
Soru knew how powerful a celestial body like the sun was. For normal people, it is known to be a ball of fire, hot enough to illuminate a planet and give life to it. But for those who studied how it works, they knew that it was not just a giant, glowing orb hung up in the sky.
When two lighter elements violently collide to form a heavier element, massive amounts of energy will be released in just a fraction of a second. Such an event will cause a chain reaction, radiating in all directions. That process was repeated inside the sun's core, maintaining itself for thousands and millions of years.
Soru only found out that information when he was in middle school. Before, all he knew was that the sun was extremely hot and emits heat to sustain life on Earth. After taking a grasp on how devastating it was, he decided not to harness such energy unless forced to do so.
Since no one on Earth managed to force him to use such a measure, he wasn't able to witness how powerful it was when utilized.
After coming to this world, he was forced to use it on a powerful individual, the Wildfire Dragon Veylir. For the first time, he finally saw how deadly it was that it caused the dragon to die in an instant.
Although Veylir absorbed almost all of his attack by using her Ultimate-class ability <Thermal Absorption>, the explosion was still visible to those who had witnessed it. By sacrificing her aeon reserves to reinforce her ability, her body wasn't vaporized completely. Only her dragon scales, which the ability was concentrated into, were charred into ashes.
After his battle with Veylir, Soru decided to use it as his trump card. Since its strength was unparalleled, he thought that no one could survive it once released. But now, that image was shattered upon witnessing that there is an individual capable of surviving it.
Despite being heavily injured, Adeptus managed to come out from hiding outside the space and lay on the white sands several meters away from Soru. Its body was severely deformed, with only its head remaining intact. The monster starts to drag its body by using its right arm.
Although the monster's body was healed by the High-End Regeneration, the intense radiation that Adeptus received from the explosion was constantly destroying its cells, slowing down the regeneration process.
Soru simply watched Adeptus dragging its way back at him while suffering from intense radiation poisoning. He witnessed the monster's regrown limbs and arms melting, like a blob of flesh, while emitting toxic fumes along the way.
Luckily for Adeptus, the Reactive Selection aided the monster to fight the radiation within. Although it was slow, the monster's body was adapting to the intense radiation.
After some moment, Adeptus grew its limbs back and managed to stand up on its feet. The monster's left arm was still missing, but it didn't stop the monster from confronting its opponent. Soru simply gazed the monster's horrendous body.
"Hahhh... Hahhh..."
Adeptus panted as its fatigue was finally catching up. The reconstruction of its body consumed almost all of its aeon reserves.
Adeptus gathered the aeon directly from the atmosphere. Soru was oblivious to its actions due to his inability to sense aeon. Minutes later, Adeptus completely recovered its aeon and quickly used the Exile to hide.
Seeing that the monster hid again, Soru immediately transferred the sun's energy release for the second time at the monster. The monster's body got destroyed again upon taking the explosion head-on. The Reactive Selection took effect and forced the monster's body to adapt to the damage of the explosion instead of the radiation.
"Hm...?"
Soru noticed that the monster's body starts to regenerate after the explosion. It was a bit faster compared to the previous one. Just when the monster almost regenerated its entire body, Soru used the sun's energy once again. This time, he constantly transferred the energy without rest.
Adeptus struggles to tank the heavy damage caused by the sun's nuclear explosions. The monster used the Reactive Selection to its full potential and focused on adapting the explosion. However, the force was too strong for the adaptation to catch up.
A minute passed by when Soru started bombarding the monster with the sun's energy. He noticed the line that connects him to Adeptus became thinner. He then stopped the constant transferral of energy.
"That should be enough."
Suddenly, Adeptus appeared in his front and fell due to exhaustion. Although the monster was still conscious, it was too tired to stand up on its own due to the damage it received from the constant explosions within the monster's body.
The monster was battered up, with half of its body melting like wax. Its complexion was getting worse compared to before.
"Uuuuu..."
Although Reactive Selection is a troublesome ability, the range of its capability is limited. It could adapt to every circumstance that was thrown at the user, but it can only accommodate one task at a time.
When Soru bombarded Adeptus with the sun's energy, the monster focused the adaptation effect by surviving the explosive damage instead of overcoming the destruction of its cells by radiation.
Due to that reason, the radiation was left unchecked. Over the course of a minute, the radiation became more intense, more than any biological being could ever withstand. The radiation destroyed every molecular bond inside the monster's body.
