Esper froze for a moment.
He had seen her past as well.
“【Your kindness... your courage... it all comes from that girl named Rafina...】
【And your way of doing things...? It is the example that sister taught you... the creed others instilled in you...】”
Esper's steps came to a halt.
“【Where is the part that is actually you...?】”
Zhong took a step forward. The broken Holy Sword dragged against the stone slabs, making a harsh, scraping sound.
“【You stood before that Saintess... and claimed you were doing this for yourself...? Don't make me laugh... the current you... what right do you have to say such things...? The old you didn't care at all whether humans lived or died... to you... other races were just enemies...】”
He stopped five paces away.
“【Yet here you are now... saving strangers of other races... saving lives that have nothing to do with you... even though none of this was ever your true desire...】
【Since you came here... then you should make this place better...? You said something like that, didn't you...?】
【Why do you want to do this... why are you doing this... the reason has nothing to do with you... you're just thinking... if it were her... she would definitely do this...】
【She wanted to save everyone... to create a world where everyone could be happy...】
【The choices made under that vision... are far too similar to the old you... so much so that you haven't even realized... what kind of thing you currently are...】
【You cannot catch up to her back... so you chose to imitate her... to become her imitator...】”
Esper opened her mouth.
“【You forgot what the real you looks like long ago, didn't you...? The current you... is just an empty shell named Esper... pieced together... from fragments stolen from the depths of others' hearts...】
【What right does someone like you... have to stand before me... and tell me how to live my life...?】”
“...”
“【You haven't faced your mission at all... you are simply running away... you refuse to believe that you will kill her with your own hands... so you chose to flee...】”
“...Shut up.”
“【Does someone like you... really know what you are carrying...? Do you truly believe... that you can save the Demon King like this...?】”
“I said shut up...!”
“【Unable to completely discard the past... yet unable to truly accept the present... with such half-baked resolve and self... what on earth are you fighting for...!】”
Esper lunged forward.
Zhong met her charge at the exact same moment.
“【To think that someone like you... actually shares such a similar face with her... it is truly disgusting...!】”
The intact Holy Sword and the broken Holy Sword drew two completely different arcs across the night sky—one white, one dark—as they slashed down simultaneously.
Clang.
The sound of clashing metal echoed across all of Hart Town.
The two were locked in a stalemate, their blades crossed, close enough to see their own reflections in each other's eyes.
Zhong stared at her calmly.
“【...Lonia Catori...】”
He spoke hoarsely, a subtle curve tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“【...Do you know the true nature of an Authority?】”
Esper grit her teeth, refusing to let her attention be divided by such talk.
“【...The Root Words created by the Creator, carrying concepts of the world's laws in written form...】
【Some are born able to inherit an Authority... some use tools as vessels to wield them... and others receive the recognition of an Authority because they made a decision or choice significant enough to change their lives...】
【But... what they do not know is... if one can interpret the Authority in a different direction based on the literal meaning of the word... then even something that should never have been chosen... can still inherit this power...】”
He laughed, applying a bit of force to push Esper back, forcing her to stagger several paces on the ground before she could barely steady herself.
“【Do you know... what the other meaning of so-called 『Hope』 is?】”
On the blade of the broken Holy Sword, something was beginning to light up.
“【It is obsession...】”
Whether there was compatibility or not didn't matter. As long as he grit his teeth and unleashed every single obsession he had held up until now, he would be strong enough even without hope.
“【Authority Manifestation... 『The Place Where Destiny Points』...】”
His voice changed.
Low, clear, and carrying an extremely heavy exhaustion.
The broken Holy Sword burst with endless darkness.
The darkness transformed into long tendrils, greedily swallowing the Holy Sword along with his arm, the hilt fusing like one hand clasping another.
————
“【Bzz... Unknown virus intrusion detected... attempting to eliminate...】”
“【Bzz... Attempting to retrieve 'Records'...】”
“【Bzz... Retrieval successful, connected to '■■■■■■■'... bzz...】”
“【Performing era screening...】”
“【Record verification failed... bzz... safety factor check failed...】”
“【Sending request to ■■...】”
“【Request processed, confirming ■■ constituent elements...】”
“【■■ Era Inclination: ■■■■·■■】”
“【■■ Era Inclination: ■■■■·■■】”
“【■■ Era Inclination: ■■■■·■■】”
【......】
“【Load failed】”
“【Load failed】”
“【Bzz... Approved】”
————
『Incomplete Authority: Hope』
『Authority Manifestation: The Place Where Destiny Points』
A translucent silhouette emerged on the surface of Zhong's body.
It was as if the shadow of another person was stepping out from within him, overlapping with his form.
The silhouette was much younger than the current Zhong, and a size smaller.
