Almadianos Eiyuuden Chapter 37

Chapter 37 of Almadianos is here! I posted chapter 35 a couple days ago, so if you missed it check it out .

Anyway, here's chapter 37, I hope you'll enjoy it!

Chapter 37

As Kurats calmly stood in the middle of their circle, the surrounding monsters simultaneously rushed towards him.
Facing him were monsters with big builds such as red-eyed bears and death rhinoceroses, and other, more humanoid monsters, like war tigers.
The difference between the two sides was clearly overkill.

Bam! 

Suddenly, there was sound akin to a tender slice of meat being powerfully slapped into a wall.
When he looked for the source of the sound, Adrian's eyes were met with the body parts of the large-builded monsters, dancing in the air.
Kurats, who was no more than 2 meters tall (6'6 feet), had easily blown off monsters that weighed tons and tons, by using only his fist. Adrian could not believe his eyes.
He knew even he would not be able pull of such a feat.

As he realized he may have underestimated the enemy, a sense of impending danger was finally starting to creep on him.

【”Is he really a human?”】

As if they were cras.h.i.+ng into a transparent wall, all the monsters that jumped towards Kurats were repelled back.
However, that was clearly not due to the a magic defense barrier since each of them lost some body parts and died.

Kurats did not look like he was using all his strength.
His blows looked gentle, but they were strong enough to separate a red-eyed bear from its limbs and to smash apart the horn of a death rhinoceros.

(Their numbers are in the thousands, but at this rate, it looks like they're going to be annihilated in no time,.)

The likelihood of that thought being spot on made Adrian s.h.i.+ver.
He had to stop this man at all costs, no matter the means.
As the monsters kept dying miserably, like sea waves cras.h.i.+ng on a steep cliff, Adrian strengthened his resolve and decided to use them as sacrifices.

【”Just don't let him escape. Your deaths will not be in vain!”】

After saying so, he cut the blood vessels on his wrist and scattered the blood that came out.

Adrian was a member of the immortal clan, Nosferatu.
When it came to using blood as an intermediary for spells, no one was better than the immortal clan.
The head of that clan, the duke of Tarantino, could go as far as easily enchanting tens of thousands of soldiers or crus.h.i.+ng a whole mountain.
As one of the subordinates of that man, Adrian could not afford to show himself looking unsightly.

【”I offer my blood energy to merge the voices of deep resentment from far and wide. Hear the roar of Cerberus, the watchdog of the nether realm! ‘Death ray' !”】

Death ray was Adrian's strongest attack. Not only did it hold a very high temperature, it could also directly attack the enemy's soul to end his mind and spirit.
Any aristocrat of Adrian's level would die instantly with no way of survival if they were attacked directly by this technique, though that would not be the case for senior aristocrats.
However, the spell consumed 70% of Adrian's total magic power. It was an ‘all or nothing' attack.

(―― Can I cancel it?)

If Kurats poured his far superior reserve of magic power into a magic cancelling barrier, then cancelling the death ray spell would be as easy as stealing candy from a baby.

But that would be no fun.

Though they were not looking at each other directly, Bernst and Kurats both knew that there were bad smiles forming on each other's faces.

(Hehehe…You're pretty vicious.)
『No no no, though I may appear that way, I happen to be an upstanding man.』
(No way, there is nothing upstanding about this.)

The two of them seemed to only get along when it came to these kinds of matters.
While the two egos were conversing without feeling a shred of danger, Kurats focused his magic power in his fist.

『….Why aren't you using a ‘Reflect Purge' barrier?』

Since it seemed like Kurats was not going to use the spell he expected him to, Bernst questioned his actions while already feeling worn out before even getting an answer.

(Sorry, but, I think it'll be too hard for me to control the angle of reflection.)
『This d.a.m.n muscle brain…』

It was certainly possible to make the death ray bounce right back to where it came from by using a Reflect Purge barrier.
However, unfortunately, this spell needed to be controlled delicately, and Kurats was not skilled enough to use it.

【”――  ‘Magic Gauntlet' “】

When Kurats muttered so quietly, an extremely dense lump of his magic power was compressed on his upper arm and turned into a polished and smooth magic metal.

【”D-don't tell me this is―― a ‘Materialize' spell?!”】

This unbelievable scene left Adrian at a loss for words.
Unlike release-type spells like death ray, the spells that could turn magic power into matter were a very advanced type of magic that required overwhelming quant.i.ties of magic power.
The one Kurats had used however was different from that. It was a spell he had inherited from Bernst, far superior to the techniques known in this world, but Adrian had no way of knowing that.
However, no matter how mighty the spell was, Adrian believed that should not be enough to counter his death ray.
Wis.h.i.+ng fervently that he was right, he looked at the flash of his spell push forward.

