Chapter 303
“…!”
Aillet was flustered. Reed had suddenly let go of his demonic sword during their standoff.
He subtly twisted his wrist, as if to make Aillet’s power slide off, letting most of it flow away.
Letting Librilly graze his shoulder, he extended his right hand, ignoring the injury.
The hand that had just held the demonic sword was now empty.
With that defenseless hand, he asked again.
“Live with me in this ruined world.”
Faced with a temptation so dizzying, Aillet’s answer was already decided.
“No.”
“That’s a shame.”
Reed stamped his right foot. A massive wave, unleashed by the angered ground, swept over Aillet’s body.
Aillet, with astonishing agility, regained her balance and charged at Reed.
The demonic sword, re-summoned into his right hand, intertwined with Aillet’s pristine white Holy Scythe.
In the ballroom atop the snowy mountain, two transcendent beings began to perform the Dance of the Heavens Beyond Heavens.
Exchanging unpredictable blows, Aillet attempted to converse.
“I’ve been thinking, do you know your goal is really strange?”
“Which part?”
“If you don’t believe in gods, how do you believe in Demon Gods?”
“Gods and Demon Gods are different. I can control a significant portion of the Chaos Evil God’s will.”
“You can control it?”
To Aillet’s surprised golden eyes, Reed continued his explanation kindly and calmly.
Though his eyes were restless with desire for her, and his hands poured out furious attacks as if to crush her beneath his power.
“Originally, the true body of Chaos Evil is not a great being, but one formed by a cluster of countless evils. The intelligence and will formed by an aggregation of insects are not highly sophisticated. I can control that much by leveraging the resonance of my authority.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes.”
“Thanks for the explanation, Reed. But you know what?”
Aillet’s assessment, after listening to the end, was cold.
“It’s always those self-assured humans who end up getting tangled at the end!”
“Then there’s no choice but for the world to be destroyed.”
“Don’t say it so easily.”
“Do I sound like I’m saying it easily?”
As Aillet fell silent, he pressed his blade closer and spoke.
“It’s better to simply follow the fate of destruction than to cling to a squalid life, solely relying on the mercy of a god.”
“…”
His attitude chose dignified destruction over miserable survival. The foundation of his conviction was consistent.
He could not trust gods.
Therefore, as the best option, he adhered to a method of controlling a being comparable to a god to replace one.
Amidst their silent exchange, fierce offense and defense ensued. Aillet’s scythe attacks were blocked by Reed using his demonic sword’s blade as a shield.
Then, Reed’s counterattack, which inversely dug in, was delicately parried and swept aside by the scythe blade.
While continuously severing the flow of attacks and twisting the points of impact, brilliant destructive light adorned the surroundings.
Beneath the chillingly blue winter sky, the towering summit of the snowy mountain was being leveled into a flat snowy field.
“Reed!”
Aillet, breathing raggedly, uttered his name and focused her power on a single point.
The sparks generated as a byproduct of her attack were almost comparable to Divine Retribution.
However, what was being destroyed and screaming was not Reed, but the eternal ice of the snowy mountain.
After exchanging a powerful blow, both allowed their bodies to be carried by the linear recoil, creating distance.
As they were pushed in opposite directions, kicking up white Fractal Flower dust instead of dirt, their gazes met.
“…”
“…”
In that fleeting moment, they both instinctively knew. Their next attack would be a full-power clash.
Aillet was the first to change her movement. Bending at the waist, she pressed both hands into the snow, braking with her heels.
Then, she unleashed aura from her palms and imbued her legs with the Queen’s superhuman strength, converting it into powerful propulsion.
Thud!
Her silver hair fanned out like wings. Her body pierced forward faster than a bird of prey.
Screech!
At the same moment, Reed plunged his blade into the ground, halting his retreating body. And as he pulled the demonic sword from the earth, he attacked Aillet directly in front of him.
The demonic sword drew a nearly perfect straight line. A slash, as if to cleave the world in two, surged towards Aillet.
And her Holy Scythe converged immense divine aura onto a single point, aiming for the exact center of the black horizontal line.
The moment the point and line attacks collided.
Kwooong!
With a tremor that shook heaven and earth, both were pushed back. Blood blossoms bloomed on their bodies as they regained their stances.
Reed regulated his breathing and asked.
“How is it? Has your mind changed now?”
“No, not at all.”
“You have a remarkably firm will.”
“What can I do if your persuasion is insufficient?”
“I’ll try harder. But Aillet.”
