Anagin Chronicles

Chapter 118

A pig’s head covered in countless scars and burns.A neck thicker than that head, and the massive, muscular body supporting it.

Sea-monster hide armor completely covering that muscular frame, vambraces and greaves taken from a centaur chieftain, and a gigantic blade of flesh fused directly to its hand.

Above all else, its enormous size—easily five meters tall.

That overwhelming bulk, armament, and aura froze everyone in place for a brief moment.

The vigorous suitors who had come to claim Atalanta as a bride, the royal guards who had sworn to protect the royal family with their lives, the New Argonaut Expedition Team aspiring to become heroes, and even the Argonaut Expedition Team already called heroes.

…Yes, even Meleager, who had once defeated a Barbaroi Cult bishop, found his body locked in place.

But it wasn’t something to blame him for.

Just as ignorance can breed courage, knowing too much can deepen fear.

Meleager knew well how strong, troublesome, and dangerous a Barbaroi Cult bishop was.

To look down on one simply because you’d defeated it once was the act of a fool—especially when that victory hadn’t even been over a bishop in perfect condition.

That was why Meleager's hesitation for even a moment was understandable.

In fact, he deserved praise for being the first to recover and attempt to seize the initiative.

Seen from that perspective, the truly absurd one was Anagin.

“Don’t panic. Don’t panic. That thing is nothing special.”

Even with Hippomenes awakened as a bishop before him, Anagin rattled on with confidence.

“Let’s do it again like before. This time, we can really finish him.”

Despite having failed once to deal with Hippomenes, Anagin boasted that this time would be different.

And yet—why was it? That shameless voice somehow sounded reliable.

Was it because he’d charged alone into the flames to try and end Hippomenes? Or because he’d drowned out Hippomenes’s monstrous roar with a shout of his own?

The exact reason was unclear, but the tension everyone had felt at Hippomenes’s awakening eased considerably.

Enough to recognize that Hippomenes’s awakening was somehow unstable…

Of course, not everyone felt that way.

“You failed, and you still dare spout that kind of bullshit?!”

Meleager’s uncle and cousins.

Amazingly, they’d survived the chaos so far without being swept away. Useless as they were, blood was blood, it seemed.

“If you hadn’t failed in the first place, none of this would have—!”

They kept yelling noisily, but Anagin ignored them.

They were a minority opinion, and this wasn’t a situation where he could afford to care about people like that.

“It’s coming.”

Anagin spoke briefly to Meleager’s loud uncle.

The man was about to demand what that meant—

When Hippomenes, transformed into a gigantic bipedal pig, closed the distance in an instant and swung the massive blade of flesh downward.

Boom—!

Movement far too nimble for a body that size.

The impact carried its full speed, shaking the ground and splitting it apart.

“Oh…!”

Anagin, who dodged instead of blocking, couldn’t help admiring the power of the strike.

It wasn’t just bigger, its strength had grown even more.

“Is now really the time to be impressed?”

Irida scolded him, half exasperated.

After saying it was nothing special, what was he supposed to do now?

“I’m the type who admits what needs admitting. Still, there’s good news.”

“What is it?”

“That thing’s lost its reason. Before, it at least pretended to know swordsmanship. Now it’s just swinging wildly.”

He wasn’t wrong.

The massive size, speed that belied it, and earth-splitting strength had hidden it at first, but looking closely, Hippomenes really was just flailing his blade.

Of course, that alone was still more than threatening enough, but it wasn’t meaningless.

No matter how strong, an enemy acting purely on instinct was easier to handle.

“Is that what bishops are normally like?”

Anagin shouted the question, and an answer came back.

From Meleager.

He was the only one here who’d actually fought a bishop.

“No.”

Meleager answered earnestly, as if addressing an equal warrior.

“A bishop’s true form is a monster like that, but not a mindless one. They’re cunning beyond measure.”

“Then it’s simple. That Pig-pomenes bastard isn’t really bishop-rank. It’s probably thanks to me, right? I'll just take it as if you said thank you.”

Even in the chaos, Anagin puffed himself up, claiming credit.

Everyone felt an irritating, hard-to-describe emotion at his shamelessness, but they couldn’t deny the credit itself.

After all, Anagin was the one who’d charged into the flames and targeted Hippomenes inside the flesh.

The burns and gashes left on Hippomenes’s face and his twisted body as a pig giant supported that claim.

“So what do you want us to do?!”

“What do you think—help me again! That Pig-pomenes bastard loves fire, so roast him one more time. Then I’ll finish him!!”

Anagin shouted his plan again.

Everyone seemed too rattled—they’d probably forgotten.

No one voiced opposition. Right now, it seemed like the most reliable option.

But there was a problem.

[Fire, seize and burn.]

Setting Hippomenes ablaze wasn’t as easy as it sounded.

KKEEEIK!

When Tramachus tried to bind Hippomenes with serpent-like flames, Hippomenes swung the blade of flesh fused to his hand and cut the fire apart in an instant.

Tramachus’s flames lost strength and guttered out.

Reason may have been gone, but instinct was intact—he reacted the moment he saw fire.

That wasn’t all.

Meleager hurled flames shaped into spears, but Hippomenes moved swiftly and avoided them.

He didn’t dodge everything, but dodging at all was the problem.

When he’d been a stationary mass of flesh, burning him had been easy. Now, it wasn’t.

If anything, his defenses felt even stronger than before.

“Focus on the joints.”

Atalanta’s enlarged arrow failed to pierce through completely, stopping partway against the sea-monster hide armor.

Naturally, most ranged attacks, including Irida’s wind arrows, failed to penetrate the hide armor and bounced off.

Arms and legs were out of the question. The only viable targets were the joints.

Even those didn’t take deep hits, and most wounds regenerated.

