Mushoku Tensei: A different path

(Third POV)

In the heat of the battle, things have turned with Paul's arrival.

He was the last person Ghislaine expected to come to aid them against the insect overrun.

Albeit initially skeptical of his usefulness in the fight, the boost he received from the mysterious being was nothing to scoff at.

Ghislaine was most impressed by his performance against the immortal insect queen, and after seeing his display, he did not recognize Paul again.

His strange hair and eye colors of a member of the Dragonfolk may have indicated that, but there were more pressing concerns to be dealt with.

North God and Sword Hod were out cold, and nobody knew where Sandor and Hiryū were, nor did she know the status of Rudeus's front.

Before she could do anything about the latter, the demonic-looking child in front had to be eliminated first.

And to the swordsmen duo's luck, there was one handicap the other God-classes managed to leave behind.

"Listen, Paul. That glow earlier had a tremendous amount of mana in it. That might be her weak point."

One of the last things North God was able to convey before losing consciousness was about that light. According to him, the queen desperately protected it, indicating that it was her weak point.

Ghsialine could already tell that the current insect queen was weaker than before. Meaning it shouldn't take much more to bring her down.

The main problem was the queen's teleportation technique, which allowed her to teleport anyone within an uncertain radius, disorienting the swordsmen.

It was hard for Ghislaine to analyze at first, but she realized that the queen connected herself to the mana around her, becoming the center and causing the mana to shake.

It was a crude and simple analysis, but in reality, it had more depth to it than Ghislaine could explain.

But now, in her weakened state, she can only teleport herself in a more restricted but still vast range.

This meant that Ghislaine, with her Demon Eye plus a higher sense of hearing from her race, and Paul, with his three-dimensional detection, had better chances at this, thanks to their respective abilities. Both can read the flow of mana to predict her destination point and counter her accordingly.

"Think you can do it?" Ghislaine asked to reassure.

"Not like I can ditch this after coming here," Paul jokingly said, receiving another growl from the Sword King for not having changed over the years.

"What I'm worried about is that sword," Paul added in a serious tone.

Ghislaine silently agreed.

If these two wanted to heighten their chances of winning, taking that weapon away from her was a priority if possible.

All three went into stances, awaiting the other side to initiate an attack.

Time felt like it was virtually at a standstill, neither side moving an inch.

A sudden rumble from the city turned the queen's attention to it, the source coming from Rudeus crushing the fairy insect's head.

The insect queen's opponents rushed to take the shot they coincidentally received from the young Magician.

The two veteran swordsmen came in so fast that it became too late for the queen to block them.

Ghislaine from the left landed a hit on her right shoulder and then down to the chest, and Paul from the right slipped through an opening to stab into her face with a thrust.

Struggling against her limitations, the queen used the power of the King Dragon Sword to set off a shockwave between them, forcing them all to separate from each other and go into distance again.

But Ghislaine initiated going around the shockwave's edges, seeing it through her Demon Eye, and swinging her sword horizontally.

The queen dodged it through her teleportation, repapering a few meters to the right. Paul saw this coming, sprinting to the destination point earlier and employing an upward swing.

Holding the sword upside down in a reverse grip with one hand, the queen caught Paul's attack with the crossguard.

Together with the King Dragon Sword's Magic ability, she sprouted her previously hidden dragonfly wings from her back to help her jump and then kicked with her unfolded insect leg hidden behind her lower leg.

Paul managed to react in time, but the force behind her kick was too strong, so he let her foot and the extra legs slide off his sword instead. It would have broken already if he had not applied his Touki to it.

From there, he let the kick slip off, quickly guided his sword around his head, and swung it back at her.

The tip of his sword cut the base of the right pair of wings, causing the queen to falter in the air a bit.

This gave Ghislaine an opening for a [Longsword of Light] in a downward swing. And just as she saw it coming through her Demon Eye, the queen teleported again, just a meter behind Paul.

The beast woman was about to assist her old party leader, but to her surprise, he surpassed her expectations of him yet again.

With footwork and quirkiness from North God Style, he performed a backflip by concentrating the Touki on his legs.

Aiming his sword at the queen's forearm without looking, the King Dragon Sword flying off with the severed arm after the cross-guard.

