LGHTNOVELBOOK Chapter 196
Translator: Marctempest
Editor: Rynfinity
Chapter 196
A fearsome Aura Blade that could split even the hardest rock that had endured for hundreds of years flew towards her.
*Boom!*
Her 8-star Mana Barrier blocked the Aura Blade.
*Swish.*
Her figure was seen melting into a mass of light.
Torn pieces of paper fluttered around her.
'A scroll…?'
It was a consumable artifact, exceedingly rare, with only a few in existence even among ancient artifacts.
Shaura was using it to disappear somewhere.
- "If you survive against that giant, we’ll meet again."
*Flash!*
And with that, she vanished in a burst of light.
“Damn it…”
Aden trembled with anger, his eyes wide open as he realized he had let her escape.
But he couldn’t afford to wallow in his frustration for long.
- "Graaahhh!"
The real problem was figuring out how to deal with the damned man-eating skeletal giant.
* * *
*Fwoosh.*
Shaura returned to the hidden chamber of the Magic Tower in a flash of light from the teleportation scroll.
And then…
“Urgh, cough…!”
She vomited a mouthful of bright red blood.
“Heal!”
She urgently cast a healing spell on herself.
Feeling her body quickly calm down, she slowly caught her breath.
“Haah, ha… what on earth…?”
Her insides were completely shaken up.
She had definitely blocked the attack with her Mana Barrier.
But the impact had bypassed the barrier, causing a violent disturbance in the mana within her body.
With her natural intelligence as a mage, she quickly analyzed what had happened.
‘Did he read my mana pattern?’
A mana pattern.
It was like a fingerprint or writing style, a unique flow of mana that each mage possessed.
In that brief moment, Aden had read the mana pattern of her Mana Barrier and delivered the shock directly through it using an Aura Blade that matched the pattern.
To put it simply, he had made the entire Mana Barrier vibrate like a bell, shaking everything inside.
This phenomenon, known among mages as Mana Resonance, was an extremely rare occurrence brought on by a series of coincidences.
But Aden had artificially induced it using Aura.
It was a move fueled by Aden’s wicked intent, ‘If I can’t kill you, I’ll at least make you suffer!’
Shaura, who was born with an innate talent for magic and had grown to be a monster in her own right, couldn’t believe what Aden had done.
He hadn’t calculated a spell; he had done this just with the intuitive realm of Aura…
“Aden Remes…”
Her red eyes twisted in anger.
For the first time in her life, she felt a humiliation she had never known, and her body trembled with rage.
But then she shook her head.
‘I even resurrected the bones of the ancient Fallen Lord. He’ll definitely die. There’s no point in feeling this way towards a dead man.’
She repeated these thoughts several times, trying to calm her mind.
He’s as good as dead.
But then, why?
As she looked at the blood she had vomited, Shaura couldn’t shake a strange sense of unease.
* * *
- "Graaahhh!"
The giant roared.
It devoured everything in sight.
The Western Army, closest to the skeletal giant, was utterly devastated.
But that didn’t satisfy it, so it set its sights on the retreating Eastern Army.
- "Do you think we’ll just stand by and let you do that?"
- "We are the guardian divine beasts of our tribes!"
- "Attack…!"
The Eastern divine beasts fought back against the skeletal giant.
*Fwoosh!*
The Flame Cat Miao unleashed a barrage of flames at the giant.
*Sssss.*
Jormungandr climbed the massive skeleton, wrapping itself around it.
*Awooo!*
Fenrir summoned wolves of wind to attack the giant from all sides, diverting its attention.
*Bang, Bang, Boom!*
Blue Bear created spears of rock to strike at the giant.
Thanks to these divine beasts, the skeletal giant roared in frustration.
Of course, being an undead creature without intelligence, it was hard to say if it was truly frustrated, but it appeared that way.
With four divine beasts intervening, it initially seemed like they were holding their own.
However, Curse’s reaction was skeptical.
- "Those divine beasts won’t last long, Dragon Slayer King."
“Why do you think so?”
- "That skeletal giant is a remnant of the ancient giants’ king. Dozens of dragons died trying to kill that being. These mere divine beasts won’t even be able to scratch its bones."
“Dozens of dragons… I can’t even imagine.”
Aden’s brow furrowed as he recalled the memories of the Regressor World, where the Mad Dragon Hermit had rampaged.
If it had taken dozens of dragons to finally kill this creature, it was more than just a monster; it was something beyond that.
