[Chapter 12]
-Dragon’s Soul in Human Flesh-
“I’ve waited in pain for the moment where I take your life-desu. Any unwanted nuisance now would ruin the moment.”
Rafflesia, straightening her left arm with her hand fully spread out, turns her open palm upward parallel to the ground. Then, centering Rafflesia and Diadora, a wall made out of countless entangled demonic flower roots start to emerge from the ground, enclosing on the two. The wall that had just been created is just like the wall composed of trees that is protecting Sai-West, the appearance of the structure made out of flowers resembles that of a colosseum.
“So then, with this, let us focus our minds and fight to our hearts content-desu? Hey you, if you have any concerns, hurry up and speak them out to me.”
“Oh well. It’s a shame, but from the looks of it, the others won’t be able to witness your unsightly death, Miss.”
“Ahahaha~, so rude, those words of yours.”
“Fufufu~”
Diadora and Rafflesia’s blood thirst confronts one another with the same magnitude. Rafflesia lets out a cheerful laughter while feeling annoyed, then extending both of her hands out, in a downward motion, she lowers them at Diadora. Rafflesia did it in a fluid manner, her wax-like arms* start to produce some kind of blue foggy mist in the air and it makes its way through the air and approaches Diadora at a frightening speed. Be it wind, earth, or water, anything that is a part of nature, no matter what it is, Rafflesia’s menacing fog would drain its life and absorb it as food continuously. (T.L. Literally, Rafflesia, the plant, have waxy petals so Rafflesia, the character, have waxy arms.)
With her vision mostly clouded in blue and the life draining fog rapidly approaching, Diadora moves the black rose petals from her left side to the front, thus successfully scatters and prevents the fog from getting near her. Diadora’s action allows her to avoid getting into a desperate situation. In the next moment, however, the black rose’s petals start to sway and wobble. This proves that even tens of thousands of petals are nothing more than just one petal before the fog. It is insane.
After realizing this fact, the petals move away from the blue fog allowing it to continue on its path. Diadora tries to do something foolish compared to before. With her slender right hand, she connects all of the petals in the air together and controls them to twist and turns in a fluid motion as if ignoring the wind and defying gravity. She then proceeds to direct her attack at Rafflesia.
Naturally, the accursed fog that could reap all things in nature of its life intervenes. It sucks out all of the vitality and magical power contained within the black rose petals until nothing is left. Everything was turned into fine dust in under a minute.
The tempest of flower petals splits into two and the wind carries away the dust left behind. Diadora continues to pour more and more magical power into the petals. The rate of which the petals are being created soon exceeds the amount the fog can handle and overtakes it. After three odd seconds, it manages to reach Rafflesia’s location and swallows her small figure, containing a wicked soul, within.
“Hee~, so this right here is a petals tempest.”
Rafflesia murmurs amusingly, then thrusts out her left hand. At that moment, the fog starts to gush out in a torrent against the petals surrounding it and like a starving animal, starts to devour Black Rose’s petals.
“You’re still thinking of fighting against me using sheer number? I’ve learned a few things since our battle yesterday.”
Sneering at her opponent’s shallow thinking, Rafflesia then lets out a laughter like a ringing bell. Diadora, on the other hand, remains silent. Seeing the petals’ dust blowing away, she gazes at Rafflesia with extreme sharpness.
“I suppose I should reward you a little. I’ll let you into a little something. My fog, absorbing life isn’t the only thing it can do, it has other usage as well. One of which, is like this.”
Rafflesia turns her right hand up as she speaks. The blue fog starts to swirl and as it thickens, the blue-colored fog starts to change into red. Diadora’s sharp perception allows her to quickly feel the enormous amount of power that is starting to swell up. In addition to understanding what kind of power is gathering in Rafflesia’s right palm, hatred begins to show on her snow white facial skin. In this time, Diadora’s deep rage for Rafflesia comes gushing out.
“You bitch, that’s the accumulated life force from everyone you’ve absorbed, isn’t it?”
In reply to Diadora’s words spitting out from her blood red lips, Rafflesia gives her an applause by somewhat clapping her hands.
“Cor~rect~. I can utilize the life I’ve absorbed just like this, it can be release outside like this here, see?
The soul in this world holds a lot of power as it is the source for life. If you have enough power, you can break it and then alter it as you wish, I’ll show it to you right now.”
Rafflesia tosses the orb in her right hand up in the air toward Diadora. The orb is now a red crystallized orb supplied with life force, it then emits light in every direction including towards Diadora. An enormous amount of power is emitting from the orb toward the surroundings in the form of light. Diadora’s jet black hair grows long into black rose thorns, intertwines, and curls up like a boulder in an instant, and thus she successfully avoids direct exposure. The instant the orb hits the ground where Diadora is standing, the sound like that of a hundred thunderous roars explodes and it leaves a gigantic hole in the earth afterward.
Then, a fragment of the cocoon-like barrier breaks off and bounces on the ground. Diadora immediately gets a glimpse of Rafflesia. The ground then starts to move apart. Despite the fact that Diadora poured all her might into defense, she still could not fully negate the attack’s destructive power. Rafflesia, in a cute manner, speaks to confirm Diadora’s words.
“How was it? It was amazing from over here. Just now was the combined power of your deceased friends.
If your friends’ lives were so important, shouldn’t you have accepted the power of their lives? Oh well~ let’s continue!”
“Tsk!”
Rafflesia raises her small hands up to her chest level, then the red light representing many lives starts to gather into orbs between her hands. Each of them possesses amazingly destructive power equaling high level destruction magic. Even Diadora will be finished if she was to receive one direct attack.
From between Rafflesia’s hands, the light emitting red orbs once again fire at Diadora. Flying through the air, passing, intersecting, each of the light orbs performs complex maneuvers as if it has a mind of its own while closing in on Diadora from every direction.
Diadora quickly glances around her. She instantly realizes that there is nowhere to run so she bundles the thorns and whips them against the light orbs to create her own escape. But even so, one of the light orbs penetrates her defense and manages to get very close. The thorns are filled with the Spirit of the Black Rose’s magical power, thus they can easily penetrate a thick fortress gate even with steel reinforcement. The moment it makes contact with the orbs, the thorns’ tips whip at the orbs and flick them away.
The thorns send the orbs flying and disrupt the enemy’s control over them. It was successful and Diadora experienced no pain, only the shockwave from the collisions with the orb that got through and powerlessly reached Diadora’s cheeks.
“Oh? You were able to play with something of that level. How about it? Let’s go at it one more time, but don’t be selfish and die alright?
It would be boring if you were to give up and die. Oh well, let’s first do something about those long legs of yours, halving them sounds good. Alright, let’s do that!”
“Stop blabbering at other people’s business at your own leisure!”
In no time at all, Diadora once again is surrounded by a great number of light orbs. Then Diadora makes a little gesture, lifting her left index and middle finger up. Although she does it hidden from Rafflesia’s sight, by feeling the ground vibrating below her feet, Rafflesia already guesses what Diadora is scheming, and looks down at her feet and waits.
A small rustling sound can be heard from the ground that is cracking. Ten or so thorn tips pierce out of the crack and skew into Rafflesia’s entire body countless times. Rafflesia glances toward Diadora’s direction for a brief second and notices that the thorns made their way over here from a small strand of Diadora’s jet black hair via underground. Black Rose’s thorns grew unnoticed and spread wide below the surface, and it was only just now that it became a threat.
“Letting a portion of your life out in the open, did you perhaps think that I can’t absorb this? Too bad for you~!”
Besides Black Rose’s usage of skewing and locking down a single target, she could also have used it to annihilate an army of thousands. Regardless, Rafflesia then starts cladding her body in life-absorbing blue fog and one by one, the thorns start to turn into dust and leave behind no trace of a wound on Rafflesia’s skin. When everything crumbled and turned into dust, Rafflesia lets out a satisfactory laughter for all to hear, and speaks to Diadora in a mocking manner.
“Ohh, how unfortunate for you.The prideful woman played out her attack and it had no significant effect~”
Regarding the light orbs that are surrounding Diadora, countless thorns come out of the ground and pierce all of them, then they stop and fade away into thin air. When the light orbs are hit, they release shockwaves and Diadora, in turn, overlaps the thorns in layers like a shield to protect herself from them. At first, Diadora used them to inflict damage onto Rafflesia and now, she uses them to get rid of the light orbs that surrounded her.
“Did you think doing something like that will prolong your life?
All it did was prolonging your suffering. It is such a nuisance for me, I wish for you to feel and suffer all of the agony I can cause you, but it is not so tempting if you keep dodging.”
