"How about this? I'll cover you, you make the move, and we take both of them out together. Problem solved, right?"
The white-haired dream demon's eyes rolled, and she lifted a hand to poke Samael beside her, smiling as she egged him on. Her bright eyes brimmed with anticipation.
"For this mission, you're the main DPS and I'm support. Or I can cover you, and you go in."
Samael smiled and politely declined, his snake-like pupils full of encouragement.
Big sister Mari spoke lightly. "They're only two Divine Spirit-level enemies."
The Ancient Serpent Samael remained calm. "Mm. It's not as if we haven't seen that before."
Yet after speaking, neither of them moved a single step.
After all, those words were only for show. Anyone who believed them was an idiot.
For Samael, before the War of the Covenant, neither the Demon Dragon Vortigern nor the King of Knights deified by the Spear of the End would have been worth worrying about, even together.
To put it bluntly, no matter how many came, they would all just be delivering themselves to him.
But things were different now.
To unleash that peerless strike, the Ancient Serpent's divine core and Authorities had already burned away completely.
Ether grew thinner by the day, and upon the earth where the Age of Gods had peeled away, Divine Spirits had become the ceiling of existence.
Vortigern was still manageable. After his defeats in the twelve dynastic wars, most of his Authorities had already been taken by the King of Knights.
With Samael's current condition, if he found a way to add some anti-dragon enhancements, he could probably handle him.
But according to his senses, the King of Knights' compatibility with the Holy Lance was astonishingly good. Tearing open the space of Britannia, this miniature Age of Gods, in a single blow was far beyond the level of an ordinary Divine Spirit.
In a sense, she was the newly born king of this miniature Age of Gods called Britannia.
On top of that, the Sword of Promised Victory was bound by layer upon layer of restrictions and could only be fully released in an apocalyptic situation.
Without specialized god-slaying armaments, going out of his way to pick a fight with Divine Spirits, and two of them at that, would only happen if his brain short-circuited.
As for the ill-intentioned ally beside him, the Magus Mari, or rather, the Paradise Fairy Vivian.
She belonged to the [Great Mother] level of fairies, on the same tier as the kings of the six great fairy clans of old. She was equivalent to an upper-level pure-blooded Dragonkind, a Valkyrie prototype, and other beings just below Divine Spirits.
She might sound relaxed, but asking a rotten woman like her to risk her life and fight Divine Spirits head-on was out of the question.
In addition, based on his recent observations and the various signs around Mari, Samael had basically confirmed one fact.
Unless he was mistaken, this woman was Vivian, the Lady of the Lake who appeared in Avalon, the hidden line who gave out the Holy Sword Excalibur and guided King Arthur's fate.
According to legend, she had countless ties to the mixed-blood dream demon and great sage, Merlin.
And during the internal collapse of the Knights of the Round Table, Merlin had just so happened to disappear for a time.
The story on the surface was that Merlin's obsessive pursuit had angered Vivian, and the Lady of the Lake schemed to seal him inside a stone. As a result, without the great sage's mediation, the Knights of the Round Table fell apart.
In other words, Vivian was one of the guides who led the King of Knights, Artoria, toward her end at the Hill of Camlann. Merlin's opposite.
Taking into account this woman's emergence from the Inner Sea of the Planet, the mission she carried, her hair color that was exactly like Merlin's, and that rotten, fun-seeking nature of hers, Samael would have to be stupid not to guess Vivian's true identity.
That was also why he had named her Mari.
Besides, if he remembered correctly, in the eyes of Boudica and the other Celts, he too had once been the Red Dragon of Britannia.
The nameless Holy Sword User who defeated Yusei, and the Paradise Fairy who brought the Age of Gods to its end.
Clearly, they were another pair destined to determine Britannia's course.
That was not surprising.
After all, Samael had reshaped the world using the Authorities of Cronos, the God of Necessity, and the Book of Destiny.
Past, present, and future. All events unfolding around him would inevitably become connected to him, whether intentionally or not.
In a sense, this was the inevitability of fate.
At the mention of fate, Samael guiltily shifted his gaze away from the battle.
Fine. The fact that Britannia had turned into this mess, leaving such a hidden danger on the surface, did seem to have something to do with him.
