Basically, it was firing beams of black energy at me. There were ten in all. It didn’t take a genius to realize that even a glancing blow from one of these beams would mess me up.
Fourth Field.
I only used it for a split second—I timed it perfectly, just as each beam was about to hit me. The ten-beam volley collided with my impervious body and bounced off. There wasn’t an attack around that Fourth Field would let through. It had protected me from every beam. But—
“Ng…guh…”
—I had reached my limit. My body had spent its entire store of spiritual power. And repeated use of Fourth Field had left me physically battered. The only things I had to defend myself now were the remnants of the buffs I had used while fighting Kamaku, the weapons I held in each hand, and one incredibly dependable, spirited party member.
That’ll be plenty.
I forced a grin and clenched my blades with as much power as I could manage.
In my right hand was a black sword of unimaginable weight. In my left, a white dagger capable of severing cause from effect.
I entrusted my life to this unbalanced pair of blades, each one with a different size and purpose, and clenched them tightly as I boldly leaped into near-certain death.
“NYEH-HEEEEEEEEEEHHH!”
I unleashed all of my pent-up emotion with a sound that was part war cry, part bravado and served as a warning to my opponent.
I lopped the large beast’s front leg off with Laevateinn and then swung Eckesachs, which collided full force with its newly exposed stump.
“AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
Steropes—the flash. Arges—the bolt. Brontes—the thunder.
The enraged thunder beast let out a piercing roar and a blast of lighting. Dozens of black discharge points flooded the area with dark flashes.
Having spent all of my spiritual power and with my body in terrible condition, my odds of breaking through the bolt blockade were slim.
“Hey, you oversized mutt!”
But the odds that I’d bite it here—
“Is that all you got?”
—were practically zero.
“Nyeh-heh! Isn’t that right, Kyouichirou?”
The sound of a lovely voice floated to my ears. It was so beautiful and so comforting that it immediately warmed me to my core.
But the focal point of what happened next wasn’t the radiant star’s radiant voice, but the technique she unleashed on the monster.
The Blue Meteor cut a swath through the darkness. One by one, Haruka’s sword and its six dancing clones sliced through each of the dark flashes of lightning.
This was no surprise. To Azure Skies and its six clones, whose power to slice through energy had been increased sevenfold by Futsu-no-Mitama, the bolts of lightning were about as much trouble to cut through as blocks of tofu. In its incomplete form and having exhausted most of its power, Keraunos couldn’t so much as scratch Haruka Aono.
“You’re totally out of spiritual power and you can’t use any of your big fancy moves. Looks like you’re barking up the wrong tree, pooch! If you think you can pick your twisted paternal bone with us, you’ve got another thing comin’!”
I ran at the thing and howled like thunder. I sliced at it with Laevateinn’s unblockable attack, lopping off all of its limbs. Then I slammed down my massive weapon and made it kiss the blade’s edge.
My synapses were firing like crazy. The adrenaline inside me began pumping. In the midst of my frenzy, all my senses seemed to fall away. The only sensations I felt clearly were the weapons in my hands.
“Yo.”
The black-thunder beast was brought down to my level, and our eyes met. Keraunos, now freed from the baggage of its four legs, lay on the ground in front of me. It opened its jaw and growled with a voice dripping in hatred. The creature was quite literally in front of my very eyes. I gripped my monochrome dual blades tightly. The monstrous paternal beast reached its head out, its razor-sharp fangs primed to chomp down on me. But just as it was about to…
“Do it, Keraunos,” I said.
…it promptly shut its mouth.
Had it been a false start? Had it gotten so excited that it missed its attack? No. Nothing like that.
Keraunos wasn’t just some rampaging beast.
It was a spirit full of hostility and malice, but it also possessed clear intelligence.
At the very last moment, it had bowed out. It had realized that it wasn’t worth the risk of me using Fourth Field.
The clever beast thought twice about what would happen to it if it attacked me with a physical attack. It had mistaken the fact that I had used the same skill to counter its swipe and to defend against its beams to mean that I had plenty of energy left.
And, falsely assuming I would surely use Fourth Field again, it had decided that it didn’t want to relive the disgrace of losing to my diamond-tough defense. As a result of all these distorted perceptions, it had given up its attack.
It was a wise choice. It had analyzed its opponent’s strategy, weighed that against its current circumstances, and reached a levelheaded conclusion.
Hypothetically speaking, if I were in Keraunos’s situation, I would have probably done the same.
But all of this meant only one thing.
“You’re scared of me, aren’t you?”
With that piercing, decisive declaration, I had shamed Keraunos with the ultimate humiliation.
“You tried to go man-to-man with me and tucked your tail between your legs and ran.”
The Keraunos in front of me was nothing more than a mass-produced forgery. A virtual body that reared its ugly head every time Jupiter’s emotions were out of control. Still, it was immortal, undying, and connected to the real thing.
“Heh. I’m glad I got to see this pathetic face of yours.”
It was an ugly face, twisted in agony, shame, and terror. A personification of Jupiter’s angry father figure, the ultimate ruler of her soul. And here it was, completely unable to deal with mere insects flitting around its daughter. Worse, it was afraid of them.
Keraunos would never forget the disgrace that it had suffered at our hands.
This was a moment worth celebrating. The immortal beast known as Keraunos had suffered injuries that it would never be able to heal from.
Enjoy, Keraunos. Savor the shame, the suffering, the fear, and the defeat.
“Hope you’re ready, you deadbeat dad.”
In my right hand was a black sword of transformation and unimaginable weight. In my left, a white dagger capable of severing cause from effect.
“We’re never—”
They were parting words. But they were also a declaration of war.
“—gonna let you—”
—or evil organizations or BS twists of fate or anything—
“—take our Jupiter!”
After swearing an oath to heaven that I’d drag the real Keraunos out and kick its ass, I swung both blades and cut an X across the creature’s face.