“Sei!”
“Virgo!”
Virgo charged straight into Sei’s arms, and they shared a tight embrace. Seeing that, Sanieve’s expression warped, and Karkinos laughed.
“Now then, Virgo, use your skill!”
“Yes! Vindemiatrix!”
Virgo raised her palm upwards and shot forth a wave that dissipated all mana in its path. It didn’t matter what spell it was; everything would be unquestionably returned to mana and unformed by the skill. It was an unfair ability only given to the guardians of the sanctuary.
This ability opened a small hole in the ouroboros’s body, temporarily breaking the effect of Sanieve’s ouroboros skill, which needed to completely cover the Earth to work. Still, it only stayed that way for a moment. The ouroboros’s body was restored quickly after.
“You...” Sanieve said. “I will not hand her over. I will not give Virgo to the likes of you!”
The ouroboros’s mouth closed, cutting off their escape route. An aura of hatred rose around Sanieve’s entire body, overwhelming Sei and the others.
They had succeeded in reclaiming Virgo, but they were still massively outmatched in combat. There was no way for them to win against Sanieve, who held the power of two ouroboroses and the Goddess’s avatar. In short, it was certain that Sanieve would kill Sei if he put his mind to it, though that might take some time.
“Not yet... It’s not over yet. I can just kill you two and take my Virgo back. Nothing will change! Your actions are all meaningless!” Sanieve howled as he held up his hand towards Sei.
“That’s not true. I managed to find you, so now it’s over, man who was once the Ouroboros of Heaven.”
The voice echoed in everyone’s minds before the entire area was assaulted by a shock wave.
They were inside the body of an ouroboros, so there was no way a shock wave should have reached them. Even so, it felt as if something was pushing down on them from above... An absolute weight that could not be fought against pushed down on Sanieve, stopping him and forcing him into submission.
Sanieve wasn’t the only one affected either. The ouroboros outside, the wicked god, and even the Earth itself were the same. They were all made to kneel due to pressure released by someone.
“No way... This is...Pressure? It’s a racial skill of the heaven-winged...but, there’s no way Pressure able to render me immobile should...”
While Sanieve was in shock over this impossible situation, Karkinos was sure of his victory.
“She’s here,” Karkinos said after a moment of silence.
The fight was over. It was not ending; it was already done. Why? Because the person who’d used that Pressure was the strongest being in the world. She had no equal and could be resisted by no one. With her arrival, this fight, and the entire game board it was taking place on, had been bashed to pieces. What was happening wasn’t something so simple and easy as deciding who won a game. The game itself was broken, and now everyone and everything had been ended prematurely. That was the level of unassailable violence she brought to the table.
Black wings flapped and golden hair swayed in front of the ouroboros. It was the Black-Winged Conqueror, Lufas Maphaahl. She was the one who held authority over both the Imperial Thirteen Heavenly Stars and the Goddess Alovenus, and she had descended from above the ouroboros.
ＥＸ－９
The ouroboros’s mouth moved and a voice came out.
“I see. So you’re Lufas Maphaahl.”
Sanieve was able to control the ouroboros as his own body and talk with it. Using its resistance skills, the two-headed ouroboros shook off Lufas’s Pressure and glared at her.
The size difference between the two was absolute, and from the ouroboros’s perspective, Lufas may as well have been a dust mite. However, the ouroboros was the one being overwhelmed.
Lufas laughed as if the ouroboros wasn’t even worth her attention, turning instead to Sei. “It’s been a while, Sei. It seems to me you still attract trouble like no one’s business. And though I can’t see you, I can tell. You’ve gotten one step closer to being a man, haven’t you?”
Once again, Lufas was sending her voice to Sei telepathically. She, of course, knew that Sei was feeling bashful in the ouroboros, which was why she continued to tease him.
“By the way, have you already delivered a confession to Virgo that would pierce her heart?” Lufas asked. “If you have, then I’m sad I missed it. It’s too bad that I came so late. Still, that’s fine... That manliness of yours is a good thing. It means I can entrust Virgo to you.”
“Hey, you...”
Sanieve, angry at being ignored, tried to say something, but he was quickly shut up by a silent kick from Lufas. With that one blow, the ouroboros’s jaw was crushed, its fangs snapped, and with a thunderous sound, its eyes popped out and fell to the ground due to the force behind the kick.
Lufas watched, then continued speaking like it was nothing.
“Also, well done, Karkinos. You did well protecting those two until I came.”
After hearing Lufas’s praise, Karkinos fell to one knee to show his appreciation. They could not physically see each other through the ouroboros, but that didn’t matter. Appreciation and thanks were things given from within the heart. Though it couldn’t be physically seen, it could still be recognized.
“O Karkinos, my trusted subordinate and the Crab of the Imperial Thirteen Heavenly Stars...” Lufas began. “I am sure you are tired, but this is the last spurt. Things will get shaken, so make sure you protect those two.”
