Just as Eblana had anticipated, neither the colossal form of the Shikoutazer nor Esdeath, the Ice Teigu user famed for orchestrating grand spectacles, could confine their battle to a mere hillside.
Massive shards of ice, flung by the iron fists of the Shikoutazer, rained down across the capital.
Ranging from hundreds of meters to mere dozens in size, these frozen projectiles, propelled by the machine's immense power, crashed into the ground with force enough to obliterate buildings and shatter entire streets.
Fortunately, Eblana had arrived in the vicinity immediately.
Deathfire churned in her grasp, melting the ice into harmless water before it could strike the earth.
Her attendants and the ice cavalry swiftly moved to provide protection, for it wasn't just ice falling from the sky, but also swirling debris and shattered remnants of structures.
The ordinary soldiers, meanwhile, were fully occupied with evacuation efforts.
Facing Esdeath, his former subject, the young Emperor was a mix of genuine terror and seething fury.
"Esdeath! Even you would join forces with those traitors, casting greedy eyes upon my empire!"
Only in actual combat did he realize the true horror of the General long hailed as one of the Empire's mightiest.
She was a terrifying force of nature, capable of single-handedly laying waste to the entire capital. Calling her a human-shaped calamity was no exaggeration.
The more he marveled at her power, the more his anger burned. "Why would such strength be used in league with those rebellious scoundrels!?"
He gasped for breath, his voice heavy with exhaustion, the words coming out strained and hoarse from his depleted stamina.
As the fight dragged on, Esdeath's mood steadily soured.
It wasn't due to the Emperor's ranting—she paid that no mind at all.
What truly dampened her spirits was the utterly unsatisfying nature of the battle.
No, the intensity had been quite promising at the start. Had her opponent been a powerful and dangerous beast she'd sought out on a whim, this would have ranked among her most enjoyable hunts.
But from the midpoint onward—no, from the Shikoutazer's second energy blast—the sense of threat she felt from her foe began to wane.
With each exchange, that dwindling sense of danger left her increasingly irritated.
It completely failed to live up to her expectations for what should have been her 'final battle.'
The fight was fun, it got her blood pumping, but the thought that this was the last grand conflict caused that heat to abruptly cool.
"How dull..." Realizing this, a spark of anger ignited within Esdeath.
Was this all the Shikoutazer had to offer? She'd have been better off fighting Budo!
In the distance, Minister Honest was practically trembling, his teeth chattering.
This wasn't right, was it? Since when was Esdeath this monstrous? Even the Shikoutazer couldn't handle her? This shouldn't be happening...
"Your Majesty! Please, with your full might, punish this traitor! Now is not the time to hold back!" he couldn't help but shout, his voice urging.
"Use that initial attack again! Finish her in one blow!"
He was frantic, itching to take control himself, but the young Emperor was even more desperate.
The initial attack? He himself had no idea how he'd managed that first one. No matter how hard he strained afterward, the energy blasts he fired possessed only a tenth of that initial power.
Hearing Honest's words, Esdeath forced herself to wait patiently.
"Aaaaaaarrrgh!"
With the young Emperor's spirited roar, the red orb atop the Shikoutazer's head flashed once more.
A shield of solid ice, dozens of meters wide, materialized before Esdeath's now thoroughly frosty expression, blocking the blast effortlessly.
The shield didn't even show a scratch.
"Haah... haah...!" Despair began to creep into the young Emperor.
This wasn't how it was supposed to go.
In his imagination, he was unleashing divine might, wiping out all the traitors just as the Minister had envisioned...
Esdeath was genuinely exasperated. All her fervor had led to this utterly anti-climactic dead end, making even her anger feel somewhat ridiculous.
"Enough. If this is all it's capable of, then this heap of scrap has no reason to exist."
The blue glow around Esdeath intensified. An ice spire materialized before her and shot straight towards a vulnerable point of the Shikoutazer.
In the blink of an eye, the spire's base expanded to a diameter of hundreds of meters. To any observer, it was clearly an attack meant to cleave the Supreme Teigu in two.
Yet, in the very next moment, Esdeath's expression shifted.
The red orbs on the Shikoutazer's body weren't limited to one. There were three in total: one at the center of its crown, and one on each shoulder pauldron, forming a triangle symbolizing stability.
This triangle flared with light once more as the ice spire approached—not the glaring light from before, but the overwhelming, world-altering radiance of the very first attack.
BOOM——!
The beams fired from each point of the triangle reduced the formidable ice to vapor with devastating ease, then continued unabated to utterly engulf Esdeath's form.
A tremendous explosion rocked the area.
As the light faded and everyone's vision gradually returned, they were met with a horrifying sight: a crater roughly three to four hundred meters across, its depth impossible to gauge with the naked eye.
"This... incredible...! Utterly incredible! Your Majesty! This is your true, magnificent power!" Even Honest was stunned by the sudden spectacle, then burst into cheers.
The other Teigu users could scarcely believe their eyes. Had Esdeath really been obliterated in an instant? Was this the true power of the Supreme Teigu?
Yet, the young Emperor could not bring himself to smile.
"...This... this wasn't me..."
Unlike the first time, he had grown somewhat familiar with operating the Shikoutazer. He could state with certainty that this was not his doing.
"...Huh?"
This answer left Honest, and everyone else watching, utterly bewildered.
"Not Your Majesty... then who could it possibly be...?" Honest found it absurd, but halfway through his sentence, a terrible realization struck him, one he found even harder to accept.
"Correct. It was me."
Eblana's low, clear voice cut into their exchange.
Only then did everyone notice the dragon-woman with platinum blonde hair, perched atop a pile of rubble near the crater's edge.
Beside her stood Esdeath, wreathed in deathfire, her expression one of extreme displeasure.
A composed, almost leisurely smile graced Eblana's face, as if she were at a social gathering rather than a battlefield, devoid of any tension or severity.
"You... you are!?" x2
Listening to the disbelieving voices of the Minister and the Emperor, the amusement in Eblana's voice grew.
"What's so strange about it? I merely utilized a fraction of this Teigu's power to punish a subject who dared to so recklessly damage my city and my property."
"You rebel! How dare you call it your city! Your property!"
The young Emperor was beside himself with rage.
Disregarding his physical state, he willed the Shikoutazer to smash its fist down upon the dragon-woman, but received no response whatsoever.
"What's happening!? Why!? Shikoutazer! Why won't you move!?"
"Why? You ask such an obvious question."
Facing the Emperor's hysterics, Eblana merely offered three soft chuckles before replying in a tone of utter nonchalance.
"Isn't the answer plain to see? The gap between you and me is vast."
As she spoke, the thousand-meter-tall black giant knelt on one knee in her direction, offering a deeply reverent, submissive military salute.
"Be it in sovereignty, or in pure power."
--+--
T/N: I have a Patreon! Webnovel will get 2 Chapters Every Day, and advanced chapters will be uploaded on Patreon.
It may not seem worth it now, but maybe in the future. Who knows!
[email protected]/AspenTL
If you guys wanna check it out.