Gangs of Rome (10): The Diss Battle
The bold declaration was pure ad-lib, a taunt thrown out to provoke him. Whether it actually landed or not, though, I had no way of knowing. The black mage’s face, still wrapped in the stolen skin of a holy knight, had gone completely expressionless again, making his emotions impossible to read.
When he ripped the face skin away, the leather covering his body lost its transformation magic and reverted to processed human hide. Thud. Thududuk. He stripped off every last piece of armor and clothing, revealing his true, frail, diminutive form clad only in simple undergarments.
Even without the armor, I couldn’t assume his defense had dropped. The lingering numbness in my feet proved that much. There was no way he’d only reinforced his skull and left the rest of his body soft.
I laughed loudly enough for him to hear, openly mocking him. The black mage’s mask-like face twitched with clear displeasure.
That was the fundamental penalty of black magic, something those who wielded darkness and negative mana could never ignore no matter how much they wanted to.
The black mage seemed genuinely pissed. He gathered mana, clearly intending to shut my yapping mouth with the first strike. But I had already noticed and was pulling mana of my own, so we simply ended up in a standoff.
He wiggled his thimble-covered fingers.
While speaking, I took the opening stance for the Blood Hand Demonic Art. That was the end of our diss battle. It had been a mistake from the start for a piece of human garbage who only performed human experiments in his cell to think he could match the verbal savagery I had honed while being tossed about by the world.
The corner of the black mage’s mouth twisted. True to his pathetic nature, he needed a mental victory before he could commit to the real fight. If he simply swallowed the insults, his bloated self-confidence would crumble.
The moment his eyes flashed dark crimson, the corners of the tenth-floor chamber exploded.
─Kuuuung!!
Whether it was a pre-installed magic circle or not, the floor collapsed entirely. The black mage floated in midair and fired a wave of curse straight at me. Purple mana shaped like a skull hurtled forward.
Flames erupted in the shape of blazing wings, incinerating the incoming curse.
I couldn’t fly with those wings alone, but the drop from a single floor wasn’t high enough to kill me. The black mage, confident in his vast mana reserves, remained floating and continued to wiggle his thimble-clad fingers.
─Creeeeak!
“Grooooooo…!!”
At his gesture, the mountain of corpses that had piled up on the ninth floor began to rise. Zombies? For a black mage, it was a disappointingly crude spell.
Then it’s a bluff. I skipped straight past logical reasoning and reached the conclusion instantly.
─Crunch!
I smashed the head of the nearest zombie. No sensation of a soul being grasped. What a shame. If these had been soul-driven undead, they would have ascended with a single touch.
Clicking my tongue, I scanned the upper floors with Odin’s Eye. No intact staircases remained, and I couldn’t detect any hidden mana flows that suggested magic. The zombies are just a stall tactic. The main body is preparing a big move from the air.
Judging from everything I had observed so far, it wouldn’t be a direct black-magic attack. I confirmed that Larilura had taken my spear and was guarding herself, then kicked off the wall.
The black mage sneered as if he had seized the advantage. He clenched both fists, then changed his mind and drew the sword of darkness again. He must not have trusted the martial arts of Matei Rossi after I had crushed them so thoroughly. He sent a cross-shaped slash hurtling toward me mid-jump—the same technique he had used on Hans.
─Whoosh!
I spewed flames midair and dodged like a rocket entering second-stage propulsion. Kicking off the side of the slash itself, I shot upward. Odin’s Eye had told me it was possible. The slash that failed to cut me became my stepping stone instead.
The black mage wore a momentarily stunned expression at my acrobatics, but he quickly recovered and unleashed swordsmanship. The sheer speed and chilling sharpness of his blade marked it as the refined work of a true master, tempered by blood and sweat.
I mocked him again while thrusting out Diablo Jamb.
─Thud!
My kick slammed into his wrist, stopping the attack. His physical strength was noticeably lower than his defensive power.