There were no rusted weapons covering his body, only a single sword.
The shadow merged with him.
He opened his eyes.
His eyes were no longer filled with emptiness and hatred, but with an extremely calm, stagnant weariness.
An almost imperceptible swallowing sound echoed in the air.
And then, Esper felt it.
The oppressive aura emanating from within Zhong.
The suffocating feeling of facing an Authority holder. It was exactly the same as when Beatrice stood before her.
【...γαστριμαργία...】
An insatiable, spiritual desire.
The desire to become the finest knight in her eyes, to swallow those hideous things to sublimate himself.
And so, this desire transformed into power.
【Its name is... 『Gluttony』...】
Esper had guessed the nature of his ability long ago.
The abilities of those three knights were far too familiar.
The ability to erase one's presence, the ability to generate iron, and the ability to manipulate fire.
As for what kind of ability this guy would possess after becoming one of the death marchers, one only needed to think a little to understand.
Devouring runes, merging them into himself, and becoming one with them.
Cloud Slicer, Flame Scorcher, Moon Shooter, Dark Spirit, Polar Iron...
He had even more within him.
And this was only what he could achieve before even deploying 『Gluttony』.
“【Come... Lonia Catori...】”
『Gluttony』, activate.
“【Authority Manifestation: Forbidden Fruit】”
Countless runes crawled onto the Holy Sword, condensing and coalescing.
Zhong grinned, his expression wild and fierce.
The Holy Sword, enveloped in runes, dismantled into fragments, instantly shifting positions to reassemble.
『Wind』, 『Fire』, 『Force』, 『Spirit』, 『Iron』...
The fragments formed a hammer handle, the runes crawling upward.
————Stirring 『Wind』 with 『Force』, fully igniting the 『Fire』.
Forging a vessel from 『Iron』, swallowing the 『Fire』 and 『Wind』 within————
Like a bellows, or a boiler.
Gathering all sound with 『Spirit』, the Holy Sword transformed into a pitch-black, silent warhammer.
An object that should not exist, forged from the things he had devoured.
The ability to fuse runes and engrave them onto objects.
Aggregated from five runes, sublimating their respective abilities, the weapon born of this was a restless, churning furnace.
Steel climbed up his flesh, multiplying and expanding like a fungal colony, connecting with each other to form a suit of armor protecting his body.
Beneath the armor, a flash of fire ignited, and flames fanned by the wind began to circulate.
The surface of the armor cracked open slightly, and thick, visible steam erupted from within.
“【Let me see... just how far your fabricated self... can take you...】”
Thud.
When Zhong's iron boot stepped on the rubble, Esper heard a sound she had never heard before.
Like the muffled rumble of a working boiler, it burst from the gaps in his armor along with white steam.
A wave of heat rushed over her.
She raised the Holy Sword to block.
The warhammer fell.
The instant they clashed, her arms nearly lost all sensation.
The force traveled through the blade into her bones, exploding at her joints and sending her flying.
Her body slammed into a half-collapsed wall, shattering bricks and sending dust scattering.
Before she could even steady herself, the second strike was already upon her.
The steam erupting from the armor's joints burst into the air with a sharp screech.
The principle was similar to the Winged King, so for Zhong, the steam venting from his armor's joints could also be used as a thruster.
『Wind』 fanned 『Fire』, 『Fire』 boiled within the vessel of 『Iron』, and 『Force』 poured all energy into every swing.
This was by no means a normal steam engine structure; it seemed more like a product born from forcibly combining concepts.
Consequently, the power and speed it unleashed were far beyond anything a normal steam engine could compare to.
By the time she could see it, Esper only had time to dodge sideways, letting the warhammer graze past her ribs.
Steam jetted from the vents of the hammerhead, blasting her flank at point-blank range.
“—!”
She bit her lip to keep from screaming, twisting her wrist to shoot a Crimson Pierce toward the gaps in Zhong's visor.
Going by experience, the Iron Knight had died from blood pouring into the gaps...
But the moment the blood line touched the surface of the armor, the iron plating began to multiply.
New sheets of metal spread from the contact point, sealing the gaps shut.
The tip of the Crimson Pierce stabbed into the metal layer, getting stuck less than half an inch deep.
“【...Useless... just because that counterfeit couldn't think of it doesn't mean I wouldn't...】”
Zhong didn't even turn his head.
He swung the hammer once more.
Esper spun around, using the blood spraying from her back via the Winged King to propel her body, moving through the ruins at high speed.
Then, she could hear, and also picture, the scene behind her.
White jets of steam erupted from all of Zhong's joints simultaneously, pushing his heavy steel body to a speed equal to her own.
He was catching up.
The warhammer swept horizontally.
