Normally, that fragment of Vita, possessing Laplace's body, would have attacked immediately.
For the past several years, that was exactly what he had done while controlling that possession, over and over again, and it had always worked.
With this body, taking the initiative almost always meant absolute advantage. Physically, Dragon Laplace was simply too oppressive in combat.
With a spear in his hands, wings on his back, a body monstrously optimized for battle, and absurd martial skill, he had what it took to challenge practically anyone in the current world.
But this time, he retreated.
And he retreated faster than ever before.
The moment he felt that presence behind the rock, he pulled back without hesitation, creating distance almost instinctively.
In a single instant, the ground gave way where the white blur of Laplace had been, and in the next moment he was already far from there.
Meanwhile, Badigadi, who had just been hurled away by Eris's slash, was buried in the rubble.
For a brief instant, Badi almost understood where he was and what was happening.
But the Golden Armor had no patience for that.
It stirred all at once.
The metal took on the form of living golden liquid, as if it were irritated at having been delayed.
In a single instant, that gleaming mass surged over Badigadi and swallowed him. It was as if it had decided to reclaim its owner.
The metal spread and sealed itself over his skin and muscles, then assumed its final form.
Six arms burst through the rubble around him at the same moment, crushing everything nearby.
A golden aura covered Badigadi's enormous Armor, and its size increased to over three meters in height.
Once again, he felt that power.
That intoxicating sensation, as if infinite strength were being poured directly into his bones.
As before, along with the power came that old urge to fight everything and everyone, so intense it made his blood boil. In that instant, wrapped in the Fighter God Armor, he felt invincible again.
"Bwahahahaha! Well, if this explodes, I'll go flying too! But now, I can fight!"
He barely had time to look around.
Eris was already charging.
She came like a red bolt tearing across the inverted mountains, so fast that the terrain gave way beneath her steps, her short cape and red hair fluttering like flames.
But now, Badigadi was no longer the same as he had been moments before. Wearing the Golden Armor, his reflexes, strength, speed, and endurance had all risen massively and completely.
It was as if he had crossed a boundary and stepped into a category of his own. On top of that, the artifact granted him access to the countless Secret Techniques engraved into its structure.
"UOOOOH! LET'S GO!"
His fighting spirit surged even higher.
He was exceptionally excited.
And above all, ready to leap toward Rygar and begin the clash he truly wanted to fight. The legendary confrontation between the Fighter God and the Beast God was only a step away.
But before he could move, Eris shouted loudly, without slowing her charge:
"I, Eris Adoldia, the Sword God! Challenge the Fighter God Badigadi to single combat!"
Badigadi halted his own momentum that very instant.
"Bwahaha! Clever girl!"
There was an ancient rule among Demon Kings. A one-on-one duel, declared like that, could not be refused, no matter who it came from.
Much less when it came from someone bearing the title of Sword God.
"Bwahahaha! Fine, girl! Let's go!"
Without losing his good humor, Badigadi charged.
He came like a golden tower crashing down upon the world. The peaks trembled from his first step, the air groaned under the pressure of his burst forward, and Eris ran straight toward him without wavering, her whole body taut for the collision to come.
Her armor gave off a faint glow as she ran.
Everything was unfolding in mere instants.
Eris could not read Badigadi's trajectory with her Demon Eye, since he was immune to Demon Eyes.
So in that moment, she advanced relying only on her own martial skill and reflexes.
Even expecting to be outmatched in brute strength, she was still shocked when she felt the absurd amount of power Badigadi was gathering in his charge.
But from the beginning, colliding was never the goal.
"BWAGAHAHAHA!"
With his fighting spirit inflated by the Armor, Badigadi raised three of his arms and prepared three simultaneous punches.
The air around his fists distorted, and if those blows hit her head-on, they would crush her completely.
Eris then used her fastest technique.
"Longsword of Light!"
The two moved so fast that not even their afterimages remained visible.
In one instant, they were charging at each other.
In the next, they were about to collide.
And then Eris vanished.
With a dry, abrupt 'plop', her body disappeared from in front of Badigadi and reappeared about ten meters to the side.
"EEH?!"
Badigadi was shocked for a fraction of a second.
But that fraction was enough.
All three punches hit the ground.
The impact was devastating.
The inverted mountain they were fighting on seemed to collapse entirely. The ground sank, enormous cracks spread like black webs, colossal chunks tore free from the base, and the entire structure began to crumble toward the infinite sky below.
At the exact moment she escaped using her armor's short-range teleportation, Eris took advantage of Badigadi's missed strike and attacked the ground beneath him as well.
She was not aiming at him, but at the terrain under him.
"North God Style... fall into the abyss!"
