Atjie and Thanatos’s repeated exchanges of offense and defense.
However, the pattern was almost the same.
Thanatos attacked one-sidedly, and Atjie received it.
For Atjie’s attacks to be carried out, he needed a gap between Thanatos’s strikes.
But Thanatos’s speed was endlessly superior to Atjie’s, and—
KAGAGAGAK!!
Even when Atjie unfolded the maximum defense he was capable of, his spear was damaged by the aura.
PUG!
And then the spear broke again.
He didn’t know how many times it had been destroyed by now. At first, the expression “breaking” had still been accurate, but now, whenever it couldn’t endure, it shattered into pieces.
‘No doubt about it. That really is being restored. What’s projecting out of those two hands is the concept of the spear Atjie possesses.’
Thanatos inwardly marveled at the sight.
What Atjie was gripping right now was less a spear, and more the very concept of the spear he had honed all this time.
Therefore, even if the spear was destroyed, as long as the concept of the spear Atjie possessed remained intact, the spear kept being restored.
However, even that had a limit.
‘Every ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) time it’s restored, the degree of damage gets worse. Even if your concept is perfect, the spear is not!’
It was similar to the restoration Frondier used.
Even if you rewound it, you didn’t rewind everything. The fragments that had shattered so much they couldn’t be retrieved by the concept of the spear probably couldn’t be restored.
‘In that case, I just have to keep breaking it until then!’
Once he settled his thoughts, Thanatos’s attacks grew even fiercer.
Atjie stuck to pure defense. Piercing through that wall was not easy, but it was clear that the one being pushed into disadvantage was Atjie.
On top of that—
‘The flow of the sky is bad.’
Atjie felt ominous energy gathering.
Clouds were slowly converging above the battlefield where the two were fighting.
From their speed and scale, this was certainly no ordinary phenomenon.
Without a doubt, it was the authority of Thanatos.
Plip, plip-plip.
The gathering clouds shook loose a few raindrops, and then—
SWAAAASH─
Within that narrow battlefield where Atjie and Thanatos were fighting, rain began to fall.
His body was soaked in an instant, raindrops touching the corners of his eyes and the tips of his fingers.
‘I’ll have to prepare my final strike.’
After crossing a few exchanges with Atjie, Thanatos had realized it.
Technically, Atjie surpassed him. It would probably be difficult for any god to surpass Atjie.
However, that gap could be filled with overwhelming power and speed.
He had already thrown away things like pride as a god.
KAGAGAGAGANG!!
The spear let out a loud, grating sound.
It broke again.
The speed at which the spear was breaking was gradually increasing.
‘He must be consuming no small amount of energy on that restoration too!’
Thanatos’s guess was correct.
Although he had not actually allowed much major damage, Atjie’s face was drenched in fatigue.
‘I’ll thoroughly kill you, Atjie!’
No matter how exhausted Atjie looked, Thanatos did not rashly rush in.
In truth, the only part burdened by the strain was that face; Atjie’s stance had no openings.
If he carelessly launched a big attack and was stabbed instead, the one skewered would be Thanatos himself. If it was Atjie, he would have already mapped out paths for at least that much.
And then, next—
POP─!
“!”
A strange sound came from the spear.
The spear that had been diverting Thanatos’s attacks once more scattered into dust with a sound like a bursting balloon.
And there was no next time.
The spear would not return to Atjie’s empty hands.
“Ha ha! You’ve reached your limit!”
Seeing that, Thanatos cried out in ecstasy.
“From the moment you met me, who fights without a weapon in the first place, your defeat was already decided!”
Thanatos stretched his arm toward the sky.
KUGUGU─
A wind suddenly blew through. The air currents changed.
Atjie looked up at the sky.
The gathered clouds began to whirl. A haze that made even the dark night go murky.
“Watch well, Atjie, and behold the majesty of a god.”
KWAJIK, KWAJIIJIK!
