“Giiiii!”
“Gyaaa-gyaa!”
The blast that had hurled the wyverns away was powerful indeed, yet the creatures showed no fear. Rather, they seemed to believe that closing in meant certain victory. Their flight was swift and vicious, the natural mastery of those who ruled the skies. From all sides they struck, as though to deny her even the chance to draw her bow.
But—
“Kogetsu—turn into a blade!”
The bow in Inari’s hand transformed in an instant into a sword, and a single slash rent the wyvern before her.
“Gyaaaahhh!”
“Shallow…!”
The cut had only torn across its face. Landing upon the creature’s back as it faltered, Inari slashed another wyvern that came lunging from the flank. Its own momentum carried it onto her blade, the cut deep, fatal—the beast plummeted toward the earth below.
“Mmngh…”
Kicking off the back of the first wyvern as it bucked wildly, Inari felt her arm throb with a stinging ache. The reason was simple: hardness.
Suspended in midair with nothing to brace against, her sword stroke had met the full force of the wyvern’s charge. The rebound shocked her arm. It was no fault of Kogetsu’s edge—merely a matter of her own strength.
That hide of iron, those bones like tempered steel, the muscled body fit to rend prey with its fangs—all lent the wyvern a defense stronger than forged armor. To cut such a thing with blade alone, without anchoring one’s stance, meant recoil was inevitable.
Yet the beasts came on without pause. As she bounded from one snapping maw to the next, Inari thought—
“The sword shall not suffice, for my body cannot bear it. Yet the bow affords me no opening. Then…”
She ran her fingers along Kogetsu’s blade, trailing them slowly. At her touch, the weapon glowed with a sinister crimson light.
“Then must I slay without touching—Accursed Sword, Homebami!”
Her swing carved nothing tangible—yet the wyverns converging upon her shrieked as crackling, splintering sounds echoed through the sky. Their bones truly shattered within them.
This was no secret art, but an accursed one. A curse of a blade, not unlike the Muramasa. A technique Inari loathed to use.
The wyverns tumbled from the sky in broken ruin. Sighing softly, Inari steadied her now dimmed sword.
“Now then. In a dungeon, the slaying of the ‘boss’ should end it. Where might it lurk, I wonder?”
No sign of such a foe lay within sight. Then she must seek it out herself.
As she floated onward, she took in the dungeon at last. A vast sky, veiled by heavy clouds. Far, far below, a withered wasteland. And here and there, small floating islands drifting amidst the air.
Yet without the power of flight, none could ever reach them—and even should they, what then? Reaching the islands alone would not bring a dungeon to its end.
“How murderous is this place…! How could mortal children ever hope to best such a thing? And yet until now, no dungeon of its like hath…”
Her words faltered.
“Indeed… no such dungeon had ever been recorded.”
If one entered through the gate only to fall into open sky, if the only fate was to plummet earthward… then surely humanity would already know such perils. Yet no such warnings existed.
Thus, this dungeon must be the first of its kind in the world. If it were but a temporary dungeon, then Inari would simply clear it and be done. But if it proved a fixed dungeon…
“Well. In that case, I could always destroy it.”
[Please refrain from destroying the dungeon.]
“Thy command I deny.”
She dismissed the window curtly, and continued her flight.
Flying, searching, loosing arrows from Kogetsu to strike down the wyverns that swooped at her. Yet no boss revealed itself. Perhaps it dwelled not in the air, but upon one of the islands?
Inari descended to a nearby isle. There stood a stone pillar—or rather, a monolith.
Carved upon it were words in no tongue she knew. Not Japanese, at least. Yet before her eyes, the script glowed, and a voice spoke in words she understood:
“There are many fates that may bring ruin to the world. Among them, the sky-whale that devours all. To flee is impossible. It soars through the air—and it is a whale. Ye who fly, be not proud. For destruction shall laugh at thy wings.”
When the voice faded, the monolith shone brightly. The island trembled as though shaken by an earthquake—though no such thing could be in the heavens.
From somewhere afar came a sound, deep and resonant. A horn, or perhaps… a whistle.
Voooooooon… vooooooon…
It was no train’s whistle. It was—
“Something cometh… But what!? Could it be—the whale!?”
And so it was.
From the farthest reaches of the sky emerged a colossal shadow: the World-Eater Whale, a monster that devoured worlds themselves, now manifesting before Inari.