[I do not like this.]
Whatever she disliked now, the bastard kept poking my cheek and complaining.
[Why are you not killing them?]
“Are you okay?”
The first one I checked on was the boy, who was barely breathing.
“......Mis......ter.”
“Hold on a little. You too, and Kai too.”
I took one in each hand.
“Ugh......”
“Hey. Just forget it. You had a bad dream. You and Kai both......”
“Lina.”
Kai was speaking with eyes that seemed to float in empty air.
“Li......na.”
From the very beginning, the Lina I had known had been a cat.
Naturally.
“......Kai.”
There was no way she could be alive.
“......”
What was I supposed to say?
“This is strange......”
With dead eyes, Kai looked at Lina’s corpse sprawled on the floor.
“Why......?”
At a time like this, what was I supposed to say?
“......I’m sorry. I should have...... I should have come sooner.”
No, I knew there had been no way from the start.
It was not that I had delayed and failed to come here.
Nor was it that I should have come but did not.
“Truly......”
Even so, a holy knight was.
“I’m sorry.”
Not one who killed, but one who protected.
Because I had failed to protect the hearts of the boy and Kai.
“I’m sorry......”
Those were the only words I could say.
And then.
“You arrive only now?”
I heard someone approaching.
“Move the children, and......”
......
Why?
Step, step.
Why was there only one set of footsteps?
“Damn it.”
From far away, a red sun fell upon me.
“What are you?”
“......What am I?”
Time. I needed to buy time.
“Are you that War bitch’s lackey?”
“Bitch.” “Lackey.”
No matter who heard it, those were words of hatred toward War.
‘Fuck.’
The thing I had feared most.
“I ask again.”
Had become reality.
“Answer before the great sun! Who are you!”
[Sun?]
War had joined hands with the Sun.
***
An apostle.
I could tell the moment I saw him. He was not some believer trash, but a true apostle.
“No wonder the sacrifices did not come up to the altar.”
So the altar in the room belonged to the Sun.
“Tsk. As expected, I should never have joined hands with something like War.”
Ignoring the bastard talking to himself, I gathered blood-red divine power in the hand hidden behind my back.
The place that divine power was headed was the children.
‘Done.’
Blood-red light, clear enough to be visible, flickered around the children’s bodies.
“Hah. I wondered what petty trick you were using.”
The bastard said that, and in an instant, he was right before me.
“How trivial.”
BOOM—!
“Ow......”
He hit a person into a wall the moment we met.
“Ptooey!”
“You have guts!”
Flames flickered from the bastard’s hand.
A moment later, the hand itself took on a form no different from flame.
When he clenched his fist while the flames flickered, his fist looked just like a sun.
“Fuck!”
The bastard’s sun and my blood-red star collided.
CRASH—!
A sound like the sky collapsing echoed through the entire sewer.
RUMBLE—
No, it was not the sky, but the ceiling, sounding as though it might collapse.
“Damn it!”
I withdrew the mace and pulled far back.
“Haha! You are a coward!”
Matching him head-on would be suicide.
This place was underground.
‘I need to avoid his attacks as much as possible.’
Just as I finished that thought, the bastard rushed in again.
“Hahaha!”
The bastard who had closed in was not swinging his fists, but blasting fireballs from them.
And through those fireballs, his real fists rushed in as well.
“Do not run away! Fight!”
I want to do that too!
“You bastard like a believer of the Evil God of War!”
The Apostle of the Sun, grinding his teeth, made his flames swell even larger.
FWOOSH—
Soon, the aura of flame spread not only over his hands, but over his entire body.
“Haha!”
The apostle’s entire body was burning.
[......Fucking lunatic.]
The bastard charged.
I moved forward instead.
I ducked under the charging bastard’s attack and let it flow past me. Then I lightly struck his side with the mace.
However, it was impossible to send him flying along with that mace.
Instead, his solid body blocked it, and the strength left the hand holding the mace.
