Dictator From Outer Space

“Tirendell’s Goliath is an enhanced Belial-class. It has increased its output to 220E by ignoring the core’s overload, and replaced its entire armor plate with living metal. Its reactivity has also improved significantly, making it incomparable to other Belial-class units.”

Arma explained in detail.

Leobold didn’t really need such an explanation.

The gap in combat power was too obvious.

Tirendell could never beat Leobold, even if he came back from the dead.

However, the purpose of this battle was not to defeat him, but to change the strategy.

Arma needed a huge amount of data to run the ether modeling simulation.

Also, to prevent Tirendell and Goliath from becoming bombs, they had to adjust the output carefully.

In other words, they had to play with fire next to gunpowder.

“The divine power injected into Tirendell acts as an explosive, and the ether heart and core are the fuel. If you detonate the ether that you have drawn in, it will evaporate within a radius of 5km.”

Fortunately, Arma succeeded in perfectly analyzing the explosion threshold of the ether stone from the airship.

Thanks to that, he was able to warn Leobold of the ether threshold in real time.

All that was left was for Leobold to fight while adjusting the ether properly.

‘While dealing with a crazy elf who tries to kill me.’

He held a mace instead of a greatsword to control the threshold.

If he accidentally cut off the core, it could explode before Arma could handle it.

‘He also wrapped himself in living metal, so he should be able to withstand it. It will be fun to beat him up.’

“What if I told him what you just said? Maybe Tirendell would surrender?”

‘Him? Don’t be ridiculous.’

“I’m ready. After reaching the threshold, you have 3.5 seconds until the explosion, so you have to run away as fast as you can.”

‘I’m confident in running away.’

He had installed high-output ion thrusters on the legs of Black Knight in case of emergency, so he could escape quickly.

It would be hard for an ordinary pilot to control it with the increased weight and the thrust of the ion thruster, but it was a routine for Leobold.

On the other hand, Tirendell, who had boarded a Belial-class unit, was dumbfounded when he saw Leobold holding a huge mace-shaped weapon.

“What is that mace?”

“I’m not in a good mood today. I brought this to beat you up.”

“Don’t think of me as weak as before.”

“You’ve injected something weird into your body. You never know when it will explode.”

Did he notice that he accepted divine power?

Anyway, Leobold was a human who was hard to look at favorably.

“I don’t like it…”

“What?”

“I don’t like you acting like you’re on top and lecturing others.”

“What can I do? That’s fate.”

“Your fate is to die by me…”

Tirendell pointed his greatsword at him.

His ether heart and Goliath’s core resonated and spewed out a terrifying output.

The ether around them trembled so much that they could feel it on their skin.

‘It’s a close match with Balgard. It would be a good fight if I had Albion.’

“The explosion threshold is 75% left. Tirendell’s ether output exceeds 3,500E.”

He was the best except for Leobold.

The downside was that his output was not stable.

His output fluctuated depending on his emotions, and he couldn’t tell when his threshold would reach an extreme.

‘He’s a crazy guy who doesn’t know when he’ll explode. And I have to hold out as long as possible against him?’

“I can get better data.”

‘Damn.’

As soon as his grumbling ended, a dazzling ether blade emerged from Tirendell’s greatsword.

It was bigger than what Leobold showed, but unfortunately it was not stable.

It was affected by his unstable output.

“Isn’t it big… and beautiful? I’ll kill you with this ether blade.”

“You talk too much. If you want to fight, come at me now.”

“I can’t forgive you for killing my lord and my subordinates…”

“Is killing someone on the battlefield a sin? Did you come to the battlefield without being prepared to die?”

“What about Princess Margaret?”

Tirendell brought his unstable ether blade right in front of Leobold.

“Was it on the battlefield that you killed her! She thought you were not the worst and reached out to you! You betrayed her expectations!”

He talks a lot.

Leobold wrapped his mace with ether and said,

“If you want revenge, come at me. You’re the one who wants to avenge the princess, so don’t disappoint me.”

“Uaaaaa!”

With a scream, Tirendell’s Goliath shot forward explosively.

Shadow Step.

That was a maneuver unique to elves that narrowed the distance in an instant.

From the perspective of the opponent, it looked like the elf suddenly appeared in front of them, but in fact it was just a leap using ether.

The sharp ether blade was blocked by a heavy mace.

Kang, kakakak!

