Chapter 64. An Unreachable Ideal
"Oh, Jin. Why are you called Jin?
Because you are a designed human? Is that why you are called Gene?
Is it because you wish to grant wishes? Is that why you are called Djinn?
Because you wish to be human, Jin(人: human)?
Because you kill humans, Jin(刃: sword)?
Because you are like the tin man of oz, the one who desires Jin(心: heart)?
Hah, foolishness.
You are a scarecrow. A cowardly lion.
A speck of dust that would never be able to reach Jin(眞: truth).
Because you will return to the dust someday, Jin(塵: speck).
Your only mistake was that you never became suspicious of me till the end."
All this time, Morto had been in charge of the reports, and they gave Jin all the information they had. Necro stood on the edge of the sky island as he burned a piece of paper between his fingers.
A page that was hidden away from the report of the Hero.
The paper that contained information on the most important ability of the Hero turned to ash. No matter how careful Jin was, it was impossible for him to catch onto missing information like this. There was no evidence that this piece of info existed in the first place, after all.
"I'm done with the idiot act. I wonder what kind of face you'll show in the end? As a comrade. No, as a person who is exactly like me. I'm very curious indeed."
This calm and calculating tone was extremely different from the usual Necro. This was his true self. The clown from before was now gone.
No, it was never there in the first place.
From the start, Necro had always been the strongest black wizard in the world.
"Let's go finish this, shall we?"
Necro jumped off the cliff to follow the saint, who had already gone down before him.
*
This was a skill that allowed the Hero to hypnotize herself to focus on battle, and only battle. Due to this, her sense of touch and smell gets minimized. Her linguistic capabilities get completely shut down while her sense of balance gets improved greatly. At the same time, her nerve conduction velocity and somatic nervous system becomes as fast as humanly possible.
With this, the Hero was able to dodge all of my attacks with ease that surprised even me, a designed human. It was almost as if she was a fish in water; she dug through the holes in my attacks and even managed to counterattack. The Hero faded away from view. When I teleported away, she just appeared in front of me as if she had expected me to be there in the first place.
This won't do.
I dodged her attack by dematerializing and threw the Hero an apartment building as a gift. Thanks to Higgs' Rule, the weight of that building multiplied by ten times. The Hero just split the building in two. The contents of the building spilled out of the building, which the Hero suspended in the air.
I used this chance to hide behind the buildings as I activated the Thousand Thunderbirds. I couldn't dodge her nonsensical attacks, so I decided that it would be better to simply hide. The wave of lightning that flew from in between the buildings managed to stop the Hero for a very short frame of time.
…So a million volts won't cut it.
The Hero's health bar was still full. It was a wonder how the previous demon king even managed to fight a monster like this. I had wanted to drag out the battle till the Hero became ragged, but I was still busy dodging her attacks. Whenever she tried to destroy the buildings, I just shifted them further up, away from her attacks.
Just three minutes now.
The one thing I needed to be careful of right now was the [False Blade = Hollow Edge]. The ability that let the Hero slice whatever she wanted. I should give up on trying to block it, since the Hero could always ignore everything that I set up and slice off my neck.
According to the reports, the skill worked by marking.
For example, black is a color that absorbs light. Due to this, it was possible to distinguish it from other colors by seeing how much it rose in temperature. The hero must be using a similar technique to distinguish between the target and the others.
There's a filtering system like Absolute Reflect.
It probably just filtered by body temperature. Which would mean that I would be able to block it with Red Lotus Dominion…
The problem was, the Hero didn't have just one skill.
Like how I tested her limits as more time passed, she sent me troublesome skills as well. Like now, for example.
A massive sword that was 150 km long and 20 km wide. This massive construct sliced the night sky in two. I didn't have time to shift away, dematerialization was still on cooldown, and I didn't have time to escape into the vault either. I got hit directly by the sword and crashed down onto a mountain below us.
Baaaang!
