"What if we attack its mouth?"
"Impossible. Common sense doesn't work on a creature that huge."
Even though sound should have been well-suited to spreading, Arphia shook her head calmly.
She was saying that no matter how excellent the attack was, it would still be nothing more than a meaningless variable before such absurd size.
"I'm going to chant. Block it."
"...Yes, ma'am."
Chanting. I'd seen Arphia chant a few times, but I'd never actually seen the spell itself.
I had only vaguely assumed it must be an incredible attack from the way her Mind surged.
Was I really about to see it firsthand...
Gulp
Without meaning to, my tension rose. The vague monster wasn't the only one here. The being in front of me was also a hero who would define an era. She'd been overshadowed by the prodigy and the empress and never made her name known, but as far as I knew, she was unquestionably the strongest mage.
Then there was only one thing for me to do.
"Hoo..."
I'd take that monster's attack. Nothing more than that.
"Kyaaaaaa!"
"!"
The instant a part of that massive body opened, I swung my sword. It was almost a miracle, born from the harmony of all the senses, experience, and instincts I'd honed over time.
Kagagagagak!
And at the same time, I heard a grinding sound, as if something were being shredded.
The sound was nothing like what I'd expect from a water cannon colliding with a spirit sword, and I frowned.
"Heavy...!"
And it wasn't just heavy.
It was heavy, deep, and relentless. As if it were drawing water directly from the sea, the attack showed no sign of stopping.
I wanted to deflect it to the side, but it was water, so I couldn't even do that. In that case...!
"[Astrafe]!"
Lightning shot from my sword and climbed up the water-pressure cannon. Seawater containing salt was an excellent kindling for electricity. The directed current raced toward its target.
-Keeeeek?!
A scream rang out. It was the cry of the monster being ravaged by electricity.
But it wasn't the scream of the leviathan.
"What the...?"
How should I even describe that? With my meager knowledge, nothing came to mind easily.
If I had to think of the closest thing, it was a parasite.
A guard that infested the leviathan's body and protected it.
The water-pressure cannon I'd thought the Leviathan was firing was actually being launched by parasites living in its body, not by the Leviathan itself.
And when one parasite is found, the rest come swarming out.
-Kieeeeeek!
-Kyaaaaaaa!!
-Kkaduk-kkaduk
-Eukjeok-eukjeok
-Aaaaaaaaah!
Countless holes opened all over the leviathan's body as if flesh itself were being gouged out.
Those were all spaces where parasites lived. There were already hundreds of monsters dwelling inside that massive body.
When I first saw it, I'd thought it was like a single territory, and it seemed that wasn't entirely wrong. Looking at this scene now, the Leviathan felt less like a living creature and more like a Dungeon.
A cradle of monsters. The Leviathan was a paradise for monsters that lived in the sea.
Hundreds of holes turned toward me. I couldn't block that, and I couldn't endure it.
"Arphia—"
I hurriedly looked back, but the woman hadn't moved an inch.
Her gaze held a kind of trust so absolute it was almost violent, as if she were certain I would stop it.
"Ha."
Damn it, what kind of situation was this?
I laughed at the absurdity, but I didn't hate it.
Trust was like a drug. Once you received it, it brought out feelings you couldn't cut off.
She had placed her trust in me. That meant I had no choice but to live up to it.
Zzzing—
Particles of light converged into [Astrafe]. A five-second charge. It was a pitifully short time, but the rest would have to be handled with sheer grit.
Thwooooom!
The hundreds of streams of water merged into one and became a massive shell. Dodging it was impossible anyway. I had to smash it aside like this...!
"Ghk—?!"
A pressure far beyond before crushed me down. Weight as if my body would be pulverized on the spot. It felt like I was carrying the sea on my back.
So this is one of the Three Great Quests...
So this is the king of the sea...!
Even attacks that were only meant to keep me in check from the enemy's perspective were fatal to me one by one. The converged light couldn't even serve as comfort; it was crushed along with the light itself...!
"Well done, kid."
Then, with that voice, space warped.
-Kieeeeeek?!
The moment I thought the weight I'd been holding back vanished, I heard the Leviathan's scream for the first time.
What, what was that?
"You little sandworm-looking bastard."
The woman glared at the monster with a ferocious smile.
"You're dead today."
With the empress's declaration, magic rained down.
Colorful spells poured from the sky like rain.
I'd wondered what everyone had been doing while I was holding it back, and apparently they'd all been chanting. As expected, they were as expected.
But...
That still wasn't enough. Even magic that seemed powerful enough to fill an entire floor of the Dungeon could only achieve localized effects against the Leviathan. That wasn't enough to deal a fatal wound.
"Hey, are you done?"
"Yeah."
But they hadn't expected that to land a decisive hit either.
That was only suppression. The real attack was something else.
"[Xenos Angelus]"
"[Loudness War]"
The two spells merged. Like air being blown into a balloon, the second spell expanded the first even further.
-Kyaaaaaaaa?!
For an instant, I felt as if silence had fallen over the world.
But that was closer to the calm before the storm.
....Gugugugugugugu.
The world warped. It bent and twisted, writhing helplessly before overwhelming force.
But all of it lasted only an instant. By the time I came to my senses, the world had returned to normal.
And then that distortion rang out like a giant bell.
Deeeeeeeng—
Like a trumpet announcing the end of the world, the beautiful yet ominous sound spread, and the world turned over as if flipped upside down.
...
"No good. It's missing the feel."
You could ask what a spell was supposed to have "feel," but this was a matter of sensation.
