Editing Sorcery Hacker:Volume4 Phase04 (section)

===Part 6===

Queen Astaroth Revolver shook.

Her face was pale.

There was a panic on her face she clearly hadn’t shown before.

“Tch!!”

“All those disgusting tentacles are a part of your body, aren’t they? And you replaced your organs for artificial ones. Biological gems, was it? So there’s no guarantee those vital organs will stay put in their usual locations. But even if you can move them around, you’re still reliant on them. You’re immortal, but not perfectly so. I just knew you would split your weak point up and keep it far away from here.”

Demon Lord Nirvelphany sneered wickedly in her outfit of red leather.

In a way, exactly as a Demon Lord should.

“No more tricks up your sleeve? Then we can smash what’s left of you and end this.”

No one in the world could defeat Queen Astaroth Revolver fighting by traditional means.

So what?

Sorcery Hacker Ayato and Demon Lord Nirvelphany had zero intention of an honest fight based on their specs. They stirred up the world said to be entirely impossible and made use of the resultant fluctuation.

“You know how it’s done, don’t you, Sorcery Hacker? You did already do it at the sky city.”

“Yeah.”

“Once you take in my power, you can make the unstable fluctuations your plaything. Don’t lose the gamble and self-destruct. You need to make good use of my Demon Lord power!!”

He inserted his linkage plug sword into the Demon Lord’s body.

Nothing visibly happened, but something definitely changed.

Ayato had acquired something more. The Queen should have been in charge here, but it was Ayato who had turned everything around him into his own power.

Humans, demons, the Four Lords, and the Demon Lord. By linking them all together, he had a completely different form of strength from Queen Astaroth Revolver who had grown so large all on her own.

However.

Even after being cornered like this, the blonde devil was looking only at Ayato.

“What’s wrong with trying to become stronger?” whispered the monster who had been born a demon stronger than humans but wasn’t satisfied with that and remade herself. “Maybe it’s the swords of succession, maybe it’s the Four Lords, and maybe it’s the Demon Lord and her unexpected results. In the end, everyone looks up to the powerful and the special. They see beauty in being the strongest. Everyone feels that way!”

She had chosen the dead end weapon of a revolver.

But she hadn’t been able to give up on the possibility of evolving and had betrayed everyone.

To maintain a state of war, she had created conflicts throughout history across a variety of dividing lines: human and demon, continent and continent, etc.

“So I aimed to be the very best I could imagine! Looking at the numbers, I am the strongest!!”

But Ayato didn’t avert his eyes even once.

“That isn’t strength. Queen, you lack the strength to bear standing still.”

“Wha-?”

“Living beings will eventually evolve without anyone having to do anything. In fact, we’re all evolving little by little even now. None of us cares how slow the pace of that evolution is. Because we have the strength to feel no pain in living our lives to the fullest in a boring world. You’re the only one in the world without that. That you couldn’t stand it and felt stifled by it is nothing more than weakness.”

Queen Astaroth Revolver was struck speechless.

Several transparent tentacles rushed in.

But Ayato only swept his linkage plug sword out and the flash flood of tentacles was sliced through before corrupting and withering away.

“Ayato, did you…?”

“You’d better not be suggesting this is anything as embarrassing as my justice and courage awakening my true power. That’s just refusing to think. I’m a Sorcery Hacker who overturns everything with tricks. Everything I do is based on clear, underlying logic!!”

With no one to interfere, the rest was straightforward.

Teleria and Fleurelisia.

Water magic exploded at his feet, launching him 100 esoule<ref>Approximately 120 meters.</ref> into the air. The boy had arrived at Queen Astaroth Revolver’s eye level.

He jabbed his linkage plug sword toward the devil’s gut.

With a dull sound, it stabbed in.

The linkage plug sword sank in, but Queen Astaroth Revolver grinned.

“I won’t die yet. No, it’s not over yet… Ayato, your failure to deliver a finishing blow means you have lost. Hee hee. Now, I will gently hug you with a tentacle covered in venom needles!!!”

“Don’t be…so sure.”

(My level is…)

he glanced aside to see something odd on his floating crystal tarot display.

F*F8A*.

The value was beyond what could be properly calculated.

The capital, the palace, Guardeleo’s sword, the Four Lords, the Demon Lord, and everyone fighting alongside him, be they human or demon. All that power was concentrated into a single point.

Did he really need all that just to challenge Queen Astaroth Revolver?

