The Seventh Match - 3

Shalk the Sound Slicer was faster than any other being in the world.

Even if the distance was far-off in the horizon, he could quickly cross it as if he was cutting across a garden. Even in this current battle, that fact hadn't changed.

It had simply lost all meaning.

He's far.

Shalk was calculating his distance from Mele. How much he would have to dodge certain death until he reached the gigant's feet, hazy on the very edge of the horizon.

Neither distance nor speed were concerned when it came to the concept of "farness" on this battle.

There was a single standard to measure: how many times Shalk would need to avoid Mele's attacks before he reached his destination.

The boundless space separating Shalk and Mele, completely and without exception, was a death zone.

He could make at least four rapid shots in a single breath. At this point, Shalk should have quintupled his estimations about the number of arrows Mele would fire until Shalk reached him.

Nah. He can probably get off more than four shots, and I don't even have any cover to break his line of sight. My means of escape are dwindling one after another.

When he arrived at that thought, he had already begun to run. There was a chance he was too late.

He couldn't use the areas of cover that had been drilled by the sky-falling arrows. There was likely nothing left behind but a black pit, without any footing to speak of.

The soil and sand were soaring like volcanic smoke from the three points, and not all of it had fallen back down to the ground yet.

Shalk had an urge to hide himself in the shadow of the dust cloud.

I know. It's a trap, isn't it?

The scenery on the left and right melted like a light sugar syrup in Shalk's vision as he ran at godlike speeds.

He could make out Mele readying his next arrow from afar. He accelerated both his legs and his thoughts.

Though the cloud of dust would block Mele's view, it wasn't actual cover. Mele had an attack radius that was capable of instantly killing a target just by aiming broadly in its vicinity. If Mele shot at him through the smoke screen, Shalk would be erased in a single attack.

He ran. He continued running right on through. Was there any possible plan for Shalk?

He didn't hide in the dirt smoke screen and close in; the instant he hid inside,

he cut back and dodged.

Shalk gambled on leaving a decoy behind, hiding his own body and leading Mele to lose sight of him.

Predictable.

Mele the Horizon's Roar was strong even without aiming. That one point was unmistakable.

Combining transcendental precision with his unreal attack radius and speed was, as a combat technique, excessive to begin with.

In a place like Sine Riverstead, lacking any enemy that required using such technique, Shalk couldn't possibly imagine exactly what sort of enemy had warranted such devoted training of his craft.

He had no choice but to close the distance in a straight line. He had to move faster than his maximum speed.

He continued to run.

Even as he went through all these thoughts one after another, to everything outside Shalk, it all happened in an instant.

He's not firing in my direction.

Mele had stopped Shalk in his tracks by demolishing anywhere safe, kicking up clouds of dirt, and showing off for the first time to anyone his trump card: his rapid-fire archery. There was a single second until Shalk rushed off and began thinking again.

It wasn't that Mele hadn't fired.

In that time that he stopped Shalk's ultra-high-speed running, Mele had already fired.

Mid acceleration, Shalk gazed up at the deep-blue sky.

He saw a straight, sideways line of twinkling and terrifying midday stars.

The same as before. Rapid-fire shots to drill vertically into the ground. This guy's…

The row of arrows rained down on the ground up ahead of him. Seven uninterrupted shots.

Shalk perceived their trajectory with a slowed-down sense of time, like the moments before death. For someone long dead like him, perhaps that was the only world he'd ever be able to see.

Turning to face the raining meteor swarm, Shalk plunged into it himself.

He was destined to be unable to obtain what he sought unless on the brink of death.

He tilted deeply forward. Smoothly and sharply, to the absolute limit.

…trying to split apart the damn terrain.

Mele changed the first rapid-fire volley, destroying three places he foresaw as potential points of shelter into groundwork for his next move.

His real aim was, through destructively drilling into the earth and connecting the three previous holes together, to create a completely unassailable cliff in the Mari Wastes.

Creating geography itself that would seal off his enemy's approach and allow him alone to continue his one-sided offensive. Once that happened, Shalk wouldn't have any hope left to win. They were frighteningly levelheaded tactics that left no chance to be undone.

Not only that, but these tactics also hadn't been planned from the start, either. It would have meant that he had derived a means of certain victory, enacted only after seeing Shalk's move to instead put more distance between them, with a decision-making speed on par with Shalk's mobility.

