Even after being severed at the waist, Fenrir's massive body, filled with the life force of hundreds of millions of people, continued to give off faint traces of blood-red energy as it twitched across the scorched earth.
"Ah... ah... aaaah..."
Lying on the ground and groaning in his death throes, Fenrir stared with bloodshot eyes at his lower half, which had fallen dozens of meters away.
His enormous vitality, now at the level of the World's Strongest, kept death at bay even after his body had been split in two. He struggled desperately to reach his lower half.
I can still... fight. With my current regeneration, as long as I can get it back, reconnecting my body will be eas...
His hand touched his lower half.
But before Fenrir could rejoice, fear appeared in his eyes.
With his heightened perception, he could clearly sense it.
Death was spreading continuously from the wound Shadow had inflicted, devouring his vitality from within.
Fenrir lowered his head and looked at the severed stump he had dragged across the ground, leaving a long trail of blood behind him.
In theory, the wound should already have stopped deteriorating and begun healing enough to stop the bleeding.
Instead, it had not recovered at all.
Only now did Fenrir realize that his control over his own body ended at his arms.
"There are creatures in this world with tremendous destructive power, but they're actually not that difficult to deal with. The troublesome ones are monsters that can fight, possess absurd levels of immortality and regeneration, and have those abilities tied to their own unique powers."
"You... aren't bad. But if all you have is sheer vitality, then all I need to do is refine my attack down to the cellular level and cut directly into death itself. Then you won't be able to regenerate anymore."
Hearing the sound of someone landing behind him, followed by the black figure's explanation, Fenrir's face twisted with frustration and confusion.
"Why? Why?! You're already so weak now! You've even exhausted all your Magical Power, so why do you still have enough strength to use an ability like this?! My power is clearly so much greater than yours now..."
Cid noticed the monster's confusion and impotent rage and paused on his way toward Fenrir.
"You're human, yet you chose to fight like a beast. What exactly do you think you have that makes you superior to me?"
Cid planted the sword he had taken from Fenrir into the ground.
The bright, polished blade reflected Fenrir's face, now transformed into that of a grotesque mass of flesh and blood.
The easiest opponent he had fought.
That was Cid's assessment of the monster before him.
Power was unquestionably more important than technique.
But if someone blindly pursued power until they lost even the technique needed to control it, then they were no longer controlling their power.
Their power was controlling them.
From Cid's personal perspective, there was no question that the monster before him had genuinely reached the level of the World's Strongest in physical strength, Magical Power, and vitality.
Cid himself excluded, of course.
To put it bluntly, Fenrir's strength, speed, Magical Power, and vitality had indeed reached the average level of the world's strongest beings, excluding Cid.
But Great Red had those attributes on top of a bizarre ability and the "Dream" passive, which practically maxed out his ability to escape. He could easily strengthen himself, and if he truly could not win, he could simply retreat into the Dimensional Gap and hide where no one could find him.
Then there was the Infinite Dragon God.
The word "Infinite" alone granted Ophis absurd endurance and Magical Power. She had nothing to fear from attacks involving sheer numbers, and anyone dragged into a prolonged battle against her would eventually be worn down to death.
That was the difference between having perfectly rounded stats and merely having high numbers.
One was a monster built entirely around stats.
The other was just an oversized grunt.
Compared to those monsters, what did Fenrir have besides extremely fast regeneration?
More importantly, unless someone had a health bar as thin as paper, which close-combat powerhouse on the level of the Infinite Dragon God or Great Red did not possess high-speed regeneration?
Sure, there might genuinely be a few among the World's Strongest whose health bars were as fragile as candles in the wind.
But if someone could sacrifice their durability and still qualify as one of the World's Strongest, then you had to consider just how terrifying the multipliers on their other abilities must be.
From the perspective of an uninvolved observer, Fenrir had transformed into a monster while still carrying a sword, and his control was precise enough to manipulate such a dense barrage of magic bullets.
If he had bothered honing his technique to a higher level, his attacks would at least have possessed something resembling a "Sharpness" property.
"Blindly pursuing power will only leave you controlled by that power in the end."
Cid sighed as he looked down at Fenrir, whose reddened eyes remained fixed on the sword now in Cid's possession.
You could not exactly call Fenrir weak.
His stats really were all there.
The awkward part was that he did not have a single signature technique.
He was fine for crushing weaker opponents, but against someone at the same level, he had no real advantage whatsoever.
At best, it would be fifty-fifty.
He might as well have simply self-destructed.
At least then he could have pushed his power to its absolute limit and perhaps traded his life for one of the World's Strongest.
"Was that... my power?"
Perhaps the approach of death had finally allowed Fenrir to let go.
He stopped struggling and abandoned his futile attempts to drive death from his body.
Instead, he quietly stared at the sword in Cid's hand, his eyes already filled with the stillness of death.
"It wasn't your power. But the sword was yours."
"You were the one who chose to abandon it."
