Chapter 201: Fake Kindness And Lawful Good (5)
"What…?" Damien frowned as he looked up at the pouring rain of fire.
He was quite some distance away, but the heat was intense enough to sting his skin.
The power contained within the raging flames was something not even he could ignore.
"…You didn't come alone."
"Do you think I'm crazy? Of course I didn't."
Ohjin knew that he was growing at a speed so incredibly fast that it couldn't be compared to any other Awakener due to the Black Heaven and the stigma of Lyra.
He also knew that the stigmas he absorbed so far using the Black Star caused him to be several times more powerful than what was indicated by the number of flicks engraved on his chest.
Even so…
'I'm still far from being able to face one of the Seven Stars.'
He might've only received primary education, but he knew the difference between courage and recklessness.
Since he knew just how absurdly powerful the Awakeners called ‘Seven Stars’ were, he couldn't fight Damien without a plan.
Fwoooosh!—
Upon receiving Ohjin's signal, Ha-eun's bombardment rained down through the collapsed ceiling.
Damien's eyes turned cold as he looked up at the powerful, mana-fueled fireballs.
The strength within each one was certainly enough to send chills down Damien's spine, however…
"Did you think that I wouldn't be able to dodge if you shot at random like this?"
Damien dodged the falling fireballs with a light jump back.
The fire was immensely strong, but his movements were not so sloppy to be hit by blind attacks launched from so far away.
"Yeah, I figured you'd be able to dodge attacks like this easily." Ohjin nodded as he dodged a fireball.
There was no need to question Damien's capabilities when even Ohjin could easily dodge the indiscriminate balls of raining fire.
However…
"What about them?"
"What?"
Ohjin smirked and pointed to the second floor of the building.
People from the collateral line who hadn't been able to escape due to the collapsed hallway were screaming, their faces pale in fear.
"Kyaaaa! It… it's hot!!"
"Save meee!"
"Aahhhhhh!!"
The rain of fireballs was not only falling on Ohjin and Damien on the first floor, but they were also assaulting the people on the second floor who had been eagerly cheering for Damien's victory.
"Well, shouldn't you go save those people?" Ohjin shrugged, a twisted smile on his face.
He was right, even if those people were meaningless and held no value to him, he had to save them because…
"That's the 'right' thing to do, isn't it?"
He wasn't a filthy fraud like Isabella. Rather, he was a genuinely 'good' person who sacrificed himself for the sake of others.
Bang!—
Fwoooosh!—
"Kugh!"
Damien's previously leisurely movements as he had dodged the fireball suddenly became urgent, and he jumped up to the second floor.
"Kyaaa! P-Please save me, Sir Damien!"
A middle-aged woman with so much makeup on that she could have even been wearing a mask ran toward Damien.
Fwooosh!—
A massive fireball fell toward her.
"Ugh!"
Boom!—
Damien protected the woman, who couldn't even run properly in her high heels, and took the impact of the fireball on his back.
"Kugh!"
Despite being coated in a protective sheen of mana, an intense shock damaged his body.
"Yeah, I thought you'd do that." Ohjin smiled slyly as he looked up at Damien, who had thrown himself between the woman and the ball of fire.
"Wh-What on earth are you doing?!"
Damien looked back at Ohjin with a bewildered expression.
He couldn't have imagined that a hero revered in South Korea, the Lightning Wolf, would do such a thing.
"Stop the fire! Everyone here will die at this rate!"
"So?"
"…What?"
"What does that have to do with me?" Ohjin calmly dodged an incoming fireball and smirked.
He recalled how they looked as they screamed for the ‘witch’s death’ and spewed out their hatred.
It wouldn't be a problem if they died.
No, on the contrary, it would be a problem if they didn't die.
"You…!"
"Are you sure you can afford to talk?" Ohjin pointed to the people fleeing in all directions as they attempted to avoid the fireballs.
Among them, a few were already engulfed in flames and writhing in agony.
"They'll all die at this rate, you know?"
"Damn it!" Damien cursed and desperately swung his sword to protect them from the incoming fire.
Swish! Swash!—
His sword wrapped in brilliant, white light cut through a fireball, which turned into a red crystal and fell to the ground.
Damien’s stigma of Libra was unmatched in its ability to nullify mana-based attacks, however…
'There are too many of them.'
Not only were there too many fireballs, each and every one of them was powerful enough to require effort to block.
Damien chewed his lip with an anxious expression forming on his face and swung his sword at the attacks.
It wouldn't be difficult to block them if he ignored the people shivering behind his back…
'But I can't do that.'
His eyes shone brightly with his firm conviction, and his sword began to emit a brilliant light.
"There really is no Awakener as helpful as Ha-eun under conditions like these." Ohjin grinned as he watched Damien barely block the endless fireballs.
Excluding firepower, Ohjin overwhelmed Ha-eun in every aspect such as mobility, battle IQ, and close-range combat.
'In other words…'
Ha-eun surpassed Ohjin when it came to firepower.
There was simply no way for him to compete with her when it came down to indiscriminate AOE attacks.
'Though that doesn't mean that she can keep this up forever.'
Even if Ha-eun possessed the Dragon's Heart, she couldn't maintain such overwhelming firepower indefinitely.
She must've been overexerting herself quite a bit to keep up her onslaught.
