Only a shallow indentation remained on the padding, showing that something had indeed lain there—and it had left not long ago.
“Empty?”
Abel was stunned.
“No, don’t ask me! I don’t know either!”
Prim immediately waved her hands, her face screaming this has nothing to do with me.
“I swear, before today I had no idea there was anything like this in the warehouse!”
Abel scratched his hair in frustration.
The plot was wrong!
In the game, Sutis should have remained asleep inside the Holy Coffin until the player arrived to awaken her.
Why was the coffin empty now? Where had she gone?
He quickly checked inside and outside the Holy Coffin. There were no signs of damage or struggle.
It was as if… she had opened the coffin herself and simply walked out.
But that made no sense. The armored angel was supposed to remain in a long slumber when not activated.
“What do we do now?”
Prim asked.
“…Grab whatever weapons we can use and head to the arena.”
Abel gritted his teeth. The plan had been thrown into chaos, but Surtr still had to be stopped.
He turned toward the nearby weapon racks and quickly began selecting items.
A two-handed greatsword.
Although it was not as good as his usual weapon, it was at least better than fighting bare-handed.
Prim watched him arm himself and could not help asking, “Without that ‘Angel Armament’, can we win?”
“I don’t know.”
Abel told the truth.
“But we have to try.”
He took one last look at the empty Holy Coffin and cursed inwardly: I clearly had foreknowledge, so why is nothing going right?!
“Let’s go!”
The two rushed out of the weapons warehouse and sprinted at full speed toward the center of the arena.
The scene inside the arena was even more tragic than when they had left.
More than half the spectator seats had completely collapsed. Massive stones and twisted metal beams piled into small hills.
Silver flames burned sporadically among the ruins, illuminating the crystallized corpses like eerie crystal sculptures.
And at the center of the arena—if it could still be called an “arena”—the burning silver giant Surtr was slowly moving.
Its body, over ten meters tall, made the ground tremble with every step.
Irregular protrusions and twisted limb structures radiated an aura that drove people to mental collapse.
The silver-haired female holy knight Ingrid Sigfield was pinned under a pile of collapsed stones, only her upper body exposed.
Her silver armor was badly deformed, the area around her right eye a bloody mess, completely blinded.
She weakly gripped a broken sword with her still-functional left hand, but her gaze was unfocused and she muttered something under her breath.
Not far away, the blonde berserker Aruma Noyn was shakily climbing out of the ruins.
She spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva, gripped tightly once more the giant sword nearly as tall as she was, and glared fiercely at Surtr.
An incredulous light flashed in her eyes.
Aruma Noyn had no idea what had happened.
The match had been underway, then the sky suddenly went duang and split open just like that.
Was this a military assault by the ‘Empire’? A terrorist attack by an evil organization?
Or a monster that had suddenly invaded the human capital?
A monster?
It didn’t seem like it. She also took on some adventurer work part-time, but she had never heard of such a terrifying monster that radiated an aura making people tremble all over!
And just the impact of its landing had turned the entire festival arena into ruins!
Countless spectators had died tragically, crystallized in an inconceivable way.
She didn’t understand at all, completely didn’t understand!!
She really wanted to ask someone, but she knew now was not the time.
She hoped the kingdom’s knight order would react quickly!
Thinking this, from the corner of her eye she noticed her ‘rival’ pinned under a massive piece of rubble, covered in blood…
Even though the two were rivals, it was only as opponents in the ‘Goddess Festival’!
There was no personal grudge for now. Later?
Well, they’d talk about it later!
So she almost without hesitation ran to Ingrid Sigfield’s side and tried to pull her out from under the rubble.
“Ingrid! Grab my hand!”
“…Don’t worry about me.”
Ingrid did not reach for Aruma’s hand.
When she had been flung by the shockwave earlier, she had seen her parents in the distant spectator seats, turned into fragments of ice crystals just like everyone else.
Why had humans turned into that? It was something she could not comprehend.
But that did not mean she did not understand what it signified…
The physical pain combined with mental despair had already robbed her of the courage to keep living.
If only she had not been chattering noisily this morning, insisting her parents come watch her ‘win the championship’ match, they would not have ended up like this.
It’s all my fault…
“What nonsense are you spouting?”
Aruma stepped forward without room for argument, grabbed Ingrid’s hand, and looked at her.
“If you die, then this young lady will never be able to beat you for the rest of her life!”
However, Ingrid was already in complete despair and did not appreciate it at all.
It was right in the middle of their conversation that Surtr finally noticed the two girls before it who had not turned into crystal fragments like the others.
Aruma’s movements stiffened.
She released Ingrid’s hand, faced the silver flame giant directly, and a light seemed to flash in her crimson eyes.
“Since you won’t leave, then I’ll just take down this guy, right? If I do that, it’ll prove this young lady is stronger than you, right?”
“You…”
Ingrid was stunned.
This monster radiating such a terrifying aura was definitely not something humans could fight! What are you even saying?!
The best plan was to abandon her immediately, retreat, and wait for the kingdom’s knight order to rescue them!
“You’re the one who turned the match that should have been this young lady’s championship into a total mess, right?”
She took a deep breath, her twin tails whipping wildly in the rising fighting spirit.
“Watch me chop this silver lump into pieces!”
Before the words even finished, Aruma shot forward like a cannonball! Her speed was extremely fast; with a few leaps through the ruins she closed in on Surtr.
The giant’s movements were relatively slow. It slowly raised one burning arm and smashed down with a fist.
“Too slow!”
Aruma shouted delicately, sidestepping with a sliding step and narrowly dodging the punch.
The missed fist smashed a large crater into the ground, sending rubble flying.
A piece grazed her cheek, leaving a faint bloody mark.
Aruma did not stop. She actually sprinted upward along Surtr’s thick arm!
Silver flames licked at her boot soles, but she charged up relying on her ferocious fighting spirit.
Passing the shoulder, she slammed her sword into the giant’s shoulder and used the force to leap high, gripping the giant sword’s hilt with both hands.
.
Her whole body spun like a top—
Lion Slash!!
This was the giant-sword technique with the highest attack power she could use!
The giant sword, wrapped in fighting spirit that tore through the air, transformed into a golden tornado and smashed viciously toward Surtr’s head!
A violent explosion rang out. Smoke and dust mixed with silver flames shot into the sky.
Aruma used the force to backflip, landing steadily more than ten meters away.
She knelt on one knee, panting, yet a victorious smile was on her face.
She raised a thumb and pointed at herself. “See that, Ingrid! This big guy is nothing but—”
Before she could finish, her smile froze on her face.
The smoke cleared, and Surtr’s head was completely undamaged.
Not even a single scratch.
The silver flames flowed across its surface as if the strike powerful enough to split mountains and crack rocks had been nothing more than a gentle breeze.
The giant slowly turned its head. Those burning “eyes” looked toward Aruma.
It was nearing dusk now; the setting sun shone down, and a massive shadow enveloped Aruma.
She finally understood what Ingrid had said earlier.
The super-large giant before her was an absolute existence that mortals could not comprehend or resist!
Aruma stared at it blankly, as if she had forgotten to breathe for a moment.
It was the instinctive fear humans felt toward a superior being!
Could they win?
Her hand gripping the sword trembled. The answer was self-evident.
However, the silver giant did not attack her.
Its gaze swept past Aruma and turned toward the other end of the arena.
Aruma followed its line of sight.