Rafflesia once again condenses the stolen life force, forming numerous red orbs. They surround Rafflesia while radiating sinister red light. Then, rays of light shine and the wind starts blowing. The life sucking fog brushes against the miasma and erodes it away. The light orbs give off pulses like a beating heart and each time the orbs’ size would slightly increase along with their power.
To the extent of turning even one’s own territory into power by destroying it, such an abomination.
While witnessing what Rafflesia is doing, Diadora’s rage and hatred seems to increase even more as she thinks to herself. Averting her eyes away from the atrocity, she hears something unexpected.
“First, to prevent you from moving around, your legs need to be slice off. Next, ripping off your arms and making you crawl on the ground like a worm. Afterward, I’ll personally raise you and give you lots of love~. You’ll be my plaything, until I grow bored of you that is.”
Rafflesia then commands all of the orbs that are surrounding her like wandering spirits to all attack Diadora simultaneously. Every time an orb is destroyed, Rafflesia would create another in its place, the constant barrage between Diadora and Rafflesia raging on non-stop. After a while, the thorns could no long hold against the heavy bombardment. Some of the attacks get through and graze by Diadora’s head and beautiful body.
“If you start begging me me to make you into my plaything now, I will reject the idea. Rest assured. I will not treat you as my plaything, and I’ll destroy you at once.”
One of the light orbs suddenly slips through and approaches Diadora with insane speed, but a dark aura suddenly covers her entire body. It is something that seems to suck in all light. It is such a darkness that would never allow even light to escape. No, rather than calling it darkness, it is more accurate to describes it as black light.
The aura surrounds Diadora like a thick layer of clay. As the orbs touching the aura are quickly swallow by it, the red orbs controlled by Rafflesia quickly turn into the black color of Diadora. One by one, the red light orbs are taken over and start to surround Diadora, Rafflesia wipes the sneer off her face after seeing what Diadora is doing.
“Oh, you are being such an annoyance for me. What more? You, are you the same as me in this world?”
“Black is the colour that absorb all others. Black is also the color of all things mixed. As the rose that carries black petals, I am one who possess every colour, Demonic Flower Spirit. With the exception to myself, I can devour anyone, demonic flower spirit. I sealed away my power when I started to live within this forest, since I didn’t want to do anything as evil as you did, beside, you don’t have to feel so annoyed about it.
The life of everyone that you absorbed, for letting me take them back from your filthy life, you have my thanks.”
“Ahahaha, you don’t say. If it is about sucking out the life of the enemy, let us go about it then. However, the winner will be me~!”
Rafflesia took it upon herself and challenged Diadora. She stops using the destructive side of her power and once again clad her small body in her blue fog. Diadora too starts to emit black light. Her body is covered in her black aura just like Rafflesia. The contest of life-sucking begins as the light and fog collide with one another. Like hungry and mindless beasts, their powers indiscriminately exhaust all source of power they touch. When they mash up against each other, the blue fog engulfs the black light and drains it of its energy, and vice versa for the black light. The colour of black and blue mix together, devouring one another violently.
The battle between Diadora and Rafflesia is literally about who can suck their enemy’s life out faster all the while exchanging their own life. Blue fog and black light constantly switch from offense to defense and in the process, cause the surroundings to glow bizarrely. The surrounding earth, air, and also the magical power that dwelled in space itself, the aether, starts to clear up as the struggle rages on. The two’s battle is one that is consuming creation itself. Mutual robbing and exchanging life, although it has only been a little while since the start, the first one to fall to her knees is Diadora.
There is a definite difference in power between one who came from Makai and one who lives in this world. The speed at which the fog is taking over the black light increases. The bizarre mix of color slowly turns more blue. Once the enemy collapsed, the victor was already decided.
Rafflesia lets out a sadistic smile and shows her superiority. The blue fog covers Diadora’s black light and consumes it completely. When it is all gone, the fog encircles Diadora on all sides. While the blue fog continue to such the life out of anything it touches, Diadora can only emit enough aura around herself to resist. Rafflesia then lets out a sigh.
“Hmmm. It wasn’t enough to even leave a deep taste behind. You no longer have the power to fight back either. The small fries you brought along are having their hands full dealing with my minions. They don’t seem to be able to afford a single second to help you, alright!
After I chop off your arms and feet, I’ll make you watch as I break the others one by one.
Fufufu, I’d love to see the lovely expression on your face.
Fufu, fufufu, it’ll be a lovely sight.”
Rafflesia let out a blissful expression as she imagines what it would be like which enrages Diadora. She shoots out a black light beam and slowly opens her mouth to speak. The words that come out of her glossy red lips are in an indifferent tone. It was neither an angered nor frightened tone. It’s rather one that struck a nerve against Rafflesia.
“After absorbing so much of my power, I wonder why are you not full yet?”
“Fufu, so I am not. Of all the life force I sucked out from the flowers in this forest, yours is the most delicious while also carries the most hatred. It truly was very delicious. It may be better to let you live and serve as my treat, fufufufu.”
“So, it seems to fancy your taste. I suggest you savior that taste to the fullest because it will be the last thing you’ll taste in this life.”
“Ara, is there something funny going on inside your head? I’m rather curious to see how you’re going to win given the situation.
Surely you are not thinking of someone coming to rescue you? Perhaps you are expecting too much from that man who was being a nuisance yesterday.
Don’t worry, I’ll give you and that human plenty of love after this. Feel free to look forward to it.”
Suddenly, Diadora lets out a small laugh and puts her finger onto her cheek. Last night, that place on Rafflesia’s cheek was where she was scratched.
“Dran is not someone as simple as you might think.
Right here. Aren’t you feeling something uncomfortable on your cheek?”
Pointed out by Diadora, Rafflesia then touches her right cheek where the scar has been with her right hand. From the moment she started to sucked Diadora’s life, the skin on her right cheek started to tingle and itch. The discomfort intensifies as soon as Diadora points that out. It now feels like there are insects crawling underneath her skin, her expression then switches to that of disgust.
“What, what is this? Kii, kyaa, what, what is this pain!?”
While feeling the intense itching, throbbing, and the pain, Rafflesia instinctively covers her right cheek with both hands. Noises underneath her skin could be heard. Countless tiny thorns start to puncture and grow out of Rafflesia’s skin and spread all over her cheek. The thorns are wet with Rafflesia’s black blood. Moreover, the black rose thorns are sucking her blood. Surely enough, the black rose is one that swallows all color.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!”
Rafflesia tries to grab hold of the black rose thorns coming out of her face and rips them out. That is when the thorns continue to grow in number and skewer her hand as well. Sucking even more blood from the new wound, the thorns leave behind roots inside the wound, tearing away the flesh, growing into Rafflesia’s blood vessels and literally devouring her alive.
Growing without limits, the moist black rose thorns continue to grow out of Rafflesia while intensely sipping away her life. Within seconds, Rafflesia is weakened considerably. The thorns then find their way into her right eye socket, down her throat, and up her nostrils. The roots then puncture and come out of her ear and cover her earlobe, Rafflesia’s entire head is now covered in black rose’s thorns and roots.
“What, di…you, to me….thorns, inside my body, roses, growing….How!?”
“During the fight yesterday, don’t you remember being scratched by me? In that nick of time, I embedded a small black rose seed into your skin. I couldn’t reach you from the outside, so I intended to attack from within.”
Rafflesia’s white neck is punctured from the inside. Her thin thighs grow bulky and then finally rupture. In no time, Black Rose’s thorns completely cover Rafflesia’s entire body. The human shaped artwork made out of thorns is completed. One can even say that she is full of holes for that would be the literal truth. Rafflesia’s once beautiful body was completely tainted. Her voice could barely be made out due to the agony. Besides, her mouth was already filled with thorns which pierced through her tongue countless times over, forcing out even more blood.
“Such, defeated by, such method, I did not notice….”
“How rare to see you being honest. Your confidence seems to have disappeared. Although it worked because of your excellent job of absorbing my magic power and life force, you know. After all, the most nutritious thing for my seed is my own magic and life force. Would you look at that, the thorns are making their way into your heart. Your power will soon be sucked dry and give the rose the power to fully bloom. Let your life at least be of value to the Black Rose, this is for everything you’ve made the people of the forest gone through. Now, return their lives.”
“Ahh!! No, no, no…..! I, I’m the one who take lives, I’m the Flower Princess….! My……ah…..ah, ahh, ahhhh, my life, life, ahhhhhhhhhhhhh……..aaaa…..aa….”
Rafflesia screamed until the last moment when her final drop of life got drained, her head lost its power and swayed sideways. The screams continue, but in a form of noises, but that too would cease soon enough. In the end, Black Rose will take all of Rafflesia’s power. From the countless thorns sticking out from Rafflesia’s body, the roses start to bloom. The figure now barely resembling that of a human’s.
