Berserk of Gluttony Vol. 3

by Isshiki Ichika

  “I’m still…hungry…” I muttered.

  “Don’t get too greedy, Fate.”

  “We don’t have a choice. We still have to hear that guy speak.”

  Even now, that bastard stood where he always had, unmoving as he watched me struggle. I thought I’d see some change in his demeanor when I consumed his slime brigade, but he hadn’t even broken a sweat.

  “He’s waiting until you reach the point of no return. The point when you can’t devour anything more. That’s what the omega slimes are for.”

  “But my stats just grow.”

  “No, Fate. Whether your stats continue to grow depends entirely on you.”

  “What are you saying, Greed?”

  Before I could ask again, the omega slimes launched another attack blocking my path.

  I went on devouring the slimes through Corrosion, but I felt Greed was being unusually evasive. As the metallic voice echoed in my head, I grew stronger, even as waves of pain pummeled me. Gluttony’s ecstasy ran rampant.

  However, at the very limits of that feeling, by turns agony and utmost pleasure, came a strange sensation. At that limit, no matter how many omega slimes I devoured, the pleasure…dissipated. I wasn’t satiated. I no longer felt Gluttony’s ecstasy, only racking pain.

  Why?

  The metallic voice continued to drone in my head, reciting number after number, and yet I felt nothing.

  This is impossible.

  I pulled back on the black bow, filling it with every single stat of magical energy I had, and fired an arrow at the man in black. It was unlike any arrow I had ever shot, such was the power within it.

  This time, the man in black didn’t shoot my arrow down. He let the attack hit him.

  “That’s impossible…” My mouth was dry. All I tasted was ash.

  The man in black took no damage whatsoever. He fixed the slant of his skull mask, which the blow had knocked slightly askew. The gesture sent a message: Your attack was so insignificant that I need not respond.

  “Fate, look at your own stats using Identify,” Greed urged.

  When I did, my situation became clear.

  Fate Graphite Lv 1

  Vitality: 999,999,999

  Strength: 999,999,999

  Magic: 999,999,999

  Spirit: 999,999,999

  Agility: 999,999,999

  Skills: Gluttony, Identify, Telepathy, Conceal, Night Vision, Brawl, Marksmanship, Strength Overload, Holy Sword Technique, One-Handed Sword Technique, Two-Handed Sword Technique, Bow Technique, Spear Technique, Fireball (Spell), Sandstorm (Spell), Hallucination (Spell), Corrosion (Spell), Strength Boost (Low), Strength Boost (Medium), Strength Boost (High), Vitality Boost (Low), Vitality Boost (Medium), Vitality Boost (High), Magic Boost (Low), Magic Boost (Medium), Magic Boost (High), Spirit Boost (Low), Spirit Boost (Medium), Spirit Boost (High), Agility Boost (Low), Agility Boost (Medium), Health Regen, Fire Resistance

  My stats were capped at nine digits. Did that mean that, no matter how much more I ate, they would never go any higher? Was I maxed out?

  “This is the limit for humans,” Greed said, answering my thought. “Past here, you enter a zone beyond human. A place called the Domain of E.”

  “The Domain of E… You mean…?”

  I thought back to what Myne had said—that the Domain of E was where the Divine Dragon resided. She said it would take me ten years to get to the domain.

  But what else was there?

  Was I forgetting something? How could I break the barrier into the Domain of E? Did it have something to do with how I lost the ability to move when I saw the dragon?

  “Fate, this is crucial. Listen carefully. There is an unsurpassable gap between those who are in the Domain of E and those who aren’t.”

  “A gap…?”

  “None of your attacks will work on someone in the Domain of E. Physical, magical, special…none will have any effect.”

  “That’s why he shrugged off my arrow…?”

  I transformed the bow into the black sword and cut down the attacking omega slimes as I waited for Greed’s answer.

  “Yeah. There’s no doubt. This man is in the Domain of E.”