'At least I can buy some time with—'
Just as the thought crossed his mind…
Owoooong!—
The radiant light flowing from Damien's body intensified, and wings of light spread out behind him.
"Hmph!"
With a low grunt, Damien jumped high and stepped onto the second-floor railing.
His wings of light spread wide as he raced through the air at a terrifying speed.
"What the hell?" Ohjin looked up at him with a dumbfounded expression.
After having soared into the sky, Damien cut through each fireball over a wide range with his sword.
'Is he even human?'
It was the equivalent of standing in the rain and cutting raindrops to keep his clothes dry—not only his own clothes but also the clothes of others.
Swish, swash!—
Rumble!—
His movement far exceeded the speed of sound, and the resulting sonic boom collapsed the building and blew the debris away.
Just the aftereffects of his movements were enough to send piled-up concrete debris flying.
Ohjin looked up at Damien with a tired expression.
"Ahh."
"S-Sir Damien…"
Even the people who were fleeing in a state of panic couldn't take their eyes off his incredible movements.
Around thirty seconds passed, and the intensity of the fireballs began to noticeably weaken—Ha-eun's mana was beginning to run dry.
"Fuu."
Even so, Damien was only slightly out of breath. He was still fine and had an easier time cutting through the weakened fireballs.
'I guess he isn't one of the Seven Stars for no reason.'
Ohjin let out a short exclamation and infused his spear with mana. He was pressed for time since Damien blocked Ha-eun's attacks better than he expected.
"But still, it wasn't too bad."
Translator - Maccas
Proofreader - ilafy
* * *
Bzz, bzzzt!—
Ohjin felt the spear vibrate in his hand and smiled.
Although he couldn't speak or communicate using telepathy with his spear, he could feel its will as an ego weapon.
"Well, then."
He struck the ground with the spear's shaft, and the blue lightning wrapping around the pitch-black spear gathered at its blade, transforming into a ghostly warehouse like the one the Living Armor had created.
Crackle!—
Naturally, what covered the spectral war horse wasn't eerie, dark-blue flames but brightly blazing blue lightning.
"Let's have some fun."
Mounted on the spectral war horse, Ohjin aimed his spear at Damien, who was flying in the sky with his wings of light.
Bzzzzzt!—
The spectral war horse raised its front legs and began to gallop violently toward Damien.
Rumble!—
Lightning crackled around them and gathered at the tip of the spear as if it were a lightning rod.
"Ugh…!" Damien's expression distorted.
It appeared that the incredible movements he had shown earlier weren't so easy for him either.
Unable to dodge Ohjin’s spear as it passed his blind spot, he hastily raised his sword.
Blue lightning and pure, white light collided.
Rumbleeeeeee!!!—
An earth-shattering sound as if dozens of tons of explosives were detonating simultaneously exploded out.
The massive, soccer-stadium-sized mansion of the Colagrande Family crumbled, and the land nearby sank several meters as if into a sinkhole.
It was hard to believe that it was a clash between humans.
As the dust cloud gradually settled—
"Cough."
—it revealed Damien, who was coughing up blood and had the spear piercing his left shoulder.
Compared to Damien, Ohjin stood relatively unscathed.
"S-Sir Damien!"
"The Lightning Wolf… d-defeated a Seven Star?"
The family heads of the collateral line opened their mouths in shock.
Normally, they would have been caught up in the shockwave of Ohjin and Damien's clash and died, but they were able to avoid the impact because Damien had positioned himself in a way that shielded them just before the collision.
"Ugh. Cough! Cough!"
Damien smiled faintly at Ohjin, who was standing without speaking a word.
"It appears… that I have won."
Plop—
As Damien spoke, Ohjin tilted like a tumbling toy and fell face-first onto the ground.
Although Damien appeared to have suffered bigger injuries on the surface—
"Kuh, ah, ugh."
—the mana inside Ohjin’s body did not move at all.
His mana circuits had been sliced away inside him because they had been crystallized by the stigma of Libra.
It felt like shards of glass were flowing through his veins instead of blood, and Ohjin writhed on the floor like a bug.
"O-Ohjin!" Isabella crawled towards him.
Although the curse wracked her body with pain whenever she moved, she didn’t stop until she reached and embraced him.
Cradled in her arms, Ohjin lifted his head with great difficulty.
"Huff, huff. As I expected, he really is disgustingly strong."
It was hard to think that Damien could beat him so overwhelmingly in a situation where he had to protect others.
He knew he would be strong, but the Seven Stars were monsters beyond what he imagined.
"I'm sorry… Ohjin. This is all because of me…"
Putting aside Isabella’s glistening eyes, Ohjin looked at Damien slowly walking towards them.
After Damien pulled the spear embedded in his shoulder and threw it at the ground, he raised his sword.
"It's over now."
"…Yeah." Ohjin nodded his head.
As he said, he didn't even have enough strength remaining to move a fingertip, however…
"You're right. My role is over." Ohjin chuckled and nodded.
"…Hm?"
His goal had never been to defeat Damien.
'Even if I can't…'
He grabbed a piece of concrete that was nearby and cut a long line in his arm with it.
Splurt!—
Ohjin extended his bleeding arm to Isabella.
"Drink up."
If it was Isabella…
If it was the Queen of Leeches…
Her defeating the Sword of Justice should be possible.
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