Chapter 62: Let the Thunder Crackle for a While
The observers of the Astral Realm cannot gaze directly upon history with their own eyes; they can only read it through the text manifested on the stone tablets.
While the immortal who plotted to murder the God-slayers was still reeling in shock—witnessing the Annihilator of Devil Kings being sent back to the heavens time and time again—the Divine Sword of Salvation had appeared prematurely in the lands of Transalpine Gaul. Accompanied by the sacrifice of the Beast Goddess, it erupted with a radiance far more violent than any seen before, right before the eyes of several God-slayers.
The physical form of the divine sword was no longer visible. The swelling light caused it to vanish within a massive orb of brilliance. The orb rose into the sky, scorching and hot as a sun, illuminating the land below.
Then, it began to vomit a massive amount of lightning. The offensive was relentless, as a thunderstorm of divine bolts rained down upon the earth like a deluge. Each dense strike of lightning was capable of blasting a crater large enough to fit a truck.
The hills that had managed to remain elevated were leveled by a single falling bolt, only to be shredded further by the subsequent barrage. The earth was ploughed by the electricity, left in a state of absolute devastation.
At the leading edge of the falling bolts, the faint outlines of weapons appeared—mostly arrows, but other forms of weaponry as well. One could see not only the armaments used by various human tribes of the Middle Ages but even modern artillery shells and missiles.
Yet, there was no sign of the King of the End himself.
Hikigaya was perplexed; this was deviating entirely from the previous "plot." Furthermore, he had noticed the abnormality of this lightning earlier, and now the sensation was even more intuitive.
Though they were both lightning, there was no one-to-one correspondence when the lightning produced by an Authority clashed with the lightning emitted by the Divine Sword of Salvation. This was different from anything he had experienced.
Based on his extensive experience fighting gods and his own kin, weather-based Authorities and divine power usually interfere with and cancel each other out. The wind summoned by a God of Wind and the wind summoned by a God-slayer with a Wind Authority, when manifested as weather, do not differ much in power or operation. When both use the same amount of force, they generally do not harm one another.
This law held true for wind and regular lightning, but it didn't seem to apply to the Divine Sword of Salvation. Its thunder was simply... superior.
Hikigaya had already tried countering with his own lightning, but the results were unsatisfactory. For instance, when he used a bolt to intercept a shell-shaped divine strike
heading his way, the two didn't "perish together." Instead, the "shell" exploded into even more arrowheads, forcing Hikigaya to fire off more strikes to neutralize them.
Calculating it this way, it was far less troublesome to simply activate Godspeed and dodge.
Of course, not everyone chose to dodge the "free electrotherapy" provided by the sword. To be honest, because the divine thunder was so dense and "impenetrable," Hikigaya had no idea what the others were doing.
Until he heard a voice through the storm.
"This is never-ending! Then I'll just deal with the source!"
When Godspeed is active, external sounds are not only slowed down but also distorted in pitch. However, that was unmistakably Doni's voice.
The evidence was the sword-light. The radiance erupting from Doni was even more piercing than the divine thunder, allowing Hikigaya to see him through the rain of bolts.
The blond sword-maniac was charging toward the Divine Solar Blade. Symbolic characters flickered across his body; the sky full of lightning and weapons shattered upon hitting him, like rain splashing against steel. This was the power of his Authority.
Before long, Doni reached the area directly beneath the "miniature sun," where the lightning was thinnest. He raised his Silver Arm, swung his knightly sword, and delivered a slash.
The miniature sun was nearly cleaved open in an instant. The rain of lightning faltered. However, the defensive Authority protecting Doni also vanished the moment he swung his blade.
But his action bore fruit—within the cleaved sun, the Divine Sword of Salvation was revealed, and a crack appeared upon its blade. A few more strikes, and it might truly be snapped in two.
Yet, just as this thought crossed Hikigaya's mind, the divine sword erupted once more in a blinding flash. Intense light, accompanied by extreme heat, swallowed everything in the vicinity.
Including Doni.
When the light dissipated, the divine sword remained thrust into the ground, while Doni lay beside it, unconscious. The sky turned clear again; the lightning that had been crackling incessantly was nowhere to be found. It was as if the "plot" had been fast-forwarded directly to the end-credits stinger.
Looking around, not only was Aisha gone, but the contemporary dragon-riding God-slayer had also vanished.
'Could they have been struck dead just like that?'
Hikigaya felt it was unlikely. Aisha aside, history recorded that the dragon-controlling fellow only disappeared after fighting the Eastern Roman Empire. He wondered if the King of the End would be the one to do him in eventually.
But more surprising than that, Hikigaya spotted familiar figures on the distant horizon. They were people who, by all logic, should not have appeared here in this era.
Liliana Kranjcar.
She was running toward the center of the explosion. With her was Aisha, who looked like she was suffering from a "drunken high" induced by the power.
They were God-slayers after all. Though their Authorities were eccentric, they wouldn't be taken out so easily by a single wave.
The Divine Sword of Salvation remained stuck in the ground, its blade still glowing brilliantly. Doni, lying nearby like a corpse, had mysteriously turned entirely grey—including his blond hair and his clothes. His breathing had stopped, but he still had a faint pulse, and no external wounds were visible.
Hikigaya judged this to be some sort of suspended animation, likely related to the Authority Doni had used earlier. In this grey state, Doni's physical body was no different than usual, lacking any special defensive power.
This reminded Hikigaya of Kusanagi Godou, who should have become a God-slayer; his resurrection Authority apparently involved playing dead until he had slept enough to revive. In Doni's current state, if a Heretic God or a hostile God-slayer happened to pass by, they could take his head with a single casual strike.
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