Chapter 30 - What Is a Duel Meant to Protect? (2)

Every gaze converged on Count Pallatio.

The terrified soldiers. The despairing knights. Penia and Deus.

Even the giant standing before him.

["..."]

The giant's expressionless eyes regarded Alon, and Alon's emotionless eyes met his.

Then...

["Heh—"]

A smile settled on the giant's lips.

["Hahahahahaha—!"]

The wild laughter that burst from his mouth rang out as though lording over the entire space. It was so powerful that the earth trembled and even the dead singing of despair fell silent.

Most of the living thought the giant's sudden laughter carried mockery and contempt. Yet contrary to their belief...

["Good. Splendid! Noble one!"]

His laughter held the utmost sincerity, joy, and elation.

The air emanating from the giant changed, from contempt to joy, from joy to ecstasy.

And then...

["I, Ultultus, accept your duel under the great covenant!"]

At his proclamation, the dead singing of despair began moving in unison, forming a vast circle around Ultultus and Alon.

DRIP, DRIP

Blood trickling from among the dead stained the ground and marked a boundary.

Thus a blood-red colosseum took shape—a gray dueling ground bounded by blood and adorned with bloody blossoms.

["Under the great covenant, none shall interfere with this sacred duel until it is concluded!"]

As he made his declaration, the bodies of the dead burst, completing a wall of blood. A broad smile spread across Ultultus's face.

It was unmistakable elation.

By contrast, Alon's face as he stood opposite him was utterly impassive.

But—

'... I want to go home.'

Behind that expressionless face, Alon was trembling pitifully.

####

As he reminded himself again and again, Alon had come north to kill the Outer God Ultultus, who now stood before him.

Ever since hearing that the Outer God had awakened, he had gathered everything he needed to face him. All that remained was to put his plan into action.

Yet despite all his preparations, Alon's mind was gripped by fear of the Outer God's presence, which was more oppressive than he could ever have imagined.

'... Stay calm.'

Even after taking the Reagent of Excellence, which kept his mental state steady, Alon could barely soothe his unsettled mind. Unlike his expressionless face, his pounding heart refused to calm down.

That was partly due to the instinctive pressure the Outer God exerted, but there was also one thing that differed from his expectations.

'Why has his incarnation already progressed this far?'

From the moment they descended, all Outer Gods gradually adapted to reality over a certain period, completing the process of becoming incarnate gods. Ultultus was certainly no exception.

And yet his incarnation was progressing faster than Alon had expected.

There should still have been roughly another month to go, but the Outer God before him was clearly only a little time away from becoming a fully incarnate god.

Such rapid incarnation was a variable Alon had never anticipated.

The closer a god came to becoming an incarnate god, the stronger it became.

["Still, how curious. Noble one who has blossomed amid barbarity, looking into you, I see you are not of our age. How, then, do you know our covenant?"]

Ultultus posed the question while Alon swallowed hard, dwelling on that fact.

But Alon no longer had the composure to indulge him in conversation.

'Can I... do this?'

Countless questions and doubts rose in his mind.

Ultultus, far stronger than Alon had expected, shook the resolve he had barely sustained with the potion. But he soon cast those negative thoughts aside.

He understood clearly that, now he had reached this point, only one path remained open to him.

Even as Alon stayed silent while sorting through his doubts, Ultultus spoke with a broad smile, delighted for reasons Alon could not fathom.

["If you do not wish to speak, so be it. You have that right. Now, shall we begin our sacred duel?"]

The giant's smile deepened as he raised his arm.

["The Duel of Babylonia."]

Ultultus stepped toward Alon.

Each step left a thunderous sound and a footprint in the gray, bloodstained earth. Yet Alon did nothing as he approached.

He merely stood still, waiting for the being before him.

Then...

THUD!

Even when Ultultus reached him with a tremendous crash and raised his fist, Alon remained silent, merely watching him.

Puzzled voices began drifting from the living far away, but he continued to watch the giant's actions without a word.

The reason was...

'The rules.'

Running away or moving now would violate the rules of the great Duel of Babylonia, which had existed in the forgotten age of gods.

The Duel of Babylonia had only two rules.

1. The attacker and defender take turns, and the defender cannot move.

2. The challenger yields the first attack.

This almost turn-based form of dueling would lose its meaning if Alon took even a single step now.

He would also lose his chance to eliminate the Outer God before him.

Without the restrictions of the duel, he could never kill an Outer God capable of slaying even a superhuman Master Knight in a single blow.

In other words, this duel imposed the only limitations under which Alon could defeat him.

"Fixation."

Thus, all Alon could do here was defend.

A sphere formed before his eyes as he murmured.

"Condensation."

The condensed sphere concentrated on his left arm.

"Enhancement."

As he murmured the phrase, what had condensed on his left arm emitted an intense light.

"Deepening."

With his final word, a seal took shape.

Ultultus, wearing a broad smile, had drawn his fist back.

Every muscle in his body pulled taut like a ballista, and immense power began gathering in that retracted fist.

Alon knew that technique well. He had seen it.

With one second of gathering power, it could overturn the earth.

With five seconds, the sky.

