The left arm was completely healed.
It wasn’t particularly surprising. From the moment a dazzling beam of light, bright enough to burn my optic nerves, swept over my body, I had already anticipated this outcome.
The Holy Sword, Juwaiyoz, which had been sealed at the bottom of the Sky Mountain Range for hundreds of years, had erupted with its accumulated power, welcoming its new owner in a miraculous display.
This power was on a completely different level, both qualitatively and quantitatively, from the Holy Power granted to priests.
After all, how could the power that had suppressed monsters across the entire Sky Mountain Range be compared to the Holy Power wielded by a mere human?
Thanks to this, I was able to fully recover from the injury to my left arm, which even Rana had said would take time to heal.
Not just me, but Damien too must have had all the minor injuries on his body erased as if they were wiped away.
If I were to describe it in game terms, it would be like an event-based full heal.
Since I had already experienced this in the original story, I wasn’t particularly shocked, but it was still a fortunate turn of events.
If the power stored in the Holy Sword hadn’t erupted, Damien wouldn’t be standing coolly on the back of the Starry Whale right now. Instead, he would have dropped the sword and collapsed, rolling around in a heap.
Why, you ask?
Well, I tried my best to be careful so that Damien’s body wouldn’t be shattered, but there were limits.
I managed to avoid fatal injuries like his body exploding or his organs being crushed, but there was no way to prevent his arm bones from shattering or his spine from breaking into pieces.
But… since we could recover like this, wasn’t that level of damage worth enduring? Right?
I muttered some excuse, unsure who I was even addressing, and then leaped toward Damien, who was tilting his head in confusion while the Holy Sword was embedded in the Starry Whale’s back.
—
“Are you okay? Does anywhere hurt?”
Up close, Damien’s face looked like a perfect illustration of the word “bewilderment.”
“Ha-shal-leur? What on earth is going on…?”
Yeah, it’s only natural to be bewildered. You bravely pulled the Holy Sword from the mysterious Crystal Cave, only to wake up and find yourself on the back of some strange monster in the middle of a battlefield-like ruin, with no trace of the blue light.
If the corpses of the monsters I had slaughtered were still around, you might have thought you’d been dropped into the middle of hell.
“When you pulled the Holy Sword, about three thousand monsters popped out and attacked. While you were sleeping soundly with the sword, I killed them all. Except for this one.”
I pointed to the Starry Whale, which was groaning and slumped over, likely due to the Holy Power surge from the Holy Sword, and gave Damien a brief summary of what had happened while he was asleep.
Thanks to the many corpses being consumed as sacrifices for the Starry Whale’s descent, the area was filled with nothing but shattered debris, not a drop of blood or a single organ left behind. Even the thick Magi that had filled the air had long since been swept away by the divine storm.
The only evidence left to prove my story was this dying whale…
“Three thousand monsters…?”
“Yeah. Maybe even more.”
Even so, Damien seemed to believe me without any doubt.
Perhaps it was because my energy had weakened to half its usual level after using up all my Life Force Technique.
“I had a rough time because of it.”
I had to endure the intense reaction of my overheated body while fighting, which was a real struggle.
Although the divine storm had blown away the effects of the medicine, the intense stimulation along my spine had subsided, but the lower part of my robe, soaked up to my knees, still reeked of an overwhelmingly sweet peach scent.
“Yeah, it seems like you had a tough time.”
Thankfully, the oblivious Damien seemed to mistake it for the smell of sweat.
“So, how are you—”
Just as I was about to change the subject and ask about Damien’s condition,
“——!!”
The Starry Whale, which had been our footing, let out a fierce and ominous roar, as if squeezing out its last bit of energy, and caused a chain explosion on its back.
Damien quickly spread his wings and dodged, while I kicked off the whale’s back and spun like a windmill to distance myself from the explosion.
Now that I think about it, this guy wasn’t dead yet, just completely exhausted.
“We’ll talk later! Let’s take care of this first!”
After spinning seven times, I landed near the whale’s tail and shouted up at Damien.
“——!”
The Starry Whale roared mightily and shot a black beam from its forehead.
In response, Damien fluttered his pure white wings and performed a dazzling evasive maneuver.
The Starry Whale’s beam persistently chased Damien’s trajectory but couldn’t catch up to his free flight, which defied inertia, and only ended up obliterating innocent walls and rocks.
“Is this a monster too?”
“Yeah, it’s an Unknown Being! Didn’t you learn about them at the Academy?”
I shouted back at Damien, who was flying around in a dizzyingly complex pattern, while tightly gripping the Starry Whale’s tail with my now-healed arms.
“Unknown Beings? Aren’t those the monsters that can’t be killed?”
Usually, yeah.
“Stab it with that sword, and it’ll die!”
