The space there warped. The scenery twisted like an infant's drawing, and things lost their base form. The sight, which was far too unreal, was not actually real, of course. It was an illusion. Haruto and the others in his party were just hallucinating from being exposed to the absolute presences of Naru and the Grimm King. Space hadn't actually warped. However, the hallucination might as well have been reality, since everyone there saw the same thing.
Meanwhile, in that warped world, the Black Empress and the Grimm King faced off. The heroes weren't even worth noticing to them. The both of them only saw each other. In their world, they were already alone. Even the hero unfortunately stuck between them was likely nothing but a pebble on the side of the road to these two pinnacles of strength. That was why the two of them continued to stare at each other as if Haruto and the others weren't even there.
Eventually, the white man spoke, breaking the silence. "…I have been waiting for this moment." His voice was low and sounded calm. Strangely, his voice held no hostility. It was kind, as if he were a man speaking to the object of his passionate, one-sided love. With the hero and his party still between them, the white man spoke again. "It's strange. This is the first time we have met. Even so, we know each other well. I don't feel like this is our first meeting at all." The Grimm King—the leader of all the grimmfolk, who were the biggest enemies of collective humanity—was the definition of a threat to the world. He was the manifestation of death and fear. He was the ruler of grimmfolk whom even the Seven Maidens of Midgar couldn't match.Yet, in front of the girl with black wings, he continued to talk calmly. "However, I will still say this… Pleased to meet you, Azrael. I am Dragneel… the one you all call the Grimm King."
"Azrael?"
"It is our name for you. Any who meet you die. So, with fear in their hearts, they have named you Azrael, the angel that brings death.'" He narrowed his red crimson eyes, which had vertical-slit pupils like a snake's, looking affectionately at his fated enemy whom he had never ended up fighting one thousand years ago.
In response to that gaze, Naru never wavered, donning a fearless smile. If the ruler of grimmfolk was a monster, then Naru was right there with him. Because they lived in the same dimension, they faced each other as equals. So there was no reason to fear him. Naru's expression was tinged with the composure of someone strong.
So I'm definitely not scared. There's no way I'm actually thinking, "What the hell is this pressure? I can only laugh…" or anything like that.
"It seems there's no need for us to name ourselves, but it would be rude not to. We are Lunaru Fenris, the one whom you all apparently call the angel that brings death."
They knew one another, even though this was their first meeting. They already knew each other's names, but they introduced themselves anyway.
It was a strange, comical scene. On the surface, they were talking peacefully, but the fight had already started. The Grimm King, Dragneel, was using a mental interference skill, and Naru had her equipment that gave her status-ailment invulnerability to defend against it. Meanwhile, Dragneel was getting through Naru's Pressure with his pure levels.
Each one of their attacks would have decided the match if the opponent were anyone else. However, all this was just sport to these two. They knew the attacks wouldn't work. The moves were meant as a simple greeting.
The pitiful ones were the hero party, who, thanks to the AoE of Naru's and Dragneel's skills, were being beaten down with the 'Fear' status effect (attack power down) and Pressure (unable to move).
"We never expected you to come yourself. Are you that scared of the hero?"
"Don't play dumb. There are and have always been only two people I am afraid of. One is the omniscient and omnipotent Goddess, Haru Heartfilia. The other is right in front of me and is hailed as Azrael, the angel that brings death. Everyone other than that is like dust to me."
"Then are you saying this situation was unexpected?"
"No. This was within my expectations. I have come here to meet you."
That's a contradiction. He said she was afraid of me, but he came to meet me?
Naru silently motioned for him to continue, and Dragneel did.
"Yes. I will tell you honestly. I have been afraid of you. I avoided fighting you, Azrael, the angel that brings death, and your Twelve Zodiac's Guardians. I felt fear at the prospect of fighting the great warriors who were united under your leadership as well. I was afraid, shivering, and I thought of you both while I was awake and in my dreams. I have no intention of denying my cowardice back then. It is all true."
"For all that fear you talk of, you showed yourself quite easily this time."
"I only noticed after I lost you. You were the only one who stepped outside of the Goddess's Script. In other words, you are necessary for me and this world. Losing you was a mistake."
Naru narrowed her eyes after hearing Dragneel's explanation. He was clearly holding something back and not speaking plainly. His face betrayed his thoughts. I have no idea what he's talking about.
It wasn't just her. Haruto and the others couldn't figure out what the Grimm King was getting at, either.
"…What do you mean?"
"Do you want to know? Then force me to tell you with all that simple, direct power that was so like you one thousand years ago. Well, even if you refuse, I will fight you anyway." Dragneel cracked his knuckles.
Naru slowly formed fists as well.
—It's starting.
Haruto and the others felt shivers run through their entire bodies, and they knew a fight was starting. Right here, right now. The fight between the Black Empress and the Grimm King that never happened one thousand years ago was about to start. A confrontation was going to happen, an unprecedented one for the top of the world.
