Chapter 65
Chapter 65
The truth was, even with a trump card up my sleeve, the odds of failure were high.
One way or another, my opponent was none other than Puppet.
I was taking a risk because I feared what might come afterward. If I didn’t deal with Puppet here, it was sure to cause trouble down the line.
“I’ll let you make the first move. Do your utmost to struggle, so you won’t have any regrets when you die.”
“Ha ha ha!!”
Puppet burst out laughing.
“You dare do that to me, Puppet? Just how horribly do you want to die? Very well. I’ll give you exactly what you want. Look forward to it. I’ll make you experience every kind of pain a human can suffer before you die.”
Snap!
The puppets charged.
Thud, thud.
My heart pounded with tension.
Even the weaker puppets were at Lv. 3 or Lv. 4.
Some had power on the level of Lv. 5.
Their forces far outclassed those of most knight orders or mage corps.
If my plan didn’t go as intended, I’d be torn to pieces.
I absolutely mustn’t look scared. Keeping a poker face is important.
I stood with my arms crossed, watching the puppets surge toward me.
Arrogant, as if I were watching moths fling themselves into a fire.
Perhaps something about my appearance didn’t sit right with Puppet, because he briefly stopped his puppet army.
“…I don’t know what you’re thinking. You must know there’s no way you can handle this, don’t you?”
“What? Are you scared?”
“!!”
“Just like a coward. If you’re afraid of me, then go on—bark like a dog and get lost right now.”
Puppet’s face turned deathly pale.
Coward.
It was the word he hated most.
“Prepare yourself!”
Just as the puppets’ hands were about to reach me—
Now!
I brought out my first trump card.
Rattle.
It was a Magic Bomb.
A Magic Crystal packed with as much Mana as possible and made solely for the purpose of exploding.
And it was Upper Rank, too.
I got it from Lairan in the Four Dragon Fortress a while back, just in case. I never thought I’d end up using it like this.
An Upper Rank Magic Bomb could even affect Lv. 5 knights and mages.
Of course, actual knights and mages could put their skills to use and somehow neutralize a Magic Bomb—but these opponents were puppets devoid of reason.
KABOOOM!!!
They were caught in the blast.
As if they’d been swept up by a grenade, the puppets were blown away.
And the Magic Bombs I had weren’t just one. I had ten of them.
I detonated them all at once, and the puppets rushing toward me were torn apart and sent tumbling like scraps of paper.
It was complete devastation.
But—
“Ha ha. Was this petty trick all you had in mind? Ban, I’m disappointed in you.”
Flash!
Puppet’s Dark Mana spread over the area, and an unbelievable Miracle took place.
The puppets, which had been reduced to arms, legs, and countless scattered fragments, began to restore themselves to their original forms.
It was Puppet’s Seventh-Star Master Spell, “Immortal Puppet.”
As long as Puppet remained unharmed, his puppets were immortal.
-Kikik.
-Kill. Kill.
Dozens of puppets returned to their unharmed forms and let out eerie laughs.
A breathtaking sight.
“I had such high hopes for you, and this is all you’ve got? What a letdown. I’ll just torture you a little and kill you…”
Puppet abruptly shut his mouth.
He’d sensed something was wrong.
Even in this hopeless situation, I was still standing there, composed and arrogant.
It wasn’t a bluff.
I twisted the corner of my mouth.
“You fool. You don’t even realize the position you’re in.”
“…What did you say?”
“You’ve lost.”
As soon as I declared it—
My real trump card revealed itself.
Slice.
A flash of light.
Dark and ominous.
Like the wing of a black bird.
“!!”
Puppet belatedly tried to block the attack in shock, but it was no use.
He had just used a Seventh-Star Master Spell, and his strength had yet to recover. And the one who had appeared now was not someone who would let even the tiniest opening go to waste.
Slice!
Puppet’s head rose into the air.
Beyond the spray of blood, I saw a woman with cold eyes.
Amanda, the Black Bird.
A War Mage who had dominated the battlefronts of the Northern Seven Kingdoms, and a descendant of the Sun-Moon Clan, a legendary clan of assassins!
That’s right.
The trump card I’d prepared was her.
Amanda didn’t stop after cutting off Puppet’s head.
Stab! Slice!
She pierced his heart and cut it out, then severed his arms and legs as well.
Of course, that wasn’t enough to kill Puppet—but Amanda followed up with another fatal blow.
“The Sun and Moon Descend! Beings of this world, kneel before the Sun and Moon!!”
Flash!
Brilliant light and deep darkness flickered into being at the same time, and with a clunk! Puppet’s head, heart, arms, and legs—which had been trying to reattach themselves to his torso—came to an abrupt stop.
She had blocked Puppet’s recovery with the Sun-Moon Clan’s unique debuff power, which interfered with the opponent’s strength.
“Did you see that, my benefactor?! I did that for you! Please praise me!”
“Don’t make such a fuss. It’s not over yet.”
Kikikik.
Puppet’s head, heart, arms, and legs shuddered.
He was trying to forcibly push aside the Sun-Moon Clan’s power.
“What kind of monster is this?! Benefactor, I’ll try to hold him off! You should run!”
“It’s fine. I’ve won.”
Amanda looked puzzled.
Judging by Puppet’s current momentum, he’d be back to normal in less than a minute.
It didn’t matter.
One minute—no, around thirty seconds would be enough.
Clomp.
I walked toward Puppet’s severed head.
With eyes turned scarlet with rage, Puppet let out a chilling shout.
