Isn't That Tempting?
Wasn't it tempting?
Metamor was a substance capable of reshaping itself at will. Given the desire, it could become gleaming gold or precious jewels; it could shift from a half-liquid goo even slimier than a slime to a mineral several dozen times harder than diamond.
And precisely because it was so versatile, Metamor was so rare that even angels and demons struggled to get their hands on it.
Pssssss...
And the White Savior was a weapon forged from that rare substance in its entirety.
I felt the weapon's true power for the first time. Metamor's properties reshaped themselves into the optimal configuration to accept my strength. The reshaping itself wasn't difficult — as long as it wasn't in danger of annihilation, Metamor changed its form exactly as its wielder willed. Normally, shifting beyond a fixed frame would be impossible, but having already learned the real thing and its usage in the past, it was no trouble for me at all.
The hammer, brimming with divinity, swelled in size while every single one of its small formations layered divinity upon divinity. The destructive power was on an entirely different level from simply enchanting a weapon with divinity. When I finally rose into the air on Wings of Light, I was able to unleash roughly the power of my fifteenth year.
An absolutely staggering result — a Level 140 World Boss had lost a full 67% of its health to a single blow.
'Pathetic.'
Yet I couldn't help but feel disappointed by such an achievement. The attack I had just delivered was my full strength, minus Sacred Fire. I had pushed Metamor's properties to nearly one hundred percent, drawn my power to its absolute limit, and even activated Wings of Light to amplify every physical attribute and every thread of divinity I possessed. Even allowing for how drastically weakened I was compared to my former self, a weapon and amplification of this caliber should have been enough to kill a lesser angel in a single strike — let alone something that hadn't even reached that rank.
'I couldn't even finish it in one blow.'
And yet I hadn't killed it — not a lesser angel, but a mere monster a shade below that level — and left it an opening.
'Total power output is right around my fifteenth year. What's lacking is the absolute quantity of my body and divinity, then.'
If my peak self had watched that, they would've scoffed — a foam hammer? Really? Honestly, there was a part of me that felt wronged, but it wasn't an unfair assessment.
Folding my Wings of Light with a bitter taste in my mouth, I descended and landed. The pure-white hammer still hummed faintly in my grip.
"The road ahead is long."
Crack-creak-creeeak...!
The monster's body, caved in beyond repair, became coated in ice. Encased entirely in translucent violet ice, soaked in extreme cold, it froze motionless in place.
'Rapid Regeneration.'
One of the secret arts of the Frost Dragon, known as Ice Prison. When a crisis approached, a dragon of the cold attribute would draw all the frost within its body into its heart, then rapidly freeze its own body to enter a state of absolute protection. While in that state, it ignored nearly all damage and spent its remaining time converting its stored cold into flesh, restoring itself.
Ordinarily, a single use of Ice Prison would consume most of a dragon's cold, leaving it weakened — but for the King of Frost Dragons, the story was different.
'It's closer to a complete rebirth, actually.'
Due to the nature of frost dragons, the longer they held their cold, the more powerful that cold became — and the empowered frost would regenerate damaged flesh completely, producing an even stronger body.
And if —
"We have to finish this before Phase 2 begins."
If the Demon King's 'Deep Winter,' which had shaken the cold that had slept for thousands of years — shaken flesh and even soul — were all used to build a brand-new body...
'A subjugation might become outright impossible.'
Time remaining: one hour.
No — fifty minutes now. In that time, we had to whittle down the last 3% of a World Boss's health while it took all damage reduced by 99%. By raw numbers, that was nearly triple its original health.
The original plan had already accounted for the Ice Prison technique, which is why I'd aimed to burst it down in one overwhelming rotation — and I'd failed, falling just short of the mark. Now that the time of Deep Winter had already been invoked, blocking the Ice Prison itself was impossible.
Exactly one option remained.
'Break through the 99% damage reduction.'
Not by mindlessly pounding away with brute force. Even I couldn't shave off a full 300% of health in one hour as I was now.
'Sacred Fire would change the math... but I'll hold that in reserve for now.'
Ice Prison was, in essence, a technique of entering a kind of invulnerability to achieve complete recovery — but invulnerability was still just another ability. Unless one possessed an upper-tier authority of angels or demons that shattered common sense, or a concept bordering on godhood like a unicorn, its absoluteness was bound to have a seam.
