Chapter 237: The Tin Knight and the Witch of Heaven's Change (7)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 237: The Tin Knight and the Witch of Heaven's Change (7)
You honed your senses to their absolute limit.
The Tin Knight's body was telling you.
That the enemy before you, the wicked Witch of the North, was a completely different opponent from the last time you saw her.
“To think you'd crawl back to me on your own two feet, you doll!”
With a smile full of glee, Mombi swung her right arm with all her might.
The enlarged and twisted limb tore through the air like a beast's paw as it lunged at you.
CRACK!
Despite deflecting most of the blow upon impact, the shock was enough to send your heavy body sliding backward.
The ability to freely alter one's physical structure was an unimaginably powerful advantage in close-quarters combat.
On top of that, she seemed to have some aptitude for brawling, mixing in her own style of martial arts, making the threat she posed truly terrifying.
[The 'Tin Knight' kindly points out to his opponent's skewed perception that he ran, not crawled!]
[The 'Tin Knight' expresses his pity for his opponent's lack of skill, wondering if that's all she can do with that body!]
In other words, it was just 'her own style' and nothing more.
Excluding her cheat-like physical transformations, her pure technique was second-rate at best.
A back-line fighter like Dorothea, who only knew basic self-defense, might struggle, but even a hybrid fighter like Gale, let alone Adelaide, could handle her with ease.
The gap between her and you, the inheritor of the Tin Knight's techniques, was so vast that comparison was meaningless.
The reason was obvious.
Mombi's main tactics were surprise attacks and deception using her transformations.
Added to that was her overpowered skill of inflicting instant death on contact to any opponent who lacked a certain level of mana control.
In terms of class, she was close to an assassin, and just as an assassin doesn't need exceptional head-on combat prowess, neither did Mombi.
She could calmly approach her targets by transforming into something harmless, and a simple tap of her fingertip would be enough to kill most people. There was no reason for her to go through the trouble of polishing her martial arts.
You deftly deflected the massive arm, then slipped inside Mombi's guard and thrust your sword.
CLANG!
As if striking a solid iron wall, your sword stopped just short of her skin, failing to pierce Mombi's heart.
The barrier enveloping her body permitted no further attack.
Mombi twisted her body, leaning back so far she was almost lying down, and kicked upward at you diagonally with her left leg.
Her outstanding defense was a weapon in itself; just grazing her leg was enough to shave off a layer of your solid metal shoulder.
You paid it no mind.
To a doll's body that felt no pain or fatigue, any injury short of a fatal one was a trivial matter that could be repaired with enough mana and time.
Taking advantage of Mombi's unstable posture, you spun and kicked her right leg.
The magic barrier prevented any actual damage, but both of Mombi's legs were knocked into the air.
An instant later, a flash of light shot in from the side and pierced Mombi's flank.
BOOOOM!
The force was so great that the torn air slammed into you a beat later as a gust of wind.
Mombi's body skipped backward like a stone on water.
A significant portion of the magic characters densely wrapped around her body vanished.
Mombi clicked her tongue and tried to dive back into the crowd, but you anticipated her movement and blocked her path.
Block with the shield, check with sword energy, break her posture with martial arts, then step aside slightly to give the White Knight a clear shot. That completed the sequence.
Each of the White Knight's blows, fully buffed by Gale, was powerful enough to shatter a castle gate in a single charge. So even though he was just striking a person with a spear, it sounded as loud as if a catapult stone had landed.
No, when he wasn't thrusting or slashing but striking down from above, it truly was like a catapult—no, a cannonball—had struck, leaving a crater in its wake.
You would occasionally fall back at the right moment, and each time, Gale would teleport nearby to transfer mana he'd received from Dorothea.
While you were resupplying your mana, Mombi tried to weave through the chaotic battle with snake-like movements, but her path was blocked by a wall of undead created by Dorothea.
The undead legion forming the wall fell in droves at a single, light gesture from Mombi, but in that brief opening, you were able to finish replenishing your mana.
Mombi, who had tried to slip among the mages and vanish using her specialty transformation magic, failed to achieve her goal because you grabbed her by the ankle and forcibly dragged her out.
Mombi irritably started to shout something, but the White Knight's spear slammed into her head again.
Instead of red blood, magical characters scattered into the air and vanished.
“You brats are truly persistent!”
“Why is she so damn hard?!”
Mombi was annoyed, and so was Dorothea.
Just as Mombi had previously transformed into the head of the Tower of Protection to try and wipe out everyone at once, her transformation magic was most effective when she could hide within a large crowd.
Knowing this, you and your party worked tirelessly to keep Mombi completely isolated from the main battlefield.
Dorothea created a physical barrier with her undead legion, Gale buffed the allies while relaying Dorothea's mana, you created openings by stopping Mombi's movements, and the White Knight would move in to strike with all his might.
Conversely, even doing all that, isolation was the best they could manage.
No matter how much they beat her and chipped away at the character barrier wrapped around her body, the depleted barrier would restore itself over time.
There was a legend about a village under the protection of Orin, the Witch of the North, that survived within the blast radius of a volcano without a single casualty. Now that Mombi was using that same absurd defense solely to protect her own body, it was hard to tell if they were hitting a person or a fortress.
No, you and the White Knight were beings who could demolish a fortress given enough mana and time, respectively. This was even tougher than a fortress.
To stop that accursed, infinitely regenerating barrier, they had to somehow destroy the tower's core that was supplying Mombi with mana.
“…Fine. If that's what you want, I'll crush you head-on.”
As if accepting that hit-and-run tactics were impossible as long as you and Dorothea were present, Mombi began to transform her body once more.
Not just a partial change like before, but a complete overhaul of her entire body.
