Free Web NovelPavela's voice echoed in the blizzard.
"...Still moving."
It was Margaret.
Pavela looked through the scope and saw the dark-haired woman slowly rising from a half-kneeling posture.
Her breathing was heavy; a large piece of her military uniform's left shoulder was torn; blood was dripping from her hand.
But she still stood up.
"I'm... okay too."
A second voice was farther away, coming from behind a pile of mech wreckage on the east side of the basin.
Frederick was leaning against a twisted piece of armor plating, his right arm hanging at an unnatural angle by his side, bloodstains hanging on the corner of his mouth.
Reinhardt next to him didn't speak, but Pavela saw him raise his hand slightly.
It was a gesture meaning, 'Not dead yet.'
As for Alicia—
Pavela turned the scope toward the slope on the opposite side of the basin.
The silver-white decoy lights were extinguishing one by one, like candle flames blown out by the wind.
And in the last position where a light disappeared, a small figure wrapped in a gray cloak was crouching behind a rock, platinum-blond hair fluttering in the wind.
A small silver cat was perched on her shoulder.
The cat's tail was held straight up, and its ears were flattened toward the incarnation of destruction.
"Very good," Pavela said.
It was good that no one died.
"Then listen to me."
As she spoke, she aimed the rifle barrel back at the huge, pitch-black silhouette at the bottom of the basin.
At this moment, the incarnation of destruction had completed its turn.
Its head was facing the ridge where Pavela was located.
The Tower Shield returned to its chest, completely covering the area of the chest armor shattered by Frederick.
The greatsword lay across its side, the dark red light on the blade even more intense than before, as if enraged.
It was indeed enraged.
Pavela could feel it.
That heavy, scorching sense of pressure surging up from the bottom of the basin.
It felt like someone had stuffed an erupting volcano into her chest cavity.
The resonance from the Path of the Tower.
She and it shared the same origin.
She could feel its anger as clearly as her own heartbeat.
And it probably could feel her presence too.
"General Margaret," Pavela opened her mouth, "how much strength do you have left?"
A short, self-mocking laugh came through the blizzard.
"Not enough «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» for another attack of the magnitude we just used," Margaret's voice came from below, ragged by the wind, "Perhaps... enough for some auxiliary work."
Pavela's fingers tapped the bolt twice lightly.
"Then I won't be polite."
"Speak."
"In a moment, I will draw its complete attention."
"While it's chasing me, you need to set up obstacles in its path—no need to block it, just cause a delay of a few tenths of a second in its steps. Can you do that?"
A brief silence.
"...Yes."
"Alicia.", Pavela's voice turned toward the opposite side of the basin, "Can you use that sensory interference one more time?"
A longer silence.
Then a soft voice, sounding like it floated from very, very far away—
"...Mm."
Just one word.
But Pavela heard what was contained within that word.
Exhaustion.
The kind of exhaustion that comes after squeezing oneself dry, and then having to wring out the last drop from between the bones.
"Just once," Pavela said, "When I give the signal, interfere with its vision. Make it unable to see my position, even for just one second." frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓
"...Okay."
"Frederick, Reinhardt."
"Here," Frederick's voice carried pain, but he was still lucid.
Reinhardt still hadn't spoken, just raising his hand again.
"The two of you don't need to move," Pavela said, "Stay down, don't look up. It might get a little noisy soon."
Frederick froze for a moment.
"Wait—you—"
Frederick's question hadn't finished before it turned into a gasp.
Because he saw the slender figure on the ridge move.
Pavela hadn't chosen to remain in the high position sniping.
This rifle didn't have many bullets; she had to resolve the fight within four shots.
She lifted the anti-material sniper rifle with one hand, and her entire body, like a diving falcon, plunged straight down the steep slope.
The incarnation of destruction reacted faster than she anticipated.
The moment her toes left the ridge, the dark-red greatsword was already raised high, the light on the blade surging—
A downward cleave.
But her body reacted before her brain did.
Her left foot pushed off violently from the last protruding rock on the slope, and her entire trajectory suddenly shifted two meters to the right.
It wasn't judgment.
It wasn't calculation.
It was some deeper thing driving her.
As if the trajectory of this move was etched into her bones, as if her very blood knew where this sword would fall.
The greatsword struck empty air.
The sword wind whistled past less than half a meter from her left side, the resulting air current blowing her silver hair backward.
The ground was split by a crack several meters deep, and frozen earth and debris scattered like shrapnel.
The instant she landed, Pavela rolled once, knelt on one knee, and the sniper rifle was already shouldered.
"Bang—!"
The third shot.
The bullet precisely drilled into the gap of the incarnation of destruction's right knee joint.
Sparks erupted, and the weight-bearing leg let out a screech of twisting metal.
The massive body of the incarnation of destruction shook violently, tilting sharply to the right.
Immediately, it violently pulled back its left foot, arresting its momentum, and the heavy Tower Shield swept toward Pavela.
It attempted to use that huge shield surface to completely cut off her line of fire while squeezing her movement space into a dead end.
