Future Knight [EN]: Chapter 142

“Damn it, have all our fighters already been destroyed?”

The enemy had 40 unmanned fighters and a whopping nine Zaids, each possessing power comparable to a small battleship.

And to top it off, powerful energy beams were flying in from the Zvezda.

However, we couldn’t expect support from the Red Mars at this point.

‘A perfect storm’ would be an understatement.

Left alone in a universe full of enemies, Kang Chan took a calm, deep breath and called out to Jikyon.

“Hey! Jikyon! Are you okay?”

“About what?”

“You’ve been doing a lot of space jumps! Aren’t you tired?”

If Sylphiris had done that much space jumping, she probably would have fainted, so Kang Chan was genuinely worried about her.

But all he got in return was a flick on the forehead from Jikyon.

Thwack!

“Why did you hit me?”

“What, you little punk? You know who I am, and you’re saying that? I’m Lord G. Jikyon of the former Dragon Clan! This is a piece of cake.”

But Kang Chan couldn’t answer.

Even though she said that, he could see that Jikyon’s clothes were soaked with sweat, suggesting that she was pushing herself quite hard in her human form.

“Showing off…”

Kang Chan gritted his teeth, identifying the positions of the enemy Zaids closing in.

‘I have to take them down as quickly as possible. Otherwise, we have no chance of winning!’

The Red Rabbit maximized its flight output and recklessly charged towards the enemies.

If Jikyon’s space jump speed were to drop even a little, the Red Rabbit would surely become a honeycomb.

“Here we go!”

“Alright!”

Kang Chan charged into the enemy’s encirclement at the speed of light.

Kang Chan didn’t rely solely on Jikyon, but also used his skills as the former best pilot of the Allied Forces to evade the enemy’s attacks and maneuver.

Then, he suddenly attempted a space jump above a Zaid’s head.

“Got one!”

The Zvezda soldier screamed as the enemy suddenly appeared above his head.

『N, no! Kaaaaa!』

Kang Chan’s massive Aura Blade sliced through the enemy Zaid, causing the same massive explosion as before.

Then, dozens of powerful beams of light focused on the Red Rabbit through the explosion.

The remaining Zvezda soldiers were burning with anger and unleashed a concentrated barrage.

It was the Buster Cannon with its tremendous power that had even forcibly returned the Fire Elemental King Phoenix to the elemental realm.

“Ugh! Maximize shield output!”

-Shield output maximized.

“Shield!”

Jikyon, sensing the danger, cast multiple layers of shield magic.

Kang Chan’s evasive maneuvers avoided a direct hit, but the power was still terrifying.

The Red Rabbit, grazed by dozens of beams of light, was thrown back hundreds of meters.

“Kaaaa!”

“Kyaaaa!”

The impact on Kang Chan and Jikyon was strong enough to knock out an ordinary person.

Destructive beams of light flew one after another towards Kang Chan and Jikyon, who had been pushed back hundreds of meters in space.

“Jikyon!”

“Ugh! I know!”

The Red Rabbit dodged the enemy’s attack again with a space jump.

However, the Red Rabbit’s condition wasn’t good.

Dozens of Buster Cannons had destroyed the Zaid’s shield generator and shattered the flight system.

Now, the only way to avoid the enemy’s attacks without the flight system was space jump.

The slow levitation magic couldn’t outmaneuver the attacks of the highly mobile enemies.

Kang Chan, separating the destroyed flight system, gritted his teeth and shouted.

“Alright, let’s see who wins! Final Battle Mode, disengage!”

-Final safety device disengaged.

-Battle Mode Stage 6 applied.

Jikyon tilted her head at Kang Chan’s strange shout.

‘Final Battle Mode? What’s that?’

Immediately after, Jikyon couldn’t help but be speechless at the incredible changes happening in Kang Chan’s body.

She could clearly see the mana [magical energy] spinning wildly inside Kang Chan’s body.

The amount of mana increasing exponentially as it spun was already surpassing the level of a Wyrm-class dragon.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

“Ugh… Jikyon, I’m sorry, but buy me some time…”

“Hey! You almost died doing this before, didn’t you?”

