Basically, even knowing Van’s abilities, Kyuuzaburou still thought he had a way to win. Van found that interesting in and of itself. He couldn’t imagine losing, so he wanted to see what kind of strategy someone else would come up with. Of course, if Kyuuzaburou’s plan actually worked, Van would probably end up dead, but he wasn’t especially worried about that. Van losing would be a pretty interesting development, and that would be sure to satisfy Mitsuki.
Besides, even if he died, Mitsuki planned to reset the world anyway, so Van would come right back to life. No matter how this particular fight ended, everything would end up the same.
“Oh, looks like you’re really excited to see what I got. Sorry, I don’t have anything that interesting.” The ground in front of Kyuuzaburou started to glow. The hilt of a sword emerged from the light, lifting up to reveal a long blade. As the hilt reached Kyuuzaburou’s waist, he grabbed it and pulled it out, revealing the sword to be as long as Kyuuzaburou’s own height. “It’s just a weapon that I thought matched this look. I don’t have a scabbard or anything for it, so I have to carry it around like that, but it’s nothing special.” The weapon wasn’t an object from the game. He must have brought it into Cavern Quest from the outside.
Now that his opponent had drawn his weapon, Van felt like testing how strong he was, so started his attack. He spawned a large boulder above Kyuuzaburou. The game’s gravity dropped the boulder down. Kyuuzaburou noticed the sudden appearance of the object and hurriedly dodged out of the way.
“Whoa! What was that for?!”
“That’s made from one of the basic materials used to make Cavern Quest. It’s not indestructible, but it’s tough enough that I wouldn’t expect someone to be able to break it. I thought it would be a good way to test your edge.”
“Come on, if something drops down from above, I’m obviously going to dodge out of the way. No one would think to stop it with a sword.”
“I guess so. How about this, then?”
Glass walls appeared around Kyuuzaburou, closing him in. This was another one of the building blocks used to make Cavern Quest. The glass walls appeared at his sides and above him, making it impossible for him to leave without breaking through them. There were no openings in the glass either, so if he wasted time, he’d eventually suffocate.
“You really want to see how good this sword is, huh? I guess I don’t have any other way of fighting, so you’d see it sooner or later.”
Kyuuzaburou lifted his sword into a high guard stance, then brought it down. Van presumed it was a rather powerful weapon. It was almost certainly capable of slicing through the materials he used to build Cavern Quest, and he might even be able to cut Van in two with the same stroke. But that would be all. Van’s invincibility was linked to the existence of this world. As long as Cavern Quest existed, Van couldn’t die. No amount of damage done to his physical body would matter. The only way to beat him was to destroy all of Cavern Quest simultaneously. And not just the channel they were in now either. He would have to destroy every channel all at once. So Van casually watched to see what Kyuuzaburou would do.
The sword moved slowly, breaking the glass ceiling above him. On top of that, a crack also ran through the ceiling of the audience chamber above them. As the sword continued down, it split the glass chamber apart, slicing a line clean through the entire castle across the sword’s point. The tip passed over Van, splitting his body in two from the head down. When Kyuuzaburou’s slash was finished, Van had been split in two from his head down to between his legs, but that was all.
The insides of Van’s split body were solid black. Neither blood nor organs spilled out of him. Van was currently no more than an object in the game. He couldn’t be killed just by being cut apart.
“So I guess you cut me in half. Is that all?” Van asked, still in two pieces.
“Yup, that’s the end.”
“You can surrender if you don’t have anything else.”
“Why would I surrender? I told you it’s over.”
Van lifted his hands to push the split halves of his body back together...or he tried to. His hands wouldn’t move. He could feel the life draining out of him. He felt nauseous, dizzy, his consciousness starting to fade. It took him a moment to realize what was happening.
The world was sliding apart. It had been split in two. At first he thought it was because he couldn’t focus his eyes, but it soon became clear that he was seeing properly.
“You said you’re invincible as long as Cavern Quest exists, right? So I tried cutting the whole thing in half.” He was telling the truth. Every single channel of Cavern Quest had been sliced in two. “But you’re still alive. Did you lie to me?”
“Not a lie... I just didn’t say the whole story. I’m the Game Master... I’m invincible...as long as a game world exists.”
“Ah, I get it. So there are more games than just Cavern Quest.”
While the battle in the sky, Four Kingdoms, had been progressing, Van had been hard at work developing Cavern Quest. When Four Kingdoms had come to an end, he had turned his attention mainly to Cavern Quest, but naturally also began developing another game.
However, at present, ninety percent of the resources available to him were tied up in Cavern Quest. As such, the destruction of the game as a whole still did significant damage to him. With only a tenth of his strength remaining, Van was very much on death’s door.