To further separate her from the dangerous weapon, Paul dropkicked her in the head.

Gliding on the ground's surface and throwing dirt with her, the queen was defenseless against the oncoming [Longsword of Light] executed in an iaido by Ghislaine before a barrage of lesser sword slashes.

Cut up into many different-sized chunks; this gave her two opponents a chance.

Once Paul landed in a not-so-graceful way, he kept an eye out for the core Ghislaine was talking about. The beast woman did the same, keeping especially her Demon Eye on the queen.

Luck was on their side. A purple light faintly glows on a piece of her abdomen, similar to when Paul sliced her chest open.

Paul started kicking off from a very low-posture run, his left hand assisting in what would have been a three-legged stance instead of four.

Ghislaine also readied to strike the core, her grip shifting as she rotated the edge of her sword accordingly.

Like a pincer move, their swords struck against the core, small sparks escaping the flesh.

However, that was as far as their luck went. Their combined power wasn't enough to finish it, and the piece of flesh containing the core flew off to where the King Dragon Sword was, the rest of her flesh following it like a magnet.

This, of course, made the two teammates to become alarmed.

As soon as they came close to stop her, the mass of flesh catapulted up to the sky.

She managed to reach a height where she could regenerate properly.

Ghsialine and Paul bumped into each other but quickly separated. They kept their eyes on the sky, getting ready for any attack, and questioned how the armored woman could pull this trick off.

But there were other worries they had to think about.

As they could read from their skills, the queen charged the King Dragon Sword for another concentrated mana slash while floating in the sky.

She was out of reach for them to jump up and stop her.

But not for Paul to use the one technique from North God Style he feels is the most non-swordsmanship-like move to do.

'Are you kidding me?'

Even Ghislaine, who knew of his dislike of the sword style known for its unpredictability, was shocked by his willingness to discard that opinion.

Keeping a relaxed grip on his sword's hilt, he threw it with full force at the queen, the white fire boosting his weapon's speed, even as it separated from him.

Like a white disk, it spun directly at the queen, catching the released attack, engulfing it in flames, and causing a small explosion.

This prevented the otherwise devastating attack, which instead resulted in Paul's beloved sword shattering.

However, the broken pieces spread like bullets from a shotgun, hitting the insect queen everywhere, including her delicate transparent wings.

Imbalanced and damaged from the metal shards, the insect queen became defenseless, an opportunity for Pual and Ghislaine to take the King Dragon Sword away from her.

Paul initiated this by grabbing the hilt from the sword but was surprised to find out that the demonic girl was still tightly on to it, the rest of her body crashing into the ground.

Ghislaine commenced her execution by cutting the queen's arms off while he held the King's Dragon Sword, but a strong shockwave pushed her away, flying off into the distance as Paul did earlier.

Meanwhile, Paul, still holding on to the sword and drawing every last bit of Touki power, tried to defeat the queen in physical strength, only to find out that her size didn't have the estimated strength he initially suspected of her.

Her regeneration was delayed, but it was still enough for her to grip the ground with her small extra insect legs, her hands gripping the sword, knowing her victory depended on it.

Both sides did everything they physically could to keep the upper hand over the other, cutting off everything around them.

Although the queen may have suffered considerable damage from the shattered sword pieces with its white fire, her body regenerated enough for her to put everything into the spell she used earlier today.

The vibration in the air started to intensify, and the queen gritted her teeth before screaming out to let go of her struggling as her spell unleashed itself.

And then, silence before the sound of gushing and breaking reverberated.

Onlookers, comprised of Sylphiette and Ghislaine, had to witness the events unfold before them a second time, but in a different way.

Much like his son, Paul's hands, still on his body, got twisted by Gravity Magic, blood spraying out as he found himself lept off the ground, unable to react to the conspired events at the moment.

Horrified of the scene, Ghislaine saw through her Demon Eye that the queen was not done yet, the mana on the greatsword charging as the queen readied it.

"NOOOOO!!!"

Ghislaine's attempt to stop the queen's continued was in vain; the blade swung and released a powerful mana slash, hitting her friend across the chest; his entire body shot away into the distance.

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