Esper turned and blocked vertically with the Holy Sword. The shockwave of the metal collision shattered the stone slabs beneath her feet, sinking her into the ground.
Her arms were already shaking.
Crimson Scale Surge had been maintained for too long; her blood flow was approaching its absolute limit.
If this continued, her blood vessels would collapse before her body did.
She dodged and rolled out of the pit, kneeling on one knee and panting heavily.
“【...Is that all...?】”
Zhong stopped three paces away, leaning his warhammer on the ground. Steam continuously billowed from every gap in his armor, shrouding his silhouette in white mist.
“【...Bring out the things that woman taught you... bring out the dogmas that sister instilled in you...!】”
Esper looked up, a trickle of blood running down her chin from the corner of her mouth.
She wiped the blood from her lips.
『Supernova』
Several plump, massive droplets of blood shot from between her fingers as she wiped her mouth, forming a perimeter around Zhong.
Zhong didn't move.
The blood droplets detonated, and Crimson Pierce rained down upon his body from six directions simultaneously.
The metal on the armor's surface multiplied once more, surging from the inside out to form a thick iron cocoon.
Every Crimson Pierce stabbed into the continuously growing metal, becoming wrapped and swallowed.
Then, the iron cocoon exploded.
Shrapnel scattered in all directions, each piece carrying the faint glow of runes, shooting toward Esper at extreme speed.
The speed boost of the Winged King was still in effect. She barely managed to dodge the iron shards, but suddenly felt a cold sensation in her waist.
“Cough... pfft...”
She glanced out of the corner of her eye toward her waist.
A blade consisting of only a hiltless edge had been stabbed into her waist at some point.
Erasing its presence with 『Spirit』, it had launched a fatal strike from her blind spot just as she approached her limit.
She sank to one knee, blood continuously spilling from her waist.
Her sense of pain was already growing dull.
“【...Your moves... your thinking... everything has the shadow of someone else in it...】”
Zhong stepped out from the white mist, not a single trace of damage visible on his armor.
“【...Who taught you the Canal...? Who taught you the Winged King...?】”
“Shut up...”
“【...What do you have... that belongs solely to you...?】”
Esper coughed up another mouthful of blood. She used the blood at her waist to tightly coat the iron blade and pulled it out of her body.
She steadied herself, using her blood to patch up and heal the wound on her waist, then gripped the Holy Sword tightly and charged forward once more.
Deploying the Blood Blade, a spinning membrane of blood enveloped the Holy Sword, humming as it slashed toward Zhong's breastplate.
Zhong raised his hammer to meet it.
Collision.
The moment the Blood Blade on the Holy Sword touched the hammer's surface, it seemed to get stuck, sawing against the warhammer inch by inch before snapping piece by piece.
The warhammer continued its forward path, slamming into the Holy Sword which had lost its protective blood membrane.
The webbing between Esper's thumb and index finger tore open.
The Holy Sword nearly flew out of her hand, and immediately after, a spinning blow from the warhammer struck her abdomen.
Steam erupted in a concentrated blast the instant the hammerhead made contact with her body. The scorching wave of heat charred her clothes instantly, burning a shocking patch of red onto her abdomen.
She was sent flying, the Holy Sword landing in front of her.
Her back slammed into something hard, and this time she heard the faint cracking of her own ribs.
Her head was buzzing, and she looked up groggily.
The moon hung in the night sky, completely unchanged.
Her vision began to blur.
“【...Answer me... Lonia Catori...】”
Zhong's footsteps drew closer.
“【The Holy Sword still hasn't truly resonated with you to this day... is it because the Holy Sword has not accepted you... or are you still refusing it...?】”
Everything grew blurry.
Something welled up from the depths of her memory.
When she was seventeen, in Avalon.
Sitting alone in a corner of a tavern, staring blankly at the water's surface in her cup.
Why did she come here?
Because she didn't want to stay in that house anymore.
Then what did she want to do after coming here?
...She didn't know.
When she was thirteen, in Maple Town.
Fina said she wanted to make prejudice disappear.
And she didn't know what to do, but she said she would protect Fina.
When she was eight, in Gloom Castle.
She held Fina, begging her not to become the Demon King, because she didn't want her to die.
When she was six, in the archives.
She saw her.
Curled up in a corner like an abandoned cat.
Why did I walk over that day?
...
A self-righteous savior, a sentimental and impulsive girl.
...
“You are wrong...”
Esper looked up, staring through her blood-soaked vision at Zhong before her.
“A lot of things about me were indeed learned from her... like treating other races with kindness. The me before age six could never have done such a thing...”
Zhong stood in the white mist, his warhammer leaning on the ground, motionless.
“But so what...?”
Her knees supported her weight as she got back to her feet, swaying unsteadily.