Using the recoil, I flipped twice in the air, extending the flame sword like the Ruyi Jingu Bang and swinging it wide.
A supreme sword strike that had mastered distance itself, yet it was blocked as easily as if the outcome had been decided from the start.
As expected, I showed neither surprise nor panic. The flame sword transformed into a whip that coiled around the black mage’s arm. A mere 0.3 seconds later, I yanked it with every ounce of my strength.
Screeeeech─!
His levitation magic fought my pull, refusing to let him be dragged forward. Thanks to action-reaction, my own body was the one sucked toward him. To me, that was perfect—as long as I could close the distance, nothing else mattered.
My flaming fist, after displaying a dazzling array of feints, shot toward his nape like a bullet. His eyes flashed.
─Crunch!
His palm clamped shut like an alligator’s jaws, catching my fist. An incredible grip resembling a beast’s maw began piercing through both the flames and mana coating of the Blood Hand Demonic Art. This technique felt completely different from the ones before.
I coated my opposite fist in thick layers of mana and swung again. He caught that too and hoisted me into the air as if performing an execution. The sheer power in my arms left me frozen mid-motion like a paused gymnastics video.
“…Ugh?!”
The black mage seemed to realize what I meant, but since I’m not an idiot, I obviously wouldn’t have spoiled the surprise before the setup was complete. I smirked and injected cardiopulmonary-resuscitation-level mana directly into his palm.
─Thud!!
His previously rock-solid arm turned pitch-black from the palm onward as if death itself had taken hold. It looked like a bruise from being hammered for an entire day. My mana was rampaging through his body, destroying everything in its path.
The moment the damage reached his wrist—roughly 0.3 seconds later—the black mage exploded with dark-red eye light. His forearm swelled to more than twice its original size.
─Squeeeeeeze!!
The strength in our locked hands surged. It was a colossal power that even Beast Regression in Inner Armor mode would struggle to handle. For some reason, the technique made me picture the broad, rugged back of a macho warrior who had trained beneath the freezing northern winds. The man who had originally used this muscle-enhancement art must have been that kind of brute.
I spoke coldly and twisted his hand. The torn wrist ripped apart like wet rags.
─Crack!!
I ripped the severed hand free and hurled it behind me, then drove my knee straight into his solar plexus. Whether he felt pain or not, he didn’t even groan. Still, he could not escape the limits of the human body.
I spun him 360 degrees using the flame whip and slammed him down onto the ninth-floor chamber. Having taken a brutal blow to the solar plexus, he lost control of his levitation magic for that instant and crashed to the floor under the force of my violence.
He slammed his head against the ground and poured mana into the flame whip just as I had. Sensing his mana invading along my own coating, I severed the whip. Of course, I made sure to yank it first, adding even more acceleration to his fall.
When the black mage thrust out his arm, it created the illusion that he was holding a spear. A javelin of purple mana streaked toward my throat. The real spear met it instantly—Larilura’s throw.
─Boom!!
My transformed mithril spear detonated the purple mana. The failed attack made him glance at Larilura for a split second, but deciding he had no time to spare, he refocused on me.
“Hup!”
I kicked through the purple mana. The black mage answered with footwork of his own. Short mana blades rose from his heels as he unleashed flashy, capoeira-like kicks.
I couldn’t dodge them all and was sliced apart—but the moment I was cut, I transformed into flames and poured down on him.
With my vision blocked, there was no reason not to use a feint.
─Crack!
My real body delivered a high-altitude dropkick to the black mage who had struck empty air. The outer skin prevented a fatal blow. His defense was monstrous, like he had mastered some diamond-body technique. I immediately backflipped away. He rose using capoeira movements and created distance.
Sliiiide─!
We skidded across the blood-soaked floor, facing each other once more. How many seconds had passed? Seeing the zombies on the ninth floor still having their heads popped like watermelons, it couldn’t have been more than ten. Of course, the one being beaten one-sidedly was the black mage.
He touched the eye he had protected from my dropkick and muttered.