Soru immediately detects the radiation leaking out from Adeptus.
Was that the radiation? Better keep it confined inside its body...
In order to prevent the radiation from reaching him, Soru transferred all of it back at the monster. This resulted in the radiation being trapped inside it, destroying the monster's cells further.
The monster quickly used its Reactive Selection to adapt to the radiation poisoning while maintaining High-End Regeneration to regenerate its collapsing body. The monster absorbed the radiation at an exponential rate, hoping to gain immunity from it.
Soru walks slowly where Adeptus was lying. He wasn't hesitant to get closer to the monster. Seeing that there is no significant improvement from its current state, he knew that the monster would be defeated at any moment.
On the other side, Adeptus was alarmed when the Reactive Selection and High-End Regeneration almost drained the aeon inside its body.
Adeptus tried to gather aeon from the atmosphere to compensate for what was lost within, but the monster was weakened to the point that the process was overpowered by the rate of aeon consumption on both abilities.
Soru stood in front of the struggling monster. Adeptus saw him and was stunned upon seeing his eyes.
His cold gaze pierced through the monster's very mind. The monster was quickly engulfed by intense inferiority and shivered. Adeptus felt like some sort of tiny, insignificant ant in the face of an immovable mountain.
"Give up."
Adeptus's will to fight collapsed in a flash. His word shook the monster to its core, strucken by the truth that defeating him was utterly impossible.
Just then, the monster growled at the top of its lungs as it suffered from its bitter and humiliating defeat. The humiliation that the monster felt was far more severe than its fight at the Dwarven Kingdom many decades ago.
Adeptus burned its remaining life force in exchange for aeon to activate the Reactive Selection. The monster was forcibly adapting its vocal chords to extreme limits. As a result, the monster neglected the radiation that was destroying its insides.
"Vraaahh! Vagghh vaghhh!"
As its own life was coming to an end, the monster tried to recall every dialect it accumulated over hundreds of years of existence. Since its opponent was a human, Adeptus knew that he only understood its own dialect.
"H-hyu... m-m-man..."
Soru was surprised upon hearing the monster speak for the first time. He looked into Adeptus's eyes without any change in his expression and listened to its final moments.
"...M-m-monst...er-rr..."
After Adeptus uttered those words, it immediately morphed back to its former state. Although its body managed to adapt the radiation and absorb it completely, the monster's lifeforce was exhausted down to its last drop. This resulted in it reverting back to its spherical state.
Soru witnessed the line vanish the moment Adeptus reverted back to its original form. Moments later, the orb shattered into pieces before turning into dust.
Seeing that with his own eyes, he confirms that the monster was truly gone for good.
Without saying a word, he turns and walks away. Finally, their long fight came to an end. With his own hands, the strongest Disaster-class monster ever existed was slained.
Soru felt the gentle breeze passing on his cheeks. He turned to the east and saw the sun on the horizon. He realized that it was already late afternoon.
"It took longer than expected..."
Soru looks back and follows the line, which he believes belongs to individuals that know him. He looks around as he walks through the forest, gazing at the destruction caused by his fight with Adeptus in silence.
...
"Sir Alguis, the barricades were already fixed and good to go!"
"Umu, return to your original position and prepare for the next wave!"
The swordsman nods his head and runs away after hearing Alguis' command. As he chopped the monster's head using his weapon, he saw Reika at the distance, slaying several Rabid Wolves with her spear. He was surprised to see her fight efficiently.
"To think that her proficiency with the spear was that high... It suits her well!"
While in the midst of her fight with the Rabid Wolves, Reika noticed that there were only a few monsters left at the scene. To end it quickly, she decided to restrain them at once.
<Chains of Imprisonment!>
Several chains immediately emerged from the ground and bound all the monsters in the vicinity.
"I'll leave the rest to you, guys!"
All the swordsmen cheer at her.
"Woo-hooh!"
"Thank you, Miss Reika!"
Reika simply nodded and left, in a hurry. Upon leaving the scene, they slained the restrained monsters and ended the current wave.
"Hmm... Your level at spearmanship is already the same as mine, huh. As I thought, experience is needed for further improvement!" Veylir said and nodded.
"Could you tell me where the goblins are now? I heard that they arrived..."
Veylir points her tiny claws on the left side of the settlement.
"They're on that side recuperating."
"Uh-huh..."