A damn monster. Mele the Horizon's Roar. What a bastard.

If he didn't make it before the division, he would die.

If he was directly hit by the destructive rain, he would die.

Even if he climbed over the precipice of death, if he then couldn't escape the destruction's radius, he would die.

He raced. He tilted forward. Ever deeper. Ever faster.

Shalk was a skeleton who could transform himself in ways that were impossible for any normal bone structure. He was capable of various tricks, like combining his right and left arms instantly to extend the throwing range of his spear. In his skeletal structure, he had movement joints in his ribs, his hip bone, and even his skull. His movement was fluid. Exact.

Though the shape was impossible for anyone to understand due to his speed transcending all perception, it was similar to the aircraft of the Beyond. At the very least, it wasn't the shape of any minian at all.

Tilting forward to the limit. Rushing on all fours like a beast, Shalk housed his skull and his white spear inside his own rib cage. The gaps in his bones were closed and blocking airflow, and with his whole body changing into a sharp, streamlined shape, he cut through the sound barrier.

Shalk the Sound Slicer was a spear himself.

Light rained from the sky, piercing the crust and exploding. There was a blast directly ahead of him and off to the right.

The falling stars continued one after another, trying to fragment the ground as they landed.

The second impact. The third. The fourth.

They were close. Closing in. He himself continued to get closer. The fifth. The sixth.

Shalk perpendicularly intersected the destruction that had now drawn up directly beside him.

Now. He had crossed over the fragmenting line dividing life and death.

Not yet.

The seventh shot landed at his back. The destruction was catching up with him.

Though not hit directly, he had entered the arrow's attack radius.

Through the rocks and pebbles flying about wildly, he got a glimpse of Mele the Horizon's Roar. His stance following a shot. Already, a fresh arrow.

Shalk had slipped through the final brief opening in the raining row of destruction.

Surely Mele had assumed there was such a possibility. From in front came the eighth shot.

"I get it."

Mele had, from the very beginning of the fight, continued to fire shots that gouged out the earth.

That was because, as long as one stood in their path, the line of destruction they drew would be lethal.

Against Shalk the Sound Slicer and his transcendental mobility in a land battle, Mele understood that shots aimed precisely at a single point were impossible.

As it annihilated the path forward before him, the eighth arrow was closing in right before Shalk's eyes.

It was a direct line of destruction that completely blocked off Shalk's route of evacuation, which had been led into the position from the fragmenting arrows before it.

Mele the Horizon's Roar was an archer.

Even if his enemy wasn't going to be finished off in one shot, he knew the tricks to chase his prey into a corner with his attacks.

Shalk grabbed a large rock fragment flying toward him from behind.

Kicking off the ground and jumping high, he evaded the eighth arrow just in time.

He needed to.

"From the beginning, this was…your…!"

Mele had repeatedly caused lines of destruction and hadn't aimed at a single point.

—In order to instill the impression in Shalk that the air was his last route of escape.

Shalk had jumped off the ground. The ultrafast spearman couldn't evade in midair without footing.

And there came the ninth arrow, aimed at a single point in midair.

Going back moments in time. Right after Shalk had reversed course and the three arrows reached the ground.

Mele had released seven arrows straight up into the air, without waiting for Shalk's next movements.

One shot matching up with the beginning of Shalk's high-speed maneuvering. One shot he had dodged by reversing course. Three shots to destroy the terrain.

And now seven arrows, one right after another.

Unfaltering movements, free of any hesitation, as if decided on from the very start.

"Merre io mali. Akovst. Renterte. Nakkotay. Torfarmict." (From Mele to Mali soil. Conduit. Sunlight and claw. Undulation. Extend.)

Mele incanted his Craft Arts and made another pillar-like earthen arrow. As long as there was soil he could use for Word Arts, his quiver was endless.

"Say, Mele. You're not using your iron arrows at all?" Surprisingly, Cayon hadn't fled and remained at Mele's side.

Sitting down on a boulder, he wore a faint smile as he gazed at Mele's ongoing fight.

"These were a real pain to bring here, you know," said Cayon.

The iron arrows that Cayon mentioned were colossal iron pillars stuck vertically into the ground. The ultra-heavyweight mass of iron, able to stop a flood in a single shot, had been carried from the Needle Forest at Sine Riverstead as Mele's trump card in the Sixways Exhibition.

"I'm concentrating here." Mele's reply was short.

