The sound of Zboz's right elbow breaking echoed across the surroundings.
It was a raw, visceral sound—enough to make several onlookers grimace as they involuntarily imagined the pain.
But there was no way the monstrous Zboz would be felled by something as simple as a broken elbow.
Even if she had used leverage, Vihera had snapped the elbow of an arm as thick as her own torso. Under normal circumstances, it would not have been surprising for her to let her guard down after such a feat.
The instant she broke the bone, though, Vihera immediately created distance between herself and Zboz.
In truth, that decision was by no means wrong. No—it was absolutely the right call.
Zboz, leaving his shattered right arm hanging where it was, forcefully swung his free left arm.
The fist cut through the space where Vihera's face had been just a moment before.
He seemed frustrated at the lack of impact, but with Vihera no longer pinning him down, he regained his freedom of movement and pushed himself to his feet.
Vihera was still nearby. Zboz tried to clench his right fist to strike at her... but with his elbow shattered, he could not close his hand.
"GAAH?"
Zboz let out a puzzled growl as if to ask why?—but eventually realized that his right arm was barely responding.
He clutched his right elbow with his left hand... then, in that same instant, launched himself away with a massive leap.
The tip of Mirage, slicing through the air with a sharp hiss, pierced the exact spot where Zboz had been standing.
"Hey, Elena!"
Recognizing the weapon on sight, Vihera shouted with open displeasure.
Elena pulled Mirage back to her side and answered without missing a beat.
"This battle is not being fought solely for your satisfaction, Vihera. You have already fought that man. Getting too greedy at this point will only get you killed."
"...If you're going to say that, then the same applies to you, Elena..."
Vihera's words trailed off.
She had caught sight of Elena pinning Adria face-down under her Sleipnir boots, holding her in place.
Since Elena had Mirage as a ranged attack option, striking from a distance was perfectly reasonable.
But if she focused too heavily on offense, Adria might seize the chance to escape.
Elena's solution was elegant: make it so Adria could not flee in the first place.
(I get that, but...)
Even as Vihera turned her gaze back to Zboz, who was clutching his right elbow, she felt her fighting spirit drain away from what she had just witnessed.
It was like stumbling onto something between two women—a distinctly uncomfortable sensation.
Vihera understood the reality was nothing of the sort, of course.
After all, even now Adria was struggling beneath Elena's foot, desperately trying to break free.
Even so, the image resembled a display of sadistic pleasure, and Vihera's will to fight plummeted.
Seeing this, Rei called out, Flame Emperor's Crimson Armor still blazing around him.
"Vihera, fall back! I'm better matched against him!"
"Fine, I got it!"
Harboring a lingering sense of anticlimax, Vihera followed Rei's order and leaped clear.
As if refusing to let her escape, Zboz swung at her with his right arm—which had already finished regenerating and was moving freely once more...
"Do you truly think I would allow such a thing?"
Without lifting her foot from Adria's back, Elena lashed out with Mirage.
Mirage, now in whip form, intercepted Zboz before he could pursue Vihera.
Its blades sliced through Zboz's body one after another.
Since the longsword's blade was divided into many segments, each individual blade was small.
But the one wielding it was Elena—bearer of the title Princess General, who had inherited the Magic Stone of an Ancient Dragon.
Rather than cutting, each strike was more like a devastating bludgeon, the whip-shaped blades slamming into Zboz with crushing force.
"GWWAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"
Zboz had not let out such an infuriated roar even when Vihera had punched, kicked, clawed, and struck him with Magic Impact Palm—but that last blow had clearly hit home.
No, the actual damage was not that significant. But it was a strike that jabbed at his pain receptors far more sharply than anything before.
Pursuing Vihera was already forgotten. Zboz fixed a gaze of pure hatred on Elena, the source of his pain.
"Hey, hey. I'm the one you hate, aren't I? Why are you going after Elena?"
"GAH!?"
Rei, still wreathed in Flame Emperor's Crimson Armor, was standing right beside Zboz—before anyone had noticed. Truly, before anyone could possibly have noticed.
The moment Zboz registered Rei's presence, driven by the sharp instincts of his berserk state, he swung his fist toward him.
Having been in such close proximity to Flame Emperor's Crimson Armor, Zboz's skin had suffered terrible, visible burns.
His remarkable regenerative ability was already working to repair the damage, but the healing was gradually losing ground against the relentless heat.
Rei caught the incoming fist with his left hand—the one not holding Death Scythe.
Under normal circumstances, Zboz's swollen fist would have easily crushed Rei's body.
But Rei had Flame Emperor's Crimson Armor active, and his physical capabilities were dramatically enhanced.
Catching Zboz's fist barehanded posed no problem at all.
The instant Rei's grip locked around his fist, Zboz screamed at the searing agony that ripped through it.
"GWWAAAAAAAAAARGH!"
Skin burned. Flesh charred. Even the bones of his fist carbonized and crumbled.
It should have regenerated under normal circumstances, but the heat was too intense—even regeneration could not keep pace. Zboz's entire right arm was reduced to charcoal. It dropped to the ground, and the charcoal dust scattered into the sunset sky.
"You're beyond saving. You don't have any consciousness left, do you? If so, you're better off dead than kept alive like this."
"GWOOGAGAGAGAGAGAAAHUUUAAAH!"
Perhaps sensing the danger in Rei's words, Zboz threw himself backward in a massive leap, driven purely by berserk instinct.
It was an attempt to put distance between himself and Rei—but it was recklessly careless.
Rei, with Flame Emperor's Crimson Armor active, certainly had his physical abilities vastly enhanced. But he also possessed Deep Flame, a long-range attack skill.
As if chasing after the retreating Zboz, compressed crimson flame was hurled through the air.
