Regressor, Possessor, Reincarnator

The giant looked strange.

Allen had laid eyes on the remains of one before. Though bones were all he'd seen, those alone were enough to know that the being who had left them behind was a giant.

But the giant before him was different from what he'd imagined.

Its eyes, nose, and mouth were all threaded together with half-taut threads. The sights visible through the gaps in the thread were horrible. Scattered across the enormous body were abundant traces of failed sutures and surgeries, and—most notably of all—the giant didn't have just two arms.

There were six in total.

Considering the appearance of the remains he'd seen before, the giant present before him now was surely an impossible sight. It could be that this was some variant of giant that Allen did not know of, but he put such a possibility aside.

If it weren't impossible, Vestla wouldn't have reacted like that.

Allen glanced down and checked on her.

⟬Ah.⟭

She still hadn't come to her senses since seeing the giant, as if she'd seen something she was never meant to see.

The ever-loud Vestla muttered to herself in a shocked, empty voice, ⟬…There's no way. No… There shouldn't be any left.⟭

They were meaningless words.

Allen turned away, vowing to ask her about it later.

"Ahhhhh!"

A knight flew across the sky from the giant's attack.

Crash! Crash! Bang!

The flying knight was lodged into the ground after tearing through some trees. Fortunately, the knight was still breathing as the soldiers approached him. However, it seemed as though it would take more time for him to come to his senses.

"Split up and attack! It can't hit us all at once!"

"Sir! Liam is…!"

"Liam is alive, so shut up and concentrate!" the senior knight shouted at his agitated junior, raising his shield.

Thud!

“—Urgh.” Even though he had strengthened his body with magic, his wrist almost broke. The knight broke into a cold sweat, seeing the damage done to his now crumbling shield.

The giant was strong—so strong that their top forces, the ones that solved all manner of problems in the territory, were struggling. Its steel-like body wasn't damaged at all by most attacks. Even if it so happened that the best-case scenario occurred and an attack injured it, its wounds quickly healed and regenerated.

With its huge size and the attacks thrown from its six arms, the giant brought their mission progress to a halt. It was difficult for even the most elite of their soldiers to make any ground in such a fierce battle.

If they didn’t intervene in the right way, they could easily get both their colleagues and themselves hurt. However, if the giant was to be taken down, then there would most certainly have to be a great deal of sacrifice.

No matter how much Allen disliked the knights, it'd cause quite a bit of trouble if he lost them all.

They still had to hang in there.

'Just until Julius and I get stronger.'

Even if he didn't like it, he couldn't deny that they had worked hard for the county so far. Though he could separate his private and public matters, he would keep tabs on those who had taken Julius's side after his change.

'I can't say that their actions are selfless.'

The strength within his body transformed itself into great power. Allen forcefully kicked off the ground, releasing all of the power he had been suppressing in one go.

Thud!

The ground crumbled under his strong, fully powered steps.

At that same moment, a knight attempted a dangerous attack right in front of him.

The giant's heavy fists fell with a loud roar.

'Will it be hard to beat?'

No, he'd be alright.

As Allen took measure of his opponent, the senior knight clenched his teeth, having endured the giant's attack.

'This is insane.'

Already, three knights had been subdued and sent flying away by the giant's blows. How many times had their shields been blocked and turned into lumps of scrap metal already?

"…Damn it."

It would have been different if the Knight Commander were there with them. He reminisced for a moment on his level of ability—about equal to that of an ogre—before erasing him from his mind.

"Grrraaaaah!"

The giant rushed at him, ignoring the other knights as if it’d finally been set off, growing annoyed from dealing with the same attack yet again.

Allen moved to strike. His shield squeaked and groaned harshly, itself now turned into scrap metal on the verge of collapse, and his wrist had become numb from the same attack.

"Cough, damn it."

The plummeting attack made his hands and feet feel tingly. The knights couldn't interfere with the rough giant's momentum at all. With every step, the ground trembled and became littered with the wreckage from unsuccessful attacks.

And the second that his shield broke—

Clang!

A wind arose.

"Get behind me, I'll take care of it."

Having approached the rest of the forces, Allen stopped the attack. The startled senior knight answered unconsciously, "But—"

"Don't you know how much I can handle?"

Could the Duke’s firstborn son have been saying that he wasn't fit for his position? The senior knight couldn't muster the energy to say the words that had caught in his throat.

Boom! Boom!

Because Allen was standing on equal ground with the giant.