He felt a scorching pain in his hands.

But not from the Queen’s venom needles. From the linkage plug sword. He had reached such an immense level that the sorcery hacking tool was heating up disconcertingly.

Any further would be dangerous.

He knew that, but he pushed on regardless.

Queen Astaroth Revolver was a demon and also a revolver sorcery gun.

Which meant ''she was a sorcery device.

This was the same as when he interfered with the tentacles ''and made them self-destruct''. With a high enough level, he could hack her and destroy her from within!!

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

She exploded.

Queen Astaroth Revolver’s mountain of tentacles ruptured from within. And not just the tentacles. Maybe they were crushed by the thick tentacles as they thrashed about against her will, but the many super weapons she had created began exploding in a chain reaction.

In the past, Ayato had dismantled the devil’s revolver, smashed each component with a heavy hammer, and thrown them in a blast furnace, but it hadn’t been enough. The revolver had returned to him unchanged.

But this was different.

He had dismantled and neutralized the very logic that made her the strongest being.

She could never regenerate again.

“Gafh!?”

The beautiful devil coughed up a lot of blood.

“Maybe it’s best if love is never fully analyzed as a science.”

Nevertheless, she spread her arms and welcomed Ayato.

“A…yato… Even so…I still…want…”

Queen Astaroth Revolver’s final wish was never granted.

In an even greater explosion, the linkage plug sword’s limits were passed and it ruptured from within. The close-range explosion launched Ayato straight back. Which allowed him to slip out of the Queen’s embrace.

Her face twisted in greater frustration than ever before and all life vanished from her eyes.

Blood spurted from Ayato’s body as he rolled across the floor until he came to a stop.

And he remained motionless afterwards.

“Ayato!!”

Teleria rushed over to him.

She aimed her handguns that could use both water and healing magic. But then she froze.

“Hm? What is it, Teleria?”

Mamilis tugged on her clothes, but as an expert, Teleria could already tell.

It was no use. His body had too many wounds.

Several metal shards had pierced thick blood vessels from his wrists to his shoulders and embedded themselves in vital points from his face to his chest. All the magic Teleria had at her disposal couldn’t heal this with a single piece of general healing magic. However, carefully removing each shard individually would take too much time and he would die of blood loss.

Ayato had a satisfied smile on his face as he lay there, eyes closed and unmoving.

(It’s not enough…)

Teleria got down on her knees to be by the unmoving boy’s side, but she spoke the words in her mind.

More strongly than anyone.

(I don’t have enough power to save him!!)

“Don’t give up yet.”

She was interrupted by a voice.

The voice of her mother, Fleurelisia Nereid Aquamarine.

“Maybe it’s too much for you alone. But, Teleria, what if you held a special position? As ''Water Lord Teleria Nereid Aquamarine,'' one of the Four Lords, wouldn’t you have enough magic power to save the boy you love?”

This suggestion meant Fleurelisia was ready.

Ready to give up her position.

This was the trial in which a child must eventually surpass their parent.

Teleria looked up in surprise.

“Mother…are you sure?”

“I was only ever guarding my throne so I could pass it down to my daughter.”

That meant it was entirely up to the girl.

Was she prepared to be known as one of the Four Lords?

Did she have the courage to take that step in order to save a loved one? She would become a being decisively different from a human, but did she have the confidence to still stay by his side?

There was only one answer.

“I’ll do it.”

“I see.”

“I will complete myself as Water Lord Teleria Nereid Aquamarine!!”

“Very well then. …When did you learn the true meaning of love, Teleria?”

A small light shined from the center of the Water Lord’s giant body. It was a bluish-white and somehow refreshing orb of light. It silently floated up into the air before being absorbed into the center of Teleria’s chest.

Even among the demons, only those with the title of “Lord” would know what this meant.

The girl had clearly taken her first step into that realm.

By her own choice.

Instantly, her mimic options burst away, revealing her lower half as that of a fish. With her true form revealed and with a dreadful power contained within her, Teleria aimed her handguns at the boy.

The two sorcery guns shattered.

They weren’t enough to control the Water Lord’s power.

So she didn’t need any tools.

She reverted to the most basic of basics.

She spread her arms, directed her hands out ahead, and used all of her power to boost her water element healing magic. So that she could use all of herself to save the boy she loved.

And she gave the incantation.



“Secondary Ex Aid!!!”


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