Surprisingly, the ether blade that was said to cut everything was stopped.

It was because Leobold’s ether was much higher in quality.

“As expected. If it’s a clash of pure power ether, the one with higher cohesion wins.”

There are several types of ether.

The ether that Yggdrasil or fusion reactors accept is divided into categories such as power, space, mind, energy, and time.

The type of magic also changes depending on what kind of ether you use.

Ether blade can be considered as a cohesion of power ether, and cohesion is equivalent to destructive power.

In other words, Tirendell’s ether blade looked overwhelming, but it couldn’t cut Leobold’s mace because it was inferior in cohesion.

“You bastard, you bastard!”

Tirendell couldn’t contain his anger and slashed his ether blade repeatedly.

Although he was inferior in cohesion, he had so much quantity that the mace had to take the impact.

The sharp metal sound spread all over, and every time Leobold had to listen to countless reports.

“The explosion threshold is 43% left.”

“The density is high even though the cohesion is low. It seems that it is definitely related to the divine power of power.”

“There was more than one unknown in the ether equation. The modeling simulation will be much shorter.”

“Die!”

While Leobold fought with the half-crazed Tirendell, a simulation based on the newly established equation was running on the Settler in the sky.

The amount of data that Arma had collected so far was beyond imagination, so it was not enough even if he mobilized hundreds of millions of computing units.

Did he release his divine power for real?

The Belial-class unit was almost covered in gold.

It was the same power that Leobold showed in Lantis County.

Unfortunately, that meant Tirendell couldn’t control his ether properly.

This means he is being consumed by divine power.

“You… you…”

Tirendell felt his consciousness fading in real time as he was enraged.

There was a monster in his chest that was devouring him.

‘Yes, good… let it devour me…’

As long as he could win, and avenge the princess, it was not a bad ending even if he died.

Thanks to that, the appearance of divine power popped out.

It was a wingless dragon that swallowed the Belial-class unit.

Arma reported urgently.

“The divine power has been identified. It is Eter, the dragon that devours dragons that the gods created during the Great War.”

‘So that’s why it looks like a dragon.’

Leobold was disappointed.

These guys were claiming to be gods with just that.

‘There is only one true god. Let me teach you that.’

He lifted his ether up and Black Knight floated in the air.

It was not because of the ion thruster.

He was flying in the sky with the power of ether that manipulated space.

Tirendell, who saw that, felt absurd even as his consciousness was being eaten away.

A Goliath flying in the sky.

It was unheard of for a Goliath, which was the farthest from magic, to use magic.

***

“Who are you…”

Tirendell backed away hesitantly.

He had never heard of a Goliath flying in the sky.

Even during the Great War, it was a mainstream interpretation that Goliaths could not fly.

Instead, they increased their defense with powerful magic circles and fought against divine power and dragons with various special abilities.

The output of Goliaths at that time was different from now.

Even in Elvrande, it was said that Black Knight would not be able to compete with them.

But Black Knight was flying in the sky.

“You don’t know anything. That power will swallow you and destroy the whole of Astera.”

“So you suppress it and fight with only moderate power? That’s a pathetic idea. You’re wasting infinite ether like that.”

“That’s why! The Great War happened!”

As Tirendell’s consciousness blurred with anger, divine power took his place.

Now the Belial-class unit changed from a bipedal walking golem to a quadrupedal dragon shape.

Eter, the dragon that devoured countless dragons during the Great War, revealed its appearance.

―I smell dragon from you…

“I have a blue dragon with me.”

―Then I’ll find him after I devour you…

“Can you do that? You’re just a half-finished god.”

―You don’t know my ability!

As Eter breathed deeply, Leobold realized his ability right away.

The ether on his mace disappeared and Black Knight swayed and fell to the ground.

He barely balanced himself, but he couldn’t hide his confusion.

‘What’s going on?’

“Eter seems to be able to absorb the ether around it. Be careful.”

‘I can’t end it by being careful.’

It was crazy to fight while losing ether constantly.

Fortunately, Goliath still moved.

‘This mace is enough. I’ll beat him up until he dies.’

As Leobold gathered his will, Eter shivered.

―This power… I’ve never tasted anything like this…

“Did you eat my ether?”

―You wouldn’t understand! This is my ability! All you can do now is keep giving me ether until you die!

“Let’s see about that. Come on.”

―I don’t need to come at you.

