Chapter 36
Chapter 36
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 36
Chapter Title: The End of Jealousy
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A massive body the size of a small building charged forward like a broken truck, heedless of anything in its path.
I barely dodged at the last second before the collision. The thing slammed straight into the Azure Lion Palace behind me.
Then the collapse began.
With a deafening roar, half of the six-story tower that was the Azure Lion Palace crumbled, burying Jess beneath it.
“Kraaak!”
Jess struggled free from the massive pile of dirt and debris. But then the remaining half of the tower came crashing down belatedly, engulfing his freshly escaped body once more.
And then everything went quiet.
All that remained was the thick cloud of dust filling the darkness.
“Cough, cough! The Berserker’s bio armor is truly an incredible technology…”
But it’s not invincible, you know?
After tasting bitter defeat against their overwhelming power in the past, I had conducted all sorts of research and real combat to finally uncover their weakness.
First, freeze the base armor with ice magic, then shatter it with physical force.
Next comes lightning. The bio armor generated to block lightning has rubber-like insulating properties.
So hit it with fire, and it melts relatively easily.
The bio armor created afterward to block fire freezes easily to cold like the initial form, and the frozen bio armor shatters under physical force.
Of course, pulling this off requires at least an Arch Wizard-level mage…
Anyway, that’s how you rapidly deplete the bio armor, and eventually, they enter an exhausted state.
If you don’t know this and fight blindly, it takes ten times the effort to take down even one Berserker!
“Phew…”
I watched the giant mound beyond the dust stir faintly and spoke quietly.
“Jess? You just said everything happens automatically without you even thinking about it, right?”
“……”
“That’s exactly the weakness. It reacts to elements automatically whether you like it or not.”
“……”
“But how did it end up like this? What the hell happened in just a few days?”
I desperately wanted to grab him by the collar and interrogate him personally…
But he’d recover his strength soon, so there was no time for that. Instead, I pulled a sugar bar from my belt pouch, ate it, and prepared the final spell to end him.
-40 seconds left. If you need my power, do it fast.
Lukkar urged me from behind. This guy had already fully grasped his role in the Berserker takedown.
But the Berserker can’t generate new bio armor for a while after shedding four layers. So I no longer needed his help… I was about to say, when—
A sound.
A sound like the air itself tearing ripped through my ears.
‘Gale Blade?’
At the same time, blades formed like spiderwebs poured down in a net.
What would it look like if dozens of Knight Experts unleashed Gale Blade at once?
“Ah…”
I spotted it too late, my body about to be shredded to pieces. Lukkar reacted first, hurling his massive frame to shield me.
Krrrng!
Rocks ground apart in an enormous noise. But Lukkar looked down at me unscathed and asked,
-Are you okay?
“Yeah. I’m fine, but…”
Right then, as he checked on me, Lukkar’s head split in half.
Crack!
The rift ran down his torso, ending between his legs, cleaving his seven-meter-tall giant body completely in two.
At the same time, the blade that made the rift came crashing toward my crown.
Thanks to Lukkar’s sacrifice, I had time to react this time.
Vmm!
I barely blocked the enemy blade with a hexagonal shield of light.
“……”
A hulking knight in pitch-black armor bore down on me with his entire body and spoke.
“You blocked it?”
His expression was hidden by the flawless helmet, but he shook his head repeatedly in a voice full of surprise.
“My Weight Sword being blocked—this is the first time. Even if its power was diminished from slicing that rock lump.”
Phiren.
He was Jess’s guard knight, Phiren.
One of the only three Knight Masters in the empire, and a betrayer of humanity just like Jess.
“Yeah. I’d heard that only an Arch Priest can create a shield of light…”
He withdrew his sword for a moment, then swung it at my back with impossible speed that no one could react to.
Vmm!
But a new shield blocked the enemy attack again.
“Two shields?”
The eyes in the helmet flashed in astonishment. Without pause, I created another shield and targeted him.