Except for you and me.
“Then let’s do it!”
Damien nodded and sharply turned, charging toward the Starry Whale.
“Haaaah!”
The Holy Sword, descending like a meteor in a straight white line, pierced the Starry Whale’s back, leaving a deep wound.
A spray of starry blood gushed out.
After landing the first strike, Damien kicked off the whale’s back and flew up, dodging the counterattack explosion, then charged again and swung his sword, tearing through the whale’s hide.
A technique of rapidly closing in, delivering a precise strike, and then flying up to dodge the counterattack, repeating the process to gradually wear down the enemy. It was like the movements of a mosquito.
He fights well even with a weapon he’s never used before.
As expected, I raised him well.
The one-sided attack, more like a hunt. The Starry Whale’s hide was torn to shreds like the result of a botched circumcision by a quack doctor. It was a truly satisfying sight.
Then… I should probably show something off too, right?
I tightly gripped the Starry Whale’s tail with enough strength to crush even black iron, spread my legs shoulder-width apart, and firmly anchored myself to the ground.
With the Starry Whale’s attention focused on Damien, roasting it like this wouldn’t be bad, but… wouldn’t that take too long?
So, I…
“Kryaaaaaaah!”
Instead of activating a Rune Engraving, I channeled all my strength and pulled the tail with all my might.
“——!”
Perhaps it realized my intent. The nebulae within the Starry Whale’s skin all focused toward the tail as if looking at me.
But.
“It’s already too late—!”
I pulled my left foot from the ground and stomped down again, using the recoil to sharply bend my waist.
– Crack! Crunch, Craaaack!
With a sound like splitting a dry tree trunk in half, the wounds on the Starry Whale’s skin tore open, and a fountain of blood gushed out.
As expected.
I let out a smile mixed with exhilaration.
My speculation had turned into certainty. While I couldn’t wound its hide without a Rune Engraving or the Holy Sword, it seemed possible to widen the wounds that were already there. Just as I had predicted.
Then, just pulling should be enough!
“——! ————!!”
As the Starry Whale opened its mouth wide and let out a deathly scream,
“Split in half and dieee!”
Its waist snapped, and the lower half of its body was torn off.
Along with a massive hemorrhage, like the night sky pouring out from its body.
“——…!”
The Starry Whale, now with only its upper half remaining, let out a weak groan.
A fatal wound that even a monster’s vitality couldn’t withstand. Seizing the opportunity, Damien rushed in and unleashed a storm of strikes, dismantling the monster’s upper body piece by piece.
For the first time in human history since Carolus, an Unknown Being had been killed.
—
The Starry Whale, torn to shreds, soon melted away like liquid, forming a puddle that seemed to suck everything in, as if the universe itself was being moved.
– Uuuuung!
Leaving behind only a multicolored orb floating in the air.
“What’s this?”
A multicolored mass resembling a star, slowly rotating with strange characters wrapped around it. It felt oddly familiar.
Where have I seen this before…?
I tilted my head repeatedly, staring at the orb of light.
I definitely remember seeing something similar somewhere… so…
“Ah.”
A sudden memory flashed.
I remembered where I had encountered something like this.
Yeah, that’s it.
At the time, it wasn’t an orb of light but a black crystal-like form, so I didn’t recall it immediately, but the slowly rotating characters matched the scene from my memory.
The Arm of the Evil God. A fragment that had fallen from Invidius, transformed into a monster, and carried a black gem that was essentially its heart.
The energy emanating from the orb in front of me was strikingly similar to what I had felt back then.
Though, since the owner was already dead, it didn’t feel particularly threatening.
…Then, would it be okay to touch it? Probably, right?
I tensed my muscles, ready to pull back at any moment, and poked the mass of light beyond the rotating characters with my finger.
Then.
– Uuuuuung!
The characters wrapped around the orb of light began spinning wildly, and the next moment, the orb itself shattered like an explosion, turning into two streams of smoke that flew toward us.
One toward me, who had quickly pulled back my finger and taken a defensive stance, and the other toward Damien, who was watching with a blank expression.
“Gasp…!”
I reflexively swung my hand, but the strangely vibrating light strands didn’t bounce off. Instead, they passed right through my hand and seeped into my chest.
“What is this?!”
Was it some kind of curse left behind by the monster?
I looked down at my chest with a startled expression, my shoulders twitching. I wondered if I had carelessly touched something I shouldn’t have.
And then.
…Nothing happened.
I waited for thirty seconds, not taking my eyes off my chest, but there was no noticeable change. Neither my Demon Resistance nor my Holy Mark reacted.
“Phew….”
I guess it wasn’t dangerous after all. I let out a sigh of relief and brushed off my chest, which had puffed up in surprise.
