Abandoned by my Childhood Friend, I Became a War Hero

→ The Beast Corps Commander (2) ←

Boom! Bang! Bang!!

Each time Leonos swung his claws, the steel deck below caved in from the force of the impact.

Given this rate, the airship wouldn’t last, so Eon had to continually move, battling relentlessly.

Watching this, Heinrich also became anxious.

“Darn it…! Why…!”

Realistically, achieving the original plan was already impossible. Now that everything had been exposed, it was a desperate situation, and at least the third princess needed to be dealt with here to avoid harm to the commander.

He had not anticipated the Malevolent Star protecting the third princess, but he believed even if the Malevolent Star was present, there would be nothing he could do once the princess was removed.

There was a possibility that he could retaliate against the royal family, but if so, he would be branded as a rebel and become the empire’s enemy. Based on the analysis of the Malevolent Star’s past actions, he thought he would avoid such a situation.

Therefore, even though he had been pretending to fight the Malevolent Star, ordering to kill the princess whenever there was an opportunity, there was no response from Leonos.

Could it be that my connection was cut off and my voice wasn’t heard? Eventually, Heinrich shouted out loud.

“Kill the princess! Don’t fight the Malevolent Star, kill the princess!”

At these words, Leonos roared in fury.

“Shut up! I choose my own opponents!!”

Leonos swung its claws violently.

The wind, like a blade, cut through the air towards Heinrich.

“Huh…?”

Heinrich, already weakened from injuries and excessive bleeding, was not in a condition to dodge.

Gulp!

Eventually, Heinrich breathed his last as his neck, chest, and waist were split in half, dividing him into four pieces. His death was instantaneous, leaving no time for any last words.

He was the head of intelligence, manipulating all the empire’s information, and one of the fewer than a hundred master-class in the empire. However, there was no noble sacrifice or great mission that he desperately desired. His end was utterly empty.

By now, both Eon and Leonos were paying no mind to his death, rushing towards each other, their weapons clashing fiercely.

“You were a beast thirsting for blood back then! You fought only to kill, not caring about yourself! What about now!? You’re fighting to protect someone! Careful! Cautious! That’s being weak!”

Eon thrust his spear forward and Leonos swung its claw downward. An explosion erupted, splitting the steel deck like a spider’s web.

The shockwave pushed both of them backward, pausing the battle momentarily. Instead of charging immediately, Eon caught his breath and spoke slowly.

“That might be true.”

“Growl… what?”

“Because I’m trying to protect, I might have become weaker.”

Eon only shifted his gaze slightly to glance behind him. There, Elizabeth was watching him with a tense expression.

To be honest, Elizabeth was still a student whose true intentions were hard to discern, and a bit of doubt existed in Eon’s heart towards her.

Elizabeth treated everyone kindly, without considering their rank or status. But what difference is there between someone who is equally kind to everyone and someone who is equally unkind to everyone? Sometimes, he thought that Elizabeth’s standards for evaluating others might be slightly different from those of other people.

However, even so, as an instructor, he had a duty to protect his students.

Eon looked forward again and spoke.

“But, I don’t feel too bad.”

Leonos’s expression twisted in rage.

“Disappointing… that my worthy opponent has become so foolish! Yes, I wanted to enjoy this fight as long as possible, but it can’t be helped. Let’s end this now!”

Grrr-

From between Leonos’ fangs erupted a rough breath, and his black mana flared in response to his emotions. His eyes were dyed red and the air around him started to tremble.

Eon knew what this was.

The Martial Extreme of Leonos, the Beast Corps Commander.

Artiglio Tempesta.

The storm of slashing that tore everything apart. Originally, it was displayed with the storm sword ‘Stormkarg’, but even when used barehanded, it wouldn’t differ much from its original power.

If Leonos executed his Martial Extreme, there would be no further fairness left. Everything would be torn to pieces, leaving behind only fragments of scrap and a handful of blood.

“……”

The reason Eon didn’t use mana was partly due to people’s aversion to dark magic, but there was a more critical reason.

Therefore, he wanted to avoid using mana until the end, but it was impossible to conclude a battle within a short period against a commander-level enemy without using it.

A decisive moment was needed.

