Chapter 35
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 35
Chapter Title: 9. Companion
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Eldric tried to crush me under his full weight, but it was no use.
The massive sword didn't budge an inch, shoved back futilely.
“Grh, urgh...!!”
“I told you, I've gotten stronger.”
It was the result of offering up the body's lifespan and the city's populace.
In terms of instantaneous output alone, it surpassed Silverlane von Stella's body.
'Of course, my endurance is low. Full power lasts barely six minutes at most. After that, the body starts to collapse.'
But that wasn't a problem.
'Six minutes is more than enough time to flatten them.'
It was plenty for another me to burrow into the barrier.
The moment I took a single step forward, Isode—who'd been standing at my side—was blasted backward.
Isode's body only came to a stop after smashing through dozens more walls.
“Krgh...!!”
Isode, embedded in the wall, vomited up a gush of blood.
As the great scythe lodged in his shoulder was yanked free, his wound began regenerating.
“Why the sluggish reaction? Didn't you foresee this?”
I turned my head toward the source of the gaze I felt upon me.
It felt like my eyes met those of the Saintess watching this place.
“You'll need to put in more effort, Ersella.”
“Wha— that voice...!!”
Regivis's body flickered, materializing right in front of me.
The tip of his thrusting spear descended faster than sound, a sonic boom erupting from its superhuman edge.
Boom boom boom boom!!
Countless shockwaves rippled outward like waves.
Amid the sword auras pounding the empty air like drumbeats, a chill blade stabbed toward my spleen.
No flash, no sound.
Four blades targeted my limbs, erasing their trajectories and leaping through space to aim for my neck.
I saw it all—the moment I thought it, they reached my throat.
“Die!!”
“Die, you monster...!!”
All of them.
'Deflect.'
I tilted my sword sideways, tracing a figure-eight with the flat of the blade.
Screeeeech!
I deflected the onslaught, guided it, collided it to cancel the impacts.
In the instant golden ripples spread out, shoving the knight commanders back—
Splash!!
One of the chanting mages clutched his throat and collapsed.
“One mage down, for starters.”
At the heart of the labyrinth.
Ersella watched the battle from amid the clustered mages.
Her foresight never paused for even an instant.
Whether her eyes were shut or open, images flickered ceaselessly, blurring the line between reality and illusion.
—Scorching sand. A mirage. The face of another reflected in an oasis.
All vague images. Yet clear answers lay within them.
Ersella swiftly pieced them together and relayed instructions to the four knight commanders.
『2.3 seconds from now, right at 3 o'clock—spear to the chest underside, sword to the left shoulder. Magic circle from beneath his feet.』
The orders transmitted in an instant, and the commanders moved precisely as instructed.
A flawless combined assault. Angles and timing no human could dodge or block.
But he countered every single attack.
Just before the blades grazed him, he made minute adjustments to his stance, redirecting their force.
Just before the magic detonated, he disrupted its ripples, scattering them elsewhere.
『11 seconds from now, five steps forward in place—cross attack from both sides simultaneously. Magic dispersed above and below.』
Yet he deflected this one too.
He slipped his body through the gap where sword and spear crossed, riding the magic's waves on his back as he slid free.
『8 seconds from now, 17 targets. Half-step forward. Lateral shift, then...』
Foresight. Foresight. Foresight again.
She foresaw the future down to the second, interpreting it all in less than a second.
Her brain began to overload bit by bit, blood seeping from Ersella's eyes and nose.
‘Don't stop. That man has to die here.’
The futures her foresight showed were accurate.
Ersella precisely predicted the man's movements, directing attacks into the gaps they created.
But nothing landed.
What was the reason? Ersella already knew.
‘Overwhelming technique.’
The pinnacle of the unconscious, distilled from countless experiences.
The battle demon's unfeigned truth, forged through decades—centuries—of life-and-death struggles.
That was what endured their combined assault.
‘Push harder. At this rate, we'll reach him.’
Ersella's left eye burst.
Her body, unable to withstand the ability, began crumbling.