"Ha..."
Fenrir laughed freely.
Taking Shadow's words as nothing more than pity and consolation before his death, he closed his eyes.
Then he suddenly gathered every last ounce of strength and reached for Shadow.
"Die with me!"
"Sigh..."
A brilliant white light erupted from the ground.
Along with it came a faint sigh.
Blue-purple Magical Power rose into the air, forming a barrier more than ten meters across with Fenrir and Shadow at its center.
The blinding white light shining through the barrier illuminated the entire scorched wasteland.
When darkness returned, the Magical Power barrier dissolved into countless motes of white light.
All that remained was a crater more than ten meters wide and a black hole whose bottom could not be seen.
It had been Fenrir's final attack, launched at the cost of his own life.
The power was enough to annihilate everything within thousands of miles.
Yet Shadow had not chosen to evade it.
Instead, he had recklessly compressed the blast into a single point and allowed it to erupt inside such a confined space.
The amplification should have been enough to kill them both.
That was what Fenrir had believed.
Now, however, he could only stare in disbelief at the black figure standing before him, one hand gripping his throat.
Shadow had taken the horrifying attack head-on.
And there was not a single wound on his body.
Fenrir's eyes filled with disbelief and incomprehension.
"Why... didn't you dodge?"
His voice had become hoarse.
Having burned everything away with that final strike, Fenrir now looked like a white-haired old man.
One trembling hand slowly rose.
"Out of pity."
Cid's answer was simple.
If someone launched their final attack before death and did not even get to see it land, then even Cid would probably die with his eyes open.
So he had decided to show Fenrir a little kindness and not dodge.
It could not break through his defense anyway.
"Then..."
Why are you unharmed?
Fenrir never managed to finish the question.
Halfway through, he reached his limit and died with his eyes still wide open.
"Well, I did get hurt a little."
Cid admitted that he had suffered the tiniest bit of damage.
At the very least, a few strands of his hair had been singed.
Rounding that up, Fenrir had practically pulled off a last-second reversal.
"Still, what a shame."
Cid shook his head with a sigh and reached out to close the old man's eyes.
If possible, Cid really did hope that one day a swordsman among the World's Strongest would appear.
It was not that Great Red was bad.
Quite the opposite. Great Red was excellent.
He was tough, durable, and perfectly suited for a bloody battle.
But how should Cid put it...
Eating wild game every day eventually got boring.
He wanted something a little more refined.
Cid set Fenrir's corpse down.
Then, with a swift motion of his blade, he reduced the body to dust and scattered it into the planet's damaged interior.
The world had only just fused, so he might as well patch up the hole before something went wrong halfway through the process.
It could use the nourishment.
Do not misunderstand.
Cid still respected a senior swordsman like Fenrir, even if the man had ultimately gone down the wrong path.
That did not stop him from ensuring there would be no corpse left to bury, considering just how red Fenrir's name had been.
Seriously, where had this guy even come from?
How had he managed to hide with a red name that dark?
Complaining internally, Cid flew into the sky.
In the distance, Great Red was coughing up blood as he flew back toward the Dimensional Gap.
Cid fell into thought.
Normally, if Great Red dared appear in front of him, Cid would have gone over and slapped the red dragon around a few times.
Beat him half to death.
Heal him.
Beat him half to death again.
Then, once Cid's anger finally subsided, he would let Great Red crawl back into the Dimensional Gap.
But right now...
Cid turned toward the royal capital, where the zombie outbreak was still raging.
Just as he had told Beta and Zeta earlier, he was busy.
If he was careless, his background-character identity could disappear.
So he would let Great Red off for now.
He could beat Great Red up whenever he wanted.
Worst case, he could camp out in the Dimensional Gap for half a month and ambush him with a sack over his head.
But if his background-character identity disappeared, it would be gone for good.
As for whether Cid had any way to cure the zombie outbreak...
Physics and chemistry were just like mathematics.
If you could not understand them, you could not understand them.
The Blood Queen had at least possessed a source.
Destroy the source, flood her with enough life force, and even someone already dead could be brought back.
But zombies...
These people had mutated after taking the wrong medicine.
Pouring more life force into them would only make them stronger.
As Cid considered possible solutions, his gaze swept across the royal capital.
Then he noticed a figure.
His eyes lit up.
He vanished.
Far away, Great Red suddenly froze in midair while flying toward the Dimensional Gap.
His enormous dragon body nearly dropped out of the sky.
Again.
Great Red suspiciously scanned his surroundings.
After failing to find any enemies, confusion flashed through his dragon eyes.
Then he accelerated into the Dimensional Gap and made up his mind.
He was going to hide for a month.
No matter what happened, he was not coming out.
"Heave-ho, heave-ho..."
On the ground, an elf with long purple hair was dragging a red vehicle loaded with all kinds of equipment, slowly making her way in a certain direction.
"Master, you're finally here."
