Chapter 101 (1/2)
Trap (3)
I kicked the ground and dashed.
In front of the swung devil’s sword trajectory, the face of the wizard preparing a spell was seen.
However, right before the sword touched…
Clang!
Metallic friction noise rang through the air.
The only swordsman among the Matap party was standing in my way.
“Faster!”
He desperately shouted at the wizards standing behind him.
It was all in an attempt to buy time for them to complete a new spell.
Boosh!
Our sword blades clashed tautly.
He must’ve been confident that he wouldn’t be easily defeated in a battle of strength because he was also an SS-Class.
However, it was all meaningless.
The blue sword entangled in his sword was quickly buried in the purple flash I caused.
“Keuup!”
The total amount of Mana didn’t guarantee an absolute win.
If it’s a one-on-one Mana battle like that, it was meaningless.
“Kaaargh!”
The swordsman slowly got pushed back while screaming.
The point of contact between the two swords, which were crossed in an “X” position, was gradually leaning toward him.
His face distorted, predicting the bleak future that awaited him.
The man who faced the blazing flash that was right in front of his nose eventually let go of my sword.
Clang!
He managed to shake off my weapon and aimed for a counterattack, but it didn’t work out as he intended.
Swish!
The moment the devil’s sword fell off, the purple sword energy that had wrapped around my sword remained as if it were an afterimage in the place where the two swords were clashing though nothing should have been left in that space.
The afterimage then became real. Instead of moving with the devil’s sword, the remaining sword energy was shot forward as if it found the right timing to strike.
It directly struck the swordsman’s face in that manner.
“… Huh?”
He mustn’t even have realized how he died.
The swordsman’s head split horizontally.
The top of his head, including his eyebrows and forehead, shot up into the sky.
The sharp attack cut through close to the top of both eyes.
Thud.
The swordsman fell onto the icy floor.
His oozing blood froze rapidly because of the cold air.
Instead of flowing, it left a dark-red-ice puddle on the ground.
Above the corpse, red snow fell all around.
“Keup!”
On the other hand, the wizards didn’t lose focus despite their colleagues’ death. They still managed to complete the spell.
They were veterans, after all. They’ve reached a point where instead of completely relying on the system, they started to enter the state of practicing Mana control.
[Conditional Barrier (Rank: S)]
What the wizard on the front that first completed was a defense spell.
Woong!
Golden steam came out of the wizard’s body. It formed a shape that turned into a dome, which then surrounded the three of them blurrily.
It was a conditional field that perfectly defended external shocks but never interfered with the forces that shot outward.
When a colleague was in danger, they created a shield to protect themselves instead of helping him or taking the enemy’s head by looking for a window. That was Arthur’s way of fighting.
Before the other two could activate a spell, I had already rushed in on them.
Paht!
The surface where my foot touched was leveled down. The air burst forth along my movement trajectory, causing shockwaves to resonate. With acceleration beyond human limitations, the distance was narrowed in an instant.
When I entered the neared space where the golden dome was surrounding them, the wizards completed their spells by a hair’s breadth.
[Anger of Thunder (Rank: SS)]!
[Lighting Vortex (Rank: S)]!
Zaaaaap!
Rumble! Ba-ba-bam!
In that extreme situation, the spell they chose was electrical magic that instantly reached temperatures of tens of thousands of degrees.
A straight line of lightning passed without resistance even when it collided with the gold barrier.
The whirlwind that embodied intense bolts of lightning stormed towards me. Amplified currents, lightning, and heated air expanded and rushed in.
However, the disastrous sight they would have waited for didn’t turn into reality.
Rumbleee!
The river of currents that pierced through the distance between us caused the winds to grow hotter as it rang with the vibration from the blast.
They believed that would have turned me into a pile of ashes as I would have been caught up in the devastating flash.
However, I rushed in without any scratch despite being wrapped with millions of volts around my body.
“No… wa-!”
Crush!
The barrier broke a little against the might of the sword I struck down.
The reason why I chose to push forward with strength was for the simple reason that magic efficiency was much better by amplifying the sword energy with the devil’s sword than De-spell.
But for them, who would have no idea what was going on, froze as if they had seen a ghost.
For an ordinary Hunter, breaking the S-Class defense spell with sword energy was out of the box.
“Fucking… Monster!”
Crrrack!
The barrier started to crack.
Clatter!
It didn’t take long after that for the barrier to shatter into fragments like glass.
With a roar, a gold-white halo and fluttering dust of light scattered all over the place.
The wizard’s expression stiffened as he shook in the vibrating air.
Crush!
As his neck was sliced open, his face became static as if he was petrified as his head soared into the air.
‘There’s only two left, including Arthur.’
At that moment, I saw a strange pattern of Mana.
As I turned my gaze, I almost laughed in vain.
‘… Indeed, it never disappoints.’
The remaining SS-Class wizard stared at me with a blazing glare as if he was going to take revenge.
At the same time, he concentrated on reciting an attack spell.
Arthur was behind him, pretending to invoke magic, putting his hands in his arms and injecting Mana.
Looking at the reaction pattern, what he was holding was a returning stone.
‘He’s quick on his feet.’
Seeing how he decided so quickly that there was no chance of winning, he must’ve swiftly finished his calculations.
He understood that my Mana capacity was beyond human limitations, considering I used S-Class De-spells several times.
The fact that I was fine in lightning and that the freezing storm didn’t hinder me meant that I used SSS-Class electrical resistance, heat resistance, and cold resistance magic, which were all a card rank that even the Matap couldn’t get their hands on.
Furthermore, [Arta’s Sword Dance] moved in unpredictable shapes.
Arthur himself, on the other hand, was rapidly losing his Mana in the freezing storm.
Although he was quick to judge that he couldn’t win like that…
‘Well, he’s still the same.’
He was thinking of running away while leaving his subordinates at the forefront.
It took time to activate the returning stone. The reason why he secretly prepared alone instead of ordering his subordinates to run away with the return stone was…
‘He needs the other guy to buy time while he’s trying to escape.’
I couldn’t let him be.
“Snake 3!”
The snake, which loosened from its bracelet-like shape, lifted its head and opened its mouth wide.
When it spat out the item in an instant as it was trained, I snatched it.
I grabbed the whip handle.
[Dain-Snu Family Slavemaster’s Whip (Rank: SS)]
Whoop!
Paht!
The thin metal-covered whip lashed at them, leaving a silver afterimage.
With the sound of tearing up the air, it wrapped around Arthur’s body.
“Graaaargh!”
Wee-ing
It was as intended by a family’s slave master in the past, who was in charge of controlling the Awakened slaves.
The whip that restrained Arthur absorbed his Mana without leaving any leftovers.
Since he had already lost a considerable amount of Mana, it devoured all of it before he could even resist.
That caused the blue waves that seeped out of his body and flowed to the returning stone to dissipate.
“E-eeek!”