I dodged the right fist unleashed from his log-like arm by a hair's breadth.
Aldebaran's attacks, which had once felt so utterly insurmountable, were slicing through nothing but empty air.
Even though he had already morphed into a beast resembling a crocodile, the guy was simply no match for me anymore.
"Why won't it hit you, huh?!"
Aldebaran roared, his confusion dripping with irritation.
"Who knows? I'm not really sure myself," I replied, giving voice to my genuine thoughts.
Until my audience with Lord Kai, I hadn't been able to lay a finger on Aldebaran. That was an indisputable fact.
If I had to trace a cause, it was that after joining hands with Somni and Tetor, I had heard a mysterious voice and collapsed. When I came to, the dynamic between Aldebaran and me had completely flipped.
If anyone in this world could pull off such an absurdity, it was only that Great One. Lord Kai's power had forcibly made me stronger. Perhaps I had lost consciousness simply to endure the physical enhancement of my body.
"Don't get cocky, you hear?!"
Aldebaran sprinted toward me, baring his razor-sharp claws.
"Right back at you."
Timing my counter to his motion, I drove my left fist forward. The right arm he was about to bring down shattered completely at the shoulder.
Even without using Mimicry, the strength coursing through me was ridiculous.
"Wha—?!"
As Aldebaran's eyes widened in sheer shock, I slammed a left roundhouse kick into him. My shin cleanly tore his head from his shoulders.
Headless, Aldebaran toppled slowly onto his back.
"Ah-ah, he went and lost♪ But you know, our Demon King's recovery power is totally insane♪"
Arad, one of Aldebaran's close aides—a man with slicked-back red hair and oddly bulging eyes—hummed along while performing a bizarre, squirming dance.
"Yeah, yeah! Even without a head, standing on two feet means ready to rumble♬"
A soldier in uniform, whose round head and spindly limbs jutted out from a spherical torso, joined in the dance with a booming, gravelly voice.
Suddenly, Aldebaran's headless body stood bolt upright, stretching and bending both arms before wriggling his legs. At the same time, his head popped back out like a turtle's.
"Too bad for you! Something like that won't—"
"Shut up!"
Closing the gap on the gloating beast before he could finish his boast, I drew Flame and cleaved his torso in two with a single horizontal stroke.
"Eh...?"
Wearing a look of sheer bewilderment as his upper half separated from his lower, Aldebaran burst into flames along the cut.
"I know full well that won't kill you. Get up! Just as you like, I'll carve you to pieces over and over until you die!"
I would never forget. I was the only one who would never forget what these monsters had done.
Aldebaran and those who served him had stolen everything dear to me.
They killed Kiji.
They killed Chato.
They killed Tama.
They killed Bū.
They killed Cyclone.
They killed Orgo.
They killed Crocodus.
They killed the butcher lady.
They killed Gobuza.
They slaughtered everyone in this city. And they murdered Char, who was more precious to me than my own life.
I was the sole survivor who remembered it all. None other than me.
Aldebaran, you bastards are the ones I will never forgive.
"You miserable piece of shit bug!"
Aldebaran roared, bloodshot eyes glaring as flames flickered from his jaws, extinguishing the inferno engulfing his body. Then, just as expected, countless tentacles writhed out from the severed edges of his upper and lower torso, instantly stitching the flesh back together as he hauled himself back up.
"You're going to lose to that very bug! You will die groveling, pathetically begging for your life!"
Employing the Mimicry of my swordsmanship master, Arnold, I leveled the tip of Flame at him and made my declaration.
"Don't you dare mock meee!"
As if fueled by his explosive fury, Aldebaran's body swelled several times over. He charged forward, each step shaking the earth beneath us.
I pushed off the ground, severing both of his arms in the blink of an eye as we crossed paths.
"Gwaaagh!"
Aldebaran screamed in agony.
"I'm not mocking you. I'm nowhere near that calm."
Spitting out words laced with deep-seated, burning hatred, I tightened my grip on the hilt of Flame and slowly marched toward him.