At last, after everything was over, Diadora falls down on her knees. She pretended to be calm while Rafflesia was still alive, but the truth was that she severely overworked herself, the amount of life force required for the seed to grow from within Rafflesia’s body was nothing to laugh at. Thus, Diadora’s mind and body are now completely exhausted. There is always power present in the earth and the air, and although absorbing them can help one recover strength, it is not possible for her in this state due to the surrounding being filled with demonic energy.
For Rafflesia who is from the other world, absorbing the energy familiar to her here is not a problem. The unmistakable truth is, for Diadora who is a Flower Spirit of this world, being in this place is like sipping in poison. Thus, when Diadora is in the affected area, she has to clad herself in her own power. Her physical strength is recovering slowly. In the current situation, a full recovery will be a long and unsteady process. Suddenly, Diadora starts to have cold sweat flowing down her white chin and drops onto her long black hair. Her breathing also changes to a rougher state. She tries hard to maintain her breathing, but it doesn’t stop and she continues to breath air out roughly past her red lips.
She resists the urge to drop down and close her eyes. Diadora then looks at the wall made by the deceased Flower Spirit earlier. The wall stands even when its creator, Rafflesia, has died. The sound of Wood Elves fighting against the demonic soldiers could be heard through the wall. Since the supply of magical power from Rafflesia was cut off, it is not difficult to break through the wall made out of demonic flowers. Suffering from exhaustion, Diadora still requires sometime before she is able to gather enough strength to break through.
“So, I’m all wind up in exhaustion. Even the younglings and Woodmen would be able to defeat me in this state.”
Somehow, Diadora recovers just enough strength to joke around. When her trembling legs struggle to stand up straight, she suddenly senses a strong bloodthirst directed toward her. The bloodlust is so intense that it makes her feel like heavy rain is pouring down onto the ground.
While being hit by the intense bloodlust, Diadora ceases her movement and sweat starts to flow down her forehead. Looking up, Diadora spots the pupils like that of black agate. With its back against the sky while jumping over the wall from the other side, she spots the lower body that is of a beast along with its gigantic shadow. The figure’s beastly lower body doesn’t seem to have eyes, and its upper humanoid body is clad in armor covered in red blood like someone who had a sunburn. There’s no doubt, its Georudo.
“Nueeii!”
“Argh.”
Georudo utilizes the downward momentum and launches the gigantic spear in his right hand at Diadora. It flies down like a meteor. Diadora forces strength into her legs that refused to move and jumps aside. After rolling a few times, she manages to avoid being skewered and ultimately escapes death. Georudo’s weight is massive. His spear dug into the ground near Diadora and the area around it sunk in, causing a huge cloud of dust to raise.
Although Diadora avoided being skewered by the spear, she could not escape the shock wave that was created almost at point blank range. She was blown off into the air and after a few flips, she hits the ground with a concerning sound. Her cheeks are now very pale and there seems to be almost no blood in them at all. Her hair also seems to have lost its glossy blackness and turned dark. Her dress, which is made out of black rose petals and fibers, is covered in dirt. On Diadora’s red lips and also on her soft thigh, blood can be seen flowing out from the injured skin. These wounds are not fatal. However, all of the strength Diadora has recovered was used to avoid the blow, so she no longer possesses enough strength to resist the next time Georudo attacks.
Groveling still on the ground, Diadora musters all of her current strength and barely manages to look up. Georudo’s hatred seems to pierce right through her pupils as she looks at him. Georudo pulls his spear out of the ground nearby, temporarily shifts his gaze off of Diadora, and looks at the humanoid shaped black rose thorns. Rafflesia’s body outline can no longer be recognized but judging from the clothing in addition to the situation, he guesses that it’s Rafflesia.
“Urh….Why,… are you here? Aren’t you suppose to be guarding the other Makai Gate?”
While coughing out fresh blood, Diadora asked. Georudo conceals his hatred and replies.
“Fun~, I certainly am. However, when I felt that Rafflesia and you were fighting, I came rushing over before Rafflesia could have her way with you.
That Dran, or whatever the name of the youngster was, did not come over to where I was. At first, I thought it was going to be a one sided bloodbath, but I didn’t think that you could have defeated Rafflesia.”
“Is that so. Unfortunately…..haa, haa, for you. Your precious nakama, ah, was defeated by me.”
“‘Precious nakama” you said? That’s an interesting way to put it. Regardless, make no mistake, I don’t feel a shred of emotion for such thing. Nun!!”
Georudo slowly raises the spear in his right hand up in the air and swings it down at wind breaking speed. However, his target is not Diadora, who is on the ground, but the corpse of Rafflesia who was buried in thorns, which causes Diadora to stare with eyes wide open. Georudo completely smashes Rafflesia along with the black roses. As they are crushed, the thorns burst and spill blood everywhere on the ground. It was an unforgivable cruelty to do such a thing to your deceased comrade’s body. Diadora, taken by surprise, can only stare at what happened. Georudo clicks his tongue and acts as if it was an insignificant thing.
“Chi, that ruined my mood.”
“Fu, fufu, crushing the body of a nakama who came from the same world, I like it?”
“Han~. Leaving behind the corpse that was easily defeated by someone from this world, it would shame all those who came from Makai. Such a thing should not be left alone. Crushing the corpse and remains of the fallen is the least I can do and it is similar to showing mercy from where we came from. You too should give it a good laugh. Laugh until you are no longer able to laugh.
Now, Rafflesia wished to have her way with you and get her revenge, but I’ll kill you right here, right now. After that, it’ll be that Dran-whatever’s turn.”
Pulling out the spear from the ground once again, Georudo raises the weapon which is covered with his nakama’s blood. Diadora still has not recovered enough strength yet and she does not have any means to evade, much less is she able to stop even a single strike from Georudo. The best she can do right now is to lightly move one of her limbs.
“Not yet, the forest still has not been retaken yet. I’m not going to….in such a place.”
Raise the body somehow, even one blow at Georudo will do, Diadora thought but her body refused to listen to her and remains still. Her hair wouldn’t turn into thorns, nor would the hidden thorns in the earth extend out.
“Die by my spear, Spirit of the Black Flower!”
Georudo swings down his spear with all his might, magical power and touki emitting out light similar to that of a flame. That attack packed enough destructive power to blow a small fortress into pieces. In Diadora’s case, she is going to be turned into tens of thousands of pieces of meat. She’s about to meet her demise and she would welcome death, or so she thought as she closed her eyes. Suddenly, from the sky, a shadowy figure with six expanded wings intervenes. It’s someone who possesses wings. It mutters something and takes on Georudo’s single attack with absolute ease.
“Fumu.”
“Nuu! You!!”
Georudo raised his voice with all sorts of mixed feelings from astonishment to hatred, and also joy.
“Dran!?”
Diadora, seeing the appearance of a man who should not have been in this place, instinctive cried out his name. Dran, who stopped Georudo’s spear using the sword he was holding only with his right hand, looks back at Diadora whom he rushed in between to protect then showed a smile on his face.
“You are in quite a bit of trouble, Diadora. Good thing I made it here in time. However, this is the second time that this happen isn’t it. What strange fate.”
“Why, why are you here? You should have been together with Christina and Selia.”
“I felt the presence of Georudo heading this way. Thus, I left that place to Christina-san, and headed over here. Everything was fine when I left the other battlefield, it’s quite fortunate that I made my way over here in time.”
After saying all of that, Dran strengthens his right arm even more using dragon’s power and pushes Georudo back with his sword in one go. Georudo’s spear is a dozen times heavier than even himself, and so against that kind of strength, Georudo can only hold on to his spear and be pushed back while digging his feet into the ground, carving lines on it.
“Nuuu, those wings and this power, those are not what a regular human possesses!”
“What, this body of mine is definitely human. However, it is an entirely different story when it’s about my soul. Devil.”
“Interesting. I’ll enjoy slicing your head from your body with my spear!”
With his will to fight starting to intensify along with him starting to put on his touki, before Georudo can actually materialize his deadly magical aura, Dran points his sword and lightly touches the ground with the sword’s tip to put a magic circle on top of it, and the area burst into the light of rainbow color. As soon as the magic circle gives off rainbow color light, it also releases magic that helps one replenish their magic along with healing them. Diadora’s body and soul instantly feel better and she feels her magic power replenishing in no time at all. All the small wounds she received also heal instantly. All the scratches and bruises that were once on Diadora’s body disappear as if they were all illusions. If a great sage who is familiar with the knowledge about dragons of ancient time was to stand before this place, that person would be in absolute shock witnessing the magical circle being used contained some of the dragon’s race alphabet that was once used when gods used to walk the earth.
