Challenge: The Fool with the Surname Okayamine

Chapter 173 The Final Chapter: "The Fool's Curtain Falls"

As soon as the words were spoken, on the tranquil black lake surface, purple light and burning black light rushed towards each other like two bolts of lightning.

Like a black fire serpent, Ming charged towards Shido with fierce momentum. The cane in his hand slammed down heavily, accompanied by a howling hot wind.

Shido's eyes were firm, showing no sign of backing down.

At the same time, he swung the Executioner's Blade, the huge blade drawing a dazzling arc in the air.

Like a hero and a demon king in a story, the two slashed at each other's other half of their bodies, neither intending to defend themselves.

"Ming!!"

"Shido!"

—I will end your evil deeds!

—Let me devour your heroic dreams too!

Lights overlapped, and in that fleeting instant, their weapons struck each other's bodies from the side.

"hateful!"

Like the crisp sound of an iron bar striking steel, hard, cold armor adhered to Shido's body.

Despite Ming's full-force attack, Shido only felt the pain of a shattered bone in half of his body.

"Ah...it still hurts so much..."

Shido gritted his teeth and forced himself to stand up. He slightly shifted one of the hands holding the slayer, but quickly adjusted and managed to cut off Ming's entire left arm in the instant of the battle.

Ke Ming's face showed no pain whatsoever that someone who had lost an arm should have; he appeared extremely calm.

The burning chains, like the stinger of a scorpion, emerged from beneath Shido's uniform and pierced straight towards his heart.

After the flames of regeneration restored half of his body to mobility, the ice armor, like a layer of cold armor, clung tightly to his two arms, becoming Shido's gauntlets.

Despite my best efforts to grip my abdomen, I was still thrown quite a distance by the powerful attack.

With his hands crossed and stacked, he prevented the chains from reaching his heart, and then fell from mid-air to a stop after six body lengths.

As for the chains, the front end was frozen at high speed before being cut off using wind blades.

After recovering, Shido raised his head and glared at Ming. The wings of the Hurricane Knight appeared behind him, while the Burning Demon in his left hand was dragged on the ground, ready to prevent Ming from pursuing him.

However, what came into view was him, who ruthlessly grabbed his own arm and then, in an astonishing move, pressed his arm tightly against his incision site. Regenerative flames surged forth, and the cut instantly disappeared.

"Don't you feel pain?!"

"From the day I lost her, I had no reason to be afraid of pain!"

He shook his hands, removed the gloves from his arms, and then threw his military uniform onto the lake surface, where it slowly sank.

"Come on, Shido! Struggle with all your might! Let this battle, in which only one person can leave alive, truly begin!"

The black military uniform, combined with the priest's robe, stretched out its arms, and countless dense black spiritual energy magic circles began to converge from mid-air behind it.

——【Treasure of Flame】!

Swords, spears, and axes formed from black flames slowly emerged, then poured out in all directions towards Shido.

Buried in mid-air by a dense rain of weapons, Shido unfolds a thick ice wall to defend himself.

——Ding ding dong~

The sounds of impact continued, and cracks appeared on the surface of the ice wall.

No, the ice wall will crack sooner or later if this continues, Shido thought to himself in this critical moment.

"Neither of the two angel weapons in my hand can be swung quickly, at least not with my not-so-strong physique. So, if I only have a dagger..."

As he watched the ice wall with its constant falling ice fragments, his eyes lit up, and he temporarily abandoned the two Angels as well, turning them into points of light.

The ice wall shattered, and Shido, wielding two daggers made of water, ran quickly towards Ming, swinging his daggers to fight back against the weapons.

Each swing brought forth a flash of cold light, colliding fiercely with the black flame weapon.

The ice dagger shattered, then reformed in his hand, continuing to defend against the various weapons raining down upon him.

However, with so many Flame Treasures, Shido was gradually becoming overwhelmed. He still kept his eyes focused intently on Ming, who seemed to be preparing something, and shouted:

"Ming! Do you have enough weapons in your inventory?!"

Ignoring Shido's taunts, Ming calmly swung his cane, and two huge magic circles slowly appeared behind him under the drive of spiritual power.

Then, Black Flame's skeletal arm shot out swiftly like a sword, pausing the Iaijutsu sword-drawing move of the Empress.

——【Black Flame Style: Susanoo Skeleton Slash - One-Sword Asura】!

The massive, black-flamed skeletal arm, as large as a mountain, slashed towards Shido with overwhelming force, its power astounding, the flames reaching the sky and threatening to blot out the sun.

Shido's pupils contracted.

"This...this is the attack he used when we first met as elves!"

Shido hesitated slightly, but the people behind him did not allow him to back down. They simply switched the daggers in his hands back to supporting the shrewd man who was sliding on the water with both hands.

After a moment's thought, he remembered the ice dragon that Ming had modified and used, which had now been returned to Yoshino.

"...If the power has been returned now, then it should still be usable, right?"

——【Frosty Extreme Puppet】!

A chilling howl rang out, and an ice dragon materialized behind Shido.

Its massive body emanated a chilling aura. It opened its enormous maw and bit down on the flaming katana in the hand of the severed black flame skeleton arm, thus controlling it.

"It really works... Ahhhhh!"

Suddenly, an immense mental burden exploded in his mind, and tens of thousands of negative emotions flooded in. Just maintaining the existence of the dragon was enough to drain Shido's mental energy.

