Chapter 809: Friends’ Decision

[Roland, there isn’t much time left. The door is opening.]

I suddenly heard a warning from my System, who had been really quiet recently.

She had been quiet ever since Karwenz’s scheme had been exposed. Could it be that she was regretting and doubting what she had done before? But, with my understanding of her, this probably wasn’t it.

“Are you capable of stopping the door from opening? No matter what, Karwenz should only have Cynthia’s powers…”

[I could have directly closed the door if I was in my complete form. But now, I’m only a wandering soul who doesn’t even have a foundation… I’ll try to slow down everything, but don’t pin too much hope on me.]

My System then fell silent again.

But in the faraway chaotic domain, the statue of the Goddess of Order started to slowly close her eyes and fold her arms.

The door then slowly lost some luster as its opening progress was stalled. However, the adjacent Cynthia statue started glowing bright red as it forcefully emanated more energy to make up for the lost power.

A faint person could be seen on top of the Cynthia statue. This person was apparently howling in anger.

“…She actually was capable of interfering!”

At the same time, Elisa received a magic message about what happened. Her expression facing me became even more hostile.

Elisa had finally lost her patience with me, since I “still didn’t regret things when faced with death”, along with Amelia and Harloys who kept taunting her.

*Boom!*

The next instant, fist met palm as two beauties angrily glared at each other. Elisa and Amelia had begun to fight.

Strangely, neither of them were trying to use magic. Even though both of them had extremely high energy levels, they actually chose to engage in physical melee combat which seemed like it had no skill involved.

Even though two beauties were fighting, their battle wasn’t beautiful to watch at all. Vicious gusts which would easily injure or kill any normal person were being whipped up.

Elisa transformed both her arms into claws. She took the initiative to unleash a torrent of attacks that seemed as vicious as a dragon, a full offense with no defense whatsoever. However, she was actually focusing 30% on offense, 40% on defense, and keeping another 30% power in reserve.

Elisa was observing her enemy for weaknesses. The moment that Amelia showed a weakness, such as using too much strength and being unable to counter in time, Elisa would instantly use an ultimate technique to strike a fatal blow.

Did this seem rather familiar?

Maybe Elisa was far more powerful than me now, but her fighting style and strategy was still intimately connected to mine.

Meanwhile, Amelia’s fighting style was very… simple and direct.

She used straight punches, powerful punches, and hook punches. Her punches were incredibly simple, yet there wasn’t even any wind from them. Still, nobody would doubt the fearsome strength that her slender wrists contained.

Light was distorted wherever her fists passed by. The dimensional space itself was faintly shaking. It seemed that her physical strength was sufficient to tear apart the dimensional laws through simple brute force.

Unlike how most battles were fought, Elisa and Amelia were experts in both martial arts and magic. Neither of them used a weapon. Both of them had their own personal fighting style that had evolved from the most basic martial arts a mage would learn for self-protection. However, even the strongest martial artist in the mortal plane would instantly be killed when facing either of them.

The reason for this? Pure power level suppression. Both women were using magic to buff their physical bodies, increasing their speed and strength to an unimaginable extent. No matter how wonderful your techniques were, your reflexes wouldn’t possibly be fast enough. Even if your reflexes were fast enough, you wouldn’t be strong enough, which would still end in total suppression.

Fighting techniques and sword techniques were still foundationally about utilizing one’s own physical body or a weapon.

If your ultimate technique that you sacrificed your very life for still couldn’t compare to your opponent’s reflexive flick of a little finger, then even the most amazing technique wouldn’t be able to make up for the physical difference between the two of you.

Even though Elisa and Amelia were engaging in melee combat, the two of them were still at Main God level. It was just like back when Titan absolutely dominated Donatis in melee combat. As long as one had enough pure power, no fancy martial arts techniques or magic would be needed. Even the fanciest magical inheritance would likely be nothing more than useless fireworks in front of a meteor smashing straight at you.

“It seems that Elisa hasn’t resolved herself to the extent that she claims.”

I had much to ponder about regarding the fight before me.

It was quite normal for Amelia to engage in physical combat. Her primary power was wood-based, so she would have to be an idiot to try and compete in magic against Elisa who was a fire specialist. Amelia’s greatest strength had always been her tremendous strength that she gained from the earth.

Although Elisa was also quite skilled at fighting techniques, this absolutely wouldn’t be her greatest strength. Elisa’s greatest strength should have been her incredible magic power bestowed upon her by her double identity as a Demon Lord and Fire Elemental Goddess. The fact that Elisa was fighting like this meant that she still cared about this environment.

Even if Elisa wanted to engage in melee, her true body should have been gigantic, just like any other Main God’s true body. A gigantic body would have far more power. Using her true body to fight would be far stronger than fighting in a small body.

No matter how amazing a dwarf’s fighting techniques were, the dwarf would never be able to defeat even a young Titan in melee combat.

I looked all around me and saw familiar streets, familiar houses, and my familiar old home. Not only was this old nostalgia that would tie me down, it seemed that Elisa still wasn’t resolved enough to damage this place just yet, even if she still hadn’t realized it herself.

Perhaps Elisa had already resolved herself to destroy everything that she treasured if she had to fight me, but if she had to destroy her own “home” while fighting the “outsider” Amelia whom she loathed, maybe that was unacceptable to her.