“This magic circle will heal and protect you. Diadora, do not move out of this circle until I’ve finished sending Georudo to oblivion.”
“Wait, with this magic circle in place, I’ll be able to recover in no time. I’ll be able to offer you support when I do.”
“You’re still hurt, don’t overwork yourself anymore. Listen to me and behave yourself. Beside, I, alone, am enough.”
Dran goes out of the dragon based magic circle, leaving Diadora behind. Diadora quickly stands up and tries to chase after, but when she reaches out she finds herself behind an invisible barrier that prevents her from getting out. The magic circle was made so it will heal and protect Diadora while also prevent her from recklessly getting out.
“Dran!”
In response to Diadora’s calling, Dran flaps his six large wings lightly, and slowly heads toward Georudo.
♦ ♦ ♦
I did not look back when Diadora called my name. I got closer to Georudo step by step. Leaving Christina-san over at the other gate, it was a big favor to ask of her while I go to save Diadora. I recreated my wings from the memories in my soul, they grew out of my back and I flew all the way here in a breath. Currently, I have reduced the wings’ size down to a more fitting proportion to my own body. At the same time, I strengthened my whole body, thus giving me dragon’s level strength.
Strengthening my body is one thing, temporarily turning parts of my body into that of a dragon’s, such as semi-recreating my eyes, is another matter entirely. Having said that, this is the first time I’ve grown my wings and fortunately, it went well. Although dragon wings have membrane between them, their overall skeletal structure greatly resembles that of a bird if you were to strip away all of their feathers and flesh. Each of my wing’s membrane has its own color ranging from red, blue, yellow, green, purple, and finally black. Each of my wings is mostly covered in white but the overall color shines like a rainbow. Right now, it would not be an exaggeration to say that I resemble a dragon more than a human. Ahh, father, mother, please forgive this son of yours for meddling with the body you’ve given him.
“Ooh Dran. You’ve ruined my long awaited moment where I kill Spirit of the Black Rose with my spear, but it is more convenient this way, since I can kill both of you at once.
I will abide by the guidance of the God of Makai. This place is where I will kill you, I will be the one who will devour your soul. Gahahahahahaha!!”
“Abide by the guidance of the God. However….”
Who is the current High God of Evil? Should I fight and destroy them too? Rather than fighting, the evil deity would be extremely frightened and would probably start crying when facing me. Georudo did not hear my mutter and his entire body is now cladded in touki and abnormal magical power can be sensed in the mouth region of his beast underbody. It fires out hell blaze directly at me while taking into aim Diadora, who is behind me. The fireball with its size of twice my height starts to melt the ground. The heat it is giving off completely engulfs me. The fiery breath shines bright light onto my face and the heat makes me feel warm. I create a magical barrier just on top of my skin and it blocks off all the deadly heat from affecting my body.
“As expected, your fire is third-rate.”
I swing my left hand to the side with five fingers spread out, scattering the enormous fireball into some ten of thousands of sparks in the process. This time, I semi-wrap my left arm in white and translucent dragon scales. Again, these scales were re-created using the same method so they are more or less a fake copy. Compare to the flames of someone who is highly ranked in terms of power and holds the fire attribute magic, the devil’s hell blaze is nothing. These scales alone are plenty enough to block them.
While there are still countless sparks still in the air, Georudo seems to have expected that I would disperse the fireball beforehand, Georudo comes charging at me while dispersing the spark aside like a curtain with his spear and I, too, ready my sword to clash against his weapon. With each step he takes, the ground beneath his feet sinks, his entire body is covered in his deep red touki making him look like he’s on fire. The Vanguard of Makai freely treads on this earth while looking at me with eyes burning with killing intent, he pushes his spear forward toward me.
“Nuuueeeeiiiiyaaaaa!!!”
“Hah!”
My long sword, which I applied concentrated magic power onto, is shining white and I use it to receive the spear point dead on and force it backward. The loud sound of metal colliding with one another booms across the area. Sparks arc close to my hair at the same time making it look like thunder and lightning is being created in our fight. Georudo screams as he withstands the numbness that is running through his body. Even though it is very tricky to use four legs, he kicks his foot against the ground, which can create a shock wave enough to kill. Immediately, I deflect his spear downward and jump.
His spear swings down with great force. I use the opening to punch Georudo’s beast body in the mouth with my left hand, throwing him off balance. My clenched fist, covered in copied dragon scales, punches deep into the mouth and breaks its fang. It then spits out dark blood. Just like that, I send Georudo’s big bulky body flying. He crashes onto the ground while making a loud sound and due to his big body, he sinks into the ground.
“Guooo, ahh, ahh, gahhhhh. Kuh, hahahaha. This power, it’s just like what Georg said, you are a dragon.
We had thought that you simply transformed and took the shape of a human, but that body is definitely that of a human’s. Factoring that in, there are only so few possibility left, but I’ll take a guess right now and say that you’re someone who was reincarnated. Specifically, a dragon who was reborn as a human!
If that is true, then you possessing this much power is only fitting. I did not think I would be able to fight against a powerful dragon such as yourself while I was alive, Dran.”
“It’s as you said. So to say, a dragon in human flesh, that is what I am. Although, I did not originally wish to be reborn as a human.”
“It’s excellent either way!”
While getting up with his body, coughing out blood, Georudo intends to jump over to where I am with his touki still intact covering his dirty body. His legs possess plenty of jumping power and his gigantic body drags the wind as he easily jumps into the air. Furthermore, Georudo concentrates his magic power into his four legs and fires them out straight at me. It is the exact same thing Christina-san did when she used her wind magic to move. It resembles a technique used to fly through the air.
“That was the second time you’ve deflected my spear!!”
“Don’t blame me, but your fate has been decided. Whatever scheme you’re planning will not succeed, Devil!”
With every ounce of his magical power combined with his touki, Georudo wraps it onto his spear giving it, once again, the illusion of a burning flame. There’s no doubt Georudo’s is putting everything he has and entrusting his soul and body into this. I can clearly feel that this is the strongest attack he is capable of making. In response to him, I also start to pour even more dragon power into my sword. A magic blade is then formed after a huge amount of power is poured into it. The blade in my hand is strengthened using the power of the strongest dragon, it is now a sword that is capable of cutting down even the gods.
Once again, Georudo’s spear clashes against my sword. There will be no more trick this time. It is going to be a quick frontal assault. My dragon powered sword starts cutting into the tip of Georudo’s spear. Regardless of what my sword is up against, when combined with the strength in my right hand, I am capable of cutting through anything. Pushing his spear away, I reverse the blade of my sword and lower it to my side. I slash an arc diagonally upward and cut into Georudo’s beast body all the way across his chest.
“Grrggggg!? How absurd, for someone in this world to overpower me so easily.”
“I call it, Dragon Claw Sword. Georudo, the amount of power that you’ve demonstrated in this world cannot be label weak. It’s just that you’ve chosen the wrong opponent.”
“What are you saying!?”
Georudo tightly embraces the wound on his chest with his left arm. Furthermore, his beast body continues to sneer at me despite having a continuous stream of blood dripping onto the ground. Out of mercy, I slice its neck and end its suffering. The head of the beast rolls in the air and just before it drops onto the ground, I use my magic to erase it. While black blood continues to gush out of him like a waterfall, Georudo keeps his stare on me. He directs all his rage and every curse into his gaze and I, myself, return the straight stare.
“Guuu, for me to be defeated by a dragon who was reincarnated into a mere human, what a disgrace!”
“Like I said, you’ve chosen the wrong opponent to fight against. Young child.”
Instantly, Georudo’s body stiffens and deprives of any movements. In his eyes, rage and hatred rapidly retreat. Georudo’s body seems to have stopped functioning as time continues on. Trembling from the pain, after a while, even the blood stops gushing out of his wound. Substituting his rage is now unspeakable fear, regret, and despair. All of the negative emotions come flooding out in his mind and are truly beyond his describable words. Georudo sees it. He sees my dragon eyes shining in seven colors.
“Impossible, it cannot be, how can you, to be an a place like this! You’re him, you’re, Dra…..!!”
“I’ll end it quickly, Georudo. This world is not a place where you’re suppose to be in.”
I slice off Georudo’s neck as a mercy given to him. In addition, I cut it up to bits as it flies in the air. Georudo is now released from the absolute terror that binds him and ending his life is the quickest way to free him. After his head was cut off and erased, Georudo’s body collapses and quickly turns into ashes and gets blown away by the wind.
“Farewell, Demonic knight. If there’s something you wish to curse, then you should curse your own misfortune. If there’s something you wish to grieve about, grieve at your own fate which has brought you to encounter me. If you wish to curse the one who brought you to your end, then you may curse me.”