"—How bold! Then We shall comply with your wishes!"
"—Show me your power, Azrael! I will see if you've gotten rusty these past one thousand years!"
The air exploded.
The explosion happened above Haruto and the others's heads, but the two combatants were already nowhere to be seen. This was the definition of 'too fast for the eyes to follow.'
The two monsters flew about at a speed that Haru and the others couldn't follow. They clashed above Haru and the others's heads before separating again. The battle had already moved into the sky. It was unknown just when the two of them had moved into the air, but they were already exchanging countless punches up on that stage.
Each one of the blows unleashed by the two of them were upper-tier skills that had the potency to kill. Neither of them bothered with feints or jabs. Each and every blow exchanged between them was a rain of haymakers that aimed to instantly end the fight. However, the techniques they were throwing out were as easy to pull off as breathing for the both of them. This fight was only able to happen because the pair stood at the pinnacle of the world.
Of course, neither of them stood still as they exchanged blows. They were always moving, flying around, and trying to get in their opponent's blind spot. The two of them flew at speeds invisible to a normal person. The two transcendent fighters looked like two flashes of light as they clashed, went around to their opponent's blind spot, rotated, and otherwise attempted to find a gap in the other's defenses, all the while ignoring the laws of physics.
They're like light… Haruto thought.
Two sources of light, black and white, were pulling ridiculous maneuvers in the air as if they were in a dogfight out of an old mecha anime. That was all it looked like to the hero and his party.
"Hah!"
Naru's fist slipped past Dragneel's guard and hit him square on. The punch produced a sound that shouldn't have been produced just from one person punching another. It sounded like a large-caliber cannon being fired. However, by the time the hero and his party heard the sound, the fight had already moved on. Dragneel, who was blown all the way up to the stratosphere, was overtaken by Naru.
This time it was a kick.
Once again, a huge noise ripped through the air, and Dragneel smashed into the ground like a cannonball. Thanks to that, a huge fissure in the earth was formed, and it was unclear how far it ran. The earth also shook greatly and caved in in places.
Following after her enemy, Naru dropped from the sky. But Dragneel rose up out of the ground and countered with a kick. This time it was Naru's turn to go flying. Naru busted through several mountains, trees, and other things, destroying them as she was sent flying to the ends of the earth.
—Right afterwards, Naru came back even more ridiculously fast—faster than the speed she'd been sent flying at—and charged at Dragneel.
Dragneel tried to counter again with his fist, but Naru leaped and spun around, carrying herself to Dragneel's back before she struck with her elbow. But her attack failed.
With the same timing as Naru's attack, Dragneel stuck out his own elbow to meet Naru's. After a delay, a thunderous roar ripped through the area along with a shockwave rippling out with the two of them as the epicenter.
The aftereffects didn't stop there. The ground around them was hollowed out to form a huge crater, and just the aftershocks alone uprooted trees and sent them flying. Haru and the others were protected by the golems that shielded them reactively, as well as Mitokado's own shield spell. But even just the wind stirred up by the aftereffects of the fight was a deadly disaster to them.
The defense barrier set up by Mitokado creaked unreliably, and his face distorted in unease. Meanwhile, several of the golems that'd been defending them outside were pulverized.
"…As expected. I suppose the last time I had a fight this worthwhile was one thousand years ago with the Seven Maidens of Midgar."
"…You have strength worthy of being called the Grimm King as well."
The two of them laughed and turned to face each other. At the same time, they separated from each other.
Were they running from the fight? No, they needed space to build momentum.
After opening up some space between them, they kicked off with even more power than before, explosively launching themselves forward. Since both of them had taken the time to create some momentum, their clash created even greater shockwaves than before, causing larger quakes as the aftershocks changed the shape of the terrain around them.
But the two causes of all that were no longer there. They'd launched themselves high into the air. Sounds of explosions, like cannons going off, resounded several times along with corresponding shockwaves, like an explosion had actually happened. The sounds and shockwaves, which had been left behind in the fight since they were so slow, desperately acted to inform others that there'd been a clash here just a little while ago. The effort was actually quite touching.
An explosion.
Naru's kick had sent Dragneel off to the ends of the ocean, turning several golems that had been in the way to dust and splitting the ocean in two as he flew off and disappeared past the horizon. But the next instant, the fight had already recommenced.
An explosion.
Dragneel fired magic back along the same path, turning several more golems that were in the way to ash. The beam of magic continued along its path, mowing down anything in its way and swallowing up Naru. Eventually, the spell left Midgar itself, breaking through the atmosphere and into the void of space before disappearing. But Naru, who should have been swallowed by the spell, stood unfazed.
An explosion.
Naru missed with a knife-hand strike, which cut a furrow in the ground all the way past the horizon. Dragneel also missed with his return punch, and the wind pressure from that attack alone split the ocean all the way past the horizon as well.
