Staring at the all-too-familiar face on that severed head, the Minister froze.
It was his son—Shura.
"You—!"
He hadn't expected this at all. He'd sent Shura to attack Anvale, and yet Akuto still managed to intercept him en route and take his head.
"How is it? Do you like my gift?" Akuto smiled faintly and let the head roll to a stop.
Even with the head gone, the Holy Sword shard embedded in Shura's chest still gleamed faintly, absurdly conspicuous.
Back when he watched the anime, Akuto had always wondered about that bullseye on Shura's chest. Wearing something like that—wasn't it just begging people to strike your heart?
So he simply… obliged Shura's "request."
Seeing his son's corpse, the Minister finally lost the last shred of reason. "Traitor Akuto! I'll make you pay!"
Rrrr—RRRRUMBLE!
The ground heaved. A towering mecha burst up from within the palace.
Within the transparent barrier, the Minister merged into the Supreme Teigu in one fluid motion.
[Ding!]
[Main Story Quest triggered—"The Minister's Counterattack" (Gold).]
[Quest Rank: Gold]
[Description: With the Emperor taken and Esdeath missing, the Minister senses mortal peril, goes mad, and will use every method to annihilate the Host.]
[Objective: Defeat the Supreme Teigu and eliminate the Minister.]
[Note: Upon completion, world Corruption will fall to the minimum threshold. The Host will be recognized as a native lifeform of the "Akame" world, and may freely use other-world arts and abilities to affect and modify this world.]
One glance at the prompt, and Akuto arched a brow. Figures—it always comes down to the Supreme Teigu.
Otherwise, how did General Bud lose yesterday without the Minister deploying it?
The Supreme Teigu's visor flashed red—power climbing a stage—then its system fine-tuned output.
A lance of crimson annihilation roared down at Akuto on the palace square.
"Too slow."
Akuto flickered aside; the beam missed, detonating behind him. In the bloom of ruin, he shun-stepped to the Teigu's head, twisted sideways, and axe-kicked.
The special alloy skull didn't shatter outright, but the sheer force knocked the entire frame sideways.
With a titanic crash, the Supreme Teigu slammed into the ground, throwing up a hundred-meter geyser of dust.
"Minister, you didn't think my size caps at what I used on Bud, did you?"
Yes, this frame stood several times taller than Bud's Lightning Gundam, but… Akuto's body can scale up without limit.
He'd held back last time only because Bud's frame was that tall.
[Red Dragon Emperor's Forbidden Hand—Gigantification Mode!]
While the Supreme Teigu scrambled upright, Akuto's physique swelled—matching its scale in seconds.
[Boost! Boost! Boost! Boost! Boost!]
He raised a palm and hammer-fisted the Teigu's faceplate.
Metal shards fountained off. Even those fragments alone flew for dozens of kilometers and speared into the earth, stuck like stakes.
"W-what!?"
Shocked by Akuto's raw power, the Minister forced the Teigu to full throttle. He threw punches while the mouth-plating spat lasers—a storm.
"Pointless, Minister."
Akuto simply walked through the beam, palmed the Teigu's head, and smashed it down onto his rising knee.
With a bone-deep crack, the head module caved; inside, a bloody line opened on the Minister's scalp.
"Don't underestimate me!"
The Minister actually had trained in martial arts in his youth. Though he'd grown soft, he wasn't utterly helpless. He clamped both of Akuto's gauntlets; the Teigu's wrist thrusters flared at max, barely prying himself free.
Combat sense, he had some. But not enough to matter against Akuto.
Worse—Anvale and the Empire's southern front had both ignited at once. The network that feeds the Teigu was diverted. What should have punched at Super-Maō output was now throttled down to Maō-class at best.
And Maō-class? Couldn't even scratch Akuto, who was about to step into Super-Maō himself.
[Aestus!]
The Devil-slaying Holy Sword answered his call. From the emerald jewel of the Boosted Gear sprang a hundreds-meter golden blade.
[Boost! Boost! Boost! Boost! Boost!]
The reinforced sword sheared through everything in its path. A rain of metal plates clanged to the ground.
The Minister snatched up a severed arm assembly in panic. Thanks to top-tier imperial material Orichalcum and its potent self-healing, he reattached it on the fly.
But… that was the only thing he got back.