From Cayon's vantage point, he couldn't see Shalk the Sound Slicer's figure. He was practically nonexistent, smaller than a piece of dust—and on top of that,

he was running at a speed beyond all minian comprehension.

Mele hadn't lost sight of his target once and even managed to read all his opponent's movements.

Mele. I was right. You really are unbelievably strong.

Cayon gazed up at the sky to see seven streaks of fire raining down to the ground.

Then like a meteoric curtain, the lines pierced into the ground and split it into two.

Amid the earth rumbling, as if the end of days had arrived, Cayon thought the burning light was beautiful.

He had shot down dragons.

He had crossed blades with gigant.

The sort of fights that had become myth were everyday struggles in the age Mele had lived in.

He was always optimistically smiling. He enjoyed the moments of struggle, expending all his energy to make sure that whenever he died, he didn't leave any regrets behind. If he lost, he could smile at being defeated by someone strong enough to surpass him and die without any lingering feelings.

The weak tearfully feared death, but for the strong, even death was something to be proud of.

Mele the Horizon's Roar had been in the middle of the conflict spiral. The strong who slew many enemies with their superb power were defeated by those even stronger. Or the clever, able to take hold of advantageous positions and golden opportunities for themselves, were defeated by the even cleverer.

The first races of the world—the dragons and gigant—were said not to die from old age. To them, dying in battle was the true and rightful way to die.

Mele the Horizon's Roar was a warrior who had fought through and survived this spiraling age.

He hadn't hesitated to put his life on the line, but the fact that he had still managed through it made him proud. It wasn't the life of a coward, seized while fleeing in constant terror. The life at the terminus of conflict became proof in and of itself that he was stronger than all.

…Which was why some settlement of minian wholly ignorant of battle should've been completely insignificant.

Mari Wastes. Shalk the Sound Slicer had accelerated even faster to dodge the first arrow launched right after the start of the match.

He was fast. Even Mele's eyes, able to distinguish everything down to the smallest tree nut on the edge of the horizon and determine the complex floodwater currents, could only continue to chase his movements. The only option was to anticipate his movements and guess.

"He's strong, all right. Real wild bastard."

Mele smirked, turning up one side of his mouth. It was a ferocious smile that he had never worn in Sine Riverstead.

He had reclaimed his life from that bygone time. The vivid brilliance of a life of honor, filled with euphoria. That fire that he thought he had lost from living peacefully in Sine Riverstead had now, at long last, been kindled again inside his soul.

Aaah. Those hills over there…

Mele was already shooting four arrows.

…are all in the way.

Three of them were aimed at the terrain his enemy was likely to utilize in his approach.

The three arrows, launched up into the heavens, came slightly after the one he had fired at Shalk himself, erasing the three hills from the topography. Pierced vertically, they swelled up and exploded.

By Mele the Horizon's Roar's standards, even colossal geographic features were the same as any other obstruction.

He chased Shalk the Sound Slicer's movements with his eyes. The skeleton had backed off. He'd deceived him with his movements and evaded.

From this distance…he had done that by using the fact that Mele could see all the moves he'd made.

"Real damn strong." Mele smiled.

He was always optimistically smiling. Not because he was confident in his victory.

It was a smile of bliss about being once again in the spiral of conflict. "Perfect. All right, Shalk. I'll tear you apart and take the whole world down

with ya."

Smiling the whole while, he released seven arrows up into the air.

Like a child tearing up clay work with their fingers, Mele could divide up the world itself with his arrows.

Craft Arts. He created several fresh arrows all at once.

"Merre io mali. Akovst. Renterte. Nakkotay. Torfarmict." (From Mele to Mali soil. Conduit. Sunlight and claw. Undulation. Extend.)

"Say, Mele. You're not using your iron arrows at all? These were a real pain to bring here, you know."

"I'm concentrating here."

Cayon was still standing there? The thought flashed in the corner of his mind. He could leave him for later. His experience from ancient times, surviving through life-and-death struggles, was largely moving Mele's body automatically.

Mele had already let twelve arrows fly.

No matter how far back in his history he went, he had never gone through so many arrows on a single target before.

Shalk wasn't a dragon. Not even another gigant. He was a nameless construct and a dead man, his identity unknown to everyone.

Nevertheless, Shalk the Sound Slicer was the same type of enemy as back then.

An opponent that Mele the Horizon's Roar had always longed for, one he could battle with his full strength without needing to protect anything.