‘Shield, come out! Target that armored lump!’
Shield of Light.
The holy spell ‘Shield of Light’ wasn’t just for creating a shield.
The moment it activates, you designate a target, and it flies around automatically, reacting to block attacks on that target.
But one shield can’t keep up with the enemy’s movements. Knight Masters are just too fast.
So, like now, you need at least three, each dedicated to marking him.
Vmm!
Vmm!
Vmmmm!
Meanwhile, Phiren circled me at insane speed for such a huge body, slashing down relentlessly.
Each time, the shields of light blocked his strikes. Whoa, dizzy… he’s so fast my eyes are spinning.
At this rate, the shields would vanish soon. But buying even a short time until then was crucial.
Knight Masters were beings who utterly transcended human physical limits.
No eyes could track that insane speed. So, like when I snagged that sea serpent before, I focused my Life Detection magic on the vital energy emanating from his body.
‘Got you.’
Then I cast Reverse Gravity—a holy spell that was the bane of all knights—directly on him.
Jerk!
Phiren’s body, accelerating from behind, shot upward in an instant. I turned and flashed him a bright smile.
You’ve had it good so far? From now on, you’re Sky Kong Kong until you die!
But the moment he started rising high into the sky—
Thung!
The metal shoe on his foot exploded downward.
“Huh?”
Where the shoe had come off wasn’t a human foot, but something grotesque split into several tendrils. They surged down in a flash, burrowing deep into the ground.
What the hell is this!
My jaw dropped involuntarily. He extended tendrils from his foot, stabbed them into the ground, and used them as anchors to withstand Reverse Gravity’s upward pull.
Thud!
Thanks to that, he landed back on the ground without rising even five meters.
I backpedaled and hastily cast Reverse Gravity again. But the tendrils seemed even more firmly anchored; this time, he barely rose three meters before crashing down.
“…I knew it would be like this.”
Thung!
Phiren ejected the gauntlet from his empty left hand, spewing fresh tendrils. I reflexively used Appraisal Eye on him.
Race: Variant.
Current Strength: S
Potential Strength: None.
Current Variant Power: A
Potential Variant Power: A+
Ah, damn it!
Not just Jess—this one wasn’t human either? What the hell happened to these guys’ bodies?
“I heard how you handled things at Yoton Bay and Verit Castle.”
“……”
“Holy magic Reverse Gravity. Even a knight as strong as me seemed helpless against it. Good thing I wished for that second one.”
“…Second wish?”
“Yeah. Something like that. Guys born with your natural talents would never understand, even on your deathbed.”
I had no clue what Phiren was talking about. A wish? What’s that?
Boom!
In that instant, the Azure Lion Palace rubble shifted as the buried Berserker twisted free. Phiren let out a short laugh and nodded.
“Looks like the Regent Highness has achieved the third wish too.”
What?
I didn’t know what the wishes were, but only three were possible?
“Clooooooude!”
The moment Jess rose, he lashed out with lightning-fast tendrils. I dodged urgently with flight magic, and Phiren swung his sword at me like he’d been waiting.
“Where do you think you’re going!”
Slash!
In an instant, sharp gale blades poured down thick as a net.
The first shield of light I’d made was too busy circling Phiren to react to this attack. I crouched and hastily created another, flipping it like an umbrella over me.
Vmmmm!
Sheesh, my body’s so small it fits perfectly inside the shield.
Thanks to it, not a limb or even a finger got sliced; I endured.
But the lone shield that took the full brunt of the attack lost its power and vanished. Guess I made it too hastily, so durability was low.
“Creating four shields of light at once. I’m so jealous. If only I’d had a miracle like that from the gods!”
Phiren paused his assault in admiration. Hey, come on? No conscience? Is that something a Knight Master—who’s also got limbs turning into tentacles—should say?
Anyway, creating four shields of light simultaneously is one of the criteria for being recognized as an Arch Priest. Not important right now, though.
