Chapter 1292: Chariot vs Fragment

Meanwhile, the mechanical giant was facing off against the worm-like fragment next to the towering black pillar.

Vrooooooon!

The high-pitched sound of Chariot’s engine combined with the roar of the fragment to shake the air. Finally, the two collided.

Chariot’s fist landed a direct hit on the fragment’s body, causing a huge explosion and scattering mana everywhere.

That single blow contained as much mana as a high-tier spell, yet the fragment had sustained zero visible damage.

In fact, it seemed completely unfazed, immediately launching a counterattack against Chariot without any delay.

The fragment twisted its lengthy body to slam its tail at Chariot. This action inadvertently collapsed the pitiful remnants of what was once the royal castle.

However, Chariot managed to evade the tail. It could move with surprising precision and speed for a huge mass of metal.

Since its flight trajectory bent at impossible angles, I bet those movements are the result of wind magic or something similar.

That said, Chariot couldn’t dodge the pellets of condensed evil energy launched like a shotgun spray. Well, not that it would even be physically possible to avoid this kind of saturation fire.

Yet these blasts landed on Chariot with no effect whatsoever. The armor of divine energy enveloping the mech had nullified them all.

Now it was Chariot’s turn again. It thrust both palms forward and emitted a red flash. Then, a large magic circle unfolded in front of its head.

The circle emanated a divine aura as numerous objects flew out. These resembled triangular flasks. Not funnels, no, of course not.

The narrow mouths on the flasks appeared to be gun barrels. It seems they could fly around by propelling themselves with mana.

The nearly thirty metal flasks began swarming around the fragment like bees. The trails of red light left behind in their dance was a beautiful sight.

Not to mention their power.

The flask-shaped entities moved with irregular patterns and shot out bursts of red light. Even at this distance, I could tell each shot contained divine energy.

The fragment roared in pain as its body was drilled with crater-sized holes. Chariot had clearly found an attack that worked.

That said, it wasn’t over yet. As expected of an Evil God Fragment, the inflicted wounds regenerated just as quickly. Not even a divine sword could pull off an easy win.

Nevertheless, Chariot had proved itself a threat in a one-on-one fight. Its powers may be very different from the divine swords we’ve seen so far, but it was still just as extraordinary.

「More fiends incoming.」

『Looks like we won’t get the chance to slack off!』

「Nn! Maleficent, Persona, you go on ahead.」

「In that case, we’ll leave the rest to you.」

By drawing the attention of the fiends, we could free up Maleficent to fight the fragment.

「Let’s make it flashy!」

『Yeah!』

「Grr, grr!」

We bombarded the fiends in Maleficent’s way with as much magic as possible.

This was more about impact than power, though I didn’t expect more than half of them to survive. Not only the giants, but even the simple orcs and goblins were incredibly durable.

『Guess we can’t afford to hold back anymore.』

「…Brilliant Lightning Rush.」

『I’ll get the evil-divine energy ready.』

「Woof!」

Urushi also got serious, cloaking himself in darkness. Honestly, I was hoping to quickly wipe the floor with the fiends, then we could provide support with plenty of energy to spare.

But it seems the fiends didn’t like that plan. Ignoring them and focusing down the fragment might be another option, but getting ambushed from behind is also troublesome. Our top priority is to make sure they can’t interfere with our main force, the divine sword wielders.

In the end, we just stuck to the original plan: wipe out the fiends to let Kareid and Maleficent focus on the fragment.

I blasted one of the giant fiends with a series of high-power spells, including one straight through the head and one for the core, but it wasn’t enough.

Their sheer defense and regenerative abilities went way beyond our expectations.

Not to mention how it attempted to fight back in that state. The fiend had pulled out a metal club out of nowhere and swung it down on us.

In addition to their enormous size, they seemed to have the ability to create weapons, as well as some degree of weapon mastery skills. The swing clearly contained more than just brute force.

The evil-cloaked club slammed through the nearby house before leaving a crater in the earth. With such tremendous force, I would have to rate the fiend around Threat Level B.

『We can’t really afford to drag this out.』

「Nn.」

We went for our usual solution: striking them down before they could get us. Fran leapt upward with aerial hop, before using it again to propel herself even further.

The fiend swung its club again in an attempt to stop her, but that’s not hitting us!

And then, Fran delivered judgment upon the giant fiend.

「Hah!」

『Alright! One down!』

Not even this guy could survive Heavenly Judgment combined with Brilliant Lightning Rush. As long as the healing-inhibition effect of divine energy works, we can keep this up.

「Grrrrr!」

「Urushi did it too.」

『Yeah!』

Urushi had performed his ultimate move, Plane-Severing Fang, to crush the head of one of the giants. He then proceeded to devour the felled giant’s limbs.

He apparently developed his own method for defeating the giant fiends. That is to say, they would die if devoured without enough time to regenerate. Only a giant wolf like him could pull it off.

Meanwhile, our other comrades also cooperated to defeat the remaining giant fiends.

Jean had summoned the skeletons of several huge beasts to hold one in place, then Amanda swung her whip to shatter their heads and limbs in an instant. Forrund impaled another with countless swords, as Sierra delivered the final blow. Yuvel and Oldona were circling around and providing support.

But our battle was interrupted by a deafening noise. We saw the flames of an explosion far in the sky above our heads.

「Chariot got hit!」

『Oh no, this isn’t good! Another fragment has appeared!』

The one responsible for the massive explosion was the new arrival on the battlefield. A crimson mass of flesh had struck down Chariot.

We could only watch as the mechanical giant fell out of the sky and slid across the ground of the capital. I knew there were four fragments of the Evil God here, but I was hoping we still had time until the second one.

No wait… this feeling is…

『The black pillar is growing even wider! This huge mass of evil energy…! We’re running out of time!』