- "The Mad Dragon you know may have fallen from its prime, but it was once known as the Dragon Lord. Not all dragons of that era were as strong as she was. However, you can’t deny that the giant king was absurdly resilient."
They had to kill it here, no matter what.
- "Graaahhh…!"
The sound it emitted was laden with malevolent energy, which drained the souls of those who heard it, wrapping their bodies in terror.
Only the divine beasts and Aden could remain composed in front of it; anyone else would have lost their minds.
- "What is it saying, Father?"
“What?”
Then Leo suddenly said something strange.
- "Two? No, three! Someone inside that bone guy is talking!"
Bone guy, he called it.
Leo’s boldness in naming the monstrous skeleton that way was admirable, but that wasn’t the issue.
“They’re talking?”
- "Yes. They’re saying, ‘Release us from this bondage, young king of the divine beasts and his contractor.’"
Three voices.
And Leo could hear them.
It wasn’t hard to guess who the voices belonged to.
‘The divine beasts of the Western forest.’
The souls of the Turtle, Crow, and Black Tiger divine beasts, who had been sacrificed to awaken the giant, were surely the ones speaking.
‘But why is Leo the only one who can hear them?’
It might be because Leo was a Spirit Dragon, a species known as the Harmonizer of the Divine Beasts, or perhaps because he was a being who had absorbed the Dark Magic Energy.
Leo conveyed the words of the Western divine beasts.
-“Our souls are being consumed by hatred and anger, blurring our consciousness.”
A divine beast was not just any beast.
They were beings born as mere animals who had attained divinity.
Even after becoming undead and being sacrificed to resurrect the giant, they had maintained their self-awareness.
Though it wouldn’t last long.
-“We reject becoming the fertilizer for a being that will destroy the forest we have protected, and harming other divine beasts. Please, help us. Destroy this giant and set us free.”
“Why ask me?”
-“Because only the ‘Heir of the Dark Heavens’ can cut the ‘Sky.’”
Hmm.
It seemed there was an ancient divine beast among them, like Fenrir.
That divine beast must have recognized the Dark Heaven Sword Dance Aden had used.
-“There’s no time. The giant’s will is growing stronger by the moment. Before we’re completely devoured!”
Leo, with urgency in his voice, conveyed the divine beasts' desperate plea with a vivid impression.
Aden looked at the skeletal giant.
“This is perfect timing.”
Then, a slight smile formed on his lips.
“I had something I wanted to test out.”
It was time to demonstrate the knowledge he had received from the Avatar of the Sacred Fire Lord.
* * *
*Boom, Crash, Bang!*
The divine beasts fought fiercely against the giant.
The Flame Cat Miao was frustrated.
- "Damn it! Why is this thing so hard!"
But none of the divine beasts’ attacks could deal any real damage to the giant.
The undead giant lord was so tough that its form had withstood over a thousand years of weathering.
Their best effort was barely keeping it from advancing toward the Eastern Army.
But now, even that was becoming difficult.
*Whoosh!*
- "Aargh!"
Blue Bear was sent flying by a blow from the giant’s skeletal arm.
*Thud!*
- "Ugh!"
The giant grabbed Jormungandr, who was wrapped around its body, and slammed it into the ground. The impact left Jormungandr’s massive body limp.
- "Jormungandr! Blue Bear!"
Miao was horrified. The giant approached, intending to finish off the divine beasts for good.
Just as Miao was about to hurl a fireball to draw its attention.
- "What… what’s happening!"
Miao’s body began to shrink. The strength drained from her body.
It wasn’t just Miao. Jormungandr and Blue Bear also shrank, returning to their young divine beast forms.
- "Grrr?"
The skeletal giant seemed to feel as if the divine beasts had suddenly vanished, as their presence had become as small as wild animals.
‘The power we regained is being drained away!’
Miao realized that the power they had barely obtained through the contract was being siphoned away.
- "What is this…"
It was then.
Miao noticed that the giant’s gaze was fixed on something.
‘What in the world is it looking at…?’
The now small kitten-sized Miao turned to see what the skeletal giant was staring at.
- "Nyaa?"
Miao’s eyes grew wide, like a cat seeing a cucumber.
*Fwoosh.*
In that spot, a pitch-black flame was burning.
* * *
- "
I am the one who severs the reverse scale of the dragon."
- "The one who splits the blazing fire that melts thousand-year-old castles."
- "I will cut down all oppression that seeks to subdue me."
- "Sword Spell, ‘Dragon Slaying Blade’ is being manifested."
