As long as Akuto did not interfere, Melqart held every advantage from the very beginning of this battle.
He had already fought Verethragna before, which meant he knew the traits of every one of Verethragna's Authorities.
And Sicily was once a land under his rule. Even though he was still heavily wounded, fighting within territory tied to his own myth granted him a tremendous boost.
On Melqart's side...
After turning into a storm and slipping away, Melqart sent the hundreds of lightning currents he had left behind surging toward Erica all at once.
No, it was more than that.
After temporarily escaping in storm form, Melqart was also calling back his weapons.
"O glory of the warrior who hunts lions and slays dragons, fly through the heavens!"
"Pursuer! Exiler! Baal, the Rider on the Clouds, calls you forth!"
Whoosh! Whoosh!
At Melqart's summons, the two weapons that had briefly gone dormant after being struck by lightning immediately awakened. Under Melqart's command, Pursuer and Exiler shot toward Erica!
"If that's how it is, then I have no choice but to use that move!"
Erica let out a quiet sigh. If possible, she had wanted to save this life-saving move until the very end.
But while Liliana was forging the Word Sword, Erica had no choice but to hold the line on her own first.
"Darkness! Beloved of Athena, sacred domain that exists alongside Athena, offer your faithful protection to the Queen's warrior. This is my command!"
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
Four great shields infused with the goddess's dark divine power descended from four directions around Erica at once, sealing her body within them.
"Darkness Barrier 10!"
In the original story, this move had once allowed Athena, in her identity as the Dark Goddess, to withstand the flames of the White Horse.
Though Erica's version had been weakened by an unknown amount, and though it was a trump card Athena had left for them with perhaps only a single use...
If all it needed to do was temporarily stop Melqart's assault, then it was more than enough.
"Hm? So it really is that woman's Authority! What sort of relationship do you two have with that queen goddess of the Mediterranean?"
Melqart was genuinely startled.
At first, he had assumed Akuto had slain the manifested Athena and obtained her Authorities. The reason Erica and Liliana carried traces of Athena's power, he thought, was surely because Akuto had used some special means to grant them protection.
Melqart knew Athena had revived. The commotion caused by the return of Athena in her triune form had been so immense that it had even awakened him while he was still sleeping in Sicily.
And now, since the Campione before him had used Athena's underworld Authority to drive away his underworld locusts, that meant it had to be this boy in front of him who had slain Athena.
That had been Melqart's original conclusion.
Yet as the battle began, Melqart discovered that the powers the two knightly girls, one gold and one silver, were using were divine power, not magical power.
Campione used magical power. So how could they possibly be using divine power?
Did that mean Athena wasn't dead?
But if Athena wasn't dead, then where had the Authorities on Akuto come from?
Melqart had no time to think further.
During the brief moment he was distracted, Erica had already perfectly blocked his attack.
...
Pursuer and Exiler were knocked away by the dark shields, and the hundreds of lightning currents were completely absorbed by them as well.
Once they had fulfilled their purpose, the dark shields around Erica quickly dispersed.
Erica's figure appeared once more.
Only now, her whole body was wrapped in the solar divine power of the White Horse.
"For victory, come before me at once! O undying sun, grant me your shining steed. O sacred horse of swift feet, carry the wheel of light that symbolizes your lord!"
Boom!
The White Horse descended from the sky and split into two in midair, striking the two divine weapons that had just been thrown back by the dark shields.
Pursuer and Exiler were divine weapons forged by the smith god Kothar-wa-Khasis, and they carried part of that god's divinity within them.
More importantly, as steel divine weapons created to symbolize the conqueror, Pursuer and Exiler might not look as though they were forged from metal, but they undeniably carried the divinity of steel weapons.
And the White Horse, as a symbol of the sun, possessed a natural suppressive effect against steel weapons.
In the original story, whether it was Tōka's protection of steel, the manifested Sun Wukong, or the manifested Odysseus, most Authorities with steel divinity showed clear signs of being suppressed when faced with the White Horse.
Because of that advantage, Erica only needed to invoke the Authority a little, without even unleashing its full power, to greatly weaken the connection between Pursuer, Exiler, and Melqart.
Taking advantage of that opening, Erica turned toward Liliana.
"Liliana!"
"Understood!"
With their hearts in sync, Liliana had already finished preparing.
"Pursuer and Exiler were weapons once gifted to you by the smith god Kothar-wa-Khasis!"
"As Baal, you used them to lure the dragon king Yam away from his throne, and through your own wisdom and valor, you slew him!"
"It was through that conquest that you ascended to the throne of god-king!"
"I am the strongest, the one who holds all victories in my hands! I crush evil and wickedness, I crush all foes and hostility. Every enemy who stands before me shall be shattered!"
"Melqart and Kothar, fall back before me!"
