Chapter 93
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 93
Chapter Title: The Last Card
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The pitch-black sky began to weep. A wind blowing toward the central district shook the boy's dust-covered robe.
A quiet rage dwelled in the boy's blue eyes, and he was ready to unleash it at any moment.
The boy slowly stepped into the deep crater. The monster at its center watched the approaching boy with a cold glare.
“Bud.”
With each step the boy took, the blackened clouds churned ominously. They seemed poised to rain down divine punishment at his command.
“Water Vapor.”
An inscrutable smile began to form on the Overlord's face as he looked up at the boy. He was ready to unleash the full breadth of his combat experience, honed over thirty years.
“Cumulonimbus and Monsoon.”
A deep shadow cast by the storm clouds fell over the boy's face, which was set as hard as ice.
A vast energy began to coalesce in the deepest part of the boy's body. One moment, it was like an active volcano about to erupt with lava; the next, it changed shape, becoming as calm as a tranquil pond.
“Blooming.”
The boy whispered the magic.
A faint bolt of lightning rode the air, tickling the Overlord's ear.
The sky had yet to make a sound. Even the colossal lightning that usually struck whenever the boy used Blooming remained silent this time.
“……”
There was no sound, no light, no explosion.
Aside from the occasional spark erupting from the boy's body, nothing in the world had changed.
A chill ran down the Overlord's spine.
If a clumsy and unskilled opponent were standing before the boy now, they might have hastily concluded that his magic had failed.
But Maltiel was no such fool.
“...Ha!”
A cold sweat began to break out on Maltiel's body.
Fear surged within him, and at the same time, a courage of equal measure blossomed in his chest.
He was a monster who had battled the Sword Saint time and again, but never before had his fighting spirit burned this intensely.
“How amusing. To think this is the same brat who was so clumsy and inept just two or three months ago.”
Maltiel did not see the boy before him as ‘prey.’ He didn't even consider him an inferior foe, or for that matter, an equal.
The Overlord, who had ravaged battlefields for thirty years and claimed the lives of tens of millions, wanted to ‘challenge’ the boy before him.
That was the pure emotion that had bloomed in the Overlord's heart at this moment.
“Shut up.”
With the boy's single word, a small bolt of lightning shot through the air, aiming for Maltiel's head.
The Overlord dodged the lightning with an agile movement, ducking his upper body, but a stray tendril grazed his face.
His skin burned and his flesh ruptured. Blackened teeth showed through the hole in his cheek, and foul blood began to drip down.
As the boy's current touched him, Maltiel felt a shudder rack his entire body.
There was ‘something’ in the boy's lightning that set it apart from that of ordinary electromancers. It could have been overwhelming talent, or perhaps the fury of losing his subordinate.
Whatever it was, it was certainly something Maltiel had never experienced in his past thirty years.
“...It's a good thing this can be stopped at this stage.”
Beneath the silent sky, Maltiel's hollow laughter echoed softly.
Nothing was swayed by Maltiel's laughter.
Not the boy, not the orc with the broken leg, not even the storm clouds heavy with lightning—all merely stared grimly at the Overlord's crazed laughter.
“Stop? Who’s stopping? I'm just getting started.”
In contrast, all of creation seemed to resonate with the boy's rage. The cumulonimbus clouds blanketing the sky, the mounds of earth below, and even the solid bedrock hidden beneath all displayed a raw, silent fury.
“You would have become a far more troublesome foe than that fool, the Sword Saint. You have resolve.”
For a moment, the unpleasant smile vanished from Maltiel's face.
A gust of wind, like a storm, brushed past the boy's cheek.
BOOM!
A belated roar echoed in all directions.
The boy didn't even realize Maltiel had disappeared. Even as a black fist stopped right before his eyes, the boy had failed to track its movement.
THUD!
The fist Maltiel had thrown had been stopped by the ‘Spirit's Protection.’ The heavy vibration from the impact of fist against barrier shook the surrounding air.
‘It looks like a perfect defensive spell on the surface. But…’
“There's no such thing as a perfect spell, is there?”
Maltiel lightly pulled back the fist that had struck the barrier. Immediately, the thin, faint barrier enveloping the boy's body dissipated like mist.