The clouds that were cramming themselves together as if pushing one another in spat out lightning that sparked and cut across the heavens.
The shape the gathering clouds formed was that of a single gigantic scythe.
Thanatos, god of death. The authority his right hand possessed.
Thanatos drew his fist back.
The scythe hanging at the edge of the sky swept all the way back, past the point that his vision could even clearly grasp.
After this—
Once Thanatos drove his fist forward, that scythe would fall toward Atjie.
“Huu.......”
Atjie, empty-handed, looked at that spectacle with weary eyes.
The falling sheets of rain weighed down his already tired body.
“Die!”
Thanatos’s fist shot out toward him, and the scythe came crashing down.
The pouring rain.
─Atjie, teach me Fallen Spear.
At some point, Atjie had heard those words.
From Vinkis, master of golem research and a teacher at Constel.
It had been after Atjie had already graduated from Constel.
─I fed it your data to learn from, and they say the opponent’s sword broke.
It was a story about a golem that had escaped the research lab due to some student’s rampage, and while it was fighting someone, it had used Fallen Spear.
Hearing that the opponent’s sword had broken, Atjie thought.
Naturally,
Of course it would.
Fallen Spear was a human technique. A golem could not imitate it. And it wasn’t because the technique called Fallen Spear was difficult.
The reason was simpler.
Because golems had no mercy.
‘Right.’
Within a single breath, Atjie’s eyes flashed coldly.
‘So that’s your weapon.’
Atjie’s hand reached out toward Thanatos’s driving fist.
His bare hand, having lost its spear,
met Thanatos’s fist hurtling toward him,
and—
Atjie Original
Fallen Spear
──Prototype
The moment they touched—
The pouring rain, the gigantic scythe coming down—
WHOOSH─!
Disappeared.
“Huh......?”
The scythe scattered like smoke, and the rain shot back up toward the sky.
Only—
The clear moonlight piercing through the clouds brushed across Atjie’s face.
Thanatos looked at his own right side.
DRIP DRIP─
Blood flowed. No, it dropped.
His arm was gone. As if to fill the empty space there, blood surged out in heavy gushes.
“Wh-what, aaaaaaaagh!!”
Thanatos screamed. It was a scream of terror; the pain didn’t even arrive until afterward.
He turned to look behind him, unable to believe reality. By his authority, undoubtedly—
“......!”
The gigantic clouds gathered by his authority. The enormous scythe he had shaped by making them swirl.
All of it. It had flown apart as if someone had ripped up a sheet of paper.
“Huff, huff, huff......!”
Thanatos clutched his shoulder and staggered backward.
What? What just happened?
That bastard should have lost his spear! He had confirmed that it wasn’t being restored at all!
In that case, that bastard, with his bare hands—
‘Destroyed the arm of me, who has no weapon......!’
“You said you have no weapon.”
“Atjie......!”
Blade, Atjie.
His gaze, cold as a drawn edge, cut down Thanatos.
“Do you really want to be without one?”
“Y-you bastard......!”
Thanatos’s body flushed red.
Anxiety and rage seized control of his thoughts.
No, even aside from that, in this situation he only had two means available to him.
One was the worst choice, the other the lesser evil.
Either run away, or else—
─Never use Ecleksis.
─You must kill him directly with your own hands.
─If you use that on Atjie—
─Then Frondier, whom we cannot read the fate of—
“Die!!!”
Thanatos ignored the Moirai’s warning.
And chose the worst option.
TUNG!
Atjie received Thanatos’s Ecleksis head-on.
At that moment, Atjie saw the power called Ecleksis for the first time.
Even for someone like him, there was no way to resist a power he didn’t know.
“......I see.”
However, upon receiving that power, Atjie—
“So that’s what it is.”
Let out a short laugh, as if he had understood everything.
THUD.
And then Atjie collapsed.
“......Ha.”
Thanatos stood there for a while even after Atjie had fallen.
