Chapter 150

CHAPTER 62 An Absolute Being After hearing Seiya declare his readiness, I’m convinced he was waiting for me to resign myself to whatever comes next. In other words, my death is most likely inevitable. But I’m not afraid. Right now, whether I live or die isn’t my biggest concern. All I feel is a strong desire to save Ixphoria. “Seiya! Great Goddess Ishtar has given us permission! The closest I can open a gate is one kilometer away from the Demon Lord’s castle!” “All right.” I chant the spell to open a gate. Jonde and Kiriko seem a little excited as well. “Wonderful! Let’s do this, Hero! For Ixphoria!” “I—I can’t believe this is the final battle!” But before Seiya passes through the gate, he stomps the floor. Immediately, the ground at the plaza rises, and scores of golems crawl out of the dirt like zombies. “There might be a great number of low-level monsters waiting for us, along with more powerful enemies nearby. If that happens, these golems will deal with as many of them as possible, allowing us to conserve our energy. I plan on creating even more golems after we arrive.” Seiya gives orders to the few hundred golems. They open the gate, then walk through it in droves. Jonde, Kiriko, and I watch in bewilderment. Other deities, such as Orand and Fraala, crowd around in astonishment as well. “Hmph. He’s sending the golems into the first wave of the final battle?” “It is very like him if you really think about it.” Despite their bitter smirks, they seem to be cheering Seiya on from the sidelines. Aria and Adenela are nearby as well. “You can do it, Rista!” “You can count on me!” “K-Kiriko, Jonde. D-don’t get reckless. O-only use Endless Sword to p-protect yourselves. S-Seiya will handle the rest.” “Okay!” “You have our eternal gratitude, Goddess of War!” Even Cerceus shows up to shake Kiriko’s and Jonde’s hands. “Good luck, you two! I don’t want my favorite part-time employees getting hurt, so be careful!” “Thank you, Cerceus! See you again soon!” During their exchange, the last golem finally makes its way through the gate. “All right, let’s go.” Unlike Seiya, who walks through the portal without even looking back, we smile and wave to the deities seeing us off as we head into the final battle. The instant we emerge on the other side, I notice the damp, lukewarm wind. A purple, stagnant sky hangs over us. An ominous miasma engulfs the heavens. A giant castle stands tall before us, piercing the sky and emitting a dark mist as if it were a living creature itself. “So that’s the Demon Lord’s lair…!” “Ultimaeus must be inside!” Our path is clear, but I timidly say to Seiya: “H-hey, Seiya? I can’t see anything around me…” We are surrounded by the golems who preceded us through the gate, and their large builds are making it impossible to see what’s going on in the immediate area. Seiya claimed he was going to create more golems once we arrived, but all he’s doing is surveying the landscape while sitting on a golem’s back. Curious, I poke my head between some golems and manage to check out our surroundings. “Wh-what happened here?!” Countless monsters in the wasteland around the castle lie on the ground. Some look like the demon priests we saw in Sage Village while others are bizarre-looking, inhuman creatures. “Are they dead…?” Jonde asks as he pokes his head out. The stench of death clouding the air is apparent. “I’ll check to see if they’re truly dead.” After Seiya gives orders to a few golems, they prod and roll the monsters’ bodies while Seiya closes his eyes. It looks like he’s linked his eyes with theirs. “I can say with absolute certainty that the monsters I checked were dead. They don’t seem to have any traps hidden inside their bodies, either.” Jonde strokes his beard. “It seems someone has already invaded the Demon Lord’s castle.” “What?! Does that mean we have allies we didn’t even know about?!” Maybe some of the survivors of Ixphoria came to help us! I’m overjoyed with the thought until… “B-but look at the bodies! How cruel…!” I glance back at the monsters at Kiriko’s request. Some are missing arms, legs, and heads while others have their guts splattered about. Whoever killed them seems to have taken great delight in the act. I shudder. “No matter how they died, I’m still going to bury them with Endless Fall. We wouldn’t want them coming back as undead, after all.” Seiya drops the bodies into the planet’s core, then sends the golems marching toward the castle once more. The golems are surrounding us to protect us from potential attacks from any direction, but there isn’t a single living monster in sight. Seiya continues using Endless Fall on any corpse we encounter while we slowly approach the Demon Lord’s lair. “Stop here.” Seiya comes to a halt a few dozen meters before the gateway to the Demon Lord’s castle. The entryway yawns as if to swallow us whole. Seiya places a hand on the ground, and in an