“...!”
Only after the barrier vanished did the white-haired boy realize that Maltiel was right in front of him.
“Discharge.”
The moment he realized Maltiel was before him, the boy gathered a massive amount of electrical current and detonated it from his fingertips.
Caught in the blast, Maltiel was thrown hundreds of meters away, his left arm and leg instantly turning to ash and disappearing.
Using ‘Blooming’ didn't enhance the boy's physical abilities. His reflexes and perception were still below average.
The boy lacked the ability to react to his opponent's agile movements, nor could he fire lightning in response to them.
The boy didn't even hope for the luxury of seeing his opponent's move and then thinking of a counter. He needed a minimum distance, a minimum amount of time, just for his brain to register that his opponent had ‘moved.’
Therefore, the boy naturally surrendered himself to the explosion erupting from his fingertips.
His frail, slender body was lifted high into the sky by the white light and wind.
Strands of his fluttering hair often obscured his vision.
Heaven and earth swapped places dozens of times a second. His ears were filled with the sound of his robe flapping in the wind.
‘My reflexes can't keep up anyway.’
In this fight against Maltiel, the boy's five senses were unreliable. No, they were nothing more than a major hindrance.
So, the boy boldly closed his eyes. He had given up on tracking Maltiel's movements with his sight.
As he closed his eyes and focused, the sound of lightning tearing through the air in all directions rang even more clearly in his ears.
A faint crackle of lightning brushed past the fingertips of the boy with his eyes closed. Following this warning sound, the boy raised his finger and once again commanded the lightning.
“Discharge.”
BOOM!
A massive amount of current gathered at the boy's fingertips and instantly expanded. At the center of the explosion he created, Maltiel was there, wings spread, reaching a black hand toward the boy.
Soon, the Overlord's body, wreathed in blue lightning, plummeted toward the ground.
“Ha!”
This time, Maltiel had lost both his wings. His entire body was blistered with burns, and his wings were wreathed in flames. Despite being engulfed in two massive explosions in a row, the monster's face was filled with a satisfied smile.
“Closing your eyes in front of an enemy! A bold yet wise move. I commend you.”
CRACK!
The storm clouds spread out behind the boy finally began to unleash their suppressed fury.
A pillar of white light burst through the black darkness and began to stretch toward Maltiel.
Maltiel kicked off the ground hard with his remaining leg, rolling to evade the lightning.
‘Three seconds.’
Normally, it wouldn't have even taken a second to restore his wings. But Maltiel had sustained massive damage and had only thirty percent of his mana left.
The time needed to restore his wings was three seconds. That was only because he had forgone repairing his arm and head, focusing solely on regenerating his wings.
In a battle at the Overlord level, three seconds was enough time to turn the tide ten times over. If Maltiel's opponent had been any other general besides Bin, his defeat would have been sealed the moment he lost his wings and crashed to the ground.
‘...His regeneration is slow. Is this my chance?’
However, Bin was overwhelmingly lacking in combat experience. On top of that, he hadn't seen with his own eyes that it had taken Maltiel twelve seconds to regenerate his body earlier.
The boy didn't realize that Maltiel was weakened, and as a result, the golden opportunity to end the battle vanished into thin air.
“Strike down.”
But it wasn't that the boy hadn't noticed any change at all. The moment he perceived that ‘Maltiel's movements are sluggish,’ he immediately pointed his finger at the Overlord and gave the command.
Following his command, the black clouds let out a roar and plunged a white pillar into the earth.
But Maltiel's wings had already sprouted. The monster soared high into the sky, evading the lightning, and simultaneously charged toward the boy once more.
“Damn it.”
It was perhaps natural that the boy couldn't make a swift judgment. He lacked the combat experience of the other generals, and he never possessed sharp instincts to begin with.
Nevertheless, this mistake today was one he would never forget.
‘Nine seconds until the next Spirit's Protection.’
The scales that had once tipped in the boy's favor were now level again. The battle continued, and the threat remained.
...No, the threat had now taken a more concrete form, flying toward the boy with long claws extended.
“Discharge.”
A third explosion erupted from the boy's fingertips.
