon God stood in the settling dust, unscathed.
‘He—he’s unharmed!?’
Jade cried out in horror.
‘Do not think you can destroy my body with that level of power.’
Staring the Demon God directly in the eyes, Alina raised her upper body.
She vaguely suspected it, but it was as Silva said. No matter how hard she struck him, the response conveyed through her hammer was different from what she felt when killing monsters. His body was tougher than anything she had ever experienced.
‘It appears that your strength is about equal to that of the scum who created me.’
Silva said with an uncanny grin on his face as he nonchalantly pointed his spear at Alina. The scum who created the Demon God… he must be talking about the Ancestors who forged the relic that is the Demon God and carved the mark of Dia into him.
‘That is exactly why you stand no chance of defeating me.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Heh. I’m in a good mood today. I’ll make an exception and explain it to you. You’re destined to die anyway.’
Silva laughed heartily and raised his left arm high, his face contorted in ecstasy.
‘Those scum, those foolish humans… I devoured them all’
‘Hah?’
Jade blurted out in his shock.
‘Wa—wait a minute… So the person who wiped out the Ancestors… was you!?’
‘Don’t be so surprised. It’s only natural for the strong to cull the weak.’
Even now, the mark of Dia carved into his temple glowed with a faint light. Surely, if the Ancestors had known they would be wiped out by their own creation, they wouldn’t have made such a relic.
But with their unparalleled technology and a spirit of research that bordered on zealotry, they created this transcendent relic that possessed a will—the Demon God—leading them down the path of their own destruction.
‘But oh, those spineless fools. With all their might, they couldn’t inflict a single wound upon this body of mine.’
‘What!?’
The Demon God proclaimed the hopeless truth with an air of nonchalance.
Even the the Ancestors with the power of their Dia skills couldn’t stand up against the Demon God.
‘You mean… even Dia skills… are ineffective?’
Alina knew that he was neither bluffing or a lying. After all, even though she hit his exposed body with “Dia’s Ruin”, he was standing there as if nothing had happened.
What’s more, the fact that the Ancestors, who are assumed to have had Dia skills, all vanished overnight the Demon God had proven with his overwhelming power rather than with his words.
‘So now you understand, no? You, who has the same power as them, cannot defeat me.’
A heavy silence followed.
None of their attacks were effective. Not only that, if they took even a single hit from the Demon God, they couldn’t avoid instant death, and they had no way to heal or defend themselves. The Demon God, on the other hand, could use multiple Dia skills simultaneously and continue fighting indefinitely without tiring.
‘We can’t win,’ Alina thought she heard Jade whisper.
It was not that he had succumbed to despair in the face of an overwhelmingly strong enemy. Rather, he was able to accept reality because as a tank, it was his job to keep a cool head and put the survival of his party members before victory.
He knew that they had no way of winning against the existence confronting them.
‘Miss Alina, my shield is no longer of use.’
Jade whispered in Alina’s ear.
‘Having said that, there’s nothing in the rubble lying around that I could use as a replacement for a shield against him.’
‘What are you getting at?’
‘I will become your shield. Then, if you hit him off guard, as you did just now, run.’
Alina fell silent, neither accepting nor denying his proposal, and averted her eyes.
After some time had passed, she muttered:
‘I don’t wanna.’
‘There’s no other way! Miss Alina, I’m a tank. Let me protect you to the end.’
‘I don’t wanna.’
‘But!’
‘I don’t wanna!!’
Alina wiped the blood from her cheek and rose to her feet.
‘“I’m a tank” my ass.’
She grumbled and took up her warhammer once more, undeterred. She tightened her grip on the hilt and glared at the matchless Demon God. She kicked off the ground and charged him.
‘We receptionists have things we won’t concede too, you know!’
‘I—it’s no use, miss Alina! Do not challenge him!’
Alina’s warhammer swung as swift as an arrow, cutting through both the air and Jade’s protests, intercepting Silva’s attack and colliding violently with his silver spear.
‘Hah! Try and try as you might, the result will be the same. You can’t break me with your power!’
Again their arms crossed, and again Alina could neither break the lock nor pull back from it. Nevertheless, she continued to pour her strength into her warhammer.
