Taming The Villainesses

Chapter 444: Demon

Eight hands moved, forming seals.

I was already well aware through the paper spider Bael that various hand gestures could substitute for magic incantations, but still, a chill crawled up to my scalp.

“Everyone be careful! It’s coming!”

Of course, even without my warning, the ladies were already tense and braced for whatever was about to fly toward us. Soon, a searing flame surged at us.

Fwaaaa—!

The fire shot from the giant’s hand fell upon us like divine retribution from the heavens. It might as well have been divine retribution itself—after all, it was the wrath of a god.

Against the ultra-high heat, the mana shield I had deployed shattered like a pane of glass hit by a baseball.

“Ugh—.”

From the beginning, Solomon, who had reached the 10th Rank, had been compared to a god.

And now, I, who had only just barely reached the 8th Rank, was attempting to confront an existence that was the source of all magic itself. It was absurd from the start.

Just when I thought all the shields would break and we would all burn away in this hellfire, a slicing sound split the wind.

『━━───.』

At the same time, I felt the massive body tremble with a great shock. When I turned my head, I saw nymph Trish flying out like a bullet, kicking the giant’s body.

Even with my keen eyesight, her speed was so extreme that she looked like a black and white flash streaking across my vision.

『━Remnant of━─the past──.』

The giant stretched out countless hands to capture her. Each arm emitted intense lightning or whipped up gusts of wind.

It seemed each arm wielded a different kind of power. But no matter what, even a brush against one would surely inflict grievous wounds.

Yet Trish climbed the giant’s body and hurled her fist at its stony, statue-like face.

—Nymph Rock Crusher!

Compared to the giant’s massive body, her fist was minuscule, but the impact generated a shockwave powerful enough to rival a meteor crashing through the atmosphere, leaving a deep dent in the giant’s face.

KWAANG—!

『━━──!!!』

The massive body staggered, swaying like a great tree about to topple. Trish, knocked away by the rebound, landed nimbly beside us and said,

“As you can see, it’s possible to destroy it! No need to be scared! If we don’t take it down, none of us will survive!”

It was difficult to understand everything she said.

But I grasped one thing clearly: It was possible to fight back, and there was a way to defeat it.

The giant, who had seemed like an overwhelming transcendental being, now began to seem like a "monster we might just be able to beat," and with that shift, confidence surged within me.

And not just within me—everyone else, too.

“Light Lance. Maximum Enhancement. Single Shot.”

Ayra began chanting a powerful spell. With her 8th Rank magic, a brilliant lance of blinding light formed in the air, crackling with intense energy.

At a glance, the amount of destructive power it radiated could have blasted a gaping hole even through a castle wall.

Ayra, wielding the thick incarnation of destruction in her hand—

“Hrgh—!”

With a sharp cry, Ayra thrust one foot forward. The weight concentrated in that step crushed the world beneath her for a brief moment, and like a cannon, she launched the Light Lance.

—Magic Spear, Gungnir!

Fwoosh—KWAANG—!

The lance cut through the air and pierced the giant’s arm. A violent explosion erupted, and the arm that had been casting flames at us disintegrated into dust.

The feat was so impressive that no words of amazement even came out.

“Only one arm?”

But Ayra clicked her tongue in disappointment. Then Narmee shouted beside her:

“Sis, I think we need to use that thing too! Hurry!”

At Narmee’s urging, Mirna slung off the bag she carried on her back. She pulled something out—a strange wooden tablet. You could even call it a little piece of wood.

Clack.

A wooden tablet, suddenly?

Mirna snapped it—crack—and without a moment’s pause, she and Narmee began chanting a spell in perfect unison, with the same tone and cadence.

“Demons wandering the nine heavens, ancient serpents—awaken from your slumber and obey your master’s command.”

From the broken tablet in Mirna’s hand, black smoke began to rise.

It quickly expanded with an ominous presence, forming into a towering shape as large as a tall building.

It was a dragon, adorned with multiple wings. Not a wyvern—a true dragon, the kind said to have soared through the primeval skies.

A ghost of a dragon?

As it spread its wings, Elga and Stella each grabbed onto its tail.

In an instant, the dragon ghost shot forward like a missile, Elga clinging to it.

