Chapter 91
Chapter 91
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 91
Chapter Title: Reversed Master and Servant (2)
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Dodging the barrage of Photon Cannon flashes, Canis was more bewildered than ever. Why wasn't he tiring? It was as if the limits of his mental energy had been shattered.
- Harvi! At this rate, I'm done for!
Still, no response came from Harvest. This had never happened before, and it felt ominous. Worse, he didn't know why. Canis knew better than anyone that Harvest wasn't the kind of foolish magical creature to go silent during a battle just because of a disagreement.
- Harvest! Answer me!
As Canis focused on the mental channel, a Photon Cannon grazed past him. He twisted his body in a hurry, but his reaction was clearly too slow. He hadn't dodged it; it had missed him.
“What?”
About ten more flashes shot out from Shirone. But again, the aim was off. Canis finally realized. The countless flashes were annihilating all the darkness he could use for his Dark Port.
‘This is insane…!’
The strategy was simple: if you can't hit him, trap him and beat him down. It made sense, but wasn't it too reckless? He had already fired over two hundred shots of a mentally draining spell like Photon Cannon. Yet, far from tiring, the number of flashes was only increasing.
‘Just how immense is his mental energy?’
The thought sent a chill down his spine. As dozens of Photon Cannons filled his vision, despair welled up inside him. The cluster of flashes was closing in, cutting off every possible route for his Dark Port.
‘I can't dodge this. It's over.’
He felt angry and resentful. More than death, he feared the fact that he had lost to a light mage in front of his master.
- How irritating. Arcane.
- Harvi?
For the first time since the aerial battle began, the mental channel opened. Harvest moved in front of Canis and took the Photon Cannons with its body. The magical creature's entire body trembled from the continuous shockwaves, and a bizarre groan escaped its lips.
Realizing it couldn't absorb them with its surface alone, Harvest opened its body wide and swallowed the Photon Cannons whole. Its body shuddered, and its once slender, tiger-like waist swelled up like a balloon. It fully activated its internal absorption ability and began to digest the photons. Gradually, its body contracted, returning to its original form.
“Gah…!”
Canis bent over, a look of shock on his face. The reason Harvest could absorb the Photon Cannons was that it had drawn on his mental energy. But borrowing power unilaterally without permission was impossible under their master-servant contract.
- Harvest?
- Snap out of it and get ready!
Having drained all of Canis's mental energy, Harvest flew at Shirone and swung its claws. Shirone, unaccustomed to close combat, was cornered. Harvest's speed was so agile it could keep up with his teleportation dodges. How was this possible? It even seemed much stronger than Canis.
Etella, thinking the same thing as Shirone, glanced at Arcane. She could grasp the whole situation from the emotionless way he watched the battle.
‘Viltor Arcane. You truly are a cruel man.’
He hadn't given the ultimate magical creature to Canis out of love for his student. To him, burning with revenge, his student was nothing more than a disposable tool to achieve his goals. A fuel tank to maximize Harvest's power. That was Canis's reason for being.
The faster Shirone linked his teleports, the faster Harvest moved. Canis's face turned as pale as a corpse. His mental energy was so completely drained that he couldn't even think. Only feelings like betrayal and deprivation echoed in his mind.
- Harvest. Why?
Only silence answered him. The life faded from Canis's eyes as he realized who the true master was. His entire life flashed before his eyes like a revolving lantern, and tears welled up.
Shirone retreated to the ground. Blood trickled from a wound that looked as if it had been sliced by a knife.
‘Photon Cannon doesn't work either. There's not much time left before Immortal Function closes.’
Canis, descending with Harvest, placed a hand on the ground. The focus in his pupils was gone. Harvest paid him no mind and charged at Shirone. It had to end the battle before Canis's mental energy ran out completely.
Dodging Harvest's blade-sharp claw attacks, Shirone thought. The situation, where he'd had the upper hand just moments ago, had been reversed in an instant.
A reversal of master and servant.
With Harvest, who had merely been Canis's support, taking the lead, the tide had turned. A magical creature with no fear of death. Could there be a more troublesome opponent on the battlefield? It was a combat weapon that moved by sucking life from the fuel tank named Canis.
‘A combat weapon…?’
Shirone suddenly realized his mistake. Blinded by Harvest's intelligence, he hadn't noticed it until now. The meaning behind the reversed roles was simple. His enemy had changed from a living being to an inanimate object. Therefore, his magic naturally had to change to match.
Completely revising his strategy, Shirone canceled Photon Cannon and cast Photon Output. Photon Cannon was dangerous because of its destructive impact force on living things. But to the lifeless Harvest, physical force didn't matter. If it specialized in absorbing energy, he just had to destroy it with energy that surpassed its limits.
Photon Output was pure magic and had no mass, making it easier to wield than Photon Cannon. Moreover, Immortal Function was still active. Shirone's power, which had been transmitting light to the 300 hologram devices on campus with 100 percent efficiency, converged on a single point, firing a beam of light large enough to engulf a person.
“Kuaaaaargh!”
Harvest was pushed back, almost buried in the light. There was no physical force, but smoke was rising from its body, which was made of dark matter. However, being immune to light, the properties of photons were of no help. Only the energy contained within the photons could wear it down.
‘I need even stronger energy.’
Shirone recalled the representative formula of photonization theory: energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. The God Particle is a battery that grants mass. If so, it was also possible to reverse the formula of photonization theory and convert mass into energy.
He reconfigured the battery of Photon Output based on mass. When he combined that with the omnipotence of Immortal Function, mass began to convert into energy in real-time. The pleasure of theory and reality aligning so perfectly was incomparable, and Shirone felt a thrill as he took his first step into an unknown world.
