5. Martial God (Martial God)
5. Martial God (Martial God)
"My brother is ever so consistent."
Brigitte spoke as if lamenting her own fate.
Before the gates of the 1st Princess Palace.
A figure radiating an extraordinary presence stood there.
Brigitte was certain. This was a show of force in response to Cloné being taken away.
Yuma and Cloné were now walking toward that massive gate. Brigitte wasn't worried. Because Yuma was there.
"Open the gate."
At Yuma's words, the knight standing guard before the princess palace spoke with a stiff face.
"There is someone outside who appears to be one of the Imperial Ten Seats. Are you sure it is all right?"
Yuma slowly nodded.
Grrrrrrrrind....
The knight finally opened the gate.
Yuma strode forward with an air of serene dignity. And then he stopped in front of a man. A man whose entire body was covered in black armor.
'Looks like the bastard I saw yesterday.'
Definitely one of the two who had stood at the sides of the 1st Prince Schubertche.
"I am Roark, the Spear Demon. The 9th Seat of the Empire."
Was he expecting admiration?
Was he hoping for trembling fear?
Yuma nodded his head slowly.
"Right, nice to meet you. I am Yuma."
"...Nice to meet me?"
Roark's brow furrowed sharply.
Tug─
Yuma looked down at Cloné, who had lightly tugged on his pants. Cloné whispered in a voice so small only Yuma could hear.
"Lord Yuma, you've probably already noticed, but way off at the far edge of the castle wall, there is a mage on one side and someone who looks like an archer on the other, both concealing themselves. I detected them with a field-detection spell."
As if I'd notice that.
She really was a future Archmage, as expected.
"Thanks. It's dangerous, so stay back."
"Yes...!"
After confirming that Cloné had activated a protective spell behind his back, Yuma once again fixed his gaze on the Spear Demon Roark, who was glaring at him with murderous intent, his spear still thrust forward.
He had absolutely no intention of dragging this out.
Slide─
Yuma gripped the <Black Dragon Bernak's Fang> in his hand.
Roark's body flinched.
"A dag...ger? Isn't your primary technique a ranged attack?"
Yuma realized that Roark was deeply mistaken about something.
'Well, I guess he doesn't know that I reflected the Red Star.'
There was no way ordinary citizens, neither warriors nor mages, would have realized that he had reversed the attack with a parry.
'So that's why he thinks my main form of attack is ranged.'
Yuma stared at Roark with a bored expression.
"What does that matter, when dealing with you."
"...What did you say?"
What does it matter what kind of attack I use, what kind of weapon I wield, to deal with the likes of you?
Having interpreted Yuma's words that way, Roark's brow furrowed intensely.
One more word slipped from Yuma's mouth.
"I'll let you have the first strike."
And those words scraped Roark's nerves perfectly raw.
"You... you son of a biiiiiiiitch!!"
A savage red aura swirled like a vortex around the Spear Demon Roark's spear.
Yuma faced the spear's trajectory head-on.
'Any attack.'
Any attack, any skill.
Has a 'Parry Point.'
★[If you find the Parry Point, there is no attack you can't deflect]
Poster: Don't Screw Me Over
He'd posted a video and written a few lines as a pastime, and the post had spread across all sorts of sites calling him an insane veteran player — that post came to mind.
The center point of the spear blade.
That was the Parry Point of that attack.
Yuma landed his dagger precisely on that center point.
Claaaaaaang!!
A golden circular effect, signifying a successful parry, spread outward.
<Absolute Counter>
Through the Absolute Counter Yuma had activated, the trajectory of the Raging Wind was recreated from the tip of the <Black Dragon Bernak's Fang>.
The Spear Demon's signature skill, 'Raging Wind,' shot forward in a straight line, its destructive power amplified tenfold.
Kwaaaaaaaaang!
Roark's armor crumpled like a sheet of paper. The Raging Wind pierced through Roark's heart and surged into the empty air.
The eyes of the slain Roark were rolled back, showing only white. Roark plummeted face-first to the ground, scattering blood.
Yuma did not relax his tension in the slightest. Because he remembered that Cloné had told him there were enemies hiding at a distance, on both flanks.
A chilly wind blew.
'The one I just killed was probably bait.'
Though even the 1st Prince who sent him here likely hadn't predicted that one of the Imperial Ten Seats would die after serving only as a sacrificial decoy.
As far as Yuma judged, the real fight began now.
Swiiiiiiish!
Three arrows from the left.
Kugugugugugu!
From the right, three spheres of fire surged forward amidst thick smoke.
A high-density aura was condensed on every single arrowhead. The esoteric principles of an archer who had reached the Master level were contained within them.
The round, spherical fireballs were no low-rank magic either. A ferociously blazing crimson flame. It was 6th Circle magic, <Great Judgment>.
Attacked from all sides.
But Yuma's mind remained calm.
<Bullet Time>
He simply used what he had to overcome the crisis.
Kiii────gi......gi─gik-
Time began to slow.
Limited solely to Yuma's perception.
The time he could view the world in slow motion was 30 seconds.
Three arrows and three fireballs floating in the air. At first glance they seemed frozen, but they were inching closer, slowly.
His brain accelerated.
The gaps between the three fireballs.
The gaps between the three arrows.
Where were the Parry Points of all of them?
He calculated everything in a split second.
The slightly greater threat was still the <Great Judgment> side.
