Chapter 212: The Little (Crossed Out) Knight Who Protects Something
Squish.
"With this, you lot should finally quiet down."
Gallantmon planted his armored boot firmly against the mangled, gelatinous corpse of an Eater, violently yanking his holy lance free from its ruined body. A sickening tearing sound echoed through the desolate space as the weapon broke loose.
With that final, brutal motion, the last of the grotesque creatures ceased its twitching, slumping into a lifeless heap. Gallantmon surveyed the scattered wreckage littering the ground. His armored fingers curled into a tight fist. His left arm felt unnervingly light; the space where his legendary holy shield, Aegis, should have rested was completely empty.
A cold chill ran through his data core as the memory of the skirmish flashed through his mind. Even for a Royal Knight forged in countless battles, a trace of lingering dread gnawed at his composure.
"I didn't expect their abilities to be so bizarre..."
During the frantic siege just moments ago, instinct had taken over. He had raised his shield to block a seemingly ordinary strike. In the blink of an eye, the dense, sacred data composing Aegis had been devoured clean, stripped away into nothingness. Had he not severed his connection to the shield in that split second, the ravenous corruption would have undoubtedly consumed his entire arm.
"Even if I am only temporarily sustaining my strength through Examon's residual data, this is still the genuine power of a Mega," Gallantmon muttered, his voice tight with disbelief. "To think a Royal Knight's armament could be erased so easily... These creatures... it feels as though they were born specifically to eradicate data lifeforms."
Tearing his gaze away from the dissolving remains, the crimson knight forcibly suppressed the turmoil churning in his chest and resumed his search. The surrounding expanse was vast and maze-like, but with his Mega-level mobility restored, he covered ground at a blistering pace.
His persistence soon paid off. Just as the borrowed reserves of Examon's data began to thin, a faint, pulsing glow caught his eye. Hidden deep within the digital ruins lay the core data of the X-Program. A wave of deep nostalgia washed over him as he sensed the familiar aura radiating from the floating cluster of code. Elated, Gallantmon reached out, his armored hand extending toward the prize without a second thought.
Blinded by relief, he completely failed to sense the distortion rippling through the air at his back. A grotesque, black-and-white phantom silently manifested from the shadows, its jagged form looming over the knight.
"...!" Gallantmon's crimson eyes widened as a chilling shadow fell over him.
"—!"
A muffled, sickening thud echoed through the empty space. Then, the digital world returned to a suffocating, dead silence.
Examon was a titan among the Royal Knights, a powerhouse of unmatched draconic might. Having assimilated his core data, the Eater had mutated into a monstrous dragon-type abomination, its strength surging to terrifying new heights. While it might not have possessed Examon's absolute peak destructive force, its innate ability to devour data made it infinitely more dangerous and unpredictable than the Dragon Emperor himself.
Densely writhing black-and-white tentacles erupted from the creature's colossal body, thrashing outward like an endless, writhing forest of bladed whips, relentlessly assaulting everything in their path.
"Damn it... what on earth is this monstrosity?" LordKnightmon gritted his teeth, his metallic armor gleaming as he darted through the air. Faced with the Eater's frantic, sweeping strikes, even a warrior of his caliber was forced into a desperate, evasive dance, entirely unable to meet the razor-sharp appendages head-on.
"Our standard techniques aren't breaking through!"
[Spiral Masquerade!]
As if to prove his own point, LordKnightmon unleashed a flurry of strikes. The razor-sharp sword ribbons extending from his armor, weapons that would normally slice through Chrome Digizoid with ease, merely carved shallow, hissing gashes into the Eater's tentacles. Worse still, as he retracted the ribbons, the once-gorgeous metallic bands were pitted and scarred, their edges dissolving into static. The enemy was actively corroding and devouring his attack data on contact.
"It is an entity built to consume our very essence," Kentaurosmon called out, his six legs blurring as he galloped through the air, laying down covering fire to pull LordKnightmon out of a tightening encirclement of tentacles. "We have been engaged for too long. It has already adapted to the composition of our signature techniques."
"Because we are data lifeforms, everything we throw at it is just another meal..." LordKnightmon spat, his hands clenching into tight fists as he glared up at the colossal, floating dragon-type Eater.
Amidst the chaotic battlefield, only two combatants were actively pushing the monster back: Mizuki's partner, Belle, and Omnimon.
Belle fought with a terrifying, almost glitch-like mastery over data manipulation. She wasn't just striking the Eater; she was actively hijacking the very data it tried to consume, turning its own ravenous appetite into a weapon against it.
Omnimon, on the other hand, relied on absolute, overwhelming force. He was a pure juggernaut of physical stats, shattering obstacles through sheer, unadulterated power.