However, the only ones who could witness these effects were the two fighters themselves. The spectators of this fight could only notice the leftover vestiges of their actions and the aftermath that they brought. There were no fighters the onlookers could see. All they could catch were the sounds and aftershocks, which let them know where the fight was.
The sky above them exploded several times, destroying any pitiful golems which had gotten caught up in it. Trees also suddenly got uprooted and blasted away, and the ground and ocean were split.
Their power was supernatural. This was the power of those at the peak of their strength. It was abnormal, monstrous, bizarre, and powerful. It wasn't something any regular person could do. In the first place, they wouldn't even be able to follow the aftermath of this fight. They were probably busting out countless numbers of high-level skills like rain, not holding anything back. But Haru and the others had no way of knowing what they were using.
It was a fight between two monsters. There were no other words to describe it.
Last Bosses A and B had just suddenly popped up in the beginner area of the hero's journey for some reason and had started to fight with each other. It was nonsensical. It was like they were telling Haruto and the others that they weren't worth their attention. It made Haruto feel incredibly pathetic.
"…What the hell…?" Ayame muttered, pale as a sheet. Her teeth chattered loudly, and her eyes were swimming in their sockets. "…What the hell are they…?" She said what everyone else was thinking.
And none of them had any answer but, "I wonder…"
They existed outside of reason. And they defied understanding. The two combatants were ignoring everything the hero party held as common sense. Because of that, there was no one who could answer Ayame's question. The only answer they had—which was, "What is that, I wonder?"—was no answer at all.
"There's nothing we can do… against that… They want us to beat them…? How…? Th-there's no way for us to win against those… those monsters… Right? Hey…?"
When Haruto looked back, he saw that Ayame was crying. Even though she'd been so full of confidence before the journey, she was now nothing more than a little girl drowning in fear. Her heart had been completely broken.
However, no one present could blame her for that. Just how would anyone keep their heart from breaking with this ridiculous battle unfolding before them?
"Just what… what do they even think… we can do against those two monsteeeerrrsss!" Ayame screamed, teary-eyed. However, her cry was drowned out by another explosion in the sky.
The fight had been occurring at supersonic speeds, leaving sound behind. The two of them were attacking and defending so fast exchanges lasted mere instants. The two combatants alone were experiencing extremely dilated time, almost as if time itself had stopped for them. Of course, they weren't using skills to achieve that. However, if a person was able to move around at their speed even in extremely small segments of time, it would be no different than if time had stopped for them. Basically, to reach this plateau one just had to move around fast enough for time to stop.
For them, sound had long since disappeared. They were in a silent world where even time had been left behind. Even then, they continued their exchange of attack and defense.
They dodged and were dodged, defended and were defended against, punched and got punched, kicked and got kicked, and shot and got shot at. Perfect defenses were met with defense-piercing skills, 100% accuracy skills were met with guaranteed-dodge skills, and damage buffs were met with damage reduction. There were single-hit, multi-hit, and multi-hit area aimed skills flying about.
They threw out heaven-arts and magic, accelerated and decelerated, and used attack reflection and skill piercing. They cast attack buffs, defense buffs, and speed buffs as well as attack, defense, and speed debuffs, threw around other buffs and debuffs, and even stun effects which were blocked with stun negation.
All manner of passive, active, and reactive skills were used, invalidated, pierced through, defended against, dodged, and countered. Even then, neither of them could land a decisive blow, as the two continued to throw haymakers one after the other.
"Hhaaaaaaaaaahh!"
Naru twisted her body. She buffed her attack power to pierce through Dragneel's defense, stacked as many skills as she could on her strike, and wound up. If all the attacks up until now had been stupid-huge cannons, then the attack Naru was trying to land was even stupider and huger. It was still a cannon. She was just using even more pure force.
"Mnnrraaaaaaaaggghhh!"
Dragneel also twisted around, concentrating all his power in his right fist.
His all-out punch most likely had as many skills stacked on it as Naru's, if not more. Dragneel couldn't tell how this would affect the surroundings, but he didn't care. It didn't matter. What was important to him was nothing but this moment in this fight right now.
—They clashed. And time started again.
The two of them, who were most likely the strongest fighters in the world in this day and age, unleashed the most powerful attacks available to them with no weapons. Neither of them hesitated to clash with the other's attack. And right afterwards the world itself shook.
At the same time, all the aftereffects and sounds from the attacks they'd made in compressed time caught up and went into effect. Forests a long ways away from the fight shook furiously, causing the animals in them to panic. The ocean raged about, and all living things in the world could sense the vibrations of the air. The earth split in various places, and several mountains experienced landslides and avalanches. Just the aftereffects caused storms to whip up with gale-force winds like a typhoon's ravaging across the world.
The last of the golems served as a wall for the hero's party, and they, too, were destroyed.