【”Yaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”】
『…Aah, there is no beauty to this.』

As Kurats clenched his fist, Bernst grumbled in disappointment.
However, without a care for those complaints, Kurats proceeded to happily swing his fist down.
Or rather, it seemed like he was swinging it down, but he was actually creating a barrage of several hundred of punches.
With his gauntlet made of a magic metal more solid than diamond, Kurats splendidly counterbalanced the energy of Adrian's death ray.
This defensive method that consisted of using hundreds of simultaneous punches at the same time to create a barrage was a feat of strength that could only be done by a muscle brain like Kurats.

【”This is impossible―― Something this absurd can't be happening!”】

Adrian had been the ruler of this forest since the day he came to life, and he had always believed humans were inferior creatures. This made him unable to accept the reality of what was taking place.
He believed there had to be some sort of justification.
Maybe this was all the work of an artifact?
Or perhaps it was the effect of a magical illusion?
While Adrian tried to find an answer to these confusing events, a small smirk appeared on the face of Kurats, who proceeded to taunt him.

【”Looks like monster aristocrats aren't that big of a deal, huh.”】
【”You… HUMAN! HOW DARE YOU!”】

As the absolute strongest being in the forest, Adrian had never been provoked before. Being taunted like this was a new and unbearable experience that pushed him into an outburst.

The powers of monsters were not limited to magic.
They also had special abilities that far surpa.s.sed the strength of humans. Those abilities could become dreadful weapons in combat.
Adrian's sharp nails instantaneously grew to the length of swords, before he leaped on Kurats.

『Hmm, too bad, I wanted to take a look at the devil eyes of the immortal clan.』
(If he's still not using them at this point, then he probably doesn't have them, right?)

Kurats easily blocked Adrian's nails and then caught his wrist and threw him very high up in the air.
Due to the excessive strength of the throw, Adrian's shoulder was dislocated, creating an agonizing pain, but he still barely managed to straighten himself up while staying above ground.
Since he had wings, the air was the best environment for Adrian to show his strength.
However, when he tried to target Kurats' life again, he witnessed an unbelievable sight.
A blue and bright sphere of around 10 meters (400″) in diameter was sparkling above Kurats' head.
One glance was enough to tell that the magic power within it was abnormal.
Its enormous temperature had already reached critical levels, and it kept firing off a sort of thunder-like plasma in the surroundings.
If such a high concentration of energy was released here, it would probably blow the whole forest away.

【”Y-you freak of nature…!”】

This time, Adrian tasted a fear that made him s.h.i.+ver from the bottom of his soul.
He felt like Kurats' out-of-standard power was undoubtedly a match for the duke of Tarantino.

【”Get lost.”】
【”STOOOOOOOOOOOP!”】

With the sound of a loud rumble in the ground, the sphere exploded.
The dazzling flash of white light dissolved everything in its way.

Once the light subsided, all that was left were the ashes of what used to be a n.o.ble monster, and a cracked ground that had completely dried up.
Every tree in a radius of 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) had been mowed down.
Moreover, because of the high temperature of the sphere, the earth at the heart of the impact point had turned into gla.s.s, and was sparkling as it reflected the sun.

【”Hey, what was that bright light in the sky just now?”】
【”Oh, so I really wasn't imagining it. It looked like there was a flash of thunder for a second there….”】

Though the explosion had happened in the monster forest, the resulting flash of light had been observed even from the far away Jormungand kingdom, and from a fortress of the Asgard empire.

【”Cough! cough!“】

After being hit by a shockwave and a cloud of sand, Kurats experienced a violent coughing fit.

『This is pathetic! What kind of hopeless man suffers damage from his own attack?!』

The range of “Altaic sun”, the anti-military spell he had used, had been much wider than expected.
Kurats had been blown several hundred meters (yards) away, and his hair was burnt even more than it initially was after Adrian's attack.
Had this happened to anyone else, the shock wave alone would have been enough to kill them.

【”d.a.m.n it… I can't show my face in front of my sister looking like that……”】
『That's not what you should be concerned about!』

In a daze, Kurats fiddled with his hair that had now taken a round, frizzly shape.
This hairstyle looked ridiculous.
It was guaranteed that Cornelia would burst out laughing if she were to seem him like this.

【”Master Bernst!”】
『M-master?』

Surprised by the unusual way Kurats had referred to him, Bernst had spoken with a funny intonation to his voice.

【”―― Can you heal my burnt hair back to how it used to be?”】
『Instead of doing that, wouldn't it have been better to just learn how to use a permanently-deployed type of protective barriers?』
【”Please just do something about this!”】