“P, please. This is the only way.”

“You idiot!”

But there was no time to blame Kang Chan.

The enemy’s attacks were raining down from all directions.

“I’ll never forgive you if you die!”

Jikyon left the rampaging Kang Chan behind and space jumped the Red Rabbit as far as possible.

However, even the massive Zvezda, which had approached unnoticed, was pouring out terrifying attacks, and she felt for the first time in her life that she was facing death.

Because of the Earthlings who possessed mobility and firepower that surpassed her space jump abilities.

She had space jumped dozens of times amidst the downpour of destructive light and railguns, but it was not enough to escape the Zvezda’s mobility and range.

Jikyon was running out of strength.

She seemed to be reaching her limit as well.

“Kang Chan! Hurry! I can’t hold on any longer!”

“…”

Despite Jikyon’s desperate cries, Kang Chan quietly closed his eyes and focused on one thing.

It was something he had never attempted in Final Battle Mode Stage 6.

A rampage beyond a mana rampage.

He had artificially spun the mana faster in Stage 5 to gather surrounding mana, but he had never dared to try it in Stage 6.

But Kang Chan was now challenging that realm.

He doubted whether his body could withstand that immense power, but now was not the time to worry about the consequences.

‘Ugh… Just a little! Just a little more!’

His body felt like it would burst like a balloon at any moment.

But Kang Chan endured everything with a death-defying determination and continued to spin the mana.

He almost lost his grip on his sanity several times due to the unbearable pain, but he had to endure.

He had to endure no matter what.

To protect everyone he loved.

“Kaaaaaaaa!”

Before he knew it, the mana that had been rampaging over and over again began to frantically draw in the surrounding mana, and the amount of mana was beyond Kang Chan and Jikyon’s comprehension.

The source of mana, the sun.

That sun-like power began to gather on Kang Chan.

However, the sun in space was far more violent than the sun seen from the ground, and Kang Chan felt as if the mana lines throughout his body were being torn apart.

“Ugh… Cough!”

The pain was incomparable to when the mana had rampaged before.

“Kaaaaaaaa! Uaaaaa!”

Jikyon couldn’t help but tear up as she watched Kang Chan convulse in agony. But she didn’t have time to take care of Kang Chan right now.

Hundreds of beams of light were flying in relentlessly.

If even one hit, everything would be over, shields or no shields.

However, Jikyon’s space jump speed was noticeably decreasing.

Even for her, an Ancient-class dragon, there was a limit to her mental strength and mana.

The dragons and Arteon watching the battle from the Red Mars were anxiously watching their lonely struggle.

But no matter how they looked at it, the situation was hopeless.

The Zvezda had joined the hunt for the Red Rabbit because the shields of the Red Mars, protected by the magic shields cast by 14 dragons, showed no signs of weakening.

A one-versus-many situation.

The Red Rabbit being chased by the Zvezda looked like a battle between a human and an ant.

Fortunately, the ant could space jump, so it had been able to survive so far.

It was truly an amazing ant.

But even that ant was gradually getting tired, and the speed and distance of its space jumps were noticeably decreasing, and before long, the human’s feet were threatening the ant’s life.

The ant would probably be crushed to death before long.

His comrades, watching that pitiful sight, wept as they watched them face death.

There was no hope.

The battle was their defeat.

It was the moment when everything they had painstakingly prepared was reduced to nothing.

“Just run away, Jikyon!”

“Fall back and wait for the next opportunity!”

Everyone shouted at Jikyon to run away.

If she fled to the ground and hid, she could at least save her life.

But Jikyon didn’t answer.

She didn’t have the strength to answer, and she couldn’t abandon Kang Chan, who was fighting to the death.

And there could be no next opportunity.

The only reason they had been able to fight this far was because of the existence of Kang Chan and the Red Mars.

Without them, there was no way to drive out the powerful forces of Earth.

The grueling chase continued, and as Jikyon used up the last of her strength, the battleship’s attack rushed towards her.

