The Strongest In The World Doesn’t Have Any Abilities? - Volume 2 Chapter 89 Unleashed Potential
“S-So you’re saying that…you told our daughter to go back there and deal with the problem personally?!” the king of Narashel voiced out his frustration and shock to Aoi, after Lerish disappeared without them noticing.
“…Yes, that’s right. I did told her to go back,” Aoi replied, slightly annoyed with his way of speaking towards her.
“But our daughter–”
“Aoi, why did you do that?! Do you want the princess to die?!” Saki scolded Aoi while grinding her knuckles against the top of her head.
“…Ow, ow, oww! It hurts, Saki! Stooppp!!!”
“If you don’t tell us at the count of three the reason why you did that, I’ll make a hole on that stupid skull of yours!” Saki gave her a threat.
‘One!’ Saki immediately started counting. In front of Saki who switched into her ‘Sandy Fish Mistress’ mode, Aoi gave up on holding out on the truth before she could even count to two.
“…Fine, fine! I’ll say it now, stop grinding my skull! Listen, the only reason why I told her to go back was–”
Before she could even finish with her explanation, a huge pillar of crimson light appeared all of a sudden from a distance, covering the entire surroundings with an ominous reddish tinge. The phenomenon frightened not only the Rainens but also the two royals, whose mouths gaped wide in bewilderment.
“T-That place…it’s near the palace!” the king exclaimed.
“What should we do?! Our Lerish, if she gets stuck in danger…”
“”Princess…””
While everyone worried about Lerish’s safety, Aoi on the other hand–
“…Big brother…”
Looking at the red pillar of light, Aoi felt stuck between a rock and a hard place as she couldn’t just leave the people around her alone in order to help her brother defeat Argus. The only thing she could do at the moment, is to continue obeying his orders and not give him any more headaches.
“…Big brother, please…take care…”
—–
When he thought that he could run away from the ghosts of his past, one of them has arrived to haunt his life once more.
“This time, I won’t run away–demon!!!”
Having successfully taken over the body of Argus, the demon looked back at him menacingly, licking his lips with his long tongue. Such actions disgusted Ren to the core, whose pent-up grudges are about to set off into an unstoppable chain reaction of ire and vengeance.
“K-Kuh…”
He wanted to curse, he wanted to scream his curses at the demon in front of him. He wanted to yell at him and blame him and the entire demonkind for destroying Arteim. He wanted to express how much he had suffered at that time, when he almost lost everything including himself, and make them pay for it…
But all of it will surely be futile. He himself isn’t good with words, and the creature in front of him is incapable of showing remorse for Ren’s past. Unless he use his fists to talk, his message would never be conveyed to the demon.
“Miss Lerish,” without looking over his shoulder, Ren spoke to her with a shaky voice. “As much as I’m honored to defeat Argus with you, it seems that it’s impossible now at this point. I suggest you should go back to Aoi’s side.”
“W-What? B-But, why?”
“Because…” while walking slowly towards the demon he replied, “I don’t want you to see this side of me right now.”
“E-Eh…?”
At that moment the air around Ren burst into bluish-black flames, and he instantly appeared right in front of the demon, much to Lerish’s shock.
“HAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!”
With a piercing cry, Ren punched the demon right in the face, with force enough to completely shatter his skull. He then followed up with his attack by grabbing him by the head and with a strength that even he didn’t expect, slammed him down to the ground.
“GAAAAAAHHHH!!! GAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!”
Consumed in a desire to eradicate the demon in his sight, Ren stomped on the ground with all his might, summoning a dark magic circle underneath him and the demon. From the circle chains of darkness burst forth and wrapped around the demon’s body, wriggling and tightening as if they’re living creatures.
“UUUOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!”
As Ren kept on screaming and screaming all his stored rage deep inside him, he summoned several magic circles around him, each one a representative of a curse from his Arcana.
“These…are for the friends I’ve lost in Arteim, you bastarddd!!!”
“H-Huh? Stop it, Ren!!!”
Witnessing Ren’s seemingly uncontrollable outburst of emotions going for the worse, Lerish hurried to stop him before he could destroy not only the demon but also the entire place.
“Ren, STOOOOPPPPP!!!”
“–?!”
Running as fast as she can, she tackled Ren from behind and grabbed his arms. Startled, Ren reflexively flinched as he yelled, “Miss Lerish?! What are you–”
Unfortunately for them, the demon used that moment as an opportunity to break himself free from his bindings and activated the power from his eyes, unleashing a powerful gust of wind that blew the two away.
