Zald raised the blade.
Even as the sword kept draining his Magic, he didn't loosen his grip.
Deep cracks spread across the steel like a spiderweb, and the weapon let out a strained groan under the sheer pressure before it started to splinter apart.
His eyes flicked toward Ottar, who was still struggling to fend off the lingering shockwave, and a thought crossed Zald's mind.
'Could this sword be the same kind of weapon Ottar uses?'
'Now that I think about it, that strange blade was the only reason that brat managed to keep up with me earlier.'
The Evilus cultists had called this type of weapon by a certain name.
A Zanpakuto.
'How interesting.'
As the second charge neared completion, Zald held his ground without moving.
The cursed blade converted his Magic into a massive slash.
The power packed into that single strike was on par with a blow from Zald at the absolute peak of his Deus Ambrosia.
It carried enough force to leave even the Behemoth with a fatal wound.
In other words, this was an attack capable of killing a Behemoth.
Even with Tenken in hand, Ottar might not survive taking it head-on.
And if Zald followed it up with another one, then this would stop being a trial.
It would just become a murder.
Even while giving off bloodlust, Zald had been deliberately holding back most of his real strength.
But now, instead of helping him keep that power contained, Bakusaiga was dragging it all out and amplifying it to the level of his fully unsealed might.
Forget Ottar.
Even Maxim the Hero, his former Captain, wouldn't walk away from two back-to-back slashes like that.
To put it simply, if Zald unleashed one more attack, the "Necessary Evil" plan would reach its final act.
The monsters Erebus had gathered? The power Evilus had been stockpiling for years? None of it would matter.
With this sword, Zald could tear Babel apart in two swings!
If Erebus truly meant to play the role of an Evil God, and if Zald truly chose to act as his hound, then Orario would burn to ash today!
...
Ottar's face twisted.
His Boarman features shifted, sharpening into something more savage, more beastlike.
This was Beastification—his signature Skill, Vana Arganture.
The transformation gave him a huge boost in every stat, but it burned through his stamina and mental strength at a terrifying rate.
It was supposed to be used only at the decisive moment.
But Ottar no longer had the luxury of saving it.
If he failed to stop this, there would be no tomorrow.
"Mercy of the silver moon, golden fields, grant my body the life of a fighting boar... Bearing the Goddess's divine will, charge forward! Hildis Vini!"
The Boarman's one and only Magic wrapped itself around the massive blade of Tenken.
Pulling every last drop of strength from his body, Ottar swung upward and met the blue slash Zald had released.
The giant wave of energy, stretching for hundreds of meters, was forced off course by Ottar's blade.
The shockwave scraped past the side of Babel, barely missing the tower's core.
The crescent-shaped blast then shot straight into the sky, ripping open the clouds above. Sunlight poured down through the gap, casting bright rays over the ruined streets below.
When he hit the ground, Ottar dropped to one knee, his body on the verge of giving out.
Still, he didn't stop.
He yanked an Elixir from his belt, swallowed it in one go, and forced himself back upright.
Zald stood there waiting.
The moment Ottar noticed the weapon in his hand, cold sweat ran down his back.
'This was the worst possible outcome!'
That monster had gotten hold of one of Rayleigh's Swords—and not just any sword, but Bakusaiga, a blade made purely for destruction.
The compatibility between the two was absurd.
If Zald kept pouring his overwhelming Magic into Bakusaiga, then he would turn into a walking siege weapon.
In terms of raw firepower, he would far surpass even Riveria, the greatest Mage in the city.
He would become unstoppable!
"Brat," Zald said, "this sword and that oversized sword in your hand were made by the same person, weren't they?"
Ottar said nothing.
Zald gave a small nod. "I see. Silence is answer enough."
Ottar moved first.
He brought the massive spectral blade of Tenken crashing down in a brutal strike.
Zald sidestepped it with almost insulting ease.
Ottar slammed his boot into the ground.
A giant spectral foot formed high above and came crashing down toward Zald.
The attack covered too wide an area to dodge cleanly, but Zald didn't even bother trying.
He simply raised one bare arm and caught the phantom foot in his palm.
Boom!
The earth shook violently.
The stone beneath Zald's boots shattered under the pressure, and with his footing gone, his balance gave way as he sank deep into the newly formed crater.
Ottar didn't let up.
He swung his real blade next, the pitch-black greatsword tearing through the ground and carving a fissure nearly a hundred meters long.
Then the assault kept going.
Ottar drew back his fist and drove it straight into the crack in the earth.
But as he pulled his arm back, he failed to notice Zald clinging to the spectral giant's wrist, using it to ride his way back out of the abyss.
The instant he returned to the surface, Zald leapt through the air and landed right in front of Ottar.
Ottar swung his greatsword in a wide sweeping arc as Zald raised Bakusaiga and caught the blow.
"An interesting sword," he murmured. "I wonder if it can do this?"
Under Zald's precise control, the unstable blue light swirling around Bakusaiga began to contract.
The energy that had been spilling outward compressed tightly against the blade's edge instead.
"Heh. Then you'd better be careful."
For the first time in the entire battle, the stoic expression on Zald's face broke into a real smile.
Then he swung.
The horizontal slash carried a crushing, monstrous weight behind it.
Ottar tried to parry, but the force ripped him right off his feet and hurled his huge body backward through the air.
Faced with power like that, Ottar understood something immediately.
He couldn't stand his ground against it.
'How is this even possible? '
This kind of impact went beyond anything he knew!
His eyes locked onto Bakusaiga.
He followed the flow of Magic running through the blade, and the sheer density of it made the answer clear.
A blue aura of tightly packed magic coated the sword's edge.
'So that's what he did...'
Instead of firing the Magic outward as a ranged slash, Zald had forced all of that energy to stay condensed along the blade itself.
Because of that, what should have been a normal swing carried an utterly insane amount of destructive force.
Ottar's hands were going numb from blocking.
The cracks running along Bakusaiga deepened further, splitting wider with every clash, but Zald didn't care.
He didn't hesitate, didn't even glance at the damage.
He just kept attacking!
The gap in their raw power was starting to show.
Ottar was taking heavy damage just from trying to defend. Every time their weapons met, brutal tremors ran through his body.
The vibrations from Zald's slashes were becoming unbearable and internal injuries piled up with each block, and his vision began to swim.
"What's wrong?" Zald mocked. "Is this all the 'Strongest' amounts to?"
The force behind his slashes grew even heavier.
And yet—
Ottar noticed something strange.
Zald's technique was still sharp, still merciless, but the raw power behind each swing had stopped rising.
It reached a bottleneck.
The proof was simple.
Ottar was still alive.
In the state he was in now, even the slightest increase in power should have crushed him outright.
And yet he was still barely holding on.
'Could it be... Zald is getting weaker?'
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