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“Those who have challenged me have always ended up like this. I have lived for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, and time has only strengthened me.”

The Lion’s words rang in his ears. Quenor breathed in and out through his nose, the tinnitus drowning out the noise of the battlefield and Lion’s words. He couldn’t open his mouth because his blood would spill out. Quenor raised his upper body and drove his sword into the ground to support his weight.

He couldn’t even feel the air around him.

All he could feel was himself. His sense of external stimuli was faint. His vision was blurred, and his hearing was muffled. His sense of smell was numbed by the scent of blood, and his hands and feet tingled. The blood spilled could be replenished by forcibly drawing magic power to prevent further loss, but there was nothing he could do about the blood that was already gone.

“Hah….”

‘I’m used to losing blood. I’m used to deep wounds.’ Quenor was always at the forefront when attacking and at the back when retreating. In battle, his soldiers only saw his face at the beginning of the fight and their victory speech after. He’s used to flesh wounds.

“You humans act like you’re somehow different from other creatures. The way you fight back from a wound like that, you’re no different than any other animal cub.”

The Lion sneered. ‘It’s always good entertainment to watch a human break down. Even after hundreds of lives teetering on death’s edge, humans never stop changing the odds. Just when you think you’ve won and your hopes are at their highest, you realize you’ve reached the bottom, not the sky!’ The Lion snorted, opening and closing his jaws.

“Poor mortals, always seeking immortality.”

The Lion despised and pitied them. The Lion lowered its head slightly, looking into the eyes of the fallen person. Humans near death reacted in one of two ways. Fear or a kind of longing. He was the latter.

“You think you can achieve immortality by dying, blind to the fact that it is a false hope. Pathetic.”

The Lion’s voice was grand. The majesty of one who stood at the pinnacle of battle. While its past glory will not return, all he had to do was to make another. It breathed in deeply. The smell of death was thick. The scent of the dead only grew stronger. The Lion stood at the mouth of the estuary that led to the path they’d taken, greedily consuming the corpses that fell into it. ‘Even heroes die. Humans should know that well.’

“Do you feel the horror? Do you feel the terror?”

The human soldiers on the wall trembled. The Lion was glad. Fear and anger. But anger was in the minority. The humans who rushed at it, spears raised and shouting, were tackled by other monsters before they reached the Lion’s feet.

“This is humanity. Struggle, fighting to escape, but this is your fate.”

Quenor raised his head. He still had his mana, and his limbs were intact. The Lion exuded a presence similar to the Giant’s, but it wasn’t the same. So Quenor as himself a simple question.

Are you going to give up?

The answer was obvious.

He can still fight. Even if he had no limbs or mana. Quenor narrowed his eyes at his conclusion. That Lion won’t bite his throat until he breaks. So he must fight until he broke. And the only way to do that was to kill him.

So he’s invincible.

“Futile.”

At the Lion’s words, Quenor responded by raising his sword again. The pain in his chest didn’t stop. The sharp stab of Lion’s claws had sent a shredding pain from his torso to every extremity of his body. His hand on the hilt of his sword felt numb. His legs felt uselessly heavy as he took a step forward.

“My attacks don’t stop at the surface. You know it by the pain that spreads through your body.”

Quenor knew swinging the sword would be painful as he couldn’t even breathe properly. The pulses of mana that were drawn out with each breath were even more painful. It felt like needles piercing his veins. Quenor’s eyes glisten with blood, his body no longer his own but his tormentor’s.

“If you still wish to fight, I will fight you.”

He moved the legs he couldn’t feel and raised the arm he couldn’t sense. Then Quenor attacked the Hero Slayer once more.

With a crack, the sword fell like a thunderbolt, a movement that could hardly be attributed to a man whose body was mangled. Instead, the Lion’s eyes glowed, and its mouth opened faster. Greedy teeth glistened with hungry saliva.

“That’s right, more, MORE! Keep raising your body! Believe that you can defeat me! That will make your death much more satisfying.”

The Lion’s voice rang as loud as his roar.

“Come, and let me taste your despair!”

Again, front left arm. Quenor’s sword was aimed at the same place for the third time. Each swing was faster than the last. The Lion twisted to the right and deflected the attack. Then it swung its forepaw at Quenor’s head again. With a precarious maneuver, Quenor dodged the Lion’s attack.

“I guess humans do have a brain.”

