NOVEL NEXT Vol.12, Ch.377 – Going Against a God
Ice crept quickly across the ground, ensnaring the legs of the Architect. Instantly, he sliced in an arc before him to release the cold shackles.
As it was a wide area of effect spell, all he could do was target the mana that originated it. But in the next moment, a girl in a frilly black dress blipped in front of him. Her knee shot right toward his face, forcing him to switch to a defensive mode to block it.
Ludmila bounced right off the god’s face and did a flip, expecting for her attack to be brushed off. In response, the Architect sliced upward, aiming to bisect her in the air, but strangely, the trajectory of his blow seemed to glide right past her body harmlessly.
As the girl completed her flip, he noticed a portal following along. A hand was sticking out of it, lightly touching Ludmila’s back. He turned to the side and noticed the possessor of Luck, Chrys, who only needed a single touch to bestow a divine dodging ability.
‘What a troublesome opponent,’ he thought as he kicked against the ground to call upon the Speed. He needed to eliminate her first if he wanted his attacks to connect.
But before he could reach her, he slammed right into a solid body that didn’t give. Wen Zhi proudly stood like a mountain in his path, his Defense impenetrable due to Total Rebound.
The Architect raised a fist coated with magic and swung, but Wen Zhi backstepped, allowing for his twin to take his place. The magic fist bounced back as it hit Wen Lu’s Absolute Reflection.
Annoyed, he coated the other arm with a physical aura, letting him double-wield both types of mana. But before he could lash out again, a fierce drill-like attack struck his side. It tore into his body painfully, and rather than weather it, he decided to sweep it to the side with Dexterity.
“Don’t think I’m going to let you go that easily!” Lau cried, reaching for an arm after his drill attack was deflected.
The two of them exchanged a flurry of attacks, each aiming to grab the other but parrying everything dished out. For several moments, they were pinned in one place, neither one gaining any ground.
“Smack this out of the way, old man! Ex----CALIBUR!!!”
A huge beam of light caught the attention of the two fighters, who both turned towards it. In sync, the two men posed to push the attack away.
“Couldn’t you have waited until I got the upper hand, Idiot King!?” Lau yelled as he was knocked several meters back before he could change its trajectory.
The same happened with the Architect. However, another beam hit him just as he parried the first, this time from a man in a metal suit. Lamps had directed his mana into an attack from his chest, keeping the Architect pinned between attacks. Stuck in the middle of the resulting explosion, everyone knew better than to ask, “Did we get him?”, before they saw the energy seemingly bend out of the way.
The Architect has switched to Luck to slip through the space that had formed, dodging any attack directly aimed at him. But then, the ground trembled underneath his next step forward. It split wide open, leaving him to stumble into the narrow trenches that appeared.
A sheet of ice formed above the Architect, once again hoping to trap him in an enclosed space. Expanding across the entire length of the fissure, even Speed wouldn’t allow him to escape this tight area.
He knew that they were aiming to reduce any room for escape, increasing the chance for ‘that person’ to strike.
As he expected, a glint of metal shone in the distance. A small kitchen knife shot through the darkness before a man dressed in a chef outfit raced toward him. He lashed out with a wave of purple slices that cut through the air, smashing into the walls around the Architect.
The first few hit him directly, but they simply bounced off as he had summoned Defense. But then, a second set drew blood, cutting deeply in before he switched to Magic Defense. Just like him, his latest incarnation, ‘Claude’, could fight with both types of mana.
Just like him, he only needed a single good strike to do heavy damage.
He called upon Mana next, using healing spells to reverse the damage that he incurred. Even a blow from the possessor of Critical would do little if it didn’t finish the job immediately. Because of that, Claude pushed on. He continued to rain attacks upon him. But by now, the Architect could see the difference between the mana signatures, flipped back and forth between Defense and Magic Defense to block them out, while switching back to Mana whenever there was a break in between.
As the possessor of all the powers except for Life, the Architect bounced back and forth between them at will. However, he couldn’t use more than one power in a single moment. That was why the current heroes of Leguardia had to put on constant pressure. They couldn’t allow him the opportunity of switching to whatever gave him an advantage. And with enough time, they would hopefully find a gap, some misstep to deliver the blow needed to end it.
The possessor of Critical had the advantage in a close quarter one-on-one, possessing the Essence of Life that kept his health up. It had escaped from his grasp. With that, he would have become truly unstoppable, a divine force that couldn’t be killed. It was because of this mistake that they believed that the Architect and his plans could fail.
A smile crept onto his face.
Seeing that Claude’s attacks were doing no good, it was just about time for someone else to butt in. But which one?
He thought that he heard a chime in the distance, forcing him to call upon Speed. And just as everything in the area froze to a snail’s pace, Ludmila lashed out at him. She had used Clock-endspiel, her ultimate attack that stopped time.