The biggest stroke of luck for Lufas was that Karkinos, who specialized in defense, was the one with Sei. With him nearby, she could move without hesitation, assured of the fact that, though the ouroboros would be thrown around a lot, Karkinos would be able to protect them. So, Lufas finally turned her attention to the ouroboros.
“Now then... Uhh... What was your name again?” she asked.
“The Ouroboros of Heaven, master.”
“Right, right. The Ouroboros of Heaven. You certainly did a number on things here. How dare you. I’m sure you have your excuses, but I’m not such a good person as to just forgive you after you hurt those close to me. Sorry, but you won’t escape with only burns. Be prepared.”
The Thirteen Stars readied for battle, Lufas’s words their signal. Everyone prepared to attack in their own ways. Aigokeros enlarged himself, Libra fully equipped all her weapons, Pollux summoned her heroic spirits, and Aries covered himself in fire. The sight of them looking down on their enemy was absolutely overwhelming.
“DON’T GET IN MY WAAAYYYY! Virgo is... Virgo is...mine...”
Lufas ignored Sanieve’s shout. “All of you, attack,” she ordered.
As soon as she said this, the Thirteen Stars moved to attack the two-headed ouroboros. The first one to get there was Aries, Lufas’s first tamed monster.
“Mesarthim!”
The ouroboros had no method to defend against Aries’s rainbow flames, which burned at a strength according to the target’s vitality. The fire Aries unleashed burned away at the metal ouroboros’s face, causing it to cry out in extreme pain.
Aries was followed up by Libra, the golem.
“Brachium Overflow!”
The skill pierced through resistances and was impossible to dodge. This strike, meant to turn all those who rebelled against god into ash unconditionally, hit both heads of the ouroboros as the torrent overran them.
“Come with me, great wicked god!”
“■■■■■■!”
“Deneb Algedi!”
Both Aigokeros and Thulhu shot black beams from their mouths. The Demon Lord and the wicked god, the two unexpected coincidences born on Mizgarz, completely overran the ouroboros together. Their techniques did not allow for regeneration nor did they leave room for revival. These two beings, so deeply entrenched in mana, dealt wounds that would not heal quickly, if at all.
The ouroboros opened its mouth in an attempt to return fire, but it was stopped by a chain wrapping around its mouth, forcing it closed. The culprit: Scorpius. The pointed end of the chain stabbed into the ouroboros, injecting poison into the dragon.
“Awwww, why are they getting along...? Come on. I’ve stopped it, so hurry and follow up!”
“Shut it! You don’t need to tell me that!”
Leon took his turn using the small amount of time that Scorpius had bought. He depended solely on his brute strength without relying on any unique skills or other tricks, slamming his fist into the ouroboros and destroying its scales.
“Yoouuu... Don’t underestimate me!”
The two-headed ouroboros tore apart its chains and opened its mouths. Then, each head unleashed a breath that could destroy stars, headed straight for Lufas. One of the breaths was casually swatted away by Lufas, while the other was swallowed by a hole in space that suddenly appeared.
“Nice to meet you, first generation. I know of you because you are the oldest servant of the Goddess, but that makes it all the more disappointing that you would do something like this.”
Dina, the current avatar of the Goddess, had stopped the ouroboros’s second breath. She raised both her arms, activating one of her unique skills as the avatar so as not to prolong the ouroboros’s suffering.
“It is my duty to pass judgment on those who bring harm to the world. Allow me to now fulfill this duty, which I had once abandoned. Come, Mediators of the World!”
The world rumbled. Dina had connected Mizgarz with Earth, creating an extra large gate. From the gate appeared the ouroboroses, all four of them: those of Sun, Fire, Earth, and Wood. Orm also returned to his ouroboros form, meaning the Moon ouroboros also joined the party.
Dina, the Goddess’s avatar, had the authority to activate the ouroboroses. This was something Sanieve couldn’t do even if he was also an avatar, since the Goddess had turned her back on him. Even though he had the body of a two-headed ouroboros, not even he could take on five ouroboroses at once.
Therefore, Sanieve reacted by applying a limit wall on everybody he could see. However, the Ox wouldn’t allow that to stand.
“To try something like that in front of me... Did you really think that would work? Disappear... Aldebaran!”
He unleashed his skill-destroying strike, capable of invalidating the skill of even someone as powerful as the avatar of the Goddess.
Following that, Pollux and Castor raised their hands.
“Now come, my beloved children! Argonautai!”
It wasn’t just the heroic spirits that came from Mizgarz to answer the Fairy Princess’s call. The Argo had come as well. There was now a horde of heroic spirits large enough to blot out the sky. Even Sol, an ouroboros’s avatar whom they had once defeated as an enemy, had joined them.