Even If the Absolute Sealing Orb Failed
Even if the Absolute Sealing Orb proved useless against Masare, it hardly mattered. The reward for bringing down a Root of Darkness of that caliber would be anything but small. The one he had met before fell far short of her—so far that they might as well have been different species.
Yujun seized a volume of space large enough to smother the scattered smoke. The faint haze he took for Masare slipped out of that dominated space all the same, as if nothing had bound it. His brow knit. Space Domination isn't something a gas can simply pass through. She had to possess some special ability. Either that, or binding-type powers failed to take hold once she changed into that form. Whatever the case, this was no time to stand around gaping.
Masare snapped back into her original shape in an instant and began belching a foul, soot-stained smoke that reeked of exhaust. It wasn't the plague. Even so, instinct told him that a single touch would put a life on the brink. Yujun raised a shield and fell back.
An undead happened to be nearby. With a binding spell he hoisted it and hurled it into the murky aura Masare had exhaled.
Whoosh—! Fssst!
Swallowed by that ominous haze, the undead vanished. It had been a fairly large specimen, and it was gone in a single heartbeat. It felt like the bones were corroding... The speed of it had been extreme. Perhaps, if a living thing rather than an undead touched the aura, it would rot just as fast. A Root of Darkness that wielded plague having a cheat of an ability like that was hardly surprising.
That probably has nothing to do with defense... It wasn't even magic, so a high magic resistance wouldn't let anyone endure it. In short, it was an absurd power that amounted to one hundred percent defense penetration. He couldn't be certain, of course. He hadn't taken the hit himself. Let's confirm a little more.
Masare's aura wasn't spreading as quickly as he had expected. The undead charging at him, though, stepped unthinking into the low-lying haze and melted away in an instant. Yujun timed every disappearance and found that the interval varied slightly with body size. The difference scarcely amounted to a hair.
So it has more to do with size than defense. That didn't mean a larger body was better just because it lasted a little longer. Touch it once, and you died all the same. This is genuinely dangerous... The conviction that a single touch meant death kept him from approaching her carelessly. Not that he had lost the will to fight.
He drew up his mana. Wasn't magic made for moments exactly like this? He cast a Freezing spell that locked the surrounding air solid, setting the range wide on purpose so Masare couldn't slip free the way she had under Space Domination. Sure enough, the murky aura that had been creeping outward froze solid and stopped.
The problem was Masare. Turned to smoke, she seemed untouched by the temperature around her; her speed didn't slow in the slightest, and the shards of ice crashing down on her simply passed through the haze. While he was at it, Yujun added flame magic and lightning as well. Multi-casting—though strictly speaking, it wasn't casting at all. The moment he decided to use a spell, it manifested.
He even wove Painful Strike into his mana. Originally the skill only took effect when delivered through a weapon, but after he mastered New-Generation Magic, imbuing Painful Strike with an element had become possible too. With New-Generation Magic, there was almost nothing he couldn't do. He unleashed four attributes at once: lightning, flame, freezing, and wind.
Krak-krak! Zzt-zzt!
Lightning, mixed with other magics, rebelled until it hovered on the verge of detonation—enough strain to burden even the caster. But Yujun was no ordinary mage. He held New-Generation Magic at GX+, a full tier above Ancient Magic, and of course he knew how to cancel the explosive backlash that came from blending lightning with the other elements.
A tremendous blast erupted toward Masare. The same explosion surged at Yujun, only to reverse at a certain point and turn back—wind magic driven to its extreme. He had drawn on wind for exactly this purpose from the start, not as an attack. And so the four elemental magics became Masare's alone to bear.
Boom-boom-boom! Kra-koom—!
He had selected only the most powerful spells, and the blast they produced surpassed even Harp's breath. Unlike that straight-line breath, the explosion expanded in every direction. This time, it worked. Masare hastily resumed her original form and threw up a thick cluster of shields. The response was extremely fast, but in Yujun's estimation the number of shields fell woefully short.
Underestimating my magic? Then take the full brunt of it.
He manifested still more spells, again choosing only those with the greatest force. Had she read his thoughts, Masare would have been thoroughly dumbfounded. She hadn't looked down on his magic; she had simply been out of time. As expected, her shields lasted only a few seconds before shattering with a crash. In truth, Yujun thought it impressive they had held even that long. He hadn't been holding back. He had cast those spells with intent.
"Aaaaaagh!"
The blast sent her body ricocheting in every direction. She showed no sign of turning to smoke as she had before. So she isn't completely immune to magic, then. Even so, her toughness was extraordinary. Whether from high magic resistance or something else, her limbs were intact after being caught in that explosion. Wounds covered her from head to toe and left her hanging in tatters, but none of it threatened her life.
