74 Chapter 74: The Spear Hero (1/2)
”Oh?”
Suzuki Shirou raised an eyebrow when he heard my proclamation, his face curling into a derisive sneer.
”Interesting, very interesting…”
He towered over the broken wall of wood, gripping his spear tightly as he struggled to rein in his anger. Glaring at me, he maintained that twisted smile on his face. I could almost see golden light of fury shine in his eyes.
”But what do you mean the victor has already been decided?”
I shrugged. ”Exactly what I meant. If Aoyama-kun said he got my message, then he must have done what I asked him under the cover of Ryuu's lightning rod spell.”
”Indeed,” Aoyama agreed with a nod. ”You seem to be gesturing toward me that the lightning spears that Suzuki launched at us were his belongings, and that they made for easy targets when diverted toward the row of lightning rods in the ground.”
”As expected of Tanaka, the person who defeated at least five other heroes.” Sanada sounded impressed as he sent a glance in my direction. ”Looks like victory is just moments away.”
”During your barrage, I placed at least five lightning rods in front of Aoyama-kun,” I explained. ”In other words, his dual blades hit your lightning spears another ten times.”
Aoyama smirked. ”The number on your hand should have reached the limit to forcibly teleport you away from here.”
Suzuki glanced at the digits on his hand, which true enough, had already risen to 33.
I took a deep breath, and the black mana around me disappeared. The zombie wyverns and the two dragons disappeared from view, allowing the sun to shine upon the valley once more. The ominous air that permeated the atmosphere vanished along with the flock of undead dragons.
”You dispelled your summoned undead?” Lilith asked. I nodded and rubbed my left shoulder, creaking my neck.
”Yeah…continuously maintaining the summons of such high-level and extremely powerful undead takes a lot of mana. He's already lost…no need to continue.”
”Phew…so we managed to end this without killing anyone this time?” Hoshizaki sighed in relief, wiping the perspiration from her face.
”Ha ha ha ha!”
However, instead of reacting furiously, Suzuki burst into laughter, even as golden energy crackled around his body, preparing to warp him out of the valley. He seemed more amused at his imminent defeat than frustrated.
”I see…you really are strong!”
Cackling, Suzuki's mouth split into a wide grin as he exhorted me. What was this sudden change in attitude? Somehow he seemed really pleased at my move?
As Suzuki laughed, I noticed a bunch of lightning drake tokens crashing onto the ground, the golden sculptures frozen in a roaring demeanor at his feet.
”Too bad…but I had already taken precautions against Aoyama.”
The guy clearly was a fan of Gundam.
”Once Thousand Divine Lightning Spears fires 1600 projectiles, the requirements for an ability will be completed.”
We watched the lightning drakes, which were remnants that split off from the lightning spears from earlier and fell to the earth when Suzuki launched them. Makoto tensed when he watched the golden drakes flare brightly before emanating lightning that all coalesced into a gigantic electric flame that suffused Suzuki's form.
”Those drake sculptures are some kind of enhancement.”
”This move is called Godly Physique,” Suzuki declared as he allowed his body to be engulfed by the divine lightning that streamed out of his drakes. He glanced down on his hand, where the purple digits were disappearing, and smirked triumphantly. ”Within 60 seconds, it frees me from all types of curses…”
My eyes widened as I watched the golden lightning wrap around his body and dispelled Aoyama's curse.
”I have a lot more techniques that you think…”
Cut to the panel where Sanada, Aoyama and I were still staring at Suzuki, completely dumbfounded. No, I swear, I'm not ripping off The Silver Gravekeeper. Okay, maybe a little. Ugh…fine, let's just call this a fanfiction then…
”I am the spear hero…and one of my special abilities, though not as powerful as Kobayashi's, allows me to have more than the 10 ability limit. It is obtained from killing over 1,000 demons who are at least level 100.”
Huh? So there was a limit to the number of abilities I could possess, after all. Was that why I lost the Devour ability?
”You might have heard of it before…the legendary ability that allows me to use 1,000 types of abilities…”
Thousand Killer Asura.
”You're ripping even the name off the character from that Chinese webtoon?!” I shouted angrily. ”Are you not concern over what happens if the copyright laws come knocking on our creator's door?!”
”If that happens, we can just claim fanfiction. It's not like you're making money off this work anyway, right?”
I rolled my eyes but maintained a close scrutiny of Suzuki and the visage of the golden mult-armed Asura who was seated cross-legged behind him in what was supposed to be a cool image. On top of a gigantic lotus flower too, I might add. Sighing, I decided to activate Absolute Appraisal again to make sure I knew what his abilities were.
