Victor felt a chill crawl up his spine the moment he saw Bellaruna’s smile.
‘A chill? Me? Feeling fear?’
He refused to believe it. The great Victor Dreadpool—brought to shivers by something as trivial as a girl’s grin? Impossible.
Trying to deny the feeling, he swung a massive hand to grab her.
But his hand never reached her.
It flailed through empty air, trembling aimlessly, unable to obey him.
“M-my body... it’s not moving?”
Not only his hands—his legs gave out, and he collapsed to his knees. A wave of powerlessness swept through his entire body.
The intense vitality born of countless experiments and bodily enhancements extinguished like a candle in the wind.
His overinflated muscles shriveled like a deflated balloon. His towering frame shrank lower and lower—smaller even than before the modifications.
The backlash from forcibly enhancing his body had detonated all at once.
Now gaunt and skeletal, Victor stared at the empty syringe in Bellaruna’s hand.
“W-what did you... do to me?”
“Heh, hehe. I just knew you’d try to show off your final transformation at the end,” she said. “So while Arfa kept your attention, I quietly got close and prepared this.”
“T-that can’t be! My body was enhanced with cells from the World Tree! The end of all life—the peak of evolution! You can’t just steal that power away with a syringe of chemicals—”
He stopped mid-sentence.
Bellaruna saw his uncovered eyes shaking violently behind the fallen goggles and nodded.
“That’s right. Exactly what you’re thinking.”
“You... neutralized the World Tree’s power. That’s only possible if...”
“If you’re using the same power, of course. Or more precisely—if you have the help of an elf who knows how to control it.”
“Ohoho... I’d heard Ventmin was defeated, but to think you were the ones responsible. I see. Seems I really did get hit hard this time.”
Victor’s gaze flicked from Bellaruna to Seridan—now steadying herself after drinking a recovery potion—and finally to Arfa, who stood towering above him.
“To think my downfall would come at the hands of such an odd trio—an elf, a dwarf, and an Automaton. But perhaps... such a bizarre combination suits my end perfectly.”
He bowed his head in resignation.
Then, suddenly, he snapped it up and pulled a detonator from his belt.
“But dying alone? That would be unfair! Let’s all go together!”
Click.
Victor pressed the button.
The plan was simple—the entire laboratory, along with all the connected corridors up to the entrance, would erupt in flames, burying everyone beneath the wreckage.
But—
“H-huh?”
Click, click.
He pressed it again and again. Nothing happened.
“Why isn’t it working?!”
“Knew it,” Seridan snorted, pulling a new Magnetic Cube from her belt and holding it up.
“I just blasted the area with a strong electromagnetic pulse. Your detonator’s useless now.”
“T-that’s impossible! Didn’t you use up your cube when you self-destructed earlier?!”
Seridan blinked innocently.
“Eh? I never said I only had one.”
“That can’t be!”
She flashed a grin, revealing sharp white teeth.
“Besides—mad scientists like you always try to blow themselves up at the end.”
“Y-you too, and that elf as well! How could you know that?!”
“Well, because...”
Seridan scratched her head sheepishly, and Bellaruna finished for her.
“Because if we were in your place, we’d do the exact same thing.”
“...”
Victor’s mouth opened soundlessly.
He couldn’t have imagined that they’d beaten him precisely because they understood him.
“Well, that’s that. Too bad.”
Seridan used the Magnetic Cube to gather surrounding scrap and reconstruct her powered armor once more.
Clank! Clatter! Chiiing!
The rebuilt armor let out a heavy mechanical groan as its massive right fist rose.
“N-no! I still have to uncover the truth of this world—”
“Yeah, sure.”
CRUNCH.
* * *
BOOOOM!
The explosion sent waves crashing and debris scattering in every direction.
“This is getting way out of hand.”
Johan Okeas stepped back, wiping blood from his lip with his thumb.
“Up to our waists in water, and that beastman’s moving like he’s part fish. Isn’t he supposed to be weak in water?”
“When are you ever going to stop with those terrible jokes?”
Reinhardt scolded him, though he didn’t bother denying the truth of it.
They had flooded the battlefield precisely to hinder the beastman—but Pantos was rampaging like a shark in his element.
“Two Masters aren’t enough? What kind of monster is he?”
Neither had expected an easy fight, but neither had imagined being pushed back.
The reality stung.
Pantos charged again toward the two Master-ranked knights—
But then a freezing wind swept in, cutting off his path.
Ordinary cold wouldn’t have stopped him, but this—this made him pause.
“This aura...”
The shards of frost floating in the air weren’t mere ice. They were aura—
Pure, chilling aura, not a mere imitation like Reinhardt’s snowstorm technique.
“Commander, are you all right?”
It was Veronica Deville, vice-captain of Cold Steel.
The tall, dark-haired knight with a long ponytail arrived on the scene, her icy aura still lingering in the air. Pantos immediately recognized that the chilling power came from her.
“So, there are knights who can wield elemental aura,” he muttered.
Veronica met his gaze—and her firm eyes trembled slightly at the sight of him.
“Commander... you were fighting that monster?”
“Yeah. Thought I was dead for sure.”
She wasn’t alone.
“Oooh! Doria! My beautiful adjutant! You’ve come at last!”
