Chapter 127: Embracing Your Ambitions in the Light — Part Thirteen
Recovery complete at last... Now I can go save Hyrule with peace of mind.
The needle loaded in my right fist drives through Lycagon's lower jaw the instant the uppercut lands. Written out, it's a simple thing—just armor-piercing super-firepower slammed home. But the actual sight of it is something else entirely. The energy injected through the needle invades and shatters even materialized night itself. The closest comparison in handling feel is a pile bunker, but the needle is ultimately just the setup for the destruction to come. Centered on the point of impact, Lycagon's lower jaw crystallizes—made brittle, ready to shatter against any armor... and then the accumulated destructive force is unleashed.
Sunraku: "ORAAA!!"
An eruption of energy—enough to blast upward through a jaw more than capable of crushing a human whole—detonates at point-blank range. The golden explosion pulverizes Lycagon's lower jaw, and cracks race across my right gauntlet.
Sunraku: "Whoa—guh...!?"
My right fist tries to rampage against my will. The golden destruction—hurled from below to above—is trying to force the gauntlet right back. I scramble to brace it, but in that instant, a particularly massive explosion scatters a shockwave over both me and Lycagon.
Sunraku: "Guh—!?"
The sensation is like suddenly taking a giant industrial fan at max output across your entire body. The game expresses its pain-limiters as a "pressure" that momentarily erases all sensation—slapping my whole body with an open palm. Unfortunately, I'm only anchored by my two feet, so I can't maintain the stance to resist that kind of shoving force. Like some grunt sent flying by a playable character in a musou game, I'm hurled straight backward.
Akitsu Akane: "Sunraku-san!"
Sunraku: "I'm fine! Blow it away!!"
My whole body is heavy, like someone locked all my joints. I know this feeling—it's proof my HP is a candle in the wind.
Sunraku: "Even at eighty percent, it does this...?"
At two hundred percent, would my body just get erased? If I screw up the landing, I'll lose even that sliver of remaining HP, and after coming this far, I'd be the only one waking up in bed.
Sunraku: "But this level of control loss is nothing!!"
Compared to the god-awful controls of those trash games from the early full-dive days—where they jumped on the cutting edge with nothing to show for it—this is a goddamn breeze! At least it's infinitely more comfortable than having lag in an offline game!! I force my body into a midair crouch, shifting my center of gravity forward. My simple sandals tear through grass and dig up soil, carving two lines into the earth as they try to kill the backward inertia. Even with my weight pitched forward, a moment's lapse and it'll send me flying backward again. In that case—change the approach.
Sunraku: "Basically, if I can just heal enough to not die on impact...!"
Place-and-heal, throw-and-heal, cheek-pouch delay-heal, shower-heal, soak-heal, inhale-heal, explosion-heal, midair-heal, fall-heal, heal-refresh, stacked-heal, delayed-heal, dodge-heal, betrayal-heal, fake-heal-HP-adjust-self-damage, self-damage-HP-adjust-fake-heal... Drink types, crush types, pray types—I've mastered every single healing scenario and method under the sun. Healing while being blown backward? Piece of cake. Forget boiling water on my belly button—I could cook fried rice over high heat. My legs, which had been fighting off a fall in an awkward backward sprint, now bend, twisting the momentum into an upward arc. Before I land, I pull out a recovery potion and force it through the mask by soaking it in—...ah. Even if it's a bird mask, right now it's a metal bird mask. Have I worn the bird mask so long my brain's turned into a bird-brain too?
Sunraku: "Guess I'm screwed... hm?"
Something's coming this way. And might I add—with that avatar and those stats, catching me is kind of physically impossible, Akitsu Akane...
Sunraku: "Ugah!?"
Akitsu Akane: "Owie!"
There's a grinding crunch—her fox mask slamming into my back—and the two of us are sent tumbling together. Fortunately, Akitsu Akane's body served as a cushion, absorbing most of the impact and pushing me past the damage threshold. As a result, I managed to avoid a stupid anticlimax like dying from a failed landing, but...
Sunraku: "...Appreciate it..."
Akitsu Akane: "...I-I'm humbled..."
In a dating sim, this might've been one of those accidental-pin situations, but we're in the middle of a goddamn boss fight, so there's zero room for anything like that. After tumbling together, I end up face-down with Akitsu Akane landing knees-first on my back. Grateful for her guts, I urgently wave her off. Now then—everyone's busted their asses to set the table... time to witness the greatest firepower standing above every player in SLF.
Psyger-0: "I am the one who pulls the strings of chaos. Dwelling in the heavens, I soar to the sky's very limit. Residing in the abyss, I descend to the depths of the pit."
This ultimate skill is granted the title of "trump card" from the very settings that color this world. Unlike magic, where you can skip the chant at the cost of reduced power and effect, this ultimate is a real pain in the ass—complex activation conditions, plus a forced lengthy incantation. But its power? It can be summed up in a single word: absolute.