“You learned those things from your princess too, didn't you? The meaning of being a knight, the reason to fight, the goal to live on... weren't all of these given to you by her?”
The steam venting from the gaps in Zhong's armor paused for an instant.
“Maybe some of the things you said are true. Like how I have always been chasing her back, and how I always consider what she would do in my place.”
Esper took a step forward. The Holy Sword was held tightly in her hand, the faint light on its blade still flickering.
“But those things were never wrong!
The stories Fina told me, the skills the Demon King taught me, the creeds my sister instilled in me, taking up this sword, meeting Eladia, my life of eighteen years... all of these added together are who I am now!”
A person is the sum of their past relationships.
Everything Eladia experienced forged the Saintess, and everything Aberrant Blood experienced forged Zhong.
And everything experienced by the girl named Lonia forged Esper.
From a naive and arrogant princess, she had transformed into the Hero who would now hold the Saintess's hand.
Through spending day and night together, Rafina's ideals had already become an inseparable part of her life.
There was never any fabricated self, nor any so-called empty shell.
Even if it was a self pieced together from fragments stolen from another's vision, it could absolutely never be called fake.
She would not discard the past.
Because there was never any need to do so.
She was Lonia Catori in the past.
Princess of the Vampire Court, and close friend of the Demon King.
She would not flee from the present.
Because there was simply no need to run.
She was Esper now.
Hero of humanity, and successor of Hope.
“You ask me what I am fighting for...?”
The words she had spoken to Eladia that day were not entirely the truth.
She had said she was doing it only for herself.
That was wrong.
No matter who it was, everyone was equally ugly and selfish.
Thus, living solely for others would never bring happiness.
But for Esper, the other side of this question held the exact same answer.
—Can one find happiness by living only for oneself?
Perhaps.
Esper had met many people. Among them, those who lived solely for themselves were by no means a minority.
But she could not accept that.
She couldn't bear to see others suffer miserably, couldn't stand to see their hardships.
She wanted to save others; she wanted to rescue more innocent lives.
Not just Rafina, and not just Eladia.
But also the lives that should have been saved but weren't, and the hands that should have been held but weren't.
What was she fighting for?
“Of course it is for myself! For my family! For my friends! For everyone I care about! For that idiot who went off to bear the curse all on her own!”
The Holy Sword's light shone brighter and brighter.
“Since I am the one destined to kill the Demon King, then the Demon King should be saved by me! Since I have inherited this power, then I will be the one to end all of this!
Be it curses, hatred, or all the darkness and despair...”
White light poured into Esper's entire body at this very moment.
From the day she drew it, the Holy Sword had never truly resonated with her.
Because she had been rejecting it all along.
Rejecting the identity of the Hero, rejecting the mission to slay the Demon King, and rejecting all the weight carried by the word 'Hope'.
But now, she would reject it no longer.
“All of it, I will bring to an end!”
Even shattered wings could still flap and fly toward the sky.
So-called Hope was a yearned-for vision.
The desire to save everything, the vision to save everything.
The... Hope to save everything.
“Respond to me...”
『Authority: Hope』
She chanted in a deep voice:
“『Authority Manifestation: The Place Where Destiny Points』”
————
“『Attempting to retrieve 'Records'...』
“『Retrieval successful, connected to 'World Reconstruction: Re-enactment of All Things'』”
“『Performing era screening』”
“『Record verification approved, safety factor check complete』”
“『Sending request to the Gardener...』”
“『Request processed, confirming Holy Sword constituent elements』”
“『Era of Stars Inclination: Arkham · δύναμις』”
“『Era of Covenants Inclination: Wald · σοφία』”
“『Era of Law Inclination: Ariel · πίστις』”
“『Era of Wild Hunt Inclination: Arthur · θύελλα』”
“『■■ Era Inclination: Lonia · ἐλπίς』”
“『Loading complete』”
“『Detecting possibilities』”
“『Possibility detection complete, materializable count: 13. Compatibility test in progress—』”
“『Authority · Power: -24% to -16%』”
“『Authority · Wisdom: -57% to -31%』”
“『Authority · Faith: -100% to -99%』”
“『Authority · Storm: -10% to 37%』”
“『Connected to 「Wind...』”
“『...Existence of an Authority not participating in the construction of the Holy Sword detected within the Hero, beginning analysis』”
“『Abyss Era Inclination: Alucard · αἷμα』”
“『Compatibility test in progress—』”
“『Authority · Blood: 23% to 98%』”
“『Connected to 「Blood」』”
————
A black halo emerged from the sword, and endless blood welled up from the ground.
Reins as pitch-black and deep as the night were grasped in the Hero's hands at this very moment.
『Authority Manifestation: Beast of Blood』
She pulled the reins upward.
From the blood, a wolf with a distorted face was born.
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