Only the veteran Adventurers who had lived through the golden era of the Zeus and Hera Familias truly understood the terrifying extent of their power.
The Zeus Familia, commanded by their Level 8 Captain, Maxim, boasted numerous Level 7 and Level 6 elites in their ranks.
The weakest among them was none other than the father of Bell Cranel.
Even as the weakest member, he still stood proudly as a Level 5.
In today's Orario, such a person would undoubtedly be revered as a first-class Adventurer.
Yet within the overwhelming might of the Zeus Familia, a Level 5 was only deemed fit to carry the baggage.
In any other Familia, a warrior of that caliber would be more than strong enough to serve as the Captain.
As for the Hera Familia, they were arguably even more monstrous.
Led by their peerless Level 9 Empress, the Familia possessed a vast number of Level 7 members.
For them, Level 6 was considered merely standard combat strength.
While these two great Familias still stood, the forces of Evilus never dared to show their faces in the light of day.
Unfortunately, fifteen years ago, the Zeus and Hera Familias suffered a crushing defeat in their bold challenge against the One-Eyed Black Dragon.
This monumental loss allowed Evilus, who had long been suppressed and forced into hiding, to stir in the shadows once more.
The Zeus and Hera Familias were once the city's greatest protectors.
They were humanity's strongest bulwark.
But now...
"Why!"
"Why would the Zeus Familia join forces with Evilus to destroy Orario?!"
"Weren't you the city's heroes?!"
"Kyaaaaaaaah!!!"
Zald completely ignored the desperate accusations hurled by the dying Adventurers.
With every casual sweep of his massive greatsword, he effortlessly reaped at least three or four lives.
His stoic expression remained completely unreadable, revealing absolutely nothing of his inner thoughts.
He merely wore a mask of feigned ferocity to match his brutal actions.
Watching from the shadows, Alfia felt a deep sense of guilt.
What Zald was doing would bring an impossibly heavy sin upon his soul—a terrible burden she knew she should be sharing with him.
"Damn it!"
"Let's fight him!"
For true Adventurers, fear didn't equate to retreat.
Living by the edge of a blade and forgetting the looming specter of death in battle was the very core essence of their hearts.
Faced directly with an inescapable crisis, they refused to cower.
Instead, they decisively took up their arms to resist.
"Charge!" the brave Adventurers of Orario roared, launching their desperate counterattack.
For a brief moment, attacks rained down on Zald like a relentless storm.
Some fighters even leaped recklessly onto his massive armored frame, clawing fiercely at his face with their bare hands.
Others quickly looped thick ropes around his legs, pulling with all their combined might in a futile attempt to trip the giant.
Zald remained entirely expressionless throughout the onslaught.
Perhaps only those intimately familiar with him could truly understand the deep, agonizing pain he felt in that exact moment.
He swung the heavy blade numbly, detached from the slaughter.
With just one devastating strike, over twenty Adventurers were wiped from the earth!
That simple, unadorned strike proved instantly fatal upon contact.
Even if the blade didn't hit a target directly, the sheer explosive shockwave generated from the swing alone was more than enough to tear a fragile human body completely apart.
And all of this horrific destruction happened in the span of just a dozen breaths.
"STOPPPP IT!" Alise shouted, charging fearlessly into the fray with her Magic enhancement fully activated.
Her Engetsu blazed fiercely with intense heat.
The red-haired girl's bold attack successfully caught Zald's attention as he smoothly redirected his massive greatsword and swung it heavily toward her.
Crack!
The very earth split open beneath the force.
The terrifying wind pressure radiating from his falling sword tore a massive, gaping gash directly into the ground.
But Zald blinked in pure astonishment.
Because right where his blade had swung, there was absolutely nothing.
The girl had vanished!
At that exact moment, a heavy flaming slash landed squarely on his armored back.
A slight burning sensation seeped through the metal, bringing him a sharp moment of clarity.
He quickly reached behind him to grab his attacker, but the bizarre, logic-defying scene repeated itself.
'I failed to grab her again?' Zald felt truly surprised this time.
He had perfectly locked onto her presence, and the ability values displayed by her movements clearly marked her as a Level 3.
Yet, the raw attack power behind her flaming slash already rivaled the standard of an upper-tier Level 4.
Even with that impressive power, she absolutely shouldn't have been fast enough to dodge his previous lightning-fast attacks.
'What just happened? Did I somehow slow down? Strange.' Zald remained deeply puzzled, though he began paying much closer attention to Alise's shifting presence.