The direction of the dagger turned to the right.
Kiiiing!
Before Bullet Time ended, he quickly parried two of the fireballs.
─Kee-geek!
Kang!
And at the exact moment <Bullet Time> fully terminated, he deflected the remaining fireball.
His body moved nimbly, exactly according to his meticulous calculations.
The order and angles of the parries he had mapped out during the Bullet Time. Yuma did not doubt his calculations for a single moment.
Immediately, he twisted his body toward the left, where the three arrows were hurtling in, and brought the dagger down in a reverse grip.
Claaaaang!
Twisted it sideways.
Kagagakak!
Slashed upward.
Kaaaaang!
The three fireballs...
The three arrows.
He parried all six projectiles, every last one.
The six projectiles reversed course toward their original masters, as if settling karmic debts.
As if playing a recorded video in reverse.
Swiiiiiiiiish─!
Kwakakakakakakang!
The problem was that all the projectiles were returning to their owners with tenfold amplified damage.
Left side.
The arrows of a sublime realm, wrapped in battle aura,
Embedded themselves in the body of the archer who had shot them.
Peobeobeobeobeok!
"Keuk, keuhuk! Guaaaaaaaaaah!!"
The sound of shoulder bones tearing. The sound of flesh ripping. And a scream echoed out.
Right side.
The 6th Circle magic <Great Judgment> reversed back to its caster. The <Great Judgment> had become even more powerful, like a 7th Circle Meteor spell, and pulverized the mage's body.
Ujikkeun! Kwadeudeuk! Kkudeudeuk!
The sound of bones being crushed rang out in succession.
In the end, all that remained was a lump of meat, a form that could no longer even be recognized as once human.
Ttuduk─
With an expressionless face, Yuma rolled his right arm, the one that had swung the dagger, in a full circle.
"Is there more?"
Yuma asked this while looking at the sky.
It was literally a remark meaning: Is this all?
But the knight who had opened the gate for Yuma felt a shiver run down his spine at those words.
'What kind of transcendent being has the Princess managed to win over!'
He had killed three people, each of whom had cultivated their arts to a level worthy of being called a 'Master' in their respective fields, in the blink of an eye, and then asked, Is there more?
It was mind-boggling.
That knight was not the only one feeling a shiver.
In front of the dead archer.
Someone was observing the corpse, holding a communication magical device to his ear.
"...Imperial 7th Seat, the Heavenly Bow Derain. Has just died. All three powerful figures sent by His Highness the 1st Prince are dead."
Haksen, the knight and closest aide to Marquis Kairos, the most powerful noble in the Empire, stared at Derain's corpse, which was twisted as if swept up by a storm.
The terrifying aura-laden arrows shot by the Heavenly Bow Derain
had returned as an even more powerful storm of ki. They had pierced through the Heavenly Bow Derain's body like a living dragon.
"Even though he was clearly in a state where he did not know the exact positions of his enemies, having felled the Spear Demon directly in front of him first... he sent back the attacks fired at him exactly as they were. Without missing a single one. The Heavenly Bow's three arrows. And the mage's three spheres of <Great Judgment>, the highest-grade fire-attribute magic...."
It was the power of a homing guidance function akin to guided missiles, an ability inherent within the skill <Absolute Counter>.
Of course, to Haksen who did not know that, everything appeared to be a thoroughly calculated move.
He deflected all the ranged attacks pouring toward him, made them perfectly return to his enemies, and at that very moment, even infused the projectiles with ki even stronger than before.
The martial prowess that man had just displayed.
The more he contemplated it, the more astonishing it became.
"If I may be so bold as to say... the danger level of the individual recruited by Her Highness the Princess is. Unpredictable. Beyond all imagination."
Haksen gulped and then opened his mouth again.
"God of War (Musin), I do not think it an exaggeration to call him that. My Lord Marquis."
In front of the mage, who had been reduced to a literal lump of meat after receiving the reflected <Great Judgment>, another figure stood. It was a woman with orange hair.
She was Ymir, disciple of the Mercenary King, who had come to assess the battlefield situation on a commission from Count Benosetian, the most renowned among the count houses of the Astes Empire.
Naturally, having expected to report the death of the person recruited by the 1st Princess Brigitte, Ymir found her thoughts unable to function properly at the completely opposite outcome.
She, too, held a conch-shaped communication magical device to her ear.
"Uh... Red Mage Beckler, 7th Circle, of the Red Brigade, has died. He's been turned into a complete lump of meat. The two Imperial Ten Seats sent by His Highness the Prince, and Beckler, are all dead."
Ymir suppressed the nausea that was rising.
If she let it out now, she felt like she would be killed by that unidentified man, too.
That was why even now, she was completely hidden at a far distance, talking as quietly as a little mouse.
"Danger level? I think someone who just shouldn't be messed with has appeared. For now, I'm never taking a commission related to this person again... I want to live a long life, you see."
She could hear Count Benosetian asking through the communicator if she knew his name.
Ymir, being a mercenary who specialized in information-gathering commissions, possessed a hearing artifact and had heard all of Yuma's words.
"The name, I heard him say it himself. Yuma... It was definitely Yuma."
The story of one man began to slowly spread among the nobles throughout the Empire.
About the man who had killed three of the Imperial Ten Seats in just two days.
Yuma, the God of War.
That the 1st Princess Brigitte had won over a monster in order to sit upon the Imperial Throne.