“Ha...ha ha ha. What is this, the good cop/bad cop routine? Trying that trick on a scam artist like me is like giving a lecture to Buddha, but—eek! Don’t give me such a frightening look! I might be immortal, but some things are scary no matter what!”
By the end of his speech, Toiler had already returned to his jests. Dill pushed the Reincarnator aside but did nothing more than that. He looked down at Toiler, who guffawed while prostrate on the ground, and questioned him in a low voice. “Our objective is to take back my daughter from Prodotis. What is the objective of your group?”
Turning around, Toiler answered seriously. “Our goal is the deletion of the traitor Yuujin. By deletion, I mean what you would call death. No special method of killing is required. Back in the Mainland, the cloud data associated with the man Yuujin has already been destroyed. If we just kill him one more time, he will never be able to reincarnate again.”
Dill leaned forward. “Reincarnators can be killed?”
“Well, if we want to do it.” The scam artist did not explain any further, but resumed speaking with precise timing. “So, what’ll it be, Aegisthus? I do think our interests are aligned here.”
After hesitating for a short while, Dill drew back his chin and glared at Toiler from underneath his brow. With Dill and Toiler at their center, the two forces continued to stare each other down. The Reincarnator corps doing battle with Falaina were starting to be pushed back. They couldn’t put off this decision any longer.
“Listen—don’t toy with me. My name is Dill Steel-Link. Killer of Reincarnators. A man whose daughter’s life was taken by you bastards...so know that the moment our mission is concluded, your heads will roll.”
“...What a terrifying business partner.” Toiler wiped cold sweat from his brow. “Now then, I suppose we’ll go ahead and begin our collaboration!” With that as the signal, the two groups ceased staring each other down and, after turning in the same direction, moved as one unit.
Dill raised his voice. “Stand to attention, soldiers of Terea! If you let yourselves be outdone by these damned Reincarnators in this battle, your shame will be known to future generations. Halberd, the boldest among us—stand firm and meet the enemy head-on! Wake, our harp player—try not to run out of arrows! Whitehead, leader of crowds; Mace, the resolute; Hathaway, the whirlwind; and Orestes, who is equal to the gods in bearing—fight alongside me on the front line. Do not be afraid simply because we face a hero of antiquity. It was at the hands of Tereans, our people, that Krios was toppled long ago!”
At this time, the names of those who challenged the hero Falaina were...
First, a volley of projectiles from Rick Wake and Meteor rained down on the face of the giant, bullets of light and crossbow bolts filling Falaina’s vision. Falaina swiftly dodged at an angle, stomping Pitfall into the dirt as he was in the middle of opening a portal upon the ground. The earth shook from the impact. Reincarnators who tried to draw close to Falaina on bikes crashed and fell. But Halberd, who could boast a giant stature himself, approached Falaina without heeding the tremors. He latched on to one of Falaina’s legs, which resembled a stone pillar, and pushed.
“We have both inherited the blood of Gigas, the proud giant clan! Now, let’s test our strength, just the two of us...!” Halberd laughed. Despite Falaina being twice his height, he withstood a blow from Falaina’s fist which struck his back from overhead, blood dripping from the gums above his gritted teeth.
“ἐπι╬λήσμων√βοήθεια¬λύωφρῦνος¤βοήθειαIφάκε!” Falaina immediately proceeded to bring his fist down again with the intention of breaking Halberd’s spine. But with his fist still high in the air, he found it would not move, almost as if it had been seized by a colossal unseen hand. Standing far away with an arrogant smile was the scam artist in a double-breasted suit, Toiler. Holding both hands in the air, he focused his power, sealing the strength of Falaina’s right arm.
The sound of a motorbike’s exhaust drew closer. At the same moment that the motorbike’s rider showed her flank to Falaina with a sudden turn, she leaped from the bike, preserving her momentum, flames erupting from her feet. It was Repeater, with her lightning-fast fists—and from behind her there came Orestes, launched by Mace, the superhuman battle priest.
After leaving trails in the sands of the wasteland from the momentum of their landings, Orestes and Repeater turned around, both coming to face the back of Falaina’s knee at the same time. The two exchanged a sharp glance for an instant, then turned back to the enemy they had to defeat, readying sword and fists and unleashing their Skills.
Right, right, left, right, left, right—right-handed slash, right-handed slash, left-handed shield bash, right-footed kick, shield from the left, slash from the right!