Her arms twisted, her skin warped, and tentacle-like appendages sprouted from all over her body.
And then the menacingly transformed witch ignored you and the White Knight, sprinting straight for Dorothea and Gale.
Complaining that for a wicked witch who went down the rogue tech tree, hypocrisy was practically a basic skill, you swung your weapon.
Your sword met her right hand.
*
CLAAAAANG!
Each time Adelaide's greatsword and Lotbart's scepter clashed, the air rang and shockwaves pulsed outward.
Just as Adelaide stepped forward to swing her sword again, ice spikes erupted from the ground around Lotbart like the spines of a chestnut bur.
Adel retreated instinctively, but the ice spikes pursued her as if they had a will of their own, trying to impale her. Their movement resembled a single, slithering snake.
Lotbart didn't stop there; he slammed his scepter into the ground.
A wave of cold radiated out from where he stood, and the flow of air slowed as if it had turned to jelly.
Not only that, but something began to glitter in the light around Lotbart.
It looked beautiful and mystical at a glance, but its true nature was deadly.
The ice blades, smaller than a fingernail, were each imbued with mana and possessed a strength and sharpness surpassing most sword energy.
An ordinary person walking through that field would be instantly riddled with microscopic holes and lose their life, and for warriors moving at high speeds, the danger was even greater.
Worse, as time passed, the field of ice blades expanded, threatening to fill the entire 10th floor.
At this rate, Adelaide would be trapped with nowhere to run.
However, let's correct one thing.
Adelaide had no intention of running in the first place.
Thump!
Adelaide's feet kicked off the wall, and she leaped toward the ceiling.
Four streams of sword energy shot out and carved into the ceiling, causing a rectangular stone slab to fall under the pull of gravity.
Adelaide turned her greatsword sideways and swung it with all her might at the falling slab.
The stone slab became an impromptu cannonball, flying in a straight line toward Lotbart.
As a bonus, the ice blades in its path were swept away as if erased.
Even with his enhanced physical abilities, Lotbart was fundamentally a mage.
He was more accustomed to blocking attacks with a magic barrier than dodging them, and this time was no different.
Lotbart stomped his foot, and three-meter-long ice spikes shot up in front of him to block the incoming stone.
To be precise, they almost blocked it.
It failed because Adelaide, who had been clinging tightly to the slab, slammed her body into it once more.
With an impact like a truck collision, the rock, the ice, and Lotbart's body were all tangled together and sent flying backward.
Adelaide tried to launch a follow-up attack, but an ice storm erupted around Lotbart first.
The spinning blades of ice shredded everything nearby like a blender, forcing Adelaide to retreat.
FWOOSH!
As if pursuing her, spikes made of ice were fired like a machine gun.
Adelaide dodged to the side, and the section of wall pierced by the spikes froze over in a flash of white, as if infected.
Creek, creak. The building began to groan from all over.
The entire floor they were on was screaming, unable to withstand the cryogenic cold radiating from Lotbart.
A cold so intense it could freeze the moisture on one's eyelashes washed over her, but Adelaide, for her part, was a swordswoman whose physical abilities were already halfway to transcendence.
Faced with a cold that felt like it could tear the skin from her bones on contact, she was barely affected, aside from her body feeling slightly sluggish.
This time, she carved out pieces of the wall and sent them flying toward Lotbart one after another, as if she were playing hockey.
Lotbart, in turn, created a three-headed dragon of ice and had it try to tear Adelaide apart.
A few strands of Adelaide's hair froze and shattered into dust, while Lotbart's right arm was slightly crushed by a piece of debris.
Lotbart calmly assessed the situation and came to a conclusion.
'…Not bad. At this rate, I have the advantage.'
The Rognir family's specialty was magic that controlled cold and ice.
As the head of the magic tower and the king of Rognir, Lotbart could wield ice magic to its absolute limit. And now, he was even further enhanced by the transformation magic Mombi had left him and the mana from the ley lines.
His opponent's ability to endure an environment where a normal creature would freeze to death in minutes with only a slight sluggishness was astonishing, but in other words, it meant even she couldn't completely ignore the effects of the cold.
The enemy's tactic of carving up the building itself to use as projectiles was quite threatening, but once he got used to it, it was manageable enough.
'She must know that dragging this out will put her at a disadvantage. These bricks aren't the real attack. They're just a distraction.'
If he knew a real attack was coming, and that it would come soon, responding wouldn't be too difficult.
'Come.'
His opponent's talent was nothing short of heaven-sent, but the old man, rich in life experience, knew that such geniuses often lacked the patience to endure situations that didn't go their way.
Moreover, to her, he was the man who had killed her father. The more disadvantageous the battle became, the faster her impatience would surely grow.
Lotbart calmly waited for her patience to reach its limit, and finally, that moment came.
A piece of debris flew through the blizzard.
And hidden in its shadow, the cold glint of a sword blade approached.
At the moment of the counterattack, Lotbart unleashed his mana without hesitation.
CRACK! Adelaide's sword was caught between pillars of ice, unable to reach Lotbart.
Only the sword was there.
Before Lotbart could realize something was wrong and react, a hand shot up from below and grabbed him by the throat.
There was no soft cloth on his body to grab, but it didn't matter.
Because each of Adelaide's fingers dug into the crystal of his neck, denting it and holding him fast.
His eyes met hers.
「[The 'Tin Knight' says you've been patient enough, so it's time to let loose!]」
Her body partially frozen, Adelaide breathed out a puff of white air and said softly,
“—First, one floor.”
Before Lotbart could react, Adelaide slammed the back of his head into the ground with all her strength.
KRA-BOOOOOOOOOOM!
The floor of the 10th story collapsed.