However, the Trihexa showed no signs of stopping, and the sky was still choked with Evil Dragons and Issei's clones. The clones were strong—they were copies of his power, after all—but they were wrong. I didn't want these fakes. Every time I traded blows with the real Issei, I felt an uncontrollable surge of excitement. Trading blows with these shells only left a bitter taste in my mouth. Albion was just as irritated.
As the Norse gods and their allies struggled to contain the Trihexa's flames, someone called out to me.
"Go, Vali. You have someone you need to settle things with, don't you?"
"Tobio…"
I turned to see Tobio Ikuse. He had just finished carving several Grendel-type Evil Dragons into pieces with the blades rising from the ground. Tobio and his hound, Jin, were staring in the direction of Azi Dahaka's presence.
"Leave this place to us," Tobio said. "If we don't take down Azi Dahaka and the Trihexa, they'll eventually break through and ravage the world. If that happens, even the most peaceful country towns won't be safe."
I see. It seemed he knew about my personal detour.
If the Trihexa and the others broke through the Gate, it wouldn't take long for their destruction to reach that town. Protecting a quiet life wasn't usually my style, but ever since the Trihexa's revival and Asem's declaration of war, the image of that family had been stuck in my head.
I wanted to settle our rivalry, yes. But more than that…
"He's right. Leave this to me, Toby, and your other friends, Va-kun!"
Lavinia Reni spoke as she flash-froze a swarm of Evil Dragons in the air. Beside her stood a three-meter-tall humanoid horror made of ice. It wore what looked like a dress and had four slender arms. Its face lacked a mouth or nose; the left side was lined with six eyes, and the right was covered in thorn-like growths.
This was Absolute Demise, the Eternal Ice Princess—one of the Longinus and an Independent Avatar type. At the user's command, the princess of ice would freeze everything in existence. At its peak, it could put an entire small nation into a deep freeze. Combined with Lavinia's own top-tier sorcery, the dragons in this area didn't stand a chance.
Bikou laughed, following Tobio and Lavinia's lead. "Kaka! That's the spirit! Get going, Vali. Go kick Azi Dahaka's ass for us!"
Beside him, Arthur was slaying a Ladon-type with Collbrande. "You are our leader. Show us the way of the Dragon that I and Collbrande have chosen to follow."
Kuroka manipulated several Kasha (fire wheels), reducing attacking dragons to ash. "I'm glad I followed you, Vali. Laughing with my sister again is thanks to Issei-nyan, but it's thanks to you too. If I hadn't met you, I'd probably be dead in a ditch somewhere. Go on, Leader. We'll clear the path for you."
Le Fay supported her brother with magic. "Yes! I love both of this generation's Heavenly Dragons! You're both so cool!"
Fenrir stood guard over Le Fay, shredding Grendel-types, while Gogmagog fired beams from its eyes and launched its arms like rockets to annihilate the enemy.
Albion spoke with a hint of pride. 『Vali, this is what you have built.』
Yes. It was. Tobio, Lavinia, and my team… their words energized me more than I could have imagined. This was a feeling I had never truly known. Usually, a person like Issei would say "thanks," but if I did that, they'd probably just laugh and say I was acting out of character.
Tobio smiled with that familiar, gentle expression. "As one of the Two Heavenly Dragons, and as a Lucifer… show this world the answer you've found. In that sense, this stage built by a god is the perfect arena."
Tobio stepped forward, Jin following at his heel. The aura surrounding him shifted.
"Let's go, Jin. Ready?"
The hound wagged its tail once. And then—the world of darkness began.
Shadows, black mist, and primordial darkness gathered around Tobio. Every shadow in the vicinity seemed to be pulled toward him as he began to chant.
"——If to cull the laws of man, let us howl a thousand times."
Pitch-black energy enveloped Tobio and Jin. The darkness didn't stop at them; it began to flood the entire area.
"——If to cull the monsters and omens, let us sing ten thousand times."
Black mist swirled around his limbs, reshaping them into something monstrous.
"——The name that reaches the distant abyss is the false god who feigns the polar night and the midnight sun."
Jin vanished into the darkness spreading beneath their feet.
"——O Thou, be destroyed by our pitch-black demonic blade."
Tobio's human form was gone, completely assimilated into the darkness. His face had transformed into a monstrous, wolf-like mask. The darkness surged beside the transformed Tobio, taking the shape of a massive pack of shadow-hounds.
"——How fleeting art thou, O transcendent creator."
As the final line of the chant echoed, the pack of shadow-hounds looked up at the red sky and let out a chilling howl that resonated across the battlefield.
A humanoid beast clad in a mantle of night, surrounded by a pack of darkness-spewing hounds. Tobio summoned a massive scythe with a long, wicked blade from the shadows. Spinning the scythe with his glowing red eyes fixed on the enemy, he looked like a god of death.
No… he was beyond a god of death.
Every jagged blade of shadow sprouting from the ground was a demonic edge capable of slaying even gods. The blades tore through the Evil Dragons, bifurcating them with surgical precision. Tobio moved soundlessly, a blur of shadow, reaping everything in his path. The hounds followed, snatching demonic blades in their jaws and shredding the dragons at high speed.
This was Ikuse Tobio. An irregular who had manifested a Balance Breaker from the moment of his birth.
Balance Breaker: [Tenebrae Lycaon Et Fortis Dens] — The Beast-Demon of the Abyssal Void and the Heroic Hounds of the Eternal Night Blade.
It was the form reached by polishing his original Balance Breaker, Night Celestial Slash Dogs, to its ultimate limit—the Abyss Side.
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