No more space jumps were possible.

“Is this the end? I’m sorry, Kang Chan…”

Jikyon willingly accepted her death as she looked at the dazzling light covering her vision, and finally placed her hand on her friend’s shoulder.

She thought that fighting and dying together with Kang Chan, whom she considered a true friend for the first time in her thousands of years of life, wasn’t so bad.

“It was lucky to have met you. Thank you, my friend.”

Just as Jikyon closed her eyes, thinking it was the end.

The light of destruction that had covered her eyes was split in half.

“Huh! W, what?”

Jikyon opened her eyes wide in surprise, and the beams of light in front of her, with power comparable to a Wyrm-class dragon’s breath, began to disappear one by one.

Kang Chan slowly opened his eyes.

And he grabbed Jikyon’s hand on his shoulder and said.

“Save the last goodbyes for later…”

“What? Huh!”

Jikyon was horrified as she suddenly felt an enormous amount of mana seeping into her hand.

Her empty dragon heart began to fill up in an instant.

Her dragon heart, which could store more mana than anything else on earth.

“H, how is this possible?”

Kang Chan said as Jikyon, who had recovered all her mana in an instant, was flustered, not knowing how to accept this situation.

“There’s no time to be distracted. Let’s go!”

Jikyon was able to come to her senses at Kang Chan’s words.

“Huh? Ah, okay!”

The Red Rabbit, charging towards the enemies, spread its hands and unleashed an Aura Blade, and a massive, burning sword nearly 100 meters long soared into the sky.

It was not something that could be called an Aura Blade.

“O, Aura Fire?”

Arteon, who had been watching everything from the Red Mars’ bridge, unknowingly blurted out the word Aura Fire.

Because there was no other way to describe it.

The moment Aura Fire soared from Kang Chan’s hand, everything in front of him was destroyed in an instant. Not even any attacks from enemies outside the range were allowed.

Even the Zvezda’s cannons, which were said to be comparable to a dragon’s breath, simply disappeared in front of Kang Chan’s Aura Fire.

『Attack! Concentrate all firepower!』

Benzler screamed at his crew from the Zvezda’s bridge. But he began to get anxious as he watched the number of unmanned fighters dwindle noticeably.

“Reverse Gravity! Hell Lightning Burst!”

Jikyon simultaneously cast two 9th circle spells, not wanting to be outdone by Kang Chan.

It was something only Jikyon among the dragons could do.

As red lightning spewed from the Red Rabbit’s body, which had bound the enemy, the surrounding enemy unmanned fighters were engulfed in hellish lightning and exploded.

The unmanned fighters, which had been so sturdy.

Jikyon had noticed through several battles that they were weak against electric spells.

The Red Rabbit’s next prey, having quickly disposed of the enemy unmanned fighters, was the enemy Zaids.

『Don’t come! I said don’t come! Aaaaa!』

The Zvezda soldier, seeing the Red Rabbit approaching him with a space jump, screamed and ran away as if he were seeing a demon.

But the Red Rabbit, which quickly caught up, was cut in half by the massive Aura Fire and exploded, and at the same time as the explosion, the Red Rabbit, which had moved to another location, began to destroy the remaining Zaids one by one.

『Don’t scatter! Everyone, go for melee combat!』

Against an enemy who was hunting down the Zaids one by one with space jumps from a distance, there was only one way for them to fight back.

The only way was to stick together and protect each other.

But that was the wrong decision.

For Kang Chan, they were just easier prey when they were gathered together.

The gathered Zaids were instantly split into two or three pieces by Kang Chan’s Aura Fire.

『Kack! C, captain!』

Hong Hak-mae and Lebedev widened their eyes as if they couldn’t believe their deaths, but soon they were engulfed in a massive explosion and became space dust.

Now all that was left was the Zvezda.

“Now, if we just get rid of that… if we just get rid of that, ugh! Ptooey!”

Blood spurted from Kang Chan’s mouth like a fountain, covering the Zvezda that was reflected on the screen in front of him.