However, the moment the bullet left the chamber, Pavela had already sprung up using the recoil, her entire body turning into a swift shadow darting to the left.
"Next, you will stab the sword out from behind the shield," she silently recited in her heart. freēwēbηovel.c૦m
One second later, the sword tip indeed shot out like a viper from the right edge of the shield, just as she predicted.
The dark-red afterimage tore through the atmosphere, stabbing directly at the afterimage where Pavela had been a moment before.
But that spot was already empty.
Pavela had already run to the incarnation of destruction's left rear.
"Margaret!"
Pavela shouted sharply while running.
Margaret placed both hands on the frozen earth, and a pale gold light screen rose from the ground, precisely locking into the position where the incarnation of destruction's left foot was about to land.
"Crack—"
That pitch-black iron foot stumbled upon hitting the light screen.
And at this moment, Pavela had already finished reloading.
The bolt was pulled, the casing ejected, the new round chambered—all in one smooth motion.
The incarnation of destruction quickly adjusted its center of gravity, suddenly turned its body, and the greatsword performed a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree sweep with its waist as the axis.
Pavela did not retreat to dodge.
Instead, she accelerated toward the incarnation of destruction, and just before the greatsword swept toward her position, her entire body slid low to the ground, passing through the less-than-half-meter gap between the greatsword and the ground.
The sword wind swept over her head, shearing off a few strands of her silver hair.
The endpoint of her slide was exactly in front of the incarnation of destruction.
The Tower Shield was right before her eyes.
That pitch-black shield that rejected everything.
The crack Frederick had created was right behind the shield, but it was now completely covered.
The incarnation of destruction lowered its head.
The faceless, pitch-black helmet faced her.
Pavela could almost feel what was contained in that 'gaze.'
It was confusion.
The kind of confusion a hunter feels when the prey always manages to stand just outside the edge of their blade.
Pavela nodded to it in greeting.
The incarnation of destruction's response was a fierce shield bash.
"Alicia! Now!"
On the opposite side of the basin, the silver-white intense light erupted one last time.
Alicia over-exerted everything, layering the distorted illusion onto Pavela's position.
The incarnation of destruction's sensory system was interfered with.
It'saw' Pavela dodge to the left.
So it faithfully executed the subsequent action—the Tower Shield shifted left, and the greatsword changed direction to slice horizontally.
A perfect scissor attack.
It clamped onto empty air.
And the real Pavela, in the instant the illusion unfolded, had already charged in from the right.
The Tower Shield moved left, and the crack in the chest was fully exposed.
The dark-red core pulsed wildly deep within the shattered armor, like a star about to go supernova.
Pavela shoved the sniper rifle barrel directly into the crack.
The cold metal muzzle pressed against the surface of the scorching core.
She felt the destructive power rapidly conduct through the barrel into her arm, burning her skin, eroding her nerves.
It hurt terribly.
But she smiled.
The incarnation of destruction finally realized what had happened.
It let out a deafening roar, and the Tower Shield began to retract frantically—
Too late.
Pavela knew from the very beginning.
Why she could dodge every strike.
Why she could predict every move.
Why those techniques seemed so transparent, so naked, so... familiar in her eyes.
Because all those moves were hers.
Every feint, every stab from behind the shield, every scissor attack.
They were the instincts honed through countless life-or-death struggles by 'Pavel Ivanovich Sokolov' and the souls she had devoured.
Although that incarnation of destruction had the shell of Iron Wall Clausewitz, the person residing within was her past self.
She wasn't fighting an enemy.
She was fighting herself in the mirror.
And the self in the mirror could never defeat the real body.
Because the real body knew what the mirror would do next—
But the mirror didn't know that the real body was no longer the person she used to be.
"Dear 'Me,' say goodbye to this world."
Pavela pulled the trigger.
The fourth shot.
"Bang!!"
The custom armor-piercing round detonated inside the core.
The recoil traveled up the rifle into her entire body; a crisp sound of shattering came from her right arm, and her body, like a leaf caught in a hurricane, was flung out from the incarnation of destruction's chest.
But her eyes never left that core.
She saw the pitch-black, pulsating sphere freeze for one second.
Then, starting from the bullet hole, fine cracks spread out like a spiderweb.
More and more, denser and denser.
Until the entire sphere became a piece of black glass covered in cracks.
And then—it shattered.
"————!!!"
The incarnation of destruction let out its final roar.
Not anger, not pain.
It was something more primal, something deeper.
Like the meaningless shriek of a soul imprisoned for too long at the moment its cage collapsed.
Its body began to collapse from the inside.
Armor peeled off piece by piece, revealing the churning dark-red energy within.
That energy didn't dissipate; instead, it rapidly compressed, aggregated, and heated up—
Pavela saw that light while being thrown through the air.
The blazing white, all-consuming light surging from the depths of the incarnation of destruction's chest cavity.
Her body was still tumbling in the air, both arms were useless, and her legs couldn't exert any strength.
The blizzard around her stilled.
The sound also vanished.
The world became a frozen frame.
Only the white light, growing brighter and closer, remained.
Damn it, why is there still a secondary explosion?