“W-What is that?”
The eyes of everyone watching the battle widened. The Photon Output began to narrow, glowing a blood-red. They didn't know what kind of magic it was, but the color alone was menacing.
Iruki recalled a story his father, the head of the Dragon's Roar, had told him about a certain phenomenon of light.
“That… Is that a laser?”
“A laser? What's that?”
“It's a state where light energy is highly amplified. You could call it the ultimate evolution of flash-type spells. But how is that possible?”
A laser wasn't a matter of talent or effort, but of raw power. One would need to endure at least ten years of mental rebound to gain enough raw power to amplify photons into a laser.
However, if one took a mathematical detour, the story changed. Shirone, who had reconfigured photonization theory based on the God Particle, amplified the energy through mass conversion, not raw power. His unique battery had essentially developed a new route.
“Kraaaaaaah!”
Harvest writhed in agony. The laser was extremely thin compared to the Photon Output, but the concentrated energy was beyond imagination. The color was never the issue. What was truly dangerous was the invisible heat ray outside the red wavelength. The single-wavelength laser was causing molecules to vibrate, generating immense heat.
“Harvest!”
Canis screamed, clutching his aching head. The massive shock striking his mind meant that in just two seconds, Harvest had surpassed its energy absorption limit. Such was the power of Shirone's new spell, the Laser Pulse Cannon.
Harvest struggled with all its might to digest the energy, but the molecular vibration was too fast. As its absorption reached saturation, its body swelled, eventually puffing up like a balloon.
Etella watched Arcane's reaction. Seeing his expression remain unchanged even in the face of imminent defeat made her uneasy.
“Canis! Just give up!”
What would be the next state for the massively swollen Harvest? It could be annihilation, but it might be a far more gruesome end.
“Shut up! I'll fight!”
“You're being deceived by Arcane. Harvest isn't your subordinate. If anything, you were Harvest's subordinate. Arcane was just using you.”
Canis didn't answer. It would be a lie to say he hadn't felt anything. Ever since he heard that the grand mage's ultimate creation, the magical creature, would become his, a part of him had thought this might be possible. He just didn't have the courage to face reality. Because if he admitted the truth, he would have nothing left.
“I will win! I'm not afraid of dying! I will never submit to the likes of you!”
When he came to his senses, he was in Radum, a place known as the hell of the world. To Arcane, he was just a disposable tool. To Harvest, whom he'd thought of as a friend, he was just a fuel tank. Now, none of it mattered. Only hatred for the world remained.
‘Canis…’
Arin covered her mouth and shed tears. Canis had always been that kind of child. A pitiful child who thought the only thing he could do for the people he loved was to torment himself.
“Master! Please save Canis! Please!”
She didn't even think of him as a master anymore. Nevertheless, she swallowed her pride and begged to save Canis. But Arcane simply gave an order to Harvest with his cold eyes.
“End it here. Harvest.”
Harvest, saturated with energy, couldn't answer. If it tried to make a sound through vibration, it would explode. And that was the result Arcane desired.
- Canis. Listen carefully.
- Harvest.
- Arcane intends to make me self-destruct. Everyone here will probably be caught in the explosion. Then it's the end for both you and me.
Arin released the students from her mental control. Then, with tears and snot streaming down her face, she rushed at Arcane.
“Save Canis! Or I'll never forgive you!”
“Arin!”
Canis said, pushing himself up.
“What are you doing to Master? Stop it right now.”
“Canis! This man is… to us…!”
“Yes. Master saved us from hell. He helped us escape from Radum. That alone is enough. I will fight to the end.”
Were Canis's words sincere? But it didn't matter now. His anger burned so intensely that even his own death felt like a relief.
“Yes! We'll all die together!”
Canis shouted at the sky. Hot tears streamed down his cheeks. It had been a truly filthy life. But if that was his destiny, he would face a nauseating end to the very last.
“Kraaaaaaaah!”
As the molecules boiled, giant bubbles churned on Harvest's body. Now, anyone could tell. Arcane intended to blow up the entire academy.
“Shirone! Stop! Harvest is going to explode!”
Shirone, who had been pouring out energy in a trance-like state, heard Etella and hastily stopped the output. But a detonation reaction was already underway in Harvest's body. The way it twisted at bizarre angles foretold that there would be secondary and tertiary explosions.
“Hahahaha! Farewell! It must feel disgusting to die with trash like me! This is how it all ends!”
- Canis. I'm sorry.
Canis's face stiffened.
- I am terminating the master-servant contract.
Harvest absorbed every last bit of his remaining mental energy and terminated the contract. Feeling a sense of deprivation as if his soul were being torn away, Canis collapsed to the ground with a shocked expression.
“Wh-Why… Harvi…”
Harvest soared into the sky. How many seconds were left until the explosion? Three? Two? In the process of hurtling towards the end of its life, memories embedded in the form of vibrations came back to it. Harvi. Harvi. Harvi. It felt a pang of regret, thinking it would no longer hear the voice that had called out to it incessantly.
‘Hehehe. Canis. That's your problem. You pretend to be strong for no reason.’
It had never had a life to begin with, so it wasn't afraid of death. It was just worried. The sense of betrayal it had received through the mental channel still felt as if it were its own. But now, unable to convey anything, Harvest could only hope.
That Canis wouldn't be too hurt.
Two kilometers above the ground, at an altitude where its voice couldn't reach, the mouth on its shadowy face split into a grotesque grin.
“Still, it was fun, wasn't it, Canis?”
BOOOOOOOOOOOM!
A massive explosion that destroyed the world's darkness erupted.
(End of Volume 4)
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