All Right

"Huff... huff..." After using several Spiritual Power Skills in one go, even a Hollow with Spiritual Power as condensed as Wien's felt that he had used up a little too much. If Jekain had used so many of those skills, he might already have collapsed from exhaustion.

"Two left." Taking advantage of the lingering dust, Wien hurriedly caught his breath. At the same time, he used Sonído to retreat and put some distance between them. He needed time to adjust his Spiritual Pressure.

Bang!

The enemy clearly had no intention of giving Wien a chance to rest.

Before the dust had settled, Pairomon charged out. Using Sonído, he appeared behind Wien in an instant and swung his arm at Wien's lower back.

Clang!

Wien turned and blocked with his injured right claw, only for his entire right arm to be twisted backward. The tremendous force also sent him flying.

Against Pairomon, a Power-Type, Wien clearly should not have tried to take that enraged blow head-on with his injured arm.

But losing the use of one arm was a better deal than having both arms injured.

Though he had been sent flying, Wien did not stop. His left hand closed around empty air once more, and the Rift-Splitting Greatsword reappeared. Its tip pointed at the last Pseudo-Adjuchas subordinate.

Shadowless Strike Dance!

Pale gold light radiated from Wien as the structure of the space around him shattered in an instant. Wien appeared beside the last Pseudo-Adjuchas subordinate at a bizarre angle and drove him back with a single strike. The knockback effect of Shadowless Strike Dance took hold, followed immediately by a second and third strike.

Countless sword flashes slashed out from different angles, leaving the Pseudo-Adjuchas unable to fight back. Finally, Wien drove his sword through the Pseudo-Adjuchas's chest. The damage from Shadowless Strike Dance erupted in an instant, dozens of wounds bursting open at once and spraying blood mist everywhere as though it cost nothing. The Pseudo-Adjuchas lost his life at the same moment and fell toward the ground.

"Huff... the last one... ngh!" Before Wien could catch his breath, Pairomon attacked. In the instant Wien was distracted, Pairomon rammed him with all his strength, knocking him from the air toward the ground.

The instant he was hit, Wien's body broke the sound barrier and hurtled straight down. He finally struck the ground, sending shattered stones flying.

"Bala: Shockwave!"

Pairomon imbued the dark red Bala with the shockwave attribute. The force of the vibrations compressed each round Bala into a somewhat flattened oval, and they smashed toward Wien.

Countless Bala fell, blasting holes into the ground. Wien, caught at the center of the attack, was driven to the bottom of the crater.

"Bastard, die!" Large amounts of earthy yellow Spiritual Power gathered around Pairomon's fists as he dove downward. He raised his two thick arms high and brought them crashing down on the ground with all his might.

Core Quake!

Boom!!

Pairomon's full-powered blow nearly punched through the ground. A storm of Spiritual Pressure raised by the violent shockwaves surged skyward, kicking up a mushroom-shaped blast like a small nuclear explosion!

For several hundred meters around Pairomon, every tree in the Forest was uprooted and obliterated. Nearby Gillian and lesser Hollows were also vaporized without a trace by the terrifying blow.

"Huff... huff..." After that full-powered strike, Pairomon began breathing heavily as well.

Unlike Wien's condensed Spiritual Power, Pairomon's had not been refined. As a result, after using a series of skills, he felt somewhat drained.

But to him, everything before him was worth it. Although all his subordinates had been killed, he had at least avenged them by slaying Wien, the one responsible.

"That bastard was really hard to deal with. But killing him at least did right by those brats who followed me." Pairomon slowly rose to his feet. Looking at the devastation around him, he could not help feeling grief and indignation. All his subordinates had been wiped out, and he would have to start over again.

"With Ace Wien gone, only Yinfeng is left. Hmph, that fool Gatemont had the killer right in front of him and never even knew it. That great lord is nothing but trash!"

Pairomon considered whether he should first find the lords of the alliance and explain the situation. But on second thought, the alliance could only be maintained when the lords were comparable in strength, allowing them to stand as equals and discuss strategy together. Now that he was a Hollow without a single follower, the other lords would probably swallow him whole. After all, a single Pseudo-Adjuchas could not possibly manage such a vast territory. To the other lords, Pairomon and the resources of his territory were now no different from a fat sheep.

"There's probably no going back to the alliance. I'll have to find a way to build myself up first," Pairomon muttered as he walked back. "What a pity. That last burst probably smashed that bastard to pieces. Otherwise, if I could devour and absorb that immense Spiritual Pressure, I'm sure my Spiritual Power could break through the peak of Pseudo-Adjuchas..."

