Chapter 159: My Dearest Friend
"Hu... man?"
The word felt foreign on his tongue. As a Mega-level Digimon, his senses were honed to an impossibly sharp edge. Even suspended high in the turbulent air, locked in a tense standoff with Omnimon, WarGreymon X caught the quiet utterance drifting up from the ruined earth below. His glowing eyes shifted downward, locking onto Mizuki.
"Is that what you are? The true identity of you visitors from another world?"
"...No. I am just like you. A Digimon."
Belle shook her head. Reaching up, she grasped the edges of her battle-torn cloak and cast it aside, letting the tattered fabric scatter into the wind.
As her true form was revealed—a striking figure wielding dual handguns—WarGreymon X's eyes widened in sudden realization.
'I felt a strange sense of deja vu from her aura earlier. Now it makes sense,'the armored dragon thought, analyzing her data signature.'This is a BeelStarmon. But... is this unique appearance the result of the X-Antibody?'
Pushing the thought aside, WarGreymon X cast a wary glance at the motionless Omnimon before his attention drifted back to the fragile-looking boy on the ground.
"But... humans?" he muttered, the syllables clumsy in his mouth. "Is that some kind of rare, specialized Digimon? Why have I never encountered a single record of their existence?"
He was a battle-hardened veteran, a survivor who had successfully resisted the lethal erosion of the X-Program and awakened the X-Antibody within his very core. He had wandered the Digital World for countless years, witnessing its cycles of destruction and rebirth. It was no exaggeration to call him a living archive of this world's history. Yet, even with his vast repository of knowledge, the term 'human' drew a complete blank.
Before WarGreymon X could ponder further, the suffocating silence was broken. Omnimon, hovering opposite him like a divine executioner, finally spoke. His voice was cold, echoing with absolute, unyielding authority.
"That is because our realm has never bridged the gap to the Human World." The Royal Knight lowered his gaze, his optics glowing with a chilling disdain. "Lord Yggdrasil has decreed that humans are a shameful, grotesque species. They are entirely consumed by greed and a thirst for conflict. Despite possessing bodies so incredibly fragile that a mere breeze could break them, they remain arrogant and utterly insatiable. They are a plague that never knows contentment—"
"Shut your mouth! You are lying!"
Belle's furious roar shattered Omnimon's monologue. She stepped in front of Mizuki, her dual handguns gripped so tightly her knuckles turned white. Pure, unadulterated rage flared in her eyes, burning with an intensity that could outshine ten million suns.
"Mizu is nothing like that!"
"I have never felt a single drop of greed from him!" she spat, her voice trembling with fiercely protective anger. "On the contrary! From the moment we crashed into this dying world, even when he was bleeding and his own survival hung by a thread, he still poured his own life force into saving the Digimon you slaughtered! You call him warlike? Look around you! It is you Royal Knights who are butchering everything in sight! You call humans ugly? Take a good look at the wasteland you have created! It is you Digimon who have turned your own home into a graveyard!"
Omnimon fell silent, his cape billowing in the ash-choked wind.
WarGreymon X, meanwhile, let out a dry, awkward cough. 'Though it might be a bit inappropriate to point out right now... BeelStarmon, aren't you a Digimon yourself?' he thought, choosing to keep that particular observation to himself. Shaking off the momentary distraction, the dragon warrior's gaze hardened as he refocused entirely on the Royal Knight before him.
"As for the true nature of humans, I cannot pass judgment on a species I have never met," WarGreymon X declared, his deep voice cutting through the tension. He raised his arms, the massive blades attached to his gauntlets gleaming dangerously. With a swift, testing swing of his claws, he carved several sharp, shrieking vacuums into the air. "However, I only trust what I witness with my own two eyes. And what I see right now is this human, Mizuki, bleeding and exhausting himself to save the innocent."
He pointed a razor-sharp claw directly at Omnimon's chest. "While you, the so-called noble Royal Knights, are acting as the executioners of the blameless!"
"...So, the negotiation has failed."
Omnimon murmured, his tone devoid of any emotional inflection. He stood motionless for a fraction of a second, processing WarGreymon X's defiance, before letting out a soft, almost imperceptible sigh.
The air around him suddenly exploded. In the blink of an eye, the Royal Knight vanished, reappearing directly in front of WarGreymon X with terrifying speed.
The extraordinary Sword was already raised high, descending in a lethal arc. Startled by the sheer velocity of the strike, WarGreymon X reacted purely on instinct. He crossed his arms, bringing up the heavy plating on his gauntlets to block. Thanks to the miraculous enhancement of the X-Antibody, the legendary Brave Shield that once rested on his back had fully integrated with the Dramon Killers on his arms, creating an absolute fusion of offense and defense.
CLANG!
