"! The sword... it's... it's glowing! Does it mean anything?"

Lestia uncharacteristically offered a solution.

"Sword... don't tell me..."

Just as Kuro attempted to make a break for the sword a few meters away from them, Lestia tried to hold on to his wrist.

"Don't go! That... it's over there... you'll get crushed...!!!"

"I... I don't care!!!"

Snapping away the grip from the reluctant Lestia, Kuro broke into a dash to where it laid.

Right now, he was grasping at straws. Going after a glowing sword seemed like a joke, but he had no other alternatives. Continuous feelings of pain would break Soma, he was against the clock.

Within a few seconds, Kuro had started to approach where the Abomination stood with its newly formed legs on its humanoid body. It screeched loudly once, puncturing his left eardrum in the process.

Gritting his teeth to endure it, Kuro maintained his pace with his frail body.

A large arm flew down onto him like a pillar. The area around him dimmed by the shadow casted onto him, but he continued running with a slightly resigned look on his face.

He didn't stop running, but a brief flash of his past memories and experiences went by him like a near-death experience.

...Is... this it...? Was risking my life like this... worth it after all...?

...But his doubts never completely formed. Because he still felt as if it was the right thing to do.

...As expected... White... you've slowly started... to become my moral... compass...

CRASHHH!!!

Kuro's thoughts were interrupted. The inevitable death was pleasantly avoided with a side ram of a monster which had suddenly bursted out of the ground behind him like a snake.

Before the gigantic axe arm collided with Kuro and turned him completely into mincemeat, it was redirected from the force exerted by that headbutt. A small shockwave blasted him forward and made him lose his balance.

Before he fell down flat on his face, he turned and saw the Silvain Worm L'althukul on his right.

Kuro had suffered from a light concussion, he felt his world spinning.

...Did... I die...?

But a voice through some sort of telepathy in his head cleared his head for a quick second.

"...o..."

"...go..."

"Goooo!!!"

...!!!

Spurred on by the sudden realisation of what had happened, Kuro let out a yell to dispell the cloudiness in his head.

"Nruahhhhhh!!!"

He returned his pace.

A flame-shrouded arm blasted down to the ground near his left leg, missing it by just a few centimeters. A few pieces of the rubble of the cave ground blew up, expanding a cloud of dirt which obscured Kuro's vision slightly. Even then, he never stopped running.

He was breathing heavily from the lack of stamina. But he continued running towards the sword.

The situation currently was playing out like a textbook case of the hero trying to risk his life for something.

Although the glowing of the sword that Soma had always wielded was the only lead Kuro was risking his life for right now... he believed that nothing else could be more straightforward than that. If he were to risk his life in such comical fashion, then he would go down like this and prove White wrong. That he wasn't in control from the start.

But despite such a petty reason as his logic to performing such a suicidal act just for another individual, a tiny flame ignited in him at this moment.

He too, wanted to create a miracle. He wanted this to be the answer. He wanted to be... a hero for someone too.

-Kuro trusted that his intuition wasn't going to be wrong.

A barrage of sword skills rained down on him like a machine gun, yet most of them had been tanked by the worm which was burrowing and unburrowing itself repeatedly to soak the damage effectively for him. Lestia was trying to keep it alive while helping Kuro.

That sentiment secretly made Kuro feel a little light-hearted inside. It showed that White's elaborate and roundabout way to convince and change Lestia had worked slightly. She had begun to think about people other than herself in a genuine and sincere way.

White had shaken her reason for existence, and was trying to build a foundation for a new one. Kuro had finally understood what he had been trying to do at this moment.

But Kuro didn't leave unscathed despite under the protection of the powerful undead monster. He took a few hits still.

Searing hot wounds opened along his left cheek and around his left kneecap. Some of the attacks had grazed him, but the pain was unbelievably tormenting to his mental state. A few pieces of his flesh was torn from the sharp and almost inhumanely precise attacks from the Abomination.

Of course this was the case, he was within its killing range.

But Kuro didn't try to stay hung up on them, only grimacing whenever he knew he had suffered from an unavoidable attack. He would still occasionally grunt from the merciless waves of sword skills, but he continued to duck and slide over and under the rubble constantly being dug up by the explosive attacks.

Because he knew... repelling the physical movement of the colossal Abomination over his head to avoid being crushed, was all that he could ask for.

...Lestia...

He would not let Lestia down, who had tried to protect him despite expending all of her mana.

He would not let his woman down.

Another loud explosion happened right behind him, propelling him forward. This time, Kuro did not lose balance and instead used it to boost himself forward.

"UOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"

Raising a battlecry, he was closing the gap to where the Sword of Bloodwell had been blown away to.

His explosive speed meant nothing in the face of even the lowest of adventurers, but right now... it was sufficient.

Ten meters.

Five meters.

Two meters.

He had reached it. The bright glow of the sword was blinding his eyes, so he squinted it and stopped to catch a second to breathe.

But only for a second. He cherished each second he was using right now, to stop Soma's channel of pain.

If this was the reason...

"Hahhh... hahhh..."

Not caring if Bloodwell would reject him again if he held it, ...

He held the handle.

Unexpectedly, the black lightning was not discharged despite not being its true owner; Kuro had successfully wielded the Demon Blade at this moment. But he could still feel a jolting flow of electricity coursing through the insides of his skin, he couldn't hold it for long. Tears started to form around his eyes as a humanly occurence from painful, physical stress.

It's going to crack... open... my skin...!!! But... i-it worked... kuhhh, but... heavy...!!!

And then just as he thought that, it became weightless all of a sudden. It was so sudden, that Kuro had fallen to his feet because he had been exerting alot more force earlier to hold it. Even more so when he was as feeble as a stick now after expending all of his strength into running.

He quickly got up on his feet, while grasping the Sword of Bloodwell in his hands. Even Kuro knew, that he was in a dangerous spot. The attacks kept coming, and he could sense from the connection with Lestia that she, too knew that her summon could no longer keep up for long anymore.

He could not make a return trip back to the two now with Lestia's one-time support with the worm and the unbearable pain on his hands holding the Demonic Blade, but with the weightless element of the Sword of Bloodwell currently, Kuro quickly came to a decision.

Without even hesitating, Kuro shouted loudly:

"SOMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"

Using all of his remaining strength, he turned his back around and threw it towards the direction of Lestia and Soma.