Meanwhile, Amelia was far slyer. She first taunted Elisa, then initiated melee combat, and intentionally used attacks that would affect the surrounding environment. It was evident that Amelia had already seen through Elisa.

“How underhanded… However, I really like that.”

Although it wasn’t very nice, I would naturally take advantage of any weakness that my opponent revealed.

Of course, the restriction of not wanting to destroy the “home” environment was limited. If too much time passed, Elisa would naturally start abandoning this location and go all out. Still, since it was evident that Elisa couldn’t bring herself to entirely forget her roots, what I needed to do was quite simple.

“That brat Karwenz truly does understand others’ hearts so well. Having Elisa go to such an extent is all because of her close family relationship to me… Fine, silly cat, stop staring at me. Love also counts, doesn’t it? In that case, can Elisa truly abandon everything else, including her friendship with others?”

I unhesitatingly tossed out a magical signal firework that exploded in the sky. I originally really hadn’t intended on using these “reinforcements”, but perhaps their appearance here now would be more useful than me staying here, even if they only stalled Elisa to give me enough time to leave here.

I originally thought that it would take them more than half an hour to arrive here after I notified them, but I unexpectedly received an instantaneous response.

“Ha, you little brat, you finally asked for help. I thought that it would take you a lot longer?”

Little Red suddenly descended. Judging from her expression of enjoying my situation, she had already watched for quite a long while.

“You only make yourself suffer by wanting face.”

Margaret was quite calm as if she already expected that this situation would arise.

Since they were here, Adam was naturally here as well, but…

“What’s with him?”

“The power of flame within him is too unstable. It’s too easy for Elisa to discover him, so we made him go to sleep.”

A certain red-haired man was angrily glaring from within a block of ice on Little Red’s back.

Although Margaret said something that seemed reasonable, why did I keep feeling like it was that Adam couldn’t take things anymore and wanted to come out and help me, but was then ambushed by Margaret?

I originally had them wait as reinforcements to help me rescue Elisa. However, it was evident that they had arrived here before me.

I was still surpised that they were all so prepared, but then I fell silent and didn’t know how to respond to Margaret’s next words and the silly cat’s expression.

“Don’t blame Harloys or us for not telling you. Since we knew that things would come to this, we wouldn’t possibly let you face Elisa by yourself. You always appear to be judicious, but you easily become impulsive and ruin everything when it comes to such matters. You’re an expert in choosing the most masochistic path. Although I don’t know how you managed to calm yourself down, don’t you agree that the worst would have happened if things had kept developing like they were before?”

Margaret’s explanation was quite reasonable, but right now I was feeling extreme embarrassment. Did this mean that all my sadness and resolution earlier was just a show for my old friends?

“No, no matter if you kill Elisa and regret it for the rest of your life, or if Elisa kills you and you two become enemies forever, that’s not something any of us want to see. That’s why we interfered. Don’t blame us for meddling with your personal affairs. You guys also interfered with Adam’s resolution back then.”

Little Red actually was serious for once. I now completely understood. So, my friends had long since guessed… no, were certain what Elisa would do and made preparations against her. I was the only one who hadn’t seen through everything.

Elisa and Amelia’s fight had imperceptibly stopped. Elisa had a really complex expression as she glanced all around at Margaret, Little Red, and Adam, until her complex emotions finally transformed into a sigh.

“Must all of you try to stop me? You guys understand what will happen if I don’t stop Roland?”

“At most Roland will die. Ha, everyone’s used to him dying already.”

“It doesn’t really matter. He’s already died more than once.”

“I’m already used to seeing self-destructions and so on. He’s really as indestructible as a cockroach.”

Their words really made me angry, despite the fact that my friends were on my side.

“It’s different this time! He and Karwenz have one soul from the same source…” Elisa roared angrily, yet everyone else simply smiled and looked at her.

Would my friends really not know? It was obvious that they knew already. But just as how Margaret and Roland had been unable to change Adam’s resolution back in the day, Roland’s friends were also unable to change his resolution.

Or, perhaps it should be said that they couldn’t bear trying to change his resolution rather than being unable to change it.

This wasn’t for anything as nice as saving the world as being more important than personal feelings. They simply knew that it was far more unacceptable to allow Roland to hide from everything and then endlessly regret everything afterwards.

Compared to the real Hell, a living hell where one constantly wallowed in regret was far scarier.

Elisa fell silent. She also understood her old friends and seniors’ resolution. However, all she wanted was for the man she loved to survive, even if Roland endlessly wallowed in pain and regret afterwards, even if Roland hated her forever.

Finally, Elisa’s silence was replaced by an attack stance. An explosive amount of flames and lava erupted, instantly demolishing Roland’s old home into nothing but rubble. Elisa had expressed her decision without having to say a single word.

Adam, who had finally been unfrozen, went up first with eyebrows furrowed. Margaret smiled rather abnormally as the light from a space magic spell flashed. I was then forcefully teleported away. The last thing I heard were rather confusing words from Margaret.

“We’ll stall her for you, so you should go left from your current position for 30 kilometers, where you’ll find a cave with a teleportation portal leading to the farthest northern part of the land. After you reach it, head in the direction of your ‘home’, and you’ll obtain what you want the most.”