But even after several more high-speed attempts, he still couldn't land a single solid hit on her.
This unnatural sequence of misses made the seasoned warrior realize he might have fallen under some kind of powerful illusion.
"Why are you doing this?!" Alise questioned Zald, her voice ringing out across the battlefield.
But to Zald's inverted senses, her desperate words sounded exactly like the encrypted, backward whispers of a God.
Emotionally, he could clearly sense the girl's fury and deep indignation, but his twisted hearing couldn't properly decipher a single word what she was actually saying.
Zald stomped his armored foot heavily onto the ground.
Boom!
The earth shattered like brittle glass. Countless pieces of jagged stone debris scattered and flew outward like shrapnel, piercing anyone unlucky enough to be hit with countless bloody holes.
Alise quickly condensed a thick shield of flames before her, effectively blocking the deadly flying projectiles.
Watching from a safe distance, Rayleigh didn't rush to act.
He had only used the Shikai of Sakanade to safely disrupt the giant's senses and ensure the girls' safety.
But against such an all-encompassing, indiscriminate area-of-effect attack, his sensory manipulation was practically powerless.
After all, even the original wielder, Hirako Shinji, had been taken down in his own world by this exact same brute-force method.
Sakanade's optical and sensory illusion was undeniably overpowered in a duel.
However, it simply wasn't well-suited to handle enemies who could casually unleash massive, wide-area attacks that destroyed everything in their path regardless of direction.
Even using Sakanade's Bankai would be completely useless against Zald in this crowded environment.
Instead of helping, the wide-range cognitive inversion would only cause hundreds of Orario Adventurers on their own side to turn on each other in a frenzied slaughter.
For Rayleigh and the girls of the Astraea Familia, there was currently no viable way to defeat Zald.
So even if Rayleigh stepped fully into the fray, the grim situation wouldn't improve much.
Even unleashing the overwhelming blade storm of 'Senbonzakura Kageyoshi' would likely not prove fatal to a Level 7 monster like Zald.
Against that thick armor and impossibly tough skin, the petals might even struggle to leave a lasting injury.
What they desperately needed now was to wait.
They had to buy enough time and wait for the one man in the entire city who could possibly defeat Zald to finally make his appearance.
As if hearing Rayleigh's silent call, a massive black shadow rapidly descended from the sky above!
BOOM!
The earth shook as a towering figure, standing well over two meters tall, appeared right in the center of everyone's sight.
The thick dust slowly cleared.
When the battered Adventurers of Orario finally saw who had arrived to save them, they nearly burst into tears of pure excitement.
"Ohhhhhhhhhhh!!!"
"The strongest reinforcement is here!"
"It's Ottar!"
"The city's strongest has arrived!"
'Hmph.' Zald effortlessly hefted his greatsword, resting it casually on his shoulder as he looked at the imposing Boarman who had just appeared before him.
"Oh? Finally, a familiar face shows up."
Zald regarded the newcomer with the arrogant attitude and calm expression of an untouchable senior.
He gave Ottar a highly disdainful smile. "To think the little brat who once boldly challenged the weakest of our Familia and got thoroughly beaten is now hailed as the city's strongest. Orario has truly decayed in my absence."
Ottar was openly insulted, and his dark history of defeat was publicly exposed, yet the Boarman's stoic expression remained completely calm.
Zald narrowed his eyes slightly at the lack of reaction.
'It seems his mental composure has improved a lot over the years, at least.'
"Zald, are you doing all of this to avenge the Zeus Familia?" Ottar asked, his deep, resonant voice cutting through the noise of the battlefield.
At the same time, he slowly reached over his shoulder and drew the massive greatsword resting on his back.
It was an intimidating, two-meter-long broad-bladed weapon, perfectly suited for a giant like him.
As Ottar's heavy words reached Zald's ears, Zald realized that his twisted hearing had suddenly returned to normal.
In that brief moment, he sensed that the bizarre disorienting illusion previously cast on him had completely disappeared.
Seeing Ottar finally step onto the stage, Rayleigh relaxed his tense shoulders and safely deactivated the Shikai of Sakanade.
A Level 6 Ottar facing off against a monster at the peak of Level 7—by all logic, this grand battle should have ended with Ottar being completely overwhelmed and crushed.
However, the historic battle that was supposed to end in a one-sided defeat now contained a completely unknown variable: the Zanpakuto.
With this new power in play, how exactly would the outcome change?
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