A pre-positioned candidate drew a dagger and plunged it into her own throat.
“For the Empire.”
The candidate perished without a single cry.
Her corpse melted into the floor as a shadow.
The human sacrifice complete, the Saintess's body began regenerating.
The burst eye regrew rapidly, her swiftly aging skin regaining its vigor.
No time for bows or thanks.
Ersella resumed her foresight.
For one future alone. To slay the fallen monster.
How much time had passed?
A single moment that warped her sense of time flowed by, and with more than four candidates dead—
‘The tide is turning.’
A dark shadow fell over Ersella's foresight.
She saw the man's life force draining from his body.
His mana depleting, regeneration slowing, gaps opening in his movements.
『While deflecting the ultra magic, simultaneous strike from targets 3, 11, and 16. Seize his rear and thrust from 7 o'clock.』
In that instant, the future was sealed.
The man collapsing.
Chest pierced, neck severed, mana fading away.
Ersella's pupils dilated.
‘We’ve got him...!’
But the next moment, foresight intruded coldly once more.
Her own neck being severed.
A pillar of the sanctuary crumbling.
“...What?”
The foresight contradicted itself.
That man's death had just been confirmed—why was she seeing her own?
Ersella's mind raced.
Foresight never lied.
Contradictory futures meant two timelines coexisted.
‘Another assassin? No, that’s not it.’
Ersella arrived at one possibility.
The reason her foresight's lens was in chaos, the future splitting in two.
It was—
‘—Not the man fighting right in front of her.’
That man wasn’t the being who leaped through eternity by swapping bodies.
'But that’s impossible.'
His combat style, the techniques on display, his movements.
All matched exactly what he’d shown during the Great War.
Replicating them so perfectly was virtually impossible.
Unless it was a human with the exact same personality, values, and sense of self...
‘Wait... exactly the same...?’
A human with perfectly identical personality and self.
‘Which means the man here right now is...’
A dummy with copied memories and ego.
'Separate from that man—'
The voice came from beyond the screen.
The man fixed his gaze on the observation spell projecting the battlefield.
Transcending time and space, their eyes met.
“...!!”
The man's limbs were severed, his heart and neck pierced.
A perfect match for her foresight's conclusion.
But as if it meant nothing, the man continued calmly.
The man smiled.
With that, the man's gaze shifted away from Ersella.
“Took a detour, but this is a pretty cozy spot.”
The voice came from directly behind Ersella.
“...!!”
Ersella whipped her head around.
“When the hell—?!”
A man sat there.
The mages and candidates lay scattered unconscious on the floor, long since knocked out.
While Ersella and the other mages had all their attention on the dummy, he'd pierced their magic and barriers to reach the center.
“Hiding in an intentionally sealed space was a solid strategy. Leaving no openings for me to infiltrate, factoring in my abilities—it was pretty good.”
Black hair. A blurry face, features indistinct.
The man looked exactly as he had the last time Ersella had laid eyes on him.
“But you know, there's no way I'd fall to magic that I developed.”
Ersella had concealed herself in a deliberately closed-off space, wary of ambushes and Body Hijacking.
She'd constructed a pseudo-extradimensional realm akin to those of the warriors.
The space reshuffled every minute, forming a labyrinth impossible to breach.
But the fact that it had been breached meant one thing.
“A backdoor...?”
But a counterargument followed swiftly.
Ersella hadn't overlooked that possibility.
Her opponent was a monster who'd lived for centuries.
Not just a swordsman, but a pioneer who'd opened new horizons in magic, or so the tales went.
That was why she'd avoided using spells tied to his myriad aliases...
“The world's a farce. Back in our day, you never had more than six grand mages per era.”
Mana bloomed over the man's hand. Cubic shapes swam through the air.
“And now? Over ten grand mages. Isn't that a little ridiculous?”
“...”
“But I get it. The era we lived in was one of constant strife. Things had to be different.”
The man pulled a chair from a subspace and straddled it.
“It's been a while, Ersella. Looks like you've been doing well.”