“G-Guhehh…” Ren coughed as he wiped blood flowing from his mouth. “Miss Lerish, why did you stop me?! If not for your interference, I would’ve killed that demon already!”
Pursing her lips as she looked at the ground, Lerish said: “But then, you’ll also destroy yourself in the process.”
“Y-You stopped me just for that reason?! You see, as long as I kill that demon it doesn’t matter if I–”
Slap!!!
In the heat of the moment, Ren experienced something for the first time in his life: being slapped in the face by a woman, in the middle of a battle. Stupefied, he looked at Lerish with his hand on his cheek and he saw her glaring back at him, feeling extremely disappointed and mad because of what he said.
“You don’t understand how much it matters to me, Ren, you don’t understand.”
“M-Miss Lerish…”
“Seeing you like that made me realize that this problem isn’t just my own struggle, but also yours. I want to help you as much as what you’re doing to help me, that’s why it hurts me when you say that you’re willing to waste your life just to absolve yourself of your past…”
‘Haven’t you realized it, Ren? You’re a fool if you think it doesn’t matter to everyone. You mattered to me. You mattered to all of us.’
Lerish’s words pierced right through him and sent a shock into his senses. ‘She’s right,’ he muttered to himself, ‘this fight isn’t just my own fight, but my friends’ as well’. Whether in Arteim or in Harlin, there’s no reason for him to push his life into a downward spiral just because he wanted to vent all of his past frustrations. Even if he killed the demon in front of him, it won’t revive the people he had lost.
Feeling regretful and embarrassed from his actions, he spoke, “Miss Lerish, I’m…”
“Shaaaaaaaaa!!!” the demon charged at them while in the middle of their conversation. Annoyed, Ren tried to use his Arcana, but–
BANG!!!
“Kaaaaaahhhh!!!” the demon roared as Lerish shot a pebble right at his chest. Upon impact the pebble glowed with a bright blue color, thereby releasing the curse imbued in it and causing more pain to the demon.
Surprised with how fast and adept she used her slingshot, Ren could only mutter ‘Woah’ under his breath.
Enraged, the demon summoned hundreds of eyeballs from his back, each eye a bit larger than that of Argus. They started swarming in circles, forming sets of rings around him.
“Not only he took Argus’ body, he also took his powers and improved it,” Ren said.
“If they were to explode at the same time, the whole city would certainly be leveled,” Lerish replied worriedly.
With a shit-eating grin on his face, the demon slowly extended his arm forward, then all the eyeballs around him began coagulating into a huge spinning globe at the tip of his fingers. Anticipating something bad will happen next, Ren stood in front of Lerish as he also extended his left arm, the symbol on the back of his hand already glowing.
“Ren…”
“Don’t worry, Miss Lerish. Unlike last time, my head’s all clear,” he assured her.
“SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!”
“HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!”
With a loud burst, the eye globe of doom exploded into a devastating torrent of eyeballs flying towards them with speeds that rendered them almost undetectable by sight. At the same time Ren activated his new power, creating a bluish-white barrier in front of him.
BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANG!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“KYAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!”
With each explosion increasing in intensity, Lerish shrieked as she felt each shockwave hitting her body while wrapping herself on Ren’s back to support herself up. She could feel her bones creaking and shaking from the reverberations of the blast, and her internal organs being disrupted from their normal functions. She spitted a mouthful of blood, and kept herself tightly clinging on the young man’s back.
“Guh…there’s too many of them…”
With each second passing by, Ren noticed that the barrier he created to absorb the eyeballs has started to slowly shrink, causing him to panic. He bit his lip, and focused his strength into maintaining the barrier.
“Hrgh…I have to…stop all of them–”
Blaaagsshh!!!
“Wah–?!”
A few seconds later, the barrier–despite Ren doing everything to strengthen it–already reached the maximum capacity that it can absorb, causing it to shatter. Ren tried to create another barrier out of the [Death] Arcana, but–
“Shatter.”
“Shaa–?!”
All of a sudden, thousands of eyeballs flying towards Ren and Lerish turned into lumps of red mush and blood, splattering around the place.
“W-Wha…what happened…”
Frightened, Lerish slowly opened her eyes and noticed that the barrage of eyeballs has finally stopped. With almost no strength left in her body she slumped down the ground while vomiting blood.
