Whether it was the warriors of the Goddess of Beauty or the female warriors from the martial nation — what they all craved was the same thing.
Victory. Pure, absolute, unambiguous. Defeat the enemy. Become the last one standing.
The [Flame-Gold Quartet] — Alfrigg, Dvalinn, Berling, and Grer. Four Pallum brothers, renowned as the city's strongest "combo fighters." Always inseparable, always fighting side by side, they would never abandon a brother no matter what enemy stood before them.
Clad in golden armor, the four wielded four completely different weapons — sword, hammer, spear, and axe.
And despite their Pallum frames, they shouldered those brutally heavy weapons and fought as the vanguard of their Familia, just as they always had.
Like every member of the Familia.
The Gulliver Brothers revered Goddess Freya without reservation. Therefore, no matter what — tonight, they would bring their Goddess the news of victory.
The enemy: two Lv.6s.
Tricky, but fine. In fact, the four brothers even felt a quiet gratitude toward Freya in their hearts — they understood this was a trial she had bestowed upon them. If they could defeat these opponents, the Ability Score gains and [Excelia] they'd earn would be immense.
"Steel yourselves," said Alfrigg, the eldest of the four.
At the same time, he cast a wary eye toward the two Amazon women standing across from them.
Both were tall, with toned, sun-bronzed skin and long ash-gray hair. Their attire followed Amazon tradition — which was to say, barely anything at all. A few strips of cloth wound around their torsos, covering the bare minimum (and frequently even less than that), paired with light, form-fitting shorts.
That was it. If anything, what was covered was far less than what was not.
One of them wore a purple mask. She turned her pale-gold eyes toward the brothers with open arrogance and spoke first.
"Argana — who goes first?"
"Your call."
"Fine."
The two had no intention of fighting together, because they were not companions — they were rivals.
Telskyura — the martial nation. A savage land renowned for the tradition of killing one another, where strength was the only law. As the only two Lv.6 adventurers born from that nation, Bache and Argana had each earned their current Level the same way: by slaying the other's former Lv.5 rival in single combat.
They knew full well that one day, the other's life would become the [Ability Score] and [Excelia] needed for one of them to reach Lv.7.
That was simply the Telskyuran way of life.
Their reason for coming to Orario, beyond the desire for superior equipment — including [First-Class Armaments] and cursed weapons — to make their duels even more stimulating, was also the will of their patron Goddess Kali and the wishes of nearly every resident of the martial nation.
Moreover, Kali had a grander scheme in mind: using Haruhime's level-raising magic to temporarily boost Bache and Argana, then pit them against the city's mightiest adventurer — the captain of the Freya Familia, [The Warlord] Ottar.
In theory, there was no flaw in this plan. Bache and Argana both anticipated that battle with burning eagerness, already confident they could topple the city's strongest.
So — the four little squirts standing in front of them didn't even qualify as Freya Familia officers. They certainly weren't among those Lv.6 elites.
If they couldn't even get past these four, there was no point dreaming about challenging Ottar.
So neither Bache nor Argana had any interest in ganging up. They intended to each face the Gulliver Brothers alone — as a solo challenge.
The tension between both sides surged rapidly, until the air itself felt like it was one spark away from exploding.
And just as the battle was about to begin.
Suddenly.
On a side of the courtyard that no one had been watching — between the crumbling rubble of a broken stone wall — a pitch-black silhouette was slowly, silently coalescing.
[What is that?!]
Its appearance instantly seized every eye in the courtyard. It was simply too conspicuous to ignore.
Everyone present — on both sides — was a warrior who craved victory with pure, unclouded hearts. And so their nightmare, too, was perfectly pure: an overwhelmingly powerful, terrifying being that could never, ever be defeated.
The [Black Night King].
As inexplicable characters surfaced from somewhere deep inside their minds, both the warriors of the Goddess of Beauty and the female warriors from the martial nation found themselves, involuntarily, staring at the dark humanoid form that had just appeared before them.
It grew, slowly. Sharp, spike-like armor extended outward, jagged as a field of blades.
It held a greatsword.
And it gazed down upon them all with an air of absolute, dominating contempt.
At that very moment, even the night sky seemed to shift. The palace walls and soaring towers dissolved without a trace, replaced by an infinite, desolate wasteland.
The stars and moon seemed to collapse inward, compressing, compressing — squeezing down into a single gossamer thread of light.
And then it burst — scattering into a riot of brilliant, multicolored radiance that flooded everything.
[...Hah?!]
So — this was the enemy they had to defeat?
Both the Gulliver Brothers and Bache and Argana arrived at the exact same thought simultaneously.
And so — it came back to that classic question.
Who goes first?
But the [Black Night King] did not wait for their answer. Because the question was irrelevant. They had no say in the matter.
A "nightmare" does not play fair.
From the moment it is encountered, the only thing waiting for you is an "outcome you cannot accept." Nothing more.
— —
Meanwhile.
On a tiny, remote island far out at sea.
With the Goddesses and the girls completely unaware, Isagi had already slipped out of the wooden cabin and made his way to the beach outside. He was breathing in great, greedy lungfuls of fresh sea air.
He felt incredibly satisfied — because just moments ago, he had finished a thoroughly exhilarating battle.
[The Black Night King was under my control.]
It was just like playing a game.
Isagi struggled to put the feeling into words. It wasn't that he had become the Black Night King — on the contrary, throughout the entire thing, he had watched it all from some sort of abstract, bird's-eye perspective.
But the Black Night King had completely obeyed his "control." Whatever thought crossed his mind, it executed.
[Pretty damn satisfying, not gonna lie.]
The Gulliver Brothers were genuinely seasoned Lv.5 adventurers — their coordination was seamless and polished, and it was plain to see they had extensive experience fighting powerful opponents together.
Isagi had half-expected the fight to be a miserable slog.
Because honestly — multi-BOSS fights were usually a nightmare in the worst sense of the word. Two was already rough. This time it was four!! That was even one more than the Three Brothers of Jiangdong!!
And yet, the fight had been nothing but a pleasure from start to finish.
Because the [Black Night King]'s resilience was maxed out entirely. It didn't fear pain. It didn't fear injury. Whether it could even die was a genuine question mark.
Under those conditions, Isagi suddenly realized — he was the BOSS here.
They were all the challengers.
Oh. Well then!! No problem at all!!
____
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