The Magic Spear Spectroscopist
A blade surged from the darkness.
Right behind him.
Dr. O'Neil never imagined an assailant was standing close enough to feel their breath. He was simply using his centipede-like arms to snatch up and pore over what looked like an array of complicated academic tomes all at once.
Crunch!
“—!”
The Ghostwhale Bone Blade raced through Dr. O'Neil’s flesh. It drove toward the unmistakable vital point that lay beyond the gaps in the countless fused bodies, limbs, and tumor-like growths clinging to him.
Shiiing!
It connected. The strike slid in with a smoothness so familiar it was chilling. Solomon’s blade instinctively sought the seams—the gaps between flesh, blood, bone, and the countless cellular tissues that made up a living being.
Deeper. Even deeper.
The blade kept racing forward without end. He could feel it. The sensation of tearing through the shell of life and closing in on the core beneath. How deep could he drive it? He didn’t know. He wanted to know.
So Solomon’s blade didn’t stop. It charged, and charged again.
Blood sprayed. The word “spray” wasn’t enough. Even though the bodies had been grafted together, the ones linked to the living O’Neil were not truly dead. They were all still alive, and Solomon had driven his strike straight into that fused mass of corpses.
Blood erupted. No metaphor—fountain, fire hose, none of them could fully capture it.
It was an explosion.
By the time he realized it, the entire underground crypt had been painted crimson, and the floor was flooded with blood deep enough to look like a shallow stream.
Even so, Solomon didn’t stop. He still had his trump card left.
1st-Level Spells — 3 casts (⚀⚀⚀■■)
2nd-Level Spells — 1 cast (⚁■)
He used one of the 1st-level spells.
Shadow Imitation could perfectly copy and mimic the caster’s actions, just as the name suggested.
Even the critical ambush he had just delivered was no exception.
Right after the fatal strike landed, a shadow rose and imitated Solomon’s movement. Even as that shadow copied him and drove in a second critical ambush, Dr. O’Neil still couldn’t react.
Double ambush.
At that point, Solomon’s mind grew colder than ever.
Of course, since it was only copying the same action from a duplicated position, he couldn’t expect the same precision or accuracy in targeting the exact vital point. It simply replicated a strike of equal power.
Besides, Shadow Imitation could only activate one at a time.
At this point, the remaining spell slots were—
Veil of Darkness
Level: 2nd-Level Spell
Attribute: Shadow
Tuning: Enhancement (Lord of the Veil)
Effect: Unfurls a veil of darkness. All attacks by the caster within the area are treated as low-grade ambushes.
Additional: Inside the veil, the caster gains increased defense and evasion. Enemies suffer reduced accuracy.
The core of this spell wasn’t the reduced power of ambushes delivered from within. Its true value lay in the cumulative advantage it created the longer the fight dragged on—lowering enemy accuracy while raising the caster’s evasion.
After thinking it through, he recited the spell.
“Aaaaaaaaagh! It hurts, it hurts so much!”
The sight of Dr. O’Neil screaming and thrashing only confirmed his decision. Even while shrieking in agony, the movements weren’t those of someone dying. If anything, they were the frantic motions of a being desperately clinging to life.
Anyone could see this would have to become a war of attrition.
“Y-you’ve come… you Council bastards…! Disgusting bourgeois scum! Here to shut my mouth…!”
Solomon didn’t answer. He was nothing more than the cleaner of Hotel Snark.
Whoosh!
Within the darkness that had settled over the area, Solomon moved in silence. At some point he had drawn not only the Ghostwhale Bone Blade but also the modified Nightfall automatic crossbow he kept on his quick-load belt.
Click. Clack.
He immediately pushed the multi-shot slider beside the trigger to maximum—
Bang!
The trigger pulled. Ten crossbow bolts fired at once. And these were no random shots. Thanks to the Class-A modifications from Deadlock Workshop, each bolt carried an auto-tracking enchantment.
Like guided missiles adjusting their trajectory toward the target, all ten bolts screamed toward Dr. O’Neil’s body.
