The Living Sacrifice
At the ominous change in Olsidra, she swept her hand sideways without hesitation. In response to the gesture, all the green energy around her coalesced in midair and crashed down upon him. The density was incomparable to before, enough to make the surrounding atmosphere tremble violently.
The green energy engulfed Olsidra completely, swallowing his form. It was high-concentration mana laced with potent toxicity. Any ordinary opponent would have been erased without a trace, yet that unpleasant presence showed no sign of weakening. It told her Olsidra was still intact.
“Is this all you have?”
His voice was so slurred it was difficult to understand, as if one were hearing something that should never be heard. As expected, it had no effect.
The green energy slowly dispersed, revealing Olsidra’s figure along with the ground that had melted into a swamp-like mire. His skin was festering in places, and thick jelly-like masses dripped from his translucent tentacles. The sight was horrifying, yet he himself appeared to feel no pain.
He walked out through the lingering green mist. Chunks continued to fall from his outstretched tentacles and from the now-opaque parts of his body.
“Your vaunted poison no longer works on me.”
“Tin Peck Sitil!”
She chanted a new spell and waved her right hand up and down. Flames surged upward and engulfed Olsidra. Though loud and flashy, the mana itself was far weaker than her previous attack. Such a thing could never reach him.
As if nothing had happened, Olsidra walked straight through the flames. Watching the distance shrink, she suddenly thrust her hand toward the sea.
“Selkel!”
Judging from the earlier scenes and conversations, she was likely calling for the broom, but the witch’s broom that had fallen into the sea earlier was nowhere to be seen.
“Etik Kanibes!”
She spun around in panic and shouted. This time the swamp-like ground swelled violently before crashing over Olsidra like a massive wave. It was an attack that mixed physical force with mana rather than mana alone. The idea itself wasn’t bad, but even she probably no longer believed it would work.
Naturally, it failed to halt Olsidra’s steps. His gait looked somewhat unsteady because of his transformed body, yet he continued forward, leaving his mark on the ground as he approached her.
For a moment she simply stood there, watching him come. Had she given up because there was no way left? No, that wasn’t the atmosphere. Mana still swirled around her, and there was no trace of fear or anxiety in her gaze, posture, or stance.
Looking closely, she kept her hands lowered and continued making small finger gestures. When Olsidra drew close enough to be dangerous, she thrust both hands forward.
“Hen. Chel Tura.”
A powerful incantation infused with mana. At the same time, a magic circle composed of unfamiliar characters—or rather, several simple drawings—appeared beneath Olsidra’s feet. His movements suddenly became unnatural.
As though crushed by an immense weight, he struggled to stay upright, and his previously steady steps visibly slowed. Yet slowed though they were, they did not stop.
“Is this everything, witch? Is this all you can do?”
Urshus’s energy itself was gradually diminishing, but that unpleasant presence only grew stronger in its place.
“…You insolent fool.”
As she moved her hand again, more drawings appeared above Olsidra’s head. A transparent barrier formed around him, trapping him inside, and more complex symbols were etched onto its surface.
Only then did a smile return to her face.
“You pulled off quite an amusing little trick, but I know a thing or two about sacrificial summoning myself.”
Yes. The way to deal with sacrificial summoning was actually quite simple. There was no need to fight and win. Whether by running away or stalling for time, the summoner would eventually destroy themselves. Especially when using their own body as the sacrifice—what more was there to say?
“I didn’t intend to kill you so easily, but it can’t be helped. I couldn’t have kept you alive long enough to use in the ritual anyway, and there are still others left besides you.”
Wait—was she talking about me?
“You really are a failure to the very end. I thought you’d finally become somewhat useful, only for you to throw it all away with something as pointless as sacrificial summoning.”
It wasn’t mockery or ridicule. If it had been, her tone and expression would have carried some satisfaction or sense of superiority. Even though irritation and anger were mixed in, that stiff voice and dry expression proved it was simply her genuine perception of him.
I couldn’t know the exact nature of their relationship, but at least I could understand the fury and hatred that had driven Olsidra to risk his life. That woman was the kind who should never be left alive.
“Now then, shall I deal with that coward? He’s lacking, but still better than nothing.”
A coward. So she had ultimately decided I was on the same side as Olsidra. She probably thought Jequirak had stopped participating in the battle because I was just an ordinary summoner with no real power, and had withdrawn to avoid losing a high-ranking summon. After all, I had even summoned a metal golem and hidden behind it.