"Who told you... I was dead?" Before Pairomon could finish, a voice like judgment rang out behind him.

"Wh-what?!" Pairomon whipped around. At the bottomless pit, a pale gold light was rising from underground. The next second, it shot straight into the sky. The oppressive Spiritual Pressure made cold sweat pour down Pairomon's face.

"H-how?! How could you still be alive?!" Pairomon stumbled back several steps, stunned by the sight before him. Wien was indeed injured.

His right arm was completely deformed, and the shocks had left a great deal of blood on his body. Even much of his muscle had been shattered. There were large patches of blood on the Hierro on his legs, and his back was covered in wounds.

But... judging by Wien's current Spiritual Pressure, Pairomon's final full-powered attack, at least, had not harmed Wien in the slightest.

"Impossible! This is impossible!"

"Nothing's impossible." Wien smiled contemptuously. "All your subordinates were wiped out, but mine weren't." As he spoke, Wien raised a finger and pointed into the distance.

About a thousand meters from the battlefield, Nel and Jekain had already been waiting for some time. Not only that, a Pseudo-Adjuchas Hollow Beast resembling a pangolin was burrowing out of the ground at Wien's feet. Likewise, high in the sky, the sensory-type Pseudo-Adjuchas bat was flapping its wings and watching the surrounding area to prevent other Hollow Beasts from suddenly barging in.

The reason Wien had not suffered too much damage was that the pangolin Pseudo-Adjuchas underground had used Negación on him. That was what had spared Wien from the final full-powered attack.

However, as the price for hiding underground and using Negación, the Pseudo-Adjuchas could be said to have endured most of Core Quake. Though it had not been fatal, by the time the Pseudo-Adjuchas crawled out, his Spiritual Pressure was already feeble to the extreme, and he was badly injured.

"H-how is that possible? When?!"

"From the time I sent the signal until our fight was nearly over, my companions were racing here as fast as they could. They knew perfectly well that, to avoid being discovered, it was only safe to hang back a thousand meters away. I've been drilling this kind of tactical deployment into them ever since they began following me. That's also why I got rid of the sensory-type first."

As he spoke, Wien raised his left hand again, and the Rift-Splitting Greatsword slowly appeared in it.

"Once you'd lost your sensory-type, my companions could evade your senses as long as they did their utmost to suppress their Spiritual Pressure. After that, all they had to do was wait for my next instruction.

"To be honest, if I'd taken that last attack of yours, I really might have died here. But sorry, the companions I've chosen have never let me down. Negación is rarely seen among Hollow Beasts. It's clearly a godly skill, yet the distrust and laws of survival between Hollows have caused it to be gradually forgotten. That's a real shame."

"Negación... huh?" A different glimmer passed through Pairomon's eyes. At that moment, he seemed lost in memories. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking.

"All right, I'm going to stop playing fair now."

With that, Wien pointed his sword at Pairomon. Presumably, Pairomon did not understand what Wien meant by playing fair, but Wien showed him the meaning of the phrase in very practical terms.

Nel and Jekain rushed over from a distance in an instant. The sensory-type Hollow in the sky also fired a Cero, adding it to Wien's attack. Pairomon, already nearly spent, was surely beyond saving this time.

Several minutes later, Pairomon, covered in bloody wounds, lay weakly at Wien's feet. Wien shook the blood from his greatsword, then rested it against Pairomon's mask.

"Any last words?"

"Huff... huff..." Pairomon breathed heavily. At this point, he knew he could not escape death today. Only after he had steadied his breathing did he speak weakly. "Heh... hehe. If... if you can do it... kill Gatemont. I believe you'd be better suited than him to become the master of this Forest."

"Oh?" Wien was slightly taken aback. He had not expected Pairomon to end with words that sounded somewhat like flattery. "Are you flattering me to beg for your life?"

"Hahahaha." Pairomon closed his eyes and laughed. "If I had leadership like yours, or if I could have made my subordinates into so-called companions, perhaps then they wouldn't have... Forget it. We'll talk about it in the next life.

"Ace Wien, I have one last request. Devour me and make my Spiritual Power a part of you. I want to see how far you can go in the end."

"..." Wien froze slightly at Pairomon's words. He had heard those words before, when he was a lesser Hollow, from a companion named Inora. Only, Inora had been a companion then.

After a long silence, Wien finally raised the greatsword in his hand and brought it down on Pairomon's neck.

But as the greatsword fell, Wien's mouth opened slightly beneath his mask, and he spoke softly, uttering a word so faint it was barely audible.

"...All right."