Spitting out a mouthful of blood on the spot, I respond to Tia with a smile. Despite being unable to use my banishment skill, I canât feel anything wrong with my body anymore.
âBut you used a rather potent healing potion. Are you sure thatâs okay?â
âOf course because If it was me, who got blown away like you did, Ed, would you be stingy and use a mediocre one?â
âHahaha, you got me there.â
In response to Tiaâs joking words, I involuntarily give a bitter smile. If Iâm using it on myself, Iâll just use the bare minimum, but I would definitely use the top-grade for Tia. My âtoo precious to useâ warehouse would blow up.
âSo, what happened, Ed? Ah, did you lose your strength againâŠ!?â
âThatâs right, but itâs okay. Continue looking after Harris-san.â
âReally? I understand.â
Tia showed a moment of hesitation but then quickly returned to Harrisâ side and they began moving forward again. I immediately follow them, but then countless snowballs begin to rain down from the sky again.
One of them hits me, causing my banishment skill-disabled body to easily take flight. If I let myself be slammed into the ground like this, Iâll just repeat the same situation⊠But of course, I have countermeasures in mind.
âIâve been waiting for this!â
In the midst of the snowballs, I deliberately extend my arms and legs, exposing as much of my body as possible to the snow. While doing this, Iâm focusing on the exchange of my⊠the Demon Kingâs power.
When I was consumed by the Demon King in Ameliaâs world, I learned my limits. Itâs easy to reclaim the power, but if I absorb it all at once, my body will shatter under the strain.
So, what should I do? Itâs simple. Just adjust the absorption to a bearable level. Itâs quite a challenge to do it in a situation where Iâm winning just a little bit while using all of my strength, but fortunately, this snowball is just a fraction of a fraction. The Demon King Tree, a one-hundredth of a fraction, is attacking with a power thatâs just tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of a fraction. SoâŠ
I take a deep breath and suck in the contents of the snowball without leaving any behind. Then the force blowing me away ceases, and a tiny bit of the power of the banishment skill returns to my body. What I regained was⊠the banishment skill [Grass Eater[ which allowed me to enjoy the grass growing on the road just a little bit!
ââŠEd? Are you really okay?â
âIâm⊠Iâm fine. Iâm fine.â
Hitting the ground in a normal manner, I take a random healing potion from my waist bag and drink it, then give a thumbs-up to Tia, who stopped for a moment and looked back. It seems I was a little unlucky this time.
Well, I guess itâs a useful banishment skill in a world where food is hard to come by, but what I need right now isnât this. Without being discouraged, I keep charging into the enemyâs attacks, getting blown away each time, slowly regaining my powerâŠ
I rolled on the ground seven times, and on the eighth time, I regained the banishment skill [Hermes Dash] Once I regained this, thereâs no need to go get hit by snowballs one by one anymore.
The moment I touched down on the ground, I instantly activated it and dashed. I overtook Tia and Harris, who were moving up to the Demon Kingâs Tree, in an instant, and then touched the trunk of the massive tree that would take dozens of adults holding hands to encircle.
âNow, Iâm going to take the rest back!â
A direct confrontation between the main bodies. Not only do I intend to take back the power here, but if I can seize the power of the Demon Kingâs Tree, thereâs also the possibility of weakening it like the Demon King in Gouâs world. Frankly, I have no idea how Harris will bring down such a huge tree⊠or how it would be judged as defeated, so I want to proceed both cautiously and boldlyâŠ?
âHuh? Whatâs this?â
A power Iâm intimately familiar with. Yet within that black torrent, I felt a strange presence from a tiny shard.
In the dark sea, it felt like a shiny pearl floating. Despite its relatively tiny size, it emitted a power so intense that I could not ignore it. Since Iâm absorbing the power of the tree, this thing was approaching me, but I didnât want to incorporate such an obvious foreign object.
(Ugh, what is this? I absolutely donât need this, but what should I do?)
If this were reality, I could scoop around the grain and toss it somewhere. However, what Iâm feeling is merely conceptual, so I donât know how to isolate this particle of light and do something about it. My body has been divided by a god, but just because itâs been divided doesnât mean I know how to divide myself.
If I canât do anything about it right now, Iâll put it on hold. Since the particle of light has come pretty close to me, I decided to consciously stop absorbing power. I was thinking of dealing with it slowly after defeating the Demon Kingâs Tree, but the moment I tried to sever the connection of power, the particle of light moved in an instant and haphazardly jumped into me.
It feels as if a stone with thorns was rolling around inside my body. As I was losing consciousness from the intense pain, another surge of severe pain forcibly kept my thoughts connected.
âWait, Ed!? Whatâs happening now!?â
I completely lost control and my body slumped heavily onto the ground. Then Tia, who caught up with me, held my head on her lap and shoved a recovery potion into my mouth again, but this time it showed no effect.
âThe potion isnât working!? Ed! Hey, what should I do, Ed!?â
ââŠâŠâŠ..AhâŠâŠâŠ..â
My vision was turning red from the corners and something was spilling out of my open mouth. But I barely managed to move my eyes and see that a large change was occurring in the Demon Kingâs Tree, possibly due to the particle of light moving towards me.
âKuh, what is this!?â
The Demon Kingâs Tree, which had become a huge single tree as a result of several thick trees coiling and intertwining with each other. As its branches rotated furiously and unraveled as if a tied rope was being undone, the branches gradually dissolved into light from the tips and disappeared.
âWhat a force! Both of you, get down!â
âKyah!? Ed, Iâm sorry!â
In the face of the gusty wind that made the previous blizzard look like childâs play, Harris fell down alone, and Tia fell down on the spot as if to push me down. Meanwhile, my eyes, which remained open and facing upwards, continued to stare intently at the changes in the Demon Kingâs Tree⊠When all the intertwined branches unraveled and disappeared, what was left at the center was a small, dead tree with a reddish-black color.
Ah, thatâs⊠that formâŠ
âPhew, finally the wind has settled downâŠâ
âIs that the real form of the Demon King? It used to be such a huge tree, but the inside is quite small, isnât it?â
No. Itâs bad. Leave right now. I desperately plead in a voice, but unfortunately, I canât make a sound. And due to the event of the appearance of the Demon Kingâs main body, the gaze of both Harris and Tia was turned towards the Demon King.
From the main body of the Demon Tree came a ghastly sound. Yes, it only sounds like noise. Maybe itâs close to the sound of wind blowing through a cave?
But I know that itâs a voice. That twisted tree was⊠a human. Probably a human with the same face, the same form as me, twisted, contorted, crushed into the form of a tree. A wave of resentment comes from the hollowed-out mouth. Eyes shining deep in the twisted bark were looking at me.
Despair, destruction, the pure power of the Demon King that ends everything, was about to be unleashed from it.
âAhâŠAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!â
I painted over the intense pain with more intense pain. I activated [Limit Break] and swung my immobile arm, blowing away Tia, who was holding me, and then kicked the ground hard to charge into Harris. My arm twisted in an impossible direction and both of my legs broke into pieces, but somehow I managed to pull everyone away from the Demon KingâŠ
The next moment. The area around the true Demon King Tree was filled with âthe endâ.