The fight began with slicing off the tentacle-like arm reaching towards me.
“Help Ganagl! We need to escape before that prince shows up!”
“The bitches of Elianel…! I’ll make them give birth as much as I kill, and sink them as offerings to the abyss!”
As Ganagl opened its wide, squirming mouth and let out a fierce roar, the other thirty-seven cultists also immediately readied for battle.
Spears, swords, axes, and staves were fiercely aimed, while seven bishops mumbled a grotesque prayer in a strange tongue.
“Fhe’whgn ltulri’haglclu’ph….”
A line of incomprehensible jargon.
However, there was no need to struggle to understand.
As the old saying goes, it’s easier to kill than to ask for forgiveness, and when it comes to magic, killing is much faster and more efficient.
And those participating in this affair, the ‘shadows’, were well aware of this.
“Ymunh―”
At the moment the gloomy-robed bishop was about to shoot abyssal magic at me, extending its finger forward,
– Pwoosh!
A crossbow bolt flew in like a ray of light, piercing one bishop’s neck, and the assassins materialized like ghosts, tearing into the cultists with daggers and short swords.
“Ugh…!”
“Guuaah!”
“What the hell are these guys! Where did they come from…!”
The cultists, thrown into chaos by the blades stabbing from beside and behind them.
Poisoned daggers burrowed into their sides, ripping through guts, while blackened short swords severed their spines, and black wires dug into their necks and tore them apart.
Quick, stealthy, and as mechanical as if devoid of all emotion. The cultists fell apart, splattering blood at the unexpected ambush.
“Assassins! Light, light it up!”
“Sphaera Lucis!”
Could it be that a cultist learned magic through official means?
Someone quickly unleashed magic that transformed into a pristine white sphere, illuminating a radius of several meters as bright as day.
The assassins, who had planned to slip away into the darkness right after the ambush, squinted at that light.
With the area flooded with light, hiding their bodies was now impossible. The assassins, giving up on a second ambush, charged straight into battle.
“I found you, filthy rats!”
“Witness the grace bestowed upon you by our lord!”
The cultists, not to be outdone, charged towards the assassins with bestial screams.
Spears clashed with swords, sparks flew, and short swords dug into flesh. Flame arrows cut through the air, and several tentacles lashed like whips.
The blood of the assassins and the cultists mixed and stained the ground red.
◆◆
“This is ridiculous; it feels like I could chop forever. It’s not like it’s a planarian or anything…!”
“Hil… oh, wait. Krimhilde! Should we pull ‘that’ out?”
“No, wait! Only when they shrink enough to not escape!”
“Okay!”
A thick pile of tentacles smashed down to the ground like a whip, while the moonlight and magical light glistened on the longsword piercing through the air.
A massive being nimbly evaded the longsword, whipping my armor with a tentacle, and at that moment, a girl’s great sword pierced through, cutting the tentacle and soaring upwards.
In this grand conflict, thanks to Argantir’s assassins taking on the cultists of the Deep Sea Order, the number of foes that Friede and I had to contend with reduced to just one.
“Ah, I can’t—!”
…Well, that one was more dangerous and stronger than all the others combined.
The Lord of the Deep Sea Order, the Abyss Priest Ganagl Peytan.
He showed no interest in the assassins battling his subordinates, targeting only me and Friede like a crazed elephant.
He must have instinctively judged that the rest of them posed no threat to him.
Even if his intelligence had diminished due to the blessing of the abyss, his instincts were still intact.
Well, with such instincts remaining, it would make sense for him to annihilate those in his way and seize the position of the lord.
…For us, that was actually a good thing.
It was much more comforting that he was focused solely on us rather than rampaging mindlessly.
Considering the abilities of the assassins fighting the cultists, Ganagl’s attack aimed at them would likely send half of them across the river to the afterlife in the blink of an eye.
– Swoosh!
Just thinking about that for a moment distracted me, and when I looked back, I was met with a mass of squishy, sharp tentacles.
They hadn’t sprouted again.
The source of the tentacles bursting forth wasn’t his shoulder but rather a huge, grotesque mouth that suddenly emerged from the air beside me.
『 Maw of the Servants. 』
The Deep Sea Order’s main magic summoned a giant mouth in the void, spewing sharp tentacles from within.
“Ugh…!”