The vice-captain of Stellar Siren, Doria Imiron, had arrived too.
Johan’s entire body shivered in overblown delight.
“Hmph. You’re lucky to still be breathing.”
Doria glared at him through rimless glasses, her tone glacial.
Her cold stare struck Johan like a dagger.
“What—why?! Why do you hate me so much?! Look at Veronica—she admires her commander! This is discrimination!”
“You really have to ask why?”
She replied sharply, though her eyes flicked over his body in assessment.
He was bare-chested, covered in shallow cuts.
‘Two Master-ranked knights attacked together, yet they still got pushed back... even this dodging maniac has injuries.’
His condition wasn’t good.
Normally, Johan would have tried to hug her the instant she appeared—but now he could only talk. That alone showed how strained he was.
The water around them had begun to ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ churn violently.
Even after using his Gladius Arts to full strength, Johan had been forced back.
That alone proved how powerful the spear- and harpoon-wielding beastman was.
“I’ll help.”
Neither commander tried to stop her.
They’d both realized they couldn’t handle Pantos alone.
“Everyone else, fall back! You’ll only get in the way.”
“We’re not exactly known for formation discipline like the Night Crawlers anyway.”
Pantos watched the new arrivals with calm amusement.
“Done chatting?”
Though he said it as if teasing them, everyone knew he wasn’t bluffing.
“Then let’s continue.”
He tensed his legs, pushing off the ground.
The waist-deep water blasted outward, revealing the ground beneath before rushing back into the void he’d left behind.
But Pantos was already gone.
“Veronica!”
“I see him!”
She drew her blade, aura flaring as she swept it wide like a fan.
Brilliant white aura burst outward, crystallizing into frost.
Even Johan’s waves froze mid-motion, shards of ice spraying through the air.
The raging sea was now laced with bitter cold.
And Pantos charged straight through it.
He tried to cloak himself in spirit energy to minimize the damage, but Johan and Veronica’s combined aura cut through it.
Wounds split across his skin, red blood spilling out—
And still, he didn’t slow down.
“Magnificent!”
A wild smile spread across his face.
“The waves were getting dull—thanks for making them nice and cold!”
All four knights felt a chill—not from the cold, but from the sheer joy on his face.
Pantos was enjoying it.
Even surrounded by lethal enemies, this battlefield was his paradise.
The harsher the fight, the heavier the obstacles, the greater the ecstasy.
Every challenge that grabbed his ankles, blocked his path, or weighed on his shoulders—
He welcomed them all.
Because overcoming them meant he could rise even higher.
In that moment, Pantos felt nothing but gratitude.
Even toward Ludger, who had brought him here.
He had endured long years of patience for this very battle.
Swoooosh—
The crashing waves drew his memories back.
The northern sea.
The endless breakers, the blizzards, the drifting chunks of ice—
And the hunts where he’d harpooned whales beneath a frozen sky.
Those memories.
That primal, tempered wildness—
Now fully awakened.
“More! Come at me! You’re not nearly enough yet!”
* * *
Srrrchhh—
The Gladius Arts: Copy Cat morphed into a massive greatsword, sweeping in a devastating arc.
Buildings and ground split like butter, the earth opening into deep fractures.
The Night Crawler knights had no choice but to break formation and fall back.
Only Terrina Lionhowl stood firm, blocking it head-on.
‘Damn it... Even seeing it with my own eyes, I can hardly believe it.’
Terrina was aghast.
Alex’s swordsmanship—
It wasn’t imitation.
He was copying her own techniques exactly as she used them.
Not just the movements—the flow, the rhythm, even the principles behind each form.
It was like fighting her reflection in a mirror.
And it was anything but pleasant.
‘My only chance is to use techniques he hasn’t seen yet—to end it in one strike—but even that’s not easy.’
She had already tried that three times, unveiling secret techniques each time—
And failed each time.
Which meant Alex had learned three new sword arts from her already.
The longer the fight went, the more she lost.
He absorbed swordsmanship honed through decades of training after crossing blades only a few times.
‘How could someone with this kind of talent go unnoticed until now?!’
She had assumed Alex was simply gifted—
But she was wrong.
Back in his cadet days, Alex had skill, yes, but not this godlike ability to replicate others’ arts perfectly.
This transformation came from the absence of one thing—
A secret sword art of his own.
Most knights inherited such techniques from noble houses or great masters.
But Alex, born a commoner, never had the chance.
Most squires and semi-knights without patronage drifted into mercenary or criminal work instead.
Their limits were fixed from birth.
Alex had tried to defy that through effort.
He believed effort would one day bear fruit—that the world would reward him.
But when he was expelled from the academy, stripped of his title—
And when he drifted through taverns and brawls—he learned the truth.
That in this rotten world, hope was useless.
Then he met Ludger—and grasped his sword once more.
That day, he made a vow.
If he had no secret sword art, he would steal one from others.
That vow had brought him here.
His path wasn’t simply hard work—
It was desperation.
Fervent, consuming desperation.
Innate talent, unyielding will, environment, and purpose—
All combined into one.
And thus, Alex’s dormant genius finally bloomed.
A perfection of the sword unseen before—and never to be seen again.
KAANG!
Two identical blades clashed.
The balance that had lasted until now finally broke.
Alex held his ground.
Terrina—took a single step back.