At the same time, corrosive poison flowed from the bolts. Solomon didn’t care. He pulled the trigger again. Ten bolts. Ten more. Another ten. A barrage of corrosive bolts unleashed in full-auto multi-shot. They poured down like a hailstorm intent on turning the man into a honeycomb.
Under the one-sided barrage, Dr. O’Neil moved. He charged straight at Solomon. Even with dozens of bolts and corrosive poison lodged in him, even after taking a critical ambush, he charged without hesitation.
The distance closed. Once it did, Dr. O’Neil’s countless centipede-like arms lashed out, trying to seize Solomon and tear him to pieces.
Yet Solomon evaded the strike with ease and circled behind him once more.
Not the modified Nightfall crossbow. The Ghostwhale Bone Blade. He drove it into the man’s back from behind, just like before.
Shiiing!
Every attack delivered inside the Veil of Darkness was treated as an ambush. Strictly speaking, they were the less efficient “low-grade” version. Even so, he didn’t care.
In the end, attacks inside the veil gained the benefits of low-grade ambush plus the damage amplification from both Glass Cannon and Ambush Mastery.
Once again the blade pierced and tore through his flesh. Blood sprayed. Along with the scream, Solomon felt the “life force” inside Dr. O’Neil diminish.
Almost there.
The opponent wasn’t as difficult as expected. Or perhaps Solomon had grown stronger than he realized. Either way, it didn’t matter.
A cleaner simply removed problems. The target before him was a problem that needed to be erased.
I’ll finish him off like this.
Inside the veil, Solomon calmly created distance, retreated, and poured fire from the modified Nightfall crossbow. He chipped away at the man’s life bit by bit, closing in with opportunistic bursts to drive the Ghostwhale Bone Blade into vital points.
Before he knew it, Solomon was completely toying with his opponent.
The Graham body attached to him, Dr. O’Neil himself, the centipede arms—none of it meant anything. The certainty that he held the overwhelming advantage was etched into the tip of his blade. The same feeling came every time he pulled the trigger.
He could sense the man’s life was nearly at its end.
It’ll be over soon.
Calmly, without impatience, Solomon moved with cold precision. The moment he had been waiting for arrived.
The final strike. The chance to drive in the killing blow.
Solomon was not one to miss such an opportunity.
Now…!
The distance closed within the darkness. Solomon adjusted his grip on the hilt. All he had to do was drive the blade down.
The target would die. The request would be completed. It couldn’t have gone more smoothly.
—And that was exactly when it happened.
“γενηθήτω φῶς (Let there be light).”
A voice rang out. By the time he heard it, everything was already over. It wasn’t referring to Solomon’s request. It was referring to magic.
“…!”
The Veil of Darkness was torn away. Blinding light swallowed the entire area, and a flash of brilliance raced forward.
A single flash.
It blocked the exact path between Solomon and Dr. O’Neil—the path Solomon’s blade should have taken.
He could have ignored a mere flash of light and driven the finishing blow home anyway.
But the instant he saw that streak of light racing toward him, instinct screamed at him.
That was no ordinary ray of light.
If it touched him, he would never survive.
Veil of Darkness — Destroyed
What the hell is this—!
In the face of the radiance scattered by that ray, the 2nd-level spell vanished. The veil had literally been shattered.
So he retreated. Dr. O’Neil, who had somehow survived the final strike, was left gasping for breath. But Solomon was no longer looking at Dr. O’Neil. There was no time to pay attention to him.
“Ah, as expected.”
A voice suddenly rang out. There had been no presence at all. By the time he realized it, the speaker was already there.
“I knew you would come.”
It was a gentle male voice.
The man stood at the very passage Solomon had entered through.
What stood out most was the man’s attire. It was neither the expensive suits or casual wear favored by Downtown’s elite, nor any sort of work uniform or coat.
It was an extremely archaic, antiquated… blood-red robe. The moment he saw it, Solomon knew. He couldn’t help but know.
“An Uptown mage…”
“Oh, I’m late with my introduction.”