The shock was large enough to destroy most of the plant life on the mountain. Due to me using Higgs' Rule, the mountain now had a giant crater on top of it. I had a huge defense stat, so I wasn't damaged much, but…
This one might be dangerous.
I could see the Hero preparing her next attack above me. [Million Blades]. Millions of tiny and large blades began to drop down to my location. Almost like a raging waterfall.
I couldn't dodge this.
Due to the skill that was to follow after Million Blade, [Sword Fish]. Even if I shifted away from my position, the swords would follow me.
It would be better to just make the Hero spend all her skills here.
The success rate of this plan would rise the more skills I forced the Hero to use. If the Hero manages to combine Hollow Edge with Sword Fish, an unblockable attack that follows the target would be created. Life was too unfair. It was too unlike video games where the main character at least had a chance of dodging. But who in their right minds would create holes in their attack? If they weren't confident about hitting the target, they wouldn't use such a big skill like this in the first place.
Kiii-!
A sharp wave of blades fell through the sky to my location. Almost as if she was trying to copy my initial attack.
I activated the Eight-layer Defense Matric. As soon as I did so, the sky above me brightened due to the all the plasma and flame. An ear-shattering sound soon followed.
Kagagaga- Kraaam!
The attack seemed fierce enough to erase the entire mountain off the map. Despite me having slowed their speed greatly, each blade seemed to be like a shot from a tank.
My body should have turned to a pulp right now.
But my defense of 2,000 and a health regen of 50,000 wasn't there for nothing. No matter how strong Million Blade was, it was in the end just a bunch of swords. The damage from each of the swords wasn't great. Their speed had decreased as well. Every second, my bones recovered and the wounds on my body disappeared.
The pain was… minimal.
I watched my health bar go left and right as I waited for the attacks to end. Was I being too careless?
The Hero got in a stabbing stance behind all the sword. What was wrapped around her sword was heat and lightning. Despite being so far from her, I could feel the heat from the sword. The Hero initiated her stab from five kilometers away.
My eyes became cooked first due to the intense heat. An equally intense amount of pressure enveloped the mountain, as if to forbid me from running.
Quickly, now…
A 0.01 second felt almost like an eternity. I barely managed to escape with Phase Shift. I looked up. The mountain that I had been standing on had completely melted and was now overflowing with magma. In front of me was the huffing Hero.
"This should be good enough."
Time to go over the Summoner's plan. I raised my arms, as if I was greeting the Hero for the first time.
"Now then–. Would you be able to block this?"
The Sky Island. No, the [Star of Destruction] fell from the sky. It was the same as the first time, where I threw buildings towards the ground, but… This time, the machine that kept the island up in the air was now working to bring it to the ground as fast as possible.
"Show me a miracle, Hero."
The Sky Island was a massive ball of dirt that was 100 cubic kilometers. This should amount to at least 4,000,000,000 kilotons. A 1/1,750,000th of the moon's mass. What kept this structure up now was working to keep it down.
What destroyed the dinosaurs was a meteor about 10 km in diameter.
If the Hero fails to defend against this, humanity dies. The mantle would shake violently and the surface of the planet would be absolutely decimated.
"—-Save humanity."
The Hero's face showed a change for the first time. A crown of light appeared on the Hero's head. She was finally using all of her power to stop the destruction from reaching earth.
Would the Hero be able to overcome her limit? Would she be able to save this planet? If she runs away to save herself, this plan fails. But.
There was no way she would run.
This much was evident from her face. I could see that she had made up her mind to sacrifice herself. As I thought…
"I don't understand. Why do you sacrifice yourself like that? The one thing that's most precious in the world is yourself. Does it matter if others die?"
The Hero didn't answer. Instead, she looked up at the red sky longingly. She probably found no value in speaking.
[No matter what happens, the Hero will fight to save others.]
After all, what she was was an Unreachable Ideal that a failed product like me could never become.