[To be continued]
[Chapter 12]
-Dragon’s Soul in Human Flesh-
“I’ve waited in pain for the moment where I take your life-desu. Any unwanted nuisance now would ruin the moment.”
Rafflesia, straightening her left arm with her hand fully spread out, turns her open palm upward parallel to the ground. Then, centering Rafflesia and Diadora, a wall made out of countless entangled demonic flower roots start to emerge from the ground, enclosing on the two. The wall that had just been created is just like the wall composed of trees that is protecting Sai-West, the appearance of the structure made out of flowers resembles that of a colosseum.
“So then, with this, let us focus our minds and fight to our hearts content-desu? Hey you, if you have any concerns, hurry up and speak them out to me.”
“Oh well. It’s a shame, but from the looks of it, the others won’t be able to witness your unsightly death, Miss.”
“Ahahaha~, so rude, those words of yours.”
“Fufufu~”
Diadora and Rafflesia’s blood thirst confronts one another with the same magnitude. Rafflesia lets out a cheerful laughter while feeling annoyed, then extending both of her hands out, in a downward motion, she lowers them at Diadora. Rafflesia did it in a fluid manner, her wax-like arms* start to produce some kind of blue foggy mist in the air and it makes its way through the air and approaches Diadora at a frightening speed. Be it wind, earth, or water, anything that is a part of nature, no matter what it is, Rafflesia’s menacing fog would drain its life and absorb it as food continuously. (T.L. Literally, Rafflesia, the plant, have waxy petals so Rafflesia, the character, have waxy arms.)
With her vision mostly clouded in blue and the life draining fog rapidly approaching, Diadora moves the black rose petals from her left side to the front, thus successfully scatters and prevents the fog from getting near her. Diadora’s action allows her to avoid getting into a desperate situation. In the next moment, however, the black rose’s petals start to sway and wobble. This proves that even tens of thousands of petals are nothing more than just one petal before the fog. It is insane.
After realizing this fact, the petals move away from the blue fog allowing it to continue on its path. Diadora tries to do something foolish compared to before. With her slender right hand, she connects all of the petals in the air together and controls them to twist and turns in a fluid motion as if ignoring the wind and defying gravity. She then proceeds to direct her attack at Rafflesia.
Naturally, the accursed fog that could reap all things in nature of its life intervenes. It sucks out all of the vitality and magical power contained within the black rose petals until nothing is left. Everything was turned into fine dust in under a minute.
The tempest of flower petals splits into two and the wind carries away the dust left behind. Diadora continues to pour more and more magical power into the petals. The rate of which the petals are being created soon exceeds the amount the fog can handle and overtakes it. After three odd seconds, it manages to reach Rafflesia’s location and swallows her small figure, containing a wicked soul, within.
“Hee~, so this right here is a petals tempest.”
Rafflesia murmurs amusingly, then thrusts out her left hand. At that moment, the fog starts to gush out in a torrent against the petals surrounding it and like a starving animal, starts to devour Black Rose’s petals.
“You’re still thinking of fighting against me using sheer number? I’ve learned a few things since our battle yesterday.”
Sneering at her opponent’s shallow thinking, Rafflesia then lets out a laughter like a ringing bell. Diadora, on the other hand, remains silent. Seeing the petals’ dust blowing away, she gazes at Rafflesia with extreme sharpness.
“I suppose I should reward you a little. I’ll let you into a little something. My fog, absorbing life isn’t the only thing it can do, it has other usage as well. One of which, is like this.”
Rafflesia turns her right hand up as she speaks. The blue fog starts to swirl and as it thickens, the blue-colored fog starts to change into red. Diadora’s sharp perception allows her to quickly feel the enormous amount of power that is starting to swell up. In addition to understanding what kind of power is gathering in Rafflesia’s right palm, hatred begins to show on her snow white facial skin. In this time, Diadora’s deep rage for Rafflesia comes gushing out.
“You bitch, that’s the accumulated life force from everyone you’ve absorbed, isn’t it?”
In reply to Diadora’s words spitting out from her blood red lips, Rafflesia gives her an applause by somewhat clapping her hands.
“Cor~rect~. I can utilize the life I’ve absorbed just like this, it can be release outside like this here, see?
The soul in this world holds a lot of power as it is the source for life. If you have enough power, you can break it and then alter it as you wish, I’ll show it to you right now.”
Rafflesia tosses the orb in her right hand up in the air toward Diadora. The orb is now a red crystallized orb supplied with life force, it then emits light in every direction including towards Diadora. An enormous amount of power is emitting from the orb toward the surroundings in the form of light. Diadora’s jet black hair grows long into black rose thorns, intertwines, and curls up like a boulder in an instant, and thus she successfully avoids direct exposure. The instant the orb hits the ground where Diadora is standing, the sound like that of a hundred thunderous roars explodes and it leaves a gigantic hole in the earth afterward.
Then, a fragment of the cocoon-like barrier breaks off and bounces on the ground. Diadora immediately gets a glimpse of Rafflesia. The ground then starts to move apart. Despite the fact that Diadora poured all her might into defense, she still could not fully negate the attack’s destructive power. Rafflesia, in a cute manner, speaks to confirm Diadora’s words.
“How was it? It was amazing from over here. Just now was the combined power of your deceased friends.
If your friends’ lives were so important, shouldn’t you have accepted the power of their lives? Oh well~ let’s continue!”
“Tsk!”
Rafflesia raises her small hands up to her chest level, then the red light representing many lives starts to gather into orbs between her hands. Each of them possesses amazingly destructive power equaling high level destruction magic. Even Diadora will be finished if she was to receive one direct attack.
From between Rafflesia’s hands, the light emitting red orbs once again fire at Diadora. Flying through the air, passing, intersecting, each of the light orbs performs complex maneuvers as if it has a mind of its own while closing in on Diadora from every direction.
Diadora quickly glances around her. She instantly realizes that there is nowhere to run so she bundles the thorns and whips them against the light orbs to create her own escape. But even so, one of the light orbs penetrates her defense and manages to get very close. The thorns are filled with the Spirit of the Black Rose’s magical power, thus they can easily penetrate a thick fortress gate even with steel reinforcement. The moment it makes contact with the orbs, the thorns’ tips whip at the orbs and flick them away.
The thorns send the orbs flying and disrupt the enemy’s control over them. It was successful and Diadora experienced no pain, only the shockwave from the collisions with the orb that got through and powerlessly reached Diadora’s cheeks.
“Oh? You were able to play with something of that level. How about it? Let’s go at it one more time, but don’t be selfish and die alright?
It would be boring if you were to give up and die. Oh well, let’s first do something about those long legs of yours, halving them sounds good. Alright, let’s do that!”
“Stop blabbering at other people’s business at your own leisure!”
In no time at all, Diadora once again is surrounded by a great number of light orbs. Then Diadora makes a little gesture, lifting her left index and middle finger up. Although she does it hidden from Rafflesia’s sight, by feeling the ground vibrating below her feet, Rafflesia already guesses what Diadora is scheming, and looks down at her feet and waits.
A small rustling sound can be heard from the ground that is cracking. Ten or so thorn tips pierce out of the crack and skew into Rafflesia’s entire body countless times. Rafflesia glances toward Diadora’s direction for a brief second and notices that the thorns made their way over here from a small strand of Diadora’s jet black hair via underground. Black Rose’s thorns grew unnoticed and spread wide below the surface, and it was only just now that it became a threat.
“Letting a portion of your life out in the open, did you perhaps think that I can’t absorb this? Too bad for you~!”
Besides Black Rose’s usage of skewing and locking down a single target, she could also have used it to annihilate an army of thousands. Regardless, Rafflesia then starts cladding her body in life-absorbing blue fog and one by one, the thorns start to turn into dust and leave behind no trace of a wound on Rafflesia’s skin. When everything crumbled and turned into dust, Rafflesia lets out a satisfactory laughter for all to hear, and speaks to Diadora in a mocking manner.
“Ohh, how unfortunate for you.The prideful woman played out her attack and it had no significant effect~”
Regarding the light orbs that are surrounding Diadora, countless thorns come out of the ground and pierce all of them, then they stop and fade away into thin air. When the light orbs are hit, they release shockwaves and Diadora, in turn, overlaps the thorns in layers like a shield to protect herself from them. At first, Diadora used them to inflict damage onto Rafflesia and now, she uses them to get rid of the light orbs that surrounded her.
“Did you think doing something like that will prolong your life?
All it did was prolonging your suffering. It is such a nuisance for me, I wish for you to feel and suffer all of the agony I can cause you, but it is not so tempting if you keep dodging.”
