947: The Brilliant Flameblade, Ignis
Izario simply kept defending himself, and the antidemons kept falling.
I observed him the entire time, utilizing all of my senses to discern the trick he was using.
And then I realized it.
The insides of the antidemons had become abnormally hot.
Apparently, he was burning them from the inside by increasing their internal temperature little by little. If done to any normal person, they would be rolling over from the pain of the heat. But for an antidemon with no sense of pain, they would simply keep going until their eventual death.
This didn’t seem like an incredibly efficient way to defeat a horde…… Well, I guess antidemons are oblivious to internal anomalies because of their lack of pain. It’s a good thing for Izario that he doesn’t have to worry about letting any escape.
Three more minutes pa.s.sed.
Izario was still completely surrounded on all sides by the entire horde of antidemons. Over 10,000 of them blasted away at him endlessly. Did he really plan to defend the entire time as he slowly burned them to death?
He managed to slay about 500 of them with the heat, but that was a drop in the bucket. I’m sure someone of his level would win eventually, but how long is it gonna take?
While I was watching Izario’s battle with these doubts, I suddenly felt something approaching us from behind.
There were no biological signs, but I faintly sensed a physical existence cutting through the air and flying toward us.
If I hadn’t maintained my caution due to being on a battlefield, I doubt I could’ve noticed this so quickly. We turned around in a hurry, thinking someone was trying to snipe us.
But what was in front of us was something completely unexpected.
It was not an attack, but a person. Or rather, a person-shaped ent.i.ty.
White skin and silver hair. A face that can only be described as “too perfect”. A woman with no presence, and no emotion.
She was the Silver Lady, a golem created by the divine blacksmith Zechs.
As if ignoring inertia, she suddenly stopped in front of us. Then, she spoke in a flat voice, still devoid of expression.
「It has been a while.」
「……Nn. Can I help you?」
「Yes. I was searching for you to tell you something, but now there is a more pressing matter at hand.」
「?」
「You should leave this place as soon as possible, or you will be caught in the middle of the strike from Ignis.」
「!」
Immediately after the Silver Lady issued her warning, the crimson blade, conspicuous even from this distance, radiated an intense light. It seems that Izario just activated his divine sword.
The flash of red light illuminated the entire plains, and the pressure from the torrent of mana physically blasted the antidemons away.
When the brilliant red light subsided, Izario held a ma.s.s of flames in his hand.
「Is that the true form of Ignis?」
『I guess so……』
It was pure, unadulterated fire. A raging fire the length of a longsword. Though the flames gave off a divine aura, it took a much different form than the other activated divine swords we’ve seen.
But that sheer strength was truly worthy of the name.
We already felt hot, even this far away. Moreover, the temperature of the surrounding area was rising at a tremendous rate.
『Fran, the Silver Lady is right! We have to get out of here!』
「Nn. I’m leaving.」
「I believe that is a wise decision.」
The Silver Lady started moving first, so we followed her. Even after flying 200 meters away from Izario, she did not stop.
We went another 200 meters, and finally, the Silver Lady ceased her flight.
「Do we really have to go this far?」
「Yes. The effects can still be felt, even here. However, based on past data, this distance should pose no issue.」
「You’ve seen Izario’s divine sword multiple times?」
「I have observed as many large-scale battles as I could within the continent.」
As part of her support for Overgrowth’s wielder, she said she was constantly gathering information on antidemons and other powerful individuals.
Meanwhile, Izario was one of the strongest people on the continent, who had been fighting here for several years. She naturally had a vast collection of battle data on him, not to mention witnessing the power of Brilliant Flameblade countless times.
Therefore, she could predict the outcome to some extent.
「He will use himself as a decoy to gather the antidemons, before performing a ma.s.s annihilation with the power of Ignis. Izario of the Crimson Blade has a high probability of executing this pattern in the case of an antidemon extermination.」
We stared down at the battlefield while listening to the Silver Lady’s explanation. There, I saw a surging crimson light spreading to cover the entire horde.
My first thought was that it was a beautiful sight, but inside that light was h.e.l.l itself.
The divine flames unleashed by Ignis engulfed the antidemons, obliterating every single one of them. They didn’t even have the time to turn to ash, since they got reduced into nothingness the second they made contact with it.
This was far more powerful than even the highest-level magic. He had burnt a red circle into the ground with a radius of nearly 100 meters by melting the earth and antidemons alike. The excess heat from this singed an even wider circle.
The temperature around Fran had risen too, with a slight sweat appearing on her forehead.
Like the Silver Lady said, we were way too close earlier. If we took that without a barrier, we might have gotten some burns. We should survive though, probably……
The divine swords. While staring at the scorched land, we were reminded once again of their awe-inspiring powers.
Floating above the red-hot, bubbling earth, Fran spoke again.
「So, did you say you had something to tell me?」
「Yes. A word of advice.」
「Advice?」
「Be careful of Silard. If they realize how useful you are, it will only cause trouble for you.」