Chapter 95
Hours must have passed.
Kraush was gasping for breath, replenishing his exhausted energy with world erosion.
His eyelids felt heavy.
His legs were trembling.
After rolling around on the ground so much, his body was a complete mess.
It had been quite a while since the fierce battle with Agares began.
Especially since Agares had been relentlessly targeting Kraush with his attacks, Kraush was struggling with his dwindling stamina.
Because of that, there were some dangerously close calls.
When he nearly got crushed beneath one of Agares’s arms, he seriously thought he was going to die.
Even now, recalling that moment, cold sweat beaded on his forehead.
But no matter how much Agares prioritized attacking Kraush,
injuries among the members of the Jukcheon Order kept piling up.
Injured individuals were quickly evacuated from the battlefield, but that meant the remaining members had to handle even more of Agares’s onslaught.
It was a miracle that there hadn’t been any fatalities.
‘Lilish must have played a big role in that.’
While Kraush drew Agares’s attention,
Lilish had been swiftly tossing any injured Jukcheon members out of battle as soon as they were hurt or in danger.
It was a brutal method, but if she hadn’t done that, there would surely have been casualties.
‘But now, we are on the verge of collapse ourselves.’
Agares was currently determined to unleash his full fury.
The surrounding black forests had all been shattered, revealing the ground beneath them.
Now that they’d come this far, a stubborn fire ignited within him.
A determination to absolutely crush that monster.
“Hey, Agares! Either boost my stamina or something!”
Ducking under Agares’s sweeping arm, Kraush rolled backward and quickly sprang to his feet.
There was no time to rest.
Kraush felt an intense headache pounding in his head, probably from overusing his lightning magic.
Yet, he persevered, ignoring it.
He was merely waiting for that one golden opportunity.
And then it happened.
KA-BOOM!
With an explosive sound, Agares staggered to the right.
After hours of enduring, Lilish had finally succeeded in taking down Agares’s right leg.
With Agares momentarily thrown off balance, he hastily reached out with another arm to stabilize himself.
In the gap between Agares’s hand, a streak of dark blue hair zipped past under his legs.
In an instant, the figure of Lilish, who had sprinted out with such fervor that it appeared to distort space, reached the left leg.
She swung her sword with all her might at the half-collapsed left leg of Agares.
Shattering Blade!
KA-WAAAAM!
The deafening explosion resonated as cracks spider-webbed across Agares’s left leg.
CRUNCH!
Unable to withstand the shock, Agares’s left leg shattered into pieces.
THUD!
In the blink of an eye, with both legs gone, Agares’s lower half crumbled, and his upper body came crashing down to the ground.
Dark rain poured from the swirling dust clouds.
“Kraush!”
Through the dust and rain, Lilish’s shout pierced the air.
Upon hearing it, Kraush was already in motion.
He leaped into the air, landing on Agares’s spine, which had sunk down.
Opting for this approach because he knew that jumping directly would only get his arms blocked.
As Kraush’s body began to heat up once more, he couldn’t tell how many times he had triggered the second stage of the Ignition Erosion today.
Perhaps because of that, his entire body creaked painfully.
Despite the Stage of Dimension, his body was starting to falter.
It felt as if his muscles were being torn apart.
Inside, it blazed like an active volcano.
He felt as though his bones were splintering, scattering throughout his body.
CRUNCH!
Yet, regardless, Kraush gritted his teeth and endured.
In fact, he pushed his Ignition Erosion even further, all for the sake of killing Agares.
In that moment, the black flame flowing with thunder began to accumulate into a storm.
To contain that storm, the Heavenly Form rose from his sword, forming a scabbard-like shape.
Kraush desperately suppressed the storm of black flame within the scabbard.
With each instance, the storm’s power grew stronger.
As Kraush raced along Agares’s spine, he slowly began to see a cloak.
As if the cloak were the essence of Agares itself, it rippled around him, spilling out and above.
‘I’m almost there.’
The moment he saw it, Kraush’s Ignition Erosion surged to a dimension unlike any before.
At the same time, he eagerly shoved the darkness he had stolen from Agares into his mouth.
The darkness that slipped down his throat filled his insides.
Simultaneously, a strange, uncomfortable sensation spread throughout his body.
THUD-THUD—
With a short heartbeat echoing in his chest came the feeling of something being restrained within him.
That sensation was none other than the Overlord’s Grasp possessed by Agares.
The Overlord’s Grasp could only manifest in erosion entities with world erosion.
So, it had no effect on ordinary humans.
But there was one exception.
Kraush himself was different.
He had been able to inhabit world erosion through Blood of the Demons.
And that meant, in essence, he could also be included in the effects of the Overlord’s Grasp.
The Grasp lashed out immediately, trying to seize control of Kraush’s body.
WHOOSH!
But in that moment, Ignis blazed within Kraush’s inner core.
That Ignis swallowed the reaching Overlord’s Grasp, incinerating it.
While it felt like he was burning from the inside out, Kraush didn’t dwell on it.
Seconds passed.
As smoke seeped out of Kraush’s mouth, darkness slowly began to pour out.
It was clear that Kraush had burned away the Overlord’s Grasp.
However, due to the lingering aftereffects, he was still subject to its influence.
‘This is the moment.’
While free of the grip of the Overlord, the conditions for being part of it were now satisfied.
Agares’s Overlord’s Grasp had its restrictions when it came to the one who wielded it.
First, the real body, which was Agares’s head, was bound to the demonic realm and could not escape.
Second, those encompassed by the Overlord’s Grasp could inflict direct damage on Agares’s darkness.
