Book 2: Chapter 366
Reaching 8 stars was no easy task.
Peran pondered for a long time on what talent truly meant, and he looked back on his life from various angles to see where it had played a role.
He also endured great despair and suffering, and after persevering for a long time, he was finally able to reach 8 stars.
And then he realised something.
He had become incredibly strong.
This wasn’t conceit or arrogance. Instead, it was a clear and objective thought that he had after thinking about it for a long time.
Peran, who had reached 8 stars, now had the power to wipe out an entire small or medium sized city in an instant.
But this brought a new kind of pressure onto his shoulders. Because he learned that with such great power came an equally great responsibility.
This made his self confidence skyrocket.
Again, it wasn’t conceit, it was simply a firm belief in himself.
He knew that there were still beings stronger than him in the world, but at the very least, he didn’t think that he would lose to them with no way to fight back even if he were to face them.
Not so long ago, this thought was cemented even further when he fought Cairo Wilsemann in the Jun Family Mansion.
After all, he’d even managed to face a 9-star Wizard to some extent.
And that was exactly why he was having so much trouble understanding.
The reality that he had no way to intervene in the battle currently unfolding before his eyes.
Crunch.
His clenched fists became even tighter, causing his nails to pierce his flesh.
His mana room was almost filled with mana. His mind was steady. And he wasn’t injured in the slightest.
Except for the mana that had been used in the Warp, he was in perfect condition.
Nevertheless, he could not enter this fight. If he were to try to forcefully step in, he might end up getting in the way of Iris or Anastasia.
Because they were strong.
And he was only a bit strong. This was something he was finally made to understand.
If he stepped foot in this battle, he would only get in the way of his allies. So the only thing he could do was watch.
Peran’s judgement was not wrong.
“…”
But it was still an incredibly bitter pill to swallow.
* * *
In truth, the fight wasn’t as equal as Peran thought.
And without a doubt, the one who was feeling this the most was Anastasia.
Clang!
The force of the clash sent her flying, her feet digging deep grooves into the ground.
“Kuk…”
One of Schweiser’s bad habits was to quantify everything that he saw and heard. And that trait was passed on to her.
She couldn’t help but compare the physical ability of the ‘Sword King’ from her past and the ‘undead’ in front of her right now, and soon, she reached a conclusion.
‘His physical ability should be about double what it was in the past.’
At least.
Since the opponent was an undead, his explosive power was quite oppressive, so in order to obtain more accurate data, she would need to battle him longer.
So far, Anastasia could only be certain about one thing.
Lucid’s physical abilities were far above hers.
Her body moved with a fearsome 1 million ME as fuel. Nevertheless, she hadn’t managed to gain the upper hand a single time in dozens of skirmishes.
Lucid had become an undead, and he’d become much stronger. The limits of his human body had been lifted, which allowed his power output to more than double. In addition, Diablo must have used all of the dark magic in his arsenal to increase his attributes even more.
Paak!
A group of skeletal hands burst out of the ground, trying to grab her feet. Each white hand exuded a fearsome amount of death energy.
With her defences, the hands wouldn’t be able to hurt her, but if her movements were restricted for even a moment, Lucid would be able to take advantage of it.
“Tch.”
Clicking her tongue, she dodged the attack.
This was a problem.
The connection between Diablo and Lucid was close to perfect. Whenever Anastasia tried to grab the initiative by using a magical tool or gem that was attached to her body, Diablo would cleverly dig into the momentary gap.
Because of this, she had never managed to step out of her defensive position since the fight started.
The division of roles between Lucid and Diablo was perfect. In the first place, Diablo was the Necromancer. Since he was the one who created the undead, he was also the one who had the best grasp on his abilities.
On their side, however, the situation was not good.
Papapat!
She hit the hands reaching towards her, turning them into bone powder that stuck to her fists. Anastasia didn’t shake it off, instead, she took a few steps forward. In an instant, the distance between her and Lucid narrowed.
That black armour.
Its defence must be extraordinary, but she couldn’t throw away the first opportunity she’d been given in a long time.
Just as Anastasia extended her fist to probe the extent of her opponent’s defences.
In an instant, her view changed completely. And her outstretched fist futilely hit the air.