‘I’ll show you, one day I’m going to live my ideal life of peace and quiet every day… that alone is something I will not concede! Working a safe and stable job! Sitting comfortably behind my counter! Leaving on time every day! And then!!’
And then. Alina gritted her teeth and stared at the menace before her.
‘Going home together! And if someone doesn’t come home, I will drag them back by hook or by crook!’
Silva’s spear creaked, and he started being pushed back.
‘Hmm?’
At the same time, an irrepressible aura of wrath made manifest rose up from the silver warhammer., the sheer presence of which distorted the very air, twisting it like a vortex. Alina’s jade-green eyes gleamed in the darkness.
Silva’s silver spear continued to creak unsettlingly.
‘Don’t think!’
With a sharp, cracking sound the spear shattered into a thousand pieces.
‘Oh!?’
‘Don’t think I’ll let you die so easily in a place like this!!!’
Having overcome the enemy’s resistance, Alina’s warhammer reached Silva and, with the added power of her wrath, struck him, knocking him straight into the wall.
Thrown violently against the wall with a deafening crash, Silva’s wounds promptly began to heal as he rose from the rubble. Before his eyes, his shattered spear quickly disintegrated into white light from the tip and vanished into nothing.
And yet, the Demon God allowed a fearless laugh to escape his lips.
‘Marvellous! You continue to surprise me, girl! I call upon thee: “Dia’s Judgement”!’
Countless magic circles surrounded Alina, deploying so densely that they overlapped each other, their glow bathing the room in brilliant light. Without a pause, the mass of swords spewing forth pointed their tips at Alina, ready to pierce her.
‘Hahahaha! There’s no place left for you to run! My thousand blades follow their prey to the ends of the earth! They will not stop until they pierce your heart and offer me your soul!’
Overwhelming.
That was the only word that could adequately describe the sight of well over a hundred swords filling up the room in order to stab a single human to death. The blades of silver were too numerous to deploy in a single circle, and rather surrounded the air above Alina in two, three rings.
‘Good God, how many are there!? Shit!’
Jade, who knew more than anyone the horror of “Dia’s Judgement”, tried desperately to get to Alina’s side, dragging his immobilized leg and leaving a trail of blood in his wake. Due to the fatigue brought on by the frequent use of his skills, he was no longer able to use “Berserker’s Demise” to change their target to him. Far from it, he couldn’t even move his body as he wanted to, so he couldn’t even become a human shield for her. Irritated, Jade raised his voice:
‘Enough. You’ve done enough! Alina! Fall back and get behind me! Use my life to—’
‘I said I don’t wanna!’
She stood stubbornly motionless. She knew that any attempt to dodge would be futile. Instead, she lowered her waist and switched to a backhand grip, assuming a fighting stance and concentrating on the myriad blades.
‘I’m going to get out of this alive. I’m not going to let anyone—not Rururi, not Loewe, not some piece-of-shit idiot moron stalker cockroach Silver Bastard—die in this dungeon!’
Shroud’s face flashed through her mind.
The lessons he taught her. The grief she came to know. The reckless dream she abandoned.
From that day on, there was a change in the way she thought. She thought she should lead a stable, dependable life. She didn’t regret her decision. She didn’t intend to change her mind now. Alina didn’t know whether she had made the right choice or not, but there was one thing she knew for sure.
She didn’t want to relive the pain of Shroud’s death again.
That was the peace and quiet that Alina longed for.
‘Ha, I like your determination to stand your ground. But this is where you die! Swords, cut her to ribbons!’
At Silva’s command, the mighty rain of swords descended on Alina with a deafening roar.
‘Alina!’
Jade’s cry was drowned out by the howl of countless blades. But Alina just stared straight at the storm of silver, determined to turn her into minced meat, and tightened her grip on her warhammer.
So far, this power, which awakened unexpectedly two years ago, had crushed all injustice. All those who blocked her path to peace and quiet, be they monster of guildmaster, she had forced to yield.
This time was no different. There was no reason why it shouldn’t.
‘I will blow away all who oppose my peace and quiet!!’
She swung her warhammer from right to left.
