You think I’m gonna let some cheap knockoff like you “allow us to escape”? In your dreams.
“We’re not letting this thing get away. Time to stomp this dark lightning daddy into the dust.”
I felt a clap on my back and thought I’d been struck by lightning for a second. Slap. It was exactly the kind of heartfelt response I’d expect from her.
“Couldn’t have said it better myself!” said Haruka, coming out from behind me to stand at my side. “That’s why I like hanging out with you, Kyou! Just sitting around and waiting for this guy to disappear on its own isn’t exciting enough!” With a ferocious, ice-cold grin, the radiant star readied her katana. “Let’s kick its ass.”
“Let’s do it.”
I was lucky to have been blessed with such a great partner. I felt like I could do anything as long as she was by my side. No matter how tough things got, I knew we could laugh it off and overcome.
“That thing’s practically out of spiritual power by now. There’s no way it’s packing anything else like that big breath attack anymore.”
The black bolt beast was perfectly silent. It stared at us as it discharged small bolts of electricity around it. It looked down at us…and down on us.
“…Huh?”
Suddenly, Keraunos moved.
It howled as it swung its front right leg at us with tremendous speed. It was so massive that it cast a shadow as it fell onto us.
“Fourth Field!”
The best way to deal with such primitive tactics was simple—dodge and defend. Haruka leaped into the air like a rabbit, and I took the brunt of the hit head-on. The creature stomped on me with all its might, almost like it was trying to punish me for the insolence of having refused its mercy. It collided with me, but I had other plans.
Suck on it and die, loser.
Keraunos’s front right leg crumpled as it collided with Fourth Field.
Seeing its leg shattered, I immediately dropped my defenses and swung my weapon upward to give the black-bolt bastard a big face full of great sword.
“AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
In an instant, an infinity of black lightning bolts rained down all around me. It had detonated the sparks that had been surrounding it. My heart almost stopped, and I broke out in a cold sweat. I clicked my tongue in disappointment and retreated. A split second later, the area where I had been standing was bathed in a shower of lightning bolts. And a split second after that, six clones of Azure Skies danced through the air to fend off the bolts.
This thing…this Keraunos wasn’t the real Keraunos. This thing was a fake. It was a cheap forgery created from Jupiter’s negative emotions. And yet…
I’m surprised it’s able to hit this hard… Looks like I might have underestimated it.
Keraunos was packing more spiritual power than I had given it credit for. It had a hardheaded personality and was clever enough to calmly assess our movements before acting.
This was no simple doting father. It had a clear look of mockery on its face when it gave us the opportunity to escape, and once we rejected it, Keraunos’s expression changed to blind rage.
Deceit, narcissism, stubbornness, and self-righteousness—this beast was a twisted incarnation of paternal obsession. A father figure who would destroy everything if it meant its daughter would have to keep relying on it. That was the truth behind the monster named Keraunos.
And as soon as I thought about the girl who had suffered for so long at the hands of this monster, my eyebrows unconsciously furrowed. I can’t lose. I won’t lose. My heart’s burning with a determination like it never has before. But more than anything…
“Ngh…”
I was starting to see stars. I was almost out of spiritual power to use on astral skills. The recoil from using Fourth Field so many times was starting to hit me hard. I hate to say it, but I could barely even stand.
“Hang in there!”
Just as I thought I might collapse, my party’s radiant star wrapped a warm arm around me for support. Her beautiful white limbs were covered in beads of sweat, and she was breathing heavily. But her eyes were sparkling and unclouded.
“We can beat this guy without taking damage, right?”
Six Azure Skies danced through the air.
“We don’t want Jupi to feel like she’s hurt us, do we?”
Floating as gracefully as butterflies, and glowing as bright as a swarm of comets, the sword clones cut through the incoming rain of black bolts.
I was grateful for both her kindness and their ferocity.
Thanks, Haruka. I’m so glad you’re by my side.
“Yeah.”
I nodded, then turned my gaze to the black-bolt beast. The monster parent was sending some of its spiritual power into its shattered front leg to try and recover from its wounds.
My mind reeled imagining all of the times Jupiter had suffered because of this selfish lightning beast. Who could even begin to imagine how many times it had broken her heart? And the more I thought about it, the more the clouds seemed to lift from my tired mind.
It’s taking this thing ages to regenerate. And it’s having trouble summoning a lot of lightning bolts at once. Not to mention how weak its attacks have gotten… This is going to work. It’s definitely going to show us an opening.
It was as battered and bruised as I was. This was no time to give in to exhaustion.
“Haruka.”
“Yeah!”
We naturally extended our arms to the side at the same time.
“Here we go. One electric freak, coming right up.”
“Pfft! What does that even mean?”
Our fists met. We both laughed as we turned to face forward. I breathed in deeply, then exhaled. And after waiting a beat…
“HERE WE COME, ASSHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLE!”
We ran.
Haruka dashed to the left, and I launched myself to the right. By dividing and conquering, we could overwhelm our foe’s ability to accurately process our movements.
“AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
The black beast roared. It forced the leg it was still regenerating up into the air and then spun around. At first blush, it looked like it was going to try to smash into us with brute force, but we soon realized that it had a much more sophisticated plan in mind.
This thing’s avoiding me.
It had learned from our previous exchange. Keraunos carefully adjusted the timing and position of the leg it was using to pivot in order to focus its attacks only on Haruka.
But that wasn’t all.
There was no way this electric psychopath was going to let me off the hook just because I had proved that physical attacks had no effect on me.
“So, that’s your game, huh?!”
Keraunos focused its bottomless rage and unleashed it in a new way—the sparks that radiated from its body were transformed into black electricity that shot across the battlefield in a linear pattern.