“Huh?”
Anastasia let out a soft sound with a bewildered expression.
“Ah.”
Then she heard Iris’ voice. It took a moment for Anastasia, who was standing there blankly, to understand the situation. Iris had teleported her away with space movement.
“You! What are you doing?!”
“A mistake. I didn’t expect you to advance so suddenly there.”
“You, really! It’s not that hard to think while fighting!”
“…”
Iris had a slightly sour expression but she didn’t say anything because it had been her mistake.
Nevertheless, Anastasia was able to close the distance to Lucid once again and punch him in the chest. Lucid’s body was sent flying backward instantly, so it seemed like the attack worked.
‘Hard.’
Anastasia looked down at her fist with a frown.
That punch had enough power in it to flatten steel armour, but it didn’t even scratch Lucid’s armour.
Boom!
Black lightning struck down from the sky.
The lightning landed right where Lucid had just been. From the charred ground around that location, it was clear that it was a fairly strong black spell.
“Why did you hit him away?”
Iris criticised in an irritable voice. As expected, she was the one that had just used the black magic.
Anastasia pouted slightly in response.
“…why didn’t you say something before you used it.”
“If you could hear it then Lucid would be able to hear it too, wouldn’t he? Or would you prefer I go to Diablo and tell him everything I plan?”
“Who said that? I’m just saying that there should be some kind of heads-!! Kuk!”
Anastasia leaped away without finishing her shout. Just as Lucid’s sword swept through the air, cutting a few hairs.
They were horrifically out of tune.
However, this was natural.
Even 4,000 years ago, Iris and Schweiser had always been at each other’s throats. Not only did they get along terribly, they never bothered to try to understand each other very well.
To make matters worse, the way the two fought now was quite different from the way they fought in the past.
Iris didn’t focus on demon summoning or black magic like she had in the past. Instead, she focused more on Lord’s legacy, the authority of space, and the way she fought changed to best utilise that power.
Anastasia, on the other hand, went without saying. Compared to before, her best weapon now was her body, not her knowledge. It was more efficient for her to swing her fists at the front as the combat golem Anastasia, rather than supporting from the rear like the Great Sage Schweiser.
They were unfamiliar with each other’s changed ways of fighting, which, inevitably, caused a rift in their connection.
“Dammit! It would have been easier for me to fight alone!”
“Thanks for saying the words I was just about to say.”
The way they looked at each other was not nice.
If it weren’t for the desperate situation, the things they would have told each other probably wouldn’t be so few.
‘Why did I team up with a woman like this in the past?’ (TL: EXACTLY!)
When she looked at this woman, on which she couldn’t find a single pleasing feature, Anastasia couldn’t help but wonder. But, of course, now wasn’t the time to think about it too deeply.
As time passed, the banter between the two of them began to fade. This wasn’t because they had finally started to properly work together by some miracle.
Instead, it was because their opponents’ offence was becoming sharper.
In other words, even the time to speak was gradually disappearing.
And after 10 minutes,
For the first time since the fight began, the two of them shared the same thought.
‘…This.’
‘Is dangerous.’
They thought that they might die there.
* * *
‘An unexpected opportunity.’
Diablo calmly analysed the current situation and quickly reached a conclusion.
The Black Witch and the Wandering Golem.
Members of the ‘continental powerhouses’ that Diablo kept a close eye on.
Separately, they might not be able to pose as much of a threat as Snow, but they were still a part of the group that he specifically planned to deal with in the future.
Of course, he never expected any of the encounters to be easy. That’s why he only intended to meet them after planning thoroughly.
—When Anastasia appeared, soon followed by Iris.
Diablo immediately made plans to escape at any time. Regardless of if Lucid was there or not, he didn’t think it would be easy to deal with two of the great heroes from 4,000 years ago.
However, soon after the fight started, he lost that thought.
‘These two. Instead, they are reducing each other’s strength.’
It was a situation where they were interfering with each other’s ability to fight at their full strength. This situation usually occurred between those who had a very weak understanding of each other, and whose personalities did not mesh.
It was not something he’d expected to see here. He hadn’t expected the heroes from 4,000 years ago to be so pathetic. But for Diablo, it was a happy little accident. (TL:…I had to)
At first, he had been concerned about hiding his strength in preparation for future encounters.
