WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 697: Man vs. Meteor - 5

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The situation was already chaotic enough. The floating castle had been pierced by Pride and was falling with it, while several mages had either fallen or been knocked unconscious by the impact. There was no time for anyone to recover, and the floating castle screamed as it groaned and creaked.

At this rate, the floating castle would crash alongside Pride. It would be worse than simply letting Pride fall.

Even so, I sensed something else.

Ting.

It felt as though the taut world had snapped. A precise rule, a fair reaction. Unlike the laws of the mortal world, one of the true rules that made up this world had been slightly twisted.

Something flashed past before my eyes.

Spark. A shower of sparks flared in the air, then vanished.

My gaze naturally turned downward. Cracks ran through the floating castle and Pride, as though both had been cut by an unbelievably sharp blade...

They had not merely seemed cut.

They had been cut.

Kreeeeak.

The line slowly split open. It stretched from where I could see, down through the floating castle and all the way to Pride. Wind rushed through the narrow opening, vibrations shook the air, and as the gap widened further...

Crack!

The floating castle and Pride began splitting vertically in two.

The bisected floating castle spread apart to either side. The mages who had barely held on above it lost their balance. At the same time, the floating castle, which had only barely maintained its shape, began breaking away from the bottom as wind and storms tore at it.

"What is this...?"

This was beyond confusion.

An unexpected abnormality had denied common sense, leaving my mind frozen because it could not understand the phenomenon. Trying to grasp what had happened was pointless. This strike had clearly defied all reason.

But how?

The slash had come from somewhere I could not read at all. Even I had no way of knowing what kind of phenomenon this was. Was it Big Sis? No, even her power was not this incomprehensible.

Then Shei muttered reflexively.

"The Sword Saint?"

The Sword Saint?

I had heard the rumors. The Empire's strongest sword. A powerful qi practitioner who had defeated a Master before even reaching a principle, someone no one could approach. Whenever people spoke of the continent's strongest, the Sword Saint was always the first name mentioned.

The Sword Saint, Orzo Ruote.

If it was the Sword Saint, I could understand. No, there was no need to understand. Call it a principle, and any absurdity became permissible.

Still... I had never heard that the Sword Saint possessed a principle capable of cutting across such an immense distance.

"The Sword Saint has already gained the principle of One-Layer Cut...?"

Gained it? Someone like the Sword Saint should already have had a principle. What did she mean by gained?

Tch. That was not important right now.

The floating castle and Pride had been cut. The original plan was to catch Pride with the floating castle, then raise the floating castle and stop Pride that way. But the shattered, severed floating castle could no longer fulfill its role. At this rate, it would simply crash.

But a crisis was also an opportunity.

"Shei! Cyan Tower Master!"

I did not know what kind of principle the Sword Saint had used, but the floating castle had not been the only thing cut. Pride had been cut too. Its perfectly bisected interior was exposed!

Now was our chance!

"It's an opportunity! Pride has split in two. We need to find the Demon God inside Pride while we can! Make us a path!"

If this continued, the floating castle would collide with the ground. It would cause a disaster little different from Pride falling. At the very least, gravity control had to be restored to stop that collision. If the floating castle could no longer do its job, we had to obtain the Demon God inside Pride.

"It's dangerous. Pride has split in half."

"That's good! It has less weight to support now!"

"Even half of Pride is deadly. If that Pride falls to the ground, the damage will be impossible to contain."

"We don't have time to worry about everyone else! Half of Pride is a problem, but if the remaining half and the floating castle fall to the ground together, the damage will be twice as bad! Think about restoring this floating castle first!"

Its mass had decreased, and it had slowed considerably. The people on the ground would probably be able to deal with this much.

Until moments ago, that would have been irresponsibly passing the buck. After seeing the Sword Saint's strike, it was no longer passing the buck.

Demon King. Sword Saint. You negligent bastards. Save the world yourselves! You have the power to do it!

"Let's get the Demon God. We have to end this entire disaster."

"Yes! Let's go!"

"Sis, I'll borrow your ice."

As the Cyan Tower Master ran, she took out her fountain pen and drew a long line across Elcia's ice. A strand of ice peeled away and formed an icy path before her. When the Cyan Tower Master lightly waved her fountain pen, ice formed ahead of the path, extending all the way to the top of Pride.

"Sis, guide the others into the floating castle's tower. It'll be safe there."

"...You never listen when your sister tells you something."

"Going astray is a little sister's job."

The Cyan Tower Master gave a faint smile, then slid down the ice path. Beneath her feet, the ice repeatedly melted and froze in rapid cycles, propelling her forward.

Ice Wave. A spell that raised waves from ice. Even without her innate arcane, the Cyan Tower Master's magic had reached a high realm.

She rode smoothly over the ice and shouted.

"Hughes, Shei, get on!"

"Now you're making sense. Let's go!"

Shei and I stepped onto the ice path as well. The rippling ice pushed against my heels and guided me to the top of Pride.

The cross section of Pride cut by the Sword Saint was smooth. Thanks to that, we reached it without much trouble. The Cyan Tower Master ran a hand across the exposed surface.

"This is a kind of rock rarely seen on this land. Its crystal structure is unusual, and it contains unknown mana. It will be difficult to affect directly with the floating castle's magic."

"Mana dwells in matter. If the meteorite had drifted through empty space for close to several million years, it must have condensed millions of years' worth of mana. Maybe it was arrogant from the start to think we could destroy it with a few spells."

"Right. We had no choice but to stop it with force from the beginning. Is anyone able to make a crack in this meteorite?"

At the Cyan Tower Master's question, Shei stepped forward.

"I'll try. Skywarbler!"