THUNK!
Sadly, the mace flew far away.
[At least you did attack.]
I, too, was taking comfort in those words.
But there was little meaning in it.
‘Could you at least pretend it hurts......?’
The wound caused by the mace regenerated quickly.
No, rather than regeneration, it was closer to new flames forming even over the wound and patching it shut.
‘Fuck.’
No wonder Grandpa Harkan always looked exhausted whenever he came back from facing apostles.
“This is why fighting apostles is so shitty!”
Before overwhelming regenerative power, it was meaningless no matter how much of an advantage one held in hand-to-hand combat.
Not only that, the veil of blood I had cast for the children was gnawing away at my divine power little by little.
‘A drawn-out fight is not the answer.’
I had to end the fight as briefly and quickly as possible.
‘How?’
I could not use a powerful attack.
How was I supposed to end it without a strong attack?
“You heretic bastard!”
Instead, the bastard gave up trying to grab me and pointed his finger upward.
FWOOSH—
A small fireball above the bastard’s finger gradually began to grow.
As it grew larger and larger, it soon reached the ceiling of the sewer.
“This is the sun itself!”
The fake sun shot from his finger.
SHRRRK—
I caught it with golden threads made of divine power and slammed it into the ground.
BOOM—!
The still-burning fake sun was driven straight into the floor and cooled cold.
SNAP—
However, I could not reuse that thread.
Because of the lingering heat, the thread’s life had ended far too easily.
“You bastard!”
The bastard, whose decisive attack had been blocked, charged at me while growing the flames around his body even further.
“What are you, a bull?”
Even a bull would not fight that stupidly!
‘I cannot jump.’
Normally, I would have leapt upward to avoid the attack.
But the place I was in now was a sewer.
“Fuck!”
I threw myself to the side and avoided it. But there was little meaning in that.
CRASH!
The bastard, who had slammed into the wall, changed direction and charged at me again.
That situation continued.
RUMBLE—
Fragments of stone began to slowly fall from the ceiling.
I had to stop his charge.
SHRRRK—
I drew threads made of divine power from my hand.
I created a trap so he would trip while charging.
However.
SNAP-SNAP—
There was no way the threads would mean anything before burning flames.
‘I have to stop his charge before he rushes in.’
But how?
I did not have the mace, so I had nothing that could inflict major damage.
Should I block him with threads when he slams into the wall, instead of while he charges?
No. The problem was not that the charge broke the threads, but that the flames burned them apart, so there was no meaning in that.
Was there anything else I could do from range?
Should I throw something materialized from divine power?
No. In the first place, I did not have enough divine power left to materialize a weapon while maintaining the veil of blood for the children.
My head spun.
The thick dust and smoke filling the room before I knew it made it even harder to think.
GRIND—
My teeth ground together. The situation was bad. Too bad.
[Apostle. What are you doing?]
Even in this shitty situation, the fact that the damned evil god’s voice came through so clearly made me feel even worse.
“Hoo...... Fight fair and square!”
Perhaps because I had dodged for too long without even having my mace, rage appeared on the bastard’s face, which was not yet covered in flame.
“Fair and square?”
“Stop darting around like a loach! Die quietly!”
I politely raised my middle finger in refusal.
“I will tear you apart!”
The bastard’s flames gradually swelled.
Because of that, the inside, which had already been hot, grew even hotter.
A drawn-out fight, which had already had no answer, now had twice as little of an answer.
The hot air tormented my skin.
The acrid air swept through my body.
[Apostle.]
Long-range harassment would not work. A drawn-out battle would not work either.
That did not mean I was confident I could beat him to death in one blow.
......
[Apostle? I think you are thinking about this incorrectly......]
Think.
Why was this fight unfavorable to me?
Why had he stopped firing suns and was now only trying to charge?
Why had he told me to stop running around?
“You loach-like bastard!”