instant, nearly a hundred golems appear on either side of him. Seiya leaves a dozen or so to guard us but sends the rest to surround the castle. Then, after switching classes from Earth Spellblade to Fire Spellblade, he creates around a dozen Automatic Phoenixes. With their mighty talons, they clasp bomb boulders on the ground, which Seiya had created earlier, and depart toward our destination. “Wh-what do you plan on doing?” “I’m going to bomb the castle.” “What?!” By the time I realize it, the golems surrounding the fortress are holding bomb boulders as well. And then… “Fire.” On Seiya’s command, the golems throw their explosives at the castle! The Automatic Phoenixes, soaring high in the sky, drop theirs as well! The blasts should have engulfed the Demon Lord’s castle in flames, but as soon as the detonations ring out, a pale, wall-like force field appears around the castle. After the smoke clears, the Demon Lord’s castle stands tall and without a scratch. “There’s a barrier protecting the castle! The bomb boulders won’t work!” “Hmph. As expected. Looks like I’ll just have to go inside and defeat the Demon Lord myself.” “O-obviously. I mean, I’ve never heard of someone defeating a Demon Lord with explosives…” Jonde sounds shocked, but I think it’s very like Seiya to test out anything he can. With the golems leading the way, Seiya heads toward the castle, muttering: “Berserk: Phase Two.” A dark-crimson aura trails off his body. Startled, I look around. “A-are we under attack?!” Jonde and Kiriko brace themselves for battle as well, but the only monsters around us are the dead ones. “No. I’m preparing for the final battle.” “Then why didn’t you tell us that?! What kind of Hero suddenly turns into a berserker without saying anything?!” “Shut up, zombie. While I’m not thrilled about going through the front door, it looks like it’s our only point of invasion. So pay extremely close attention to your surroundings.” When we finally make it to the castle gate, two fiendish-looking monsters lie on the ground, brutally murdered. Kiriko tugs at the hem of my dress. “Do you think these two were the gatekeepers?” “M-most likely…” Just as before, Seiya drops the creatures into a bottomless pit using Endless Fall, but the knot in my stomach only gets worse the more I think about how bizarre this all is. Are the monsters fighting among themselves? Wh-what in the world happened here? “We’re going in. Prepare yourselves,” Seiya says after resealing Endless Fall’s abyss. The golems naturally take the lead as we proceed. It’s almost like they’re the Heroes and we’re just tagging along. Still, I find myself taken aback again once we’re inside. “…?!” Faint candlelight illuminates the stone hall, revealing many more corpses. Powerful-looking creatures such as dragons and undead lie on the ground, battered and broken. The fact that the castle’s interior is in a similar state to the scene outside confuses me further. Since Seiya can’t use Endless Fall inside the castle, he meticulously burns the bodies. As we press onward, we follow each of his orders without question, and though it takes a while, we eventually come to a spiral staircase. It winds toward the ceiling with several doors lining the surrounding wall. “Who made this place? It’s so confusing.” “Let’s go up that staircase first.” Despite the castle’s complicated structure, Seiya chooses the right path every time, almost like he has a map. “That room next. After that, we’ll take that path over there.” “H-hey, Seiya? How do you know where you’re going?” “I’m using the special ability Divination. This passage just feels right.” “Oh, wow! So Oracle wasn’t a trash class, after all!” But after continuing down the path for some time, we find ourselves standing before a wall. “S-Seiya! It’s a dead end!” “Interesting. It appears to have a sixty percent success rate. I guess that’s fortune-telling for you. Always hit or miss.” “““What?!””” After that, we hit a few more dead ends here and there, but in the grand scheme of things, I feel like we’re still making considerable progress. This is the Demon Lord’s castle. There could be countless traps waiting for us, and this Divination ability is probably the only reason we’re okay. After passing by a statue of a demon, we take a long staircase upstairs before walking down a winding path. Usually, you would have to engage countless fierce monsters in battle to get to the Demon Lord, but we haven’t encountered even one enemy yet. It isn’t long before Seiya stops right in front of an enormous, morbidly decorated door. Th-this must lead to…! My goddess senses detect a dreadful malevolence coming from the room behind this door. Kiriko speaks up in a trembling voice: “I—I can sense him! The Demon Lord is in this room…!” I nod at Kiriko before glancing at Seiya. Knowing Seiya, he’s probably going to tell us to wait here! B-but I came prepared to risk my life to