Chapter 157: Belle vs. Omnimon
While Mizuki knelt in the dirt, his hands glowing as he carefully stabilized Digitamamon's fractured data, Belle stood her ground on the opposite side of the battlefield. The air between her and the towering Royal Knight crackled with heavy static. Omnimon leveled his gaze at her, his cape billowing like a tattered white storm cloud against the ruined landscape.
"It is you. The anomaly from another world," Omnimon's voice echoed, cold and resonant, carrying the absolute authority of a divine executioner. As a Royal Knight serving directly under Yggdrasill, his access to the digital world's underlying code granted him a broader perspective. His blue and yellow eyes narrowed slightly. "Has Lord Yggdrasill's purge protocol truly failed to erase your existence?"
Belle's grip on her gunblade tightened. The metal groaned under her fingers. "Yggdrasill?" she repeated, her voice dropping to a dangerous, silken whisper. "So, the one putting Mizu through all this endless suffering... is that bastard Yggdrasill?"
A dark, murderous aura flared around her, twisting the air into a chaotic vortex. "Very well. I have made my decision. I am going to tear him apart!"
With a vicious glint flashing in her crimson eyes, Belle kicked off the ground, shattering the bedrock beneath her boots. She swung her massive gunblade in a brutal, sweeping arc aimed directly at Omnimon's neck.
[Grey Sword: Modified!]
Facing Belle's explosive onslaught, Omnimon shed the last remnants of his previous hesitation. His earlier sluggishness had been born of a lingering doubt, a silent conflict regarding Yggdrasill's absolute command to slaughter his fellow Digimon. But now, standing before an invasive anomaly threatening the digital world's core, his resolve crystallized into ice. He would not waver.
[Grey Sword!]
The colossal blade extending from the WarGreymon head on his left arm met Belle's gunblade in a cataclysmic collision. A blinding shockwave of sparks and raw data erupted from the impact point, tearing through the atmosphere.
A split second later, a jagged hill miles behind Omnimon simply slid apart, its peak sheared clean off by the sheer kinetic force of their clash. Simultaneously, the churning ocean waters far behind Belle parted down the middle, a massive trench carved into the sea extending all the way to the distant horizon.
Omnimon held his ground, his cape snapping violently in the gale. "Is it that troublesome authority again?" he murmured, his tone analytical and detached. "I must admit, the ability to casually rewrite and replicate another's ultimate technique is indeed a formidable variable."
He smoothly disengaged, sliding backward with impossible grace. He raised his right arm, leveling the MetalGarurumon head directly at Belle's chest.
"However," Omnimon continued, the air around his cannon muzzle instantly dropping below freezing, "just as a burning flame varies in its core temperature, possessing the same technique does not mean you possess the strength to stand against me."
[Garuru Cannon!]
A devastating blast of Cocytus Breath energy erupted from the metallic jaws. The extreme cold did not merely freeze the moisture in the air; it violently halted the kinetic movement of the surrounding space itself, turning the atmosphere into a solid block of glacial death.
Belle's instincts screamed. She did not dare underestimate a full-power strike from a Royal Knight. Pushing her agility to the absolute limit, she twisted her body, becoming a blur of motion that narrowly skirted the edge of the freezing beam. Frost instantly coated her wings, but she ignored the biting chill. Using her momentum, she leveled her gunblade back at him.
[Garuru Cannon: Modified!]
A mirrored wave of Cocytus Breath energy blasted from her weapon, hurtling straight toward the Royal Knight. Omnimon did not even attempt to raise his sword. He stood perfectly still, allowing the freezing tide to wash over him, encasing his armored form in a massive, jagged prison of ice.
Belle landed lightly on a shattered boulder, raising a single eyebrow. "Did that actually work?"
"Did I not just explain?"
The calm, echoing voice came from within the glacier. Before Belle could react, the massive block of ice detonated outward, sending razor-sharp shards raining across the battlefield. Omnimon emerged completely unscathed. With a single, sharp sweep of his white cape, he crossed the distance between them in a fraction of a second, appearing directly in her face.
'So fast!' Belle's eyes widened.
"Possessing the same technique does not mean you possess the strength to stand against me!" Omnimon repeated, his voice devoid of pity.
[Grey Sword: Thrust!]
He lunged forward, aiming a lethal stab straight at her core. Belle braced herself, her muscles locking as she prepared to tank the devastating blow with her raw physical durability.
Suddenly, a massive, spectral shield shaped like a golden dragon's head materialized out of thin air, intercepting the blade. The Grey Sword struck the barrier with a deafening ring, sending a shockwave rippling through the air.
Belle blinked in sheer surprise at the sudden defense before instantly flapping her wings, using the recoil to blast backward and put a safe distance between herself and the Royal Knight.
Omnimon lowered his blade, showing no frustration at the missed opportunity. In his calculating mind, the anomaly before him was certainly troublesome, but she did not yet qualify as a genuine threat. Her ability to match his blows relied entirely on a uniquely powerful, rule-breaking authority. Beyond that singular advantage, her combat awareness, her footwork, her very essence felt incredibly unrefined.
