"Freedom!"
When Smodo's emaciated body was exposed, Tess went pale.
Piercings dangled all over him, and necrosis had turned his skin a corpse-like bluish hue.
"Freeeeedooom! Freeeeedooom!"
What had she expected?
Tess despaired at the realization that no revenge could erase this obscene image.
"Kuhahaha! I am free!"
Blood ran as he tore out piercings with an intact little finger.
"Die."
Even without personal hatred, it was a sight she wanted wiped from the world.
At that moment the control room wall was ripped open.
"Why are you so late?"
Demons, led by the brigade commander, came in to check the desperate fighting.
'What is this?'
After checking Zetaro and Smodo, the commander noticed there were no guards.
'These things… Even if Satan has possessed Havitz, demons fundamentally hate humans. Especially now that military authority has passed from Balkan to Paimon, the demons had no reason to care about these two.'
'Tch, but they're favored by Satan himself.'
Thinking it would be a problem if they died, the commander slung Zetaro and Smodo under his arms.
Smodo was unconscious.
"Return to base! Have those with regenerative abilities stand by!"
"Stop!"
Tess yanked the sabre from the floor and ran, but the commander had already left the stronghold.
"Damn it!"
Since Smodo had been injured, retaking the stronghold would be difficult for now.
Still, she felt sick.
'They aren't human.'
In demon hands, Zetaro and Smodo looked to her like monsters.
---
The sound of ribs snapping beat out a rhythm.
If it hadn't been his own bones, Rian might have felt lighthearted.
'Unpredictable.'
Natasha's signature rhythm kept finding the gaps in Rian's defense.
A syncopated concerto.
A fast-tempo dance piece by Rastani, its hallmark sudden shifts in beat.
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
More than the breaking bones, Rian was bothered that his regeneration had slowed.
'No—maybe this is normal.' His abnormally strong right arm was being leveled to match the left.
It meant the arm of Imir he'd swallowed was no longer inside him.
'Why did Imir… give his arm and use it to regenerate my right arm?'
'Because of that, I survived countless deathlines. And in the end, I reached the Idea.'
If that was what Imir wanted.
'Good.'
Rian widened his eyes and charged.
'From now on, it's only my path.'
He didn't have the head for clever solutions, but he never gave in to despair—his strength lay in that.
"Going in!"
As his greatsword dropped vertically, Natasha's body snapped and spun half a turn.
The blade brushed the tip of her nose while the line of force connected to the diagonal seemed about to snap taut.
They were nearly touching, yet Rian felt no regret.
'Talent aside, that avatar technique…'
An avatar manifests a person's tendencies in form.
If her avatar was a skull, something inside her had already died.
'Does it mean life is meaningless to her?'
As Natasha's afterimages flickered in Rian's life-reel, dizziness hit him again.
Like a rapid blink, she could be on his right one moment, his left the next.
'She's extreme.'
At fighting.
Her avatar technique seemed to push physical ability to the limits of the Law.
What she must have paid for it was probably automatic puppetry.
Natasha couldn't dance alone—she was a puppet that needed to be driven.
Three frames later, her fist was already at Rian's solar plexus.
"Guh!"
He belatedly brought the greatsword to his chest, but it was too late.
"You can see my movements, right?" Natasha asked. Being able to consciously trigger the life-reel put one among the super-elite.
"But do you know why you can't avoid it?"
She raised an index finger.
"Rhythm."
The life-reel is a realm of perception. Even if an arrow seems to fly in slow motion, catching it is another matter.
Of course, through Divine Transcendence Rian could move his body at the speed of thought… but—
"You have no sense of rhythm at all."
When an unfamiliar rhythm is woven into an opponent's movement, you may fail to perceive it entirely.
'The seesaw of time isn't magic.' If your body can't follow an opponent's rhythm to begin with, the life-reel won't help.
Natasha held her finger up and flicked her wrist as if keeping time.
"Feel it?"
Her finger was moving—up and down.
Natasha mixed a syncopation into the rhythm.
"How about this? Think it's different from before?"
When Rian stayed silent, she nodded as if her analysis was complete.
"Do you know why rhythm matters? Because every event unfolds along the flow of time. A person with no rhythm just accepts the next thing as it comes. But with rhythm you can do a lot. If you split an event into three beats, think on the first, prepare on the second, strike on the third. But you only react when something actually hits you."
Rian had no rebuttal.
"Another advantage of rhythm is pulling the opponent's rhythm into yours. Even a strong foe reveals a characteristic rhythm after about five minutes. From there it's a battle of wits—that's the fun part of combat—but—"
Natasha hesitated, then continued.
"You can't sense rhythm at all. Honestly, it feels like fighting a ridiculously strong animal."
Rian snorted. "That's my way."
"That way is wrong. You've probably survived by taking most enemies down early, before they could read your rhythm."
In fact, that was true.
"Like a predator catching prey, you crush them with overwhelming force. That works if you can do it. But if someone like me adapts to you first—what can I say? Your fight, if it were a song, would be a nursery rhyme. A perfectly tone-deaf nursery rhyme."
Rian remembered learning children's songs from Sister Reina when he was young—he'd sing along and she'd giggle.
A fond memory, but now his life was at stake.