Yes. From her perspective, my behavior—standing by and watching even though I was supposedly a dark priest like Olsidra—must have looked exactly like that. She could never have imagined I was one of the hero’s companions, completely unrelated to Olsidra or the dark priests. She would never have guessed I was simply waiting until both sides exhausted their strength.
—Kekeke, Contractor. Why pretend? Your intentions are crystal clear to me.
At the expectant, mocking tone from Jequirak, I couldn’t help but smile. Yes. Satisfaction and superiority. That was what a sneer truly was.
Just as I was about to dismiss the metal golem, an unpleasant energy suddenly surged from the ground in multiple places. Black-glowing objects shot upward and flew rapidly toward Olsidra. On closer inspection, they looked identical to the poisonous insects he had summoned earlier. So that was it. The remnants that had been falling from Olsidra’s body—they had transformed into insects. Then the way they had dropped earlier had been deliberate?
The insects swarmed the transparent barrier imprisoning Olsidra and began to lose their shape as though melting. Following the insects that turned into thick black liquid, stains spread rapidly across the barrier’s surface, and the symbols etched into it began to disappear one by one.
With a hardened expression, she hurriedly moved her hands. Flames rose around the barrier, but the insects kept clinging to it.
“Have you… finished… talking… witch?”
He could no longer speak properly, yet he was laughing. His tentacles stretched out and touched various points on the barrier. As something black and blue spread from within the translucent tentacles, the stains grew even wider.
And the moment Urshus’s dark-red light flashed within those stains, the barrier collapsed. The symbols floating on the ground and in the air were erased as well.
“Buying time… I see. You have… no more methods left… do you?”
He began walking toward her again. At the same unchanging pace as before, he strode straight for her.
“……!”
At her gesture, flames engulfed him once more, but they passed through him like an illusion. I saw her unconsciously take a step backward. Surprise and anger flashed across her face at the realization, yet beneath it, fear had appeared for the first time.
Olsidra saw it too. He laughed in a way that made one’s skin crawl, and at the sound her expression twisted with rage.
“Be, tu, Chitan!”
Blades of wind struck Olsidra, yet they failed to sever even a single one of his soft-looking tentacles.
“Selkel! You useless broom! How long are you going to stay hidden?”
Despite her shout, the broom remained nowhere to be seen. Cursing, she deliberately took several more steps backward of her own will. Flames, mana blasts, and wind blades flew at Olsidra again, but none of them even bought time.
She looked up toward Jequirak. She was probably considering fleeing by air, but I had no intention of allowing it.
—Hmph.
Though displeased, Jequirak followed my command and descended to a lower altitude. I had no intention of letting her escape. The fact that she kept calling for the broom suggested she lacked confidence in flying alone. If she had come down from the sky earlier not only out of confidence but because aerial combat was disadvantageous, then Jequirak alone would be more than enough to block her retreat.
“Y-you…! Ram, ral, lure!”
She seemed about to hurl another curse, then frantically chanted a spell. A large black sphere appeared in the air and flew straight toward me. She must have judged that dealing with me—the one controlling Jequirak—was easier than facing the dragon in the sky.
Well, it wasn’t a wrong choice. Targeting the summoner directly was standard, and the metal golem standing in front of me looked somewhat crude, with several wounds already marring its surface.
It was a situation worth attempting.
The black light struck the metal golem’s body. Its feet dug deeper into the ground as it was pushed slightly backward. It was certainly a destructive force. The impact, along with the energy that seemed intent on carving away the golem’s entire body, clearly aimed to eliminate both the golem and me behind it in one strike.
However, it was hopelessly insufficient.
“W-what…?”
Her shock was plain to see. I barely suppressed the urge to step forward and show her exactly what expression I was wearing.
When the black light faded after exhausting its power, the metal golem’s body bore no wounds aside from a few minor scratches on its surface.
Of course it didn’t. This metal golem was a custom model from the Aphros Workshop. It was forged from steel whose purity and compression rate had been dramatically increased, and it even possessed a natural regenerative ability like a living creature. Furthermore, with all the spells Medrup had cast upon it, ordinary attack spells or energies couldn’t even scratch it, let alone destroy it.
Back at El Nergavil, it had taken damage because of the high-ranking demon’s mana and the unique abilities of the summons Neiku had called forth. But an attack like the one just now could only leave shallow marks on the surface at best.