"Whoa, what is that."
"Unbelievable."
"What on earth happened, Lily?!"
As I stared at the monster now fully frozen solid, the rankers came hurrying to my side one by one. Most of the snow mountain's extreme cold had been sucked up by the monster, so the mountain itself had actually warmed up — any ranker with even a modest cold resistance could hold out here without much trouble.
"They said it'll get even stronger in an hour... is that true?"
Vlack.
"How did you DO that?! Its wings just spread out and—!"
Leo.
"...Lily? My cut of the loot, though."
"Yena."
And even Yena, who looked thoroughly exhausted. Every key ranker present had gathered.
Once I confirmed everyone was assembled, I spoke.
"Something unexpected did happen... but we have to bring that thing down before it wakes."
"W-wait, we're taking it down?"
"Yes. If it wakes up, it's absolutely unkillable."
The moment it woke, it would become incomparably stronger than it was now. And there was no room for it to stray further from my plan.
It was time to activate Plan B.
"...It's 99% damage reduction, though?"
"Yes."
"Is that even possible?"
Vlack asked in a tone that clearly said that's absurd. No matter that I had shaved 67% of its health in one strike, cutting down nearly 300% more was impossible. As proof — I was already quite worn out.
I shook my head at the murmuring rankers.
"Entirely. Possible."
"But..."
"I'd imagine most of you here already know the method."
The second strategy, planned from the moment the one-hit kill fell through. And I had, in fact, already demonstrated part of it once before.
Just as everyone was lost in thought, a small hand shot up into the air.
"Oh! The golem!"
"Leave it to Leo, of course."
"The golem?"
The one who reacted was Yena. And that reaction spread like a contagion, planting an exclamation mark in everyone's heads.
Yena drew the Green Hermit and let out an awkward laugh.
"Don't tell me... you assigned that homework for this?"
"I didn't fully anticipate it either. But basic principles hold true anywhere, after all."
The homework I had assigned was simple: fill a crystal condensed full of my mana with their own mana. And one of my lectures had covered breaking a golem whose damage reduction sat at around 99%.
Nobody could claim complete success back then, but everyone had grown considerably since that day.
"It's incomparable to back then, but it's more than doable. Ninety-nine percent damage reduction. But if you slip through the gaps and land your hits, that remaining 3% is plenty within reach in fifty minutes."
Besides, it was a scarecrow — it wouldn't move, wouldn't attack, and even the Deep Winter wouldn't be a problem. All the better.
Fwoosh.
I planted the White Savior — shifted into its spear form — into the snow, and settled down on top of Sre. From this point on, I had exactly one job.
"Starting now, we're beginning the attribute lecture I've been putting off."
"...What matters is simply understanding that 'damage reduction' mechanism. What structure it's built on. We're short on time, so don't try to understand all of it — just go with 'ah, so that's roughly how it works!'..."
"...This is hard, Professor."
"It's hard."
"What is she even saying."
The rankers seated in rows before me tilted their heads and laughed awkwardly. Only about three of them had attended my lecture in person, but most of the rest had watched it through my stream. Chances were high that more than a few had even tried to copy it.
Only thirty minutes or so remained, but it was enough.
"It's far more intricate than some golem's mana crystal — but that very intricacy means we can create plenty of variables. What matters is the flow and understanding of mana."
"Hmmmm..."
"Can't you just do it yourself, Lily?"
"I'm a bit worn out. Even if I did it, the effect would be marginal..."
And above all —
"The 'Final Striker' reward. Aren't you tempted?"
Killing a World Boss of that caliber would obviously come with a colossal payout. At my words, everyone's eyes lit up. And some of those burning gazes were already charging toward a dazzling future.
—HRAAAAAAH!!
—Four-Cross Slash!
—Dragon's Ascension Art!
—Seven-Split! Split! Split! AROOO!
Their results were, naturally, marginal — but a few among them stood out.
—Ice-Thunder Divine Art!!
KRAKA-BOOOM!
"That's our Leo."
"Leo really is something else..."
"Leo is the GOAT, obviously."
"H-hnngh..! I'm gonna do it too!"
Watching that fiercely contested arena, I couldn't help but smile softly.
Was this how 'he' had once felt?