Is This How It's Done
“Is this how it's done?”
“Unlike the angels, the demons fight with magic.”
“Your phrasing is off. Both the angels and the demons use magic. Magic is simply the demons' primary strength, nothing more.”
“Isn't that exactly what I said?”
The blue-haired man—the color that symbolized the angelic race—sat atop a colossal boulder crumbling to dust and looked at me.
Resting in his hand was Rupein, the Unceasing Surge—one of the Eight Armaments of the Angels.
When I stared at it, his face twisted into an unpleasant scowl.
“Stare all you want. I'm not giving it to you.”
“Is it not worth your life?”
“That life has already been paid off, halfway at least. What's left isn't nearly enough to cover the rest.”
A price taken for granted. An equivalent exchange.
Everyone here despised the angels, and yet, paradoxically, they all followed the angels' way.
And this way would continue until not a single drop of angel blood remained in my veins.
“The angels will hunt you down like they mean to kill you. Why not hand it over while you still can?”
“If I gave you this, you'd end up like that. I could give it to you, if that's truly what you want.”
The shaft of the spear rotated slowly in his grip.
A tone that said, as if a wretch like you could bear it.
I nodded.
“...Not yet. Not as I am now.”
“Then settle up quickly.”
“Insufferable. This is what comes of Atnas's bloodline…”
Tsk. Clicking his tongue, he rose from the boulder.
“I'm human. My personality and my bloodline have nothing to do with each other.”
“Waste your breath if you like. See if you can block this first.”
A strange wail tore out of Rupein in his hand.
Then came the crashing tide of enormous demonic power.
That divinity—or rather, that utterly alien mana—was violent and impossibly heavy.
“You should be thankful I'm not a demon.”
Whatever I could imagine,
the magic of the demons surpassed it.
A wave of black mana came crashing down.
My opponent was a Grand Magic Swordsman wielding a black greatsword.
He looked like a warrior with a greatsword, but he was closer to a mage.
A body that carried mana, mastery over its flow, the ability to infuse that mana into a greatsword and bend it to his will at a thought—
Skilled enough to be called a battlemage rather than a swordsman.
Yes, perhaps even like my past self.
Which was exactly what made him easier to fight.
'No magic can offset another's—unless it is the magic of the demons themselves.'
The wind of spirits settled into my green spear.
In an instant, that spirit wind whipped through the duel arena and began to carve its way through the heavy tide of mana.
Grrrrk…
But this was no ranker for nothing—even mana that wasn't an attack, mana simply hanging in the air, carried real weight.
To push forward, I would need another move.
'Spear's Roar.'
A technique said to have been born in the distant past, when one of the ancient angels witnessed a dragon's breath and drew inspiration from it.
To the ancient angels it would have been a throwaway trick, something tossed off in an idle moment—but its worth was proven the day it shredded the Dragon Lord of that era in a single exchange.
“...!!”
The storm of the spear tore the black mana apart.
With a draining sensation, as if the very mana were being ripped from his body by force, the storm's blade raked across Vlack's left flank and right shoulder.
Vlack scrambled backward away from the sudden strike.
I didn't let that opening slip. I loosed the spear.
No—I didn't loose it.
It merely looked that fast. Before the surging spear could pierce Vlack's heart—
“Drake!”
In an instant, the greatsword sharpened into jagged teeth and intercepted the spearhead.
GRAAAAAK!!!
A contest of strength began, and Vlack's feet slid steadily toward the edge of the barrier.
Gritting his teeth, he shoved my spear away, and the true clash of spear and greatsword began.
KA-KANG!
In a duel of reach, the spear holds the advantage.
Of course, matchups can shift entirely depending on the fighters—but Vlack and I were both masters in our own right.
Realizing this couldn't go on, Vlack retreated once more, then swung his greatsword up once, and down once.
Whuum— Whuum— The cry of a blade from every direction.
'A skill?'
On reflex, I batted away the incoming sword auras.
There wasn't just one.
I deflected the trailing auras as they crashed into each other and surged skyward.
Several enormous greatswords bore down on me.
