Masquerade (4)
The moment the Executioner locked eyes with a pair of odd-colored eyes, he couldn’t help but flinch.
And right after that, he realized his own reaction and gritted his teeth.
‘···Am I nervous? Me?’
It was unthinkable, something that shouldn’t happen.
He was the undefeated champion boasted by the Buncheon Society.
There was no way he would get anxious just because he had made eye contact with an enemy of similar caliber, not even the Buncheon Society Head he had already acknowledged long ago!
‘···Right, it’s just a moment of surprise. I was just a bit startled by the unexpected situation.’
Having justified himself that way, he narrowed his eyes and took another step forward, glaring at the beastly figure.
And quickly analyzed what had caused his confusion.
‘The change is only in the eyes. Everything else is still bound by time. ···But how could it follow my timeline without any contact?’
Then suddenly, he noticed a difference from before.
The suspicious energy it exuded moments ago.
That energy, which was eroding the space around it, had reached the very spot he was standing.
‘Could it be because of this energy?
While nothing was certain yet, one thing was clear: delaying any longer would be dangerous.
For now, it was only the eyes, but if this variable grew larger, he had no idea when it might expand beyond that.
And if that happened···.
‘···This could get troublesome. I need to finish this quickly.’
Before it turned into something worse.
He quickly changed his course of action.
Originally, he had planned to overpower it perfectly for interrogation, but now was not the time for such luxury.
Even if it meant pushing himself a bit, it was better to finish it quickly.
With that judgment, a lava-like energy began to gather in the Executioner’s right hand.
‘I should avoid overexerting myself in this timeline as much as possible, but···. There’s no choice. I just have to deal with it and get this done.’
As immense energy moved within the stopped timeline, the strain on his body, which had been maintaining his Unique Skill, began to increase like a snowball effect.
Until now, he had been able to use his abilities without significant burden thanks to the immense power of the great demon’s form, but once he crossed a certain safety line, the absolute law of ‘time’ began to reach out to him as well.
‘With this, I’ll just rip off an arm or two!’
If he were to cut off his limbs one by one, even a monster with outstanding reflexes would have no means to react.
The greater the accumulated damage, the longer the regeneration time would take, leading to nothing but a one-sided violation afterward.
Puhwhak—!
The grotesque, lava-like glow of his claw penetrated the chest of the behemoth, blood splattering everywhere.
However, the expression on the Executioner’s face was not good at all.
The moment he attacked the vital point, he had instinctively reacted to minimize damage, a pattern that had been consistent until now…
‘Did it intentionally expose its vital spot? ···Oh no!’
But that realization came a moment too late.
Creaking—
As if it had been waiting from the beginning, the biological tissues around swiftly covered the right hand that had pierced its chest.
Bones grew instantaneously, constraining the wrist like shackles, tough muscles coiled around the arm like chains, and infinitely multiplying flesh clung on like glue.
Of course, because of the destructive energy infused within the hand, the amount of necrotic cells was greater, but the momentary pause in the Executioner’s attack was unavoidable.
Snatch!
And that brief moment was enough.
“Kkheuheh! Caught—ya—!”
Harley’s large hands clasped around the right arm that was just about to detach from his body.
Time, which had been stopped, began to move slowly again.
“Kkuuh— What a crazy bastard! No matter how great your regeneration is, you won’t recover from this attack easily! Did you just take that hit to the vital spot?”
Eventually, when the decelerated time axis finally returned to its normal trajectory.
What remained was a colossal beast with a massive hole in its chest, and a demon that couldn’t disengage immediately, with its arm still caught.
“Ha! Did you think you could keep holding me like this? You’re mistaken. Do you think I’m just a rookie relying on Unique Skills?”
Goooroo—!
The Executioner erupted with thick energy from his body.
While he was using this skill out of necessity, ordinarily, he preferred to employ the powers he had amassed as a demon!
No matter how great Harley’s vitality was, he couldn’t possibly be a match for someone who had suffered vital damage that compromised his heart and other crucial organs.
“Kahaha! Vital spot, huh? I don’t understand what you’re saying!”
Of course, Harley hadn’t acted thoughtlessly either.
“Whoa~ this is rather coincidental! Just when I was feeling like changing my internal structure a bit!”