"No matter how good your volume or range, that's not a song. In the same way, you're strong, but you're not someone who fights well."
"So what?"
Rian's ribs clicked back into place.
"I knew I had no talent the moment I first gripped a sword. I failed again and again and was mocked."
"You want to say you still won despite that?"
"No."
Rian charged.
"It means this is my sword."
Natasha stared, baffled by the new ferocity in him.
'Is he stupid?' If she'd pointed out his flaws that clearly, wouldn't he at least respond?
'I did that.'
But Daphne hadn't. After being criticized by Natasha, Daphne had slandered and undermined her at every turn.
"…The Reaper's Dance."
A killing intent filled Natasha's gaze.
She launched the most furious, fastest dance she knew.
Night of Frenzy.
Creating a tunnel of vacuum as she moved, Natasha kicked Rian in the flank.
"Ugh!"
The yaksha's muscles twisted like a pretzel.
'If rhythm won't work, catch up with strength!'
He squeezed every ounce of power, wrenching his waist—and finally caught sight of Natasha.
'I can see her.'
In the extreme life-reel, her body strobbed like a light.
'What is this?'
She was repeatedly stepping outside Rian's perception and reentering.
One beat out of forty thousand.
That was her unit of reaction to a single event.
'I have to count!'
The moment Rian swung the greatsword vertically, Natasha turned and came alongside the blade.
Ting. Ting-ting.
Even Natasha's trick of flicking the edge with a fingernail Rian couldn't respond to.
There were still beats left.
Natasha stared into Rian's pursuing gaze and—
'Change the beat now.'
She suddenly twisted the other way.
'Damn!'
For the first time, despair bloomed in Rian as he lost sight of Natasha again.
'Is this really unwinnable?' Gripping the urge to collapse, he roared like a beast and slashed.
It was pure brutality, but against someone who fought by rhythm, it made things worse.
'Even a graze would kill.'
One beat out of eighty thousand.
Splitting the rhythm even finer, Natasha regained composure and unleashed a flurry.
Fist marks dotted Rian's body.
'Damn it! Damn it!'
Watching with his eyes but unable to respond, Rian finally admitted it.
'I don't suit the sword.'
No talent.
'Someone like me stop Imir? No—better to entrust it to this woman.'
Whoever won would put on a magnificent fight.
'Why me?'
If Guy were alive—no, if the Idea had gone to Rai instead.
'Sister Reina was better than me!' She even had blue hair.
'A useless man who can't do anything! What do I think I'm doing here…'
When Natasha's fist crushed Rian's left eye socket, half his vision vanished.
'Why, why does it have to be me!' Because it's you.
…
It felt like every cell in Rian's body was speaking.
Whether it was fiery optimism or the Ozent dwelling in his cells reaching a conclusion, he didn't know.
What flashed faster than the life-reel was the image of Ozent racing toward heaven.
The greatest swordsman of humanity—his form lost, shouting Smilre's name as he brandished a blade—
'Not beautiful at all.'
Ozent had fought heaven itself to save Smilre.
'I get it.'
Rian's dream was simple: to be the swordsman who stood by the brightest mage in human history.
'It was this simple.'
With his face twisted like a yaksha's, Rian gripped the greatsword with both hands and twisted his body.
Natasha's pupils wavered.
'What—?'
Though Rian's back still faced her, a half-turned yaksha-like visage seemed to materialize, semi-transparent.
'Kruuu!'
Guided by Divine Transcendence, Rian's body began to store rotational force.
'Talent or not!'
'Incredible speed…!'
Natasha arched back and retreated.
'Mock or not!'
The air along the greatsword's afterimage shattered like glass.
'Human or not human!' What did that matter?
'If it works, that's all that matters!'
Natasha shuddered as the greatsword dropped to her waist.
One beat out of one hundred sixty thousand.
She had split the rhythm even more finely and still had room—when—
'Tuk?'
Something snapped in her head.
The rhythm was being destroyed.
'Irregular beat—'
What kind of beat could exist that wasn't captured even when one event was split into 160,000 parts?
'No way!'
Offended pride made Natasha feel the 1/160,000 beat as an even faster rhythm.
1/320,000 beat.
But what filled her head was not a measured pulse.
Tutututututu! Tutututututu!
A perfect cacophony of irregular beats surged in, smashing the rhythm to pieces.
'This guy.'
Natasha realized.
'No real talent.'
If lack of talent could be called a talent, Rian might be the bane of geniuses.
'Does that even make sense?' Talent in having no talent.
As if answering, the tip of the greatsword pierced deep into Natasha's abdomen, sending a sting through her.
'Ah—right.'
To Natasha it was just a flaw.
'But to this man, it's life.'
A lifetime kept in his chest—a life of endless sword swings to endure—
"Yaaaaaaah!"
Because it was his whole life.
"Hugh!"
When blood spurted from her belly like a fountain, Natasha gasped without meaning to.
A thought crossed her mind.
'Are we… thinking too complicatedly?'
Are we fleeing into countless thoughts because we can't do the one simple thing—give our best?
'See, Daphne.'
A friend who once dreamed with her.
'You can do it.'
Natasha gave a bitter smile.
'Still… if she had eyelids, she'd be smiling the kindest smile.'
"Sorry."