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Last Embryo Volume 3 Chapter 3 Part 3

Translator: DarkHeartedAlchemist

Throwing the now-broken particle detector to the side, Izayoi glared at her once more with a gaze that would befit a member of the Yakuza or a movie villain of the highest grade.

「Un… believable…」

The girl muttered with her mouth half opened, that’s how dumbfounded she was. From all that she was taught, that last attack of hers should have been enough to completely wipe out an entire army of the face of the earth. It was a hydrogen explosion that caused the water level in a river as big as this one to severely decrease, so no human in existence should have been able get out from being hit by it without as much as a scratch on him! I mean, the sheer scale of that explosion should be enough to turn even the tallest mountain into noting but a pile of dust!

「S-Stay away from me, you monster…!」

She screamed and dashed back onto the river’s surface while her hair fluttered chaotically in every direction. Not losing sight of her for even a moment, Izayoi followed her with his eyes, wondering how was she actually able to run on the water’s surface like that.

「Some kind of Water Walking, huh? Well, I don’t know if you got that ability thanks to the Star Particle Bodies or not, but I guess it does not matter in the end, because…」

Because she definitely chose a wrong opponent to pick up a fight with. No ordinary human would be able to even set foot upon this molten, scorched riverside without suffering from severe burns, but as long as we’re talking about that, then Izayoi could not be lumped together with normal humans since a long time ago. Heck, he was someone who just withstood a blast to the face from a hydrogen explosion and simply brushed it off like it was nothing!

Running as fast as a leopard, the girl quickly increased her distance from him, but Izayoi simply heaved a small sigh, and…

「Here we… GO!」

And caused an explosion of his very own beneath his feet as he kicked off the ground in order to chase after the girl.

「H-Hyaah!!!」

A scream escaped from her shocked mouth.

Calling what he did an explosion was by no means a metaphor. Izayoi literally blew up the ground that was beneath his feet when he has launched himself just like a human cannonball and even left an afterimage of himself behind. The strength he put into his legs was truly beyond what any human could do, bordering on the realm of the inhuman. With enough power to leave crater in the ground after every step he took, he easily managed to overtook the girl and stand in her path.

「W-W-Wha…?!」

Unable to comprehend what just happened, she stopped dead in her tracks and stared at him in blatant disbelief. Finding that reaction of hers to be extremely amusing, Izayoi flashed her a wide grin.

「Now then, my little Snow White, what are you going to do? If you have any other means of attack that you wish to try on me, feel free to go ahead and do so. No matter what you might try to throw at me I will catch you anyway, but at least you won’t have any regrets that way.」

The girl’s eyes were filled with intense hostility when she heard those words. Izayoi only said them in an attempt to provoke her a little, but it looks like his attempt at intimidation has only made her more vigilant than he expected. Thinking that the situation will turn much more amusing that way he laughed with his hands on his hips, but then… he finally noticed her shackles.

「Shackles and chains? What the hell? Don’t tell me that you’re actually a fugitive from somewhere?」

He asked while being honestly surprised. Also, he didn’t notice that because of how long her hair were, but now that he had a closer look at her face, he saw that she was visibly weakened, and quite possibly malnourished. If she really was a prisoner who had escaped from her captors, then that would mean a drastic one hundred eighty for their current situation. If the have mistakenly took each other for their enemies, then continuing this fight any longer would be meaningless. Maybe, just maybe she was someone whom he and Pritt should protect, but that question would have to wait until she calms down so that he could talk to her properly to learn where exactly did she run away from, or who was she running away from.

But just as Izayoi was about to ask the trembling girl all the question that would help them understand each other better, she was assaulted from yet another side.

「Hey there missy, don’t you think that you have gone a little bit too far with that prank of yours? This isn’t Little Garden, so you should be more considerate of your surroundings.」

「H-Hyaaah!!!!!?」

Appearing behind her without her or Izayoi noticing, Pritt grabbed the girl’s shoulders and lifted her up without any difficulties.

It would seem that unlike Izayoi, who managed to escape from the explosion just in the nick of time, Pritt got hit with the full impact of the blast, because most of her clothes have been pretty badly burned. In fact, most of the right side of her body was pretty much fully exposed, but she didn’t seem to mind it all that much, probably because she was a Goddess who has lived for long enough to learn that she didn’t have to worry herself with being embarrassed over something as insignificant as this and simply focus her entire attention on restraining the mysterious girl.

Laughing heartily, Izayoi stared at the girl’s exposed chest, which, unlike her somewhat childish face was like a feast for the eyes.

「I don’t think mentioning Little Garden is going to do you any good. Judging by her looks, there is a good bit of probability that she is someone who hails from this world.」

「Eh? But wasn’t she the one who caused that hydrogen explosion?」

「Oh, that was most definitely her. Just like Homura said in one of his reports, she divided the water from the river into hydrogen and oxygen and detonated it… ah, I see, now I get it. Say, girlie, you wouldn’t happen to be the true identity of 『The Bull of Heaven』 now, would you?」

He recalled one of the fragments of the Epic of Gilgamesh upon which he based one of his theories about what 『The Bull of Heaven』 was.

Supposedly, if the stories about it are to be believed, it was a celestial Beast of Drought which dried up the biggest river of the ancient Mesopotamia, which was like a thread of life to the people who lived in it, but the entire matter got resolved so quickly that he never got any chance to explain why did it manifest itself as a Bull Monster weaved from the storm clouds, but that shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. After all, it got tangled up with the Minotaur, which made things even more complicated, but now that he thought about those two separately instead of as one being, it turned out that the problem it brought onto the blackboard with itself really was a simple one to solve after all.

「The reason why the 『Bull of Heaven』 turned into a storm monster was due to the atomic dissociation of the river? Assuming you were dissociating the water into hydrogen and oxygen……hmm? Could it be that you can not only dissociate, but also create steam by chemical combinations?」

If that was the case, then the 『Bull of Heaven』 could very well be something partly close to perpetual motion.

Izayoi became slightly more vigilant.

Meanwhile, the Albino girl was once again frozen in fear.

If the Star Particle Bodies could dissociate and combine elements without expending the energy, then the situation was far more troublesome than he had suspected. The earlier hydrogen explosion was a trifling thing compared to it. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that said deed would be an ultimate ritual comparable to the secrets of Alchemy.

(Homura told me not to directly come into contact with the Crystallized Particle Bodies, but is that related somehow?)

Izayoi gazed at the girl with narrowed eyes. He judged that they still couldn’t allow themselves to let their guard down around her. However, the Albino girl herself didn’t seem to understand what was even happening and didn’t understand anything Izayoi was saying. She was flapping her limbs in panic while Pritt firmly held her in place. Looking at the situation, the pitiable one was that girl who didn’t understand anything.

The two who should’ve been blown to smithereens appeared before her without having a scratch, not to say anything about the fact that just about anyone would’ve fallen into a panic if they were held up in the air.