Chapter 152
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 152
Chapter Title: Breaking the Ritual
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But that action couldn't reach its conclusion.
An Aura Blade flashed toward him like lightning—Rophal's strike aimed straight for Leon's throat.
Claaaaang!!!
In an instant, Leon drew his spirit sword from his subspace without even turning around, blocking the attack with the scabbard held in one hand.
"To dare cause such chaos in Remilish Castle... You'll pay for that with your life."
His voice was grave, exuding an overwhelming wave of murderous intent.
Sword Masters weren't some common dogs—they were strategic weapons in their own right.
Naturally, the power radiating from a single Sword Master was far beyond what any ordinary human could muster.
In fact, the sheer intimidation pouring from him unchecked made Rebecca and Merrill Daina's faces visibly pale.
But Leon didn't spare him so much as a glance.
With his free hand, he slowly suppressed its trembling and pushed open the lid of the coffin.
Inside lay a girl, her entire body bound tightly in chains, collapsed in unconsciousness.
"......"
Leon’s pupils contracted sharply the moment he spotted her.
The tiny girl's body was covered in countless red cracks, like fissures in porcelain.
Clear evidence that the ritual was already underway.
If left as is, she would be devoured as the sacrificial offering.
Shrrrrrk!!!
At the same time, chains of light from countless mages wrapped around Leon and Luna at the center of the ritual array, binding them tight.
"We've subdued them!"
"Don't kill them! Make sure they can't lift a finger!"
It was suppression rather than outright lethality.
A barrage of debilitating debuff spells rained down, layering onto them.
Even so, Rophal kept his guard up, wary that Leon might introduce some unforeseen variable.
Just moments ago, when he'd swung his Aura Blade, Leon had undeniably blocked it with the sword in his hand.
Even if he'd put only moderate force into the swing, a Sword Master's blade wasn't something so easily parried.
Of course, one could chalk it up to the ominous aura emanating from that sword, but that alone made it threat enough.
Their goal remained unchanged. The ritual had already manifested, though they lacked a sacrifice.
To continue, they'd simply use these two as additional offerings.
In other words, as long as they neutralized the pair and kept them from escaping the ritual array, it was fine.
Any minor resistance in the process?
Unless it was someone extraordinarily powerful, they'd be helpless in this scenario.
Besides, the ritual array ceaselessly drained the life force from its sacrifices, tilting the odds firmly against Rophal and the knights under Bania Remilish.
Once fully drained, the offering would crumble to dust from the fingertips outward.
The sealing spell on the coffin had been of that latter type.
Unaware or uncaring of their own predicament, Leon stared blankly at the girl inside the coffin, his face vacant.
The inexplicable something that had been emanating from his body vanished in that instant.
As if the churning emotions within him had suddenly settled.
Right now, Leon's attention was fixed solely on Arsha.
"Can you check her condition?"
"She's still alive. Life force has been drained heavily, but she's holding for now."
"Looks like it's been absorbing her for quite a while."
"She's lucky."
The mages who'd cast the binding spells looked flustered by their utter nonchalance toward being ensnared.
"Healing?"
"The physical damage is easy to mend, but we need to halt the ritual first. And..."
Luna paused briefly before continuing slowly.
"Her mind has taken severe damage. Likely from the kraken's influence."
It was almost comical how casually she mentioned needing to disrupt such an advanced, intricate ritual.
This was a high-dimensional ritual magic combining necromancy with top-tier elemental spells from every discipline—a multilayered masterpiece.
No way could one or two people unravel it in short order.
Thinking that, Rophal bowed his head to Bania.
"Young Lady, even to dispel the ritual magic would take dozens of specialists from every field working for days. I'll keep them pinned down, so please continue the ritual."
"The ritual can't fail."
It was a spell that had taken years of preparation.
Even the renowned mages of the Magic Tower would be left speechless by its complex, fortified structure.
No way could these riffraff break something like that.
It was simple common sense.
Just peeling off the outermost layer would take hours.
But shattering that common sense didn't take long at all.
In a flash, dozens of protective layers crumbled in an instant.
The spells guarding the ritual magic array itself still held firm, but they wouldn't last seconds once targeted.
"Hmm... Let's try this."
Kwachik... Crash!!!
This time, twice as many spells shattered.
Necromancy and elemental magic alike, all mixed in.
Was this even possible?