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
At the exact moment Erica's White Horse struck Pursuer and Exiler, dozens of already-forged Golden Swords slammed into the two divine weapons.
Under the targeted effect of Liliana's Word Swords, Pursuer and Exiler lost all their brilliance and spirituality, and simply fell onto the beach.
"Hmph! To think you sealed my weapons. Worthy of praise! But-!"
Boom!
A violet bolt of thunder descended straight from the heavens, striking directly at Erica, who had fallen into a momentary recoil after using the White Horse!
If that blow landed, then even if Erica didn't lose the ability to fight outright, she would still be reduced to a severely wounded state, one so serious that she would be forced to rely completely on the Camel incarnation.
Unfortunately, Melqart no longer had that chance.
"O lion of steel, with sighs and wrath I entrust this to you."
"Bearing the lament of the Son of God and the Holy Spirit, baptized in the blood of the final holy age, appear - Holy Spear Longinus!"
At Erica's chest, a silver cross she had placed there beforehand suddenly flew out.
Like a lightning rod, the silver cross shot from Erica's hand and met Melqart's thunder head-on.
"What?! So you'd hidden your true weapon from the very beginning?!"
Melqart's brow instantly furrowed.
Just before his lightning could strike Erica, a silver cross flew out from her chest and drew all of his thunder into that spear!
In truth, saying she had hidden her true weapon wasn't quite accurate.
Rather than hiding her real weapon, it was more accurate to say that from the very beginning, Erica had used the attribute of "undying and forging" to split her weapon Reinhardt into several parts.
If the hundreds of lightning currents just now hadn't been so numerous, and hadn't also been mixed with physical divine weapon attacks, Erica would have used this move to draw off the lightning much earlier.
Still, using it now was not too late.
Because while Erica was successfully blocking Melqart's offense, Liliana had already finished her preparations.
...
At this moment, the silver-haired girl named Liliana held two swords in her hands. One was her craftsman's magic sword, and the other was a fully forged Golden Sword.
Under Liliana's control, the craftsman's magic sword transformed into a silver longbow, while the body of the Golden Sword gradually dissolved, becoming four blue-gold arrows engraved with Words of Power.
This move was precisely the inspiration Liliana had gained through repeated insights from the Holy Spear.
If Saint Raphael could turn Akuto's Holy Spear into arrows, then why couldn't she turn the Golden Sword into arrows as well?
That was why, when they had planned their tactics, Liliana and Erica had already agreed that Liliana would unleash the final killing blow against Melqart.
"O mountains of Gilboa, I pray that dew may fall upon you! Offer to the hungry beasts the sacrifice they so crave!"
"Abandon yourself and become the shield of the warrior beyond! Shield of Saul, anointed with fat, dedicate yourself here!"
"Until it drinks the blood of the enemy, the Bow of Jonathan shall never retreat! Until it gnaws the flesh of the warrior, the Sword of Saul shall never return to its sheath, not until this foe is cast down!"
"O Bow of Jonathan, weapon of the hero who was swift as an eagle and fierce as a lion..."
"Run forth, and shatter your enemy!"
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
The four blue-gold arrows shot out from the longbow at incredible speed!
...
As he faced those four blue-gold arrows streaking toward him, Melqart felt an enormous threat.
If he were truly struck by arrows formed from the Golden Sword, then there would be no point in continuing this battle. Even if he defeated the two girls, he would have no chance of escaping Akuto's hands afterward.
"Hm?!"
Suddenly, he seemed to sense something and glanced toward the draconic barrier high in the heavens.
Of course he knew about the dragon aura barrier already, but the reason Melqart was startled wasn't because of that barrier's existence. It was because... the dragon aura barrier was shaking.
It seemed as though someone was attacking it with an Authority of extremely high rank.
Though puzzled, Melqart knew he had no room to deal with that right now, so he hurriedly focused on responding to the blue-gold arrows Liliana had fired.
"O dragon that has submitted beneath my hand! Baal the Conqueror here raises the whip of the dragon slayer!"
"Spread your wings! Use your flesh, your blood, and your dragon breath to conquer my enemy!"
ROOOOAR!
As both conqueror and dragon slayer, Melqart summoned the dragon king Yam, whom he had once killed, as a subordinate god!
"You won't get away with that!"
Erica instantly realized that Melqart was planning to use the dragon king Yam as a shield, to absorb the damage and avoid being struck directly by the Golden Sword arrows.
Fortunately, Erica had already intended from the start to join Liliana in a combined attack against Melqart.
"For victory, come before me at once! O undying sun, grant me your shining steed. O wondrous horse, swiftly bring prosperity to your lord!"
Neighhhh!
The White Horse descended from the heavens at full power and charged straight toward the dragon king Yam!
(End of Chapter)
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