They said a skilled archer knows whether an arrow will hit the moment it leaves their hand. Arphia had something similar.
And that sensation told her the enemy still hadn't fallen. Unfortunately.
"Hey, how's your body?"
"No problems."
But it didn't matter. She was not her past self.
That was why she'd used such a large technique from the very start. Normally, she would never have used something this big so early on.
[Xenos Angelus]. Her strongest attack and perhaps the most powerful firepower in Orario.
Even the empress in front of her had a higher level, but when it came to raw attack power alone, she was lacking in comparison.
Of course, that didn't mean she was weaker overall.
"You used it once and collapsed like a wet rag. What's gotten into you?"
As the empress said, powerful techniques came with powerful backlash. Even more so with the empress's enhancement.
The old her wouldn't have been able to use a one-shot technique this easily.
"My body recovered a long time ago."
Yes. If her body hadn't recovered, then...
By now, she had already broken the curse with the power of sacred flame. With time after that, her frail body had grown sturdy, and her chronic lack of stamina had long since been overcome.
"I don't want to praise you or anything, but... honestly, that's amazing. If your body gets better, does your [Falna] get better too?"
"Nonsense."
A god-given [Falna] could not be measured by human standards. Even if her body were too weak to contain all of it, the power of the [Falna] itself would not diminish.
This was closer to removing shackles.
"Three times at most. Bring it down before then."
"You're awfully arrogant, you know that? If you weren't the main damage dealer, I'd toss you into the sea."
Even as she said that, the empress swept out her hand. At the same time, the bombardments flying toward them twisted and were hurled back to where they had come from.
-Kyaaaak!
Through the smoke, the enraged Leviathan emerged. It was the first effective hit of the battle.
A wound at least 800 meters long. Though in the first place, it was less an attack and more a bombardment.
"No way..."
For the Leviathan, it was only a tiny wound.
It had been a meaningful attack, but not a fatal one. Because it was too wide-ranging, its power had actually been diluted.
For that to become a fatal wound, it would have needed to hit the head at minimum.
And considering the size of that body, that was absurd.
"Guess we need to soften it up a bit first."
"The parasites are the problem. They're acting as shields, so the attacks aren't reaching the inside."
"Tch. Attack again! Get ready!"
-!!!!
The frenzied roar of the king of the sea echoed out.
That monster had probably never been wounded to that extent in its life. It would be stranger if such a massive body had any wounds at all.
In other words, that monster had felt pain for the first time today. Its blood was probably boiling.
No one here was going to miss that opening.
"Ooooooooh!"
Zard moved first. He bit into the flesh that had splattered toward him, swelled his whole body, and charged straight at the Leviathan.
As the Leviathan's body split open, hundreds of parasite monsters spilled out. If you didn't dodge, you'd be swept away in an instant.
"Haaah!"
But Zard chose not to evade. He drove forward, concentrating all his strength at the tip of his sword.
It wasn't magic or a skill. Just honed technique.
The slash, reaching the level of a single truth, became an invisible shockwave and cut through the monsters before striking the Leviathan itself.
Compared to before, it wasn't even a scratch. But it was the second effective hit of this battle.
Next to charge was the prodigy I had thought had been blown away.
Looking toward the sea, I saw the Poseidon Familia surrounding the area. Had he returned with their help?
"Uoooooooh!"
With a thunderous shout, the prodigy's body twisted. His frame grew larger, and his teeth and claws sharpened.
Maxim had transformed.
"Aaaaaah!"
Claws whose every strike held a sharpness comparable to a blade tore into the Leviathan's body.
Riding the momentum of the successive effective hits, the subjugation force launched its attack. Amid the chaos of skills and magic, the only ones remaining on the front line were Zard and Maxim.
Only those two, along with the captain of the Poseidon Familia supporting them, refused to retreat in this catastrophic battlefield and held the front.
"What are you standing there staring at?"
"Huh?"
While I was dazed by the sight, something grabbed the back of my neck and lifted me up.
The sensation of my feet dangling and the sudden buoyancy slammed through my whole body.
When I looked back, I met the eyes of a wicked witch... no, of Arphia, who had picked me up.
Cold sweat ran down my cheek. For some reason, I felt like I was in greater danger now than when the Leviathan had just attacked me.
"Watching a fight in the middle of battle. You really have it easy."
"I-I wasn't watching, I was just waiting for the right time to jump in... Wait, where are you going?"
Even with my excuse, Arphia didn't spare me a glance.
She carried me all the way to the edge of the deck.
With each movement she made, my feet swung like a pendulum.
Was it my imagination that made it feel like the countdown to execution?
Cold.
A dagger flew into my chest and lodged there.
The image of a witch gripping both ears of a rabbit over a boiling pot flashed through my mind.
"Watching for the right time, huh... That's a fine way to put it. But it seems you don't know one thing."
Arphia drew her arm back. Coincidentally, it was the very hand holding me.
"Timing isn't something you watch. It's something you make. [Gospel]."
"Wai— Kyaaaaaaah?!"
Bang! With the sound of air bursting, the witch dunked the rabbit into the pot. No, Arphia threw me.
"A rabbit... is flying?"
"It's a flying Almiraj!"
At the sudden boom and the old-fashioned scream of a boy that didn't fit the battlefield, the gazes of both monsters and humans focused on me at once.
I was the battlefield's super star, the kind that drove both the haves and the have-nots crazy.
Superstar, physically.
The Almiraj-not-Almiraj supernova, forged from level 7 strength and magic, crashed down upon the Leviathan.