The Lamb's blood washed away sin.
The gods and heroes, in flawless form, embraced Gaia and entered the Inner Sea of the Planet, sleeping peacefully in paradise as they awaited incarnation and return.
Out of selfishness, the Ancient Serpent had cleansed every old friend he cared about and thrown them into the Inner Sea of the Planet to recover.
They only had to sleep beautifully. When they woke, the world before them would still be bright and colorful. A thousand years of loneliness was something he alone could bear.
Nero, Boudica, and the others of that era had been among them.
As a result, the seeds of separation between the Roman Empire and Britannia had been planted.
As for why Britannia could not complete the convergence of the Age of Gods...
Ahem. Back then, Avalon Island had been the core of the struggle in the [War of the Covenant].
Gods, heroes, monsters, humans. Countless lives had fallen there. Blood, Ether, Mystery, and all kinds of remnants had been scattered across all of Britannia.
With that in mind, it was only natural that a few accidents would be born there.
Since everything had begun with him, it made sense that everything should end with him as well.
But touching what little conscience he had left, and considering the goodwill he had built up toward the King of Knights' face in his past life, Samael would at least consider a gentler method and try to resolve the problem as perfectly as possible.
In any case, to him, this was already the simplest mission at hand.
"Praise. Laud. Chant.
Ancient Mystery, be extinguished.
Let that sweet enigma return completely to nothing..."
Just as the Ancient Serpent sank into thought, the destined duel atop Mount Badon, accompanied by that chant, had already reached its end.
The King of Knights gripped the Holy Lance Rhongomyniad with both hands, and the spiral band of light condensed to its limit.
That dazzling edge was supremely sacred, supremely lethal, and supremely cold.
"Vile King's Hammer, Inverted Dawnlight! Pendragon, I curse your bloodline! Arthur, I curse that name! Come, taste the wrath of a dying nation!"
The Demon Dragon raised its neck and roared. Red-black Ether poured down in a mad torrent, and wherever it passed, heaven and earth changed color, while sun and moon lost their light.
Britannia's dragon breath. The nation's flame of wrath.
Before, the Vile King had used this very attack to vaporize the Britannian army that had once come to subjugate him. He had also completely stolen the light of Gawain's Holy Sword at noon, destroying Gawain's confidence.
That flame, born from hatred and unwillingness, would burn all of Vortigern's enemies to ash. It was the strongest dragon flame, enough to destroy a nation.
"It is the anchor of the storm that tears the sky and connects the earth, opens territories, builds cities, crosses oceans, and cleaves the firmament. O Holy Lance, speak of the end! Rhongomyniad!"
The deified King of Knights thrust forward with both arms. The dazzling spiral band of light tore through the murky torrent of Ether, revealing a shining radiance like the opening of chaos and the birth of a new world.
The pitch-black dragon flame was pierced without mercy, and the unmatched edge struck straight toward the exhausted Demon Dragon.
Yet at that moment, an unexpected change occurred.
Boom!
A dreamlike purple light shot into the sky from the nearby bushes. Once it rose into the air, it burst apart like fireworks.
The exploding points of light, like falling petals and fluttering butterflies, instantly drew everyone's attention.
"Pfft!"
The spiral band of light blasted through Vortigern's chest, but by the smallest margin, it missed the Demon Dragon's heart.
Knowing he could not win, Vortigern immediately beat his wings in a frenzy. Black clouds summoned rain, and the fortress was drowned in the sound of it.
Go!
In an instant, the Demon Dragon snatched up the barbarian chieftain outside the south gate and charged into the ink-black clouds, vanishing in the blink of an eye.
At the same time, Samael came back to his senses and stiffly turned his head, looking at the white-haired dream demon holding a wand a hundred meters away.
"Oops. My hand slipped..."
The white-haired big sister, her face full of innocence, gave a completely insincere excuse. Then she smiled and waved goodbye, her body turning into pink petals that scattered on the wind.
Mari, you absolute bastard!
As that "greeting" surfaced in Samael's mind, a piercing whistle tore through the air from Mount Badon.
The next moment, a spiral band of light swept the bushes flat, leaving behind a devastated stretch of bare ground.
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