The air zinged with the giant's attack. Its heavy fists were strong enough to smash bone and crush steel.

Allen had no intention of backing down from such an attack.

"Come on!"

"…I see."

At this sight, the senior knight no longer hesitated and stepped back.

As he stepped down, Allen focused his eyes on the giant. He pictured the giant's movements in his head. Watching the fierce battle with the knights proceed naturally reminded him of the giant's strength.

'He's at least as strong as an ogre.'

Perhaps a knight would fare well enough, but he couldn't be certain that he would be capable of dealing with this until he reached rank 5.

* * *

* * * 

The giant screamed and waved its huge fist at Allen who confronted him, unafraid. The monster targeted him, nevertheless.

If this were his previous life, he would've been killed with a single blow.

That's how it would've been in the past, but now?

He remembered his time at the ruins. The movement of his sword, descending without end, had long permeated his unconscious, and the secret that Vestla learned began to unfold through his sword.

The Allen of now was not the same man.

Jotunnsverd. First order.

A human's strongest attack was one sourced from rage.

Managarmr.

Amplified by mana, power drawn from his whole body was forged in fury. The skill's ferocious descent seemed to scream ‘rage’, as the name suggested.[1] The sword, lit in red and imbued with mana, accelerated downward.

Vestla fell upon the giant's chest instantaneously.

Whoosh.

Even the giant's tough skin could not stop Vestla's blade.

The eyes of the giant turned red. It screamed loudly like it was unfamiliar with—what seemed to Allen—the pain of its heart splitting. Blood burst from its sewn-together lips.

He didn't expect it to be so fragile.

The giant’s eyes were stained with murder. The bleeding quickly stopped, and its muscles regenerated. With his senses, Allen felt the giant's muscles contracting violently. Four hands flinched.

They were similar, but different. Where did it get the other four giant-sized hands? Where did the giant even come from in the first place?

"Sir!"

Having watched the encounter, the senior knight shouted out.  But he knew. The realization stopped him in the middle of his thought. The sorcerer's decision-making was not to be disturbed under any circumstances.

Allen's shadow wriggled.

The shadow of this messy world was immeasurably infinite.

If the First Order revealed the best type of attack in any situation, the Second Order revealed the best plan to create an opening that could be attacked at any time.

Jotunnsverd. Second Order.

Ylfaskadus.

The shadows danced with a piercing wail.

As he took one step, a shadow rose and followed. Two, three, four… As Allen took more and more steps forward, the number of shadows increased, dancing together. The giant's eyes couldn't track him.

Allen remembered Vestla's teaching as he spread out his threads.

⟬Since when does it matter if it's right? Just trust me.⟭

She was quiet at the moment, but normally she would have chirped at him something just like that. She always urged him not to avoid every attack, saying that getting hit a good number of times would help him grow as a person.

Unfortunately, Allen preferred to do the opposite.

The utilization of mana required a concept within the imagination to be refined. The dragon's core inside him cried loudly, and the threads that occupied the space began to intertwine.

Space, Sound, Vibration, Shock, and Spirits.

The thousands of threads spooling out from his body eventually became one. The threads made bells, ringing through the whole space.

Within that storm, thunder broke out

Crash!

His eardrum burst as he faced the noise head-on. A tree caved in from a soldier's violent outburst as he writhed in pain.

He'd recover soon. All Allen wanted was to create one gap.

He analyzed the difference between him and his foe.

A giant. It was clear that it truly was a giant like Vestla, no matter how large and no matter how many more arms it had.

Therefore, he would have to do his best.

Jotunnsverd. First Order. Managarmr.

A furious blade tore through the giant's joints. From Allen's sword, a fluttering shadow arose as dozens of swords whacked the giant's skin from all sides.

The giant backed away, gripping its broken joints.

Despite all of this, Allen did not let down his guard. He didn't think the giant would fall apart to this extent.

'This should be enough to gain the upper hand.'

He watched its regeneration and aimed to distract—another explosion charged directly into its eardrums to confuse it, another hit to its joints.

And yet, the giant was still alive.

Constantly regenerating its torn veins, screaming against the one-sided violence.

The soldiers backed away at the sight.

'Just how did he do all of that to such a monster…?'

The senior knight watched the battle with vacant eyes. In fact, right after Allen had stepped in, he considered retreating, but had no choice but to rid himself of the thought upon witnessing Allen single-handedly overwhelm their foe. It wasn’t just himself, but all the soldiers.