True to its word, Quenor had abandoned defense and was going full throttle on offense, a ferocious blitzkrieg, and it wasn’t a wrong choice. In his raggedy form, he wouldn’t even have time to raise his sword before his head was sliced off.

“Not that it would save you!”

The Lion aimed for Quenor’s sword and sent him flying.

“Let’s see what good you are without your sword.”

Quenor’s body collapsed from the poor landing. He dropped to one knee, clutching his sword for support. The Lion waited for Quenor to pull himself back up. The Hero of this generation only had a few moments before being one of the many devoured by it.

“Answer me, Hero.”

Quenor’s stomach churned, the pain getting sharper. The bleeding didn’t stop. He breathes out hard and lets his sword drop. Was there a way to win? Was there a way for a mortal to kill an immortal? Quenor found the hilt of his sword and gripped it. The Hero will discover a way. What must have been Elroy’s will then to defy immortality?

“Elroy, tell me.”

Quenor spoke to himself. How to make the sword touch where the sword would not. How a man could kill a god.

“What light did you see?”

Quenor raised his sword, and the Lion readied its forepaws. The sky above was blocked by the overbearing claws. Quenor’s vision changed, the space around him warped, and the shock hit. His breathing was uneven as he was thrown to the ground, preoccupied with other thoughts.

What can a human do in the face of death?

Quenor moved, but it didn’t amount to much. The Lion watched as Quenor staggered in amusement. To the Lion, it was as harmless as a breeze.

Quenor raised his sword and a weak aura formed on the blade. The Lion stood still, staring at the tip of the blade. It would break before it could even pierce its skin.

“Hmph.”

The Lion’s golden eyes flickered as it stared at the falling sword. Its forepaws and hind paws tensed, and he moved instinctually. He couldn’t be hit by that one. The Lion’s instincts were telling it so. Lines danced before his eyes.

Death.

The word flashed through the immortal Lion’s mind. It leaped backward, running on all fours, and the Quenor’s sword fell, slow but sure, like punishment, upon the spot where it had been.

A weak arm movement brought the sword to the ground. Nothing changed; space did not shake. The air continued to flow, and no earth was destroyed or energy released, making this attack deadly. The only thing the Lion could feel from the blow was certain death.

Cold sweat trickled down its mane. A chill ran down its spine. For the first time, the Lion recognized the emotion and sensation as fear. ‘Fear? Of what?’

“You see my death more clearly than most.”

The wounds upon wounds should’ve killed all other heroes long ago. But why did the Lion feel as if he were closer to it?

“…Nice bluff, you dying piece of meat.”

The Lion must deny its feelings and thoughts. The moment he recognizes them, immortality is defeated. Immortality is unchanging. Myths are shaken, and dignity is diminished. The moment you acknowledge the possibility of mortality, the possibility of death, that is when you will die. It becomes a fight of equals, where you must lay down your life to save it.

And in a fight to the death, the immortal can never defeat the mortal.

“You are no longer safe, Lion.”

The sentence fell from Quenor’s lips. They were no different. They were now both on the road to nowhere. They must cut and slash at each other’s paths and show the fastest way down.

“This is the end of the line.”

“…Insolent!”

The Lion snarled and charged. Quenor looked at the Lion as it ran. Its eyes were no longer those of a predator. They saw an equal, an enemy to be fought, a clear threat to themselves. That fact made Quenor all the more calm.

“I’ll rip off that mouth of yours!”

The soft sound of the sword silenced the battlefield’s noise.

Blood gushed out.

It was not Quenor’s.

The Lion’s face contorted in horror and agony as the blade pierced its impenetrable hide. A terrible roar pierced the heavens.

“Your scream is ugly, Lion.”

Quenor turned and faced it.

“Stand up.”

The Lion lost all human speech. Flowing blood is a falling deity. Reduced to nothing more than a giant, powerful beast, the Lion roared and lunged at Quenor again.

Upper left arm.

Quenor’s sword couldn’t be stopped. One of the Lion’s front paws was cut off.

Again, and again, and again.

The Lion’s blood soaked the ground like rain. It smelled death closing in on the path of Quenor’s blade. The scent he felt as belonging to another now wafted from his dismembered body.

“Their…their resurrection…”

Before the Lion could finish his sentence, Quenor’s blade sliced through its throat. He stared at the crumbling body of the myth, then turned away. The battle was not over. He was still needed on the battlefield.

“Archduke!!!”

Quenor raised his sword. The sea of monsters had not disappeared. The soldiers were dying.

But the Hero was still missing.