  As I stared at the man in black, he grinned. Deep within the two black eyes that stared out from his skull mask, I saw a glint of red. I knew that color so well that I hated it. They were eyes of intimidation, tinted scarlet, that brought to mind fresh blood. As they bored into me, I felt something grip and wrench at my heart. Fear, or hate, or hunger…

  “Fate, know this. However sharp my blade, in the end, I am just a weapon, and I rely on the strength of the person who wields me. Remember what I said before. The growth of your stats depends on you.”

  I gripped the black sword tighter. I didn’t have time to wait ten years. Whether I was ready or not, I was heading into the Domain of E.

  Chapter 27:

  Two Levels of Sacrifice

  LET’S GO!

  Pushing my stats to their new limit, I closed in on the man in black. Multiple omega slimes moved to block my path, but I only had eyes for one target. If I wanted to stop the omega slimes, I had to deal with him.

  Despite that resolve, I needed to cut through the omega slimes to continue forward. With each slaughtered slime, the metallic voice ever-faithfully informed me of my increased stats, which remained capped.

  I’m closing in, but he still hasn’t moved even an inch… Well, how about this, then?

  Using my forward momentum, I raised the black sword, and with everything I had, I brought it down upon the man in black. The air vibrated, but the man in black easily stopped the attack with his own blade.

  Once again, a smile crept behind his mask. “You still don’t get it, do you? This difference in our power? Everything you’re doing is useless.”

  “Useless? My ‘useless’ attack gave me the chance to hear your voice.”

  The man in black didn’t like my retort. He clicked his tongue and pushed back against my sword. His power surpassed everything I expected. In an instant, he threw me hundreds of feet, then hundreds more. I dug the black sword into the earth to create resistance and stop myself, but it wasn’t easy. This bastard’s strength was off the charts.

  I looked ahead with hate in my eyes, only to see his gunblade pointed directly at me. I transformed Greed into the black shield just as I heard the echo of gunfire.

  I blocked the attack, but the shock was enormous. The shots kept coming. With each bullet, the man in black pushed me farther backward. Farther and farther, until I was up against a huge cliff face.

  “Gah!”

  My back pushed violently into the jagged rocks. The blow sent fractures cracking in every direction. The wall crumbled around me. Gravity peeled me forward, and I crumpled to the ground, my body aching. I coughed blood. I didn’t have a chance to wipe it from my face before the man in black stood before me.

  What speed…

  He was on a different level—from a different dimension in every conceivable way.

  The man in black raised his gunblade and looked at me. A tremendous power charged through his body into his arm. The blade came down with blistering force, aimed straight for the top of my head.

  I was at my limit. I trembled with pain, near the end. Greed couldn’t save me now. I had nothing left but my desperation.

  I didn’t care how much it cost. I didn’t care what I had to give up. I would give my everything. I would kill for it. I would die for it. With my last breath, I would sacrifice everything I had in exchange for ten years’ worth of experience.

  The high-pitched shriek of metal on metal reached every corner of the Galian wastelands. The shockwave sent more fractures through the wall behind me, and the cliff face crumbled. Boulders fell from above like rain, one after another, but I no longer cared.

  I didn’t have to. I gave everything, every last ounce of strength I had, and I was changed.

  The man in black sensed my transformation, and his gaze moved from our clashin
g blades to my face.

  “Those eyes! It’s impossible… Already?!”

  “I unleashed it in its entirety,” I said, blood flecking from the corners of my mouth. “My Skill of Mortal Sin. Just like you.”

  I felt a power unlike any I had ever known. It flowed through my body. At the same time, I pushed against the gunblade, forcing it backward.

  So, this must be the Domain of E.

  The world looked different. My senses, the depth of information, the very taste of the air—there was no other word to describe what I’d become but “superhuman.”

  “You weren’t supposed to be there yet…” the man in black growled. Now that I had changed, so too had his tone.

  “Well,” I said. “I got tired of waiting.”

  Gluttony didn’t care for half-hearted resolve. If it took anything, it took everything, so I had offered it the very limits of my being—the two levels of ultimate resolve. I was ready to kill, and I was ready to die. With these two resolutions as a sacrifice, I had, for a time, complete control of Gluttony.

