The Avenger Comes Back to Himself

How joyful!

Ah, how very joyful!

Today, that fragment of you.

Emi's soul.

Has achieved a new awakening.

Nothing could be more delightful!

That beautiful black brilliance has increased in intensity, and captivates me more and more.

One could say that my efforts of long ago, when I had lost almost all my power and still stubbornly kept myself alive in despair, are being rewarded at last.

......That said.

I must brace myself once again.

Carefully, carefully, I spread my soul and patch over the places this awakening tore open and holed.

I will wrap Emi's soul once more with a membrane formed from my own soul.

In order to block the presence that comes from you, which leaks from her soul.

Emi is still like a newborn chick.

If the former you were a universe, she is now but a single, tiny grain of sand.

That is precisely why I must continue to keep her hidden.

Fortunately, this world is still young, and the foolish gods do not know of you.

Ufufu.

I shall make good use of this chance, and raise her.

Bigger and bigger!

Until one day, she can even reach you!

Ufufu, fufufufu.

Was that a bit presumptuous?

Even so.

The power she gained at the end of her awakening has been dragged toward the shape of that man's 【Invisible Hand】.

This is very, very galling.

I'm jealous.

But that is the result of Emi's efforts bearing fruit.

No matter how jealous I am, I have no choice but to accept it.

But.

The naming, at least, I shall have left to me.

That is no longer 【Invisible Hand】, but a special ability that only looks similar.

It may not even...... be similar.

They are hands anyone can see perfectly well, after all.

So, that is 【Black Arms】.

Yes, simple and easy to understand.

Very nice.

I'll propose it after the battle.

◇ ◇ ◇

Hideous.

The first thing the Golden Bear felt when he saw the new black arms extending from the shoulders of the devil, his sworn enemy, was a revulsion that shook his soul.

Next came dread.

He wanted to get away from those things immediately.

He wanted to flee.

He was seized by such emotions.

Ah, why hadn't he finished it off earlier?

He regretted it.

He was completely overwhelmed by the aberrant devil before him.

But still, at that moment, his mother's face flashed through his mind.

His mother, who had loved him deeply and protected and raised him.

His mother, strong and brave, who had protected him always.

His mother, wise and farseeing, who had taught and guided him.

And who was it that had killed her, the beloved king of the mountain, who had lived through such long ages?

The devil before him!

He was an avenger.

He had to kill that thing.

He would avenge her!

The flames of revenge burned once more in the Golden Bear's eyes!

Bachi, bachi!

His body filled with fighting spirit, and white lightning began to run across his skin!

“Ooh! GUOOOOOOOOOH!!!”

And 【White Lightning】 shot from the Golden Bear's mouth.

A spear of lightning that pierced its foe and burned it to death faster than anything!

The devil was weakened.

Furthermore, he had put particular strength into this 【White Lightning】.

It was twice the power of before!

In other words, the devil would burn helplessly, and die!!

That was how it was supposed to go!

That was how it was supposed to go, and yet!

Bachiin!!

With a violent sound, his 【White Lightning】 was blocked by the devil's 【Black Arms】, which had moved without a sound!

Apparently, those arms had a resistance to lightning.

“GUOOOOOOOOOH!!!”

In that case, the Golden Bear thought, and he gathered his strength into all four legs and broke into a ferocious charge!

Where to?

He was no coward, to run away now of all times.

Of course, the one standing where he was headed was the black devil.

The devil was still wounded all over.

Though it held both fists up in front of it, its footing was unsteady and wobbling.

It was plain at a glance that it was on the verge of death!

If lightning no longer worked, he would crush it with a physical attack!!

The Golden Bear leaped up with his momentum and raised his right arm high in the air.

To smash the devil with his mighty arm, infused with the power of lightning!

But here, once again, his attack was crushed.

The devil's 【Black Arms】 had done something he never expected.

He had predicted two possibilities for what would happen next.

One, that his attack would successfully crush the devil and his revenge would be complete.

And the other, that his attack would be blocked by the 【Black Arms】.

In the latter case, he intended to immediately recover his posture, move to the devil's side, and attack again.

But still, what actually happened was neither of those.

Then, what happened?

......They stretched.

The devil's 【Black Arms】!

The devil's 【Black Arms】 had palms, and there were parts that looked like elbows.

They were constructed to roughly mimic a human body.

So the Golden Bear misjudged them.

He assumed they would move like a human body.

But still, those 【Black Arms】 were formed by magic power!

It was a special ability, or, to someone who didn't know much, magic...... at any rate, something made manifest in this world by a mysterious power!

It would have been no surprise at all if they could stretch and shrink at will!

The Golden Bear had not considered that possibility!

The devil's 【Black Arms】 stretched like rubber, far beyond the range of motion that had been visible until then.

And they seized the right arm the Golden Bear had raised mid-leap, gripping it with tremendous force!

“GUOOOOOOOOOH!!?”

The Golden Bear screamed at the sheer pain!

But this was not the end!

Right now, it was the devil's left arm that was crushing the Golden Bear's right arm.

There was no way that devil would leave its spare right arm idle!

The next instant, the black right arm, stretched like the left, punched the Golden Bear's wide-open belly with tremendous force!

“Guooaaah!!?”

Eyes rolling back, spitting blood, the Golden Bear spun a full circle around his gripped right arm.

Boki boki boki!!

The bones in his arm broke!!

But terrifyingly, the attack was not over yet.

The 【Black Arms】 gripping the Golden Bear's right arm slammed him straight into the ground!

ZUDOOOOOOOOOON!!!

A resounding roar!

Swirling dust!

“Gu...... o......”

Sprawled on his back, the Golden Bear looked up at the sky.

His mind was hazy, and he could barely move anymore.

When the wind had carried the dust off somewhere.

What leaped into his view.

Was a hand chop of the 【Black Arms】, swung down out of the sky at his neck.

◇ ◇ ◇

And so, the Golden Bear's head was struck off.

But the tremendous vitality, the vast magic power he possessed, kept him alive even as nothing but a head.

That said, it wasn't as if there was anything he could do.

He could no longer even produce lightning.

He just vacantly gazed at his own severed torso.

Ah, ah, ah.

How unjust this world was.

He lamented.

His revered mother was slain, and his own revenge was crushed one step short.

Why did he have to suffer this?

What had he, or his mother, ever done?

No amount of regret was enough.

He hated that devil.

He resented it.

As he lay there, a severed head spending what was left of his life lamenting his grudges and bitterness, the devil's 【Black Arms】 stretched toward his body and gripped it.

What did it intend to do?

As the Golden Bear watched closely, the 【Black Arms】 gradually, gradually became shorter.

And dragged along the ground by the shortening arms, the devil drew closer to his body.

The devil drew the 【Black Arms】 back into its body and made them vanish, crawled to the cut end of the Golden Bear's neck, and there...... began to devour his flesh and blood.

In the blink of an eye, his body was disappearing into the devil's stomach.

It was clearly eating more flesh and blood than the devil's body could possibly hold, and yet, strangely, her stomach did not swell.

His own body grew smaller and smaller.

Seeing this, the Golden Bear.

Felt as if it had fallen into place, all at once.

Ah, so that was it.

The weak were eaten, and the strong survived.

His death, in other words, meant exactly that.

It was galling.

Galling, but he could accept it.

And that was a small salvation to him.

And then, a little while after that.

He passed on.

Emi is a fragment.

And “you.”

Mystery words that also came up in Arc 3.

You needn't worry about them.