Chapter 169: But the Bus Flipped (3)
Chapter 169: But the Bus Flipped (3)
Sawtooth Claw Sophia.
If the "Vomiting Edmerec" I defeated before had risen to the rank of Archbishop through a specialized Authority, Sophia was his polar opposite.
She had been granted only the most common Authorities related to necromancy and curses found among the followers of Narrow-minded Usurpation.
However, she had honed those basic Authorities to their absolute limit, eventually clawing her way up to the position of Archbishop.
She was the type who was ordinary but lacked the glaring weaknesses that Edmerec possessed.
Well… she didn't have any obvious weaknesses, but like any boss, she certainly had them.
A horde of undead let out a collective shriek and charged toward us.
I raised my staff toward the half-rotted ears and tail of the beastkin ghoul leading the pack.
"Everyone, prepare for battle."
No matter what the plan was, the first step was to send a distress signal to Iris.
So for now, let’s focus on taking down Sophia.
It would be difficult on my own, but with Carla and Elisha by my side, it was more than possible.
"The plan is basically the same as last time. I’ll handle as many undead as I can, so Elisha, you protect Carla. And Carla… you know what to do, right?"
"Don't you worry about this side. After all, the only ones allowed to lay a hand on Carla are you and me."
"Not you! Only Master is allowed! …I’ll give it my all, so please hold out somehow, Master."
I nodded at their reliable responses and began to draw up my mana.
Wrooooom—
Red and green magic circles manifested in the air, merging and rapidly filling with complex, eerie runes.
Most mages would be rooted to the spot while casting with such full power, but I had the System Correction.
While my mouth chanted the incantations at a frantic pace, my hands were busy pulling out various potions and splashing them around.
An Assimilation Potion to dull the undead's reactions, a Mind Defense Potion to reinforce our mental barriers, a Continuous Antidote Potion to neutralize poison for a set duration, and several others….
If it looked even remotely helpful, I pulled it out.
Perhaps I looked defenseless doing so.
The ghouls, who had closed the distance until their claws were only a few steps away, lunged at me simultaneously.
Their claws were tattered and rotting, mostly bare bone. One might wonder how deep such things could even cut, but….
The real danger wasn't the claws themselves; it was the tar-like black liquid dripping from them.
A ghoul’s corpse poison was a lethal toxin that caused extreme pain and necrosis with even the slightest contact.
Of course, that only mattered if they actually hit me.
"Burn. Rage. Become the herald of my fury. …Tempest Burn!"
Of all the spells I could cast, this one covered the widest area with the greatest destructive power.
Fwoosh!
A firestorm erupted from the overlapping magic circles, incinerating the charging ghouls instantly.
"Kreeeeeeek!!!"
One creature shrieked, still trying to reach out even as it burned. However, this magic was a combination of the fire and wind elements.
It didn't just boast high temperatures; it possessed a significant amount of stopping power.
At the very least, it wasn't something that could be resisted by burning, melting muscles.
The fiercely blazing corpses staggered within the storm before collapsing and rolling across the ground.
Since the spell fired in a radial pattern, a few ghouls on the fringes managed to slip past and lunge at me.
"Gale Tornado!"
But they were promptly blown back into the inferno by Elisha’s swift magic.
Their already soft flesh burned and peeled away, leaving only white bones that began to clatter and rattle.
They were likely beastkin who had once lived in Kundal Port.
Brainwashed by Magic Eyes while alive, and resurrected as undead after death to serve Narrow-minded Usurpation.
Born to die, and even after death, never having lived a moment for themselves—thinking about it made my heart feel a bit heavy, but….
That was that, and I had a job to finish.
Now that they were undead, they wouldn't find peace with just this. At most, a ghoul had simply become a skeleton.
I prepared my next spell before the duration of Tempest Burn expired.
"Be hard, and be heavy. Become the hammer of the earth. Rock Throw!"
Perhaps because the person who first named it was a Dwarf, the spell's name was rather blunt.
But its power was undeniable.
Rumble—
With a heavy sound, a boulder the size of an adult man appeared out of thin air.
As I lowered my raised staff, the rock plummeted into the midst of the flailing beastkin ghouls.
K-BOOM!!
The impact vibrated through the soles of my feet as the struggling bones were pulverized.
