Gradually, Ares began to gain the upper hand. He dodged everything, while Machina of Pride slowly but surely racked up damage.
“You worthless human!”
Machina of Pride screeched as Ares’s sword carved deep into her mushroom cap. Her regeneration was painfully slow. It seemed she had burned through too much mana and was now unable to keep up. She was cornered, but she wasn’t going down so easily.
“Don’t get cocky...! You should all just let us devour you!”
Her aura shifted—she must’ve been unleashing her true powers now.
“You’re all dead!”
Machina of Pride’s right arm swelled to several times its size, and she slammed it down toward Ares. He dodged, but the wind pressure alone blew him away. The impact shook the room, blasting us with dust and shock waves.
Both fighters howled, and Machina of Pride raised her arm again, gathering even stronger mana into her fist. It was clearly a pre-attack motion for something far more deadly.
For Ares’s part, he didn’t run. He raised his sword high, pouring purple mana into it. Just the mana rising from the two of them almost made my body tremble.
This is bad! Instinctively, we infused the barriers with more mana. And then—
BOOM!
A massive blast of wind and force slammed into us. Purple and black mana mixed violently, scraping at our barriers.
Machina of Pride’s fist and Ares’s mana had collided head-on in a colossal explosion. We braced ourselves, maintaining the barrier for a few seconds, which seemed like an eternity. If we’d relaxed even a little, the barriers would have shattered.
After we’d mustered enough mana to withstand the blast, we saw that the room had completely changed. The floor had been gouged out, leaving a gigantic crater.
Is Ares okay? Wincing from the heat, I scanned the room.
“Ugh...”
He was alive, but his right arm and part of his face were burned. He hadn’t been able to completely block the attack.
Machina of Pride had taken serious damage too. Her black mana was torn away in places, and the right arm that had clashed with Ares’s sword had vanished from the shoulder down.
But if both sides took similar damage, the one with superior regeneration and life force had the advantage.
“Not bad...but with those wounds, surely you can’t fight anymore? You were already in over your head before you even got here...!”
“Not yet...! I’m still...!”
“Ah, that regeneration... I can feel the power of my kin. So you’ve already taken in the power of pride... Then I’ll devour you—power and all!”
“Ggaaaah!”
Machina of Pride’s entire body convulsed uncontrollably. Purple mana leaked out of Ares and got sucked straight into Machina, her black flesh writhing and bubbling while swelling grotesquely. With dull cracking sounds, her form began to twist and change, and she let out a bloodcurdling shriek.
In just a few seconds, Machina of Pride had transformed completely. She no longer resembled the mascot-like mushroom from before. She was thin now, like a long-limbed artist’s mannequin with a mushroom cap stuck on the head. From her charcoal-black skin, clusters of black mushrooms of all sizes sprouted at random. She was so tall her head nearly scraped the ceiling, and she was utterly monstrous.
There isn’t a trace of the old Machina left... Could Godlord end up like that too? Just looking at the demon’s new form sent a storm of fear and unease through my chest.
“I’ll smash you into pieces!”
“Not yet... Not yet!”
Ares had definitely had a lot of mana sucked out of him, but his spirit hadn’t dimmed at all. The two glared at each other, their eyes shining with bloodlust. In their world, only the other existed now. It was obvious they no longer saw us at all. Left behind on the battlefield, I felt the frustration that had been smoldering inside me suddenly ignite.
“Frustrated, aren’t you?”
Yeah. I’m frustrated. Frustrated at how useless I am right now.
“Of course you are. Are you sure you just want to sit there and watch?”
No. We finally reached the bottom layer, and all I can do is watch two monsters fight...
Machina of Pride nearly killed Shiro and Kuro, and now she doesn’t even care about us. All she wants is to kill Ares and absorb him. She just sees Shiro, Kuro, and me as insignificant weaklings!
“That’s right. You’re weak. You can’t protect anything the way you are.”
Damn it...! I wanna get back at Machina of Pride!
“Is that enough? Just get back at her? Will that really satisfy your anger?”
You’re right...! Get back at her? No!
I’ll beat her—no, kill her!
“That’s right! And to do that, you need more power! More! More! Let your inner strength burn!”
Power...!
Heat—a fierce heat rose in my throat.
Just like when I healed Shiro and Kuro—no, I need more mana than that to beat Machina of Pride! It needs to be hotter! Way hotter! I don’t care if my body catches fire!
Get angry! The angrier I get, the greater this power becomes! I understand it now! This is the mana of wrath! I need to turn my frustration, my hatred, my bloodlust into power!
The heat within me started going berserk. A lethal power was trying to swallow me whole, as if my brain was being scorched, my blood was boiling, and my skin was getting fried.
But this is the power I need! I’ll pour it all into magic and smash it into her!
A terrifying sense of omnipotence was taking over me. Pleasure raced across my body, and I craved even more power.
More... I need more power!
“Then get angrier! Give in to the impulse and bring destruction!”
Give in...to the impulse...!
Ah, this is...incredible...!
Red mana surged up, as if burning my brain to ash, and a ravenous urge to destroy everything tried to consume me.
“That’s it! Good! Give in to it! Destroy everyone in this room—slaughter them all!”
Destroy...everyone...?
“That’s right! Kill! And seize it—the power of wrath!”
Huh?
“The wannabe hero, the demon, the brats who can only cling to you, kill them all!”
What? “Brats” as in Shiro and Kuro? Why would I kill them?
“Huh...?”
Shiro and Kuro are family. They mean more to me than my own life. And you want me to kill them...?
“Why are you so calm?! Give in to your anger!”
“Thor?” said Shiro. “You okay? You’re leaking some red stuff!”
“You okaaay?”
“They’re annoying, aren’t they? Always needing your protection. Don’t you think so?!”
I don’t.
“You’re starting to want to kill these brats, aren’t you?!”
Shut up.
“Get angrier! Come on! You want power, don’t you?!”
Shut up already.
“I don’t believe this.”
I’d known something was off for a while. I didn’t know how many times I’d used this overwhelming power that surged with my anger. Even I was getting tired of this same pattern. If it were just an increase in power, I wouldn’t have questioned it so much. The problem was that the stronger the power grew with my anger, the more short-tempered I seemed to get. This hadn’t been happening in everyday life, but in battle, I’d clearly been getting hotheaded far more easily.
Have I always been the type to be consumed by anger like this? I’d never lost myself enough to go berserk, but whenever I got angry, I became noticeably more aggressive. I’d suspected that it had something to do with my throat—the reverse scale, which enrages a dragon when it’s touched. Maybe gaining the scale made me more irritable? I’d tried to tell myself that, but something still felt wrong.
And while fighting in the dungeon, I finally realized what the discomfort was: There was something inside me—something that stoked my anger and pushed me toward violence. It was hiding within my mana, but I could faintly sense mana that wasn’t mine. Once I’d noticed it, I could feel its presence clearly—sort of like tuning into the right channel? Its voice, its mana, and its presence were so strong I wondered how I hadn’t noticed it sooner.