The Sacrificial Gambit
“You think you can defy me just because you’ve gained the power to mimic a Dark Priest, you failure? Not only did you dare deceive me and flee, but you’ll pay dearly for what you did to Selkel. I’ll drown your face in venom and stuff every last one of your orifices with poisonous insects. Yes, just like the old days.”
It wasn’t a mere threat or bluff. The words carried genuine intent. And more than that—she had done it before.
Come to think of it, Denatel had hurled plenty of similar threats during the Great War. Hearing them, I had sworn more than once that I would rather die than be taken prisoner. How could such scum think of such grotesque things?
Even that accursed skeleton, who had committed countless atrocities and conducted horrific experiments, had never tortured purely for revenge or amusement. I had no desire to defend his twisted logic or claims, but he always insisted that everything was done in the name of research. He even went so far as to express gratitude and reverence toward the victims of his own experiments—an act that, because it seemed sincere, filled me with visceral revulsion.
In that sense, the witch standing before me was far more vicious than that damned skull.
Crunch.
Without realizing it, I clenched my right fist. Though the target was different, the anger, disgust, and hatred that had scarred my heart rose up and overlapped with the figure in front of me.
—…Contractor?
Jequirak, sensing the shift in my emotions, sounded puzzled yet inwardly pleased. He welcomed the way my hostility and rage aligned with his own, and he was clearly waiting for the standby order to be lifted.
“Yes. That’s not a bad idea either.”
I summoned the incantations into the air. I had no obligation to help Olsidra, but I was certain—more than that, I desired—that the witch must not be allowed to live. Still, contrary to Jequirak’s hopes, I had no intention of leaving everything to him. There was no need to call upon the honorable Frost King and sully his blade. Though I would need numbers, I had plenty of the worst possible options suited for an opponent like her.
“Heh. Heh. Heh. Heh. Heh. Heh. Heh. Heh.”
Just as I was about to activate the incantations, Olsidra’s laughter rang out. The laughter, utterly mismatched with the situation, was a chaotic blend of joy, ecstasy, rage, and hatred—along with countless other emotions that defied easy description. The pitch and tone never wavered, making it sound like nothing short of madness.
“Have you lost your mind?”
She spoke coldly while warily scanning her surroundings. My actions and his laughter had clearly led her to believe I was preparing something. Yet Olsidra only continued laughing, the sound persisting for a long while as though he had truly gone insane.
“…Haa.”
At last, he stopped. His body bent as if he had vomited everything out, looking ready to collapse at any moment—like someone staring death in the face. But through Jequirak’s eyes, I could see the light in his gaze: an intense force strong enough to overwhelm even Jequirak’s hostility.
“So there was still hesitation left in me after all? With so little life remaining?”
A dark red aura began to seep from Olsidra’s body.
—!
Jequirak instinctively stepped back at the sight of the light. His confusion at his own retreat reached me, but I already knew the reason. Urshus. That aura was unmistakably the power of Urshus. After the fall of El Nergavil and the liberation of Neiku, I never imagined that they—who had also lost Alsh Unak—could have recovered even this much of a Dark Priest’s strength.
“…Everyone, get on the ship right now and flee as far from this island as possible.”
I spoke to the captain and sailors hiding behind me.
“What?”
“Head straight east. I’ll catch up with you later.”
“B-but…?”
They only looked back and forth between one another and me, unable to move. Fear was likely part of it, but they also seemed worried about me. I had no mind to feel grateful for that.
“Hurry!”
At my sharp urging, they finally ran toward the ship. Unlike Olsidra, who hadn’t shown hostility toward me, the witch had positioned herself so that both Olsidra and I were in her line of sight, leaving Olsidra slightly diagonal between us.
Naturally, the distance between her and me was considerable, and Olsidra had his back almost entirely turned toward us. The ship lay in the complete opposite direction. If the Dark Elementals prepared for an attack, it wouldn’t be difficult for the sailors to reach the vessel and set sail.
Fortunately, she paid no attention to the sailors or the ship. She, too, sensed that the aura flowing from Olsidra’s body was anything but ordinary.
“So you’ve reached Urshus after all.”
Her expression changed. A vicious greed and the anticipation born of long yearning surfaced on her face and in her eyes. Though it was the face of a young woman, it somehow looked as ugly as that of a wicked old crone.
“Yes. Your worthless failure has accomplished what you could never achieve even after centuries of effort.”