The dragon’s massive form collided with the giant’s body, grappling it.

Pop—!

At the same time, Elga sprang high into the air and swung her halberd, striking with all her might at the giant’s leftmost upper arm that was sparking with lightning.

“Aaaaaaaah—!”

With a cry more like a scream than a shout, her thick, fearsome battle-axe howled. It slammed into the giant’s solid shoulder with an explosive shock—

“Meteor Slash—!!!”

Flaaaash—!!!

And finally, she succeeded in severing one of the arms. Elga’s superhuman strength and the crushing power of her halberd had succeeded in destroying the god’s flesh!

“Ah—.”

However, suspended in midair, Elga let out a deflated sound as she plummeted toward the ground.

Falling dozens of meters without a parachute—even Elga wouldn’t get away unscathed.

“Elga! Catch this!”

Just then, Stella, still clinging to the dragon ghost, pulled something from her belt and threw it.

It was a rope with a grappling hook, slicing through the air like a snake to wrap around Elga’s waist.

Whirr.

“Got you! I’ll pull you up!”

“I thought I was dead for sure! But still, I chopped off one arm! Six left—!”

The ladies' hopeful voices echoed in my ears. Six arms left. If we kept fighting like this, we had a real chance at victory.

At the same time—

An uncanny unease crept over me because everything was going too well. Had there ever been a time in my life when things went so smoothly? Happiness and success only made me more anxious.

Having rolled through the mud all my life, fear at good fortune was my chronic disease. But this time, it felt different.

What was this?

This trembling?

This fear?

“...Something’s wrong. This isn’t right. Everyone, everyone’s—!”

I opened my mouth wide to shout something.

And then, like old peeling paint falling away, the entire scene before me began to slip away. As if revealing the true colors hidden beneath layers of pigment.

Flutter, flutter, flutter.

What my eyes saw—

Was stark, terrible reality.

The ladies, who had just been fighting valiantly against the giant, were now lying scattered across the floor, broken and bloodied.

Hss, hss.

The least damaged among them were Elga, kneeling with her halberd embedded in the ground, and Ayra, gasping for breath with her stomach pierced by a jagged shard of ice.

The twins and Professor Stella were nowhere to be seen.

“What the hell....”

My vision tried desperately to reject what it was seeing. Where had the illusion started? Where had it ended? My mind stuttered, unable to process the overwhelming flood of information.

『Pitiful. You should have remained a little longer in your daydream. Behold. This is the truth.』

A colossal voice echoed directly within my body. What I had been seeing until now had been nothing but hallucination or mirage. The devastation now before me was reality.

It awakened me.

『Despair. Creates cracks in the heart. Cracks in the heart. Invite gods into them. Vessel—empty yourself. Accept your fate.』

How had it come to this?

Or perhaps—it had always been inevitable. From the start, trying to resist destiny or the great world as a mere mortal had been a mistake.

The giant hand approaching me seemed to freeze time. The life I had lived flashed before my eyes. My happy wedding floated to mind.

『This time, it will not be a new millennium. But endless eternity itself. I am the world. The universe. All existence.』

The hand stopped.

『But—this one. Is better. Youth. Means infinite potential. A better vessel.』

It no longer reached for me.

It turned toward the small half-fairy child, groaning beside me.

“......!”

Nymph Trish, embracing her son, screamed something—but I couldn’t hear her.

All I knew—

Was that the powerless half-fairy I was could do nothing now.

Kwaaaang—!

The hand reaching for Trish stopped with a massive explosion.

『Why. Are you resisting me. When you have already lost all will?』

I looked at my own hand, still extended.

Without even realizing it, my body had moved on its own, firing magic at the giant’s arm.

Just—

“...If I stay still like this, I feel like everything I’ve done, every important decision I made—like so much inside me—will just... disappear.”

And somehow, I thought—

Maybe it wasn’t too late yet.

That faint hope had been given to me, ironically, by the giant itself.

“Young means potential. Maybe that kid can do better than me.”

Yeah.

There might still be a chance.

“Beatrice! Take the child and run! Don’t stop! Toward the door you see over there—beyond it! Now!”