save this planet! I’m going to go with him no matter what he says! Surprisingly, though, Seiya doesn’t dismiss me. “Come on. Let’s do this, Rista.” “Huh?” “You have a duty to see this battle through to the end.” “O-okay!” What the…? Does this mean he finally recognizes me as a goddess? The happiness I feel disappears, though, when the golem pushes open the heavy door. A bloodred carpet stretches across the floor. The room is even more spacious than the throne room in Termine, but it’s dim with an ominous atmosphere. The first things that catch my eye are the… “D-dead bodies?! Here?!” Even the Demon Lord’s sizable throne room is littered with the ravaged corpses of monsters, just like outside. Standing at the end of the trail of death is a man, calmly looking out the window. Seiya raises a hand into the air and gives us orders. “Hide behind the golems and don’t move.” “O-okay. I won’t get in your way. But let me know if you need me for anything.” I stare at the man by the window. He’s wearing a black cloak over his frail body and holds a staff. Still facing the window, he says: “There seems to be quite a number of golems surrounding the castle. I, too, once created powerful subordinates to protect this castle—the Beast Emperor, the Machine Emperor, the Vengeful Empress, the Death Emperor…” He speaks in a distant yet articulate manner and finally turns to face Seiya. “It’s a strange feeling to face a man I’ve already killed. Unfortunately, you seem to have no recollection of the event.” Th-that’s the Demon Lord Ultimaeus…? When I saw Ultimaeus in Ishtar’s crystal ball, he was a giant, hideous monster with green skin, a mouth split from ear to ear, and eight limbs. The monster in front of me, however, hardly resembles the one in my memories. While he does have pale-green skin, he looks just like a lithe human. “I learned something recently. Once you have unparalleled power, you no longer need subordinates. Therefore, I tested my newfound powers on them. I’m not entirely certain they were happy to die for the cause, however.” “Y-you’re the one who killed all of those monsters out there?!” I scream. “Yes,” he replies dryly before continuing. “First, allow me to congratulate you for making it this far. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem we’ll be able to have a fair fight.” Ultimaeus walks toward us. “I’m more than aware that overconfidence often leads to defeat. However, this is not self-conceit. Our matchup is akin to an adult fighting a newborn baby. There is no way I can lose…” The Demon Lord continues his approach. Seiya, who is standing by my side, takes a step forward as well. Seiya!! The final battle has begun at last. My body tenses up, and I see something I can hardly believe. A red trail shoots forward and curves to Ultimaeus’s left—Seiya’s berserker aura! Th-there are two Seiyas?! No, I don’t sense Seiya’s aura coming from the one walking toward the Demon Lord! He must have switched himself out with a clay doll while we were focused on the Demon Lord back when he was looking out the window. He’s going for a surprise attack while using the doll as a decoy! That’s so like Seiya! But his sword bounces off an invisible wall, creating a high-pitched sound. “Heh-heh-heh… I have already surrendered one of my lives to the Dark God.” He lets out a muffled laugh, then throws back his cloak. “Stage One—Defined Domain: Magician. Now only magic will work on me.” “Physical attacks won’t work anymore?!” I use Scan to see if he’s telling the truth, but all I can see is static. I can’t see Ultimaeus’s stats at all. “Now, let us see whose magic reigns supreme, Hero. Show me what you’ve got.” He suggests this in an amused manner while the air around his raised staff distorts. “Dark Wind.” A dark miasma gushes from his staff and heads straight for Seiya. I tremble with fear. I have no doubt the mist is thick with Chain Destruction, but Seiya doesn’t show a hint of hesitation. “Class Change: Wind Mage.” He changes classes, then extends his right hand. “Wind Shield.” That’s the move he learned from his training with Fraala, the Goddess of Wind! A barrier of wind appears around Seiya and the rest of us standing far behind him. The incoming black mist blows around and past us. However, the Demon Lord’s overwhelming magic turns Seiya’s clay doll decoy and the surrounding golems into dust, sending a chill down my spine. “Impressive. You could only use fire magic when we last fought, but it seems you’ve learned wind magic as well. Then how about this?” Ultimaeus twirls his staff. “Dark Lightning.” A jet-black bolt of lightning shoots out of his staff, leaving behind ebony trails of electricity as it soars toward Seiya. H-he can use both wind and lightning magic at the same time?! But the magic in Ixphoria is supposed to be segmented! So how is he able to use multiple types of magic like that?! Seiya, on the other hand, would need