It was a bit too late to dodge.
But if I took it with my armor, the explanation from the original work about that magic having a binding effect bothered me.
So instead of evading or withstanding, I ignited my eyes and swung my sword.
Not in a metaphorical sense; the azure glimmer actually ignited in my eyes, hidden behind my helmet.
“Haah!”
My mother’s sword, Edelmut, became a gray storm, howling as it swung forth.
Like slashing at the parents’ enemies, the flurry of strikes carved through the approaching mass of tentacles.
Green ichor and severed flesh splattered messily, and the monster’s mouth, missing a tongue, closed tightly and vanished like a mirage.
“Hyaah!”
While I took on one of Ganagl’s spells, Friede had closed in and was engaging him face-to-face.
“Guahh! You’re such a bother, kid!”
His limbs, transformed into a chaotic mess resembling a duster, lashed out with dozens of whips and nets, wreaking havoc around.
A frenzied attack that seemed to require at least twenty hands to deflect.
However, with just a dark iron great sword, Friede was cutting, deflecting, and smashing through all those tentacles while barely holding on.
“This is…!”
With just an ordinary great sword, she seemed unable to do more than hold her ground, barely managing to defend herself, leaving her cloak in tatters.
– Boom!
I leaped, kicking off the ground toward Ganagl’s side, thrusting Edelmut at him.
The memory etched onto Brunhilde’s body, a perfectly executed lunge attack of the Izenvalt sword technique.
The tip of my sword extended, aiming to pierce through his side when—
– Vwoosh!
Black tentacles erupted from the ground right in front of me, flailing around.
I reflexively halted, twisting my sword to sever the emergent mass of tentacles.
The dismembered ends of the tentacles launched blobs of ichor upward.
As I wiped it off my cloak, the ground that was splattered with the black liquid began to sizzle and emit smoke.
『 Flesh Seed. 』
A spell that shoots small meat-like seeds as projectiles, summoning poisoned tentacles at the spots they land.
“Guahhh…!”
Halting to slice that and block the poison, Ganagl turned his head towards me, as if waiting for this moment.
In the center of his revolting visage, tentacles from his jaw stretched open, exposing a gaping black throat like an abyss.
“Something’s coming! Front! Dodge!”
Friede shouted urgently. Her instinct from [Battle Instinct] must have sensed the incoming danger a step ahead.
“Don’t worry!”
…Well, her advice to dodge was likely a mistake born from inexperience because the magic flying towards us was of a type that couldn’t be evaded no matter what.
At least not from this awkward distance.
“This is heard. The grace from our lord, will take you to the abyss…!”
Ganagl’s jaw elongated to his chest, and from its darkened insides, a massive amount of magical energy swirled.
There was nowhere to escape. No matter how quickly I leaped, I wouldn’t outpace his turn.
Thus, instead of dodging to the side as Friede suggested, I flipped the hilt of Edelmut upside down and thrust the blade into the ground.
Right. My mother had clearly said this was how it was activated.
“Receive this—!”
“O Elianel!”
At the moment our cries crossed, a formless, intangible force erupted from Ganagl’s maw like a cannonball.
A spell that opened a passage connected to the being revered by the Abyss Priests, unleashing immense magical power in the form of a shockwave.
『 Call of the Abyss. 』
A destructive projectile capable of shattering not just the enemy’s body but their very soul.
As that overwhelming power sought to engulf and shatter me—
– Whaaaam!
A pure white brilliance erupted from the blade of Edelmut, forming a translucent barrier that blocked my path.
The divine barrier, the Holy Shield of the Goddess.
The veil of the goddess unfurled through my sword, becoming a shield that directly took the shockwave of the abyss.
With a thunderous crash and flash, the pristine barrier rippled and twisted, continuously molding like waves.
For several seconds like this.
As Ganagl’s shockwave tore through the earth and dispersed, the Holy Shield, having fulfilled its role, shattered into pieces like snowflakes.
It wasn’t defense or penetration, but cancellation. The leftover force swept through the debris, becoming a whirlwind.
In that whirlwind, I shot—
“Haah!”
Bursting through the dispersed power, I swung my longsword diagonally towards the astonished monster.
A deep gash scored across Ganagl’s upper body.
It wasn’t enough to be called a fatal wound, but it was a blow that would have killed an ordinary human.
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