"You're a real strong one, Shalk the Sound Slicer!"

Mele loosed his eighth arrow. At this point, without even looking, he was able to aim at the spot he assumed Shalk would end up, likely having the arrow pass through terrain itself. He nocked the next arrow.

There wasn't a single hesitation in Mele's movements. This still wasn't enough to finish off his enemy.

Because Shalk was strong. Without fail, his enemy found the optimal solution.

The eighth arrow left him a path to escape into the air. Mele fired the ninth arrow to hit that exact point. The ninth arrow continued after the eighth, chasing its shadow. They succeeded like flowing water. Two releases, made in what seemed nearly one single motion.

More.

He nocked the next arrow.

You're strong, ain't ya? I know you can do it!

It was physically impossible to evade the ninth arrow, aimed at a specific point in midair.

However. If on the off chance there was some sort of method left to survive Mele's arrow—if Shalk the Sound Slicer was indeed that sort of enemy—

nothing would have made him happier.

The tenth arrow was aimed at where Shalk would land. He steadied his sights.

Shalk pierced through a dust cloud from the fragmenting terrain and appeared.

The eighth arrow was already close to arriving at the spot where the skeleton reappeared.

The white spearman jumped and dodged it.

Exactly as Mele predicted, the most optimal and fastest option for evasion. "—"

As if intersecting with his trajectory, the ninth arrow arrived in midair. An arrow with force that made defense impossible.

Even if Shalk managed to successfully hold out, the tenth arrow was heading for the skeleton's landing point. Mele assembled his next arrow.

"Merre io mali. Sai fartari. Nemkau— (From Mele to Mali soil. Unstuck bramble. Frozen sea—)"

At that moment, there was a strange phenomenon. "—jin a tol (bug and moon)— What?"

Shalk appeared to dodge the ninth arrow in midair.

The trajectory of his jump made an inconceivable zigzag, and he landed diagonally forward.

As a result, the tenth arrow, aimed at his original touchdown point, didn't hit its mark.

I ain't ever seen that.

The movements went against reason. The sudden acceleration, far too unnatural to be explained by some sort of flight ability, much less by kicking off a piece of debris, had been done in midair, without any footing.

"Kanderkor." (Extend.)

Mele finished his Word Arts incantation.

With his stunningly abnormal landing just now, Shalk was closing the distance to Mele more and more. His midair acceleration even made sure to propel him in a forward direction.

"—Ha! I haven't…ever seen a guy like this before!"

Shalk's ultra-high-speed rush began again. How many more arrows could he fire in the remaining distance?

"Mele. What is that…?"

Watching over the fight, Cayon gasped at the shape of the arrow Mele

created.

It wasn't a straight line. Like a gnarled tree branch, it was twisted and warped along the shaft, an impossibly deformed arrow.

A technique called Mystic Arrow. Naturally, it wasn't meant for firing far off into the distance.

It was meant to kill an approaching enemy. "Get crushed."

In order to block Shalk's advance, he fired it into the earth.

With a dreadful rotation, the arrow ricocheted off the ground and bent.

Its trajectory resembling a snake's death throes, it thrashed, gouging the earth, whirling up, and pounding it.

An arrow of annihilation, bringing destruction not in a line but across an entire surface, returning every inch of the terrain to vacant, raw soil.

However. "...!"

Mele pulled out one of the iron pillars nearby. He immediately nocked it and fired. Not a single thought had time to slip in.

The iron arrow landed right in front of him and largely destroyed the very hill he was standing on.

He had to.

In order to stop his enemy's advance. "…An iron arrow, eh?"

He could hear a voice from the shadow of the iron pillar after its impact.

A voice—this skeleton had now already gotten in close enough for Mele to hear his voice.

"This arrow's a whole lot better behaved than that last one."

He'd broken through the ruinous rapid fire that had sealed off all methods of survival.

He'd evaded the Mystic Arrow, which had irregularly raged amok, on first sight.

He had, at that very moment, turned the distance, an archer's lifeline, into naught.

This man was inside his arrow's firing range. Nevertheless.

The position where Shalk now stood was the line between life and death.

—Shalk the Sound Slicer was strong.

Stronger than anyone else Mele had encountered. More than any calamity he had seen.

More than any of mighty foes who lived in that age of spiraling conflict. "Been waiting for ya."

The gigant sneered.