Two sets of six strikes were accelerated by pyrokinetic thrust. They both struck at Falaina’s knee joint, forcing him to his knees. Farther still, Hathaway was also launched skyward by Mace, and together with Fleetfoot, who whirled around Falaina with his chain of teleportation, they delivered a pincer attack.
Falaina did not fail to resist. Even though he had been forced to kneel upon the ground, like a great serpent rearing its head he looked up at the sky, opened his great mouth and inhaled. Falaina’s upper body, already large, swelled as he drew air into his chest, which expanded until it was nearly spherical in shape. Then, with a great bellow, Falaina, who had drunk deeply of the air like a fish in water, exhaled the contents of his lungs.
“Βάρβαρος}φάκε!”
An explosion of sound tore through the air above the wasteland. The pressure wave generated by the massive bellow blew Fleetfoot off of Falaina’s shoulder and knocked Hathaway, still in midair, out of the sky.
Dill, whose chain mail cloak rang as he ran across the ground, stopped to brace against the impact, sticking his sword and shield into the ground. Even then the immense pressure from Falaina’s bellow pushed Dill back. Falaina’s exhalation simply would not end. The explosive noise would continue for as long as the giant still had air left in his lungs.
Halberd, who had grabbed onto the giant’s right leg, Sid and Repeater, who were preparing for another attack at Falaina’s feet, and even the Manager Toiler, who grappled with Falaina from afar with his psychokinetic grip—all were thrown back by the force of the sound. Finally Dill, whose feet had held fast until that moment, began to succumb as well.
“Shall I help you pacify this monster, heroes?” A cloth stretched wide behind Dill caught him as he was about to be sent flying. One side of that cloth sparkled like the night sky, scattered with stars. It was the waterproof sheet that had received the effect of the Manager Starlight’s Skill, turning it into a teleportation gate.
“Brace for impact!” Following Starlight’s instruction, Dill held his shield in front of himself. The teleportation gate swallowed Dill whole, and its exit...was in midair, directly above Falaina, who continued to roar at the heavens.
The destructive force of Falaina’s roar beat against the shield forged in Vulcan, causing it to creak and buckle. Dill’s body, which should have continued to fall due to gravity, stopped dead and was instead forced backward—such was the power of a hero. This was one of the Seven Generals of Krios who symbolized the Silver Age—Falaina, the white whale.
Dill, suspended in midair, could do nothing but withstand the onslaught. But there was no sign of despair in the rust-colored eyes hidden behind his shield. Dill looked at the spherical object Starlight had managed to sneak through the portal when he’d been sent through it—because the orb presented a smaller surface area than Dill, it was less affected by the pressure exerted by the sound waves, and so it continued to fall toward Falaina.
It was a hand grenade.
“Μάχη╥σκόρ╪παινыαλύω!” An explosion bloomed right before Falaina’s eyes. The giant ceased roaring, instead letting out a wail. Gravity began working properly again and Dill’s descent resumed. Dill tossed his shield away, holding his sword overhead and crying out his own name.
“My name is...Dill! Steel! Link!”
Falaina, whose face had been forced down by the shock of the grenade detonating inside his mouth, looked up at the sky once again. The giant gazed up in amazement, at the glow of Dill’s rust-colored hair illuminated by the blazing light of the setting sun. Dill’s long hair gave him an almost mythic appearance, and that summoned up one of Falaina’s memories. He overlaid Dill on top of the heroic image of the one who had slain him in the siege of Krios in the Silver Age—Iroas, the fleet-footed.
“And as a hero, my name is...Aegisthus!” Until the final moment, Falaina’s eyes remained wide open. As if drawn there, Dill’s sword pierced Falaina’s right eye. The sword sank in up to the hilt, but even that was not enough to finish off this scion of the giant clan.
Or at least, it wouldn’t have been, if not for the explosion of the phosphors entwined around the blade. On the ground, Sid, whom the mail-cloak Whitehead had safely caught, held his hand out with the palm facing Dill. His Skill activated, and Falaina’s eye socket burst to pieces. The right side of the giant’s face was completely torn apart. A geyser of blood and brain matter gushed forth, and the legendary hero...
“ΛοιγόςÞμονότηςθ΄□σειρά√φάκε,φάκε└φάκελος▒ἰατρός...”
...was defeated.