Fast, tough, and with powerful regeneration.

Stopping Hippomenes’s movement and setting him on fire was already an enormous task.

Then—

KKEEEEEK!!

Hippomenes finally began using techniques.

He drove the blade of flesh into the ground.

The blade spread across the earth like a contagion, covering the surrounding area, as if declaring this land his domain.

Squish. Squish. Squish.

Wet, soft flesh spread outward, and pigs were summoned again, just like before.

The summoned pigs lunged at nearby people, trying to seize their legs.

“Dodge them however you can!”

Everyone knew getting caught would be dangerous, and shouted warnings, but knowing didn’t mean it was easy to avoid.

On the flesh-covered ground, even attacking the pigs wasn’t enough. If they weren’t killed instantly, they regenerated and lunged again, making it hard to shake them off. As the chase dragged on—

“Damn…!”

At last, one Groom Tournament participant was grabbed by the pigs.

Hippomenes raised the blade of flesh high and brought it down.

KWAAANG!

Too late to dodge, the participant tried to block—and failed.

The massive blade of bone and flesh crushed down with overwhelming mass, chopping the Groom Tournament participant apart.

Like forcing a dull knife through meat.

In that moment, their already scarce fighting strength was reduced even further.

[Vertical Slash]

Anagin infused the Beast Devourer with Eul (εὐ) and brought it down on the blade of flesh embedded in the ground.

Slash—!

Amazingly, the enormous blade was cleanly split in two by Anagin’s hand.

Kkueeek—!

Hippomenes screamed in agony.

‘Just as I thought,’ Anagin mused.

He had suspected it since the blade was tangled with the hand holding it, but it truly seemed to be a part of Hippomenes’s body.

Like a fingernail, maybe?

Whether it was a fingernail or a claw didn’t really matter.

What mattered was that it could be cut with the Beast Devourer.

Anagin moved to charge at the writhing Hippomenes, but Hippomenes raised a hand toward him first.

Was that a glimmer of reason returning to his eyes?

Before Anagin could even answer that question, bone arrows jutted out from Hippomenes’s hand and poured forth in a wave, accompanied by a shockwave.

Shoooo—!

Bone arrows rained down from all directions, like the arrows of the Arcadian Royal GuardS.

Dodging them looked impossible.

At that moment, a fierce wind blew outward from Anagin, blasting away every bone arrow rushing toward him.

[You don’t need to thank me.]

Sphinx’s voice rang in Anagin’s ear.

It sounded slightly different than usual.

Like it was coming from a slightly different world.

When he turned his head, he immediately understood why.

The semi-transparent Sphinx hovered ghostlike beside him, a hand resting on his shoulder.

It was Spirit-Form Manifestation (魂體化)—one of the forms a properly contracted familiar could take to aid its master.

A state where the body was converted into a spiritual form to provide support.

Seeing that mysterious sight, Anagin said to Sphinx.

“What took you so long?”

He actually complained.

[I should’ve let you get hit by those arrows.]

“Too late for regrets. More importantly, did you leave the brats behind?”

[I’m here because the kids told me to go. They said even if they can’t help their big brother, they shouldn't be a hindrance.]

“Ha!”

Anagin let out a short laugh at the brats’ thoughtfulness. Cheeky little brats.

The moment his laughter faded, Hippomenes regenerated the severed blade of flesh and took a stance to strike Anagin down.

Sphinx warned him.

[Even I can’t block that much mass.]

“Doesn’t matter. I’ll just cut it.”

Anagin took his stance as well, ready to cleave the blade of flesh again.

Now that he knew the blade was weak against the Beast Devourer, he was confident.

[Uh… looks like he’s got a plan too.]

Sphinx warned him as she saw the orichalcum, the metal, slowly spreading over the surface of the blade of flesh.

That changed things.

If the surface was coated with orichalcum sharpened to extreme hardness, the Beast Devourer might actually break.

Just as Anagin was about to protest, ‘Hey, that’s cheating,’ Hippomenes swung the blade like lightning.

As if unwilling to miss this rare opening.

──────!

The massive blade slammed into the ground once more, and with a thunderous crash, the earth shook, dust billowing everywhere.

An unpleasant silence fell, and everyone swallowed their breath—

“Oh, shit… that was close!”

Anagin’s voice rang out from within the dust cloud.

“!”

Everyone turned in shock, and through the dust they saw Anagin standing there.

With a club in one hand.

Blocking Hippomenes’s orichalcum blade.

“Periphetes?”

The first to recognize it was Meleager.

Just as Sanchonius had reported, Anagin was wielding the club forged by Periphetes.

‘How?!’

Even though this wasn’t the time for it, Meleager couldn’t help but be baffled.

Because by all common sense, it was impossible.

Energy (Γι)—the primal essence of the Gigants.

Forging tools by refining the very essence of that Energy (Γι) was what forging truly meant.

Tools created through such forging were called tools, but in truth, they were no different from parts of the body.

Naturally, when the owner died, the forged weapon was supposed to disappear as well.

And yet, that natural order was being denied right now.

Even though Periphetes was dead, Anagin was wielding it as if it were his own.

When he’d first heard Sanchonius’s report, Meleager hadn’t believed it and had even held a sparring match to confirm it for himself—yet to confirm it like this…

Even seeing it with his own eyes, the shock was too great to accept.

How was this even possible?

And what came next was even harder to believe.

“AAAAAAAAGH—!!”

Anagin swung Periphetes’s club, ‘Longbald,’ with all his might and pushed back Hippomenes’s blade away.

He had overpowered the colossal Hippomenes and his blade with sheer strength.

Then Anagin poured his Energy (Γι) into Longbald without restraint and slammed it into the ground.

[Ground Breaker]

The surrounding area was pulverized.