There were only a few dozen meters left. In the blink of an eye, he would be within striking distance.
Seeing Xien charging straight at her through the crimson world without the slightest hesitation, the female-form creature's expression stiffened, and her lips pressed shut.
Then her green hair swayed, and her throat trembled.
"—Aaaaahhhh!"
As though answering her shrill cry, the ground erupted.
Countless green, lance-like plants shot upward from below, as if they were roots thrusting out from deep underground.
"!!"
Centered around the female form, within a radius of ten meters, bundle after bundle of tendrils rose up and formed a towering circular wall.
Everyone was stunned by the immense barrier that had sprung up around the corrupted spirit monster, but in a place none of them could see, Xien's lips curled into a faint smile. Of course he knew what this was.
This was an even harder defensive measure than the gigantic flowers from before.
Its final barrier.
"!?"
The sudden wall made everyone's hearts sink.
Was this attack going to fail...?
But the very next instant, to the crowd's utter disbelief, Xien vanished.
In that moment, the female creature seemed to catch a faint glimpse of something abnormal in those crimson eyes of vengeance.
There was no time to respond—
Almost at the same moment, Xien appeared again, this time right in front of her alluring human upper body.
The distance between enemy and ally had finally dropped to zero.
Facing the giant plant-bodied monster, Xien gathered every ounce of strength in his body in a breath that sounded almost like a dragon's roar.
He raised the sword-lance high above his head, aiming directly at the spirit's true body—the upper half perched atop the colossal plant form. Hidden from everyone's sight, a pale blue light had already wrapped itself around the blade.
Then he brought it down—
But in that final instant, just one second before impact—
She smiled.
Her lips parted wide, revealing the back of her mouth—and the small magic circle floating there.
Using the shrieking roar of all those wildly lashing tendrils as cover, the female form had been chanting an extremely compact spell all along, concealing the pale blue magic formation she had manifested inside her own body.
The stunned silence and feigned surprise had all been an act, a trap laid for this very moment.
As if telling him too late, the female form unleashed her magic.
"[Ice Pillar Blade.]"
A massive spike of ice.
It would strike in the blink of an eye. There was no way to dodge.
Xien watched helplessly as the blue-white blade shot toward him.
In the next instant, his slash missed, and the ice spear pierced through his body, carrying him flying backward.
"!!"
Everyone gasped in horror. No one had expected such a nearly certain kill to fail like this.
"Ahahahahaha—"
The female form laughed, laughing loudly, and immediately began chanting once more.
Despair swept over everyone's hearts again—
But just as Ryu was about to rush forward and help, everyone froze when they saw what Xien did next.
"Hahahahaha..."
He yanked the ice spike out of his body, blood frothing at his lips, and laughed.
That laughter rang in everyone's ears, startling both the gloating female form and the others alike.
She did not understand why this ant was laughing.
Had he gone mad?
"The ending's already decided, you piece of trash. Go puzzle it out in hell!"
Staring at the grotesque monster he now found utterly revolting, Xien pronounced her death sentence.
He had read the original story.
How could he not know she had another trick like this?
This had always been an exchange of wounds for wounds.
And compared to him, her attack simply wasn't enough.
Before anyone could understand what he meant—
The moment those words fell, something changed in the female form.
Her expression began to twist in pain. A ripping, agonizing torment seized her, and she let out a shriek.
"Wuaaahhhh—!"
Then a bloody seam began to appear down the exact center of her face, widening from top to bottom.
Before the dumbfounded eyes of all present, a sharp blue flash streaked through the air, like a slash that had cut the world itself in two. The space on either side of the line shifted apart before snapping back into place.
Only, that rejoining did not include the corrupted spirit.
That powerful enemy was slowly, completely split in half.
The giant magic stone embedded in the female torso was pierced clean through, and in an instant it crumbled into dust, blown away by a storm-like roar.
The resulting blast sent out a terrifying shockwave that shook the entire surrounding area.
A violent gale swept up clouds of dust and raged in every direction.
"—!?"
The adventurers raised their arms to shield their faces as the storm slammed into them.
A furious pressure wave surged past, flooding their vision with colorless brilliance.
When the storm finally subsided and they opened their eyes again, they saw a lone figure standing in the ruins.
It was that boy—Xien.
Looking at the giant magic stone that had been split in two, he turned and faced the others, grinning with uninhibited triumph.
"Everyone, mission accomplished!"
At last, the crisis had been resolved.
Right before all of them, that boy had achieved what should have been impossible.
He had struck down the very embodiment of despair.
Fate Counterforce Rewritten, Interference Value +5000
Freya stared at the crystal orb, her body trembling ever so slightly without her even noticing.
Within the orb, the scene was one of celebration. Everyone had hoisted the boy high into the air, reveling in the joy of surviving despair and reaching a new dawn.
But the goddess in the Divine Tower was not happy in the slightest.
She had, indeed, once again witnessed the change in the color of his soul as she had hoped.
But what was now burned into her mind was not joy, but fear.
Because his soul truly had changed.
Only this time, unlike before, it had not turned into dazzling brilliance.
Instead, it had become something like the black flames of vengeance—a darkness capable of devouring everything, a soul so predatory and fearsome it made even her shudder.
And that "monster," now bearing such a soul, seemed to have gained some extraordinary new power in this battle...
That unusual ability of his...
Was that the power of space?
"Ouranos... don't tell me even you were involved?"
There was no mistaking it. The anomaly that had cut through space, that unique aura—without question, it was a space-type power.
Time and space were authorities belonging only to the Great God. Even Zeus, who had already departed, had never possessed such a domain. Yet now it had appeared in the hands of a mere lower-world human.
And this had happened without Ouranos interfering? She refused to believe that.
