Chapter 373 - A Couple’s Strength

Ren: “This is….”

Itsuki: “Merciless.”

Believing in their God.… only to be betrayed, and then terminated. Ren and Itsuki watched those Reincarnates and muttered.

I strongly agreed.

Me, Ren, Itsuki and Motoyasu― we’ve all had the cruel experience of being tricked by Witch, so we understand all the more.

That this guy is someone we can never forgive.

Goddess: “You did well to come this far. I honestly give you my praise.”

The Damn Goddess declared, floating softly.

There was not a single enemy remaining nearby, with the exception of the Damn Goddess.

Excessive cold-bloodedness…. It was a place where only sorrow and hatred swirled about.

There was only one person there, the extremely cheerfully smiling Damn Goddess.

Goddess: “But playtime is over. To tell you the truth, no matter what happened in this game, my victory was decided from the start.”

The Damn Goddess made a sword appear in her hands and pointed the blade towards us, with her left hand in front and her right hand above.

Goddess: “Now, dear possessors of the sacred weapons, you believe in the victory of your country but you should just yield to my overwhelming power!”

The Damn Goddess’s sword shines.

Goddess: “Infinity Catastrophe!”

It’s a certain kill attack targeting all the possessors of the Sacred and Vassal weapons, huh.

At the same time, it absorbs the world’s magic and builds up power.

I, in a shorter time than the instant in which she fired her attack….. I cast magic in the time-span of practically zero seconds.

『Oh Spirits. Oh World. The proxy of the world commands, and asks for power. Eternity, Unconditionality, Infinity, hinder the hopeless future due to that indefinite power, manifest the identity of that selfish power, and fire the lynchpin to save this world!』

“Infinity Zero!”

The sacred weapons of the world….. Mine, Motoyasu’s, Ren’s and Itsuki’s weapons shine and surround the vicinity.

The power to protect the world― Intent, Desire, Spirit.

Those were materialised and converted the attack on the verge of destroying everything.

Ren: “T-this is….”

Motoyasu: “I wonder what it is, my spear is shining.”

Itsuki: “I feel an amazing power.”

Goddess: “What―!”

The sound of a large impact reverberated, the instant death attack that the Damn Witch tried to invoke, and the power of world decay, was curbed.

Goddess: “No way….”

The Damn Goddess’s face flushed with agitation.

Naofumi: “You didn’t notice even though we’ve been showing you for a while now? No, you realised but were underestimating us?”

Raphtalia: “She probably thought our power was just the Spirits covering for us.”

Raphtalia brandishes her mallet, and prepares to use it on the Damn Goddess.

Goddess: “It can’t be…. you guys!?”

Naofumi: “Yeah, Raphtalia and I are on the same stage as you. At the same time, we differ from you…. We’ve become beings that specialise in the power to kill you guys.”

The source of Raphtalia and my power was the world’s magic and life force, just like the Damn Goddess.

However, the way we replenish that power is completely different.

Unless we receive the power from the world’s volition, we can’t replenish it.

We’ve made it so that it’s impossible for us to steal the world’s power from its roots and consume it.

And.… at the same time, we have the power so she can’t snatch away the world.

Now…. A total of five lynchpins have been launched to prevent the Damn Goddess from using her power to steal this world.

Four of them are the Four Saint Heroes, and I don’t know where the last one is.

It’s the final Four Saint Hero of Glass’s world.

That one person is also fighting in a place unknown to us.

The heroes weren’t the only ones.

Everybody throughout the world was fighting as one body in order to protect the world.

The representative of that was the hero with the sacred weapon.

As long as us five lynchpins existed, the Damn Goddess changed into a being attached to this world, unable to destroy it.

Already, this world had multiple strong, gigantic barriers spread around it.

To the inhabitants of this world, they became defensive walls protecting them from foreign enemies, and to the Damn Goddess, they became a prison preventing her from escaping.

Goddess: “Don’t think you can win against me just by having the social standing of a God!”

The Damn Goddess used even more power.

However, you can’t use the power you’ve been counting on.

The spade work, protocol and ritual have already been completed.

Next is just killing each other until we reciprocally annihilate everything.

Naofumi: “Now, it’s time for some arithmetic. Don’t think such unreliable kid’s logic like infinity, eternity and immortality will pass by us!”

Right now, a room that negates Godly powers has been created.

With us inside, the Damn Goddess has had her divine powers sealed and have been bound with the reason of this world now.

In other words….. Lv and HP and Magic and such float into her field of vision, and when those numbers become Zero, she will die.

Naturally the numbers ticking away will probably be enormous but they’re not perpetual, nor infinite, nor immortal.

Goddess: “Don’t fuck with me!”

