Free Web NovelWhen a person is truly afraid, the world becomes exceptionally clear.
It is a cruel, sharp clarity.
You can see the hexagonal edges of every snowflake, hear the dull thud of your own heart against your ribs, and smell the air mixing the scents of rust, gunpowder smoke, and frozen earth.
Your brain refuses to let go of a single detail.
Because it knows that one of those details might be the key to your survival.
Or the last thing you see before you die.
Frederick watched Alicia turn and walk into the blizzard, her platinum-gold long hair scattering in the storm, like a wisp of melting moonlight.
Frost Sugar squatted on her shoulder, turning back to wag its tail at him.
That probably meant, 'Good luck.'
Then came a silver-white light.
It was as if someone had lit a tiny star in the middle of the snowstorm.
Then a second one.
A third.
A fourth.
More and more points of light ignited on the opposite ridge, each one rapidly expanding, deforming, and coalescing into a vague humanoid silhouette.
Alicia's bait.
Over thirty silver-white, false 'presences' appeared like a swarm of ghosts on the slope across the basin, each radiating a vibrant, beating life essence.
For the Shadows that fed on 'existence,' this was like someone setting out a grand feast before a starving wolf pack.
The effect was immediate.
The black tide began surging toward the opposite side of the basin, at an astonishing speed.
They were 'flowing.'
Spreading along the ground like spilled ink, silent, yet carrying an oppressive feeling that made one's scalp tingle.
He watched a massive black silhouette appear in his field of vision.
Reinhardt's description had been accurate.
But 'accurate' and'seeing it with your own eyes' were two different things.
That mech—if it could still be called a mech.
It stood at the lowest point of the basin, pitch black as ink, at least one and a half times the height of a standard Knight Mech.
Its outline was indeed that of a standard Victoriana Royal Knight Mech.
But all the lines were twisted, magnified, and distorted.
Black, bone-like protrusions had sprouted from the shoulder armor, looking as if they were growing out from inside the plating.
The chest plate was covered in web-like cracks, from which a dark red light seeped, resembling a slowly shattering heart.
It held a greatsword in its right hand, the blade one-third longer than a standard Steam Longsword, its surface flowing with the same dark red light as the chest cracks.
Its left hand held a tower shield.
A massive tower shield extending from its shoulder to its knee, its surface smooth as a mirror, black as the abyss.
No decoration, no pattern.
Only a blackness that rejected everything.
He watched Margaret charge toward that giant black silhouette.
Her crisp military uniform, her dark brown long hair, her resolute shoulders.
A faint golden light swept out from her fingertips, instantly shattering the remaining black figures nearby.
Then the incarnation of destruction moved.
The greatsword chopped down.
It grazed her shoulder and plunged into the ground.
Centered on the point where the blade struck, a crater over twenty meters in diameter formed instantly, shattering rock and frozen earth flying outward like shrapnel.
The wave of snow kicked up by the shockwave splashed onto Frederick's face, chilling him to the bone.
He instinctively closed his eyes for a moment.
He hesitated, wondering if he should open them again.
He was scared.
He was truly, deeply, profoundly scared.
There was no way he could lie to himself about that.
His hands were shaking, his legs were trembling, even his teeth were chattering.
It was because of fear.
That pure fear rising from the depths of biological instinct.
His body was screaming at him: 'You're about to charge at something that can grind you into dust, are you insane?'
Frederick von Ashford was a coward.
He had known that since childhood.
As a child, he feared the dark, feared thunder, feared the rats in the cellar.
As an adult, he feared exams, feared instructors, feared Sebastian’s shoulder throws.
He was not the type born brave. fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓
Not the type like Reinhardt, who remained unfazed no matter what happened.
Not the type like Margaret, who ate danger for breakfast.
He was just an ordinary person who got scared, and who would honestly admit he was scared when he was.
Margaret was not hit.
She sidestepped the instant before the greatsword fell, and then—counterattacked.
She thrust both hands forward, launching a concentrated, pale golden beam of light directly at the incarnation of destruction's chest plate.
The moment the beam hit, the cracks on the chest plate flickered violently, the dark red light darting around like a startled snake.
The incarnation of destruction's body leaned back slightly—one inch.
Just one inch.
It stabilized itself.
The tower shield shifted sideways, blocking its chest.
The beam of light struck the shield surface, scattering like water hitting a dam, dispersing into countless tiny golden fragments that drifted down in the snow.
But Margaret did not stop.
She began to move.
Circling around the incarnation of destruction's feet.
