Mydei raised his one remaining arm. His left hand was already covered in wounds, some so deep that the white bone beneath was visible, but he still brought it down with all his strength.
The helmet of Gnaeus, who lay on the ground beneath him, was knocked completely away, revealing the face of an utterly ordinary middle-aged man, someone who could have passed for any random pedestrian on the street.
"Titan! I won!"
Mydei roared, declaring his victory like a lion standing over a defeated enemy.
"You defeated Gnaeus. Well done, young man. Though covered in wounds and utterly exhausted, you truly defeated Gnaeus and proved that you are qualified to face Strife."
Gnaeus's body dissolved into illusory motes of golden light and drifted away. At that moment, Mydei clearly felt something descend upon the battlefield, and an unprecedented pressure settled over his body.
Supporting his battered and exhausted body, he turned around. Beneath a mantle of golden light, an enormous figure descended from the sky, resembling an exquisitely sculpted statue pieced together from marble.
It was Nikador, the Titan of Strife.
"So the opponent I gave everything to defeat was only a fraction of a god's power? The difference really is enormous."
Mydei said this without running, surrendering, or dropping to his knees to beg for mercy. He flexed his left hand, which had already begun to heal, then picked up his severed right arm from the ground and pressed it against the stump. After waiting a few seconds for it to reconnect, he raised his head again and looked at Nikador, who had landed before him and was now gazing down at him.
"Young man, the Black Tide possesses a power that even gods cannot overcome. Not even we Titans have been able to eradicate it completely. You gave everything you had merely to defeat an incarnation formed from a fragment of my power.
"So I will give you a chance. Go back. You are still young. Train for a while longer and continue to grow. Perhaps then you may truly possess the strength to defeat me."
Mydei coughed up the blood pooling inside his lungs and wiped the corner of his mouth. Then he looked directly at Nikador, whose divine presence weighed down upon the battlefield.
"How long would it take me to become strong enough to defeat you? And during that time, how many more people will lose their children to this disaster? How many more homes will be swallowed by it?
"I have to become stronger, faster. Fast enough that no one else has to die, fast enough that these tragedies stop repeating themselves.
"My teacher wanted me to become a hero of justice ever since I was a child. So I kept answering that expectation. I trained, studied, and worked hard because I wanted to become an officer who could help people, someone others might call a hero.
"To tell you the truth, I never had any particular obsession with becoming one. I'm not like that idiot who read a few comic books and spent his whole life dreaming about being some great hero.
"Cough... I was only answering my teacher's wishes."
Mydei's exhausted, slightly hunched body straightened again. His grievously injured body began healing rapidly under the influence of that unknown power.
"But when I watched friends who had been laughing and talking with me only moments before die on the battlefield, and when I saw their parents standing in front of me with tears streaming down their faces, I realized just how desperately I wanted to become a hero. The kind of hero people talk about in stories, someone who can change every tragedy and save everyone.
"My teacher once asked me what justice meant to me. I told him it meant helping people.
"He shook his head and said I still hadn't found my own justice. But if he asked me that question now, I know exactly what I'd tell him.
"My justice is simple. I don't want to see those tears and that grief ever again.
"Nikador, give me your power."
After saying that, Mydei ignored the majesty of the god before him and the overwhelming difference in their strength. With the recklessness, or perhaps courage, of someone choosing to attempt what he knew should be impossible, he threw a punch at a god.
"What is Strife in your eyes?"
Nikador asked.
"How the hell am I supposed to know something like that?!"
Mydei roared. In this cycle, the disaster had erupted before he had even finished high school.
"Then let me ask you something else, young man. Once you obtain the power of Strife, what will you do with it?"
"Fight. Fight until the end of the apocalypse, until we reach the dawn beyond it."
"Good, young man. Remember this. I am Nikador of the Heavens! I am the necessary pain of this world! Exhaust your strength, your cunning, and every last ounce of brute force you possess. Tear the Coreflame of Strife from my corpse!"
The enormous Titan and the tiny human collided, sending a towering cloud of dust into the sky.
Storms swept continuously across the already desolate land. The earth itself was battered into ruins, cracking and splitting apart beneath the force of their battle.
Mydei had no idea how many times he died.
He only knew that there were many moments when he lost consciousness entirely and continued fighting through nothing more than the instincts engraved into his body.
His body was shattered again and again. At times, he was even crushed into pulp. The overwhelming power of a Titan truly was a gulf no ordinary human could cross.
And yet Mydei crawled back from death every single time.
He knew that whenever he died, he fell into an illusory river filled with the souls of the dead. Every soul within it was carried inexorably forward by the current.
Only Mydei fought his way upstream.
All for the sake of those who were still alive.
Even when his body was completely destroyed, some unknown power would restore it at astonishing speed. Again and again, Mydei rose and returned to battle the Titan.
Until, at last, ten days had passed since the battle began.
Mydei gripped Nikador's golden spear and drove it straight through the Titan's skull.
Nikador finally released a sigh of relief. After spending more than a thousand years sealing away the Black Tide, both his body and soul had long since been exhausted. Now, at last, he could enter the long sleep of death.
Mydei stood atop Nikador's corpse and raised the Coreflame of Strife high above his head.
The first demigod of the new age had appeared.
"To ensure your student could completely inherit Nikador's legacy, you brought him back from death again and again. That was rather cruel of you.
"The data for the Hunt has now been fully loaded. All that remains is a hatred deep enough to carve itself into his soul, followed by vengeance. The Hunt pursues fairness and justice, but its origin lies in the purest form of revenge. What will you do when the time comes, Mr. Caelus?"
Lygus, who had been observing the battle from nearby all this time, smiled as he addressed Caelus, who had likewise watched from the sidelines.
Caelus did not answer him. He merely looked toward Mydei in the distance as the young man accepted the Coreflame's trial. Once he was certain nothing unexpected would happen, Caelus turned and began walking away.
From here on, all he needed to do was sit quietly at the end of the story and wait for one final meeting.
"I still don't understand why you insisted on raising him this way," Lygus said. "Even without using the Abundance, you could simply have raised him to become someone consumed by vengeance. There would have been no problem with that. And yet you deliberately chose to teach him heroism instead.
"Hero. Those really are two heavy syllables."
As Lygus spoke, he could not help remembering the man from the original story who had continued to bind him again and again.
Perhaps becoming a hero truly required being that kind of relentless fool.
A fool who, even when unable to see any future ahead, would still grit his teeth and keep moving forward.
The kind of fool who made even others feel
respect.
(To be continued.)
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◇ You can read the ahead chapter on Pat if you're interested: p-atreon.c-om/Blownleaves (Just remove the hyphen to access normally.)