Our battle with Badigadi began with me submerged in the ocean up to my waist. Engaging him at close range were my mother and the Ogre God, as well as Miss Eris and Master Ruijerd. After Master Cliff cast a healing spell on me, I supported them from a distance. Against such a deadly enemy, we needed to keep the full situation in mind.
Badigadi took on all four of them with Geese still riding on his shoulder. Even burdened by Geese, Badigadi handled his opponents as though they were toddlers.
“Gyaaaah!” Even at this distance, I could tell Mother was mad. You wouldn’t guess it to look at her, but she was fully initiated in North God Style. Our arts had made great strides in the past few hundred years. On top of that, she was an immortal demon king. After however many thousands of years raining terror down upon humans, her power was uncontested. Just her name was enough to make any demon king who knew her of old tremble.
Yet she was powerless against Badigadi, as were the other three. Miss Eris’s sword moved too fast for the eye to see, but she couldn’t cut through Badigadi. Master Ruijerd’s dead-on hits were all parried.
Badigadi dominated.
Atofe’s personal guard encircled him at a distance, flinging magic at him. Ice arrows, flame arrows, and stone cannons all rained down on Badigadi—but it was as though every move was snuffed out right before it made contact. The guards’ spells didn’t reach Geese. Was that the Fighting God Armor’s power, or was Geese using a Magic Item? Probably the latter. I didn’t know much about Geese, but I was sure he’d done his homework where Master Rudeus was concerned. The Man-God was involved here, so it was best to assume that he had a plan worked out for how to counter us. In other words, our first priority was to take down Geese. Unfortunately, you only had to look at how badly Mother was struggling to know that getting close to him would be no easy task.
“I’ll hit him with magic first!” Rudeus called. “Back me up!” After watching the battle for a while, Master Rudeus seemed to have made up his mind. Despite coming across as a bit of a coward, when the moment of crisis came, he wasn’t running.
He inhaled. I sensed the magic gathering in his hands. For a moment, I hesitated, unsure whether he might catch Mother and the Ogre God in whatever he was going to do. His target…well, who else would it be? It was Geese. He’d reached the same conclusion I had. With his magic, it should’ve been simple to directly attack an opponent he had a clear line of sight on.
What sort of magic was he planning on using? The spells he favored were Stone Cannon, Quagmire, and Deep Mist… But the Stone Cannons the guards were firing were being vaporized.
“All right.” Master Rudeus raised his hand above his head, and a sudden gust of wind bellowed. The air crackled with unbridled magic. I looked up at the sky and saw at once that black clouds had closed over the dark sky. They were growing. Rain began to fall around us. In the distance, a roll of thunder. The wind howled, stirring up waves on the ocean. This had to be the Saint-tier water spell, Cumulonimbus…except that spell was solely for use against enemy armies. Even if it did work on the Fighting God, it would also do terrible damage to our allies. The ocean swelled before my eyes. As the waves started to grow larger, Mother and the others looked like they were struggling a little. Only a little, mind you.
Master Rudeus must’ve intended to strike just beyond them with the King-tier water spell, Lightning. Usually, you’d compress Cumulonimbus before it was complete and bring it down as lightning. This time, the clouds went on expanding. Tornadoes spun up around them and the fierce winds and rain lashed at my face. With my poor understanding of magic, I wouldn’t have seen it, but I knew offensive strategy, and so I understood: a special technique. Master Rudeus was about to use a special technique.
The waves grew higher, and the shockwaves from the three who continued to fight sent up plumes of water. Clouds filled the entirety of the sky. It was dark and I couldn’t even see fifty meters in front of me due to the rain. Even then, while I wouldn’t have lost sight of my opponent, I wouldn’t be surprised if these fighters had lost sight of Rudeus. He, by contrast, was aided by the Eye of Distant Sight.
The demon eye would no doubt be fixed as usual on the three fighters. Demon King Badigadi neutralized the power of demonic eyes, so he, and Geese up there on his shoulder, would be nigh impossible to make out. But Master Rudeus had to be able to see Atofe and the Ogre God, and so know where to aim.
Master Rudeus’s raised hand closed in a fist. An accumulation of magic, so enormous I felt my hair stand on end, rose into the heavens. Just like that, the clouds contracted. Those clouds that had seemed as though they might cover the whole world vanished in an instant.
I could see the moon.
He was waiting for his moment. I didn’t say anything. Not “Now!” or “On my word!” or anything else. Why? Because Master Rudeus knew what he was doing. He wouldn’t miss his mark.
Mother and the Ogre God both attacked at once, and Badigadi threw both of them back. For a split second, there was distance between them and the Fighting God.
That was the moment. Rudeus swung his arm down.
“Lightning.”
It was like no Lightning I’d ever seen before. The spell Lightning compresses thunderclouds to bring down a bolt of lightning. But what came shooting down now wasn’t lightning. It was a pillar of light. The moment it materialized, all sound around us was blotted out. For a moment, the rain stopped, and the world was engulfed in still, frigid brightness.
Beneath the pillar of light, a vast tower of water rose. Then came a thunderous rumble, akin to the thunder after ordinary lightning, battering my eardrums.
“…and…to…of earth…”
Through the roar, I heard snatches of Master Cliff’s incantation. In response, Master Rudeus began to prepare another spell.
A mass of water rushing toward me obscured my vision. The impact of his Lightning spell had raised a tidal wave on an apocalyptic scale. Before my eyes, the water rushed closer, sweeping up everything in its path—
“Sand Swarm.” It collided with the mass of sand, and the two slammed into one another, each canceling the other out. Through the combination of Master Rudeus and Master Cliff’s magic, the water dissipated into brown rain, muddying the waters of the ocean and the beach. I watched the rain fall, then turned back to the Fighting God.
I strained my eyes, trying to locate a trace of gold.
I found nothing. I couldn’t make out any trace of him.
“Did I get him?” Master Rudeus murmured, perhaps not realizing he’d said it out loud.
Not that saying it could rob us of a victory, but it was still an unlucky phrase. I knew from experience. If you’re muttering, “Did I get him?” you didn’t.
I twitched, sensing something above me. I looked up. Miss Eris and Master Ruijerd seemed to have sensed it too. A split second later, a pillar of sand materialized. Something was coming down out of the sky. Even drenched in the muddy rain, it sparkled.
Gold.
“Ugh.” I heard Master Rudeus groan.
It hit the ground right in front of him. Even in the Magic Armor, the golden armor was twice his size. Was what lay beneath that helmet really the face I knew?
“Thought I was a goner,” came a voice from the armor’s shoulder. Its source was the mud-drenched, monkey-faced demon, Geese Nukadia.
Then, the armor spoke. “I am Fighting God Badigadi! Friend to the Man-God, heir to the name of Fighting God! I challenge Rudeus Greyrat to single combat!”
“N-no thank you!”
“Fwahahaha! You’re wasting your breath!”
There was no time to stop him. The golden armor’s punch hit Rudeus straight on. One hit was all it took. One hit and the Magic Armor fell apart. Rudeus was thrown into the sky, falling back to the ground with a thud.
“Rudeus!” Miss Eris’s cry echoed around us.