I shouted with all the will left inside me. Trish, snapping back to herself, leapt up. Thankfully, she understood immediately.

“Okay! Leave it to me! Hold him off!”

Clutching her child, she sprinted toward the distant door, slicing through the light.

『Do you. Think. I will let you go?』

Goooooo—.

The giant reached out a massive hand toward them.

If they got caught, it would be over.

I gathered every last drop of mana within me to launch another attack.

“......!”

But no matter how hard I focused inward, I couldn’t feel my mana.

It was like a once-gushing faucet had dried up into drought.

『I am the one. Who bestowed magic. Upon creation. To challenge me. With my own power. You. And Beatrice. Are finished.』

The giant’s hand reached for them.

It was over.

『Bea. Trice.』

But then—

The hand that was about to crush mother and child suddenly halted.

『Memories. Of the vessels—.』

I didn’t know why, but its movements became unnatural, creaking like an unlubricated machine. And in that brief moment, the woman and child slipped through the door and vanished.

『Aaaaaaaaaaah──!!!』

A terrible scream shook the world.

Now, only the howling monstrous god, myself, and the wounded, gasping ladies remained.

『Teo. Gospel. Your soul. Shall be torn apart alive. You shall thirst for eternity. Crushed beneath the weight of infinite time!』

Flaaash—!

With a thunderous roar of rage, something violently churned inside my mind.

***

"Hey, Ayra. Are you alive...?"

Elga drew in a deep, ragged breath.

Her left leg was broken, and her right arm throbbed as if it had been crushed—but even so, she somehow managed to hold onto her consciousness.

It must have been thanks to the tough stamina unique to the Leones bloodline, and the strengthening effect granted by her halberd, the Crusher.

Even so, compared to her cousin Ayra, she was in far better shape. Ayra had been skewered clean through her left side by a massive shard of ice.

Cough.

Ayra vomited up a mouthful of blood.

"...I'm alive. Somehow...."

It was a grave, mortal wound. Elga couldn’t even comprehend how she was still breathing. It was only a matter of time.

They had all been defeated far too easily.

What about Mirna, Narmee, and Professor Stella? Elga wanted to turn her head to search for them, but her body wouldn't move the way she wanted.

"Damn it..."

It ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) was an understatement to say they were outmatched. By the time they regained consciousness, everything was already over.

Thinking they could fight a god—had it been a delusion from the start?

No, could that thing even be called a "god"? It was something far more ominous and terrible.

Just the fact that such a being existed in the world sent chills down Elga’s spine.

"Damn it... Are we really going to end like this...?"

Of course, the situation wasn’t completely finished yet.

The half-fairy was still standing.

He was only standing, though.

Both the grotesque god and the half-fairy stood frozen—like broken wind-up toys.

That fact filled Elga with an uneasy dread.

"Ugh, what the hell is even... happening?"

The rest of the sentence couldn't escape her lips, choked off by the pain.

‘Did my lungs get wrecked too?’

She clenched her teeth, telling herself she had to protect the child inside her at all costs. It was then that Ayra, gasping for air, spoke up.

"Bea...trice. It definitely reacted to that name. If... if the body used to create that vessel is the one I know... then maybe I know its weak point...."

"You think you know that monster's weakness?"

"My eyes can see the past. If my guess is right, even that giant could... collapse...."

Ayra's words carried a sliver of hope. But Elga was in no condition to move, and Ayra wasn’t much better. Even if they knew the weak point, it might already be too late.

Still—they couldn’t give up.

If they had no hands, they would bite with their teeth. That was the way of the Leones.

Elga was desperately trying to think of a way—when she saw it.

Rustle, rustle.

Something—a strange shadow—was flickering in this world filled with nothing but light.

When Elga focused on the eerie shadow, she gasped in shock.

"You... Biel... was it?"

━━Krrrng...!

"Bael, yeah, it was Bael."

━━Hioooong...!

Watching the black spider lift its forelegs, Elga steeled her resolve.

Yes, there might still be a way.

"Shh, come here quietly."

Elga reached out her hand to call the spider over.

But—

Someone else grabbed the spider first.

Shk.

"What moves humans?"

The man spoke before Elga, stunned into silence, could say anything.

"The answer... is emotion."