Throughout the forest, Lucien could sense several unusual auras.
They were most likely linked to the bodies that Petelgeuse Romanee-Conti had prepared as backup.
Elsa and Meli continued their search.
A rumble cracked through the still air as golden lightning vanished from sight, followed by a rapidly fleeing aura.
At that moment, Petelgeuse, having transferred into a fresh body, was retreating desperately, his face twisted in terror as he chewed at his own fingers.
Suddenly a thunderous roar erupted from behind him.
When he dared to glance backward, his head was already torn from his shoulders.
Lucien hovered mid-air, barely glancing at the severed form, his attention fixed on the fleeing energy about six hundred meters away.
It couldn't be possible.
Petelgeuse, newly arrived in a replacement body, had only managed a few steps before a nightmarish roar sounded behind him. Even without turning, he summoned his Unseen Hands, the invisible tendrils he could wield with lethal force.
But the golden lightning struck diagonally from the sky. The earth beneath roared upward, cleaving Petelgeuse clean in two. Blood and organs sprayed in all directions, his wide, trembling eyes reflecting unimaginable fear.
Lucien rose from the ground and watched the remaining aura race desperately toward the northwest, about a thousand meters away.
Then a thick white mist began to creep through the forest, and a deep, resonant cry echoed overhead.
A colossal creature, vast enough to blot out the sky, soared through the treetops. Its enormous body was shaped like a whale and nearly fifty meters long, a glowing sigil of magic circling atop its head, its massive form supported in flight.
The White Whale, one of the legendary demon beasts created by the Witch of Gluttony and infamous across the land for its unimaginable strength.
In the distant northwest, the surviving Petelgeuse lifted his head, eyes wild with twisted excitement as he gazed upon the enormous apparition in the sky.
When Lucien saw the White Whale, a trace of interest flickered in his eyes.
This was no mere animal. Its immense life force was rich beyond measure, a prize that few could touch.
Golden lightning flashed, and within moments Lucien was standing atop the White Whale's head. Eight razor-sharp black hardened thorns extended from his coccyx, sinking deep into the beast's hide like serpents of venom.
The White Whale screamed in agonized terror as Lucien began to feed, ripping into its flesh with unrestrained ferocity as though he were relieving extreme thirst.
The gargantuan creature thrashed and plummeted toward the earth, attempting futilely to shake Lucien from its back, but to him it was nothing more than an inconvenient meal.
The White Whale's massive form rapidly shrank as Lucien devoured its energy and essence. Around them the sky echoed with the creature's terrified bellows.
Below, Petelgeuse watched in absolute disbelief.
"How could this be!" he cried, clutching his head.
Lucien paused his feast long enough to sense the retreating aura, then Hardened his right arm. In seconds his arm transformed into a crystalline spear more than ten meters long and one meter thick.
The direction of that last aura was clear. With a swift motion he hurled the spear, golden current trailing behind it, as it cut through the air.
Petelgeuse heard the thunderous roar and turned in terror. Though he tried to summon more Unseen Hands to block it, the force was far too overwhelming.
With a massive explosion akin to the rupture of earth itself, Petelgeuse was obliterated in an instant, his body reduced to nothing more than fragments before a scream could escape.
The spear buried itself deep into the ground, thrusting up the earth and forming a huge crater around its impact point.
Within moments, the aura representing Petelgeuse flickered into view again, a final echo of the man he had been.
This was his last body. Elsa and Meli had already destroyed two of his backups. If Petelgeuse fell once more, this time he would truly be gone.
In the original story, both the White Whale and Petelgeuse had been formidable threats, causing immense trouble for Subaru and his allies.
But before Lucien, they were dealt with as though they were but shadows of resistance.
The White Whale's massive body, once feared throughout the continent, had been reduced to little more than a skeletal frame within minutes.
Lucien's hunger was satiated, every fiber of him satisfied with the feast he had consumed.
Meanwhile, Petelgeuse's last faint energy still lingered, but only barely within Lucien's perception range.
Lucien's eyes narrowed as golden lightning ripped across the sky once more.
From a thousand meters above the ground he launched another energy sphere, its long tail lighting up the heavens.
"My mind trembles," Petelgeuse croaked, barely coherent as the sphere descended.
"This is love," he muttered in his deranged state, arms opening wide as though welcoming the light.
At that moment the world seemed to lose all sound.
The energy detonated in a blinding flush, erupting into a rolling mushroom cloud that obliterated the mountains and split the earth, reshaping the forest into barren ridges and valleys.
When the dust settled, Petelgeuse was gone.
Lucien opened the light screen to review the data of the now-eliminated boss, the Archbishop of the Witch Cult representing Sloth, Petelgeuse Romanee-Conti.
Though he had been a major antagonist in the first season of the story, here he now counted only as a minor villain.
Lucien had grown calmly accustomed to scenes like this.
The countdown associated with Petelgeuse had just over a day left, running parallel with the timers on Emilia and the others.
Since his upgraded Golden Finger system was now at version 3.0, every supporting character and villain mattered. Collecting ten kills allowed him to roll the Dice with a Luck bonus.
That meant Lucien was determined to eliminate every supporting character who appeared in the anime — even if, by original canon, some may have appeared minor.
Sometimes he wondered if he had become something like a demon, indiscriminately cutting down friend and foe alike.
Certainly, that was the path of a villain.
One everyone would someday want to kill.
Even he thought it fitting to call himself Darkness, a virus left behind by the countless worlds he had traversed.
But villains might start strong, yet always ended in ruin.
Everything continued smoothly for Subaru. By the third day, he had walked along the road and reached the capital.
Perhaps the threat of Elsa and the encounter with Petelgeuse had stirred him slightly from his numb trance. He no longer walked like a lifeless corpse as before.
The pain of love's loss clung stubbornly within him, but he was regaining a semblance of spirit.
Lucien followed behind with Elsa and Meli, two hours remaining on the countdown.
As long as nothing untoward happened in those final hours, Lucien would be able to roll the Dice.
At last, those two hours passed in quiet anticipation.
When Lucien opened the light screen, the countdown had vanished.
The deaths of Emilia and the others were now irreversible. Lucien felt a restrained satisfaction in this bleak success.
If the system said they were dead, then they truly were. Even Subaru's Return by Death would not change it.
Important Supporting Characters: Emilia, Rem — total six Dice rolls, Luck +2
Minor Supporting Characters: Ram, Puck, Beatrice — total four Dice rolls
Minor Villain: Petelgeuse — one Dice roll
It had been harder to obtain these rolls than it had been in worlds tied to Attack on Titan, Demon Slayer, or Fate.
He had nearly lost himself once more to love, diving too deep into emotion and struggling to return.
It was more exhausting than any battle.
Now at last, he was ready to roll the Dice.
The golden cubes spun and tumbled.
The model airplane token advanced four spaces, Lucien's Luck shining brightly. A burst of light faded and the item reward appeared.
One of the Six Styles · Rankyaku
Description: Rankyaku is a leg-based art, one of the Six Styles in Pirate King. The leg muscles rapidly contract and extend to produce kinetic force, then extend outward faster than sound itself, compressing air and creating a sharp cutting wave.
A small grin spread across Lucien's face as he gained this new skill.
His Luck truly was powerful.
The Dice continued to spin and leap, with more rewards awaiting discovery…
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Milestones
100 Power stones = 1 Bonus Chapter
200 Power stones = 3 Bonus Chapters
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