“···What?”
“Isn’t it just a coincidence that I felt like doing that and then this happened! Kahaha!”
In fact, he’d never been hit in a vital spot.
The heart, liver, stomach, and lungs, which should normally be situated in the chest, had already been scattered to other regions, like the lower abdomen and thighs.
As if he had somehow predicted where he would be hit.
‘Uck, no wonder it felt strange at my fingertips. Did I overlook this bastard’s special physique?’
The Executioner finally realized.
This monster merely had the shape of a human on the outside, but had absolutely no common traits of a humanoid living being.
Accepting its body as a fact, he had unknowingly been trapped in his own fixed mindset.
Kaboom!
Faced with each other at close quarters with their bodies touching.
The energies erupted from both sides and clashed violently.
No, it wasn’t just the energy colliding.
“Let go, you leech!”
“Khaha! Don’t hold back, my friend! I love a good struggle too, let’s have some fun together!”
“You…!”
“What’s up? Didn’t you want life-and-death battles? A clash of body and soul bathed in blood and death! Ha! Now that’s a man’s fight?”
Using arms, wings, and tails in a close-quarters brawl.
The relentless back-and-forth ensued between those trying to escape and those trying to hold them down.
The Executioner was indeed not an easy opponent even without relying on his Unique Skill as he had claimed.
His accumulated combat experience and the fiery energy overflowing from his body were more than enough to melt Harley’s tough skin, and the devil’s body optimized for real combat was as lethal as a weapon.
“Now, then—”
However, the slight misfortune for him was that his opponent was a being that stood unparalleled in this sector.
Like a boxer trapped by a wrestler, desperately thrashing to break free, whereas Harley, whose entire existence was focused on a single body, received all resistance with his body and gradually crushed his fallen enemy.
“—Wanna take a bite while it’s still fresh?”
“Gghh—! This monstrosity!”
You were the one sticking your belly button to your back!
As Harley’s mouth opened wide, razor-sharp teeth sunk into the solid scales of the demon.
*
This was not the first time he had encountered powers related to time.
He had already experienced it once when defeating the Buncheon Society Head that had invaded Auterica.
‘The finer details differ, but there are significant similarities in the larger scheme of things.’
Back then, Heinrich had shared a moment of frozen time just before the Head employed what seemed to be a time-reversing ability, thanks to the holy power that had penetrated into its body through the Holy Sword.
‘It’s not much different from that time.’
Instead of holy power, he used the madness of the Abyss, and instead of injecting it directly into the body, he replaced it by eroding space.
Of course, if it was just that, it would have been impossible, but the experience of having succeeded against someone far stronger than the Executioner was of great help.
‘Since it’s a power used by an existence equal to itself, the hurdle is lower.’
Strictly speaking, the enemy’s Unique Skill did not stop the ‘time of the world’.
If it really did, the avatar spread across different dimensions would have sensed the anomaly.
The mechanism of the ability it used was to break free from the timeline flowing through the world.
In terms of practicality, it wasn’t much different, but from an ability perspective, there was plenty of room to intervene and forcibly extract.
‘The burden on the body from using the ability must also be significant. The method chosen to mitigate that burden must be demonization.’
Calmly analyzing this while quietly observing the fight between the Executioner and Harley, Heinrich’s eyes narrowed.
Rumble—!
The artificially created space howled in agony as it twisted under the raging storm of energy.
Even though a reasonably middle-tier Transcendent Being had constructed it with all sorts of magical equipment, it couldn’t endure the fallout generated by the collision of energies of a higher class.
‘I did land a hit, but… still not as easy as I thought.’
The Executioner, with his right arm still shackled, had to allow Harley to feast upon him.
However, even forced into a disadvantageous position, he did not crumble easily.
The moment Harley created a gap to feast, he severed his trapped arm and used time stop once again to escape.
‘That arm will regenerate quickly too. Plus, after that, he became cautious about using his ability again, so the same trick won’t work anymore. But well, using that “Food God” skill alone gave me quite a decent resistance.’
Naturally, that resistance included immunity to ‘time stop’.
Thanks to that, Harley could now leave his consciousness in the timeline whenever the enemy used his abilities, without having to worry about it.