to change classes each time he wanted to use a different element. While I thought he would be at a great disadvantage… “Class Change: Lightning Spellblade.” Seiya quickly changes into a Lightning Spellblade! It looks like his training with Orand paid off. He fires a lightning spell of his own from his hand, and it clashes with the black lightning, canceling it out. Without a moment’s delay, the Demon Lord casts another wind spell. “Seiya!!” I scream his name in panic, but… “Class Change. Wind Shield.” Seiya changes classes once more, blocking the Demon Lord’s attack nonchalantly. “I—I had no idea you could change classes so quickly!” “It’s a move I learned from training with the God of Merchants—Quick Change.” “So that silly training wasn’t a waste of time, after all?!” Despite his magic not affecting Seiya, the Demon Lord speaks up in admiration. “Impressive. Then let’s see how you fare against ice magic, your praiseworthy fire magic’s opposite element. Dark Icicle.” In the blink of an eye, dozens of black icicles form on the high ceiling of the throne room. “Th-there are so many! Hero! If you don’t want to be skewered, watch out!” “Seiya…!” Jonde and Kiriko try to warn him, but… “Class Change: Fire Mage.” Apathetic as ever, Seiya strikes the floor with the ball of his foot, causing pillars of fire to appear all over the floor. The dozens of pillars then gradually change into what appear to be sharp weapons. Th-they look like spears! This must be something he learned to do by training fire magic and spearmanship at the same time! Ultimaeus swings his staff, causing the countless icicles to fall from the ceiling. However… “Phoenix Spear.” Flaming spears launch toward the ceiling like missiles, intercepting the black icicles and incinerating them before they reach Seiya. “Simply marvelous. But I think you missed a few.” Ultimaeus chuckles. Seiya launched all of his Phoenix Spears, but there are still a few icicles in the air! “Die… Dark Icicle.” A few dozen coal-black icicles pick up speed as they descend toward Seiya, skewering his body. “S-Seiya!!” I scream. But his impaled body crumbles into sand! “Don’t worry, Rista! That’s a clay doll!” “O-oh, thank goodness. Wait! What?!” I scream again…because by the time I realize it, there are countless Seiyas all over the place! One, two, three—there are over a dozen of them! “Are all of these clay dolls?! But there’s no dirt around here. How was he able to make this many?!” “He must have transformed the golems guarding us into dolls that look like him!” Ohhh! That makes sense! Now that Kiriko mentions it, there do seem to be a lot fewer golems than there were a few minutes ago! “The ability to transform? Hmph. It appears I’ll have to destroy them all.” Black icicles reappear and rain over the clay Seiyas. The sluggish decoys easily crumble before the Demon Lord’s attack. “Mmm…!” I watch in suspense, worrying one of them might be the real Seiya, but Ultimaeus stops moving completely and looks down. A slain monster, with one missing leg and exposed entrails, lies by Ultimaeus’s feet. While clearly dead, and horrifically so, it’s somehow grasping one of Ultimaeus’s legs. Before the Demon Lord can point his staff at it, the dead creature opens its mouth: “Thunder Strike.” Ultimaeus’s body begins buzzing as electricity surges through him. In the midst of the attack, the deceased monster rises to its feet and transforms into Seiya! “Y-you disguised yourself as a corpse?!” “Yes. And I have temporarily paralyzed the enemy with a lightning attack, so I’m not going to let this chance go to waste.” After switching his class to Fire Mage, Seiya unleashes Maximum Inferno on the paralyzed Demon Lord, engulfing him in flames. He then raises both hands into the air. “Phoenix Spear.” Similar to the Demon Lord’s icicles from earlier, countless flaming spears emerge from the ceiling before raining down on Ultimaeus. As soon as a spear hits him, it explodes until the entire area around him has become a lake of fire and scorching hot air. “D-did he kill him?!” Jonde asks from behind an arm raised to guard against the incredible heat. Despite being covered in flames, however, Ultimaeus starts to laugh. “Heh-heh-heh. What power. It appears I’ve been fatally wounded.” Ultimaeus’s body gradually turns into ash amid the raging flames. Even after admitting his wounds are fatal, though, the Demon Lord’s voice is ripe with confidence. “Allow me to offer two more lives to the Dark God, then.” In the blink of an eye, Ultimaeus’s burned body expands! “Impossible…! Is he immortal?” “H-he’s changing forms again!” Jonde’s and Kiriko’s voices tremble. By the time the flames vanish, Ultimaeus has already transformed into a massive giant. He’s built like an armored cyclops. “Stage Two—Defined Domain: Fighter. Magic will no longer affect me. Let’s see what you’re capable of when you’re limited to hand-to-hand combat.”