Two Familiar Faces
Yujun took the measure of the two Demon God Worshippers with the familiar faces.
Stronger than that fake castle lord I saw.
Something else set them apart from the rest of the cult. A thick, clinging darkness hung about them, but the purity of their mana was remarkably high as well. Most Demon God Worshippers ran crude in mana compared to their raw strength. These two were not the sort he could afford to take lightly.
Yujun loaded his sword with mana and Chaos.
Armene and Sultan drew their weapons, bracing for the strike about to come. Yujun never lifted his feet from the ground. He brought the spell into being by will alone.
The two cultists, who had been counting on him to fight with the sword, faltered for a heartbeat. It did not last. They raised powerful barriers around their bodies and charged.
"Don't give him an opening."
"I know."
They snapped the words back and forth and struck in concert. Stand still to counter, and a neck could come off before anyone knew what had happened. From where they stood, attack was the best defense.
Sultan's form vanished. So did Armene's.
Yujun took a single step and swung at the barriers wrapped around them.
Clang—!
His eyes went wide.
The scene was the exact opposite of what he had expected. He had never once considered that any shield could stop his blade. For the first time in a very long while, Yujun was rattled.
With attack power like his, how had the thing not even twitched? His wrist had been properly loaded. His stance had been perfect. The damage that ought to have followed from his attack power had gone in at a full hundred percent — and still the barrier did not so much as crack. That, for him, was a small shock.
From the other side, Armene's sharp claws came tearing through as if no barrier were there at all. Yujun angled his sword. Having felt the power packed into the blade, she retreated in a hurry, and he did not waste the gap. He swung for the opening at her flank.
Clang—!
Once again, without fail, the sword bounced off the barrier. The rebound was monstrous. A hollow laugh slipped out of him.
Does that barrier not have a weak point?
The last strike had not been sword-power alone. A considerable amount of mana had gone into it, and Chaos had been laid on thick. Until now, nothing had ever failed to give way before Chaos. Yujun's face tightened.
Think. They're strong, sure — but there's no way they have the defense or the mana to eat an attack of mine.
Certain the barrier would never break, Sultan and Armene charged him again, pouring on a blind assault and never once looking back.
Clang! Kang!
Their attacks, of course, never reached him either. Yujun's level was simply too high to allow them a hit. Even so, frustration began to take root in his gut.
No guarantee magic will work either. They already stopped something carrying mana and Chaos.
He tried to turn the fight with Space Domination. Space warped, reaching to bind the two cultists — but the pressure crushed only the space outside the barriers. Sheltered inside them, the pair slipped free of the coordinates he had seized as if nothing were wrong.
Wondering whether some elemental weakness might exist, he threw every element he had at them. The barriers did not budge. And Armene and Sultan were cunning about it, clinging to him without letup so he could never bring every card he held into play.
While Yujun still had not found a way through, cold sweat was beading on the two of them as well.
At this rate he's going to figure it out.
If Yujun learned the truth of the barrier, it would not merely be a disaster. It would be a catastrophe, because the counter, once known, was embarrassingly simple. The better a player was with a sharp weapon, the easier the barrier was to destroy.
Generated by an item issued by the cult, the barrier could stop any attack whatsoever, with a single exception. The one condition under which it broke was this: stab the same spot three times with something pointed. Attack power and raw strength did not matter. Meet that condition, and the barrier vanished. Anyone who understood it could dismantle it with ease.
Yujun did not know that. Which was exactly why the frustration would not leave him.
A brief lull settled over the fight.
"What do we do? Until backup gets here, this feels hopelessly short."
"It looks easy once you know it, but until you know the method, there's no easy way to figure it out. Even if the bastard's a monster... No. Because he's a monster, he's even further from the answer."
"You mean he's always solved things the easy way, with raw power, so he can't pull little tricks?"
Sultan shook his head at that.
"Less a trick, and more something a guy like him could easily overlook. There's almost nothing he can't do. He's outstanding in every direction. It'll take him a while to run through everything he's capable of."
"Ah. That's what you meant."
Just as they thought, Yujun's mind was running somewhere else entirely.
I might be able to solve this with New-Generation Magic.
To do that, he needed the principle behind the barrier. He already had a hazy sense of it, but hazy was not the same as complete. He would have to clash with it a few more times. Unable to sit still on a question, Yujun moved first.
The look in his eyes made Armene and Sultan flinch — and then relief washed over them, because he still could not break the barrier. Watching him charge more recklessly than before, they found themselves backing away without meaning to. If, by chance, that sword swinging with such terrifying momentum struck the same spot three times, the barrier would vanish on the spot, and their bare bodies would be left exposed to a slash carrying that absurd power. From more than a few precedents written in the cult's documents, they knew armor meant very little in front of that sword.
They held on by the skin of their teeth, stretching the distance as if their only goal were to buy time. More precisely, they were simply being dragged around by Yujun, outpaced at every turn.