A violent storm swept through the room. The tempestuous swing of her hammer shattered the relentless rain of blades before her, and the resulting wind pressure even blew away the swords that approached her from behind. One after the other, the breath of her warhammer scattered the thousand blades in all directions.
‘Wha—’
When the storm subsided, only Alina remained, standing in silence.
‘You repelled my attack with wind pressure alone?’
Silva said, perplexed. Jade gasped. Alina’s warhammer had undergone a transformation unlike anything he had ever seen before. Like grains of gilded sand, the silver-decorated weapon was enveloped in a haze of golden particles, filling the room with brilliant light.
‘Wh—what is this skill-light?’
‘To think you had such a cunning trick up your sleeve! I call upon thee: “Dia’s Envy”!’
Responding to Silva’s call, a silver-framed round mirror appeared out of thin air. The mirror, which could steal the power of anyone caught in its reflection, slowly rotated towards Alina.
‘Don’t let that mirror—’
Jade tried to warn her, but it was already too late. Alina’s entire body was reflected in the mirror, which glowed with a strong light as it tried to steal “Dia’s Ruin” from her.
‘Kuhahaha! You possess a considerable power, girl! Worthy of being stolen by this Demon God!’
A peculiar sound rang through the room.
Snap, snap, the glass surface cracked and began to feebly scatter grains of light, until eventually it shattered with a loud noise.
‘Wha—’
It was now Silva’s turn to be dumbfounded as he watched his mirror dissipate into white only moments after his spear had met a similar fate.
‘You… you broke his mirror!?’
Jade, too, stood in shock as he watched the mirror vanish before Alina’s eyes. It reminded him of the principle by which she had defeated Glenn’s transcendent skill “Observator Temporis”, that of a higher ranked skill dominating one of lower rank.
‘Ridiculous!’
For the first time, Silva’s face showed a hint of impatience. He retreated one, two vigilant steps before jumping backwards a considerable distance.
‘I—I call upon thee: “Dia’s—”’
‘Too late.’
Alina had already circled behind his back.
Silva’s eyes widened with incredulity at her tremendous speed, which even his heightened senses failed to keep up with.
‘Wha—! You’re even faster than before!’
Alina smashed her mysteriously glowing warhammer into the Demon God’s arm, scattering gilded grains as her Herculean blow tore off his right arm from the shoulder down.
‘G… Gaaaaa!!’
Having lost his arm, the Demon God spiralled to the ground in a shower of blood.
‘You… you bitch! How dare you! I call upon thee: “Dia’s Wrath”!’
As soon as Silva got to his feet, his eyes bloodshot with violent malice, he used his remaining arm to hurl the huge spear at the airborne Alina. The spear cut through the air like an arrow, but Alina twisted her body to dodge it, and it sailed through the air in vain.
‘This… this can’t be’
Breathing heavily, Silva looked at Alina as she landed on the ground as if he were looking at his worst nightmare. Then he turned his gaze to his own body, to his missing right arm. His expression quickly turned pale and twisted in horror.
‘My body, my indestructible body!’
‘I no longer want to be told.’
The Demon God’s shoulders twitched. He hastily returned his gaze to Alina as she stepped towards him.
‘I no longer want to be told that someone dear to me isn’t coming home. I won’t let it happen.’
She spun her hammer, switching the flat hammer surface to the pickaxe-shaped sharpened point, made to kill monsters with certainty. When Silva saw this, his face twitched.
‘I—impossible. No one can surpass the omnipotent Demon God!’
As Alina’s power surged, a wave of golden light erupted from her warhammer, blowing away even the deepest shadows. Amidst this fantastical scene, Alina’s adorable receptionist’s uniform fluttered, but she assumed a posture that was far removed from the image of an ordinary receptionist as she lowered her waist and brandished her warhammer high, channelling even more power into it.
‘So! for the sake of! My peace and quiet!’
‘This is impossible! No-one can surpass the power of a Demon God!’
‘Dieeeeeeee!!!’
Alina jumped up, shattering the hard stone floor, and soared towards the Demon God, smashing her warhammer into him with all the power she had stored up.
‘Gah!’
Leaving a trail of light in its wake, the sharpened point pierced the Demon God’s tough body, boring through muscle, shattering bone, until exiting through his back in a spray of jet-black blood.