The Damn Goddess had on a furious facial expression and chanted a spell.

It’s magic with another world’s logic.

The absorbed magic inside her body is kneaded together and fired towards us.

Naofumi: “Defence Link! Meteor Wall!”

My defensive skills obstruct her magic completely.

Raphtalia: “×0 Mallet!”

Raphtalia swings her shining, huge mallet down on the Damn Goddess.

Goddess: “Gubu!”

With a *thwack* it hits the Damn Goddess heavily and blood flows from her temple.

Goddess: “You, you, you! How dare you injure the noble me!”

The Damn Goddess uses one hand to slash at Raphtalia in anger.

Even if she’s rotten, she’s the being called ‘God’ who split her soul into various worlds so she probably has some sword skills.

Goddess: “My sword has infinite speed and is the infinite ultimate strongest sword technique! You shouldn’t be able to see through it!”

How do you infinitely double infinity?

The word infinity isn’t a number.

Well, she probably wants to express that it’s that fast but….

The Damn Goddess’s sword reaches Raphtalia.

Yeah.

Fast, it’s certainly fast…. However―

Raphtalia: “Infinite speed? Infinity shouldn’t have a limit though? The unit you should be using in this situation is this. Approaching zero without end…. No, something like speed is unnecessary― a Zero-second attack….”

Raphtalia’s movements blur and she passed behind the Damn Goddess.

Immediately afterwards, she uses a single strike and a loud sound reverberates.

Goddess: “Wha-!? She transcended infinity with her own speed and I, the ultimate supreme being who even surpasses time was―”

Raphtalia: “You just returned to the past? Is it time leaping? In that case, I’ll also attack there!”

Zero-second attack.

Something similar would be Firo’s High Quick, huh.

It’ll probably be easiest to understand if I said it was close to that.

High Quick is a magic that raises one’s own speed to its utmost limits temporarily.

However, Raphtalia’s Zero-second attack has no need for speed.

Zero seconds… it’s an attack that disregards the flow of time.

No matter how fast one can go, the attack can’t be overtaken by a being who’s just fast.

Even the sound of this one shot, this sound contains the continuous attacks of tens, hundreds, thousands of strikes all within zero seconds.

Receiving such an attack, the Damn Goddess faints in agony.

Goddess: “Ugu..guu…… aaaaauwahh!”

Raphtalia: “The innumerable grudges against you are as many as the number of stars in the sky. If only you didn’t exist, I wouldn’t know anything and lived in peace…. Everyone around me wouldn’t have cried with unreasonable grief!”

Raphtalia doesn’t slacken the hand attacking the Damn Goddess.

Or rather, I wouldn’t let her slacken it.

Raphtalia: “Do you even know how much you did? You manipulated and tormented the world at will, ridiculed the people who were struggling to live and raised calamities…. And the end is this! Never… it’s not a problem of ever forgiving you!”

Good grief.

If this fellow wasn’t here then this world…. No, although eight other worlds were fighting, there probably wouldn’t be such an harsh battle like this.

Even if there was, it should be nothing more than a problem of one’s own worlds.

Nevertheless, the world was assimilating relentlessly, and there was enough fighting even if it wasn’t.

Raphtalia and I did such a thing and we’re here now in order to stop this fellow.

Even if we’ll be subject to nothingness for near eternity, we just can’t forgive this guy.

The power for the sake of that….

Needless to say, I’ve established myself as the shield’s proxy and can’t do anything but defend.

Of course, I’ve been assigned to protect everything from the enemy’s annihilating powers.

The current me can’t even use the fighting method I employed when I lost my shield.

In terms of stat allocation, I’ve given up on all my attack and have specialised in nothing but defence.

In contrast, Raphtalia has completely abandoned the concept of defence, given that I will protect her.

Her method was similar to this, but the invader known as God has made her stats omnipotent, her infinite and eternal power reaching an unattainable domain.

Of course, she wasn’t able to attack, and it’s not like she had the ability to kill us in one shot.

However… It’s for this reason that Raphtalia and I was supporting each other.

Relying on each other and abandoning the other components, splitting the remaining parts between us.

Me with the shield and― Raphtalia of the sword.

One can’t be complete without the other.

Even so, if the two are together then no matter who… it’ll become a power to destroy everything irrational.

…..It’s nostalgic.

The spear and shield paradox, huh.

Motoyasu told of such a story before.

A spear that can pierce everything, and a shield with absolute defence.

To have these two go against each other…. There’s no meaning in it.

The shield will protect everything and the spear will pierce everything.

It’s fine like that.

That’s why― Raphtalia and I as we are now…. The sword and shield as a pair, there’s no way we’ll lose to this kind of opponent.