114
Chapter 114
"This time, I will end your insolence with my own hands."
The man right before my eyes.
The First Prince made that declaration to me.
A clear provocation. But I had no reason to care about such things. In this situation, there was only one thing I needed to do.
"Phew..."
A light, deep breath.
At the same time, I circulate my Mana.
No, it's not just Mana that I'm circulating.
The energy of the World Tree. I recklessly send even its life force flowing through my Mana Circuit.
I don't know if this is the right way.
In the first place, there's no way anyone has ever handled something like the World Tree's energy.
It might not mix with Mana, or it could cause side effects. It was truly full of uncertainties.
But that didn't matter.
I never planned to worry about safety from the very beginning.
I circulate it.
There's no need to protect my body.
I could feel my Mana Circuit entering an Overload state, ready to burst at any moment. But I didn't care.
Instead, I accelerated even more.
I don't care if my circuits burst. If even a plucked heart can Regenerate, wouldn't my circuits Regenerate as well?
Since I didn't feel any pain to begin with, there was no need to hold back.
All I need right now is power.
The power to slaughter those bastards.
I kicked off the ground with all my might and threw myself at the First Prince.
A resounding sonic boom.
The surrounding scenery shifted in the blink of an eye.
"......!"
I saw the First Prince's bewildered expression.
Gone was the look of pure confidence in his victory, replaced by a pale, drained face.
Well, in a way, it was only natural.
My mobility had originally been outstanding thanks to my wings.
A speed born from combining my absurd physical abilities with Mana and the power of the World Tree.
Faced with something like that, it would be stranger if he wasn't panicked.
The bastard hastily constructed a Spell Formula.
As expected, his brain works quite well.
While constantly feeding me useless chatter earlier, he must have been secretly constructing a Spell Formula to manipulate causality.
The Spell Formula, which he had kept just one stroke away from completion so it could be used at any time, finally manifested.
Radiating light.
Distorting causality.
The very fact that I had charged at him was incinerated. That was definitely what was supposed to happen...
"T-This is..."
Terror washed over his face.
The Spell Formula had failed to take effect.
Far from stopping, I was accelerating endlessly, flying straight toward him.
The reason was simple.
Fixing a human's actions in place—there was no way such powerful magic could be used without any constraints.
A human's worth.
The weight of their soul. The Mana consumed varied wildly depending on these factors.
I didn't try to absorb the World Tree for nothing.
I possessed a unique soul that didn't belong to this world, had bizarre traits, and was burdened with the role of the Hero.
Could he really bind me when I was infused with the World Tree on top of all that? Especially when he hadn't even fully recovered his Mana?
There was no way.
The bastard gritted his teeth.
Proving he wasn't an Archmage for nothing, he swiftly modified his Spell Formula.
Realizing that manipulating causality wouldn't work, he redirected his Mana to construct a Barrier.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands of Shields barred my path.
It was certainly a solid move. It achieved his goal of defense while minimizing the waste of his Mana.
However, if there was one flaw in his plan...
It was that he was overly wary of me.
Perhaps aiming for maximum efficiency, he had layered the Barriers endlessly only in my direction.
Which meant... he had no way to block Rien's attack as she closed in from behind while I held his attention.
Seeming to realize this, he glanced back and shouted desperately.
"Karl! Protect me right now!"
But there was no way that would work.
The Prince's face was quickly stained with dismay.
A vibrant green, as if a piece of the Great Forest had been transplanted right there.
Flowers and trees blooming in the dry, barren earth devoid of any life.
All of it was binding Karl in place.
He must have let his guard down. He likely assumed the Elves were useless in a fight, and that Karl would rush to his aid at a moment's notice.
But he was wrong.
The Elves united under their Guardian. They had manifested this magic by burning away their very life forces.
Combine that with Lucy's Curse...
Holding back a Sword Master was entirely possible.
Therefore, there was no one left to save him.
...With exactly one exception.
The First Prince gritted his teeth. At that exact moment, a woman leaped out from the shadows.
The Weapon Master.
The Hero's Right-hand Man. A genius permitted to stand beside the individual who could be called the center of the world.
A Shield forged from her Mana.
