Chapter 228 - Chapter 228 (2/2)

As if they were done with their preparations, both of them looked at Jin-Woo simultaneously.

"Begin!"

The moment the signal was given, Beru dashed forward immediately.

"Kiiiieeehk-!!"

He closed the distance with a stupendous turn of speed and powerfully swung his claws; Bellion proceeded to block and let the attack slide past him, and then, as Beru's momentum took him further away, the current Grand-Marshal spun around to face the distancing ant soldier.

It was then.

'…...!!'

Jin-Woo's eyes widened.

Bellion pointed with his sword and it suddenly stretched out like a long snake to fly towards Beru.

Shushushushushu-!!

Beru urgently spun around and reflexively slapped the blade away.

CLANG!!

That was just the beginning.

Bellion used his sword like a whip and rained down a barrage of incredulous attacks at his target. The flexible body of the blade, carrying an enormous amount of Mana, danced and writhed according to its wielder's desire to pummel the ground and air surrounding Beru.

BOOM!! BANG!! BOOM! BANG!!

On the other hand, all Beru could do right now was to concentrate all his being to barely defend against the attacks.

"Kiiiieeehk!"

While watching Bellion's attacks that had clearly surpassed the limitation imposed by the sword-type weapon, Jin-Woo imagined what would happen if it was him facing that barrage.

When he did, everything seemed to slow down to a crawl. Even then, even within this slowed-down time, Bellion's sword remained dangerously fast.

Jin-Woo's expression became even more serious.

His eyes, now emitting cold glare, followed and caught each and every slap and swish of the unpredictable sword dance. Upper left, right side, upper left again, then lower left, and to upper right….

….The him of his imagination evaded all the attacks and was standing before Bellion.

And then, he cut the soldier down. In Jin-Woo's imagination, Bellion's neck rolled to the ground. It only took a blink to get to that point.

Bellion momentarily sensed this chill-inducing feeling of his neck being cut off and flinched grandly as he took a look in Jin-Woo's direction.

'Oops...'

He ended up being a bit carried away after discovering a rather interesting weapon; meeting Bellion's rather panicky gaze, Jin-Woo replied with an apologetic expression. But that only lasted for a moment.

Beru didn't miss this opening and viciously slapped the irritatingly-tenacious blade away, before dashing towards Bellion like a bolt of lightning.

"Kiiieeeehcck!!"

STAB-!

Unfortunately – against Jin-Woo's own expectation, the one to stab his weapon in the midriff of his opponent was Bellion.

What an unexpectedly fast motor reflex!

On top of that, a scary power capable of destroying everything with each attack. This was Bellion, the soldier who wasn't left wanting for anything as the Grand-Marshal of the Shadow Army.

'….Still, one should never let one's guard down.'

It was a wee bit uncool to talk about one of his soldiers in this manner, but well, the truth was, the biggest plus point of an insect was its tenacious vitality.

Sure enough, Beru suddenly expanded its body size even with a sword stuck to his belly. He swung his humongous fist down on the head of his opponent.

KWA-BOOM!!

The power behind that punch was so great that a part of Bellion's helm broke off and scattered black smoke in the air.

"Kiiieeehk!"

Almost right away, Beru followed up with his second attack. No, he tried to.

Beru's wrist was caught by Bellion's powerful grip just in time. The ant soldier tried to use his physical strength to yank his arm out, but too bad, the Grand-Marshal didn't even budge an inch.

In the meantime, Bellion cocked his free arm backwards. An enormous amount of Mana quickly gathered in that cocked arm.

A moment later.

BOOM-!!!

Beru's chest was punched powerfully and he flew backwards in a straight line. The shockwave generated at the same time from his flying figure swept up the forest surrounding him, and the trees were yanked out of the ground from their roots and all, before being flung away to the sides.

A long and straight path suddenly got carved out within the sea of trees.

"Kiiiieeehck!"

Beru hurriedly unfurled his wings to stop his body from being flung away endlessly. Unfortunately, just as he somehow managed to steady himself, Bellion had already arrived right before his face.

That was followed by a powerful slam towards the ground!

KWA-BOOM!!

Like a meteor crashing into earth, a huge crater caved in on the ground and Bellion lightly landed inside.

