Chapter 1110: The Same Trick, Fooled Twice!
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 1110: The Same Trick, Fooled Twice!
"A Domain..."
Sensing that aura—one he was so familiar with it bordered on obsession—Arnold recognized the very thing he had been pursuing but could never grasp: Domain Order!
It was as if the Holy Light were playing a cruel joke on him, allowing such power to manifest in a mere Little Witch.
In that moment, even in his Holy Spirit Stance, having discarded all emotion, Arnold felt a sense of mental defeat more direct than any feeling.
If he still had emotions flowing through him, he would have felt rage. But just moments ago, he had already been deceived by that very tactic.
He would absolutely not fall for it a second time!
The Holy Spirit Stance, bolstered by the Blessing of Holy Light, was the ultimate rational combat state within the conceptual framework of the Holy Angel Legion.
You could destroy an entire Holy Angel Legion, but you could never erase their will and spirit!
As the second round of battle commenced...
The combat suppression Arnold expected did not occur.
Without the interference of the emotional body cultivation, this should have been an absolute slaughter. Yet, the opponent’s Domain managed to steadily suppress him by a margin.
He was certain of it!
That power of Order was clearly one level lower than the Transcendent level, yet her absolute control over that power gave him the illusion that his own strength was being stifled.
It was clearly... clearly just a few fireballs!
His power was obviously superior to hers, and he was suppressing the strength of her Domain, but beyond that, he could not advance a single step further.
The rational intuition he took such pride in had become his weakness in this moment. When the opponent’s rational combat intuition dictated the entire flow of battle, the anti-intuitive strikes of a body cultivator became a blade thrust into his soft underbelly.
It couldn't kill him, but it was a knife twisted in his kidneys; his power couldn't flow smoothly, and his advantage was constantly bleeding away.
Combat awareness is something cultivated through long-term experience. To use combat awareness as a weapon, one must never be controlled by it during the heat of battle—and that was something Arnold could not achieve.
Thus, he could only be led by the nose.
However, killing him remained extremely difficult.
Although he and that Transcendent Vampire Duke were both Transcendents, the combat power between different Transcendents naturally couldn't be compared. Furthermore, the Vampires weren't even a Transcendent Race; how could they compare to a Transcendent Race with a structured advancement system like the Holy Angels?
The depth of their respective power systems alone decided the victor.
"You can't kill me... with just these tiny fireballs!"
Arnold’s armor, forged of condensed Holy Light, rapidly reformed from its shattered state. It had to be said that Holy Angels on the path of the Holy Knight were truly difficult to kill.
At the same Transcendent level, he possessed more diverse and troublesome methods than the Vampire Duke. Even if he was no match for my Fireball Domain, the power of my fireballs—which had not yet reached the Transcendent level—could not completely break through his defenses.
Therefore... I needed another way.
Just as I was pondering how to kill him, a thought suddenly struck me: Why had I become so bloodthirsty?
Whenever I saw a Transcendent, my first instinct was to try and slaughter them just to see how hard they were to kill.
But after a moment of closed-eyed reflection, my gaze turned firm once more. What was wrong with sending those who deserved to die to their graves?
Nothing.
Then there was no problem!
The moment my resolve hardened, I was already in front of the Holy Angel. As he unleashed a burst of Holy Light, my body shifted into the Fool's Dream Stance. A momentary dreamification allowed me to bypass his violent impact.
Then, before his astonished eyes, I appeared directly in front of him.
"I've touched you..."
In my dreamified state, I reached out and lightly flicked him on the forehead.
The damage was non-existent, but the insult was absolute!
Arnold stared at the Little Witch, who had suddenly shrunk under the effect of some transformation spell. In that moment, he had had enough of the absolute rationality granted by the Holy Spirit. It was as if he had calculated countless possibilities, yet never imagined she would close the distance just to give him a harmless flick on the forehead.
There was no ripple of a curse, no trace of a spell, and not even a lingering scent of mana. It was as if the entire act existed solely to provoke him.
He was already immune to such tactics. He was confident he would never again be governed by anger.
So, in that moment, he allowed his own cognition to retake control of the battle's rhythm. Facing the figure so close to him, he raised his hand and fired a spear of light.