After walking for a while, Eta saw a black figure approaching her.
A trace of delight appeared on her face.
Eta, what are you doing?
Cid looked around in confusion, then glanced at Eta and the equipment she was dragging behind her.
He tilted his head.
"Oh, Master. I finally figured out the Cult of Diablos's scheme, so I went and caught a zombie to study."
"Heh. You did pretty well."
As expected of you, Eta.
You had truly mastered the art of blaming everything on the enemy, then standing on the moral high ground while conducting experiments.
"It's all thanks to Master's teachings."
"...How did the research go?"
That actually did sound reasonable...
But had Eta already finished?
At Cid's question, Eta puffed out her chest proudly.
A rare bit of energy appeared on her face.
"It's finished, Master. I've already figured everything out."
"The Cult of Diablos used massive amounts of Diablo Elixir to artificially reproduce an effect similar to Demon Possession, greatly enhancing their basic physical capabilities. Afterward, they released the body's mechanisms, turning them into monsters with enormous energy consumption."
Cid did not understand any of it.
After hearing Eta's explanation, he somehow had even more questions than before.
He understood the part about releasing the body's mechanisms but being unable to shut them again.
That simply meant they had successfully opened the realm but lacked the control needed to close it.
When were those idiots going to understand that the important part of the Complete Realm was being able to release and restrain power at will?
Perfect control over every fraction of one's strength meant there was no need to worry about the body being unable to endure its own power.
First, you drew out dozens of times the body's hidden potential.
Then, through precise control, you used a small amount of effort to produce a disproportionately greater effect.
Combine the two, and you obtained an enhancement measured in hundreds or even thousands of times.
But Cid did not understand the part involving the Diablo Elixir or how the cause and effect worked.
He knew they had somehow strengthened their bodies.
He also knew they had released their bodies' protective mechanisms.
But what did those two things have to do with each other?!
Since when did failing to achieve the Complete Realm turn someone into a zombie?!
Could someone please explain the causal relationship?!
Had Eta not skipped over far too much?!
"Based on my experiments, I've already developed a vaccine capable of neutralizing the Diablo Elixir. But I'm still not entirely sure how to shut down their bodies' protective mechanisms."
"If I remove the Diablo Elixir's enhancement right now, their bodies won't be able to keep up with their enormous rate of energy consumption. They'll die instantly."
"A vaccine?"
Cid stopped ranting internally and looked at Eta.
She nodded and pointed toward one of the machines behind her.
A zombie was bound inside it, with numerous IV tubes inserted into its body.
"Master, watch."
Green liquid flowed into the restrained zombie.
Within a few seconds, the strength inside its body plummeted.
Then...
Its ordinary human body was instantly consumed by the terrifying rate of energy expenditure.
It exploded into a cloud of blood mist.
"As for solving that problem, Master, give me another half hour. I guarantee I'll figure it out."
Half an hour...
They would probably all be dead by then.
Cid's powerful senses could clearly detect that the zombies inside the royal capital had already reached the limits of what their bodies could endure.
They had begun devouring one another.
"Give me the vaccine. I'll shut the lock for them."
"Hm? As expected of Master!"
Eta froze for a moment, then nodded admiringly.
She pulled out a large container and handed it to Cid.
"I'm sure the two... hundred thousand or so survivors in the royal capital will be grateful to you, Eta."
"What use is gratitude from a bunch of monkeys? Having Master is enough for me."
Eta curled her lip dismissively, waved goodbye to Cid, and continued dragging her equipment back toward the base with her slime.
Lucky.
Eta had already finished the vaccine.
"Hahahaha!"
Cid confidently flew into the sky.
Just as he was preparing to recreate what he had once done in the Lawless City...
"Shadow! What have you done to the royal capital?!!!"
A red-haired beauty wielding an enormous flaming sword leaped into the air after rushing back from outside the capital.
Not even taking a moment to mourn the destruction of the planet, the one who immediately rushed onto the battlefield was...
Fenrir, the Fifth Seat of the Cult of Diablos.
And without even taking a moment to mourn Fenrir, the one who immediately rushed onto the battlefield was...
Iris, First Princess of the Kingdom of Midgar.
Explosions erupted throughout the ruined city.
Above it all stood an evil black figure, laughing wildly as he looked down upon the devastation.
That was the first thing Iris saw after frantically rushing back halfway through her journey.
Brain discarded.
No need to think about it.
This had to be the evil Shadow's doing again!!!
"Sorry, but I'm not in the mood to play with you right now."
Cid brought Iris to her knees with a single strike.
Then he spread both hands in front of her.
"No! Stop!"
That familiar opening stance instantly awakened Princess Iris's PTSD.
She weakly tried to stop him.
And she really was powerless to do anything.
But Cid simply ignored her and...
Raised his hand.
The evil black figure stood before the fallen red-haired beauty.
Blue-purple light erupted.
Then it swallowed everything around them.
***
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