Chapter 942

The evening of the day Fran arrived in Bultori.

At last, the army of antidemons appeared. Those black hordes covering the plains were already a familiar sight to us.

Unlike the very frightened townspeople, Fran and I were as relaxed as ever. With three divine sword wielders here, worrying about the antidemons simply felt absurd.

Looking down on the plain from the top of the city walls, Fran was slightly disgruntled. She violently bit down on a grilled meat skewer and asked me the question.

（Can I go too?）

『No. What are you going to do if you get caught up in an attack from a divine sword? Besides, we can’t afford to pick fights with such a huge country.』

（Mrgh.）

I gave Fran a firm no. Fran already knew all this, but I guess she still had to ask. She must be itching to join the battle starting right in front of her.

「Adol came out.」

『Hmm, I still can’t imagine him wielding a divine sword.』

「Nn.」

Even from a distance, we could see Adol stepping out at the head of the holy knight’s formation. His steps were leisurely, and his face showed no signs of fear or anxiety.

Exactly how a powerful man should look.

But no matter how much we looked him over, we still couldn’t believe this man was worthy of wielding a divine sword.

Is it possible that he’s nothing special himself, but just recognized by his divine sword?

I’d love to try appraising him, but it would cause all kinds of trouble if they found out I tried appraising their Divine Sword Knight.

We could make an excuse if we bumped into each other in the middle of a battlefield, but right now, we were clearly allies. I guess we’ll just have to watch his moves and see for ourselves.

「That’s Alpha, the Blade of Origin.」

『I-It looks pretty cool, huh?』

「Nn.」

I lied. It looks really damn cool!

The entirety of Alpha was the purest white. From the scabbard to the hilt to the blade, everything was white. Rather than a normal guard, the bottom part of the blade split into two in a Y-shape. That probably served as the guard replacement.

Alpha appeared to be forged of a shiny metal giving off an iridescent luster, with fine decorations covering the whole thing. This was clearly no ordinary sword, anyone could tell that with one glance.

I’d describe it as about the same size as a longsword, aside for the blade being a little wider than normal.

The moment he pulled it out from the scabbard, we could already see a huge amount of mana swirling around it. In fact, I could even sense a slight divine power.

Adol raised the Blade of Origin high above his head, pointing the tip towards the sky. A very picturesque pose for the handsome young man.

「Divine Sword Release!」

He activated it immediately? I thought he might drag the battle out for a while, but it seems he planned to go all out right from the beginning.

Along with Adol’s shout, Alpha began shining brightly.

The white light rising up over the plains was the manifestation of the divine power surging from Adol’s blade.

Even this far away, we could feel sparks in the air from the sheer force of it. The holy knights spectating from the front lines probably needed to seriously hold their ground just to not get blown away.

That’s what I expected, but it seems they were trained well. All of them had their swords thrust into the ground, standing rigidly like an immovable wall.

I guess such a huge nation would never allow something as silly as getting blown away by their own weapon.

A few seconds later.

When the torrent of divine power subsided, a completely different Adol stood before us.

His physical appearance was pretty much the same. There was no change to his equipment, and the divine sword didn’t change shape either. The only difference was a thin layer of mana clinging to his body.

However, the power he radiated was on a whole different level.

「He’s strong……!」

『Yeah. Is that really Adol?』

This was no simple boost to stats. We could tell just by looking at the man standing there with his blade. Adol now had the skills of a Swordking. His skills had clearly evolved.

That reminds me of what I had heard about Alpha’s abilities.

According to the story, Alpha was the oldest and most fearsome blade. It strengthened the user by giving them the “Half-Deify” skill.

First, this increases all the wielder’s stats by a factor of ten. That’s followed up by giving them the eyes to see through to the horizon, the senses to invalidate all concealment, and the ears to hear stories across an entire nation. Finally, it boosts all skills to their highest level, in addition to all of the above.

This “boosting all skills to the highest level” seems to be the important part.

What if Adol had planned for the usage of Alpha during his training period? Could he have raised all his stats equally instead of specializing, then acquired a ton of low level skills?

In that case, he would end up a complete monster with over 100 skills at maximum level and 3000 in each stat.

Such was the man standing before us――Adol Yaresfeim.

Since most of his skills were low level, no wonder he didn’t seem strong. I imagine his stats should be fairly high given his level though.

I knew Adol wasn’t a complete weakling, but he gave a similar feeling as those lazy bums who got power leveled. I must’ve gotten a misplaced impression due to his lack of proper skills.

『He’s starting!』

「So fast!」

Adol suddenly teleported. No wait, he had dashed forward. Since he reached maximum speed instantly without any indication, even we managed to miss him for a moment.

After moving so fast that we couldn’t see his shadow, he delivered a slash. With that, the horde’s vanguard line had been obliterated. A single swing rended nearly 500 antidemons into two.

I’d say Fran’s maximum speed in Divine Beast Form was faster, but that’s about it. Adol exceeded her in every other category.

Despite having so many high-level skills, he had mastered usage of them all. There’s no way he would be able to perform those movements otherwise.

What’s more, the most frightening thing about this guy was that he could maintain the state for a long period of time. According to Diaz, the maximum duration was half a day.

In terms of simple combat power alone, Ashwrath after releasing Gaia might be able to win against him. However, Alpha allowed Adol to fight for extended durations without going out of control. If we ever had to take Adol on, he’s clearly the more dangerous opponent.

『I should have realized this by now, but each and every one of these divine swords is outrageous……』

「Nn.」