Rafflesia once again condenses the stolen life force, forming numerous red orbs. They surround Rafflesia while radiating sinister red light. Then, rays of light shine and the wind starts blowing. The life sucking fog brushes against the miasma and erodes it away. The light orbs give off pulses like a beating heart and each time the orbs’ size would slightly increase along with their power.
To the extent of turning even one’s own territory into power by destroying it, such an abomination.
While witnessing what Rafflesia is doing, Diadora’s rage and hatred seems to increase even more as she thinks to herself. Averting her eyes away from the atrocity, she hears something unexpected.
“First, to prevent you from moving around, your legs need to be slice off. Next, ripping off your arms and making you crawl on the ground like a worm. Afterward, I’ll personally raise you and give you lots of love~. You’ll be my plaything, until I grow bored of you that is.”
Rafflesia then commands all of the orbs that are surrounding her like wandering spirits to all attack Diadora simultaneously. Every time an orb is destroyed, Rafflesia would create another in its place, the constant barrage between Diadora and Rafflesia raging on non-stop. After a while, the thorns could no long hold against the heavy bombardment. Some of the attacks get through and graze by Diadora’s head and beautiful body.
“If you start begging me me to make you into my plaything now, I will reject the idea. Rest assured. I will not treat you as my plaything, and I’ll destroy you at once.”
One of the light orbs suddenly slips through and approaches Diadora with insane speed, but a dark aura suddenly covers her entire body. It is something that seems to suck in all light. It is such a darkness that would never allow even light to escape. No, rather than calling it darkness, it is more accurate to describes it as black light.
The aura surrounds Diadora like a thick layer of clay. As the orbs touching the aura are quickly swallow by it, the red orbs controlled by Rafflesia quickly turn into the black color of Diadora. One by one, the red light orbs are taken over and start to surround Diadora, Rafflesia wipes the sneer off her face after seeing what Diadora is doing.
“Oh, you are being such an annoyance for me. What more? You, are you the same as me in this world?”
“Black is the colour that absorb all others. Black is also the color of all things mixed. As the rose that carries black petals, I am one who possess every colour, Demonic Flower Spirit. With the exception to myself, I can devour anyone, demonic flower spirit. I sealed away my power when I started to live within this forest, since I didn’t want to do anything as evil as you did, beside, you don’t have to feel so annoyed about it.
The life of everyone that you absorbed, for letting me take them back from your filthy life, you have my thanks.”
“Ahahaha, you don’t say. If it is about sucking out the life of the enemy, let us go about it then. However, the winner will be me~!”
Rafflesia took it upon herself and challenged Diadora. She stops using the destructive side of her power and once again clad her small body in her blue fog. Diadora too starts to emit black light. Her body is covered in her black aura just like Rafflesia. The contest of life-sucking begins as the light and fog collide with one another. Like hungry and mindless beasts, their powers indiscriminately exhaust all source of power they touch. When they mash up against each other, the blue fog engulfs the black light and drains it of its energy, and vice versa for the black light. The colour of black and blue mix together, devouring one another violently.
The battle between Diadora and Rafflesia is literally about who can suck their enemy’s life out faster all the while exchanging their own life. Blue fog and black light constantly switch from offense to defense and in the process, cause the surroundings to glow bizarrely. The surrounding earth, air, and also the magical power that dwelled in space itself, the aether, starts to clear up as the struggle rages on. The two’s battle is one that is consuming creation itself. Mutual robbing and exchanging life, although it has only been a little while since the start, the first one to fall to her knees is Diadora.
There is a definite difference in power between one who came from Makai and one who lives in this world. The speed at which the fog is taking over the black light increases. The bizarre mix of color slowly turns more blue. Once the enemy collapsed, the victor was already decided.
Rafflesia lets out a sadistic smile and shows her superiority. The blue fog covers Diadora’s black light and consumes it completely. When it is all gone, the fog encircles Diadora on all sides. While the blue fog continue to such the life out of anything it touches, Diadora can only emit enough aura around herself to resist. Rafflesia then lets out a sigh.
“Hmmm. It wasn’t enough to even leave a deep taste behind. You no longer have the power to fight back either. The small fries you brought along are having their hands full dealing with my minions. They don’t seem to be able to afford a single second to help you, alright!
After I chop off your arms and feet, I’ll make you watch as I break the others one by one.
Fufufu, I’d love to see the lovely expression on your face.
Fufu, fufufu, it’ll be a lovely sight.”
Rafflesia let out a blissful expression as she imagines what it would be like which enrages Diadora. She shoots out a black light beam and slowly opens her mouth to speak. The words that come out of her glossy red lips are in an indifferent tone. It was neither an angered nor frightened tone. It’s rather one that struck a nerve against Rafflesia.
“After absorbing so much of my power, I wonder why are you not full yet?”
“Fufu, so I am not. Of all the life force I sucked out from the flowers in this forest, yours is the most delicious while also carries the most hatred. It truly was very delicious. It may be better to let you live and serve as my treat, fufufufu.”
“So, it seems to fancy your taste. I suggest you savior that taste to the fullest because it will be the last thing you’ll taste in this life.”
“Ara, is there something funny going on inside your head? I’m rather curious to see how you’re going to win given the situation.
Surely you are not thinking of someone coming to rescue you? Perhaps you are expecting too much from that man who was being a nuisance yesterday.
Don’t worry, I’ll give you and that human plenty of love after this. Feel free to look forward to it.”
Suddenly, Diadora lets out a small laugh and puts her finger onto her cheek. Last night, that place on Rafflesia’s cheek was where she was scratched.
“Dran is not someone as simple as you might think.
Right here. Aren’t you feeling something uncomfortable on your cheek?”
Pointed out by Diadora, Rafflesia then touches her right cheek where the scar has been with her right hand. From the moment she started to sucked Diadora’s life, the skin on her right cheek started to tingle and itch. The discomfort intensifies as soon as Diadora points that out. It now feels like there are insects crawling underneath her skin, her expression then switches to that of disgust.
“What, what is this? Kii, kyaa, what, what is this pain!?”
While feeling the intense itching, throbbing, and the pain, Rafflesia instinctively covers her right cheek with both hands. Noises underneath her skin could be heard. Countless tiny thorns start to puncture and grow out of Rafflesia’s skin and spread all over her cheek. The thorns are wet with Rafflesia’s black blood. Moreover, the black rose thorns are sucking her blood. Surely enough, the black rose is one that swallows all color.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!”
Rafflesia tries to grab hold of the black rose thorns coming out of her face and rips them out. That is when the thorns continue to grow in number and skewer her hand as well. Sucking even more blood from the new wound, the thorns leave behind roots inside the wound, tearing away the flesh, growing into Rafflesia’s blood vessels and literally devouring her alive.
Growing without limits, the moist black rose thorns continue to grow out of Rafflesia while intensely sipping away her life. Within seconds, Rafflesia is weakened considerably. The thorns then find their way into her right eye socket, down her throat, and up her nostrils. The roots then puncture and come out of her ear and cover her earlobe, Rafflesia’s entire head is now covered in black rose’s thorns and roots.
“What, di…you, to me….thorns, inside my body, roses, growing….How!?”
“During the fight yesterday, don’t you remember being scratched by me? In that nick of time, I embedded a small black rose seed into your skin. I couldn’t reach you from the outside, so I intended to attack from within.”
Rafflesia’s white neck is punctured from the inside. Her thin thighs grow bulky and then finally rupture. In no time, Black Rose’s thorns completely cover Rafflesia’s entire body. The human shaped artwork made out of thorns is completed. One can even say that she is full of holes for that would be the literal truth. Rafflesia’s once beautiful body was completely tainted. Her voice could barely be made out due to the agony. Besides, her mouth was already filled with thorns which pierced through her tongue countless times over, forcing out even more blood.
“Such, defeated by, such method, I did not notice….”
“How rare to see you being honest. Your confidence seems to have disappeared. Although it worked because of your excellent job of absorbing my magic power and life force, you know. After all, the most nutritious thing for my seed is my own magic and life force. Would you look at that, the thorns are making their way into your heart. Your power will soon be sucked dry and give the rose the power to fully bloom. Let your life at least be of value to the Black Rose, this is for everything you’ve made the people of the forest gone through. Now, return their lives.”
“Ahh!! No, no, no…..! I, I’m the one who take lives, I’m the Flower Princess….! My……ah…..ah, ahh, ahhhh, my life, life, ahhhhhhhhhhhhh……..aaaa…..aa….”
Rafflesia screamed until the last moment when her final drop of life got drained, her head lost its power and swayed sideways. The screams continue, but in a form of noises, but that too would cease soon enough. In the end, Black Rose will take all of Rafflesia’s power. From the countless thorns sticking out from Rafflesia’s body, the roses start to bloom. The figure now barely resembling that of a human’s.