Not a single fireball that manifested in that instant managed to ignite the nodes of the condensing light spear.
The Holy Light carried the aura of judgment. With a pssh, it pierced the opponent's shoulder. The energy of judgment caused her entire shoulder to explode, leaving that loathsome Little Witch to rely on her immortality to survive in a wretched state.
"Your Fireball Domain... is pathetic! Now that I've seen through your tricks, you're nothing more than a Little Witch who hasn't even reached the Transcendent level. How dare you challenge the glory of the Holy Angel race!"
Arnold had gained the upper hand, allowing the frustration he had endured throughout the fight to explode. But after his roar, he composed himself with lingering caution.
"Heh... You almost had me again. Your method of manipulating emotions is indeed bizarre, but I won't fall for the same trick twice... Now, die!"
"Useless birdman. A Transcendent who isn't even in the Saint Realm thinks he's worthy of fighting me."
"I have mastered a Domain before even becoming a Transcendent, while you are only fit to flee for your life through the void."
"Fighting a Little Witch forced you to use every trick in your book, and you still haven't finished the job. If a birdman like you isn't trash, what is?"
Constant belittlement and insults echoed in Arnold’s ears, but he felt no emotional fluctuation. So what?
He wouldn't fall for it!
Her stubborn words were merely a cover for her current helplessness. The filthier her insults, the more it proved she was at her wit's end.
The Transcendent level remained an insurmountable mountain for the Extraordinary! Those Transcendents who died at this Little Witch's hands were nothing but garbage.
But he was different!
He was a Holy Angel carrying the hopes of many, one who could not afford to waste the rest of his life here.
A future Holy Angel Legion Commander!
How could he possibly lose to a mere Little Witch here?
So what if she mastered a Domain?
Did a Domain make one invincible?
No! He would prove that even as a Transcendent, he could slay those in the Saint Realm! A Domain was merely a tool above the Transcendent level, not the entirety of one's combat power.
Just like right now!
The Domain the Little Witch opened once more was so weak. Those fireballs she could manifest anywhere were laughable.
Arnold reached out and crushed a fireball that had formed in front of him. Flames leaked through his fingers as a Domain fireball was ground into nothingness by his fingertips.
"Accept your judgment... Killing you will at least rid this Main World of a scourge! A Little Witch like you won't live to see the moment you truly shine!"
In that moment, he condensed a spear of judgment that stood tall against the sky. The phantom of a Holy Light Angel towering in the heavens grasped that spear—the one that judged all and annihilated everything—and pointed it directly at the Little Witch.
He no longer cared about rules, or lingering fears, or even the reality of his situation.
What bloomed from extreme suppression was an extreme explosion!
This Little Witch, marked for certain death—the genius whom countless Holy Angels, Transcendent Wizards, and Forest Elves had tried and failed to strangle in the cradle—was about to perish by his hand.
How could he not be happy?
"Die!!"
Arnold no longer cared for the image of a Holy Angel. He had transformed into an Angel of Judgment, putting a full stop to the sinful life of this wicked Little Witch.
Driven by Holy Light, the terrifying spear of judgment slammed into the earth. Countless continental plates shattered, magma erupted, and the horrific shockwave blew away everything in sight.
The explosion of Holy Light formed a terrifying halo, like a second sun detonating upon the earth. The blinding light forced everyone to close their eyes.
In Arnold’s eyes, the Little Witch had been completely obliterated. Even her fragile Extraordinary life essence would be reduced to nothingness under the judgment of the Holy Light.
"Hehe... Hmph hmph hmph... Dead... Finally dead. I killed the Little Witch..."
Arnold’s voice carried a hint of madness suppressed beneath extreme joy. His soft laughter and murmurs were the final shackles on the ecstasy in his heart.
Until...
"Hahaha! I killed the Little Witch! I killed her! This is something only I could do! So many others failed, but I did it! I did it!"
"I killed the Little Witch! I defeated a Domain! The Saint Realm is nothing more than this! Hahahaha! I am a genius who can slay the Saint Realm!"
As the battlefield was showered with endless debris, magma, and volcanic ash, this hearty victory cry sounded piercingly strange and eerie.