  “I owe you my thanks,” I said. “Without you, I’d never have come this far.”

  “Damn it,” the man snarled.

  Now that I had reached the Domain of E, the millions of stats I’d inhaled earlier flooded into me. It seemed I had become the stronger of the two of us.

  “Get ready!”

  I planted my left foot firmly on the ground, transforming the earth beneath me as it cratered under the force. I shoved back against the man in black with all my strength. He leapt backward, unable to withstand the force. As he did so, the omega slimes around him moved like a shield.

  With both my eyes stained red, the crowned slimes were nothing to me. “Get out of my way!”

  With a glare, I froze every omega slime within my field of vision. I had used the intimidating effect of my Gluttony, which better enabled the bearer to feast upon the shivering souls of the weak. I ran along a path made of cowering omega slimes. The man in black pointed the barrel of his gunblade toward me, preparing to attack from range.

  Now, however, I could track the bullets he fired. I readied the black sword for another attack as I cut his bullets out of the sky. The man in black settled his sword into a middle guard to intercept me. We closed in on each other as we both searched for the right time to strike.

  The black sword and the black gunblade seemed to merge as I evaded the man in black, and his blade cut deep into the earth. Dust and soil swirled around him, rising up and clouding my vision.

  I aimed to impale both the skull mask and the man in black’s face behind it. The man was a fearsome opponent. Without a doubt, his head was the best target. I readied my sword and drove it forward, the blade slicing through the dirt and directly toward the man’s face.

  At the last possible moment, the black gunblade parried my sword and sent it off course. Greed carved a chunk from the left side of the man in black’s mask, and the strike sent me past him. I used the momentum to recover distance.

  The man in black turned to face me. His skull mask’s durability was spent, and it crumbled from his face. The power that hid the man’s identity was gone, and the face that revealed itself was one that I knew only too well. After all, we’d met not so long ago. But I wouldn’t have forgotten that face anytime soon, with its wavy blond hair and its fake smile, as much a mask as the skull had been.

  “It was you all along, wasn’t it? Northern Alistair.” I spat.

  I couldn’t say I was surprised. I’d had a bad feeling about him the moment we met. He knew too much about Greed. Everything he said had reeked of lies, especially during our journey to the great canyon of Galia.

  Northern lowered his hood to his shoulders and grinned. “Well, you’re half-right,” he said, with a chuckle, “but you’re half-wrong too.”

  “Then I guess you’ll be telling me what I got wrong. And soon.”

  “I’ll just let you know up front, Corpse—I’m not nearly so kind or gentle as Eris. You see, I can do this too.”

  With his gun still pointed at me, Northern took a white whistle from inside his armor. He spun it on his finger for a moment, then chuckled and blew. A high-pitched tone echoed into the silence.

  “What the hell was that?!”

  Northern let the whistle drop back into his armor. “Oh, you’ll know soon enough. Look to the skies—you’ll see it flying there.”

  The skies? Flying? No way…

  A gigantic shape manifested on the southern horizon, its face barely visible. I didn’t need to see it in any greater clarity. I already knew exactly what it was from the eager, hungry pulsing of Gluttony.

  “The Divine Dragon…”

  “Indeed. The Heavenly Calamity itself. A beast so overwhelmingly powerful that some call it a herald of the gods.” Northern pointed his gunblade to the sky and fired. “Well, enough playing around. It’s time to begin. The Divine Dragon and I are going to kill her, and we’ll give it everything we have. That means you’re going to have to show me everything you’ve got. I’m looking forward to it—aren’t you?”

  “Northern, you…” I snarled.

  But I didn’t have any more time to waste on Northern, because the Divine Dragon’s course was set. The Heavenly Calamity was heading directly for Lady Roxy.

  Chapter 28:

  The Roar that Rules the Skies

  I DIDN’T HAVE TIME to focus on Northern. He knew this too, and a sly grin rose to his lips. “I’d say you’ve got about, oh, thirty seconds. Think you can make it?”