Her blow added itself to the collapse, cutting through the already shattered area. The foundation gave way completely, and that entire portion of the mountain simply ceased to exist.
They were fighting among cliffs and mountain chains arranged in a bizarre way.
That was the Dragon World.
The inverted world.
Beneath the mountains, beneath the "ground," there was only the sky, vast and endless, stretching into an impossible depth.
The moment the last piece of ground broke apart, the mighty Fighter God found himself in free fall.
"BWAHAHAHA?! VITA! I'M FALLINGGGG!"
Instead of getting angry, the golden titan began laughing even louder as he plummeted.
Eris did not even look twice.
She had already turned toward Vita.
She had no other way to deal with Badigadi. Without the advantage of the Demon Eye, fighting him fairly would have been the same as walking straight into death.
So she neutralized him the only way she could and immediately switched targets.
Shortly before that, several thoughts had passed through Vita's mind.
After the initial shock at "Laxus's" appearance, he began to think. No attack came. Laxus did not appear.
His thoughts raced in seconds.
I am much stronger now.
Laxus cannot defeat me in this body.
....Why isn't he attacking me?
The moment that doubt arose, Vita analyzed the situation around him.
He saw Badigadi and Eris nearly colliding. He saw that supposed enemy still standing motionless behind the rock. And then he made his decision.
He struck the rock with his spear.
It was a much stronger blow than it needed to be. The spear tip pierced rock, air, and shadow in a flash, and a crater opened instantly where "Laxus" was supposed to be hiding.
But behind the rock, there was no one.
There was only a ring.
Very similar to Laxus's Bone Ring, the feeling was the same.
But definitely different.
Vita understood immediately.
And irritation ran through his entire body.
Not only because he had been tricked, but because he had instinctively shown fear toward that enemy. All because of a man who had already been dead for many, many years.
At that exact same instant, he saw his ally being neutralized in a ridiculous fashion and calling for help in the middle of his fall.
But before he could react, Eris was already on top of him.
She came down executing a dangerously fast Longsword of Light, a clean, precise, lethal slash aimed straight at his neck.
For most swordsmen in the world, it would already have been impossible to follow.
For Vita, using that body, it was very easy.
He spun the spear in one fluid motion.
It was a perfect movement, technical, refined to the extreme. The shaft of the spear smoothly appeared in the path of Eris's strike, and in the same flow of the turn, he thrust.
The speed of the spear was so great that the terrain around them gave way from displacement alone.
But Eris had already seen the strike with her Demon Eye.
Even so, in that moment, the limits of the Demon Eye became clear.
Her perfect strike, which should have reached Laplace's neck, was diverted at the last instant by the shaft of the spear.
For a moment, Eris felt as if she had completely lost control of her own blade.
Seeing the next future, she saw her death.
And decided immediately.
She let go of her longsword.
Her hand dropped to her waist and drew her short sword almost blindly, defending her flank at the last instant by pure instinct. Even so, the spear blade still hit her.
The blow tore deeply through her torso, shoving her own short blade inward with the impact.
Eris felt her ribs shatter. If she had not managed to raise that improvised defense in the final second, at that exact moment she would have been split in two.
Blood rose into her throat.
The spear tip carved a path through her side.
The impact ripped her out of the air and hurled her away.
Vita was genuinely surprised.
He had expected to kill her in a single exchange.
That was how his battles normally worked in that body. One move was enough to end the fight.
Quickly, however, he identified the reason for Eris's survival.
The moment she realized she could not defeat him technically, she abandoned that path completely.
She simply started acting while relying entirely on Future Sight and surviving by the narrowest of margins.
Vita was furious.
But he also understood, coldly, that his situation was getting worse with every second. Even though he wanted to go after her and finish the job immediately, he made another decision.
Battle Aura coursed through his body in an instant. His wings spread. And he leaped to rescue Badigadi in midair.
If he let the Fighter God fall like that, it would be extremely difficult to bring him back into the fight quickly. Badigadi did not have flight like Atoferatofe.
And Vita definitely did not want to deal with the Beast God alone.
Nor did he believe he was capable of winning in this situation.
While Eris was trying to recover from the nearly fatal blow she had taken, Laplace cut across the sky in an instant. He reached Badigadi and grabbed him by one of the arms.
"Bwhahaha! That little brat made fools of us!"
A vein bulged on Vita's forehead.
"Enough! We've wasted enough time, let's go to the Beast God by air!"
He raised his eyes toward the true target in the distance.
But then the sound Vita absolutely did not want to hear finally tore through the world.
Thunder.
It was as if the floor itself had been split in two.
As if the world were mourning the fall of its divinity.
The ground, the mountains, the air, everything trembled.
Eris, still bleeding and consumed by pain, smiled.
Rygar had killed the Labyrinth's Final Boss.
----
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