S41 Final Battle 18

Final Battle ⑱

Even amongst the dragons, I am in a unique position. My abilities that I developed to be used in fighting against gods are like that as well, but fighting that way also requires a significant difference compared to the other dragons. At any rate, my body was created in humanoid form. While the other dragons can become humanoid, that’s only ever a temporary form and their true form is that of a dragon. There are no other dragons whose true form is humanoid. Precisely for that reason, there are also no other dragons who fight unarmed like I do.

A Heresy Attack is activated from the heel of the palm. That means it’s easily avoided. Since earlier my attacks haven’t gotten remotely close. There’s too big a difference in our basic abilities. Since the lower half of her body is that of a spider it might look like a big target, but that lower half allows her to smoothly move in all directions, making her movements hard to read. Like how I have an unconventional unarmed fighting style compared to dragons, my opponent is also moving in a way that’s peculiar to her spider lower body. I find it strange.

Conversely, my opponent is increasingly getting used to dealing with my movements. At first she was avoiding my attacks with plenty of margin to spare, but now she’s begun to draw me in then avoid at the last moment. She’s beginning to see through me. In such a short time. What incredible battle sense. This shows that it’s not just that her basic attributes are high – her intuition is as well.

My defeat… is just a matter of time huh… I knew it already. While my abilities were intended to be used against gods, it was only ever the intention – being able to fight with them in practice is another matter. My existence only amounts to a futile struggle after my lord is defeated. “If I’m lucky” or “just maybe”. Such fleeting hopes. Fundamentally, the best course of action is one where my lord is never put in a situation where he has to fight. Strictly speaking, my lord shouldn’t ever need to fight. It’s even more unreasonable that he should ever lose. It’s for that one in a billion possibility alone that I have honed my abilities. Despite the probabilities being so low.

My defeat is inevitable. I can’t imagine that my strength would be enough against an opponent that my lord was no match for. I have no hope of winning.

But so what!

If I cannot be successful here, then what have I been living for? Does it mean that I have honed these abilities simply in order to lose? No! Absolutely not!

The white god points her palm at me. Black energy began to coalesce there. If that fires, the destructive force would likely far exceed that of the breath attacks from the Queens. I guess this means that for her, playtime is over. It appears that she has realised that it was overly cautious of her to focus on avoiding my Heresy Attack, and now she’s going to try to finish everything quickly since I wasn’t a major threat. That judgement is correct. Between the white god and I, there is an insurmountable gulf. In the first place, there can be no proper contest between a god and one lower than them. It is impossible to use power borrowed from the gods to defeat the gods.

However, my will is strong.

A torrent of energy is released from the white god’s palm. It’s approaching me at such terrible speed that I have no time to possibly avoid it. In addition, it would be impossible to endure it by defending. Therefore, I won’t avoid or defend.

I advance instead. The torrent of energy blows away the bottom half of my body. Not even a trace remains. However, the top half of my body is undamaged. Because the energy was so strong, it went clean through the bottom half of my body. If it had been any weaker, the shockwaves would have caused the upper half of my body to explode as well.

Due to the inertia, the upper half of my body continues forwards. Because I have no lower body I can’t even brace myself. So even a strike with my fist will have little impact. Even so, this is my last bit of pride. To fight back.

Upon seeing just the top half of my body flying towards her, the white god’s remaining eye opened slightly in surprise. Using a different hand from the one used to fire the energy blast, she immediately fired out white thread in a radial pattern. If I am caught by that thread, my forward momentum will stop. The only thing that can pass through that netting, is a single fist.

I tear off my right hand. I then throw it through a gap in the netting. The top half of my body is then caught by the netting. However, my right hand flies through the netting, towards the face of the white god.

The white god turns her face away hurriedly. However, she couldn’t completely avoid it, and my hand made a cut in her eyebrow just above her remaining eye.

That’s all. That’s all that betting my life amounted to.

Ahh… This is so frustrating. The sum total of my life was merely to cause such a trivial wound. Still, perhaps this is better than simply rotting away while having never used this power at all. While feeling frustration, as well as a tiny amount of satisfaction, my consciousness fell into darkness.

Translation notes:

The Japanese for “temporary form” here is 借りの姿 and could cover a wide range of scenarios, like a spy working undercover or a superhero changing into their superhero form, or in this case, of dragons being able to take on a humanoid form. The phrase romanises as “kari no sugata” and is where my user name comes from.