*Fwoosh!*
The blue flame sword that had once severed Kaan’s storm as an Advanced Sword Master rose again.
- "Warning. Extreme overload is being applied to your body."
The Sword Spell wasn’t something that could be used just any time.
It was like a trump card.
Using such a technique twice in a single day was putting a huge strain on Aden’s body.
But he didn’t have time to care about that.
‘We’re all going to die if I don’t do something.’
With the regenerative mana he had, it wouldn’t be a big problem.
‘But this isn’t enough.’
To destroy that giant, he needed something even stronger.
*Crack, Crack, Crack!*
So, through Leo, he scraped together every bit of mana from the divine beasts and poured it all out.
- "Grrr…"
The giant’s gaze shifted as if it had noticed what Aden was up to.
It looked at Aden.
Chills ran down Aden’s spine as he felt his body hair stand on end.
“It’s unbelievably huge.”
A giant over several hundred meters tall.
He now understood why this being was called the ‘Sky’ in ancient times.
Its mere presence was enough to command and dominate everything in this world.
But.
‘Well, size alone doesn’t matter. The Mad Dragon was huge too.’
He had once slain a dragon in a previous life.
There was no reason to be scared of a dead giant.
- "Graaahhh!"
The giant, seemingly annoyed by Aden, approached him.
Unfortunately, the ‘Dragon Slaying Blade’ Aden possessed was insufficient to destroy the giant.
So, he decided to add one more thing.
‘Dark Heaven Sword Dance.’
The Sacred Fire Lord had passed on to Aden the knowledge of the ‘complete Dark Heaven Sword Dance.’
And it annoyingly matched well with Aden.
‘A sword art created to fight against the Fallen Lords.’
It resonated perfectly with Aden, who had fought fiercely against the Demon Lords.
Over the massive blue flame sword, a different hue began to spread.
*Swish!*
Aden’s Dark Magic Energy rose from the blade.
He wielded the Dark Magic Energy while still holding the Dragon Slaying Blade.
- "The ‘incomplete Dark Heaven Sword Dance’ is evolving into the ‘complete Dark Heaven Sword Dance.’"
- "The Dark Heaven Sword, ‘Heaven’s Sword,’ is being activated."
The Heaven’s Sword, a blade specialized in slaying the Fallen Lords who were once called the Sky.
*Rumble!*
The will to cut down the celestial being overlapped with Aden’s Dragon Slaying Blade.
The blue flame sword and the dark flames intertwined.
- "The ‘Dragon Slaying Blade’ and ‘Heaven’s Sword’ are merging."
- "A new sword technique has been created."
Aden had created a new sword.
A sword that was neither from his past life nor from anyone else—one that he had forged for the first time in this life.
*Roar!*
The sword burned with a fierce aura, glowing with a blue-black light.
- "Warning. This technique exceeds the capacity of the user’s body!"
- "Your body is under severe overload!"
‘Damn it.’
The pain in his body felt like he was being pierced by countless needles.
Aden felt as if his entire body was being torn apart.
‘It’s done.’
But the smile on his lips deepened.
*Whirrrr.*
Baalzebul’s blade trembled as if in agony, as if it were screaming in pain.
Even the world’s hardest sword, the 72nd Sword, was speaking.
That if he poured any more power into it, it would break.
It was telling him to stop right now.
The sword, forged from the remnants of a Fallen Lord, was crying out in despair.
This was enough.
- "Graaahhh!"
The giant raised its arm high, preparing to crush Aden.
*Whoosh!*
Then it brought down its skeletal hand to smash him.
Just before the skeletal giant’s palm could crush him.
“Nice to have met you, let’s never see each other again. You damned giant.”
Aden swung the blue-black flame sword down.
* * *
What happened next was revealed by the system.
*Rumble…!*
< "You have slain the ‘Giant Lord Nephilim.’">
< "You have achieved the ‘Giant Slayer’ achievement.">
Aden had slain the giant.
- "The user’s body has fallen into severe exhaustion."
Aden collapsed on the spot and fainted.
< "You have achieved the ‘Savior of the Great Forest’ achievement.">
The Great Forest had been saved from crisis.
But that wasn’t the end.
< "You have accomplished a great feat.">
< Your system access privileges have been elevated. You are now free from the ‘World’s Constraints.’>
< "You have entered the sanctuary of the transcendent being, ‘Sacred Fire Lord.’">
- "Haah… I can’t believe I’ve come across such a crazy bastard."
At that moment, a bewildered male voice was heard.