"It hurts so much! How can he say all this in front of us without any hesitation..."

As Shido covered his head and whispered, the dark shadow of the cane approached from afar.

The moment Shido raised his head, Ming's cold and ruthless face appeared before him, his cane raised high, ready to smash Shido's head.

"I didn't expect you could actually do it. Are you used to my things?"

It seemed like a concerned inquiry, but the cane that was being slammed down like a hot wind didn't seem to think so.

Shido raised his sword to defend, but Mei abandoned his weapon and tackled him to the ground.

"Oh no! This is bad!"

Ming's body pressed down like a small mountain. Shido was extremely surprised and almost dropped the Executioner in his hand, but most importantly, all four of them were pressed down by Ming.

Shido broke out in a cold sweat as he stared directly into those heterochromatic eyes, one red and one black.

If it were a young girl, it would probably be quite touching, right? Unfortunately, it's Ming who's currently in control. The only good news is that he probably can't attack either...

As Shido was pondering this, he inadvertently caught a glimpse of Ming's lips curving slightly upward, and he suddenly began to giggle.

Bizarre... insane—these were among the few emotions that Shido could perceive from this expression.

Immediately afterwards, a mysterious magic circle quietly appeared behind Ming, from which a long spear emerged and pierced through both of them simultaneously.

"Wh...what!"

Shido stared wide-eyed at the spear that had pierced through his and Ming's bodies in disbelief.

A sharp pain instantly spread throughout his body, and he felt his consciousness momentarily blurry, but it was quickly restored by the Flame of Regeneration.

Ming, however, continued to laugh, and to Shido, that laughter sounded so insane, like...like...it was a feeling that was hard to describe.

"It's like letting 'immortality' take over all five senses. My sense of pain has long been atrophied. I feel like I've been stranded endlessly in front of the river on the other side. Now I have almost regenerative abilities. Who wouldn't be anxious about immortality but still feel this way? Shido."

Shido, enduring excruciating pain, looked at Mei, his heart filled with confusion. He couldn't understand how someone could completely disregard their own body for the sake of victory.

Ming laughed even more maniacally, "Hahaha, Shido, you think this is the end? Only a moment of death can bring me peace, and this is just the beginning."

After saying that, Ming slowly opened his mouth, the red light on his right side became more and more obvious, and then he bit towards Shido's eyeball.

Shido tilted his head and barely managed to dodge, but his ear was still bitten off, although it could regenerate.

"hiss……"

Shido felt the pain, and his anger intensified. He could no longer understand Ming's madness at this moment, and he could not figure out whether he was sober or had already fallen into it.

More magic circles unfolded behind him, and spears pierced Ming's back, then, carrying his blood, pierced Shido's body further down.

Such a frenzied fighting style... From this moment on, Shido fully understood the true meaning of the identifier "Flame Beast".

Shido was driven to the brink of collapse by this frenzied attack, while Mei simply allowed his body to be pierced through, pressing down on Shido as he spoke:

"Shido, do you know? I'm actually really jealous of you, but I don't hate you or dislike you..."

His gaze was frantic as he stared at the person he had pinned down, unable to resist, forced to endure the agony of countless spears piercing their body and the regeneration of blood flowing through them, just like him.

But this was a spear made of flames! It wasn't just the pain of being pierced, but also the agony of having one's internal organs and other structures gradually seared. And yet, Ming could still calmly speak to himself under these circumstances:

"The only thing I hate is my own incompetence back then, for not protecting him. He is my lifelong curse, so all my sense of pain has long since degenerated. Enjoy it."

"I...I've already said it, I've said it so many times...I just don't understand you!"

In this desperate situation of extreme anger, Shido felt an unprecedented power surging within him.

His eyes burst forth with brilliant light, and his spiritual energy surged wildly within him as he pushed himself beyond his limits amidst the repeated pain of death.

With a sudden burst of strength, he broke free from Ming's control, who was still frantically explaining. He then unleashed a powerful storm of spiritual energy in his hands, shattering the spears one by one.

Immediately, he used the wind to prop himself up, combined with the boiling air created by the evaporation of fire and ice behind him, and took the opportunity to cleave the O-Killing Gong-Gee-Ming sword from top to bottom before retreating behind him.

Ming was struck by this blow, and his body was instantly engulfed in flames, but his eyes remained crazed.

The flames of regeneration quickly enveloped his body, and in the blink of an eye, he was restored to normal.

But Shido dared not even think about such a strange recovery. He knew very well that he could not twist his mind like Mingxin. If his head disappeared, he would really die.

Ming, who had stood up again, looked at Shido with a hint of admiration on his face:

"Not bad, Shido. You finally gave me a moment of feeling death! As a reward..."

As he spoke, Ming took a small step forward, causing huge waves to rise on the lake and distorting the surrounding space.

In Shido's eyes, the originally pure black space seemed to be swallowed up by a mysterious force, gradually being replaced by scarlet. That scarlet, like a burning flame, spread wildly, dyeing the entire world a strange red.

Under the cover of flames surging from Ming's feet, the lake surface rapidly changed, and the originally calm water surface instantly turned into solid land.

From the ground, delicate and vibrant flowers sprouted like bamboo shoots after a spring rain, displaying their brilliant colors.