But in this situation, it would be better to change that strategy.
Now, he planned to bury these two, who were major obstacles to his grand plan, in this place.
‘One thing annoys me…’
There was no sign of the ‘box’ in this city.
But he didn’t think too deeply about it.
Including Anastasia and Iris, who were here. There was no one who could understand the mystery of that box.
As far as Diablo knew, there was only one such being on the entire continent. And of course, ‘she’ was nowhere close to this city.
Shuk-
It was around this time that Lucid cut Anastasia’s arm off.
“Kuk.”
Anastasia’s expression briefly flashed with dismay, but in all honesty, that was not a fatal injury for a golem like her. In fact, Anastasia herself had the regenerative ability to restore a severed limb. The problem was that she didn’t have time to regenerate.
Lucid pressed her harder. Since she’d lost an arm, her defence naturally dropped by half. And before long, Anastasia’s body was covered in countless cuts.
In this situation, Iris was almost useless.
Because of Diablo, her authority of space could not be used in depth. To prevent his interference, she would have to expend a great amount of power.
But she couldn’t do that right now. Iris knew better than anyone just how dangerous the ability to manipulate space was.
If she were to recklessly increase the output or create something so complicated that Diablo couldn’t interfere with it, it was possible for the power to go out of control and she would end up trapped in a dark space, a gap in the dimensions, forever.
‘…just a bit, if I just had a bit of time.’
If she just had a bit of time to experiment, she could get a hint of how to utilise her power in a way that Diablo couldn’t interfere with.
But there wasn’t.
She didn’t know what to do.
Should she take the risk, or should she leave this place first?
Just as Iris was struggling with her decision.
A beam of dark red light suddenly shot from Diablo’s fingers.
“…!”
There was no sound, and even the traces were faint. Iris had not been able to feel any sign of the Absolute Line before it was fired.
‘Fast.’
Iris knew that she would not be able to avoid it with her physical ability. She also couldn’t use the authority of space either.
Left without a choice, she hurriedly created a summoning circle to summon a Demon.
[Kweeek…]
The Demon that came out of the purple summoning circle had the appearance of a giant meatball. It was a low level Demon that could only serve as a meat shield at best. In fact, it was such a low quality monster that it was almost shameful to call it a Demon.
The meatball Demon was somewhat resistant to physical and magical attacks, but it offered absolutely no resistance to the Absolute Line. The dark red beam pierced through the Demon without wasting a second.
In an instant, the red beam appeared in front of Iris’ forehead.
Shuk!
But Iris’ body disappeared.
[…]
Diablo was silent. That wasn’t the authority of space.
That was a spell that moved her to a different place.
[Peran Jun.]
“…”
Peran took a deep breath with a slightly tired expression on his face.
He had only used the Blink spell, but it felt like he had depleted most of his mental power. This was something that most Wizards would feel when trying to use spells close to Diablo.
‘Absolute’, the power that gave complete control within a certain portion of space.
He had used a spell while fighting against that power.
[That really surprised me. To believe you’d be able to defy Absolute and cast a spell.]
Diablo was genuinely amazed. For a moment, he completely forgot about Iris and Anastasia.
[What an awe inspiring talent. No. You seem to have more than just talent.]
“…”
[…initially, I intended to erase this entire city after killing these two, but now I’ve changed my mind. Join me, Peran Jun.]
Peran took a deep breath as he looked at Diablo.
Reaching out a bony hand to him, Diablo continued.
[Let me help you. In 10 years, no, in 5 years, I will help you discover the clues to 9-stars. I will definitely do it.]
“I already turned down your offer once before. Didn’t you hear?”
[I’m still going to make another offer. I’m doing it personally this time because I’m sure you are worth it.]
“…”
There didn’t seem to be any falsehoods in Diablo’s words.
Perhaps this was his last chance, Diablo’s last mercy.
If Peran accepted this offer, it was possible that he really would be able to reach 9-stars in 5 years.
“I refuse.”
Nevertheless, there wasn’t even a hint of hesitation in Peran’s unshakeable voice.
[…I see.]
Diablo slowly lowered his hand with those words.
[Then die.]