At the same time his arm re-mounted, Akuto's Holy Sword ran the Teigu through the chest.
"IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS—!!"
Agony that should have knocked him out washed over the Minister; he nearly blacked out.
"No… I have to use that!"
[Offer the Empire's Dragon Vein as tribute—Summoning at full speed!]
[By the pact with the First Emperor, I proclaim your true name!]
[Donghai Yunlong!]
[Now is the time to fulfill the covenant!]
Across the Capital, dragon aura surged. Above the palace, a golden pillar of qi pierced the clouds and shot skyward.
"Donghai Yunlong…?"
Akuto frowned. In his memory, only one being fit that title and the power needed for the Minister to call it:
"That dragon-type Danger Beast whose body hair can slice space?"
Legend says: when forging the Teigu system, the First Emperor sent a grand army to the far east. In the hyper-high clouds beyond the farthest east, his invincible troops suffered their first defeat—at the fangs of that Danger Beast the chroniclers simply called "Dragon."
Afterward, from a single plucked hair, the Emperor created the thread-type Teigu "Thousand-Weave Cross-Tail." Its Boundary-Cut Silk was so strong that even space shearing could not sever it.
And that was just one of the tougher hairs. The dragon's scales and claws were several times sturdier.
This Donghai Yunlong—cloud-borne and sea-hidden—was the purest echo of the eastern dragon in myth: able to grow or shrink, ascend or sink; to raise clouds and spit mist when great, to hide in needle-holes when small; to soar through the cosmos or lurk beneath the waves.
Whoooosh—
A gray-white colossus plunged from the heavens straight into the Teigu's crown and merged within.
"Oh? That fast?"
According to Data-Eye readouts, this dragon can teleport to any place where cloud-qi exists.
The data stream painted the whole fusion in Akuto's mind: Donghai Yunlong slid in as the spinal column, then latticed itself across the Teigu's surface with filamentous dragon-hairs. Most importantly, it injected all its dragon qi into the frame.
With the dragon-qi backing, the Supreme Teigu's output spiked back to maximum.
Eight smaller cloud-dragons unfurled behind the frame, circling it like a throne. Already towering, the Teigu was now wrapped in billowing cloud aura—a grotesque, living bio-tech chimera stronger than before.
"So that's why the Capital's dragon-vein accounting never matched… Besides sustaining the Teigu, the excess has been feeding a dragon."
"The First Emperor was truly audacious: couldn't slay Donghai Yunlong, so he fattened it on imperial dragon-qi to call on at the crucial hour."
"But a single Super-Maō-class Yunlong… still isn't enough."
The Boosted Gear's jewel blazed like never before. As if something unlocked, Akuto's spiritual power surged.
From ages past, the fates of Heavenly Dragon hosts were grim—most died after invoking Juggernaut Drive. The gear's forbidden powers are steeped in the despair of countless past wielders. Without monstrous talent, hosts lose themselves to those sentiments, burn life to fuel the form, and perish.
A genius like Vali, blessed with both human and Maō blood, can substitute mana for life and throw J-Drive around with impunity.
And now, there was another who could use it without injury.
With Akuto's growth, he'd reached the point where—with the system's "No-Injury Juggernaut" reward—he could finally step over that last threshold.
"Kh—ha—ha—ha—!"
Green aura rings erupted around him, stacking higher and higher. Ddraig's deep voice rolled through heaven and earth:
[Awaken, O Red Dragon Emperor who grasps the law of conquest—]
[Cast aside all limits, silence all doubt—]
[As the Tyrant of the Red Dragon—drag them into the crimson purgatory!]
[Juggernaut Drive!]
As the form snapped into place, Akuto heard it—something like a shackle breaking.
"That's it."
After spending the No-Injury J-Drive charge once, he had seized the feel of it.
From now on… Akuto could enter Juggernaut freely.
Most importantly, in Juggernaut, he could wield the true power of the Red Dragon Emperor—his overall might settling firmly at Super-Maō-class.
He leveled those vast, emerald eyes on the cloud-wreathed colossus before him.
"Round two, Minister. Let's see whether your pet dragon… or my dragon wins."
(End of Chapter)[Get +20 Extra Chapters On — P@tr3on "Zaelum"][Every 500 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter Drop][Thanks for Reading!]