I wasn't done yet.
"Invisible hand! Force Grab!"
Using telekinesis, I shoved the boulder that had partially embedded itself in the ground.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
The massive stone went rolling with a thunderous racket.
The undead in its path tried to throw themselves aside, but being naturally sluggish, they couldn't dodge in time.
Watching the skeletons get crushed helplessly under the rolling stone was incredibly cathartic.
…Though I had only managed to dismantle the vanguard.
In the distance, I could see a massive army of the dead. To think there were this many, even though this was only a fraction of the force that had been heading toward Iona.
I let out a deep sigh and gathered mana for the next spell.
Stepping over the piles of scattered bones, the next wave of skeletons marched forward in lockstep.
As if the previous charge had just been a probe, they organized themselves into an orderly formation that was far from ordinary.
Skeletons with shields and spears took the front, while those with bows took the rear.
Seeing the blue flames flickering behind their empty eye sockets sent a chill down my spine.
This was what undead were supposed to be. This was why Narrow-minded Usurpation was terrifying.
Individually, they were nothing special, but they gathered those nobodies in droves to organize an army.
Though I couldn't see them from here, the Fishermen coming up from the shore were likely the same.
As I swallowed hard, I locked eyes with an old woman standing amidst the skeletal horde, gnawing on her fingernails.
Had her curse finally been completed? Matching the march of the undead, Sophia pointed a crooked fingertip at me.
Normally, while I was struggling against the curse, the undead would have swarmed me and torn me into neat little pieces.
…It was a very familiar pattern, so I knew it well.
Sawtooth Claw Sophia was someone who had reached the rank of Archbishop by mastering the basics.
Therefore, she had no specific weakness. But conversely, that meant every moment could be a weakness.
Being faithful to the basics also meant being easy to predict.
Those who had faced Sophia until now likely perished because they couldn't counter her even though they knew what was coming… but I was different.
A solid combat style with no openings?
Then what did that make me, someone who had defeated Sophia hundreds of times in the game?
I could guarantee that I was better at handling "textbook" plays than anyone else in this world. Of course I was. Just how many hours had I put into H&A?
Counting 2.5 seconds in my head, I fired the mana I had gathered at the perfect moment.
Whoosh!
Pure mana, unrefined by magic, flew forward, emitting a blue glow.
It felt like a shooting star falling from a low height. But that didn't last long.
The mana drifting through the air suddenly turned black, then disintegrated into dust and vanished.
The curse Sophia had fired had collided with the mana and reacted.
Yes. Whenever she faced a mage, she always started with a curse that reacted to mana.
If it had hit me, I would have had major issues using magic.
If it had hit me, that is.
I smirked at the bewildered Sophia and recited the activation word for the spell I had been preparing.
"O Light. Become my strength."
Several spheres of light manifested near my staff.
Perhaps because I had fired off a burst of mana while preparing the spell, their momentum seemed a bit weak.
Of course, that was easily fixed by pouring more mana into them. The mana stored in my Core was still plenty.
Wrooooom—
The light orbs greedily devoured the mana, instantly ballooning in size.
Sophia bit her nails again, looking flustered as the clusters of light grew to the size of my head.
Too late. The only curses she could fire off now were instant-cast ones with weak effects.
Those could be blocked by the potions I had splashed around earlier.
Though I had already cleared one wave, I whispered toward the undead who had gathered even more densely than before.
"Light Bullet."
Screeeee—!
The mass of light fired from the tip of my staff slammed into the front-line shields and exploded.
BANG!!
The bone shields held out in front were instantly shattered, and the orderly skeletal formation collapsed in a heartbeat.
—Graaaaa.
—Clack… clack!
—Gueeeeek.
The result was far too powerful for a low-grade spell, especially a light-attribute one which usually lacked physical force.
But it was only natural.
It was a light-attribute spell—the weakness of the undead. Furthermore, it was a Light Bullet saturated with my mana.
On top of that, the Apostle of the Sun God trait and the Cultist Hatred trait combined to massively amplify the final damage.
Even if it wasn't enough to kill them in one hit like Tempest Burn, it was more than enough to topple the front line.
Their dense formation, likely intended to increase their breakthrough power, had backfired.
As the front row fell, the skeletons in the back rows began to trip over them.