At last, after everything was over, Diadora falls down on her knees. She pretended to be calm while Rafflesia was still alive, but the truth was that she severely overworked herself, the amount of life force required for the seed to grow from within Rafflesia’s body was nothing to laugh at. Thus, Diadora’s mind and body are now completely exhausted. There is always power present in the earth and the air, and although absorbing them can help one recover strength, it is not possible for her in this state due to the surrounding being filled with demonic energy.
For Rafflesia who is from the other world, absorbing the energy familiar to her here is not a problem. The unmistakable truth is, for Diadora who is a Flower Spirit of this world, being in this place is like sipping in poison. Thus, when Diadora is in the affected area, she has to clad herself in her own power. Her physical strength is recovering slowly. In the current situation, a full recovery will be a long and unsteady process. Suddenly, Diadora starts to have cold sweat flowing down her white chin and drops onto her long black hair. Her breathing also changes to a rougher state. She tries hard to maintain her breathing, but it doesn’t stop and she continues to breath air out roughly past her red lips.
She resists the urge to drop down and close her eyes. Diadora then looks at the wall made by the deceased Flower Spirit earlier. The wall stands even when its creator, Rafflesia, has died. The sound of Wood Elves fighting against the demonic soldiers could be heard through the wall. Since the supply of magical power from Rafflesia was cut off, it is not difficult to break through the wall made out of demonic flowers. Suffering from exhaustion, Diadora still requires sometime before she is able to gather enough strength to break through.
“So, I’m all wind up in exhaustion. Even the younglings and Woodmen would be able to defeat me in this state.”
Somehow, Diadora recovers just enough strength to joke around. When her trembling legs struggle to stand up straight, she suddenly senses a strong bloodthirst directed toward her. The bloodlust is so intense that it makes her feel like heavy rain is pouring down onto the ground.
While being hit by the intense bloodlust, Diadora ceases her movement and sweat starts to flow down her forehead. Looking up, Diadora spots the pupils like that of black agate. With its back against the sky while jumping over the wall from the other side, she spots the lower body that is of a beast along with its gigantic shadow. The figure’s beastly lower body doesn’t seem to have eyes, and its upper humanoid body is clad in armor covered in red blood like someone who had a sunburn. There’s no doubt, its Georudo.
“Nueeii!”
“Argh.”
Georudo utilizes the downward momentum and launches the gigantic spear in his right hand at Diadora. It flies down like a meteor. Diadora forces strength into her legs that refused to move and jumps aside. After rolling a few times, she manages to avoid being skewered and ultimately escapes death. Georudo’s weight is massive. His spear dug into the ground near Diadora and the area around it sunk in, causing a huge cloud of dust to raise.
Although Diadora avoided being skewered by the spear, she could not escape the shock wave that was created almost at point blank range. She was blown off into the air and after a few flips, she hits the ground with a concerning sound. Her cheeks are now very pale and there seems to be almost no blood in them at all. Her hair also seems to have lost its glossy blackness and turned dark. Her dress, which is made out of black rose petals and fibers, is covered in dirt. On Diadora’s red lips and also on her soft thigh, blood can be seen flowing out from the injured skin. These wounds are not fatal. However, all of the strength Diadora has recovered was used to avoid the blow, so she no longer possesses enough strength to resist the next time Georudo attacks.
Groveling still on the ground, Diadora musters all of her current strength and barely manages to look up. Georudo’s hatred seems to pierce right through her pupils as she looks at him. Georudo pulls his spear out of the ground nearby, temporarily shifts his gaze off of Diadora, and looks at the humanoid shaped black rose thorns. Rafflesia’s body outline can no longer be recognized but judging from the clothing in addition to the situation, he guesses that it’s Rafflesia.
“Urh….Why,… are you here? Aren’t you suppose to be guarding the other Makai Gate?”
While coughing out fresh blood, Diadora asked. Georudo conceals his hatred and replies.
“Fun~, I certainly am. However, when I felt that Rafflesia and you were fighting, I came rushing over before Rafflesia could have her way with you.
That Dran, or whatever the name of the youngster was, did not come over to where I was. At first, I thought it was going to be a one sided bloodbath, but I didn’t think that you could have defeated Rafflesia.”
“Is that so. Unfortunately…..haa, haa, for you. Your precious nakama, ah, was defeated by me.”
“‘Precious nakama” you said? That’s an interesting way to put it. Regardless, make no mistake, I don’t feel a shred of emotion for such thing. Nun!!”
Georudo slowly raises the spear in his right hand up in the air and swings it down at wind breaking speed. However, his target is not Diadora, who is on the ground, but the corpse of Rafflesia who was buried in thorns, which causes Diadora to stare with eyes wide open. Georudo completely smashes Rafflesia along with the black roses. As they are crushed, the thorns burst and spill blood everywhere on the ground. It was an unforgivable cruelty to do such a thing to your deceased comrade’s body. Diadora, taken by surprise, can only stare at what happened. Georudo clicks his tongue and acts as if it was an insignificant thing.
“Chi, that ruined my mood.”
“Fu, fufu, crushing the body of a nakama who came from the same world, I like it?”
“Han~. Leaving behind the corpse that was easily defeated by someone from this world, it would shame all those who came from Makai. Such a thing should not be left alone. Crushing the corpse and remains of the fallen is the least I can do and it is similar to showing mercy from where we came from. You too should give it a good laugh. Laugh until you are no longer able to laugh.
Now, Rafflesia wished to have her way with you and get her revenge, but I’ll kill you right here, right now. After that, it’ll be that Dran-whatever’s turn.”
Pulling out the spear from the ground once again, Georudo raises the weapon which is covered with his nakama’s blood. Diadora still has not recovered enough strength yet and she does not have any means to evade, much less is she able to stop even a single strike from Georudo. The best she can do right now is to lightly move one of her limbs.
“Not yet, the forest still has not been retaken yet. I’m not going to….in such a place.”
Raise the body somehow, even one blow at Georudo will do, Diadora thought but her body refused to listen to her and remains still. Her hair wouldn’t turn into thorns, nor would the hidden thorns in the earth extend out.
“Die by my spear, Spirit of the Black Flower!”
Georudo swings down his spear with all his might, magical power and touki emitting out light similar to that of a flame. That attack packed enough destructive power to blow a small fortress into pieces. In Diadora’s case, she is going to be turned into tens of thousands of pieces of meat. She’s about to meet her demise and she would welcome death, or so she thought as she closed her eyes. Suddenly, from the sky, a shadowy figure with six expanded wings intervenes. It’s someone who possesses wings. It mutters something and takes on Georudo’s single attack with absolute ease.
“Fumu.”
“Nuu! You!!”
Georudo raised his voice with all sorts of mixed feelings from astonishment to hatred, and also joy.
“Dran!?”
Diadora, seeing the appearance of a man who should not have been in this place, instinctive cried out his name. Dran, who stopped Georudo’s spear using the sword he was holding only with his right hand, looks back at Diadora whom he rushed in between to protect then showed a smile on his face.
“You are in quite a bit of trouble, Diadora. Good thing I made it here in time. However, this is the second time that this happen isn’t it. What strange fate.”
“Why, why are you here? You should have been together with Christina and Selia.”
“I felt the presence of Georudo heading this way. Thus, I left that place to Christina-san, and headed over here. Everything was fine when I left the other battlefield, it’s quite fortunate that I made my way over here in time.”
After saying all of that, Dran strengthens his right arm even more using dragon’s power and pushes Georudo back with his sword in one go. Georudo’s spear is a dozen times heavier than even himself, and so against that kind of strength, Georudo can only hold on to his spear and be pushed back while digging his feet into the ground, carving lines on it.
“Nuuu, those wings and this power, those are not what a regular human possesses!”
“What, this body of mine is definitely human. However, it is an entirely different story when it’s about my soul. Devil.”
“Interesting. I’ll enjoy slicing your head from your body with my spear!”
With his will to fight starting to intensify along with him starting to put on his touki, before Georudo can actually materialize his deadly magical aura, Dran points his sword and lightly touches the ground with the sword’s tip to put a magic circle on top of it, and the area burst into the light of rainbow color. As soon as the magic circle gives off rainbow color light, it also releases magic that helps one replenish their magic along with healing them. Diadora’s body and soul instantly feel better and she feels her magic power replenishing in no time at all. All the small wounds she received also heal instantly. All the scratches and bruises that were once on Diadora’s body disappear as if they were all illusions. If a great sage who is familiar with the knowledge about dragons of ancient time was to stand before this place, that person would be in absolute shock witnessing the magical circle being used contained some of the dragon’s race alphabet that was once used when gods used to walk the earth.
