Chapter 402 - Episode Forty-Eight - The Count (6)
“It seems you were a little too dangerous to be treated as a pawn. But this is the end. You will not be needed in our scenario from here on out.”
James shoots a spherical mass of black mist, Chaos, at me from the magic circle in his hand.
Chaos swells up from the sphere and disperses, heading for me, cutting the ship as it approaches.
It’s not that fast, but the …… nature of the chaos is what makes it troublesome.
The Hydeem Magimetal around me moved automatically to become a shield.
However, the Hydeem Magimetal shield shattered as soon as it touched the Chaos, and the part that had penetrated it disappeared cleanly.
This could not be prevented by just any Hydeem Magimetal.
“Wind, form, blade!”
I set my sights on Chaos and unleash the blade of wind, aiming for James as an extension of it.
However, the wind blade was swallowed by Chaos and easily drowned out.
I was sent flying backwards by the recoil of the magic, hitting my shoulder on the floor.
The normal magic completely suppressed the impact on my side, but this time the magic played with the magic circle to avoid the chaos and left a small amount of recoil.
The chaos dispersed completely where I was, leaving a huge hole in the middle of the ship.
…… How can a substance that can penetrate Hydeem Magimetal be created with such ease?
I’d like to think that his magic must be depleting rapidly, but it’s too dangerous to wait for him to run out of magic when I can’t even see the bottom of him.
From the conversation I had with Count Julem, it seemed that he had more magic power than James, but James was clearly the better sorcerer.
I waved my wand.
A magic circle with horizontal lines appears in James’ hand.
It is a teleportation magic circle.
He was bluffing when he bared his will to fight, and his aim was to escape by teleporting while he threatened to unleash chaos.
The timing was very close, but he succeeded.
The transition requires a preparation time proportional to the distance to connect the space, so no matter how much you play with the magic circle, there is a gap that cannot be closed.
The magic circle was heavily encrypted, and I could only get a rough idea, but the feeling I got from breaking it down just now was that it was almost ready to fire.
It was theoretically one of the fastest.
If it was used more than once, the interruption would fail and he might escape.
I could take the fight to the long haul and ward it with an Ortem, but that would probably be too much for the ship.
“…… Deceiving by talking and then escape, you’ve got some nasty tricks up your sleeve.”
“I didn’t really need to make any more face-to-face contact with you. But it’s amazing how can you match the temperament and timing of the magic power at this distance. I honestly admire it. Even I’m not sure I can crush magic with that level of accuracy.”
James conjures a magic circle, creating another mass of chaos in his hands.
James does not change his position.
I’m sure he’s planning to shoot the unguardable Chaos and find an opening to make an another attempt to teleport.
…… It’s a strategy based on the assumption that as long as I’m on the ship and not floating in the air, I won’t be able to shoot large-scale magic.
Earlier, I had to make an awkward evasive maneuver because of the suddenness, but I had a general idea of what the Chaos’ movement is.
If I let Hydeem Magimetal carry me, I can avoid Chaos without my body hitting the floor.
However, the ship would not last much longer if it was shot repeatedly with magic like that.
Chaos itself disappears quickly, so the ship still retains its shape, but if it is used too many times, the ship will sink first.
…… It’s not easy to prevent, so I have to make my move.
No matter what I do, there is always a gap.
“The next one is even bigger than the last one, how will you handle it?”
Chaos is released from James’ hand.
I rushed two of my Ortems at Jame.
Each of them turns to the left or right to avoid the chaos.
If I’m not careful, it can easily get rid of it if it gets too close to James, and it’s unlikely that I’ll be able to afford to call up a brand-new Ortem while I’m fighting, but I’ll only end up worse off if you think about it.
Before the numbers are reduced, we must do what we can with what we have at hand.
I feel bad about destroying my carved Ortems, but I don’t have time for that right now.
The two jumped in the air and tried to pin James down.
I thought I had hit him, but James’ contour collapsed into a mass of green light that neatly avoided the gap between the totems and quickly regained its original shape.
The two Ortems collided.
James took advantage of the moment when the Ortems stopped and grabbed their heads with his bare hands.
“How unfortunate, right. I’ll take this puppet.”
A magic circle appears in front of James, and the magic circle was painted jet black.
This is the magic that caused the Abel ball to drop into another space and pass away.
It seems that he’s trying to seal it by throwing the Ortem into it.
You can’t guard it, and he can banish things to another space, he really uses a lot of troublesome magic. But, it’s just as planned.
The Hydeem Magimetal around me formed a large arm that grabbed my torso and lifted me up.
But this is just a fake to makes Jame think that I’m trying to avoid the chaos by moving this arm.
While James’ attention was on the Ortem, I was able to prepare for the teleportation magic.
“Carry”
I wrapped up the dispersing chaos and erased it from in front of me with my teleportation magic.
Since the range is so large that it consumes a lot of magic, but It can’t help it, though. However, the return on my magic consumption should be worth it.
“You’re surprising doing something very forceful. You made Chaos move out of the ship ……”
James’ eyes widened as he said that much.
He instantly tried to slam the Ortem into the other space, but it was too late.
The two Ortems rapidly decayed, leaving a fine hole all around and releasing a black haze of chaos.
“Oh no ……!”
James’ figure disappeared in the black haze, his arms were blown off, and his glasses fell to the floor.
“…… Oh, so that’s what that is about.”
James was kneeling there, staring at me.
The majority of his body has collapsed, and you can see that the spirit body is hollow.
The teleportation magic circle must be engraved in the destination as well.
I can compensate for this by teleporting a magic circle to the destination as well, but if I simply transfer a magic circle to James’ side, it will end up being scraped off or some other countermeasure will be taken.
This is the reason why I turned against James with an Ortem that had various formulas carved into it beforehand.
“I don’t like the idea of destroying an engraved Ortem, though.”