The collision of supreme Chrome Digizoid sent a shockwave rippling across the sky. The sheer kinetic force of Omnimon's downward slash launched WarGreymon X backward like a meteor, but as the dust cleared, the dragon warrior remained largely unhurt. The integrated shields had absorbed the brunt of the lethal blow.
Seeing this, Omnimon's brow furrowed beneath his pristine white helmet. 'The Brave Shield... a truly troublesome obstacle.' Formed from the fused data of WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon himself, Omnimon intimately understood the terrifying defensive potential that shield possessed.
To eliminate this anomaly, he needed to bypass that defense. He had to disarm him, or completely restrain his movements.
Calculating the optimal strategy in milliseconds, Omnimon shifted his stance. He leveled his right arm, the massive wolf-shaped muzzle of the Garuru Cannon snapping open to lock onto WarGreymon X, who was still struggling to stabilize his flight path. Cocytus Breath energy gathered in the cannon's maw, freezing the ambient moisture into glittering ice crystals.
"[Garuru Cannon]—!"
Just as the devastating blast was about to fire, a blur of black leather and silver flashed into Omnimon's peripheral vision.
"Don't even think about it!" Belle roared, launching herself into the sky. "[Dramon Sword: Modified]!"
Having rewritten her own data to mimic the dragon warrior's weaponry, she swung a vicious, heated gun-blade. The thermal energy radiating from her weapon was so intense that the very fabric of space distorted and warped around the glowing edge.
Sensing the lethal heat closing in on his flank, Omnimon aborted his firing sequence and instantly recalibrated his target. With fluid, terrifying grace, he raised his left shoulder. The shield mounted there, forged from the exact same data model as the Brave Shield, met Belle's blazing twin blades. Sparks showered as the metal ground together. Using the momentum of her own strike against her, Omnimon twisted his torso, allowing her attack to slide harmlessly off his guard.
The evasive maneuver left Omnimon's back momentarily exposed. Belle's eyes narrowed, her muscles coiling as she prepared to drive her blade right through his spine. But before she could even twitch, a blinding cyan light erupted from beneath the folds of his white cape. A blast of Cocytus Breath air, carrying the devastating chill of the Garuru Cannon, fired backward at point-blank range, slamming into Belle dead center.
"What—?!" she gasped, the air instantly freezing in her lungs.
"Still far too naive," Omnimon stated coldly.
He turned his head slightly, watching as the rapidly freezing BeelStarmon was blasted out of the sky, encased in a thick block of glacial ice. A flicker of deep disappointment crossed his glowing optics.
"You possess such incredible authority over your own data, yet you only know how to swing it around like a rabid beast. Are you truly a Mega-level Digimon? One who supposedly evolved through countless trials of life and death?" He shook his head slowly. "Your combat awareness is worse than a mere In-Training."
The moment the insult left his lips, a deafening crack echoed through the air. The glacier trapping Belle violently exploded into a cloud of diamond dust. In the next heartbeat, she materialized directly in front of Omnimon, the heavy, unmistakable form of a shield strapped to her arm, blocking the lingering frost.
'Is that... the Brave Shield?'Omnimon's eyes narrowed slightly as he processed the visual data.'I see. She didn't just copy the sword. She analyzed the structural data of WarGreymon X and myself during our clashes.'
He cast a brief, calculating glance toward the hovering WarGreymon X before locking his focus back onto Belle.
Even armed with a replica of the Brave Shield, she posed no genuine threat. Omnimon maintained his flawless, relaxed stance. An opponent who possessed raw power but lacked the refined technique to wield it perfectly wasn't even fit to serve as a warm-up. In comparison, the battle-tested WarGreymon X was slightly more troublesome, though it was a pity his raw base stats fell woefully short of a Royal Knight's.
Dismissing Belle as a non-threat, Omnimon prepared to launch a decisive, fatal strike. But just as energy surged through his blade, a brilliant streak of crimson and gold light tore across the horizon. It descended like a falling star, intercepting Omnimon's flight path with absolute, pinpoint accuracy.
The Royal Knight halted his advance, his optics contracting sharply. Embedded in the scorched earth, radiating a holy, unyielding aura, was a massive, divine lance. And the owner of that lance was none other than his closest comrade from the ranks of the Royal Knights.
"Omnimon, my dear friend..." A voice, rich with sorrow and unwavering resolve, echoed across the ruined landscape. "I can see the hesitation lingering within your heart. Stop."
The crimson-armored knight descended gracefully from the heavens, his white cape fluttering gently as his armored boots touched the cracked earth. He stepped forward, placing himself firmly between the Royal Knight and his targets.
"Stop this meaningless battle."
Omnimon stared at the imposing figure standing in the center of the battlefield. The cold, calculating aura around him wavered for a fraction of a second. He lowered his blade slightly, his voice dropping to a soft, almost mournful whisper as he spoke the newcomer's name.
"Gallantmon..."
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