"Xien... just what secrets are you hiding? What exactly are you?"
Even with all her pride, Freya bit her lip and felt, for once, at a loss.
The incident was over.
Led by Astraea's people, everyone had succeeded in stopping the crisis, and almost miraculously, there had been no fatalities.
The cooperation of multiple familias had ensured that the disaster was contained the moment it appeared.
The special medicine supplied by the Astraea Familia had made it possible to administer high-level emergency treatment the instant injuries occurred.
Though an unexpected aberration had appeared at the end, even that danger had been overcome by the unbelievable performance of the Hero Candidate—Xien.
What should have become the opening note of a larger catastrophe instead turned, thanks to Xien's influence and coordination, into a battle that genuinely lifted the city's spirits.
After this fight, Orario finally stepped out from beneath the shadow of the disbandment of the two great familias.
A new hope had been acknowledged by the people.
And that hope belonged to Justice.
For a time, the name Xien spread throughout all of Orario, becoming the talk of the city.
As for the enemy, aside from the Dark Faction members Xien had executed on the spot, some had managed to flee.
It seemed they were already looking for their next chance.
But that no longer mattered. Others would deal with tracking them down.
For now, the hero only needed to accept the cheers and praise.
Outside, Xien's fame had exploded—but he himself was far too busy to care.
At this very moment, he was frantically stockpiling more of the new medicine.
Far from becoming complacent from all the outside praise, he was honestly still shaken by the whole ordeal.
Because if he hadn't had enough reserves at the critical moment to let Orange Cat upgrade his eyes to the Mangekyo, they really would have died.
Sure, in the end it had looked like he'd won rather easily, but that was only because of the new cheat ability he had awakened—
Kongtong Tribulation.
The Sharingan, also known as the "Eye That Reflects the Heart," greatly enhanced the abilities it already possessed when it evolved into the Mangekyo. But beyond that, it would also awaken special powers based on the user's own nature.
Xien was no exception.
Upon advancing to the Mangekyo, in addition to the standard abilities—Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi, and Susanoo—he also awakened a unique space-type ocular technique that matched his own traits:
Kongtong Tribulation.
It was somewhat similar to Kamui, but fundamentally different. At its core, it was a kind of spatial severance.
It came with two abilities:
The left eye controlled movement.
The right eye controlled attack.
The movement ability allowed him to teleport anywhere within his field of perception. Of course, the farther the distance, the more eye power it consumed. He could also teleport objects by touching them, with the cost rising in proportion to their mass.
The attack ability was spatial rending. It treated the visible world like a sheet of paper—his weapon slicing not matter, but space itself. A terrifyingly sharp attack.
That was the power he had used to kill the corrupted spirit.
His final strike had not really targeted her body at all, but the very space she occupied.
Her death came down to one mistake: after piercing Xien, she had failed to stop the motion of his swing.
Unlike Kamui, which required a short distortion phase, Xien's power tore space instantly.
No buildup. No warning.
It was the perfect top-tier assassin's skill.
At the same time, he had also gained an extradimensional space similar to Obito's, one that could be used for storage.
So then the obvious question was:
If it was that powerful, why hadn't he simply teleported in front of her the moment he awakened it and stabbed her? Or just slashed the space she occupied from the start?
Why go through all the extra trouble of having Riveria break her defenses, closing the distance, and striking her right in the face? Wasn't that completely unnecessary?
And that was where the real frustration lay.
It wasn't that he hadn't wanted to.
It was that he couldn't.
As powerful as the technique was, its consumption was absurd. After using two short-range teleports and one spatial-rend attack, his eye power had already been exhausted.
By the time the battle ended, he had actually been in a state of partial blindness.
That was the greatest limitation of the skill.
The farther the distance, the more the cost of either teleportation or tearing space increased exponentially.
At the several-hundred-meter range he had been dealing with back then, if he had tried to use it directly, the technique probably would have failed halfway through because his eye power would have run dry.
It was already almost on the level of abilities like Izanagi or Izanami in terms of being effectively single-use.
Thankfully, though, his earlier fear of going blind in the short term turned out to be unfounded.
The power of Abundance really could restore his eyesight and ocular strength.
It just seemed, due to the nature of the power, to require about a full day.
But even so, Xien was thrilled. That outcome was far better than he had dared hope.
Even so, if he wanted to master stronger power and obtain more ocular stamina, then the Eternal Mangekyo was still something he would absolutely have to exchange for later.
So for now, this ability could only serve as a heavily limited trump card.
If he wanted to become a true "space assassin" who made people tremble in fear, he still had a long way to go.
Of course, the gains from this fight went far beyond that.
Not only had his normal status values improved tremendously, but his so-called "high-tier experience"—his Great Feat—had filled again.
All he could do was laugh bitterly.
In this city, he was probably the only one like this.
He was practically about to become Level 4, and every single time, his Great Feat filled up before his ability values did.
When Astraea had updated his status afterward, the look she had given him had been so strange that even someone as thick-skinned as him had wanted to cover his face.
Beyond that, his understanding and combat application of Abundance had also undergone another qualitative leap.
Now, he no longer needed to rely on nature magic to make use of Abundance.
He could directly summon plants with Abundance power, or animate objects and use them in battle.
He could also use Abundance to integrate his other powers and strengthen his body, entering a kind of special state similar to a weakened version of Sage Mode.
In other words, he could now tear through steel with one hand.
At his current level, in a normal state, his raw stats might still fall just slightly short of the absolute top class—Riveria's magic, Ottar's endurance, and the like.
But if it came down to a real one-on-one fight, he absolutely would not be afraid.
At this point, the only people who could truly defeat him in a straight duel were probably his master and Uncle Zald.
....
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