Centuries? The era when witches could live that long had ended long ago. There were legends of a few witches who extended their lives through unique methods, but those were merely…
“It doesn’t matter. I’m the one who will use you—or rather, your kind.”
Her mana grew even denser, and the green aura that had spread like wings expanded further. It seemed she intended to envelop the surroundings and cut off Olsidra’s escape route, but it was clear Olsidra had no intention of fleeing.
“Witch, you will die here. The great Urshus has promised me as much!”
A dark red flame blazed across Olsidra’s entire body, and his eyes began to burn with a crimson light.
I pulled Jequirak a little farther back. That was Urshus’s power—and a considerable amount of it. Even if it was pitiful compared to the time at El Nergavil, a demon god’s influence over demons and magical beasts was never something to be underestimated.
Even so, the situation still favored her. While the divine aura made their mana levels appear roughly equal at a glance, Olsidra lacked a demon’s body like Alsh Unak’s, so he wouldn’t be able to sustain that power for long.
At most, a few dozen seconds. If he couldn’t decide the battle within that time, his defeat was certain.
The incantations I had prepared were still active. I was considering summoning only those unaffected by the demon god’s influence when suddenly, blood-red runes appeared across Olsidra’s entire body.
“……!”
For a moment, I doubted my eyes. Those runes. That form. I knew that spell.
“Sacrificial Summoning?”
It was a forbidden summoning method that used the target’s own flesh and life as a medium to open the gate, synchronizing their soul with the summoned entity. It allowed control over powerful summons without a contract, but every single target lost their life in the process.
Olsidra was casting it on himself right now.
Could Urshus’s power allow him to survive? No, that was impossible. This wasn’t that kind of spell. The moment those blood-red runes appeared, his death was already decided.
I stepped back a little more and erased the incantations I had prepared, replacing them with new ones. I didn’t know what Olsidra intended to summon, but if he was staking his own life on Sacrificial Summoning, it wouldn’t be an ordinary entity.
For now, observing the situation took priority over reckless involvement.
Even if Olsidra dealt with the witch, he wouldn’t last long after the results of the Sacrificial Summoning. And if the witch won instead, finishing off an exhausted opponent wouldn’t be difficult.
Either way, it wouldn’t be bad for me.
I summoned a Metal Golem and placed it in front of me. Its sturdy body and massive frame hadn’t been much help at El Nergavil, but now it could serve well enough as a wall.
Though it blocked my view, sharing sight with the Golem and Jequirak meant it wasn’t a major issue.
But something about Olsidra’s presence felt off. It was Sacrificial Summoning, yet the aura and activation pattern differed from what I knew. The unfamiliar symbols floating among the blood-red runes had nothing to do with summoning, and the summoning circles that should have been inscribed in the air or on the ground were instead overlapping on Olsidra’s body.
Alarmed by the ominous sight, she thrust out her hand, sending green energy flying toward Olsidra. But before Urshus’s power, it merely scattered. Finally, the summoning began.
Or rather—could that even be called a summoning?
A scream of agony burst from Olsidra’s mouth, and opaque, tentacle-like things began to sprout from various parts of his body.
Ah. Now I understood. Why he had used himself as the medium for Sacrificial Summoning, and why those unfamiliar symbols and summoning circles had overlapped on his body.
This wasn’t a simple summoning. It was a fusion with the summoned entity. After using Sacrificial Summoning to abnormally deepen the synchronization between his body and soul, he had layered a synthesis spell—normally used in chimera creation—onto himself at the same time as the summoning.
What an insane attempt.
Even if the summoner’s own strong connection to the summoned entity had raised the synchronization rate by becoming the sacrifice, performing synthesis at the exact moment of summoning was absurd. Normally, the summoned entity wouldn’t even respond to the call, and the synthesis spell would never succeed. Even if it somehow did, the body would likely collapse under the shock rather than endure it.
Could this truly be possible just because he possessed a god’s power? Or was the summoned entity itself so extraordinary that it made this feasible?
While I stood frozen in shock at the horrifying sight, the summoning—or rather, the fusion—was completed in that brief span of time.
Opaque, jelly-like tentacles had sprouted from Olsidra’s back, legs, and shoulders. Parts of his original body had also turned translucent like the tentacles, looking as though they might melt and drip away at any moment. Within that translucent mass, black and bluish things swirled and floated.
Though Urshus’s aura itself had diminished, an indescribable sense of discomfort and alien presence now completely filled the area.