Her left hand continuously released a pale golden light curtain for defense, while her right hand constantly fired light projectiles to harass it.
The light projectiles struck the incarnation of destruction's armor, kicking up clusters of golden sparks, but causing almost no substantial damage.
The greatsword chopped down again and again, each strike carrying world-destroying power, each one leaving a new crater on the ground.
Margaret dodged again and again, narrowly avoiding every strike, each time by a hair's breadth.
But her footing remained steady, and her gaze remained calm.
She was waiting.
Frederick knew what she was waiting for.
She was waiting for Alicia.
About thirty seconds passed.
Thirty seconds that felt as long as thirty years.
He saw the incarnation of destruction's movement suddenly pause.
A very subtle pause.
As if something had interfered with its perception.
Its greatsword hung suspended in mid-air for less than half a second, and the angle of the chop shifted by a minuscule amount.
It was an illusion.
Alicia's illusion.
Frederick didn't know exactly what she had done.
Perhaps she created a false Margaret in the incarnation of destruction's line of sight, perhaps she distorted its judgment of distance, or perhaps she implanted a non-existent attack into its perception—
But the effect appeared.
A half-second delay.
A half-second opening.
And Margaret seized that half-second.
She thrust her right hand forward violently, launching a golden beam of light—brighter, more concentrated, and more lethal than any previous attack—directly at the incarnation of destruction's right shoulder joint.
Not the chest plate.
Not the shield.
But the right shoulder—the base of the sword-wielding arm.
The beam struck.
The sound of shattering metal exploded in the blizzard.
The incarnation of destruction's right shoulder armor was torn open, dark red light gushing out from the ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) rent like a severed artery.
Its sword-wielding arm spasmed once.
The tip of the greatsword dropped by a few inches.
And more importantly—
To protect the damaged right shoulder, the incarnation of destruction instinctively shifted the tower shield from its chest to its right side.
The chest plate was exposed.
That cracked chest plate, permeated by dark red light.
The core was inside there.
Margaret's voice cut through the blizzard, slicing away all the extraneous thoughts in Frederick's mind—
'Now!!'
Frederick's body moved before his brain could react.
He was indeed a coward.
But he was also a person who kept moving forward even when afraid.
That was probably why the Path of the Chariot had chosen him.
Not because he wasn't afraid.
But because he could charge even when he was afraid.
So now.
He only needed to do one thing:
Charge!
His legs suddenly exerted force, the rock beneath his feet shattering instantly.
The remaining twenty percent of his strength was released without reservation at that moment, turning into a scorching torrent that surged from his heart to every limb.
His body was enveloped in a pale red glow, like a lit cannonball.
Eighty meters.
He charged out.
The blizzard shrieked past his ears, the world turning into a blurry white tunnel. freeωebnovēl.c૦m
He could hear nothing.
He couldn't hear the wind, couldn't hear the explosions, couldn't hear his own heartbeat.
Only one thought remained in his mind:
Hit it.
Sixty meters.
He could see the incarnation of destruction.
That huge black silhouette was getting closer, getting larger, like a mountain collapsing toward him.
Its tower shield was still on the right side, guarding the shoulder joint wounded by Margaret.
The chest plate was completely exposed.
The dark red light in the cracks looked like a beating bullseye, especially glaring in the snowstorm.
Forty meters.
He was afraid.
He was truly, deeply, profoundly scared.
Every nerve in his body was screaming at him to stop, turn around, and run.
But he didn't stop.
Twenty meters.
The cracks on the chest plate were clearly visible, the dark red light pulsing within them, like some kind of distorted heartbeat.
The tower shield was still on the right side.
The path was open.
The path Margaret had torn open for him was now completely open before him.
Ten meters.
Five meters.
Three meters.
One meter—
Impact.
Frederick's right shoulder, with all the strength of the Path of the Chariot, slammed into the incarnation of destruction's chest plate.
In that instant, he felt like he had crashed into a wall.
A wall forged from despair, fear, and unconquerable memory.
His shoulder bone let out a crisp crack at the moment of impact.
Intense pain erupted from his right shoulder, like lightning splitting into his spine.
But—
It cracked.
The chest plate cracked.
The armor, already riddled with cracks, finally could not withstand his full-force collision.
The cracks spread from the point of impact in all directions, like a shattering spider web.
Dark red light surged out from every new fissure.
He saw it.
Deep within the shattering armor, at the very center of the dark red light—
A fist-sized, pitch-black, pulsating sphere.
The core.
It was right there!
Within reach!
...Will we win?
