Chapter 975

975: Fusion Titan

While we were facing off against the Scholz titan, we found another titan approaching us. He was dashing in from the west with immense speed.

「Shikimi?」

「We’re not ready yet!」

『Why can’t things ever be easy?!』

Hagane’s ritual spell seemed to need a little more time to complete. Meanwhile, Izario was occupied with the Scholz titan.

What can we do? Do we have no choice but to rely on Izario’s Divine Sword Release?

But that’ll put such a huge burden on him.

「……I’ll handle it!」

『Is that our only option!?』

Fran and I needed to focus on stopping the new titan. It’d be best if we could kill him, but this was a grown one like the Scholz titan. I’m not sure if even our full strength would be enough to take him down……

But before we could make a move, the situation changed again.

「Ruooooooooooooooo!」

「Ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh!」

Both titans suddenly began to roar, almost simultaneously. It’s as if they were resonating with each other.

Immediately after, the titans blurred. Their outlines became distorted by some kind of noise, and their bodies collapsed as if melting.

Izario shot out some flames in an attempt to stop whatever they were doing, but it wasn’t enough to cancel the transformation. He only managed to shave off a bit of their mana.

In less than ten seconds, the two titans lost their bodies and dissolved into some kind of black mist. At first glance, it looked as if they were about to dissipate into the air. However, such a happy ending was easily proven false by the immense amount of mana remaining.

The black mist clouds began moving as if they had a will of their own, seemingly attracted to each other. After coming together, they turned into a single swirling mass.

What in the world is going on?

「Fire!」

The Hagane army finished the ritual spell and released several rays of light, covering the black mist with countless explosions.

However, this didn’t seem to do anything. In fact, there was no perceptible damage to either life force or mana.

「Tch! Burn!」

Perhaps sensing the danger, Izario began to attack in earnest. He ceased his movements to focus on bombarding the cloud.

Ten of his fireballs, each over 10 meters in diameter, poured into the black mist. Each exploded with a direct hit. This erased a significant amount of mist as well as the mana contained within.

Even so, the swirling mist didn’t stop. Rather, its movement became more accelerated, like a tornado now.

「Ruuuaaaaaaaaaa……」

The titan’s voice echoed through the battlefield once again. We saw a huge mass stirring in the midst of the cloud. It seems we just witnessed the birth of a new titan.

And an enhanced one consisting of two titan fused together.

「Wuuaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!」

『H-He got even bigger!』

「So much mana too.」

「Arf!」

As the mist rapidly faded away, the new titan revealed himself. He was taller and had way more mana than the Scholz titan.

Moreover, the transformation did not end there. His body continued to expand at a tremendous rate, along with a nasty cracking sound.

It looked as if he was a balloon getting pumped with air all at once.

His huge body got even huger, probably about 50% taller than the Scholz titan now? He must be at least twice as heavy, since his arms and legs were incredibly thick.

「Buraaaaaaaah!」

But even more terrifying was the mana and evil energy contained within. Compared to the Scholz’s titan, who was a monster even by himself, this guy had more than three times as much.

「RUUUN!!」

I think this was the first time I’ve heard Izario scream. But that was understandable.

The supertitan already had his left arm raised, and was clearly staring at the second division.

「Bgraeaaaah!」

「Everyone! Retreat!」

The second division began to move upon hearing Izario and Shikimi’s warning, but it was already too late.

The supertitan swung his arm down, releasing a giant cannonball of mana over 20 meters in diameter. This packed plenty of evil energy too.

Taking the hit directly would probably wipe out the entire second division.

Izario’s flames won’t make it in time. Shikimi had created a wall with land magic, but there’s no way that would be enough to protect us.

I quickly activated Magic Absorption and Evil Control to reduce the cannonball’s power, but it barely did anything.

「……!」

This is seriously bad. I can practically feel Fran’s panic. Even though I knew it would be a drop in the bucket, the only other thing I could do was make some more land magic walls.

Right in front of our eyes, the walls of the earth vaporized as soon as they came into contact with the mass of mana.

At this rate…

However, the situation we feared did not come to pass.

Just before landing on the second division, the huge mass of mana suddenly deflated and disappeared.

「Eh?」

『What?』

It happened so fast that I had no clue what I was seeing. The past few minutes have just been full of sudden developments that I don’t know what’s going on anymore!

「Matsuyuki.」

I followed Fran’s gaze and saw Matsuyuki outside of the carriage, raising a pitch-black sword high in the air. The longsword was completely black, blade and all, as if absorbing every ray of light approaching it.

There’s no room for doubt. That must be the divine sword, Berserk.

Despite Matsuyuki being dozens of meters away, the blade was so intimidating that I instinctively felt the desire to distance myself. In fact, some of the adventurers and knights standing close by lost their balance, falling down while trying to escape.

This was not due to the titan’s giant cannonball. Their attention was focused on Berserk. Everyone could not help but panic at the sudden appearance of Berserk right next to them.

Only the old soldiers of Hagane seemed completely unaffected. They continued surrounding Matsuyuki in a protective line.

She didn’t seem to be going out of control, which meant she had not released Berserk’s true powers. We’ve heard that the user would die upon using the blade, but I guess wielding it in the normal state was not enough to kill you.

Ignis also bestowed several abilities to Izario, such as flame magic, without requiring the blade’s activation.

Did she use some sort of absorption ability? No wait, maybe more like disruption? She seemed to have erased the mana mass by disrupting its energy.

I don’t know if this is Berserk’s power, or simply Berserk enhancing Matsuyuki’s innate abilities. Either way, it must be a very potent ability to eliminate such a huge amount of mana almost instantly.

Then, Matsuyuki thrust the tip of Berserk into the ground, before kneeling down and resting her forehead on the hilt. She almost looked like a holy maiden praying to god.

However, the aura she radiated was the complete opposite, one of absolute power. The ferocious mana swirling around her made her seem more like the manifestation of a disastrous beast.

The nearby adventurers grew more and more terrified.

The titan, on the other hand, snarled hatefully while raising his arm in the air again. We had thwarted his attempt to ignore Izario and eradicate the soldiers, which infuriated him. That made him seem strangely human, so he might have similar thought patterns and emotions to us.

The titan’s whole body began radiating mana as he charged up an attack even more powerful than before.

「Blooaaaaaaaah?」

However, he suddenly stopped moving and made a noise sounding like a confused grunt. Upon closer inspection, the giant tower that was his right leg had started gradually turning black.

Before I knew it, several bands of mana had been released from Berserk and wrapped themselves around the titan’s leg.

「Bugaah……!!!」

「Die.」

We somehow managed to hear Matsuyuki’s whisper over the titan’s roar echoing across the battlefield.

And then, titan’s leg began shriveling up at a ridiculous rate.

It turned a discolored black hue reminding me of a withering plant. The sight was absolutely bizarre.

The titan flailed his arms, but was unable to support his body after this sudden loss of balance.

Finally, his right leg completely snapped off, and the titan fell on his back. Even more strangely, the broken right leg showed no signs of regeneration.

When Matsuyuki uttered the word “die”, it seemed as if the titan’s right leg really did just die.

Yet, we’ve been using life magic to inhibit the titan’s regeneration since the beginning of the battle, and that didn’t seem to work one bit……

I guess that’s a divine sword for you. Even without full activation, they had overwhelming power.

But it seems the repercussions were equally as great.

「……!」

Matsuyuki made an attempt to stand up, before staggering and falling to one knee again. Her face was deathly pale, and I could tell that she was extremely exhausted.