Similar to the magic swordsman I'd faced in ranked matches before, yet entirely different.
A different dimension altogether.
'A ranker, through and through.'
Just as I'd expected, rankers possessed abilities far beyond what people imagined.
A faint smile played at the corner of Vlack's mouth.
He was thinking that an assault of this caliber would at least land a solid blow, even if it couldn't incapacitate me.
I leveled the spear, twisted it, and spun it in a full circle.
In that instant, the flow of mana shattered, and the sword auras' mana scattered. The scattered mana recombined and collided with my spearhead.
For a breath, I was shoved backward through the air by the sheer heaviness of it. No real damage—but a few small wounds nonetheless.
At the same time, I moved the spear in two rapid, slicing arcs.
Wind-blades shot forth.
Trailing dark-red mana, Vlack clicked his tongue and simply took the spear-blades head-on as he advanced.
He was a magic swordsman, but with the body and armor of a warrior, the blows barely fazed him.
“My apologies, Lady Lily!”
Meanwhile, his black greatsword was turning red—his ultimate, it seemed, at the ready.
In an instant, part of the plaza of Runos, duel arena and all, was dyed black, and a black moon rose into the sky.
A manifestation technique that temporarily summoned something into being.
Empowered by the black moon's energy, the greatsword swelled to an enormous size.
The teeth grew sharper and sharper, and the greatsword—wailing a cry stranger than before—unleashed its final blow.
From the commentator's booth, which I'd been tuning out to focus, a voice shrieked through: Is that Moon Cleaver?!
'Moon Cleaver, is it.'
A magnificent name.
It wasn't a true moon, but an attack that cleaved one came pouring down regardless.
Even I, as I stood now, wouldn't come through that unscathed.
That was how ferocious Vlack's assault had been—and indeed, I'd already taken my share of shallow cuts.
I twisted the spear once more.
The dark mana I had already adapted to began flowing quietly up through my hand.
The current of mana, small and silent at first, roughened until it was visibly, unmistakably alien.
A crack split open across the darkened duel arena.
Through the crack, something blue shimmered.
Crack—!
Moon Cleaver, rigidly bound by the system's predefined skill structure, shattered under the outside interference.
The broken mana did not return to its master. It found a new one.
The green spear turned black. A spear laden with such monstrous mana that even I could feel its weight.
Fitting, for a ranker's technique.
Staring at the blackened spear, Vlack muttered in sheer disbelief.
“Even that…?”
“Is this how it's done?”
The spear drew a single line across the world.
'Moon Cleaver.'
The black spear cleaved the moon. It cleaved Vlack. It cleaved everything.
“Whoa.”
“...Whoa?”
—...What am I even looking at right now?
—Is it over? Did it end?
A match that left everyone with nothing to do but hang their mouths open.
The exchange had begun with Vlack's Dark Field.
Infusing his greatsword with mana and swinging it to carve out a battlefield tailored to himself.
And then Lily had counterattacked, punching straight through that Dark Field and planting her own domain inside it.
The exchanges had carried on like that, and then…
—...Did she just copy Moon Cleaver?
The ultimate skill of the Grand Magic Swordsman's 3rd Advancement—a hidden class.
She had neutralized Moon Cleaver… and then hurled it right back at him.
Not with a skill. With raw, unaided skill of her own.
And she had realized it not with a greatsword, but with a spear.
The chat window was in total chaos—and so was the plaza, and the players watching the match, and even the commentators charged with calling every second of it.
With everyone mired in confusion, the caster finally managed to open his mouth.
—...The winner is Lily. Even for us, this is a first, and frankly we're stunned.
—As f~ar as I know, Lily is exceptionally proficient with all the new features recently added to DOEN. That may well have played a part here…
—Regardless, her choice of attacks, her defense, and the way she traded blows—every phase of that exchange was truly professional caliber.
—Indeed. And the way she neutralized Vlack's Multi Blade in its entirety was simply remarkabl—
Amid everyone's astonishment, Chukachip, who had been quietly watching the whole scene, turned away with an air of lost interest and slipped out of the plaza.
“...That lunatic.”
Signing her almost wrecked me.