WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Irevi

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 52: Rose and Lillian (4)

──────

Creeeak.

With an unpleasant groan, a giant finger tore through space and emerged behind Lilian.

The finger pointed at Cecilia.

[You, of all people... I can never forgive!]

An ominous mark appeared above her head.

It was the Gaze pattern that signaled the start of Phase 2. From now on, both bosses' attacks would focus on Cecilia.

I thought they would target me, but Lilian must have been quite upset about what happened in Phase 1.

Even after being marked by Gaze, Cecilia merely shrugged, her eyes still slightly unfocused.

“Don't worry. I can handle it.”

Yeah. Let's do this.

Rose and Lilian's turn.

Lilian grabbed Rose by the leg and began spinning furiously in place like a top.

KWAH-WAH-WAH-WAH!!

The rotation quickly picked up speed, creating a massive vortex around them.

It was a movement impossible for living bodies.

A bizarre dance only dolls inhabited by souls could perform.

It was Rose and Lilian's ultimate attack, Dance of Annihilation.

The vortex soon began firing saw blades filled with demonic energy in every direction.

I knocked away the blades and shouted urgently.

“Cecilia!”

Before I could even finish, she was already moving away from me.

Dance of Annihilation was a technique that launched five area attacks before using its rotational force to launch Rose like a projectile.

If she was hit by even one saw blade, she wouldn't be able to avoid the next four attacks, so she had to block them all.

The final attack targeted whoever was marked by Gaze, so I had told Cecilia to immediately create distance if she was targeted.

Her segmented sword dragged across the floor behind her as she ran.

‘If she's using the segmented sword... did Caligo awaken in the meantime?’

Caligo transformed a weapon into a segmented sword and boasted overwhelmingly higher Attack Power than Lumen.

Still, I had never seen Cecilia fight with a segmented sword before.

‘Will she be okay?’

My concern proved needless. Cecilia gracefully avoided the afterimages of saw blades falling at her feet.

The moment she leaped into the air to dodge the last one.

[Lilian! Now!]

[Hah!]

Rose, spinning at maximum speed, shot toward the airborne Cecilia like a bullet.

Calros flashed beneath the chandelier lights.

Cecilia flicked her wrist, and her segmented sword swept out like a ribbon.

Clang!

[You... You bastard...!]

“Kh.”

The segmented sword wrapped around her body like armor and easily blocked Rose's spear.

KWAANG!!

Still, she couldn't completely cancel out the impact, and Cecilia crashed into the floor.

Rose used the wall as a springboard and returned to Lilian's side.

That was the end of their turn.

Then it became Cecilia's turn.

She immediately pushed through the rubble and stood up.

“Hehe. That did a little damage.”

‘...No, it did a lot.’

A smile rested on her lips, but she was far from okay.

Unlike when she had overwhelmed Lilian in Phase 1, blood covered Cecilia's body.

She had lost enough blood to look dangerous, and her wounds were severe enough that she might not survive without immediate treatment.

One arm had been scorched black, probably by Black Flame, and her entire body trembled like an aspen.

Caligo's power was extraordinary, but I couldn't expect much from Lumen's healing effect.

It felt as though a timer had started ticking in my head.

‘I'll end this quickly.’

Tick-tock.

I wasn't the only one who felt it.

Cecilia immediately kicked off the ground and charged forward.

Her segmented sword swung in a wide semicircle.

White Fang Dance was Cecilia's Art with the highest number of hits. Enhanced by black magic power, the Art struck both dolls.

KRRRUNCH!

[Kyahhhh!]

[Th-this technique again?!]

With a rattling noise, Defense Down icons appeared above both dolls' heads.

My turn.

I rushed into the battlefield as well.

Rose had less than half her Health remaining, and four Weak points would be enough to deplete it.

But because we had to defeat them at the same time, we needed eight in total.

That would take five turns. Even considering Cecilia's Attack Power, we needed at least four.

Which meant enduring Dance of Annihilation four times.

‘Cecilia can't handle that in her current state.’

But there was no other way. I had no choice but to trust her and do what I could.

I carved one Weak point into Rose and Lilian each, then immediately retreated.

Before I could fully get out of range, the dance of death began again.

It was nearly impossible to knock away every incoming saw blade while off balance.

Slash! Slash!

I somehow blocked the first three attacks, but the remaining two got through.

‘...Damn it!’

Blood burst from the diagonal wound across my chest.

As I slammed miserably into the ground, Rose's body slam flew straight at Cecilia, who was still marked by Gaze.

KWAANG!!