As if Atjie might stand up again after a little while, he stared at Atjie for a long time with a face tense to the extreme.
“......Ha, haha!”
Only after he finally became certain that Atjie had collapsed—
“Ha ha! I won! Hahahaha! I beat you, Atjie!!”
His whole body trembling, shouting at the top of his lungs, not even knowing why he was shaking.
“No matter how strong you are, Atjie! You’ll never surpass me! Because you’re human!! To dare to look down on a god, that’s the kind of end you meet! Ha ha, hahahahaha!!!!”
Having lost one arm, Thanatos laughed like a madman.
Frondier returned to reality.
Atjie and Thanatos’s fight. He hadn’t seen all of the story contained within it, but he understood what had happened.
‘I see. So that’s why Thanatos is missing an arm.’
He had wondered who had done it to him, and of course, it had been Atjie.
The blood that had spilled at the scene really had been Thanatos’s blood.
Frondier understood all of it.
His reflection was brief.
‘As expected of Atjie.’
At that moment—
“Hey. That’s too bad for you.”
Thor spoke.
While Frondier had been watching Thanatos’s past, time had been stopped.
So Thor was speaking to him almost immediately afterward.
“This guy’s ended up being someone I have to take care of.”
Thor pointed behind him at Thanatos. Thanatos was hiding his severed arm and wearing a tense expression.
Well, being down one arm was certainly a disadvantage.
“And you see, I’ve received an order. I’m supposed to kill you.”
Thor drew his sword. The sword began to give off the same sparks, as if it had been imbued with Thor’s power.
Chilling lightning rose up, and Frondier’s eyes watching it shone blue, tracing the shape of the lightning.
“So give up. It’s not like I have any particular grudge against you. I’m just protecting this guy because I have no choice.”
Thor lifted one corner of his mouth, provoking Frondier.
Mockery tinged his voice. At that, Frondier looked at Thor.
It wasn’t that Thor was underestimating Frondier.
Provocation was a kind of temperament Thor possessed, whether his opponent was strong or weak.
And if he was going to fight Frondier now, he judged that he needed to shake Frondier even a little.
“I see.”
But Frondier instead responded as if he understood those words.
“When you say you’re protecting him because you have no choice, that’s a relief.”
“......Are you out of your mind? What do you think this means,”
“Thor.”
Frondier cut Thor off.
“I’ll help you.”
“......What?”
“You blink too, don’t you.”
At that strange line, before Thor’s eyes could blink, they twitched—
BUZZZZAP!!
KWA-AANG!!!
Something passed by Thor’s side,
“Urgh......!”
There was a sound beside him.
“Argh, aaaaaaaaagh!!!”
Thanatos rolled across the ground.
Thor stared wide-eyed at Thanatos.
His left leg had been smashed apart.
Something neither Thor nor Thanatos himself had been able to react to had destroyed Thanatos’s leg.
‘What is this speed?’
When Thor looked back at Frondier again—
SWISH!
THUUUD─!
“AAAAAAARGH!!!!”
This time it was the left arm. It hadn’t even been completely torn off; it dangled loosely. His utterly pulverized bones were piercing through every nerve.
The Roach brothers had each shattered one of Thanatos’s arms.
“Argh, urk......! Th-Thor! P-protect, protect me......!”
“!”
Thanatos barely forced the words out. Thor came to his senses and stepped in front of him.
However—
SSKRRK─!
“Aaagh!”
This time it was the right leg.
The attack this time didn’t even show itself.
Thor had clearly stepped in front, and yet Thanatos behind him was the one who screamed.
Thanatos had lost all four of his limbs.
“Don’t worry, Thor.”
Frondier spoke calmly.
“It couldn’t be helped.”
He sounded like a butcher who had just chopped off a chicken’s head.
“It’s not your fault.”
“......You’re interesting.”
In Thor’s eyes, murderous intent—and a resolve on par with it—took hold.