Eon drew a deep breath. The tip of Ajetus’s spear aimed towards Eon’s heart. Elizabeth’s eyes widened at this unexpected suicide attempt, and Leonos bared his fangs, growling.

In an instant, the spearhead of Ajetus deeply pierced Eon’s heart.

Immediately, a horrific scream filled the space.

“Aaaahhhhh―!!”

The moment that his heart was ruptured, a huge magic force exploded, and black flames sprang up like a furnace.

A black armor meticulously covered Eon’s whole body, engulfed in black flames, with a golden light flickering behind the only visible part, the eye holes of his helmet.

Swiping the black flames with his arm, with the creaking sound of the armor, Eon slowly stepped forward. Flames sprang up following his footsteps.

At the sight of that enormous dark mana and ominous aura, which in no way fell short when compared to the Beast Corps Commander, Elizabeth’s heart sank.

Who could think of him as a hero after seeing that?

It was only then that Elizabeth could understand.

The Malevolent Star. The Star of Misfortune.

Why did people call him by that nickname.

“So you finally feel like fighting seriously! My long-standing enemy-!!”

Leonos laughed ferociously, violently swinging his arm as if to welcome an old friend back for a moment. Surely Leonos only had two arms, but in that brief moment, Elizabeth saw eight flailing arms.

It was truly a fleeting moment, and soon those arms multiplied to 16, 32, 64… continuously increasing and causing a storm above the land of rules. It was a storm of death that shredded everything it touched.

Facing such a beast king, the man in black armor quietly lowered his stance, gripping his spear. And in the moment of taking a short breath,

A blood-red flash stormed like a tempest.

On one side was the absolute destruction that tore everything apart.

On the other side was the absolute nullification that rendered everything into nothing.

There was a time when it was debated among master-class warriors about what would happen if the Martial Extremes, which were opposites of each other, collided, back when the Grandmaster was considered a legendary realm.

The answer was here.

A Martial Extreme was what powerful individuals who have reached an immeasurably high realm use as a technique, embodying their perception of the ultimate form. Forging their own form like a sword and spreading it as a shield, that’s what a Martial Extreme was.

Naturally, a Martial Extreme with a more precise and sturdy form could push back the opponent’s Martial Extreme.

Elizabeth watched this spectacle blankly.

“The storm… is it subsiding?”

As Eon stood against the blade storm and swung his spear all around, each blade of Ajetus accurately pricked one point of the storm.

Each time the spear pierced the air, the center known as the eye of the storm vanished, causing the raging storm to collide with itself. Thus, the storm that filled the sky of the region was slowly disappearing.

Clear mirror, still water. The image of a tranquil water surface that slowly calms even the large ripples caused by a thrown rock.

Its astounding image felt artistic, like a perfectly functioning machine without an inch of error.

Soon after, Eon swiftly spun his spear and powerfully swung it towards the last point, the sound of air being torn echoed and a calm, windless state spread out even in these high skies.

A perfect windless realm. The blood-red tip of the spear was accurately piercing through Leonos’s heart.

In the quiet filled with stillness, Leonos vomited a mouthful of blood.

“What I knew… The Martial Extreme has changed a lot….”

Eon answered in a calm tone.

“There were changes in the state of mind.”

“So… was the Martial Extreme so easy to learn anew?”

Leonos curled up the corners of his mouth sinisterly. It was a laugh that seemed empty yet somewhere relieved.

“I thought you had become weaker… but it wasn’t that. You became even stronger instead.”

“……”

“That power… I see… The armor is not a protective gear… but a restraint to suppress the power… if you hold such power inside… you can no longer be considered human….”

The Ajetus that pierced Leonos’s heart had the power to cut through all magic. Therefore, the power of the necromancy that had resurrected him was gradually scattering and disappearing.

“Haha… at first, I was much stronger… even if the speed of becoming stronger is fast… it’s too fast….”

Leonos looked at the blue sky in his last moments. Unlike the dull sky of the mainland, the sky of the region was clear and blue.

“At this rate… it wasn’t too bad….”

With his last words, Leonos’s body turned into a handful of ash. The wind that followed blew that ash away lightly.

Eon, looking at the ash disappearing in the wind, added quietly,

“…It’s quiet.”

The sky was cloudless.