Cecilia defended herself with her segmented sword again, but the impact sent her flying back, and she coughed up blood.

Agonizing pain spread through my entire body, leaving my head ringing.

“Huff... Huff...”

I couldn't believe only the second act of this five-act performance had just ended.

Yet the turns continued mercilessly.

Cecilia's turn.

She staggered to her feet again.

After wiping the blood from her lips with her sleeve, Cecilia's eyes held even deeper madness than before.

“This is fun... It's really fun.”

She swung her segmented sword again.

Black magic power struck the twins, but it lacked the strength of her previous attack.

The bleeding and internal injuries were clearly eating away at her strength.

Once her attack ended, it became my turn.

‘...This won't work.’

At best, Cecilia could last through the next turn, maybe the one after that.

If we went beyond that, I couldn't guarantee she would survive. We had to defeat them before then.

Tens of thousands of possibilities flashed through my mind.

‘Radiant Chain Fang and Gale’s Path. Or use Break consecutively...’

No matter how much I thought about it, the damage wasn't enough.

There was only one method that had any chance.

‘...Dual Art. There's nothing else.’

An unknown technique that consumed an additional turn, with no guarantee of success and no way of knowing what kind of skill it was.

If I carved one more Weak point into each of them, making three in total...

Then, if the Dual Art was strong enough to finish the battle, we had a chance.

But if it wasn't strong enough, or if it wasn't an attacking Art, it was over.

A life-or-death gamble that left everything to luck.

Then I remembered the message I had seen before entering Phase 2.

[Party Member Bonus: Goddess of Fortune]

[When the user forms a party with Cecilia Ren, all probability-based factors receive a powerful positive modifier.]

It hadn't suddenly activated. It had always been active. I had simply become able to see it.

I looked at Cecilia.

‘To think she really was a luck totem.’

She had said variables did not always have to be disadvantages.

And in the end, she had overcome her trauma through her own will and turned a variable into a constant.

‘Yeah. I don't know anymore.’

I gritted my teeth and carved a second Weak point into Rose and Lilian.

Rose and Lilian's turn.

The dance of death began once more.

KWAH-WAH-WAH-WAH-WAH!

“Kh...!”

My vision blurred, and every sensation in my body screamed.

Cecilia took the final attack too and crashed into a pile of rubble. Even the segmented sword no longer seemed able to protect her completely.

“Haa... Haa...”

The blue gem above her head flickered as if it might go out at any moment.

Rose and Lilian spoke.

[Hmph. I'm sick of this. But it's over now.]

[For mortals to challenge servants of a god, it was reckless from the start.]

Lilian looked down coldly at Cecilia.

[You said you would show us true pain. Was that really all you had?]

Rose pointed Calros at my heart.

[But don't worry. Your deaths will not be in vain. Your bodies will become beautiful wax dolls, and your souls will be offerings to the Great One.]

[We will grant you the honor of remaining here with us forever.]

I watched Cecilia continue desperately gasping for breath, letting their words go in one ear and out the other.

It was her turn now.

She had to somehow take her turn for us to have a chance.

After that, we just had to endure one more attack somehow, any way we could...

As if answering my expectations, Cecilia raised her hand and swung the segmented sword.

But this attack didn't even reach their clothes.

Instead, a stone fragment caught on the tip of her blade flew up and left a tiny scratch on Rose's cheek.

Wax dripped down like a drop of blood.

[Urgh...! To the very end...! You know it's useless, don't you?! No matter how much you resist, you can only kneel before overwhelming power!]

[No matter how much you struggle, nothing will change.]

[Hope, justice... Those naive thoughts are what brought you to this point. Just like they did to us in the past!]

[So watch closely. This is the truth of the world you believe in. Your journey was nothing more than a pathetic play reenacting our despair.]

[Here and now...!!]

Slash!

I skipped Rose's painfully cliché speech and carved a third Weak point into her back.

[Weak!]

When I made the same wound on Lilian's back, both monsters' faces instantly hardened.

They kept babbling about this and that, but honestly, I didn't care.

So what? Was that important right now?

What mattered most was that it was my turn.

Once my turn ended, I immediately approached Cecilia and supported her body.

Her faint breathing reached my ears.

‘What do I do now?’

We had completed three Weak points.

But we didn't have another turn.

We had to end it this turn, and perhaps because their speeches had been skipped, their rage felt like it was boiling over all the way to us.

‘No choice.’

I carried Cecilia on my back and pointed my sword at them.

I had no choice but to make the most of Just Guard and endure somehow.

That was when it happened.

“Halibal...”

“What?”