What mattered was that now, with distance from Phiren, Jess switched from tendrils back to bio artillery.
Crackle!
Boom boom boom!
Crack!
He began firing all three element shots he’d suffered earlier at once.
Protection Magic blocked them all, but… what the hell! The Berserker I fought before never pulled that trick even once! Why fire different element shots simultaneously!
Was the transformed Jess not the Berserker I knew? Had he evolved into something even more powerful?
“The Regent Highness has gained amazing power. He’s probably stronger than me now.”
Phiren got into it too, unleashing Knight Skills wildly from afar. Ugh, you can’t just spam those like that, right? Even a Knight Master should tire out fast using them like that.
“Die, Claude! Once you’re dead, my wish will be complete! Ptoo!”
Meanwhile, Jess even used a ‘mouth’—something no prior Berserker had—to spew fire directly.
His aim sucked, though. Still, amid attacks pouring from all directions, the added threat sent chills down my spine.
Dodge, dodge, block, dodge again, block again.
Damn it…
Cold sweat dripped, my mouth parched dry.
With my current capabilities, I could handle a Berserker just fine—even an upgraded version.
Naturally, I could suppress a Knight Master too.
Even if weird upgrades made Reverse Gravity ineffective, it didn’t matter. My head was stuffed (with a bit of exaggeration) with a thousand ways to take him down.
But facing both at once? That was a whole different dimension!
With them attacking together, I could barely keep my wits. Mana consumption was already massive.
Damn it!
If I’d known, I would’ve eaten more sugar bars when I had the chance!
“Where are you, Claude! Already dead? That’s why I can’t see you?”
Jess fired even more bio artillery, blanketing everything in lightning, fire, ice, and dust.
Good lord.
This firepower was all wrong. Even two Berserkers wouldn’t dish out this much brute force.
In that moment, a primal instinct knocked in my head.
Should I just run?
Fly high into the night sky somehow, then use Stealth to escape, and I’d be out of immediate danger?
But if I did that…
“Argh! No way!”
I let out a sharp yell and charged toward Jess.
“If you run now, it’s all over! The build we planned goes down the drain! It’s only been less than a year since we started! How do you plan to block the real waves later like this! You gonna run then too? Huh? This is the last chance! What’s a couple punks like these! We’ve faced way worse!”
As ravings poured from my mouth, my body pierced the barrage, closing in on the Berserker’s head. I shoved Wind of Tempest right into his gaping maw.
Scorching gale blasted through the flames, burrowing into the enemy’s body to wreak havoc.
“Kraaak!”
He writhed in agony, extending new tendrils. I flew at high speed, dodging them by a hair, while targeting the bio cannon hole in his torso and jamming Fire of Tempest in at zero range.
It was practically a suicide move.
Boom!
Scorching flames engulfed not just the enemy, but me too.
Protection Magic consumed so much mana it was spiraling out of control. Even after absorbing three lich mana crystals, the shock of my mind going blank scattered my focus like shards.
“……”
But I couldn’t lose it here.
Life Detection told me Jess was still alive. So I had to land one more blow to finish him now!
Then just take out Phiren from afar, and it’s done.
I’d used too much power already, but if it was just one opponent, I could manage somehow?
But the very moment I thought that—
Vmm!
The shields of light fixed on Phiren vanished in an instant.
I didn’t see it happen, so I don’t know how. Just a feeling.
At the same time, Life Detection showed part of Phiren’s body stretching toward me.
Gotta be a tendril, right?
But even at max length, we were hundreds of meters apart—why bother?
Too curious, I couldn’t help turning toward him. Too far to see clearly, but he’d stabbed a roughly ten-meter tendril into the ground and was pulling his body back further.
Like planting an arrow nock in the dirt and drawing the bowstring taut.
Then nothing was visible.
The speed of a released bowstring was too fast—not just for eyes, but even Life Detection couldn’t react.