"Ah! I forgot to tell you that there are orcs—"
Veylir paused upon noticing that Reika had already left in haste.
"At least let me finish my sentence first!"
Veylir followed her and went in the direction where the goblins were recuperating.
Upon Reika's arrival, she noticed the group of goblins. Some of them are heavily injured. She also noticed that there are other strange-looking individuals amongst them. It was the orcs that Gobuchiki and Soru rescued earlier.
"I forgot to mention that there are orcs included while rescuing these goblins," Veylir said upon catching up to her.
"I see..."
Seeing all the injured individuals, Reika decides to help them without thinking twice.
"All the injured individuals, please lie them in line!"
Everyone was surprised when they understood her words. It was all thanks to Reika's Translator ability. They followed her instructions immediately.
After they lined up the injured goblins and orcs, Reika went to the center and closed her eyes.
<Heal>
Suddenly, several faint glows of green light appeared on their injured parts. Then, everyone at the scene witnessed their injuries recovering slowly. They were amazed at what they saw.
"Woah..."
Even Geruldo was also amazed upon witnessing Reika's capabilities. Amongst the orc tribe, none of them has the ability to heal fatal wounds.
"T-thank you, kind human!"
Reika heard their sincere gratitude and smiles at them.
"You're welcome!"
All the monsters at the scene were stunned. To them, it was their first time to see a human helping monsters, who are deemed lower lifeforms by the society of humans.
Reika noticed a head peeking from a wall ahead. When their eyes met, the individual was surprised and went back to hiding.
"What was he doing over there?"
Geruldo stepped forward and confronted Reika.
"He's... a heavily injured soldier of mine."
Reika's eyes widened upon hearing Geruldo's response.
"But I thought these were all the injured ones..."
"He lost his arm from our fight with Adeptus. He doesn't want to bother you with healing it, especially since it requires a higher-class ability to regrow an injured body parts."
All of them saw Reika sighed.
"I can manage that without any issues. In fact, it doesn't bother me at all!"
A female goblin stood up.
"W-we appreciate your kindness, human. B-but what you did was already more than enough for us. Pushing our luck further would be too much!"
Seeing that the monsters wouldn't budge due to shame, Reika walked towards the wall without saying a word. When she arrived, she was surprised at what she saw.
Besides the orc that lost an arm, there are a couple of them who lost missing parts, including the goblin as well.
"This..!"
Without hesitation, Reika closed her eyes and touched the orc's arm that was severed. Veylir's eyes widened upon realizing her actions.
"Don't tell me...!"
She's going to use Restore Heal! That's an Ultimate-class ability!
<Restore Heal>
Everyone who witnessed the miracle was stunned upon seeing the orc's lost arm grow back. Even the orc was shocked.
"My arm!"
The orc clenched his regrown fists and felt the blood coursing through his arm. The orc was filled with gladness and teared up. Reika saw it and felt relieved.
Reika went to the other heavily injured individuals and healed their severed parts. Some of them only lost one arm. Others, like the last goblin she healed, lost all three of them. Only its right leg remained intact.
When she finished healing the last one, Reika noticed the goblins and orcs tearing up. Reika was surprised.
"Eh?"
In addition, the orc warriors bowed their heads further. Their action exudes determination and eagerness to her.
"We are indebted to your benevolence, human! Not only did you allow us to seek shelter in your settlement, you even healed our wounded brothers too!"
Reika felt a little bit embarrassed and shook her head while grinning.
"It's fine, it's fine!"
Hearing compliments makes me feel kind of embarrassed, though...
"No need to be formal, everyone! We're at war. Saving each other's skin is a must!"
The monsters looked at her and felt the sincerity in her words. Her eagerness to help those who were in need was peeking through her kind eyes, devoid of any discrimination due to their appearance.
"Thank you, truly!" One of the goblins said and wiped her tears.
Their heartfelt moment was soon cut off when they noticed a swordsman running in their direction. His eyes were filled with anxiousness, which piqued their attention. Everyone went silent and listened as the man caught his breath in front of Reika.
"Sir, what is going on?" Reika asked him.
"M-Miss Reika! The dryad that went to rescue the ogres has arrived!"
Reika was glad to know that the ogres finally agreed to their proposition. But she was baffled as to why he was anxious.
"Is there something wrong?"
The man looked into her eyes and gulped.
"They... they were all injured and need immediate treatment!"