As Leone carried Mine back toward the Dragon Ship, a growing sense of unease began weighing on her.
'What is that smell of blood?'
More importantly, why did every instinct in her body tell her to turn around and run?
Something on the ship was frightening enough to make even Lionelle afraid.
It was not Leone herself reacting.
It was her Teigu.
A loud cracking sound came from the Dragon Ship.
Leone looked up while holding Mine, and a huge shadow covered them both.
"What the hell is that?"
The enormous ice pillar rising from the ship had broken and was falling toward them.
"Mine!"
Leone knew she could not avoid every piece while carrying her.
Mine understood immediately and raised Pumpkin, firing repeatedly at the falling ice to shatter the pieces heading toward them.
"Leone, are you trembling?" Mine asked. Since Leone was carrying her, she could clearly feel the shaking in her body.
Leone did not try to hide it.
"There's something terrifying on that ship. It isn't Esdeath. She makes me feel like I might die, but this is different. It feels like something up there wants to eat me."
...
On the rear deck of the Dragon Ship, Akame supported Bulat, who had lost one arm and part of one leg, while staring at the creature roaring before them.
Moments earlier, Bulat had finally made a mistake while defending against Esdeath, and she had cut off his right arm.
Then she had taken his left leg below the knee.
Just as Bulat believed he was about to die, an enormous hand descended and closed around Esdeath.
Esdeath had been surprised.
The user of Incursio was strong enough to fight her evenly at first.
Unfortunately, the armor's performance weakened as its user became exhausted, and Bulat had gradually fallen behind.
It had been a long time since Esdeath had needed to focus so completely during a fight.
That was also why Bulat had occupied too much of her attention.
The moment she realized she had been caught, Esdeath pressed her hand against the giant palm and froze the entire limb. Oranides still swung her down and smashed her into the deck.
The frozen hand shattered into countless pieces.
That did not matter.
As a biological weapon, Oranides could regenerate any injury as long as its core remained intact. It could sacrifice a hand without hesitation if doing so allowed it to injure its enemy.
Akame had initially been wary when the black giant appeared from nowhere.
However, it attacked Esdeath without showing any interest in Night Raid.
At least for now, they were not its targets.
She hurried to Bulat and stopped the bleeding.
He might no longer be able to continue fighting, but a companion's life was not something she could easily abandon.
Tatsumi remained trapped inside the ice, unable to move, but he could still see everything clearly.
Hot tears gathered in the corners of his eyes despite the cold.
'Big Bro... His arm and leg...'
He would never forgive her.
Esdeath!
Esdeath rose from the broken ice.
She glanced at her unnaturally bent arm, placed her other hand against it, and twisted it firmly back into place.
She did not even frown.
The action seemed no more painful to her than brushing dust from her clothes.
"So this is the black giant Nyau mentioned. The creature that killed Liver and Daidara."
...
Noah watched the battle through his surveillance formula from inside the private booth.
When it seemed Akame was about to be killed, he had released Oranides to buy her some time.
Saving Bulat had only been incidental.
The man possessed an excellent soul, bright and full of passion. He would have made high-quality food for Oranides.
It would almost have been better if Noah had acted a little later.
Then Oranides could have eaten him.
...
"So you've finally appeared."
Esdeath's main purpose in arranging this operation had been to draw out the black giant that killed the Three Beasts—or, more precisely, to expose its controller.
However, no one matching that role was visible nearby.
A biological Teigu should not have been able to travel far from its user. That meant the controller was probably hiding through some unknown method.
Esdeath smiled.
"I may have let my guard down, but you still managed to break one of my arms. I'll give you credit for that."
A path of ice formed beneath her feet.
Esdeath stepped onto it and accelerated, traveling rapidly upward as the path extended from the deck into the sky.
Within moments, she had reached a height of twenty meters.
She snapped her fingers.
A block of ice more than five meters across formed above Oranides.
"I'll crush you."
Esdeath sent the enormous mass down.
Oranides opened its mouth and aimed upward.
It was not drawing Focalor.
Highly compressed energy gathered inside its mouth.
After a brief charge, an invisible shock wave burst outward and struck the ice block, blowing it apart into countless fragments.
The attack was actually a tightly compressed spiral of wind, inspired by the attack Noah had seen from the Goliath.
His version was more extreme, however.
The pressure was strong enough to destroy the barrel used to launch it—in this case, Oranides's own mouth.
That was acceptable because the damage could regenerate.
"What unusual prey."
Esdeath's pale blue eyes brightened as a much heavier pressure began radiating from her body.
Akame and Bulat immediately understood something disturbing.
She had not been using her full strength until now.
"Akame, hurry," Bulat said. "Get Tatsumi out of the ice."
"Right."
Akame ran to the frozen boy and gathered her strength before bringing Murasame down.
Cracks spread through the ice.
She stepped back, and Tatsumi forced his way through the weakened shell from inside.
Without stopping to check himself, he rushed to Bulat with tears in his eyes.
"Big Bro, your arm and leg..."
Even in his current condition, Bulat smiled brightly when he saw Tatsumi was safe.
"I'm fine! As long as you're all right!"
Tatsumi wiped his eyes and lifted Bulat onto his back.
"Leave it to me. I'll take you home. We're going back to Night Raid together!"
Esdeath was too absorbed in fighting Oranides to pay attention to them.
Countless ice blades erupted beneath the giant, piercing its body. Even its hard black scales could not completely stop them.
The injuries still did not slow it down.
Oranides broke the ice blades inside its body, clenched both fists, and brought them down.
The impact tore through the deck, and all three members of Night Raid fell into the ship below.