While he still couldn’t move his body as freely as his opponent, the longer time passed, the more likely he could gradually move, suggesting that his primary aim had already been sufficiently accomplished.
‘I have to use this opportunity to strengthen my resistance and prepare countermeasures against time.’
Harley’s insistence on sticking to one-on-one fighting with the Executioner was primarily for that reason.
Since the enemy was a demon, having Heinrich intervene directly would certainly make it easier to handle.
But to gain the know-how and resistance against ‘time’ that he desired, it was far more efficient for him to be the one fighting up close like this.
That was his identity as the “Ultimate Evolved Being.”
‘The strength that the Buncheon Society Head wields must be related to space-time. Being able to face the Executioner, who is a lower-tier version, before facing him directly is nothing short of luck.’
To deal with the relentless charge of Harley, the Executioner was forced to continually utilize his abilities.
Though his body was gradually becoming more battered as the battle progressed, the pace of his ‘adaptation’ increased sharply, meaning it wasn’t an entirely bad situation.
“Kahaha! What’s this? You can fight this well while holding back? Let’s see if you can hold your ground even more!”
“Hah! No matter how much you cut, it just keeps coming back. Where on Earth did such a dreadful monster like you come from?”
“You’re the one calling me a monster while being a demon! A monster or a demon, aren’t they essentially the same?”
“Haha! This time, I’ll behead you for sure. Let’s see if you can still keep talking after that!”
The Executioner, proactively utilizing his transcendent ability, was gaining the upper hand against Harley.
Though the existence itself was comparable, it seemed the presence or absence of a Unique Skill made all the difference in victory and defeat.
Harley, as a being that was essentially the product of the Unique Skill ‘Avatar,’ lacked a significant finishing blow unlike the Executioner.
“Struggle… struggle indeed…”
The cold-eyed Heinrich, watching from the sidelines, let out a small scoff.
Observing this made it painfully ironic how some things play out in life.
‘He’s probably not looking for struggle, but rather a thrill within safety.’
After all, his ability was a contradictory one.
To hope for struggles while having guarantees for safety in any situation, was that even possible?
That was no different from riding a roller coaster equipped with every safety feature just to experience a brief thrill.
‘Perhaps that’s why he seeks out even more perilous situations.’
Casting a sidelong glance for a moment, he quickly turned his body.
Given that both sides were optimized for enduring, it didn’t seem like any conclusions would be reached anytime soon, hence it was unnecessary for him to keep watching.
There was no need for him to monitor things when Heinz II alone could grasp the real-time flow of causality for any unforeseen events.
“Let’s see, then during this time…?”
Harris was already analyzing ways to enclose the space, utilizing the counter of the Formation Techniques against the “Soft Eight Trigrams Secret Skill (Modified)” that was inherently oppositional.
Along with the Undead King Hans and Dragon Horus joining forces, results would eventually manifest.
“…I guess I should tidy up the rest of the guys.”
In his hands, the Holy Sword radiated brilliant light, forming a massive blade of light.
Simultaneously, three large pairs of wings spread wide, and a halo radiated from his entire body.
The holy power was thick enough to melt away the aftermath of the demonic battle that erupted at one side of the battlefield.
Some who had been observing the transcendent battle were drawn to the direction he was in due to the overwhelming presence.
“I need to move quickly. There are still six left.”
Gently glancing at them, he shrugged his shoulders lightly.
This was Heinrich’s first actual combat in the foreign realm.
*
“What on earth…?”
An, confronted with the suddenly changed circumstances, muttered blankly.
When using ‘Fate Manipulation,’ she had felt utterly defeated, but who could’ve predicted it would turn out like this?
‘…Masquerade?’
She could hardly believe that by simply receiving help from Ken, it was such a significant advantage.
Even the ability to thoroughly scout information from such a distance was not something to be underestimated.
But now this was far beyond any level she had imagined!
‘To be able to face the Executioner head-on? And the level of strength is not a one-off but consistent…?’
She swallowed hard, unknowingly.
The hope that had shriveled up just moments ago began to flow back slowly.
And like a symbol of her blossoming expectations.
Whoosh—
In dazzling glory,
An angel descended upon the earth.