With ten seconds, the world.

The Song of Ruin.

And then...

["Splendid indeed...!"]

As Ultultus smiled, filled with elation at Alon's adherence to Babylonia's rules, everyone present looked on in horror.

Though they did not fully understand, they all knew instinctively that the immense power in the Outer God's hand was anything but ordinary.

At that moment, with every gaze fixed upon him...

["Honorable one who knows the nobility of a duel!"]

His fist swung.

BOOOOOM!!!!

With a thunderous roar, everything was swept away.

The earth burst apart as though its shell were shattering. The atmosphere shuddered with violent explosions, and the world within the reach of his punch became a vacuum for an instant.

Then...

KABOOOOM!!!

An ear-splitting blast arrived belatedly, followed by gray dust billowing in every direction.

"That's... impossible..."

They could see it now.

Beyond Ultultus's outstretched fist lay a world in which nothing remained.

A gigantic cone-shaped crater had formed in the earth. The gray-shrouded sky had split open, allowing the purple sunset to shine through onto the ground.

Overwhelming power.

As the living stared blankly at Ultultus facing the sunset, beginning to feel awe alongside their despair...

"Th-the count is s-still alive?"

"What? What do you—"

One knight's muttering drew every gaze toward the cone-shaped space.

And then...

"Holy shit..."

With the knight's quiet curse, everyone saw him.

Count Pallatio was rising to his feet, blood flowing from his entire body.

The count was already in a terrible state.

His right arm hung limp, as though it no longer had any strength, and the blood pouring from his body seemed to signal that death was drawing ever closer.

Yet even in that condition, Alon gazed straight at the giant without the slightest flicker of emotion and finally stood upright in his place.

The lotus-patterned pendant around his neck crumbled into a handful of ash and vanished.

"All the conditions have been met."

The count's voice rang out.

"I enact Constraint."

####

Like Constraint, which he had originally obtained, the Ring of the Arrogant granted power in exchange for a price.

In the game, which item the protagonist obtained depended only on whether their class was mage or something else.

There were two other differences.

First, unlike the Constraint he had originally used, the ring provided four constraints at once.

Second, unlike that original Constraint, the ring could only be activated when its wearer was near death.

Thus, all the conditions had been met.

Deliberately drawing the Outer God into a duel with restrictions. Using Remiteon's Potion to block pain beyond a certain threshold. Withstanding the Outer God's attack with the Pendant of Reincarnation—a single-use artifact he had obtained before visiting Callivan, which allowed him to suffer damage from any attack but never die from it.

Relentlessly reinforcing only the left hand holding the potion so that its container would not break, then forcing the healing potion he clutched into his mouth.

Even fulfilling the conditions for Constraint through all of that.

"... So shall I enact it."

Having completed Constraint within a time in which everything had stopped, Alon looked ahead.

There stood the giant, brimming with elation, his arms spread wide without moving a single step.

Watching the giant remain motionless as though awaiting his attack, Alon staggered and extended his intact left hand.

'I didn't bring Remiteon's Potion because it takes too long to prepare, but without it, I wouldn't even have been able to stand.'

The thought came amid a dull ache.

He had taken Remiteon's Potion to block the pain and forced a top-grade healing potion into his mouth, but naturally, his body was still broken.

Nothing short of an elixir could heal his body immediately.

But for now, being able to raise his left hand was enough.

The giant who held duels sacred—who had attained honor precisely by reaching the very limit of barbarity—would neither interrupt nor evade his attack.

No matter how long that attack took to prepare.

"Whew..."

Watching a haze of mana rise from his raised hand and begin twisting into a spiral, Alon recalled the constraints he had just enacted and formed a crooked smile behind his expressionless face.

Because greater constraints yielded greater rewards, the constraints he imposed had become far more restrictive than he had originally planned.

The strength Ultultus had gained through his rapid incarnation exceeded Alon's calculations.

But it was precisely because of that that he could finally be certain.

This strike would reach the Outer God.

SCREEEECH!

Watching the electric current begin spiraling with an eerie sound, Alon recalled the four constraints as he murmured softly.

"Diffraction."

The first constraint: when magic was used upon a land of bitter cold, may it twist the laws of the world.

"Single Point."

The second constraint: when magic was used while he was near death, may it twist the laws of the world.

"Condensation."

The third constraint: when facing a god with magic, may it twist the laws of the world.

"Annihilation."

The fourth constraint:

When facing Ultultus, the great god of duels, with magic...

May it twist the laws of the world.

Alon looked ahead.

Before his hand, an immense line of lightning had formed.

Thin and long.

A red line of lightning gleaming purple in the sunset.

Gray mana flowed like smoke from the bracelet on his left wrist, enveloping that red line.

The knights and soldiers saw Alon standing with the sunset at his back.

In Deus's and Penia's eyes, alongside the sunset, the two "eyes" that appeared behind Alon were indelibly etched.

And with that...

"Line of Silence."

At Alon's murmur, a pure white flash shot toward the broadly smiling giant.

KABOOOOOOM!!!

For a brief moment, the gray earth regained the appearance of a pristine white snowfield.