She fought like a newborn child, wildly swinging a weapon too heavy for her.
The thought flickered through Omnimon's consciousness before he logically dismissed it. It was impossible for an entity capable of reaching the Mega level to be a newborn. The only logical conclusion was that her overwhelming innate authority had caused her to neglect the grueling discipline of martial training.
How pitiful.
With that cold judgment finalized, Omnimon raised his sword and launched himself at Belle once more.
Hovering in the sky, Belle cast a fleeting glance down toward Mizuki. The spectral dragon shield had been his doing. His Digi-Soul.
'Did I make Mizu worry about me again?'she thought, a pang of guilt twisting in her chest.'Damn it. Mizu is already carrying so much pressure trying to save everyone, and here I am, needing him to cover my back.'
Her grip on the gunblade tightened until her knuckles turned white. She would not be a burden. She would be his sword.
[Fly Bullet!]
She pulled the trigger, and a deafening storm of gunfire tore through the battlefield. Hundreds of condensed energy rounds painted the sky, forming an inescapable, lethal net hurtling toward the Royal Knight.
Omnimon tracked the incoming barrage, his blue eyes narrowing a fraction of an inch. "Is this your true ultimate technique?" he asked, his voice cutting through the roar of the gunfire. "However. You are still far too green."
He swung the Grey Sword in a single, fluid arc.
A massive crescent of compressed sword aura erupted from the blade, effortlessly cleaving through Belle's dense barrage. The energy bullets detonated prematurely, reduced to harmless sparks against the overwhelming pressure of his strike. The sword aura continued its upward trajectory, accelerating straight toward Belle.
Sensing the lethal intent, Belle flapped her wings violently, ascending into the higher atmosphere just in time to feel the shockwave of the attack sheer past her boots.
"The battle is not over," Omnimon stated calmly.
True to his word, the Royal Knight unleashed a relentless flurry of strikes. He swung the Grey Sword in rapid succession, sending wave after wave of destructive sword aura slicing into the sky.
Belle became a frantic blur of motion, diving, rolling, and weaving through the deadly grid of energy. The pressure was suffocating. This Omnimon was fundamentally different from any opponent she had ever faced. He was a machine of pure, refined combat logic. GranDracmon might have been a terrifying concept, but she had never officially fought him head-on, so that did not count.
If there was a single silver lining to this desperate evasion, it was that Omnimon's precise, upward strikes ensured no stray attacks rained down on the area where Mizuki was working.
Every casual swing of the Grey Sword looked simple, almost effortless, yet Belle could feel the catastrophic power behind each one. A single graze possessed the kinetic force to split mountains and boil seas. That was exactly why Omnimon was forcing her higher into the sky; had he aimed downward, the entire region would have been erased from the map by now.
'No, the terrain is already completely ruined anyway,' Belle thought, gritting her teeth as she barely dodged another crescent of energy.
Just as she twisted to evade, a chillingly calm voice spoke directly beside her ear, completely bypassing the distance she thought she had maintained.
"You are distracted."
Belle's breath hitched. 'When did he—'
In a horrifying flash of realization, she understood. The relentless barrage of sword aura had never been meant to hit her. It was a calculated feint, a visual trap designed to force her attention away from his actual movements.
She snapped her head to the side. Reflected in her shrinking pupils was the metallic snout of the Garuru Cannon, glowing with absolute, lethal zero energy, aimed point-blank at her chest.
"Caring for your companions is a noble sentiment," Omnimon said, his tone devoid of any emotional fluctuation, as cold and absolute as the ice he commanded. "But allowing that sentiment to distract you in battle will only ensure the destruction of both you and those you wish to protect."
He was the perfect executioner. He had his duty, and he would carry it out without malice, without joy. He only needed to raise the blade and strike.
"Pay the price for your foolishness."
[Garuru Cannon—]
"Do not even think about it!" a fierce voice roared from below.
[Terra Force ZERO!]
"What!?"
For the first time, a fracture appeared in Omnimon's perfect composure. He had not anticipated WarGreymon X recovering fast enough to intervene, let alone launching a point-blank strike of such magnitude. The concentrated sphere of superheated atmospheric energy slammed directly into Omnimon's side, violently interrupting his firing sequence and blasting him backward through the sky.
The sudden reprieve allowed Belle to finally draw a ragged breath, her chest heaving as she stabilized her flight.
"Sorry. I am late," WarGreymon X called out, hovering up to join her, his armor still venting steam from the massive energy output.
"...It is fine," Belle replied, her voice steadying.
She glanced around, her eyes catching the faint, lingering traces of a warm red energy field that was slowly fading into the background, entering a stealth state around her. It was Mizuki's Digi-Soul, quietly wrapping around her in a protective embrace. She looked down toward where Mizuki was standing, then shifted her gaze back to the heavily armored dragon warrior beside her.
"You arrived just in time... I say."
WarGreymon X paused, tilting his head slightly. "...I say?"
Belle crossed her arms, looking away with a faint, stubborn huff. "...Do not mind it, I say!"
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