Name: Suzuki Shirou
Species: Human
Job/Rank: Lightning Lancer/Hero
Special Abilities: Thousand Killer Asura (tap to see the list of 1,000 abilities)
Oh, so that was why I didn't bother to mention that I used Absolute Appraisal on Suzuki earlier – not only would it be a spoiler that would wreck this dramatic revelation of Suzuki's special ability, there was no way in hell that I would open a list of a thousand abilities and scroll through every one of them in the middle of a battle.
”Also…my Thousand Divine Lightning Spears is ready to fire for the third time.”
I gulped when I saw that he was right. All the lightning in the air was accumulating around his real physical spear, coalescing into a terrifying orb that blazed as furiously as the sun itself. Suzuki was hefting his spear up and pointing it and the expanding orb of lightning at us, gloating. I could see the triumph written all over his face.
”It will be different from before…though it only has one shot...”
The ball of light stretched, turning into a single lance-shaped projectile.
”But its power is unstoppable!”
”Then I just have to stop you from firing it, don't I?”
I swung my staff at close range, forcing Suzuki to bring his spear up to parry my strike. He leered at me as I tried to change the trajectory of his spear, and then shook his head in amusement. A blast of lightning surged from his body and pierced me in several places.
”Look at you, Tanaka…trying so desperately. Are you trying to protect your friends? Really? Those guys just stood by and did nothing while you were being bullied by Kobayashi. None of them helped you when you were in trouble. Why are you trying to save them?”
Blood dribbled from my lips as I was held suspended by the lightning spears that had penetrated my Redwood jacket. The 15-layer defenses had helped me avoid a fatal blow and being turned into a human pincushion, but enough had gotten through to hurt like hell. Gritting my teeth, I tapped my staff against the electricity and unleashed a pointblank ranged Shadow Lunar Fang to destroy the web of lightning spears, and also to blast Suzuki away.
”Fuck!”
Coughing, Suzuki stumbled out of the smoke, but the lightning ball continued to charge and accumulate at the tip of his spear.
”You really are full of stupid tricks, aren't you? Tanaka! Hah! That's more like it. I remember how impressed I was when you always refused to give up and continue to fight against Kobayashi and his goons, despite all the odds!”
”It would be odd not to fight with those odds.”
I was already charging at him, readying another blow. Suzuki was probably laughing at me for dismissing my undead dragons and wyverns too early before the battle was over. Normally, I would have agreed with him and raged at myself for doing such a stupid thing. I wasn't the type to underestimate my opponents, after all.
However, I had deliberately dismissed them, not because I actually believed that the battle was over or because they really required too much mana, but because I had just realized that there was some other technique that I wanted to try out.
Well, as a last resort, maybe I would rely on Ryuu and the others to work for me, but right now I had another plan in mind.
”Entertain me as much as possible, yo!”
Suzuki was guffawing as he clashed with me, but with his spear ready to fire off that orb of light, he suddenly decided not to parry my fourth strike and instead threw out his hand. I suddenly remembered that he had a thousand abilities and quickly backpedaled.
It was too late.
”Lightning Barrier.”
A huge wall of golden electricity suddenly surged from the ground and electrocuted me. I fell to my knees, gritting my teeth as I relied on my Redwood jacket to deflect the worst of the blast. But there was too much electricity that it paralyzed me, stopping my movements and suspending me on the ground. I leaned on my staff, closing my eyes and enduring the electric blast.
”I don't understand…you seem like the type of character who relies on long-range magic and summoning. So why are you so insistent on engaging me in close combat? It would only be overly one-sided in my favor.”
”That's quite the myth.” I grinned, despite the amount of lethal currents flowing through me. ”But I'm afraid it's not true. I might not be as skilled as you or Minamoto in close combat, but I'm not exactly a long-range fighter either. I only have one ranged spell…two at the most. Thanks to my undead abilities, I realized that I'm actually quite the tank.”
”Yes, that Regeneration ability of yours is really troublesome.” Suzuki stepped toward me as he noted that my wounds were healing on their own. The burns that I suffered from electrocution, the blackened and sizzling skin, were all vanishing of their own accord, as well as the regenerative barriers of my Redwood jacket. ”It'll be tough to defeat you. But even your Regeneration ability wouldn't be able to save you from a direct hit from an attack of this magnitude, right?”
He slowly pointed his spear at me, and I swallowed as I saw the glowing orb of lightning right in front of my face. He was right. A hit from an attack of that much power would simply obliterate me and literally erase me from existence. I wouldn't be able to regenerate if there was nothing of me left to regenerate from.
”Checkmate.”
Suzuki grinned. I grinned back.