Of course, the second clause was fairly meaningless since it only applied to erosion entities.
Erosion entities wouldn’t attack Agares’s darkness.
But there was one exception.
An unpredictable individual, a monster possessing world erosion, had suddenly appeared.
With a WHOOSH—
The crimson cloak billowed fiercely in the wind.
The inside of that cloak was covered in pure black darkness.
Agares was blind in one eye but…
The other eye was still intact on the other side of the cloak.
And Kraush was well aware of where that cloak led.
At the point where he pulled his body out of the cloak down to his neck, it meant that the cloak was connected to Agares’s neck.
CRASH!
Finally aware of the figure of Kraush racing up his spine, Agares raised his arms to strike.
Under the barrage of bone-like arms, Kraush squinted his eyes.
Sweat trickled down his back.
He was still far from reaching Agares’s neck.
Just a bit more, even a few seconds would suffice.
Just a little bit longer.
Kraush needed just a few more seconds for Agares to fully regain his footing.
Using too much energy to dodge those arms would weaken the onslaught against Agares.
As Kraush was about to make a decision,
THUD-BAAAAAM!
A blinding flash blasted all of Agares’s arms away.
At the far end of the horizon,
a figure raced towards them, unleashing that powerful strike.
It was Blavi, the Celestial Guardian.
He’d arrived just in the nick of time.
Even now, his power was extraordinary.
Kraush couldn’t help but think Blavi was something else.
But even Blavi couldn’t kill Agares, whose real body lay within the demonic realm.
The only one who could end Agares was none other than Kraush himself.
Kraush inhaled sharply.
‘Just one second.’
With his thoughts accelerated by the Ignition Erosion, the world around him seemed to come to a standstill.
And at that moment when the world felt like it had paused for a split second,
Kraush’s foot slammed down harshly onto Agares’s spine.
THUD!
At that moment, where the sound belatedly echoed, the remaining arms, obliterated by the flash, crashed down onto the spine.
But already, Kraush was no longer there.
Leaving only traces of black flames behind, he had reached the forefront of the cloak.
His breath had been pulled to the limit.
Soon, with the ripples of his consciousness reaching for the thunderstorm, he arrived at the apex.
ZAP!
As the sound of thunder erupted around him, the storm of black flames surged towards reality.
Annihilation Erosion!
Third Phase!
Annihilation Thunderstorm!
KA-GA-GA-GA-GA-GA-GA-GA!
The storm of thunder and black flame battered against the depths of Agares’s cloak.
Piercing the darkness, the storm reached the other side and began to rip everything apart.
KA-BOOM!
In that moment, a faint explosion echoed from a far-off place.
It was the Annihilation Thunderstorm that had traveled through the darkness of the cloak from the direction of the demonic realm.
BZZZZZZZ!
A ringing sound filled Kraush’s ears.
Due to pouring out an attack condensed to its absolute limit, his body refused to respond.
‘Ah, Agares…’
His vision wobbled uncontrollably.
His sense of balance was shot to hell.
FLAP!
But amidst that raging noise, one sound stood out sharply: the flapping of the cloak.
It appeared as if the cloak was trying to escape.
From the looks of it, Agares had also suffered significant damage from the retreat.
Well, it wasn’t surprising—
It was an ultimate move overflowing with absorbed world erosion.
If it didn’t cause damage, it would have been ridiculous instead.
However…
‘Not yet.’
Kraush’s eyes took on a deeper shade of red.
The fact that the cloak was still fluttering meant that Agares was still alive.
With the flickering flames of Kraush’s sword, he plunged towards the cloak, enveloping it in golden light.
THWACK!
The sound of something tearing echoed from deep within the darkness.
The blade, now soaked in the Annihilation Thunderstorm, tore into the innermost part of Agares’s throat.
Although Kraush’s vision was growing hazy, he continued to thrust the sword deeper inside the cloak.
SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!
At that moment, something burst from his forehead with an explosive sound.
DRIP! DRIP! DRIP!
Whatever trickled down his face, he couldn’t tell if it was blood or sweat.
Despite that, Kraush pressed on, stabbing again and again.
CRUNCH!
Kraush felt all the sensations in his body twist and distort.
This feeling—it was a curse.
Agares’s darkness was, in fact, close to a mass of curses.
The overwhelming rush evidenced that the Ignis remaining within him could no longer burn away the curse.
SMACK!
But Kraush bit down on it, refusing to break.
His fingertips turned pitch black.
Yet, Kraush raised his sword once more.
THWACK!
The blade plunged deeper into the darkness of the cloak.
He had no strength left to pull it back.
Instead, Kraush tightly gripped the sword of the thunderstorm, shoving it as deep as he could.
“——–!”
Even if he shoved his head into the cloak’s darkness, someone caught Kraush’s body that was on the verge of collapsing.
Through his blurry vision, he caught a glimpse of blue hair.
That hair color symbolized Valheim.
It was undoubtedly Lilish.
“Wh-Wham, Agares…”
His throat felt hot.
Perhaps due to the darkness, his vocal cords burned partially, making it hard to speak.
“You can stop now. Agares is dead. Please, please stop.”
Hearing the faint voice that reached him, Kraush slowly closed his eyes.
If it was Lilish, she wouldn’t lie to him.
“P-Please take me to her.”
Leaving behind the method through which to stabilize himself,
Kraush finally lost consciousness, still gripping his sword tightly.
Amidst the pouring black rain,
the single-minded determination of someone who had once known nothing but running slowly faded away.
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