This time, the bastard quickly closed in and swung the fake sun contained in his fist.
WHOOSH—
......Slow.
Compared to the first time, the difference was clear.
“Aha.”
Fire and smoke were not harming only me.
No matter how much flame he wrapped himself in, no matter if the fire did not hurt him.
When it came to not being able to breathe, he and I were the same as humans.
“Aaaaaah!”
At the same time as the bastard roared, the flames grew even larger.
The bastard, now twice his original size, swung his fist.
“Kgh!”
It stung.
‘Ah. I probably got burned again.’
Miss Halla would scold me again.
Burns were extremely hard to treat, after all.
“Hoo......”
A method. I had to find a method.
[Apostle.]
“Shut up.”
I was fighting, and she kept sitting beside me and talking.
[I am bored.]
Like I care—
BOOM—!
“Kgh!”
—about that.
‘......One arm might be broken.’
Because I lost concentration for a moment, the bastard’s charge struck me directly and slammed me into the wall.
Damn it.
[Haa.]
The bastard crouched beside me and looked at me.
[Why are you fighting like that? You could have ended it from the start. You simply had to hit him once with me.]
“Get lost. I have to prepare for the next attack.”
[Haa......]
With a sigh, the bastard walked.
She walked straight to the mace lying powerlessly on the floor and looked down at it.
And then.
“Uh.”
The bastard picked up the mace.
‘......How?’
A spirit could lift that?
[Here.]
The bastard threw it.
CLANG!
“Kgh!”
[Oops. My mistake.]
The mace landed squarely on the apostle’s head.
“Who is there!”
Naturally, even when the bastard turned his head, there was nothing there.
[Oh. Can I swing it too?]
The evil god picked up the mace from the floor.
“What is this! You damned holy knight bastard! An artifact......!”
The frenzied bastard looked around.
CLANG!
“Kgh!”
[Oops.]
He was struck squarely in the abdomen by the mace the evil god had swung as a test.
[But this drains quite a lot of divine power. I cannot keep holding it. Here.]
The mace the bastard threw flew over and fell at my feet with a thud.
“......”
To be honest, calling it a thud was a bit of a problem.
In practice, the floor had practically caved in.
“Huh.”
How absurd.
[Why? Shall I help more?]
“I’m fine.”
I picked up the mace with my unbroken arm.
[Why are you not putting divine power into the mace? That would end it in one strike. How boring.]
“Do you want me to collapse the sewer?”
[You would not die just because the sewer collapsed.]
The people above would die.
“Hoo......”
If the foundation of the town collapsed, naturally, the town would collapse too.
‘I have to win without overwhelming power.’
And at the same time, when he used his power, I had to somehow weaken it.
Whether I collapsed the sewer or he did, the result would be the same.
‘Fuck.’
This request was too difficult, wasn’t it?
Who asked for something this impossible?
......Me.
“To hell with it.”
“You bastard!”
The bastard, holding his abdomen, rose and looked at me with eyes full of rage.
“Good grief.”
Now even the bastard’s face was becoming flame.
“For a fake sun.”
But picking the mace back up did not change much.
“Grrk!”
Because of the heat, the threads kept snapping, and there was no way to damage the bastard, who was already no different from flame, with a mace.
“Uh.”
Wait.
No different...... from flame?
I stretched out my broken hand.
“Urgh......!”
The divine power that came from that hand moved the blood sticky on the wall.
“What is this!”
The flustered bastard swung a flame fist the size of a human body at me.
‘Dodging is not difficult.’
That, too, was proof the bastard was growing tired.
‘I can do it.’
Even while operating divine power, it was enough to dodge.
“What are you trying to do!”
“Hey, bastard. Do you know this?”
If the bastard had become no different from complete flame.
“Blood is seventy percent water.”
The enormous blood that had gathered above him rushed down upon him.
“Kgh!”
As expected.
When it came to putting out fires, water was best.