Well, they had just obliterated the coffin's protective spells in a heartbeat, so they must have some trick.
But the defensive arrays on the coffin and those shielding the ritual were fundamentally different in nature.
No matter how skilled an elemental mage, interfering with another field—let alone necromancy—was impossible.
Yet what unfolded before them defied that.
Every few seconds, necromantic spells lost control, while elemental ones were dismantled from their core frameworks.
Realizing something had gone terribly wrong, Rophal drew his sword and targeted Leon, the source of this chaos.
This guy was dangerous. Even if he couldn't be used as a sacrifice, he had to die right here, right now.
Like time itself accelerating, Rophal closed the distance to Leon in a blink and swung his blade precisely at the boy's throat.
At this speed, power, and precision, even another Sword Master couldn't react easily.
Especially one focused on breaking spells?
No need to overthink it.
But Leon, shattering spells by the second, leisurely drew his sword from its scabbard.
Even as the blade neared his throat, he showed no fear of death.
Claaaang!!
What Rophal felt next wasn't the soft give of flesh, but the heavy resistance of colliding with something immense.
"What in the—?!"
A massive impact followed, shoving Rophal's form back.
His Aura Blade-wreathed sword repelled so easily?
As that thought crossed his mind, he looked back at Leon—and his eyes widened in shock.
The aura cloaking Leon's sword was unmistakably an Aura Blade—the hallmark of a Sword Master.
In other words...
The teenage boy casually dismantling their magic, presumed to be a mage...
Had reached the same realm as Rophal, who'd spent years cultivating to surpass that wall.
Absurd.
A Sword Master at that age? They weren't street dogs anyone could claim.
And he wasn't even solely focused on the sword—he was interfering with magic mid-fight.
The mana swirling around him marked him clearly as a mage. A highly skilled one, at that.
And that mage was a Sword Master?
Rophal felt like he was trapped in a nightmare.
Just one exchange revealed volumes of information.
Leon’s physical reinforcement surpassed his own, and the Aura Blade's refinement was superior too.
This young boy's technique was more solid than Rophal's, forged across decades on battlefields and through past wars.
"Rophal! What are you doing?! Stop that bastard now!!"
Rophal ground his teeth at Bania Remilish's hysterical shout.
The magic array crumbled in real time.
Over half the spells were already gone in under a minute.
If the robed girl were the one breaking them while the boy defended, he might've forced himself to accept it.
"......"
Even as his worldview shattered live, Rophal couldn't stop.
He was a knight of House Remilish. He had to obey Bania Remilish's orders.
That thing ahead was a monster. Don't think of it as human—treat it as some entity mimicking one.
Rophal circulated every ounce of his aura with precision, pumping vitality through his body.
Fixing his gaze on Leon, still standing there dismantling spells, he kicked off the ground and shot forward like a bolt of light.
"You've been annoying me for a while now."
Huh?
Before Rophal could even reach Leon, the robed girl was already in his path, fist clenched.
She's a monster too, he judged.
Wary, Rophal thrust his sword to sever Luna's windpipe precisely.
But his blade merely sliced empty air, failing to kill her.
'A gap in technique...'
Only then did Rophal understand.
Not just Leon—even this girl before him outclassed a Sword Master like himself.
'The world's fucking unfair.'
Luna ducked low, and her small, pale hand slammed into Rophal's solar plexus.
Craaaaack!!!
Something shattered with a resounding boom, and Rophal's body flew helplessly out of the magic array, crashing into the outer wall encircling the ritual chamber.
He'd heard tales like this.
Extremely honed martial artists could crack space itself with a single punch.
But power at this level went beyond mere Fist Master territory.
These two seemed connected to the enslaved girl being sacrificed.
Just what the hell was that slave girl's identity?
Rophal's body was a wreck. Power wouldn't enter one arm properly, ribs screamed from fractures everywhere.
Some organs were likely ruptured from that one blow.
Despite the excruciating pain, he forced himself back up.
"All forces!!! Protect the Young Lady!!"
Knights and mages guarding the ritual array unleashed a volley of attacks in unison.
Rebecca and Merrill drew their weapons to join the fray, but they couldn't take a single step.
"Both of you, stay out of the way."
Those words chilled them to the bone, like the frigid air of the polar wastes, freezing them in place.
At the same time, an enormous number of magic arrays began manifesting around Leon.