“...Let's go.”

We couldn't go.

It wasn't our turn.

But the moment I raised my head with that thought, an unbelievable sight entered my view.

The red gems above Rose and Lilian's heads were faintly losing their glow.

In their place, an enormous blue gem, larger than any before, floated above Cecilia's head.

When I looked closer, another icon had appeared above the two bosses' heads.

A snail-shaped icon beside the Defense Down icon.

[Has a chance to reduce the opponent's Fluidity.]

‘Ah.’

The Slow effect that had never activated until now had triggered simultaneously from the two attacks I had just made.

Unlike Defense Down, I couldn't include Slow in my strategy. Its activation chance was far lower than Defense Down's 25 percent.

It almost never activated, so I had practically fought without considering it.

But now, of all times, luck had struck.

It had applied to both bosses at once.

Thanks to the Clown's Sword effect, the two bosses' turn order was pushed between Cecilia and me.

The original order of Rose and Lilian, Cecilia, then me had changed to Cecilia, Rose and Lilian.

Only then did I see Cecilia faintly smiling at me.

My goddess of fortune.

I gathered every last bit of strength I had and shouted.

“Cecilia!!”

I didn't have to be the one to use the Dual Art.

[Would you like to use a Dual Art?]

[Upon activation, one additional turn will be consumed.]

As if she understood my intention, Cecilia nodded.

At that moment, ash-gray and black flashes burst from me and Cecilia, respectively.

KWAANG!!

The two lights pierced through the ballroom ceiling and painted a new cluster of stars beneath the dawn sky.

The two gems floating above our heads merged into one, transforming into a massive crystal.

I felt the power of time.

A distant sensation wrapped around my entire body, just like when I had first acquired Chrono Dive.

A voice reached me.

The voice of a forgotten girl.

『May your new choice be filled with time's blessing.』

Guided by time and space, I immediately leaped onto the stage where the two monsters stood.

Cecilia climbed onto the stage across from me as well.

Before I knew it, we stood facing one another with Rose and Lilian between us.

[Wh-what is this?!]

[Do you intend to struggle until the very end?]

I could feel the monsters' confusion on my skin.

Then Cecilia's segmented sword returned to its original longsword form.

The pitch-black magic power of Caligo faded away, and Lumen's pure white magic power brightly filled the blade.

Cecilia and I pointed our longswords at the two monsters.

Then, at the same time, as if we had become one body, we thrust our swords into them.

Crunch!

The swords pierced through the wax and buried themselves deep in the two monsters' bodies.

Slash!

We pulled out our swords together and cut through both monsters.

[Weak!]

Brilliant stardust burst from the torn wounds instead of wax.

[Urgh...! How dare you damage our bodies...!]

[We will never forgive you!!]

The two monsters raged, but I paid them no mind.

I only focused on the message floating before me.

[Dual Art - Halibal & Cecilia]

[Stardust]

[Launches a continuous attack by consuming the user's Health to its limit.]

Consume Health to its limit.

The moment I understood those words, I felt life draining from my entire body.

That drained life force became ash-gray flames that gathered around my blade.

“Let's go.”

“Okay.”

Our voices overlapped as one.

That was the signal.

Ash-gray slashes and pure-white slashes began to fill the ballroom.

Whenever one attack ended, the other dug into the brief opening it created.

The trails of two-colored swords wove a dense net of light over the two monsters' bodies.

[Kyahhhh...!]

[Th-this... This can't be happening...!]

The monsters couldn't even scream properly.

All they could see were dazzling fragments of stars flying at them endlessly from every direction.

Whenever our swords cut through their bodies, radiant stardust scattered everywhere.

At last, thousands of stars merged into one massive flash.

Cecilia and I swung our swords in perfectly identical stances.

KWAAAAANG!!

Along with a pair of falling blades, an exploding flash swallowed the ballroom.

[Weak!]

When the dust settled, Rose and Lilian stood there in tatters.

[Kh... Kgh... Now... it's our turn... right?]

[We will... never forgive you...!]

No.

Lumen's particles had already scattered densely beneath Rose and Lilian's feet.

The remnants left behind by the continuous attack.

Some of them seeped into Cecilia and me with warm light that healed our wounds.

[...Ah.]

[...No way?]

From our fight with Alain, they must have understood what those particles did.

I crushed their hope.

“It's not over yet.”

The instant I spoke, Cecilia's sword swept through the two of them and flew toward me.

I had already thrown my sword toward her.

Thud.

We caught each other's weapons in midair.

The dance of dawn continued once more.

Footnotes:

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried