“F-First, please calm down and hear me out, sir. When I said I didn’t betray you, I meant that I wanted to convey that, at the time, that was the best option.”
“Selling me out was the best option?”
“No, no, no, of course not. It’s because after meeting the Great Sage and speaking with him, I became convinced that this plan could never succeed.”
“Go on.”
“As I understand it, your original plan was to negotiate through dialogue, and if that didn’t work, to subdue him.”
I pulled back the sword I had been pressing against him and sheathed it.
Count Python is lucky. I’m still young, not someone who needs a cane to walk, so I let him off.
“If the plan had shifted toward subjugation, it would have failed without question. So I deliberately leaked the plan to prevent things from going in that direction.”
“You’ve got quite the silver tongue…”
It sounded like a lie, yet I couldn’t completely dismiss it as one.
I couldn’t just write it off as nonsense. Of course, I’d need to hear more to know for sure.
“Ahem! For now, let me tell you what I’ve found out.”
“Dropped the politeness, have we?”
“I can tell you’re starting to come around, so doesn’t that make us friends now?”
“Well, fine. But I have no intention of being friends with you, so let’s draw a line there.”
“How cold.”
Count Python lowered his tone again, while I raised mine.
Whether what he said earlier was true or not, I have no desire to get close to him.
“Back to the point. The Great Sage has become far stronger than you think. If you had attacked him back then, it would have been total annihilation.”
***
This is different from last time.
As Lobelia faced Faust, that thought crossed her mind.
It’s hard to say that Faust himself has grown stronger. His power ultimately comes from the chains.
The output those chains can produce is limited, and even if they’re used in synergy, there’s still a ceiling.
Even if dozens or hundreds of abilities are combined to create synergy, there is still a wall at the end.
That remains true even now.
But…
“The coordination is seriously annoying.”
“Oh! Right, Lobelia. That’s exactly what I was trying to say. The coordination is better than when we fought him before.”
Theseus tried to dive into Faust’s range, but was forced to step back under the barrage of attacks. Watching this, Lobelia clicked her tongue.
Two imperial members who were both considered monsters by the public couldn’t even get close.
“It’s like a net.”
Chains woven so tightly there wasn’t a single blind spot.
The movement of the chains was more stable than ever before. In the past, they were at least weapons being swung around, but now they moved so naturally that it wouldn’t be strange to think of them as arms or legs.
It was seamless.
Before, he had been controlled by the power. Now, he was controlling it.
“This is troublesome.”
Lobelia clenched her fists together while scanning her surroundings.
The Guillotine Knights were holding their ground against dark mages who charged forward without fear of death.
Ariel was raising walls and fortifications with telekinesis. And there was no need to mention Yuna who was darting across the battlefield and sweeping through it entirely.
Everyone was sustaining the battlefield for the sake of the two imperial members.
Crackle!
They had gone this far to create a battlefield just for her.
Then she had no choice but to risk her life as well.
Fzzzzzzzzzzt!!
Lobelia drew out the power of her ability to its absolute limit. An overwhelming output her body still couldn’t fully handle.
“Lobelia!”
“Shut up and get ready too, brother.”
Boom!
Each time red lightning surged across Lobelia’s body, the sky flashed in response, as if resonating with her. Her power didn’t just affect her body. It influenced the environment itself.
Endure.
Her senses expanded. It felt as though she were connecting to the world itself.
This is the precursor to transcendence.
Her body felt light.
So light it felt like she might just float away like a balloon.
But that couldn’t be the case. This was merely proof that the bond between her body and soul was weakening.
“Phew.”
Ariel endured this.
Without showing it, she had held on the entire time. Then as her friend and her liege, Lobelia had to endure it as well.
Tap!
Lobelia lightly pushed off the ground and leapt into the air.
The red lightning erupting from her body connected with the lightning falling from the dark clouds, amplifying its force.
“Lobelia…”
Realizing what she was about to do, Theseus immediately steadied his grip on his sword. He couldn’t produce that level of output.
In overall physical ability and stability, Theseus might have the edge, but when it came to sheer destructive power, she was on another level.
Radiance and lightning. Even their fundamental concept of destruction was different.
In a sense, she was the one closest to Abraham.
“….…”
That was why he knew exactly how much strain that power would place on her body.
Crackle!
Theseus gripped his sword and focused. Right now, worrying about Lobelia came second. What mattered was exploiting the opening she was about to risk her life to create.
Then, the lightning struck.
As if it were the end of the world, a red lightning bolt dyed the sky and crashed down like a judgment, slamming into the massive net of chains.
“This is…!”
For the first time, Faust who had stood there expressionless widened his eyes.
A single strike.
With that one blow, all of Faust’s chains were swept away. It sounded simple, but it meant surpassing the power of thousands combined.
And not just any power, but the carefully selected, high-level abilities Faust had gathered.
“So you’ve finally begun to step into that realm.”
He could see it.
In the figure of the girl throwing her punch amid lightning that seemed to burn her entire body, he saw the image of his worst enemy.
Abraham Vicious von Miltonia.
Even if only for a moment, Lobelia had stepped into the same domain as him and at an age not even twenty.
“They say the power of the gods fades with time… yet the blood of the imperial family only grows stronger with each generation.”
Faust turned his head.
And beyond the torn net of chains, he saw someone charging toward him.
Another imperial member. Theseus Vicious von Miltonia. He too was a monster.