But Maltiel was not caught in this explosion. He had used his wings to brake sharply in mid-air, just a few dozen meters from the boy, and as a result, he avoided being engulfed by the massive current the boy unleashed from his fingertips.
“Simple, yet a trick one can't help but fall for.”
Maltiel murmured, looking at the giant sphere of electricity settling in the black sky.
At the critical moment, what decided their fates was none other than the difference in their experience.
The instant the current covering the sky vanished, Maltiel spread his wings and flew toward the boy.
Soon, those black claws were flying toward the boy's neck once more.
“Now, do you have any more tricks?”
Maltiel knew by instinct.
That his hand would separate the boy's head from his body.
That victory in this long war would ultimately belong to the Mazoku. That in a short time, all life on this land would be extinguished.
Just as the thrill of defeating a Goliath and a tremendous sense of accomplishment were about to wash over the monster,
Whoosh—
an axe with a scorched black blade flew in from the edge of his vision and severed his arm.
“……”
The hand reaching for Bin's neck was severed once again. Just like that night, in that forest.
The one who had thrown the axe was none other than Rex.
He had precisely severed Maltiel's arm from over two kilometers away—from the ground to the sky two thousand meters up where the clouds floated.
‘...Annoying.’
Maltiel thought, looking down at the orc standing far below.
The orc, who had replaced one arm with a prosthesis, held a massive horn to his lips.
‘That horn. It was quite a headache back in the mountains, too.’
It was no wonder Maltiel sensed danger; the artifact Rex held to his lips, a horn used to call *them*, was an item of incredible versatility.
Depending on the user's creativity and skill, it could not only subdue opponents but also create necessary tools like ladders or spears made of bone.
A nearly omnipotent artifact.
However, even this near-omnipotent artifact had a minimal restriction.
The ability to summon the undead was limited to places the horn's sound could reach.
A distance of over two kilometers.
No matter how hard Rex blew the horn, its sound would not reach Maltiel, who was so high up he could touch the clouds.
And yet, Rex held the horn to his lips.
The reason was simple.
‘Even a single moment is enough. I have to buy him time.’
No matter how great a warrior Rex was, he couldn't leap over two kilometers into the air. He didn't have the ability to walk on air as if it were natural, like the Sword Saint.
This was nothing more than a desperate struggle, like grasping at straws.
“Be quiet. I'm in the middle of something fun.”
And to that pathetic struggle, Maltiel responded.
Instead of flying toward the boy's neck, Maltiel's remaining hand pointed its index finger at Rex, who stood on the ground with the horn to his lips.
Artifacts were things of pure mystery. Unidentified weapons, with no one knowing who invented them, when, for what purpose, or why.
Each weapon had its own unique ability, and each had its own recoil or restrictions.
So, there was no way Maltiel would know the ability of every single artifact. However, from the previous battle in the mountains, Maltiel was clearly aware that Rex's artifact was ‘annoying.’
And because Maltiel was cautious and intelligent, it was a pathetic struggle he couldn't help but pay attention to.
‘So far, so good. Now I just need to focus on dodging Maltiel's magic.’
Although his leg was broken, Rex was a tough orc warrior. He was confident he could dodge a bombardment from over two kilometers away, even if it was the Overlord's magic.
“Samael.”
But no black light poured from Maltiel's finger.
‘Who...’
The next moment, the sound of tearing air reached Rex's ears.
Something the size of a person was flying toward him at incredible speed. His warrior's intuition, which had kept him alive through countless battlefields, screamed at him to hit the dirt.
He had no more time to think.
The orc threw himself forward as if stumbling.
Immediately after, a Mazoku with massive wings shot past the spot where he had been standing like a bullet.
“I was saving this card for a more critical moment.”
High Lord Samael.
Maltiel's closest confidant, who had a history of losing the Akilliptus Forest Zone to Bin without a fight, spread his wings wide, displaying a dignified posture as if to wash away the shame of that day.
Rex, having thrown his axe beyond the clouds, looked up at the High Lord who had appeared before him, trying his best to ignore the chill caressing his back.
“I'll give you credit, orc. You are worthy of my last card.”
Moves and countermoves, deception, strategy, and tactics.
To the very end, Maltiel was proving exactly why his creator had made him.