"Y-you're pretty strong, aren't you? When you were using magic earlier, it wasn't anything like this."
Masare said it with an awkward little laugh, as if faintly thrown.
"Who fights undead at full power?"
"...Most players don't have a choice, you know? If they don't, they die."
She wasn't wrong. Few players could afford to conserve their strength against an undead host that powerful. Even Manuela and Yenil wouldn't have been able to hunt so steadily if he hadn't raised a barrier for them.
"So what are you trying to say?"
"That you're strong. I'll admit it."
"You've been admitting a lot of things. Almost makes me feel bad about killing you."
"...You can't kill me. I don't die."
"Even if your head comes off?"
"Even then."
Yujun studied her with interest. She didn't seem to be lying, and the tremendous confidence she showed even after taking his magic made him curious. Just how far could she hold out? He felt as if he could kill her right now if he wanted. Maybe I should power up little by little and see. Knowing roughly where she dies would help me, too.
He had never gone all out. In truth, he didn't even have a precise grasp of his own full power. He had never met an opponent who required it. Masare made an excellent test subject for measuring his strength.
"Wait. You said your name was Shin Yujun, right?"
"I never told you my name."
"I overheard the others talking. How about we just end this peacefully, right here?"
"Fine. We agree that nobody runs until one of us is dead?"
"Ah—no! No, no, no. That's not it. I'll get out of here, so let's not fight."
"...What?"
What is she even saying?
Seeing the dumbfounded look on his face, Masare rushed on.
"Just listen. Honestly, you and I are probably the two strongest things on the Continent. If one of us dies, what a waste would that be? And if the two of us fight? Everyone here dies."
"You wouldn't care if they all died anyway."
"..."
Struck dead center, Masare clamped her mouth shut. As a Root of Darkness, she held that it didn't matter who died, undead or player. No—if anything, she would have preferred that everyone except the undead simply died. That was her wish. When the living died, they became power for her.
Yujun raised his sword. Negotiation was not something he did. Masare, though, was more desperate than he had expected.
"W-wait, what! Ugh... is there something you need? Hmm? I've got more points than you'd think, you know? I'll buy you whatever you want. I don't have it on me right this second, but..."
"What good is having money?"
"Huh?"
"I need an item money can't buy."
"Exactly what kind?"
"A Synchronization Marble."
"I don't know what that is."
"Then you die."
"Hey. Aren't you taking me way too lightly? You think I'll just keel over because you feel like killing me? You... you think you're stronger than me right now, don't you? Right?"
"Then fight."
Even as they spoke, the plague was spreading farther. The players' ear-splitting screams gradually thinned, and beastlike howls began to rise from every direction. The number of players the plague had turned into monsters was swelling fast.
Yujun formed several hundred fireballs, each one on the verge of bursting. Even that showed no sign of draining his mana. Inventory synchronization isn't far off. If I kill Masare, the timing should line up nicely. If it came to it, he meant to kill her rather than seal her.
"Stop! Stop!"
He didn't stop, not even at her frantic cry. If she had resistance to magic, what about a sword strike laced with Chaos? He was curious whether she could take his Planet Destroyer's Sword with her bare body as well. With Super Concentration layered on, his speed had reached a realm one might fairly call divine. On top of that, he used Flash.
Masare's eyes darted frantically, but her dynamic vision couldn't find him. Even trying to sense his presence left her with a jumble of signals, and she couldn't tell whether the location reaching her was the real one.
This won't do.
She turned to smoke. All she wanted was to get off the battlefield as fast as possible. That isn't something you can even call a monster. I'd believe it if someone told me the Demon God had descended. Faced with a power on an entirely different plane, her spirit had been badly broken. More than anything, the fact that he had inflicted pain on her was a shock.
In all her life, Masare had never once felt pain. An arm severed, a blade driven into her abdomen—she felt nothing. No matter how grave the wound, she recovered in a breath. And yet her whole body was still numb and tingling. It stung as if she had been scorched by flame, and itched as if thousands of insects were crawling over her.
This is pain...?
Because the Painful Strike (SS) Yujun had used was of such a high grade, she suffered an agony no one else would ever experience. It was only her high Pain Tolerance trait that kept her from losing her mind. Without even that, she might have bitten clean through her tongue and collapsed on the spot. That was why she wanted to avoid fighting him at all costs—more than she feared a death that might leave nothing afterward. She was afraid of enduring that pain again. She was barely holding on even now, and if it happened again here... The mere thought was horrifying.
Whether he knew what she was thinking or not, Yujun was already preparing another spell charged with Painful Strike.
This one should do it.
The moment Masare caught his wicked smile, the color drained from her face.