Psyger-0: "The dual-faced fiend, still reaching forth to grasp the apex."
A chaotic strike, fusing the sacred and the profane—unleashed only against great foes who remain standing even after the Demon Lord Emperor Satan's Catastrophe and the Emperor Demon Lord Satanael's Apocalypse. The sword and armor, obtainable only by clearing the paired Unique Scenarios—"The Demon Lord Reaching for the Heavens" and "The Heavenly Emperor Treading the Abyss"—begin their metamorphosis. When the Divine-Demonic Sword Antinomy takes on an elemental attribute, the Twinface Armor—which once isolated and suppressed the opposing attribute—now abandons its role, rapidly reverting to its rusted, decaying, true form. In contrast, light and darkness spiral within the greatsword, and the collision of those opposing energies generates even greater power.
Psyger-0: "O great foe who blocks my path of supremacy—I need no herald upon the road I dominate. Therefore, this single stroke of mine shall shatter all creation that bars the way."
White and black cross, their target the jet-black wolf. Sealed by the flame bird. Destabilized by the fatal magic rabbit. Illuminated by the fox-masked ninja. Held at bay by the fatal samurai rabbit. And its fearsome jaw—pulverized by the bird-head bearing the wolf's curse. Darkness spills from the wound, shaping the lower jaw's bone structure, forming fangs, constructing muscle and flesh, rapidly rebuilding the mandible. But everything has come too late. Lycagon, with eyes that hold a certain resignation, gazes upon Psyger-0, upon Akitsu Akane, upon the two Vorpal Bunnies—and upon Sunraku.
Psyger-0: "My flesh is in heaven as Satanael, in demon as Satan. Through one dual-face, I execute chaos."
To Psyger-0, this ultimate skill had always been something of a nuisance—"a pain to remember, and almost never a situation to use it in"—verging on useless. But now, it feels as if it existed solely for this moment. To fulfill Sunraku's expectations. To bring all they've built together to fruition. To carry out the role entrusted to her. To bring this long, long battle to its close. With the end of her incantation, Psyger-0 brings the greatsword crashing down.
Psyger-0: "Sing the end of the beginning... Armageddon!!!"
Unleashed, the white-and-black cross. A chain of unleashed destructive force, each wave devoured and crushed by the next. A torrent of energy, intensifying in stages, spirals and slams into Lycagon. From the initial 1.0x blow, ten stages of multiplicative damage judgment hammer home—a genuine "ultimate attack" that strips Lycagon's resources away at a terrifying rate. When the final wave scatters into nothing, when the white-and-black radiance fades from the night sky where the moon has begun to set... what remains is Lycagon, its entire left half gone. Its shape can barely hold its original form—it looks ready to collapse at any moment. And in fact, with its left half cleanly obliterated, it should be physically impossible for it to even stand. Yet the jet-black wolf remains standing...
Psyger-0: "Still... not enough...?"
Sunraku: "Seriously, please spare me from injury time at this point..."
As the cost of activating Armageddon, color and power have drained from her sword and armor, leaving Psyger-0 a rusted, crumbling remnant of a knight. Shielding her, Sunraku and Akitsu Akane—and Emul and Ceecrue—step forward. Lycagon twists the corner of its mouth toward the tiny beings who dared defy it, visibly, deeply amused... and at last, its body crumbles into ruin. Left behind in the aftermath is only Suzaku, driven into the earth.
Psyger-0: "Did we... do it...?"
Sunraku: "Don't jinx it... no, seriously, do NOT raise a flag..."
Akitsu Akane: "You did it, you two! You beat Lycagon!"
An uneasy Psyger-0. A Sunraku wary of the meaning behind words. And Akitsu Akane, rejoicing in victory. As each processes the situation, the two rabbits—and a moment later, the three players—notice it.
Emul: "S-Sunraku-san... I-It's looking... wa! Lycagon is...!!"
Ceecrue: "Akitsu Akane-dono... Lycagon is still present... de gozaru."
There is no visible form. And yet, the absolute certainty that it is there—right there—draws the senses of the three and two toward a single point in the empty darkness. The presence in that supposedly empty space simply watches, quietly, the pioneers who defeated its clone... and then, it smiles. At least, Psyger-0 felt it.
Title [Shadow Wolf Piercer] acquired. Special status [Guiding Light] obtained. Bonus Unique Scenario "The Courageous Light That Cleanses the Dark Night" — Begin? YES / NO
[This single part, "Embracing Your Ambitions in the Light — Part Thirteen," is absolutely packed with foreshadowing for crucial setting elements of Shangri-La Frontier's world, especially regarding the heroine's equipment and Lycagon's nature.