“Miss Lerish, are you still alive?” Ren asked her a somewhat silly question.
“W-What? Ah, I believe so,” she replied.
“I see,” he let out a short chuckle. “That’s…good.”
“Hmm?”
Confused, Lerish looked at him and to her surprise, saw Ren’s entire left arm covered in black and blue veins, with blood dripping from it.
“Oh no, your arm–”
“It’s alright,” he said to her with a carefree tone in his voice. “Rather, it’s you who are in a bad condition right now. Don’t worry, I’ll try to do something about it.”
With a snap of his finger, Lerish’s body became covered in faint, whitish light. She got fl.u.s.tered at first, but she noticed that all the pain in her body has started to subside the moment the white light gets absorbed by Ren’s hand.
“My body…”
“Nn. Good as new,” he said to her.
Shifting his attention towards the demon, Ren’s smile faded into a stoic display of rage. Glancing at his left arm, he spoke, “What I did was a leap of faith on my part. At the last moment, I thought it’s too lat me now to do anything and we’re going to die, but the voices in my mind kept me alive, while saying one word to me. You know what word is it?”
The demon, clueless as to what he’s trying to say, shook his head slowly. Lerish also couldn’t understand what’s going on with him, but she watched him with great focus, putting all her trust to him.
Taking a step forward, Ren said, “All right. It’s natural that you don’t know what it is, I understand that, that’s why I’ll tell it to you. The word is–”
Ren took another step forward–then in a flash of blue and black light–appeared behind the demon, holding in his hand a red eyeball he took from his nape.
“[Kill].”
Kkrrk–!!!
“GUUUUUUOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH!!!!!”
With the eyeball being crushed by Ren’s hand, the demon instantly threw itself to the ground, writhing and screaming in extreme pain. Trying to save themselves, the remaining eyeballs in his body came out in multitudes and flew away, but all of them quickly turned into black smoke and disappeared.
“GUUUUOOOOHHHH!!! AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!”
“Oh? So you’re still alive?” Ren said as he looked at the man lying on the ground.
Having the demon successfully expelled from his body, what remained of Argus wasn’t a man of charm and ego, but a beaten-up husk of a once-powerful deity. With a frail look on his face, he said to Ren: “You…defeated that being…?”
“Seems like it,” Ren replied as he knelt in front of him.
“Ah,” letting out a short yelp, Argus looked at the red sky and said: “How regrettable. In order to have more power, I made a contract with that being and let him reside within me for hundreds of years. With our powers combined I thought I’m invincible enough, until the time you crashed into my wedding.”
He then turned his head and glanced at Lerish, who tried not to look at him.
“No need to hate me even more now, Your Highness. I already get it at this point.”
Hearing that, Lerish slowly shifted her gaze at him, still hesitant to believe what he said.
With a grin, Argus said to her: “Even though your wedding dress has been tattered so much, you still looked so beautiful wearing that.”
Though annoyed, Lerish replied, “T-Thank…you.”
“Can you just die already?” Ren asked him.
“Oh, I’ll die all right, don’t worry about it Ren Mortel,” Argus said with a dry laugh. “But before that, I have requests for each one of you. I hope you listen to me at least.”
Lerish and Ren, unsure of what to do, agreed to his request.
“First, for Her Highness. I want you to be the one who’ll land the killing blow for me. I don’t want this man to let him have that honor.”
“Understood. I’ll do it,” Lerish answered without hesitation.
“Very well,” Argus said with a pleased expression. “Then for you, Ren Mortel. This isn’t a request, but a reminder. Listen carefully: the stars–”
SPLOOOORRKKKK!!!
“W-What the–?!” before Argus could even say his reminder to Ren, his entire body suddenly burst inside out–showering Ren and Lerish with blood, flesh, and internal organs.
“H-Hi…HIIIIIYAAAAAAHHHHHHH?!!”
“Who’s there?! Show yourselves?!”
Ren frantically looked around, but he couldn’t detect any presence other than them.
“R-Ren, what happened to Argus?” Lerish looked at him with eyes opened wide.
“I don’t know…”
Looking at the skies that already returned to normal, he remembered the last thing Argus said to him before dying:
‘The stars…’
Millions, billions of them, seemingly nave and harmless as they float and twinkle in the vast expanse of night sky.
Looking at them, Ren felt the discomfort of uncertainty slowly building up inside him.