“This magic circle will heal and protect you. Diadora, do not move out of this circle until I’ve finished sending Georudo to oblivion.”
“Wait, with this magic circle in place, I’ll be able to recover in no time. I’ll be able to offer you support when I do.”
“You’re still hurt, don’t overwork yourself anymore. Listen to me and behave yourself. Beside, I, alone, am enough.”
Dran goes out of the dragon based magic circle, leaving Diadora behind. Diadora quickly stands up and tries to chase after, but when she reaches out she finds herself behind an invisible barrier that prevents her from getting out. The magic circle was made so it will heal and protect Diadora while also prevent her from recklessly getting out.
“Dran!”
In response to Diadora’s calling, Dran flaps his six large wings lightly, and slowly heads toward Georudo.
♦ ♦ ♦
I did not look back when Diadora called my name. I got closer to Georudo step by step. Leaving Christina-san over at the other gate, it was a big favor to ask of her while I go to save Diadora. I recreated my wings from the memories in my soul, they grew out of my back and I flew all the way here in a breath. Currently, I have reduced the wings’ size down to a more fitting proportion to my own body. At the same time, I strengthened my whole body, thus giving me dragon’s level strength.
Strengthening my body is one thing, temporarily turning parts of my body into that of a dragon’s, such as semi-recreating my eyes, is another matter entirely. Having said that, this is the first time I’ve grown my wings and fortunately, it went well. Although dragon wings have membrane between them, their overall skeletal structure greatly resembles that of a bird if you were to strip away all of their feathers and flesh. Each of my wing’s membrane has its own color ranging from red, blue, yellow, green, purple, and finally black. Each of my wings is mostly covered in white but the overall color shines like a rainbow. Right now, it would not be an exaggeration to say that I resemble a dragon more than a human. Ahh, father, mother, please forgive this son of yours for meddling with the body you’ve given him.
“Ooh Dran. You’ve ruined my long awaited moment where I kill Spirit of the Black Rose with my spear, but it is more convenient this way, since I can kill both of you at once.
I will abide by the guidance of the God of Makai. This place is where I will kill you, I will be the one who will devour your soul. Gahahahahahaha!!”
“Abide by the guidance of the God. However….”
Who is the current High God of Evil? Should I fight and destroy them too? Rather than fighting, the evil deity would be extremely frightened and would probably start crying when facing me. Georudo did not hear my mutter and his entire body is now cladded in touki and abnormal magical power can be sensed in the mouth region of his beast underbody. It fires out hell blaze directly at me while taking into aim Diadora, who is behind me. The fireball with its size of twice my height starts to melt the ground. The heat it is giving off completely engulfs me. The fiery breath shines bright light onto my face and the heat makes me feel warm. I create a magical barrier just on top of my skin and it blocks off all the deadly heat from affecting my body.
“As expected, your fire is third-rate.”
I swing my left hand to the side with five fingers spread out, scattering the enormous fireball into some ten of thousands of sparks in the process. This time, I semi-wrap my left arm in white and translucent dragon scales. Again, these scales were re-created using the same method so they are more or less a fake copy. Compare to the flames of someone who is highly ranked in terms of power and holds the fire attribute magic, the devil’s hell blaze is nothing. These scales alone are plenty enough to block them.
While there are still countless sparks still in the air, Georudo seems to have expected that I would disperse the fireball beforehand, Georudo comes charging at me while dispersing the spark aside like a curtain with his spear and I, too, ready my sword to clash against his weapon. With each step he takes, the ground beneath his feet sinks, his entire body is covered in his deep red touki making him look like he’s on fire. The Vanguard of Makai freely treads on this earth while looking at me with eyes burning with killing intent, he pushes his spear forward toward me.
“Nuuueeeeiiiiyaaaaa!!!”
“Hah!”
My long sword, which I applied concentrated magic power onto, is shining white and I use it to receive the spear point dead on and force it backward. The loud sound of metal colliding with one another booms across the area. Sparks arc close to my hair at the same time making it look like thunder and lightning is being created in our fight. Georudo screams as he withstands the numbness that is running through his body. Even though it is very tricky to use four legs, he kicks his foot against the ground, which can create a shock wave enough to kill. Immediately, I deflect his spear downward and jump.
His spear swings down with great force. I use the opening to punch Georudo’s beast body in the mouth with my left hand, throwing him off balance. My clenched fist, covered in copied dragon scales, punches deep into the mouth and breaks its fang. It then spits out dark blood. Just like that, I send Georudo’s big bulky body flying. He crashes onto the ground while making a loud sound and due to his big body, he sinks into the ground.
“Guooo, ahh, ahh, gahhhhh. Kuh, hahahaha. This power, it’s just like what Georg said, you are a dragon.
We had thought that you simply transformed and took the shape of a human, but that body is definitely that of a human’s. Factoring that in, there are only so few possibility left, but I’ll take a guess right now and say that you’re someone who was reincarnated. Specifically, a dragon who was reborn as a human!
If that is true, then you possessing this much power is only fitting. I did not think I would be able to fight against a powerful dragon such as yourself while I was alive, Dran.”
“It’s as you said. So to say, a dragon in human flesh, that is what I am. Although, I did not originally wish to be reborn as a human.”
“It’s excellent either way!”
While getting up with his body, coughing out blood, Georudo intends to jump over to where I am with his touki still intact covering his dirty body. His legs possess plenty of jumping power and his gigantic body drags the wind as he easily jumps into the air. Furthermore, Georudo concentrates his magic power into his four legs and fires them out straight at me. It is the exact same thing Christina-san did when she used her wind magic to move. It resembles a technique used to fly through the air.
“That was the second time you’ve deflected my spear!!”
“Don’t blame me, but your fate has been decided. Whatever scheme you’re planning will not succeed, Devil!”
With every ounce of his magical power combined with his touki, Georudo wraps it onto his spear giving it, once again, the illusion of a burning flame. There’s no doubt Georudo’s is putting everything he has and entrusting his soul and body into this. I can clearly feel that this is the strongest attack he is capable of making. In response to him, I also start to pour even more dragon power into my sword. A magic blade is then formed after a huge amount of power is poured into it. The blade in my hand is strengthened using the power of the strongest dragon, it is now a sword that is capable of cutting down even the gods.
Once again, Georudo’s spear clashes against my sword. There will be no more trick this time. It is going to be a quick frontal assault. My dragon powered sword starts cutting into the tip of Georudo’s spear. Regardless of what my sword is up against, when combined with the strength in my right hand, I am capable of cutting through anything. Pushing his spear away, I reverse the blade of my sword and lower it to my side. I slash an arc diagonally upward and cut into Georudo’s beast body all the way across his chest.
“Grrggggg!? How absurd, for someone in this world to overpower me so easily.”
“I call it, Dragon Claw Sword. Georudo, the amount of power that you’ve demonstrated in this world cannot be label weak. It’s just that you’ve chosen the wrong opponent.”
“What are you saying!?”
Georudo tightly embraces the wound on his chest with his left arm. Furthermore, his beast body continues to sneer at me despite having a continuous stream of blood dripping onto the ground. Out of mercy, I slice its neck and end its suffering. The head of the beast rolls in the air and just before it drops onto the ground, I use my magic to erase it. While black blood continues to gush out of him like a waterfall, Georudo keeps his stare on me. He directs all his rage and every curse into his gaze and I, myself, return the straight stare.
“Guuu, for me to be defeated by a dragon who was reincarnated into a mere human, what a disgrace!”
“Like I said, you’ve chosen the wrong opponent to fight against. Young child.”
Instantly, Georudo’s body stiffens and deprives of any movements. In his eyes, rage and hatred rapidly retreat. Georudo’s body seems to have stopped functioning as time continues on. Trembling from the pain, after a while, even the blood stops gushing out of his wound. Substituting his rage is now unspeakable fear, regret, and despair. All of the negative emotions come flooding out in his mind and are truly beyond his describable words. Georudo sees it. He sees my dragon eyes shining in seven colors.
“Impossible, it cannot be, how can you, to be an a place like this! You’re him, you’re, Dra…..!!”
“I’ll end it quickly, Georudo. This world is not a place where you’re suppose to be in.”
I slice off Georudo’s neck as a mercy given to him. In addition, I cut it up to bits as it flies in the air. Georudo is now released from the absolute terror that binds him and ending his life is the quickest way to free him. After his head was cut off and erased, Georudo’s body collapses and quickly turns into ashes and gets blown away by the wind.
“Farewell, Demonic knight. If there’s something you wish to curse, then you should curse your own misfortune. If there’s something you wish to grieve about, grieve at your own fate which has brought you to encounter me. If you wish to curse the one who brought you to your end, then you may curse me.”
[To be continued]
