“This is pretty! A bit light, though, don’t you think?” Despite sustaining a direct hit from an ult, though, G barely even missed a beat. Her immense STR and END made her far too powerful for this volume of gold to crush her. Its nature as a pure physical attack rendered it incapable of doing much damage here.
However, damage wasn’t what Chelsea was aiming for.
“Next up... World Reversal Waterfall!”
“Oh?”
Chelsea topped off her ult by surrounding it with an upward waterfall veil. G’s threads of light were undone, making it difficult for her to lock on again... But that wasn’t all Chelsea had done.
The attack had reduced G’s vision in every direction, giving Chelsea’s companions a chance to land their most devastating attacks.
“Eh heh heh. It’s...a bit too basic, I think!”
However, G remained unshaken. She held the trident by the butt end and spun it for one massive swing.
In one gigantic sweep of her oversized trident, the veil of water around G vanished. Anyone caught in the trident’s arc would surely have been obliterated.
However, it was only water that sprayed in every direction. There was no blood to be seen.
“Your feet are wide open, ya big baddy!”
A voice rang out from the lower half of the scattered veil.
Accelerated by Ipetam’s blades, Max approached G from a low trajectory, allowing her to avoid the trident’s sweep and get close.
Then, she used Bladecloud Convergence to empower Sekiun and slash at the Overlord.
The Famed Blade sunk into G’s lower leg...
“Not bad!”
...but it was stopped yet again by her muscles and tough skin—STR and END.
Max quickly let go of her weapon, but she was blown away by a trident strike. Sent flying to the wall, she suffered an impact powerful enough to shatter her Brooch.
However, Sekiun was still stuck in G’s left leg, hindering the Overlord’s movements.
Now, if Maxie went for the legs...
The real attack would surely come from the other two.
“Here...!” The first of the two to take to action was Juliet. Brandishing her sword, she flew in for close combat.
“That’s! A bad idea! Doncha think?!” G faced Juliet head-on, swinging her trident to meet Juliet’s blade, and the two weapons clashed.
As a result, the sword began to creak.
Juliet’s eyes widened. “This is obvious! It’s just what you’d expect! My buffs are way superior to yours!” Forged by G’s clan, Harodihg Gnik was designed to be tough enough that she could wield it after using Paradigm Shift. That was also the reason for its massive size.
And Paradigm Shift’s buffs were far greater than that of Gradsoul’s Curse Conversion.
Despite her lower stats, Juliet continued to struggle, avoiding the fatal trident strike, but this accumulated damage upon her weapon, and finally...
“Oh my...”
With those words from G and a widening of Juliet’s eyes, the sword reached its limit and shattered.
Though a bit disappointed that it had ended this way, G knew what she had to do. She launched a finishing blow straight toward Juliet.
The battle between Overlord Invidia and the Fallen Knight was about to meet its expected end—with the latter speared upon the former’s trident.
“I remain unbroken.”
But that would not come to pass.
A moment later, with a roaring, metallic impact, the trident was knocked aside.
What had parried the fatal strike was...
“It’s fixed?”
...the same blade that had broken just moments ago.
It was now completely restored, seemingly without a single scratch. In fact, it now shone with a light more sinister and powerful than before.
This was Gradsoul’s second skill, “Unbreakable Blade.” When it was destroyed, the wielder could pay half of her HP to instantly restore it.
“I didn’t break it during the sparring match, did I?” said Juliet. G had watched Juliet spar, but this feature was still unknown to her.
No matter how many times it shattered, Juliet’s sword would remain unbroken and rise again. Reminiscent of a certain someone, it was Juliet’s new partner.
“That’s a great weapon! Also...” The unexpected restoration had caught G off guard and allowed Juliet to deliver a hit.
A deep wound had opened in the Overlord’s left side.
“Oh...! It’s stronger too!” G said.
Indeed. In exchange for making Juliet unable to heal the HP she’d used to restore Gradsoul, Unbreakable Blade increased Curse Conversion’s stat bonuses from 50% to 200% for ten minutes.
Juliet’s weapon had shattered and she’d lost an enormous amount of HP...but this had only made her more powerful.
High risk, high reward builds—there were many RPGs that rewarded this kind of dangerous play.
“I can do this!” Juliet now had three times the stats of a typical vanguard SJ. Though she still didn’t reach Overlord Invidia’s level, her combat experience allowed her to come close.
“Not bad, Julie! You surprise me, Julie! But...” Though shocked that Juliet could keep up with her despite the vast gap in stats, G was still confident that she would win.
The wound in her left side had already closed. The reversed Poison was now a healing-over-time buff. While Juliet had lost HP to pay for the skill and was gradually losing more as they fought, G was quickly regenerating all the damage done to her.
It was simply impossible for Juliet’s blade to outpace the healing and defeat G before her own life expired. Juliet’s HP was critically low—it had dipped down to just ten percent of her total.
“Looks like you’re still fated for defeat!” G said. It almost felt like there was a question implied by her words: “What will you do, then? Can you still shine on this stage?”
“Even if I am fated to fade...” Juliet replied as she deflected G’s attacks. “Even if the ending of my tale has already been penned...”
She had only one response.
“That is merely one wave upon the vast sea of possibility.”
She wouldn’t even think of giving up.
“And beyond that...is the possibility I truly seek.”
Juliet’s shining eyes never wavered, fully fixated on the horizon past what was possible.
“Thus, here and now, upon this battlefield...the flames of life burn ever bright!”
And with that cry, something on Juliet’s chest began to shine.
It was a necklace hanging from her neck—the MVP reward she’d acquired in the event alongside Ray, before she’d even obtained Gradsoul.
It was the Ancient Legendary “Light of Finality, Climax.”