The moment about a third of the skeletons were left vulnerable—
"…This is the light that no veil can hide, the flame that burns eternally. None shall dare resist!"
Carla’s magic was complete.
"Prominence Flare!"
The marvel of magic Carla had first shown me.
The single strike I had tried to emulate by creating the spell Tempest Burn was being reenacted.
Fwoosh—
A small ember floating in the air rapidly expanded.
The overwhelming heat and brilliance were enough to blind.
It looked as if the entire sky was on fire.
A terrified Sophia frantically poured the curses she had been aiming at me toward Carla’s magic instead.
Well… not that it would work.
There was a reason the Lindelheit family was called a prestigious magic house.
It was because the bloodline itself was powerful.
Sophia’s Authority of curses built up over a lifetime?
It simply melted away helplessly before Carla’s amplified mana.
"?????!"
As Sophia screamed something in the distance, a miniature sun plummeted onto the undead who were just starting to stand back up.
K-BOOOOOOOOM!!
My vision flickered. My ears went numb. And despite knowing the heat wouldn't harm me, I couldn't help but flinch.
My vision, which had gone black for a moment from the intense light, slowly began to recover.
The scene revealed was truly horrific.
A crater as large as the undead army that had filled my field of vision.
All that remained inside were embers popping and crackling from the residual heat, and a small white lump huddled in the corner.
It looked like bones intricately intertwined and melted together.
Was that last-ditch effort a command to protect her?
"Haa… haa… whew…."
Carla, seemingly completely exhausted this time, collapsed and couldn't easily get back up.
While Elisha was busy feeding Carla a mana potion—
Zip!
A bone fragment fired from the white sphere where Sophia was hidden flew in like a bullet, aiming for Carla.
Of course, I remembered this obvious desperation pattern perfectly.
"Hup!"
I gritted my teeth and leaped in front of Carla and Elisha.
Clang-clang-clatter!
With the sound of something shattering repeatedly, the remains of magical tools tumbled from my coat.
The power was enough to pierce through the shields I had cast in advance and several defensive magical tools.
I had died more than once by letting my guard down and not knowing about this.
Thud.
Stepping on the bone fragment that had lost all its momentum and fallen to the ground, I pulled my lips into a smirk.
"If you receive something, you should give something back."
Since I had prepared in advance, I was able to throw the Shining Lion Dagger in one fluid, seamless motion.
Screeeee—!
The gap created when Sophia fired the bone fragment.
Sophia hurriedly rotated the sphere surrounding her to block the dagger aimed precisely at that opening.
The gap moved to the side as the sphere spun half a turn.
It didn't matter. Being "textbook" also meant making the same choice in any given situation.
I had expected this much.
"Force Grab…!"
The moment I threw the dagger, I cast the telekinesis spell I had prepared.
As I swung my arm wide, the dagger’s trajectory snapped into an L-shape.
Then, as I swung my arm back the other way—
Swish… thwack!
With the sound of cutting wind, the dagger curved in an impossible direction and plunged into the hole Sophia had moved.
The trajectory was so natural that an onlooker might have thought the dagger was being sucked in.
Even Sophia couldn't react to this; I felt the sensation of something being pierced through the telekinetic link.
A moment of silence. Then, light erupted from within the hole.
Before long, the sphere protecting Sophia shattered, turning back into ordinary bone.
In the center lay the corpse of the old woman, her forehead pierced, dead instantly.
No matter how skilled Sophia was at manipulating the undead, she wasn't at the level where she could resurrect herself after death.
"Whew…."
I let out a long sigh and flicked my wrist.
Catching the dagger as it returned to me with the help of Force Grab, I looked up at the sky.
The stagnant five-colored smoke slowly drifted upward before vanishing with a faint glow.
With this, it’s over….
THOOOOM!!
"What the…?"
I was about to breathe a sigh of relief when a shockwave shook the earth, making me instinctively turn around.
There, I saw a massive thicket of blood-red brambles hardening like stone and crumbling away.
"Ah."
Seeing Iona’s figure stumbling as she fell from the collapsing thicket, I knew.
The battle with Sophia had taken too long.
At this rate… Iona wouldn't be able to hold out until reinforcements arrived.
Crunch.
Blood trickled from my bitten lip.
Blood as crimson as that falling hair.