The fire shot forward at high speed, streaking straight toward Zboz...
"GWOOOHH!"
Instinctively sensing the danger of that crimson flame, Zboz leaped again, creating even more distance.
Deep Flame struck the spot where Zboz had been standing and erupted into a Pillar of Flame several meters tall, sending the surrounding temperature skyrocketing.
Had Zboz remained where he was, the heat alone would have unquestionably incinerated his entire body.
Seeing it from close range—even in his berserk state... no, precisely because he was berserk, Zboz must have felt the primal terror of death.
Judging that fighting Rei meant certain death, he tried to flee the area...
"I won't let you."
In that instant, Elena's Mirage transformed into whip form and coiled around Zboz's leg.
This was no ordinary whip—it was Mirage, a whip-sword. The segments wrapped around his leg included blades, and they sliced into the flesh of his foot on contact.
"GWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"
Whether from the pain in his leg or from having his escape thwarted, Zboz let out a furious roar.
Either way, Zboz prioritized fleeing from Rei over the pain around his leg and tried to leap away as he was.
At the other end of what was coiled around his leg was a single woman.
Even berserk, Zboz could grasp that much.
And with his current strength, surely one woman could not stop him.
...At that moment, a new intelligence was clearly taking shape within Zboz.
Not the intelligence Zboz had originally possessed, but an emergent consciousness belonging to the berserk, enlarged entity that could only be described as the former Zboz.
Of course, it was not entirely free of Zboz's influence—it was based on Zboz's flesh, after all.
But even so, this newborn intelligence could not perceive the abnormality of the person at the other end of the weapon wrapped around its leg. It could not recognize what Elena truly was.
"GUOOOOOOOOOOOH!"
Zboz kicked off the ground, trying to drag Elena along with Mirage still tangled around his leg. But the next moment, he felt a weight as though he had been anchored to the earth itself—and was dragged down hard to the ground.
"Gurraah? Grrorah!"
He could not comprehend what had happened at all.
Letting out a bewildered cry, Zboz scanned his surroundings.
Seeing Elena—the one holding the thing coiled around his leg—standing completely unfazed, he was thrown into even deeper confusion.
How could his strength lose to a single woman, one overwhelmingly smaller than himself?
Zboz appeared utterly incapable of understanding. Elena, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, simply pulled Mirage back.
Consequently, Zboz's body was dragged across the ground, hauled forcibly toward Elena.
"GAGAGAAAAAAHAAAAAAGH!"
Zboz desperately tried to resist.
But Elena had inherited the Magic Stone of an Ancient Dragon. Her physical strength had become so overpowering that it rendered Zboz's resistance entirely meaningless.
Unaware of this, Zboz frantically stamped against the ground, clawed at it, tried to pull away...
"Haven't you forgotten about me?"
Along with the heat pressing against his skin, Zboz's movement stopped dead.
His consciousness had been so consumed by what was happening in front of him that he had completely forgotten the presence of the one who would bring him certain death.
Had he been in a state of total mindless fury, he might have instinctively sensed Rei. But the half-formed intelligence now budding within him likely played a part in his failure.
Rei's Death Scythe carved through the air.
The horizontal slash was so sharp it looked like nothing more than a flash of light.
But the strike was unmistakably imbued with killing intent—a single blow that split the enormous body, now grown far beyond the original Zboz's size, vertically through the abdomen.
The Combat Automatic Reaction Nerves sluggishly writhing inside could do nothing but receive the strike.
"Gah... Gwaaaaah? GAAAH!"
At the sheer sharpness of the blow, Zboz let out a momentary sound of confusion—then immediately screamed.
The sensation of his torso sliding apart was an experience entirely unknown to him.
He felt no pain. He did not even feel heat.
Well—given that Rei, with Flame Emperor's Crimson Armor active, was right beside him, perhaps feeling the heat as his skin burned away was only natural.
Elena, having retracted Mirage from Zboz's leg now that Rei was on the attack, let out a breath of relief.
She had trusted in his power, but against an existence like Zboz, anything could have happened.
Even so, letting the berserk Zboz escape was not an option. They had to finish him here, and for that, they needed Rei.
No—it would not have been impossible for Elena to defeat Zboz herself. But she could not have done it as swiftly as Rei.
Furthermore, Elena's most powerful attack was the Laser Breath of the Ancient Dragon.
Using it here would cause catastrophic damage to the surroundings. It could potentially destroy not only the slum district but Gilm itself... there was even a chance the lord's mansion would be caught in the blast.
Given that, Elena could not simply fire off a Laser Breath.
While Elena kept watch over Zboz with Mirage at the ready, prepared to strike the instant anything went wrong, Rei turned his gaze to the creature that was still alive despite being split in two from the torso.
The look in Rei's eyes held more pity than the satisfaction of felling a tenacious enemy.
The opponent had targeted him, yes. But in the end, his ego had collapsed, and the very Magic Item he had used had consumed his existence entirely.
Even knowing it was largely his own fault, Rei could not help but feel a measure of pity.
That feeling may have stemmed partly from the fact that Zboz had admired Kabajid—someone who shared Rei's origin.
The upper body that had crumbled to the ground was still trying to move, even as its innards spilled out.
Because it was near Flame Emperor's Crimson Armor, the blood evaporated and the organs charred.
"...Sleep now. Deep Flame."
With those words, he sent compressed flame—Deep Flame—flying. The next instant, Zboz was engulfed in roaring fire, along with the lower half still standing on the ground.
"Kaba...jid...sama..."
At the very end, that voice reached Rei's ears. But it, too, faded almost immediately... and after several dozen seconds, all that remained was Zboz—reduced to charcoal.