However, that skill had been telegraphed by the distinctive chime, leading the Architect to call upon the very same one. Now, the two of them were the only ones able to move within frozen time. Ludmila and the Architect exchanged blows, but it soon became clear that the undying god had much more battle experience.
The bells continued to chime as Ludmila tried to keep up with the Architect’s attacks, which she could just barely outmaneuver, due to her instincts. At equal Speed, Ludmila was no more threatening than an athletic girl her size. She didn’t have the strength to overpower, nor did she have the prowess to break through his guard.
The twelfth chime rung with barely any wear on the Architect.
However, Ludmila fell backwards, as Clock-endspiel used up all of her mana. But for the Architect, he simply had to switch to Mana to rejuvenate from that skill.
A portal opened below Ludmila, allowing her to fall through it and out of the Architect’s reach, before closing again.
But even if that hadn’t have happened, the moment that the Architect stepped forward, he felt like he had been transported to another place. And in this space, he was placed before a field of people, some that he could recall.
There were the faces of his old friends. There were the same as his own, all across the ages. And many more that were simply lost to time.
They were all the people that he had ‘betrayed’ on his path to saving the Earth. And given that, all of them were likely seeking retribution.
However…
“You have all done as according to my grand plan! None of you have led wasteful lives!”
The Architect’s eyes shone as he directed his confidence toward them. One by one, his mana resonated with that of everyone before him.
It was by his ‘Will’ that they were here. It was by his ‘Will’ that they had died for him. And he would do it all over again, because he had not regretted his actions. They were necessary for the endgoal he had created. And thus, the crowd cheered as they once again aligned with him.
Saki backed up as the Architect awoke after barely two seconds. Her ‘Aura de Gracia’ skill had failed. The Architect’s will was stronger. His conviction couldn’t be undone.
But then, a bright glow illuminated the area. It was like moonlight beaming down from above. As if that was the cue, Saki stepped backwards, right into a portal that was waiting for her.
The Architect looked up, seeing two armored figures in the sky, the aura of a phoenix around them. A bright flash of blue erupted from their chests as two columns of light came down; the ‘Sun’ and the ‘Moon’ descended. It was an attack bestowed to them by the Holy Family of Mitsubishi, the protectors of Sanshiro. It harnessed the very energy of the people that lived there, channeling it through the Resonance Stones that were imbedded into their armor.
The Architect smirked and switched to Luck, waiting for the beams to stray from their target. However, that expression switched to surprise as it continued on a straight path into the chasm and collided with him.
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The surroundings erupt in a giant dome as everyone looked on from a safe distance. I seared the image of the explosion, checking carefully that no figure suddenly escaped from its reach
The attack had taken out the entire complex of the Thunder Phoenix Clan and crippled the deity that they summoned, the last time it was used. There were hopes that it would deal a hefty blow to even a god.
Wen Lu and Wen Zhi floated down, Chrys sitting on the shoulders between the two of them. She had portaled to their location before the attack, bestowing her luck to them. That ensured that the beam would track the Architect no matter how he tried to run. Whether it hit was down to each person’s conviction.
It was our current trump card.
Since the attack was both magical and physical, he couldn’t choose to defend. Neither could he parry a blow of dual properties; Lau had tried before and failed. The chasm was meant to trap him in an enclosed area, locking off his Speed. Having Chrys direct the attack canceled out his Luck, leaving only the strength of one’s intention. And he had been forced to use the other skills, resulting in a cooldown, even if he had the mana recovered from using them.
Even with all of his abilities, the Architect was still vulnerable. He had descended from the other plane, possessing a corporeal body that could take damage. But killing him wouldn’t work either. He would simply escape back to where we couldn’t reach him, taking all the collected energy with him. And then, the cycle would continue as before, in which he could wait it out until the next one rolled around.
A brand-new set of incarnations, but possibly without the will to rebel. The Architect couldn’t create any more as long as the current ones existed, but once he could, he no longer needed them to dwell upon Leguardia to harness more energy. They no longer needed to be anything more than mindless puppets. This was the last chance to change the fate of a dying world.
They had no choice but to rely on me to ‘cut’ away the God’s existence, just like I had done so for Cielle from Eryn. If that was successful, then I would hold all of the abilities, thereby having the power to reverse everything back to how it was. I had to steal the keys to this existence before the Architect could escape with them.
And to do that, all I needed was for him to hold still for a moment.
But then, the explosion suddenly dissolved out of existence, like the final puff of a candle being extinguished. Aside from the destruction that had already happened, it was like the blast had disappeared without a trace. A cold chill ran down our backs as we looked down at the area with a portal, seeing the Architect in the middle of a crater, slightly winded but not really worse for the wear.
I had hoped that he wouldn’t use that power, the one that I hesitated to use. It was the remaining trump card that he possessed – the very limit of the Critical ability.
‘The End’
The Architect had just shown us how much it could endure the odds.