Watching the young man try to stake everything on that sliver of hope, he ran a palm over his smooth skull and bit back a laugh.
So, you plan to grab the shaft again and force your way inside my range. Gerugoroi thought. Pointless. Do you really think I’ll let the same thing work twice?
His confidence was absolute, and anger, fueled by that pride, flooded his thoughts.
But he never lost his composure.
His next move would kill without fail.
Gerugoroi bit down on something hidden at the back of his throat—a flash charge he’d kept tucked there.
“Ngh!”
His mouth opened, and the silver world exploded into light. The vicious flash that erupted from his lips robbed Oakley of his sight a second time.
Even so, Oakley’s posture didn’t crumble; he stayed braced, unwavering.
Gerugoroi silently praised him in his heart. Even caught off guard and hit full-on by a flash, he doesn’t curl up? That willpower is truly splendid. His awareness sharpened, the world around him stretching thin.
Right foot, then left, he stepped in. In an instant, he went from zero to full speed.
Oakley’s eyes, wide open, were still useless; his irises had yet to recover their function.
He could not stop Gerugoroi’s advance.
Even so, Oakley made no move to flee.
He simply stood there, left hand held out in front of him.
Is he trying to read the timing by sound alone!? Gerugoroi thought. If that were truly possible, no one would have bothered to invent flash charges!
Once he had built up speed, he added rotation, a circular motion driven by the twist of his joints, multiplying the force.
From ankle to knee, from knee to hips, from hips through the spine, shoulder, arm… When every joint passed the power on without waste, the thrust approached godlike speed.
“Die, Oakley Mercury!”
The killing blow that had pierced the brows of countless foes flashed forth.
The spearpoint distorted even the heavy fall of peony-like snowflakes as it closed in on the young man’s head.
And then, as if answering that movement, Oakley’s left arm slid into the spear’s path.
What…?
His left eye had tracked the spearhead.
That one eye was moving, fixed on the incoming tip.
Did he anticipate a second flash and close one eye ahead of time to preserve his vision?
Because he assumed that anyone carrying flash charges would rely on blinding their opponent before moving?
Was he… waiting for me to trigger it?
Thoughts scattered for a heartbeat, but the spear only grew faster.
Pointless, Gerugoroi told himself. He grabbed the shaft once because my thrust was soft. There is no one alive who could seize my full-power strike head-on.
He shifted the line of his attack to slip past that raised hand and drive the spearpoint into the traitor’s brow.
Or so it should have gone.
“Tch—”
In that accelerated awareness, what he felt was the sensation of his spear punching through Oakley’s upper arm instead.
The tip had passed right through the gap between the radius and ulna in the forearm.
This man… He really wanted to catch it with his body!?
Gerugoroi’s eyes flew wide at the sheer madness of the act.
Oakley had let the spear run him through.
Even so, the young man’s head still lay squarely along the line of the thrust.
If Gerugoroi simply pushed forward, the spearpoint would punch through his frontal lobe. Instant death.
Your last show of stubborn will is impressive, I’ll grant you that. Well done, Gerugoroi thought, readying himself to deliver the finishing shove… and then felt the faintest resistance at his fingertips.
The line of the thrust was drifting. Pulling to the right.
What…?
His strike was far too fast; there was no time to correct the trajectory.
Gerugoroi’s all-out thrust grazed Oakley’s ear and stabbed into emptiness.
In a world that had slowed to frame-by-frame, he rolled his eyes to track the cause of the miss. And then he saw the young man in front of him and understood at once: Oakley’s left arm had been skewered by the spear.
He was clamping the shaft between his radius and ulna, the bones of the forearm, using them like a vise to both bleed off the force and twist the line of the thrust away.
He didn’t fail to grab it but let himself be pierced on purpose!?
By the time the realization hit, it was already too late.
Oakley wrenched the spear upward, forcing Gerugoroi’s arms to lock out and stretch to their limits.
And right there in front of him, perfectly poised in that helpless interval after an all-in attack, stood Oakley, Flame Blade already raised high.
Gerugoroi could only stare, dumbstruck, as he spent that inescapable post-motion lag in a world of slow motion.
Ah. I see. My thrust is a sure-kill, not a sure-hit.
If the enemy was willing to meet it with flesh and blood, to let it punch through and bind it, they could twist the line of a straight attack off course.
A thrust was, by nature, a linear motion.
Give it a strong enough force from the side, and even the straightest line would bend.
The first “failed” attempt to grab the spear had been nothing but a bluff.
Oakley had been playing him from that moment, turning this into a war of nerves.
That one time he’d successfully slipped past the Flame Blade had become a poison in Gerugoroi’s mind, tricking him into subconsciously believing that he was the one dictating the flow of the fight.
That was his downfall. He’d lost in strength and psychology. It was an absolute defeat.
“Magnificent,” he breathed.
The moment Gerugoroi’s strength left him, Oakley’s blade swept across his torso, tracing a brilliant arc of holy fire.
Scarlet flames roared up, swallowing the man whole.
Gerugoroi crashed to the ground, blood scattering across the snow as the blaze coiled around him.
Black smoke rose as his steel-hard body began to melt away, consumed from the inside out.
Oakley looked down at the wide-eyed corpse of Gerugoroi Workforce, then his own knees finally buckled, and he dropped to the ground.
If the Flame Blade hadn’t finished it, his backup plan had been simple and vicious: use the muscles of his left arm to clamp the spear in place, rip the weapon away, haul Gerugoroi in close, and land a second, killing strike.
In the end, he hadn’t needed to go that far.
But it had been close. Far too close.
If he’d had room to use his horse? If he’d come with allies at his back?
He’d only won because chance had tilted the board in his favor.
There was no sense of achievement. He was instead hit with a heavy, guilty feeling of having somehow lost anyway.
“Damn it… The blood…” he muttered through clenched teeth. “I have to get to the tunnels… I have to kill them all…”
The long spear was still stuck halfway through his left arm. Oakley gripped the shaft, yanked it free in one harsh motion, and staggered toward the mine, leaving a trail of red in the snow.
Somewhere far off, beneath the roar of the blizzard, he could hear the crash and boom of Celestia battling Giather’s summoned beast.
He didn’t have the strength left to even consider heading that way.
The ones left are Whip, Karatena, and Stella… He said the names to himself and felt a weight like lead drop into his gut.
They were far, far beyond him.
Once he went underground, he could rely on Joanne and Alex, but the existence of Stella Belmont, the strongest of them all, pressed down on his heart like a mountain.
Even so… what good would it do to falter now?
I keep going, he told himself, until every last heretic is dead.
With unsteady steps, Oakley made his way to the mine entrance.
There, in the spinning curtain of snow at the threshold, he finally rejoined Alex and Joanne.
“Whoa! You okay, senpai!?” Alex yelped, diving in to catch Oakley’s staggering body.