The blond handsome man in the archaic robe gave a courteous bow as he answered.
“I am one who has been granted the name of the proud Five Great Families, the Arrowhead House… Christoph F. Arrowhead.”
He assumed the proper posture, carrying the unmistakable aristocratic grace and etiquette.
At that name, Solomon could say nothing.
The Five Great Families that ruled this city.
One of those five, Arrowhead.
Solomon’s own blood carried the lineage of the Five Great Families—the blood of the Veil House, the Shadow Binders. But it had only reached the level of “blood that flows.”
The man before him was different. A mage born as an Uptown aristocrat from the Five Great Families, who had received formal education and devoted his entire life to drawing out the talent sleeping in that blood.
So Solomon unconsciously spoke the other name used for one of the Five Great Families—the Arrowhead House.
“The Magic Spear Spectroscopist…”
Veil House, Shadow Binders.
Arrowhead House, Magic Spear Spectroscopists.
His heart sank. The conversation between those necromancers he had overheard earlier flashed through his mind.
That guy, Dr. O’Neil. Never mind him—the corpses fused with him supposedly contain absurd amounts of information in their heads.
Wait… then isn’t this even more dangerous?!
No matter how crazy they are, with a Sword Watch “blade” glaring at them, even the Necropolis Guild wouldn’t move without some kind of countermeasure.
Tsk… I knew it. Bad news.
Just as they had said, there was a countermeasure. No matter how powerful the guild, they had a “backing” strong enough to act against the rulers of Downtown.
The Five Great Families of Uptown. The sovereigns who stood at the very peak of Guild City.
“We have shown the bourgeois of this city a great deal of respect,” said the mage from one of those Five Great Families.
“We believed in the possibilities they showed us, willingly endured their uncultured rudeness, upheld the virtues of nobility, and observed noblesse oblige.”
“…What are you trying to say?”
“The ‘rudeness’ of the bourgeois has crossed the line.”
The aristocrat before him spoke, spitting out contempt toward the word “bourgeois”—a term that, in the world Solomon knew, symbolized the nobility—as if he, a true noble, could no longer bear to watch.
“And well, this is how it turned out. There is no need for you to know any more, nor could you understand it even if you did.”
“…So what are you going to do about it?”
“Hm. Suppose there is an insect crawling across your skin, causing an itch.”
The mage from the Arrowhead House, the Magic Spear Spectroscopist, spoke.
“What would you do?”
“I’d probably catch it carefully so I don’t hurt it and gently toss it out the window.”
Solomon answered.
“Only trash or bugs that actually stick to your body get crushed by hand.”
“Haha, what an amusing joke.”
[Taunt Successful]
The mage laughed. Solomon did not.
The opponent before him was not someone he could possibly defeat in combat. Talking about win rates was meaningless. The very reason Solomon had deliberately chosen his bloodline from the “Five Great Families” was for this exact situation.
Beings whose brilliance did not fade even inside the colorless megacorp buildings filled with steam pipes and gears—entities that needed neither steam nor clockwork. That was exactly what stood before Solomon now.
“What a truly garbage sense of humor.”
It was then that another voice rang out. A familiar stream of venom.
“Jokes that sound like they came from a birdbrain, and the idiot who laughs at them.”
“Oh, I thought you would come.”
“Violet…!”
The Arrowhead mage did not panic. Even with a Special Class Sword Watch blade standing before him in a business suit, he simply shrugged and smiled.
“This is actually perfect.”
“If the trash I need to throw away is gathering on its own, there’s no reason to refuse.”
Violet did not answer.
Srrrng.
She simply drew one of the three swords fixed to her sword belt in silence. At that sight, Solomon did not hesitate either.
His 2nd-level spell slots were completely exhausted. Three 1st-level spells remained. Even so, he silently readjusted his grip on the modified Nightfall crossbow and the Ghostwhale Bone Blade.
The Magic Spear Spectroscopist also assumed a combat stance.
The mana flickering at his fingertips was split and scattered into countless colored wavelengths, as if passing through a spectroscope—