[extraordinary Sword!]
[extraordinary Sword!]
[extraordinary Sword!]
Omnimon blurred into motion. A blinding net of ultra-high-speed slashes carved through the air, effortlessly shredding the incoming wave of tentacles into dissolving fragments of code.
The roaring flames trailing from the massive blade carried a visceral heat. Watching from a distance, Mizuki could feel the intense, burning desire for victory radiating from the fused knight. A warrior who fought to protect, forged in the fires of countless battles, had finally realized his true purpose.
Cancel! Cancel! Cancel!
"Mizu? Is something wrong?" Sensing the youth's quiet, inadvertent murmurs, Belle glanced down at him, her grip tightening protectively as she held him mid-air.
Mizuki cleared his throat, a faint, amused smirk tugging at his lips. "Ahem, it's nothing. Just a simple observation."
His expression quickly sharpened into a focused, tactical gaze. "More, Belle, how much longer until 'that' is ready?"
"'That'?" Belle blinked, then closed her eyes, extending her senses toward the massive Eater's internal data structure. A confident, predatory smile spread across her face. "It's almost done!"
"In that case, let's spring the trap." A sharp, calculating light flashed in Mizuki's eyes as he stared down the colossal dragon-type monster.
Following his command, Belle raised her arm, her fingers snapping together. Instantly, the massive Eater floating in the sky convulsed, its entire body shaking violently as if struck by an invisible force.
The sudden, violent spasms immediately caught the attention of the surrounding Royal Knights.
"Eaters might not be traditional data lifeforms, but they still feed on data," Mizuki muttered, his tone dripping with dry amusement. "And for Belle, that ravenous appetite is a fatal flaw she can easily exploit. After all, her Final End Mode grants her absolute authority over the very data they swallow."
In layman's terms, he had just given the cosmic abomination a lethal case of food poisoning.
Jagged, glowing crystals suddenly erupted from beneath the Eater's pale armor, piercing outward through its flesh in a gruesome display. Though the Royal Knights didn't fully comprehend the mechanics of the attack, the familiar energy signature made it obvious: the creature's internal collapse was entirely Belle's doing.
Veterans of countless wars, they didn't hesitate for a fraction of a second. Seizing the opening, they launched a devastating, synchronized assault.
[Bifrost!]
[Argent Fear!]
Venting his earlier frustrations, Kentaurosmon pushed his power to the absolute limit. His holy crossbow roared, unleashing a blinding barrage of super-heated light arrows that rained down like heavy machine-gun fire.
Using the blinding volley as cover, LordKnightmon closed the distance in a flash of pink and silver. He descended upon the dragon-type Eater from above, driving the massive Pile Bunker mounted on his shield squarely into the monster's skull with bone-shattering force.
The Eater was already tearing itself apart from the inside, its internal data structure heavily corrupted by Belle's trap. Now, buckling under the combined, merciless onslaught of LordKnightmon and Kentaurosmon, deep, jagged cracks began to spiderweb across its once-impenetrable outer shell.
And in that critical moment, Omnimon made his move.
Descending like a meteor, he plunged his blazing extraordinary Sword directly into the widening cracks on the Eater's head. With a deafening roar, his entire body erupted with mountain-splitting momentum. He wrenched the blade downward with terrifying, brute force.
The colossal, corrupted dragon was violently cleaved right down the middle, its massive form split in two by the sheer power of the strike.
"Finally... my turn."
Hovering in the distance, the true Dynasmon locked his gaze onto the bisected halves of the Eater. Raging, incandescent white flames erupted across his draconic armor, the heat warping the air around him.
"Before, you used Examon's remains to dodge this strike," Dynasmon roared, his voice echoing with absolute authority. "Now, you won't get another chance!"
Thanks to the tactical breathing room Mizuki had provided earlier, Dynasmon had gathered enough energy to unleash his ultimate technique once more. In a blinding flash, multiple massive, dragon-shaped auras of pure, destructive energy erupted from his body, spiraling together as they shot directly into the gaping wounds of the severed Eater.
Recognizing the buildup of energy, the other Royal Knights relied on their centuries of tacit teamwork, instantly breaking off their assault and retreating to a safe distance.
A violent, devastating roar tore through the digital sky as the dragon auras collided within the enemy's collapsing core. The resulting detonation was apocalyptic, a sphere of blinding light that swallowed the monster whole.
This was the absolute pinnacle of Dynasmon's destructive might.
[Dragon Collider!]
"Enjoy oblivion!"
The Dragon-type Eater could not even scream as the blinding white inferno erased it from existence.
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