In the middle of this crater, Beru was hurriedly getting up to respond to his opponent. Now normally, any ol' regular enemy would have been torn to bits and shreds by now, but he had managed to withstand several of these attacks already.

Swiiiiish-!

Bellion used the back of his hand to slap away Beru's claws and just like that, smacked the ant soldier right on top of his head.

BOOM!!

That was the beginning of a dogfight.

Boom! Bang! Boom! Boooom!!

Beru's attacks were only on the level of briefly disrupting Bellion's balance, but...

BOOM-!!

….Bellion's attacks each carried fatal power behind them.

Craaaack, crack!!

Cracks formed on Beru's exoskeleton as if they were about to shatter at any given moment.

"Kiiieehk!"

Even then, Beru desperately resisted until the end, not showing any hints of giving up on this fight. He tried to chomp down on Bellion's shoulder, but the latter simply pushed away the former before grasping Beru's neck.

Kwa-jeeck!!

Now rendered immobile, Beru writhed his entire body to free himself, but Bellion remained unmoved. The latter simply concentrated Mana once more on his free arm so he could attack for the last time and end this fight.

A horrifying amount of Mana, more than enough to easily shatter the head of a Dragon in one hit, gathered around and distorted the space around his arm.

With this, it'd be the end.

Bellion's cocked fist soon flew out towards Beru's face.

But, Jin-Woo reached out and grasped the deadly fist before it did, since he didn't want to see Beru's head explode today.

Grab!

"That's enough."

Bellion realised that it was his liege stopping his fist and quickly withdrew his attack.

"My liege."

The Grand-Marshal hurriedly knelt down and bowed his head.

'….You did well.'

Jin-Woo praised Bellion with his eyes for not holding back anything and displaying his prowess like that. He then walked over to Beru collapsed on the ground.

"Kiieehhk, my king, I, I... kiieehk! I can still...."

"....."

Jin-Woo studied the faltering, unsteady Beru with pitying eyes before asking him out of genuine curiosity.

"Hey, Beru. Why are you so dead-set on the position of the Grand-Marshal?"

"Kiiehk, I, only, I wish to, become the Grand-Marshal and always stand next to my liege..."

Beru couldn't continue on due to his grief-stricken mind. Jin-Woo scratched the side of his head and offered up his reply.

"The Grand-Marshal can stand to my right, while you can stand to my left, right?"

"...!!!"

Only then did Beru realise that he could still stand next to his liege without being the Grand-Marshal, and his eyes opened up extra-round.

"....I am honoured by...."

"Stop it."

Leaving behind Beru and his emotion-induced tears filling up his eyes, Jin-Woo stood back up and spat out a helpless sigh. But then...

Another Shadow Soldier silently approached him. It was none other than Igrit, who had been listening to the conversation between Jin-Woo and Beru without saying anything.

"My liege, may I be granted an opportunity to challenge...."

As Igrit cautiously asked, Jin-Woo quickly replied as if he was expecting this already.

"You can stand behind me."

"....!"

Igrit couldn't finish the rest of his sentence due to his liege's keen insight.

***

"Is that so... In the end, the Shadow Sovereign has become our enemy."

The Dragon Emperor, currently in a humanoid form, was receiving the reports from the Sovereigns that had already descended to Earth. Only their voices softly echoed within this eternal darkness.

"I see. Fine. I shall deal with him personally. None of you make a move. We must prevent any further losses."

The Dragon Emperor had fully analysed the situation and ended the connection to the Sovereigns.

Soon, there was no more sound.

This world, the gap between dimensions where nothing existed, was quickly filled up by empty silence. To the Sovereigns, this place was no different from hell itself, as there was nothing here to destroy.

That was why...

That was why, the Sovereign of Destruction, born from the darkness with a singular purpose of destroying every single existence, did its hardest to escape from this place.

And finally, the day it'd taste the fruit of its labour was literally around the corner.

The Dragon Emperor turned around and issued its command towards the darkness behind it.

"My troops. Ready yourselves for war."

When it did, dozens of Ancient-grade Dragons, hundreds of Dragons, and tens of thousands of Dragonewts hidden within the darkness shot out heated glares from their eyes and roared out in unison.

Waaaaaaahhhh-!!

< Chapter 228 > Fin.