Even if he couldn’t unleash the same level of destructive power as Lobelia, he surpassed her in every other aspect and now he was rushing in to take Faust’s head.
“But if I didn’t have the confidence to face you, I wouldn’t have started this in the first place.”
The power of the chains was immense.
Overwhelming abilities that required no cost other than the mental strength to control them.
The power to borrow the abilities dwelling within human souls. This was his greatest weapon.
But in the end, it wasn’t truly Faust’s own power.
“How unfortunate.”
Faust raised his hand. As his pure white sleeve and equally white chains were drawn up along his arm,
A black shadow spread, staining that purity.
Not the power of chains, but dark magic.
The power he had been unable to use until now since he was focused on controlling the chains. His true power revealed itself.
A wailing, ghastly resonance echoed, and a gloomy aura clung to the body.
A curse that reduced the opponent’s overall physical abilities simply by being perceived took hold of Theseus.
Thud!
Theseus stomped his foot.
His entire body felt as heavy as if he were carrying a fortress on his back, yet he could still move.
This was the opportunity Lobelia had risked her life to create. He couldn’t afford to ruin it over something as trivial as his body feeling heavy.
But…
“That’s…!”
That wasn’t the extent of Faust’s power.
Countless abilities through chains, and the suppression of his opponent through dark magic.
But the greatest power he possessed since birth lay in the ability he had honed himself.
The man who overcame transcendence disease, the Great Sage who recorded the first magic in this world.
[Fireball]
The very first spell he created that was classified as a beginner-level spell.
But its true value lay elsewhere.
Flames born from friction created by endlessly circulating mana.
The fire itself was merely a byproduct. The important part was the violently rotating mana that generated it.
Thump!
A dull, unimpressive sound echoed.
A small flame cut across a world dyed in white, black, and red.
The magic of the Great Sage Faust who was capable of being both the simplest and the most profound collided with Theseus’s sword.
Booooooom!!
At that moment, pure mana accumulated over dozens of centuries was unleashed.
Like unraveling threads, the compressed mana spun endlessly, coiling around Theseus’s sword and snapping it with ease.
“Ugh!”
And those threads soon wrapped around Theseus’s body as well. They tightened, restrained, and burned him.
In that chain of events, Theseus’s charge was inevitably brought to a halt.
In his normal condition, he might have endured it, but now a vicious curse was dragging him down.
His body was bound, his skin and muscles torn to shreds.
His eyes had yet to give up, but his body could no longer follow.
Lobelia’s life-risking strike and the opportunity Theseus had inherited—
“All of it is nothing more than a futile struggle.”
None of it even reached Faust.
But…
“Hmm?”
At that moment, Faust’s body stiffened. A powerful force seized him.
Creak! Creak!
As Faust broke free from the restraint, he identified the source of that power.
“Ariel Ether. Your courage is commendable, but you are too late.”
He had already brought down both imperial members.
Lobelia had fallen to the ground, drenched in blood, and Theseus had collapsed, his entire body bound by Faust’s curse and waves of mana.
In such a situation, trying to hold him in place was meaningless.
However, there was something Faust had overlooked. Something he had failed to perceive.
“No, rather… your timing is perfect.”
The presence of the clown who had been noisily sweeping across the battlefield.
By the time Faust noticed the girl who had slipped into his arms, he flinched for a brief moment but quickly regained his composure.
“A meaningless act.”
The dagger in the hand of the girl, Yuna.
Whether she slit his throat or pierced his heart with it, it would be meaningless.
Faust had already transcended death, so even if Yuna were to carve his body to pieces with a dagger, he would never meet his end.
“Puhihihi!”
But Yuna laughed.
As if mocking Faust, she responded with a crazed grin.
“That is…!”
And then Faust realized.
For the first time, his consistently impassive expression was overtaken by shock.
“How…?”
It was an incomprehensible sight.
It made no sense. It was a power Faust had never known.
Yuna’s ability that Johan had once forbidden her from using due to its danger.
[Copycat]
The sharpest and most dangerous dagger she had kept hidden. A power that, by its mere possession, could brand her a traitor now revealed its true worth.
Crackle!
Static burst along the dagger. Crimson lightning ran along its edge.
[Copycat – Crimson Lightning]
The power of the imperial bloodline.
She borrowed and wielded the power of destruction embedded within it.
The dagger now held a destructive force capable of dragging even one who had overcome death down to the same plane.
“Die, you monster.”
Thud!
In the instant her opponent was most off guard, at a moment no one could have anticipated, with the sharpest and most destructive blade she had concealed—
The king of assassins delivered death to the apostle of death.
***
Count Python had said:
If they had attacked Faust at that moment, they would have been the ones to fall.
“That man cannot be killed unless His Majesty the Emperor acts personally.”
“He’s become that strong?”
“No, that’s not what I mean. It’s not that he’s become overwhelmingly stronger. If anything, he’s much the same as before. But… he has overcome death.”
“I understand that he can’t be killed by ordinary means.”
“You’re wrong. Not only ordinary methods, but even most extraordinary ones can’t bring him death.”
Count Python clicked his tongue.
He muttered as if he had witnessed something he never should have seen.
“It means that even the power of destruction can’t stop him.”
“What…?”
“He has reached the realm of gods. No, that phrasing doesn’t quite fit. Hmm, yes, this is better.”
At last, Count Python said:
“His very existence has become a moving hell.”
The Great Sage Faust had finally reached the realm of Naraka.
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