Shei called Skywarbler and tried to swing her, but Skywarbler was much heavier and duller than usual. Shei frowned.

"Ugh. Skywarbler can't do it. She used too much power, and her blade is damaged. She won't be able to use her strength until she spits out the rock she swallowed inside."

"What about Jizan?"

"...Urgh. Jizan won't work very well either. This rock isn't from the earth, so Jizan's earthcraft doesn't affect it."

"Skywarbler and Jizan are both useless? Then what use does Shei even have left?"

"Hey, shut up! Jizan can still be used!"

Shei bristled and brought Jizan down. Sparks flew with a clang as part of the rock broke apart, forming cracks within it. Compared to normal, the destruction was tiny, but it was enough for the Cyan Tower Master.

"This is enough. I'll use water as ink."

The Cyan Tower Master gathered moisture into her fountain pen, then drove it into Pride's crack. The moisture inside the pen seeped deep into Pride. Once enough water had soaked in, she repeatedly froze and melted it with her innate arcane.

Ice expanded when it froze. If the water that had seeped in froze and melted over and over, even an enormous rock would eventually crack open and split apart.

The meteorite was no exception.

"Icebreaking. Ice Sparkle."

Rumble.

The cycles of melting and freezing gradually accelerated, and Pride began shaking as if an earthquake had struck. Then, at one point...

Crash!

An area of the meteorite nearly ten meters in radius crumbled away. The meteorite, reduced to gravel, was swept away by the wind. The meteorite was hard, but it could not resist forced freezing through innate arcane. Expanding ice destroyed Pride from within.

"That's amazing. If we'd had more time, you could have destroyed the entire meteorite alone, Cyan Tower Master!"

"The problem is that we don't have time. Don't you sense anything?"

"Nothing in particular. At this range, it should normally be making its presence felt."

Then Skywarbler, floating above Shei's head, trembled. Her blade slowly turned in a circle and began moving. Noticing the anomaly, Shei muttered.

"Huh...? Skywarbler?"

"It's a spatial anomaly. Skywarbler is being drawn toward a spatial anomaly, like a compass."

"Then there's something where Skywarbler is pointing! This way!"

The Cyan Tower Master and Shei followed Skywarbler's guidance through the raging wind.

The floating castle was still in free fall. As its speed increased, the wind blew hard enough to make it difficult to stay upright. It was far from easy to cling on without falling while carving into the hard surface of Pride.

Yet Shei and the Cyan Tower Master did it. Clinging to Pride so they would not fall, they dug deep inside it like moles.

Then Skywarbler bumped weakly against something.

Shei picked Skywarbler up again and shouted.

"We're here. I think this is it!"

"Wait. It could collapse if you swing Jizan here, so I'll handle this part."

I used the Lord of Gold's Demon God to turn the meteorite into cards. The meteorite resisted because it contained mana, but the Demon God still worked on it.

Seeing the meteorite turn into cards and scatter away, Shei grumbled.

"If that worked, you should've done it sooner. There was no need to use Jizan!"

"How was I supposed to convert this huge meteorite one card at a time? I'm only doing it because we're almost there."

The meteorite became cards and disappeared. When we finally reached the center of Pride, I suddenly felt as if my body were falling downward.

It was strange. Pride was falling, and we were falling with it, so we were close to weightless. Yet the moment we stepped inside, I felt gravity as though I were standing on the ground.

The Cyan Tower Master muttered at the familiar sensation she would have experienced in the floating castle.

"A gravity anomaly?"

"It feels more like spatial distortion."

"Maybe it's both, like what we experienced at Babel."

The Demon King had been right. There was something at the center of Pride. It was probably the Demon God.

"There should be a relic of the Demon God here. I don't know what trial awaits us, but we have to draw out its power and stop the fall. Any one of us."

When I spoke seriously, the Cyan Tower Master looked doubtful.

"Hughes. You're the King of Humanity, and you use the Demon God's power. You should do it."

"Ah. Even if I use the Demon God's power, it'll probably only apply around me."

"...What?"

Big Sis might have been able to lift the floating castle, but I could not. Only the Demon God's power, or someone permitted by that Demon God, could lift the floating castle.

"You said you could find the Demon God's power and use it freely!"

"I revealed that at the Temple of the Demon God. How do you know that, Cyan Tower Master?"

"Because I planted spies!"

"You say that so proudly... Besides, people in secret organizations need to bluff a little. I never lied."

I had found the Demon God, and I could use its power. I had never said how I found it or how much of its power I could use.

"So don't let your guard down. Our opponent is a Demon God that intends to destroy this land. We may fail to persuade it. Unless all of us persuade it, its resolve will not change."

Everyone fell silent and tensed.

The Demon God within Pride held the will to destroy the land below. Meeting it would not solve everything. The Cyan Tower Master and Shei nodded, both visibly tense.

We entered Pride's interior. Feeling the same gravity as on the ground, we walked through the cave formed within the meteorite. I felt like a worm burrowing into a piece of fruit.

When we reached the meteorite's core, a broad space appeared before me.

If Pride was a fruit and I was a worm, this place was like the chamber containing Pride's seed. It was an empty space, and something stood at its center.

Looking at its shape, I muttered.

"A tree?"

Why was there a tree here? A tree with a single plump apple hanging from it, ripe enough to fall at any moment. There was neither sunlight nor wind here, yet it bore only one apple. It was utterly out of place.

That was probably the Demon God. As I took another step closer...

Tap. Tap.

The branch slowly bent, and the stem of the plump red apple snapped. The bright red fruit obeyed gravity and fell to the ground.

The moment the apple struck the floor...

I found myself within the Demon God's mindscape.

Footnotes:

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