Not a single person on the scene cheered for him.
But he didn't care.
He felt that he only needed to keep laughing! This was his honor. Only he had the right to keep laughing, to laugh forever!
As the battlefield returned to silence, the fleeing "spectators" looked back at the ruins of the battle.
However, they didn't find it funny at all.
It wasn't just the students; even the Holy Angels and Extraordinary little angels stepping out of the void vehicles couldn't bring themselves to smile.
Because in their sight, the Little Witch had never died. They only saw a Holy Angel laughing like a lunatic, shaking so violently that his Holy Light pulsed with his laughter until it began to collapse.
There was no Angel of Judgment. There was no fatal blow.
The Little Witch stood right in front of him, yet he acted as if she didn't exist.
"The sweet dream... is over."
I whispered in front of him. I watched as his laughter made it impossible for him to mobilize his Holy Light; even his wings were twitching.
He was already drowning in the abyss of laughter and joy within the "Sweet Dream Spell," unable to extricate himself.
And so, he had completely surrendered his life into my hands.
I opened the Book in the Box with my left hand and gripped the Transcendent Holy Angel Halo—the symbol of his power and Holy Spirit—with my right.
"No!"
Before the voice of protest could finish, the body of the Holy Angel named Arnold turned into weathered dust. Accompanied by the final tragic laughter of his life, his form gradually dissipated.
Until the very last moment, his consciousness remained hopelessly immersed in the Sweet Dream Spell.
The Sweet Dream Spell was a talent dream spell I had integrated into the Fool's Dream bloodline, based on my dreamification talent and dream editing technology. Its lethality was nearly zero.
It was even less capable of completely trapping a person's consciousness like an illusion.
But precisely because of its subtle nature and his carelessness, he failed to realize that his joy was being guided. The dream became the medium for his feelings of happiness. The dual guidance of dream and emotion acted like a rolling snowball, growing larger and larger until he finally met his end here.
He was simply too obsessed with the idea of not being defeated by the same trick twice.
Furthermore, I had repeatedly provoked his anger, causing his perception to shift from "controlling emotion" to "controlling anger," thereby neglecting joy.
A killing move is often like this: invisible and fatal.
As for the final weathering, it was merely the manipulation of the Time Sense under the coverage of my body cultivation Domain.
If he hadn't been immersed in the Sweet Dream Spell, his body could never have been eroded by my power. But it was all too late. The Holy Light he controlled had scattered amidst his laughter. At such a moment, anyone could have dealt him a fatal blow.
But he wasn't dead.
I looked at the Holy Angel Halo in my hand. For a Holy Angel who had ascended to the Transcendent level, their life essence was structured upon the real world through the power of Holy Light. Their soul quality transformed into the Holy Spirit of the Holy Angel race, condensing into a Transcendent Holy Angel Halo.
It was fundamentally different from the halos of those Extraordinary little angels.
As long as this halo existed, a Resurrection Spell could bring him back.
Unfortunately, he wouldn't get that chance.
Because the opened Book in the Box was his final destination. To be sealed and become a living material under my control—that was his fate!
Snap!
As I closed the Book in the Box with a crisp sound, I turned my gaze toward the Holy Angels who had stepped out of their vehicles, specifically toward the figure who had just shouted "No."
"The birdman I just killed had no brains, but I assume you all do?" I tilted my head toward them, my tone thick with provocation. "He got so carried away fighting me that he forgot your situation. But you should know that from the moment you appeared in everyone's sight, you no longer had a choice."
"Aren't you going to be honest and tell everyone what you're really trying to do?"
As my gaze and pressuring words made the expressions of the Holy Angels increasingly ugly, one Holy Angel finally stepped forward, feigning ignorance. "We don't understand what you're talking about."
"We've already reached this point, and you're still playing dumb? Do I really have to be the one to strip away your pretense?" I turned around and looked at the "spectators" in the distance, who had scattered due to the aftershocks.
"Look... they're all waiting for your excuses. There are even students from the Holy Angel Academy watching you!"
"Have you thought of a good lie to cover up the fact that you were planning to take those embers and flee the Main World?"