They all were so intent on watching the battle that they couldn't find any way to intervene.

'It appears that Sir Allen is by no means below Sir Julius.'

The senior knight naturally compared the overwhelming power he'd seen from the Young Master Julius in the capitol the other day with that of Allen he was witnessing in the present.

Well, the fact of the matter was that this knight actually had pretty poor eyesight, so he couldn't be totally sure how their battle was going, however, Allen's current appearance reminded him of the Knight Commander after taking down an ogre.

'On either side, it's a monster.'

A bitter smile spread across his face as he realized that the level of power he was observing was one that he would never be able to attain himself.

"Grrrrrrraaaaaaah!"

The monster, already buried in the remains of the crumbling building in the vacant lot, made a fearful face for a moment before it roared out—an expression of its determination to no longer back down.

Allen stopped moving at the sight.

It wasn't because of the roar itself, but because its wound hadn't recovered. The giant’s whole body was stained with blood. And so, he finally realized…

Is it done already? Did it already use all of its regenerative power? This fast?

It didn't matter. Allen moved. Ylfaskadus. For a moment, his mana drained to the point of straining his core.

The giant trembled with its overflowing desire for murder. The ground cracked beneath its feet, its six heavily swinging arms generated whirls of wind. 

He could feel it—its gaze, fazed and mingled with fear, peering out from a warped face along with its struggle hidden behind the mighty force of its blows.

But it wasn't just a feeling. All the information flowed into Allen’s head. The giant wasn't weak. However, his ability gave him an advantage over it.

After a certain point, a sorcerer might as well just be a god.

It was meaningless to know how strong a giant was or how it would move, no matter what ability it possessed.

The giant's rising power violently collided into the ground, decimating it. Clumps of dirt scattered about, and the wind from the impact blew all the way over to Allen, whistling through his hair.

Despite its surging arms, Allen strolled slowly forward.

He stepped in cadence to a slow beat.

Black remnants fluttered in the scattered clouds produced by running feet, and a human figure approached at a slow pace in the clearing left behind by the recent collision.

The giant's six arms fell upon him, crushing the shadow.

Smaller shadows scattered and floated through the explosions of earth.

Managarmr.

One of the shadows became a sharp sword, its refined strikes attacking from the front, back, left, and right. The ultimate strike rained down like a heavy downpour.

Nevertheless, the giant swung its arms, not ready to give up.

The ground shook with a single punch, crushing the surrounding terrain, and Allen's skin stung from the attack.

However, it wasn't enough to take him down.

Allen—hiding in the shadow—had no form, and the pursuing giant's hand searching through the air could do nothing but hover in the empty space.

The giant's flesh shook. The strung-together leather of his skin slid off.

Yet the giant did not back down.

Allen might've expressed doubt earlier, but it didn’t give up.

He swung his sword—righteously, concise and strong—just as she'd taught him.

⟬Just because it's not as necessary for you to master skills doesn't mean you shouldn't aim for points of weakness.⟭

He recalled Vestla's teachings once again. Allen had never forgotten her lessons, which she'd taught him every morning.

⟬It's something you'll really have to watch out for, so take a stab at it whenever you can!⟭

First, he'd aim for the ankle.

⟬Isn't it silly to know of weak points but not aim for them?⟭

Next, the armpit of the uppermost arm. The inability of that top arm to move would interfere with the intended movement of the lower arms.

But it would be fatal to act in haste. He had to wait for the right opportunity.

Emerging through the shadows hovering over the giant and swinging out from beyond its field of vision, he split the layers of tough leather covering its ankles.

As the giant—now disoriented and lost for balance—reached out its arm and pressed them against the forest floor, Allen penetrated its armpit with his sword from below.

Next, its head. To finish it off.

The giant’s face twisted in pain, and it forced itself to swallow its anguished groan, as if to protect its last ounce of pride.

With a face of indifference, Allen prepared for the finale, for a perfect victory.

He stepped out and gathered all of his strength. His muscles contracted in preparation, and the mana circulating in his body amplified that force. 

Sacrificing his emotions, fueling himself with anger, he prepared for the final blow.

Jotunnsverd. First Order.

Managarmr.

Just as Allen's sword was about to plunge into the giant's neck—

⟬Wait a minute!⟭

Vestla cried out.

[1] Managarmr is another name for Hati, the wrathful hound who is said to chase the Moon every night until the arrival of Ragnarok, when he will devour the Moon and gorge upon the dead.