  “You insufferable bastard!”

  The Divine Dragon was visible in all its glory, soaring through the sky above on six metal wings. It opened its mouth and turned toward Lady Roxy’s army, settling on its target. There was only one choice in front of me: head west with all the speed I could muster.

  Northern wasn’t about to stand by and watch. He fired shot after shot, hundreds of black bullets all aimed at my back as I ran. I dashed forward, cutting them down as I went, but defending robbed me of my chance to use the black bow to slow down the Divine Dragon. That was probably Northern’s intention, since it meant I had no choice but to keep moving west.

  As I ran on, I felt awful magical energy flow from behind me.

  Talk about going overboard!

  A wavering, translucent blue blanketed the landscape—a literal wall of multiplying omega slimes. I heard giggling in the distance. For Northern, this was all some kind of sick game.

  That dirty son of a—

  “Fate!” Greed shouted. “More attacks incoming!”

  Thanks to Greed’s warnings, I was able to handle Northern’s attacks from the rear while I cut down omega slimes and carved my path forward. I could make it. I just needed to make it a little farther…

  Finally, I dove into the battlefield where Lady Roxy’s army and the death parade were still locked in combat. The soldiers valiantly fought against orcs, gargoyles, and hideous monsters I had never seen before. But their morale slipped as fear gripped their hearts. They couldn’t unsee the Divine Dragon approaching from the south.

  However, none of them fled. Everyone continued to fight. Was it because the one who led them refused to back down? Or was it because they saw the end was near, now that the literal heavens bore down upon them? I didn’t know, and at that moment, it didn’t matter.

  I had to focus on the thundering roar of the Divine Dragon. As the beast drew closer, its daunting shape cast a shadow across the lands. It was as though night fell on the battlefield.

  Now that I had unleashed the very limits of my Gluttony, I could face off against the monster without suffering as I had before. My body didn’t freeze. I moved as freely as usual, ready to greet my fellow citizen of the Domain of E.

  What mattered now was whether I could successfully defend against the Divine Dragon’s attack. The beast released a massive energy wave as it roared. The wave’s force was extraordinary, and it obliterated the scorched earth of Galia as it tore toward the battle.r />
  It incinerated the monsters on the southernmost edge of the battlefield. Orcs, gargoyles, even crowned beasts—none withstood the destructive power. The Divine Dragon’s awesome roar was a weapon worthy of the herald of the gods.

  Here, I would defy that strength.

  “Greed!”

  Now was the time to unleash the power I had earned after devouring Haniel—Greed’s Third Level, the black shield.

  As my sword transformed into the black shield, the full impact of the dragon’s roar hit us. The force was unlike anything I had ever known, pushing through the black shield into both my arms and down my legs. It forced me backward, but I dug in. Somehow, I could bear this power.

  The energy of the roar bashed into the shield, fractured into a rainbow of light, and dissipated into the air.

  The soldiers standing behind me at first had no idea what was going on. Little by little, they understood that I’d protected them, and they cheered me on with raucous support.

  Don’t worry about any of that, I thought. Get out of here while you still can!

  Just as I hoped I could relax, I felt a sudden, searing pain. A black bullet had pierced my right thigh.

  “That bastard!” I cried.

  I couldn’t move while I defended against the Divine Dragon’s attack. Northern had seen this as a prime opportunity to take pot shots. He didn’t aim for my vital spots, just my leg, to draw out his fun that much longer. He really was despicable.

  As I lost the ability to stand on that leg, the battle of power leaned in the dragon’s favor. The energy beam pushed me backward, little by little. I struggled to hold my ground, but blood poured out the hole in my leg. The bullet had severed my nerves. The limb wouldn’t respond.

  My Health Regen stitched the wound back together, but too slowly. I didn’t have enough time. At this rate, I wouldn’t be able to withstand another attack.

  However, others came to my aid. The soldiers behind me grabbed hold of my shield as they looked to protect me from the deadly bullets flying in from the east.