Reed’s gaze flickered to the side. He was looking at her hair, streaming long to one side.
“It seems the time limit for Divine Descent is about to run out.”
Reed’s eyes gleamed as he saw her silver hair beginning to turn pink at the ends.
“Oh? Thanks for telling me.”
It was then that she brutally crushed his belief and expectation that time was on his side.
Spreading aura blades to guard herself, she rummaged through her sub-space inventory.
She tore open the cap of the retrieved potion bottle with her mouth and immediately drank half of its contents.
Her original hair color was once again erased by the divine silver and gold light.
“Now, is that enough?”
“Is that a fever reducer that cures Divine Fever?”
Reed let out a small sigh of disappointment at the sight.
“Haa, as expected, there’s no such thing as luck for me in this world. What a shame.”
His nonchalant voice couldn’t hide his deep disappointment.
“In the end, all I can rely on is my own power.”
He waved his hand. Following his destructive gesture, a legion of black flying blades flowed like water.
The flying blades, swirling and enveloping him, soared high into the sky, then poured down like a storm of lightning.
In response, Aillet shot her white flying blades vertically upwards.
Kwagwagwang!
At the clashing horizontal front, countless explosions erupted, annihilating the aura blades. The aftermath unleashed a storm, tearing through the thin atmosphere.
Aillet swallowed the breath that surged to her throat, enduring the tempest, and tightened her grip on Librilly.
As if it were her turn, she launched a preemptive attack, shouting with indignation.
“Stop it already, Reed!”
This wasn’t just directed at the terrible battle that was currently ongoing. What she targeted was Reed’s more fundamental actions.
“You’ve already taken responsibility for the world enough! So why are you still trying to bear responsibility?”
“Responsibility? Me?”
“Because you can’t trust gods! You can’t let a god replace your role!”
“…”
Aillet accurately pinpointed the sacrifice hidden within Reed’s plan.
“Control the evil god? Then what about you? Doesn’t that mean your consciousness will merge with the evil god? Is that a human life? Why are you like this? Why can’t you escape this world and insist on being a part of it again?”
“…”
“Why are you foolishly sacrificing yourself again!”
No matter how low the level of will, or how ‘manufactured’ the god, the target was the Chaos Evil God, whose very existence was authority. Controlling such a being could not be easy.
To suppress the unpredictable evil star, he might have to keep his consciousness awake, monitoring and controlling it forever.
This was more than a curse of eternal sleeplessness.
“…”
Reed remained silent. However, despite her heartfelt voice, there was no reconsideration in the end.
“If the reward for that sacrifice is you, then there’s nothing I can’t do.”
Reed’s will was firm. He had long forgotten what it meant to live as a mere human.
“You stubborn fool!”
Aillet, filled with emotion, struck Reed with Librilly.
“Your words are harsh, Aillet.”
Of course, he simply batted away such affectionate attacks.
“You wouldn’t have used such harsh words on the 117th iteration, would you?”
“Enough of that.”
With a terse remark, Aillet’s eyes changed. The previously light atmosphere instantly shifted.
“Alright, Reed. If that’s truly your will.”
“…”
“I’ll free you from that obsessive sense of responsibility.”
Aillet, too, was simply ‘persuading’ him.
“See, Aillet? This method is more comfortable for you too, isn’t it?”
“I’m accommodating your method!”
Aillet slid backward, extending her aura blades. Light blades crisscrossing the air disrupted Reed’s vision.
Through this, she created a blind spot in his sensory range and launched her true attack.
Whoosh!
Dozens of lines curved and spread towards Reed.
He easily avoided most of the lines that tried to entangle his limbs, but one wrapped around his left arm.
Of course, he felt no sense of crisis. He lightly snapped his fingers.
“You know from before. Your wire can’t…
His relaxed voice could not continue.
With a clear reverberation, the Spirit King’s Harp String, which should have snapped, did not budge.
Instead, it was melting his clothing and trying to burrow into the skin of his left arm.
“This is…”
“Surprised?”
Only then did Reed properly examine the true nature of the wire wrapped around his wrist.
Unpleasant black lines resembling barbed wire. Their true identity was…
“They’re called Black Serpents of Interdiction.”
It was an artifact that had helped seal Tesillid Argent’s Three Great Powers in the Abyss.
“Did you let your guard down, thinking it was the Spirit King’s Harp String?”
“Honestly, yes. To exploit a flaw in my awareness, you’re quite impressive, Aillet Rodelain.”
Privilege for Possessors