It was several days later. Light flashed, the earth split, and the sky trembled. Awakening to the power of one’s Ancestor meant being in a class of one’s own, above all the other Calamity-level beings on this island.
“My name is Gram, and my Ancestor is Fafnir! Take thaaaaat!”
Gram in his dragon form shot a beam of light, which sped toward me as I floated in the sky. Its power was on a completely different level compared to the other beams I’d been hit with previously; I thought it might even hurt a bit if I did nothing and took it head-on. So I put my hand out in front of me and caught it, and my arm was pushed back slightly.
“Oh? It isn’t as strong as Gaius, but I guess it’s still pretty intense?” I said.
“That’s what I’m saying! Why can you stop it just by raising your hand?! You’re crazy strong, bro!”
“Well, this is me we’re talking about...”
Unfortunately, I was starting to see why everyone had been saying, “Well, it’s Arata, after all,” lately. It was a pretty handy phrase.
“Hnnnoooaahhhh! The name of my great Ancestor is Hecatoncheir! You may burn into your memory the might of the Hundred-Armed Giant!” Gyes roared, loud enough to make the sky echo.
Gyes was in his gigantified form, which was incomparably larger than he had been the other day, and countless arms now sprouted from his back. He was winding up to throw massive hunks of rock my way.
“Though, really, those may as well be mountains,” I said.
They were ultra-enormous masses of stone, seemingly conjured by magic. As he threw dozens of them at me, I caught one.
“How can you catch those so easily, brother?!”
“Oh, don’t worry about it. Here, right back at you!” I threw the rock back at Gyes on the ground. He managed to catch it, even as he let out a scream.
“Hnwaaaahhh?! You monsteeeeerrr!”
“‘Monster’ is just cruel...”
Still, maybe it was understandable, looking at the current destruction. All of the Ancient Dragonfolk and Fierce Ogrefolk besides Gram and Gyes were already crumpled on the ground and down for the count. Even the remaining two hadn’t yet managed to deal me any damage. In their eyes, I was a monster, through and through.
“But still...”
“Darling!” Tailtiu shouted. “Take thaaaat!”
“I’m glad you’re feeling better, Tailtiu.”
In her dragon form, Tailtiu was charging some sphere of black energy in her mouth. It was incomparably more powerful than anything from Gram or the other Ancient Dragonfolk, and in it I sensed the same threat as I did from Mina or Suzaku.
“Should I dodge it?” I asked myself.
But if I do, she might get all teary-eyed and say something like, “Why is mine the only one you won’t catch?”
As I was thinking that, Tailtiu seemingly finished charging, and the bright sky was swallowed up by a flash of black light. My vision turned completely dark as well, and my skin tingled; this was a power I had never felt until now.
“Well, after all that, I’m unscathed.”
“Darling, you just aren’t faaaiiirrr!”
I instantly closed in on Tailtiu, who was finished firing her beam, then grabbed her tail and flung her to the ground with a one-armed shoulder throw.