It flawlessly blocked Rien's desperate, full-powered strike.
The color returned to the pale face of the Prince. It seemed he believed his defense was a perfect success, but...
He couldn't be more mistaken.
I am still right here.
Standing right here without anyone keeping me in check.
Thousands of Barriers?
What does that even matter?
I swing my sword with all my might.
A strike devoid of any logic or technique. But even so...
-Claaang!
The wall blocking my path shatters instantly.
Perhaps he finally sensed it. The bastard broke into a cold sweat and hastily constructed a Spell Formula.
A hastily prepared Spell Formula.
A desperate strike, ready to consume a massive amount of Mana.
Meteor.
I know its power well.
Stars in the sky. A feat of dragging down what should never touch humanity.
A Great Magic that defies the natural order and twists logic itself.
But... I didn't run away.
I close my eyes.
The inscribed Spell Formula. Incredibly complex patterns. It's impossible to understand its meaning.
I never properly learned magic in the first place, so how could I understand the principles of such high-level magic?
However, even so.
I know.
Even if I don't understand it, I know it.
After all, it was something I had seen before.
Great Magic?
What does that even matter?
To the people of this world, it might be a technique they couldn't understand even if they spent their whole lives researching it, something that was nearly impossible to learn in the first place.
I'm different.
Just by tapping a keyboard a few times, I could grasp not only the structure of the Spell Formula but also how to counter it.
I have an overflowing abundance of Mana, and I was close enough to interfere with the caster's position, so there was nothing holding me back.
I constructed a Spell Formula in mid-air.
Reverse Calculation Formula.
The act of dismantling all principles and twisting the Spell Formula itself.
The bastard's face was painted with sheer terror.
But he didn't have time to prepare his next move.
Because there were barely one or two Barriers left.
I swung my sword with everything I had.
A deafening sonic boom echoed through the air.
The Shield the woman had instantly conjured did absorb some of the impact, but...
Even a Shield forged from her Mana couldn't block all of the shockwave.
The First Prince screamed as the overwhelming pain washed over him.
He barely managed to stay on his feet, but blood was dripping from his mouth.
Considering his condition and remaining Mana, it was safe to say he was practically neutralized.
However....
Still, I absolutely couldn't let my guard down yet.
The Prince gritted his teeth and glared at me.
After radiating intense Bloodlust for a while, the Prince smiled.
He spoke with that smile still on his face.
"Fine, if you're going to come at me like that... I suppose I can't afford to be picky about my methods either."
The bizarre restraints attached to the Corpse Puppet. The devices restricting her power output. They all snapped off in an instant.
"Kill him. I don't care if she breaks in the process."
Aria. That was the name she once had.
The woman who had somehow been reduced to the Empire's puppet now stood before me.
Rien looked at me, ready to jump in and support me at any second.
But... I shook my head.
The trump card Balzac had tried to use at the very last moment.
I couldn't confidently say that Karl didn't possess a similar power. Since he was by no means an easy opponent, it was better to keep Rien paired up with him.
And more than anything else....
I had to be the one to fight that bastard.
That was the gut feeling I had.
"...Don't worry."
That was what I told her.
Well, it wasn't like I was saying I would sacrifice myself or take that woman down with me.
Who goes into a fight expecting to lose from the very beginning anyway?
I could win. I had that conviction.
Because I still had plenty of prepared tricks left.
I immediately put on the Communicator. A Magic Engineering Device that would connect me to the key personnel hiding among the Elves.
[...The first attack will come from the right.]
Hayangi's voice came through.
A cheat that read ahead using Future Sight.
With this, I could make up for the difference in our skills to some extent.
On top of that, I had just come up with one more countermeasure.
Surely it would have been better to unleash this kind of force from the start. Yet, the Prince had hesitated to bring out the Corpse Puppet until the very end.
And when we encountered each other last time, she had looked at me with tears in her eyes, begging me to kill her.
I could roughly guess what had happened.
"Aria... can't you recognize me?"
The moment I said that, her pupils trembled.
I didn't miss that opening and charged straight at Aria.
Using a cheat combined with a trauma attack was a bit much, but....
Anyway, it was the beginning of a fair and square fight.