“I’ll kill you! No—I'll turn you into a puppet, so you’ll be neither dead nor alive, and torment you for all eternity!”
“You and I are thinking alike. I was just planning to turn you into my puppet, too.”
“…What?”
“I said I’m going to turn you into a puppet.”
I placed my hand on Puppet’s head.
“The one with the higher rank dominates their opponent. That’s the foundation of Puppet Art.”
My Puppet Art was pathetic to begin with.
The best I could manage was Moonlight Waltz, which required me to obtain my opponent’s oath before I could use it.
But if my opponent was Puppet, then, conversely, there was an opening I could exploit.
‘I can seize one of the strings Puppet uses to control its dolls and control Puppet in turn.’
It was something only I, the Grandmaster of Magic, could attempt.
However, there was one important prerequisite.
My ‘rank’ had to be higher than Puppet’s.
That was the foundation of Puppet Art, after all.
It was fine.
“I, Ban Ecclesia, am an existence so magnificent that you’re not even fit to compare yourself to me. Show me your reverence.”
It was the kind of thing that would make someone ask what the hell I was talking about.
But just as Puppet was about to sneer—
“W-What? Impossible! How can you have a soul of such rank?!”
I quietly closed my eyes.
Though I was only First Star Rank at the moment,
I imagined myself as an existence of the highest rank.
It wasn’t difficult.
I could imagine it naturally, as though this were the rank I was supposed to possess in the first place.
A sense of omnipotence came over me, as if I had ascended to the heavens and was looking down upon the earth—
-Trait, ‘Ascendant’s Rank (Incomplete, Temporary, Partial),’ manifests!
It was the trait I’d gained after facing the Lord of the Phantom Dream!
In an instant, though incomplete, the rank of my soul reached the heavens, and I completely subdued Puppet’s soul.
“You filthy, worthless thing.”
I gave the command.
“Vanish from this world forever.”
With that command—
Shrrrr.
Puppet disappeared.
Literally.
Its very existence was erased, as if someone had rubbed it out with an eraser.
‘W-What? What just happened?’
I was horrified.
My plan had been to subdue Puppet with Puppet Art, then command it to kill itself.
But it had been erased from existence altogether?
‘Erasing an existence is impossible without Lv. 9 Miracle Magic. Wait, could it be…?’
A single possibility occurred to me, and my face stiffened in dismay.
‘…Could I have just used Miracle Magic?’
As if to confirm my guess, a message appeared.
-You have manifested magic that violates causality with an incomplete rank!
Intruding upon causality was one of the defining characteristics of Miracle Magic.
This meant I really had manifested Miracle Magic!
Of course, it hadn’t been complete Miracle Magic.
-The effect of the magic is adjusted to match your true rank!
Even so, it was absurd.
‘No matter how weak it is, Miracle Magic is still Miracle Magic!’
Miracle Magic wasn’t merely powerful.
It was, quite literally, a power that twisted the laws of reality.
‘…It must have been a one-off fluke. There’s no way the world’s causality would just let me do something like that again.’
Just as I’d thought, another message appeared.
-You are being penalized for intruding upon causality!
-A backlash is being inflicted upon your body!
“Cough!”
“Benefactor?!”
I coughed up a gush of blood and dropped to my knees.
Fortunately, it didn’t hurt.
Instead, my body grew heavy at an alarming rate. It was so difficult that I could barely twitch a finger.
‘My physical condition has been forcibly worsened.’
Still, thankfully, it didn’t seem to be permanent damage.
I’d probably be all right after resting for a few days.
‘That’s a small price to pay for driving Puppet off.’
But it caused an unexpected misunderstanding.
“Benefactor!! Did you use a Self-Sacrifice Spell?”
“……??”
I looked bewildered.
It was a spell that burned up the caster’s own life force to unleash powerful magic.
‘…No, I didn’t use anything like that.’
I tried to deny it, but another cough caught in my throat and stopped me from speaking.
Amanda misunderstood even more, and cried out desperately.
“Ah! Your condition is terrible! You were like this at the Evil Dragon’s Lair last time, too. Benefactor, why are you always—?”
‘No, I didn’t do anything like that at the Evil Dragon’s Lair. What is she misunderstanding?’
But there wasn’t time to correct her.
That was when I heard voices.
“P-Professor Ban? You even used a Self-Sacrifice Spell for us?”
It was the group who had fled earlier!
Julia and Wilhelm, of course, along with Katrinne, Libel, the Third Prince, Hans, Linden, and Mari—all of them were there.
‘No, why did they come back?’
I looked troubled.
They all reacted in different ways, but they were expressing the same emotion.
They were moved.
They all mistakenly thought I had risked my life to save them!
‘No, this is a bit much.’
But then an even more troublesome obstacle arrived.
“I sensed the presence of an Ascendant, so I came. What’s going on?”
It was Former President Randolf!
He glanced around, then looked at me and narrowed his eyes.
“Ban, could it have been you?”
This was a crisis!
Former President Randolf, once a level-eight archmage, might realize that I’d just used Miracle Magic.
In the end, I squeezed my eyes shut and chose the lesser evil over the worst.
“…I defeated Puppet with a Self-Sacrifice Spell.”
“!!”
When I admitted it, everyone present was thrown into an uproar.
“…Professor.”
It was fine for Julia and Wilhelm to bite down hard on their lips.
But Katrinne. Libel.
You two, stop being so moved.
Third Prince, why are you making that face?