The floor boss was dead and the interloper defeated. Not even a morsel remained of Ward IX after Luna was done with him. Halfway through the meal, she had taken great care to spit out the magic tool that Sol had shot. To avoid making her feel bad, Sol chose not to tell her off for being gross and wordlessly sent the piece into extradimensional storage. He was going to go over it with Gawain after returning to the surface to determine how the experiment had gone.
While using Player to take pictures of the murals of world histories on the wall, Sol said candidly, “He was a lot weaker than I expected.” He was inviting the rest of his companions to share their impressions of the fight that had just gone down.
Without a doubt, Sol had become invincible the moment he’d picked the “Lunvemt Nachtfelia the Bound Evil Dragon” card from among those presented to him. There was a distinct possibility that he couldn’t have beaten the Demon Lord’s Augoeides, but he most certainly wouldn’t have lost, even if the unknown entity hadn’t interfered. On the contrary, if he hadn’t bonded with Luna, it might have been a huge struggle to contain her Augoeides when the entity freed it. As things stood, nothing in this world could truly pose a threat to him as long as he had Luna.
After hesitating a moment, Frederica said, “I thought so too.” She hadn’t failed to note the “than I expected” part of his statement. She had gotten used to being in his company enough that she wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow if it had been one of his monsters who had won the fight, even if all it took was for that monster to wave a hand. However, that wasn’t what had happened.
“I’m so, so very sorry!” Eliza cried earnestly.
Sol chuckled. “It’s fine. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
It was Eliza who had effectively taken Ward IX down, and she had done it by accident, because not even she had expected him to be so weak. She hadn’t used the skills or abilities that Sol had granted her, nor had she used Number Three: Type Atlach-Nacha’s ultimate attack. No, she had simply meddled with the Float spell that he had been using to hover in the air.
Being dropped from a large height was indeed something that could kill not only normal humans, but even those who had been blessed by God with talents that enabled them to fight monsters. As an example, Luna had once used Teleport to repeatedly drop a group of Rank A adventurers until they lost their minds.
However, this incident wasn’t the All Dragon against a group of Rank A adventurers. It was Eliza versus a Ward. IX had shown up as Sol’s enemy, whereas Eliza—and the rest of the girls—saw themselves as merely normal humans propped up by Player. Right off the bat, they had just assumed he would be stronger.
Rodem cleared his throat. “Ahem. I hate to correct you, Lord Sol, but the Ward was not weak. You and your party are the ones who have grown too powerful.”
Rosalind nodded furiously. She had just watched Unlimited Sword Glint, which she had thought the most powerful skill in the world up until recently, being neutralized with ease. Though it was her own bloodline’s heritage, even if she were to receive the perfect version from God now, she did not think for a moment it could surpass her current strength when paired with Number Five: Type Rodem. The power of Sol’s inner circle—sometimes referred to as his Party One as of late—had simply grown that formidable.
“I, too, agree with that evaluation.” Little Alshunna sighed from atop Sol’s head. “It puts into sharp focus just how incredible his talent, Player, is.”
It was Player that had lifted normal humans to the realm where a Ward, someone with one foot outside the natural order of this world, was weak to them. All the abnormalities could be traced back to Sol obtaining Player.
“That’s true,” said Reen.
“Yes, and no one’s felt it more keenly than the two of us,” Julia added.
On that fateful day when they’d come of age, four children in Ros Village had been shackled with the fate of being common Villagers for the rest of their lives. There was no doubt that it was Sol’s talent that had transformed them into a party of geniuses that had climbed all the way to obtaining Rank A promotions.
These two childhood friends felt far more comfortable now that Luna, Aina’noa, and Little Alshunna were around, as opposed to when they had been held up as Rank B adventurers with the awareness that they were mere Villagers constantly in the backs of their minds. Knowing that the power that had given them the strength to wipe the floor with Country Eater was the same power that had subdued monsters from legend somehow made it all feel more reasonable somehow. At the same time, the focus on the monsters did somewhat distract from the true essence of Player.
There was a wall that could not be surpassed simply by slowly leveling up using the world’s dungeons and territories. This was why the members of Black Tiger had given up on their childhood dreams, with the party ultimately breaking up. Reen and Julia, who remained with Sol now, had been no exceptions. They, too, had at one point given up on trying to help Sol realize his dream.
But then the Evil Dragon, upon being freed, had smashed that wall for them. With Player’s blessing, the group had obtained limitless growth. Then Gawain the Magic Blacksmith had come onboard, continuously supplying them with incredibly powerful gear that allowed them to perform at their best as they reached new heights. On top of all that, even Sol himself got to enjoy that limitless growth despite his inability to directly receive Player’s support.
Their strength was now at a level where it was by no means arrogant for them to consider a Ward—an opponent that should have played the part of a huge obstacle in their way—weak. Falling from a height that would guarantee death for a normal human wouldn’t hurt them in the slightest. If there was a need to encapsulate what they had become in one word, it would be “superhuman.”
The All Dragon, the pinnacle of all magic beings, said seriously, “My lord’s power will make him powerful enough to even beat us in a fight one day.”
The Elven Queen expressed agreement with no particular sign of surprise. To her and Luna, this conversation was merely an exercise in stating the obvious. Little Alshunna sighed, but she did not raise any objections. All three could tell that if Sol were to cut off all of their enhancements and instead gave it all to one person, that person still wouldn’t win, of course, but could survive for longer than an instant facing them.
There were still many dungeons scattered throughout this world. Of the Four Great Dungeons, three remained entirely untouched, not to mention the Tower. In other words, there was still much to fuel Sol’s growth as Player’s host. Accordingly, the stats and abilities that he could bestow on others would also continue expanding, and there was no ceiling in sight limiting how strong those under his command could ultimately become. Needless to say, boosting the All Dragon was the most obvious shortcut to power. However, even if the difference in fighting strength between a normal human and the All Dragon was one to a million at the start, that difference would become negligible if, as an extreme case, Sol could increase that person’s power a billionfold.
There were many words used to refer to an entity that surpassed human limits, of which “monster” was one. Perhaps the true purpose of Sol’s talent was to rule over the monsters of the world and use them to lift all humans to become monsters like them too.
“Hmm, I see. Maybe it really was supposed to be a face-off between talents,” Sol mused. “Oh well, we can take our time thinking about it later.”
If the Ward really had been sent to participate in a face-off between two people possessing unique abilities, it made sense that he had found himself in over his head. After all, everyone at Sol’s side had long become monsters in their own right.