For a moment, the ether shape of Eter that covered Belial-class unit looked like it smiled wickedly.

Soon after, its mouth opened wide and gold flickered in its throat.

“It’s pure power ether. Breath! Dodge!”

‘Couldn’t you tell me that sooner?’

Leobold activated his ion thruster and jumped into the sky urgently.

―Die!

The ether breath swept over where he had been, too late.

Kukukung!

It was incomparable to Jigalion’s breath, thanks to Leobold’s ether being absorbed.

The ground turned upside down and a small storm arose.

Even Eter, who had breathed out, seemed to be surprised by it.

―This power… your ether is amazing.

“You just realized that? Anyway, I enjoyed your breath. Let’s fight for real now.”

―You’re talking while giving me your ether? I don’t know how arrogant you are!

Leobold manipulated his ion thruster and landed on the ground.

And he walked slowly toward him with his mace in hand.

―Foolish one! Ether is not infinite!

It was insane to fight while losing ether continuously from a normal point of view.

But Leobold was a miracle psycher who had been born with great efforts by humanity.

Drawing out a large amount of ether in real time was easy for him.

―How, how is this…

Eter was shocked to see that the ether on his mace did not disappear even though he was absorbing it.

How high was the output of his ether heart to make that possible?

It looked like he was producing ether in real time.

―Are you a god?

He finally arrived in front of him as he hesitated.

“Only one is the true god. Anyway, let’s get hit for the data.”

Eter’s eyes widened.

―How dare you say that to me!

He ran at him with a tremendous momentum, but as soon as the mace swung, he realized something was wrong.

Bang!

The heavy mace blew away Eter’s mouth and made his ether body sway.

Eter barely held on to his consciousness, which was almost taken away by Tirendell.

―You’re good… But you didn’t know this. This ether body comes from you!

In other words, as long as Leobold used ether, Eter would continue to regenerate.

No one wanted an endless fight.

But all Leobold did was swing his mace again.

Bang!

The ether on the mace exploded as it collided with Eter’s form.

He flew away and quickly began to recover.

―You fool! It’s meaningless to attack like that! You’re the one who supports me!

Eter rushed in.

The ether he absorbed was immediately converted into magic and shot at Black Knight.

Goliath itself did not suffer much damage, but it could not prevent the ground from shaking.

Eter did not miss that opportunity.

―You bastard!

He rushed in and a close combat began.

There was no chance to swing the mace.

A pure physical fight.

Black Knight raised his fist and Eter’s jaw soared into the sky.

Eter’s tail swung and Black Knight flew away.

Of course, Leobold was the one who lost.

The opponent kept recovering his losses, while the living metal’s restoration had its limits.

On top of that, Eter used all kinds of magic and abilities.

They were from the divine power and dragons he had devoured during the Great War.

―You’re pathetic!

A huge explosion occurred and Black Knight flew away.

「There is 17% left until the explosion threshold.」

「We have obtained data related to ether of mind. The simulation that was expected to take up to two months has been shortened to three weeks.」

The density of ether in the space they occupied increased, raising the risk of explosion.

Still, Leobold got up and ran towards Eter.

―Didn’t I tell you that you can’t do it with that junk Goliath!

Eter endured Black Knight’s attack with his body and attacked back.

His claws, imbued with ether, scratched and turned the living metal armor plate into rags.

Then he spewed a close-range breath.

Leobold quickly deployed a shield to block it, but he couldn’t stop it from exploding.

Kukwak!

The shield was torn apart and Black Knight flew tens of meters away.

Eter took advantage of that gap and used his ability.

It was time stop, a magic that had never been used since the Great War.

An alien ether field spread over the space where they were, and Black Knight’s movement stopped.

Eter gasped for breath and laughed.

―Hahaha, you can’t do anything about this magic!

He had devoured the divine power that governed the flow of time.

But he overlooked one thing.

Black Knight and Leobold were stopped, but Arma, who supported him, was still continuing her analysis.

A vast amount of data on ether of time flowed into her as he used his magic.

And the time needed for the simulation decreased from 1 to 0.

「Modeling simulation completed. Ether analysis is completely finished.」

A beam of ether was fired from Siviri satellite towards the area where the field was spread.

The field was lifted and the time stop magic was interrupted.

Eter was laughing when he saw Black Knight moving and panicked.

―No, no way…

“Disappointing, Eter.”