He summoned Paranet as well.
"Paranet."
"Yes, Master!"
"You take a few swings at that thing too."
"I was watching, of course, but is that even something that breaks? If Master himself cannot manage it, there is scarcely a world in which I—"
"It doesn't feel like something that breaks on attack power. Which means you might land it before I do."
"Understood. Opportunities to be of use to Master are few and far between. I shall devote every ounce of zeal and sincerity I possess."
"Good."
Even as he swung without pause, Yujun sank deep into thought.
Analyze the barrier completely, then dismantle it. That's the answer.
The thought was drifting further and further from the actual solution, but he was convinced this was the only way. The barrier's level was high, and his magic sat higher still, which only made him think further ahead.
It isn't made of mana. It's built from some third energy I've never seen before.
With every clash he endlessly analyzed the information on the barrier stored in his mind. He even called on Super Concentration and threw himself into the study in earnest.
Not just breaking it. If I could make this mine...
Yujun grinned.
The two cultists went pale at the sight of him suddenly laughing like a madman.
"Don't tell me he's enjoying this."
"He's a truly impressive lunatic. I knew he was something, but nobody gets this strong for nothing."
"Right. It's the unhinged ones who end up on top."
"Like you?"
"I'd appreciate it if you didn't compare me to a monster like that."
Sultan waved the idea off hard enough to deny it with both hands.
Yujun was not listening. He was nearly in a trance, dissecting the barrier down to its bones.
This is fun. Feels like coding on a computer.
The structure was plainly different, but the way one approached it was remarkably similar. Look past the surface, and the barrier had been designed with obsessive care — the more he saw, the more he could only admire it. Tracing the maker's intent was just as entertaining, because what that person had been thinking lined up, more or less, with what he himself was thinking.
Whoever made this is one hell of a monster. Oh? How many magic circles did they stack on the outside? They even hid the arrays that meticulously. So other mages couldn't analyze it easily. Damn.
Studying the barrier was, right now, nothing short of pure joy.
Clang! Kang!
Even so, he did not forget to keep the two cultists in check with his sword.
"Should we just leave him like that?"
"Well. Easier on us."
He was swinging like a storm, but the swings were almost meaningless. Sultan and Armene let out breaths of relief.
"They're almost here."
"How many?"
"One."
"...Just one?"
"Take that back. Right now. The one coming is His Eminence the Cardinal."
"...For real? He's coming here himself?"
"Well. Not the main body, I think. A duplicate."
"Oh, come on."
"Even a duplicate can put out close to half the Cardinal's ability. Don't you know that? That much is plenty... enough."
"Why'd you trail off?"
"If he uses the barrier. Then it's enough. Mm. More than enough."
"Why add that? Do you think the Cardinal would lose to that man?"
"Who knows. Maybe."
"..."
Armene was more than a little thrown by Sultan's reaction.
The Cardinal's standing within the cult went without saying. His personal power was one thing. The number of believers he could mobilize was on another level entirely, and rare items of frankly broken performance were his to use more or less as he pleased. That was reason enough to have faith. And yet...
Having faced Shin Yujun in person, Sultan knew the man was a power of an entirely different dimension — enough that he wondered whether even the Cardinal's true body would have a hard time of it. Part of it was that he did not know the Cardinal's true strength. The other part was that Shin Yujun stood at a level no one could approach.
"I believe in the Cardinal."
"You've never even seen him."
"To the faithful, he's practically a god. And he's merciful."
"Don't be dazzled by what you see on the surface."
"What? Are you saying the Cardinal is wicked?"
"Wh-what are you talking about? I'm saying he's far more merciful than you think. There you go again, trying to frame me."
"I'll pretend I didn't hear it. Otherwise this doesn't end with both of us taking severe punishment."
"And why are you the one talking like you're doing me a favor? Unbelievable."
"Enough. Stop chatting and focus. What are you going to do if the barrier suddenly breaks?"
"Heh heh."
Yujun stopped moving and let out a deep breath. It was not exhaustion. It was a sigh overflowing with awe.
Finally...!
He had done what he had set out to do. The barrier was fully analyzed. He had not expected to finish this quickly, but his ability had outrun even his own estimation of it.
This has to be the Genius trait, right?
A trait that turned an ordinary person into a genius in a single stroke. Whether he had truly become a genius was still an open question — but he was, at least, doing the sorts of things geniuses did.
Once he knew how to break the barrier, the feeling that followed was almost hollow.
Stab it three times. That was all it was.
A flawless barrier is impossible. They had bound together complex magical formulas with excellent effects, built the thing as solid as it could be, and then hung a fatally simple condition for its undoing on the whole of it. In a way, it was a great deal like a ward.
Either way, he now understood the barrier perfectly.
It was time to give the Demon God Worshippers, still resting easy, a proper shock.