Chapter 181: Master of the Wand
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 181: Master of the Wand
First, I twisted the wand's direction, making sure Finger of Death was no longer pointing at Yernil.
Next, I reviewed my options.
1. Use psychokinesis to move the message-sending wand and point it at the Labyrinth Master's chin.
Finger of Death would then be cast on the Labyrinth Master.
Could that defeat him?
No.
Finger of Death is a spell that instantly kills a target with low morale. But the Labyrinth Master's morale would never drop.
Resisting the spell inflicts frost damage, but that would be nothing more than a tickle to him.
The return on the Action Points spent on psychokinesis would be too low. I needed a more certain outcome.
2. Manipulate Yernil's Order Bomb.
What if I ordered Yernil to detonate the Order Bomb?
The bomb, charged with the Consul's power over a long time, would inflict significant divine damage, enough to harm even the Labyrinth Master.
A bomb devastates a set area and is impossible to block or evade.
However, someone of his caliber could likely use spatial distortion magic to send it flying elsewhere. Wasting the bomb would be the worst possible move.
3. Lure the monster wave here.
The monster wave that trampled the sentries and scattered throughout the Gourmet Whale is still on the move.
What if I gathered them back to this location?
Their sheer numbers, breakthrough power, and ability to bog down enemies would take even the Labyrinth Master some time to deal with.
But there's no guarantee we wouldn't be dead before they arrived.
“...”
Wait. Let me re-examine this entire battle from the beginning. I must be missing something.
There were a few strange things.
First.
Why did the Assembly and Dagger Raptor cause such a ruckus at the university?
If the Labyrinth Master could so easily crush the Deep Layer adventurers and retrieve the White Lion on his own, they wouldn't have needed to get involved.
If I were Dagger Raptor, I would have just ordered the Assembly to escape Sohen.
The Assembly was an important card for the Labyrinth Master too (for reasons I don't know). Rather than recklessly sacrificing them, he could have just smuggled them out of Sohen and had them take refuge in a labyrinth belonging to the northern barbarians. That would have been the end of it.
There was no need to overextend themselves just to provide unnecessary support for the Labyrinth Master.
Second.
The Labyrinth Master avoided a fight with the Consul in the underground prison of the Public Security Headquarters.
Here, he's spouting inescapable sophistry like a silver-tongued devil, manipulating the Consul's mental state, spewing lava from his stab wound, and crushing everyone by himself.
Honestly, his combat power is on par with what I saw in the Deep Layer.
With that much power, couldn't he have just killed the Consul in the underground prison? Or made a volcano erupt inside the Public Security Headquarters?
I would have.
The Public Security Headquarters would have been paralyzed and thrown into chaos, and the magistrates wouldn't have been able to pursue the Gourmet Whale. The Labyrinth Master could have returned to his labyrinth much more easily.
Third.
And this connects to the first two questions, why did the Labyrinth Master abandon Dagger Raptor?
Judging by his current attitude, he just threw that eagle away.
Why? He went through the trouble of creating an exit room to resurrect him, so why abandon him? From what I'm seeing now, he could have easily saved Dagger Raptor, escorted Meldini to the Ethereal Galaxy, picked up the White Lion, and returned without breaking a sweat.
Could it be...
'He can't use his full power outside the Gourmet Whale?'
It's a plausible theory.
In the game, the Labyrinth Master resides only in the Deep Layer and never comes up past the 10th Floor.
Come to think of it, if he held such a grudge against me, he could have just come to meet me on the 6th Floor with the Glutton long ago.
The reason he never came after me directly and left me alone until now... It's the same reason.
'Because he can't come up from the Deep Layer.'
The Labyrinth Master can use his full power inside the Gourmet Whale, but if he leaves it, he suffers a massive penalty.
A penalty so great he had to avoid a one-on-one fight with the Consul.
The Gourmet Whale is the labyrinth's mobile fortress. Right now, this place is acting as the Deep Layer.
I see.
Now one more thing makes sense.
Why the Labyrinth Master used such flowery language to coax the Deep Layer adventurers into leaving.
Why, when he could have killed them, he chose to drive them all away with Abyss magic instead.
'He was afraid the Deep Layer adventurers would destroy the whale.'
He acted tough, but in reality, the Labyrinth Master was the one cornered.
He played the part of a cruel lord who would shatter his own subordinate's jaw, but he must have been acting cautiously.
It was better to banish them all at once with Abyss than to have massive war machines rampaging in here, freezing the whale's mouth and esophagus with permafrost.
That must have been his calculation.
And the proof...
'It's regenerating.'
The Gourmet Whale's shattered lower jaw is recovering at a rapid pace.
Torn muscle fibers and tissues are mending, and bone is filling in.
I see.
It's Complete Regeneration magic.
The Labyrinth Master shattered the jaw with Abyss and is now sealing it with Complete Regeneration.
'I have to stop the regeneration.'
Should I summon a Vampiric Cumulonimbus on the regenerating jaw?
Would the Bleeding status effect stop the regeneration?
No.
The Tier 9 recovery spell, Complete Regeneration, affects the entire body. Preventing regeneration in just one part won't work.
I need to inflict a status effect that covers the whale's entire body.
But how is that possible on a monster this massive?
[Your Turn. Time Remaining: 38 seconds]
[Action Points: ■■■■■□]
Maybe...
It's possible.
I slowly raised my eyes and looked up.
There was something above the whale's head.
I could feel it. I feel it every time I flip the hourglass.
It was the 'Staff of the Apex,' which had been embedded in the top of the West Tower.
Meldini had pulled out the staff after turning into his aether form.
He flew toward the Gourmet Whale, couldn't get in through the mouth, looked for another entrance, saw the jaw get shattered, and is now circling back over the whale's spine and head.
"Professor."
That weapon is operated by mental power. Meldini's ethereal body is a mental projection. Even if I were to attack the 'hand' holding the staff, it has no physical substance, so it wouldn't take any damage.
I'm a bit different from Meldini, but I'm an old hand at controlling wands with mental power.
"I'll be borrowing that staff."
A Remote Direction Controller can manipulate a wand with mental power even after it has left their hand.
Would it work on a staff?
This is my first time trying, but it should be possible.
Because the difference between a wand and a staff depends on the user's size. Just like how the Caretaker of Rest's wand is a staff to a human.
Besides, the Staff of the Apex was originally Wizus's fountain pen.
'Remote Direction Controller!'
I seized the Staff of the Apex from Meldini's grasp as he hovered above the Gourmet Whale's head.
I took control of the weapon.
[Wizus's Stenographer]
Huh?
*
I could feel it.
The object in my hand was neither a wand nor a staff.
It was a fountain pen.
That's how I perceived it.
The moment I connected, the mental grip that formed in my mind was not one for holding a wand or a staff.
The magical hand that snatched the Staff of the Apex from Meldini above the Gourmet Whale was larger than Meldini's entire body.
That massive hand was holding the staff like a fountain pen.
[Your Turn. Time Remaining: 25 seconds]
[Action Points: ■■■■□□]
Anyway, it seems the Remote Direction Controller ability worked. And even though it's a fountain pen, not a wand or a staff, I should still be able to cast magic with it.
It's a situation I've never seen in the game, so it's a bit confusing.
But I'll proceed with the plan.
Time to draw a magic circle.
Its location: the vast expanse of clouds hovering over the Gourmet Whale.
It had been raining in Sohen all day. The sky was thick with enormous storm clouds.
I didn't summon them. Unlike the cumulonimbus clouds I conjure with magic, this was a natural force, created by nature itself.
They were pouring rain over the Gourmet Whale, from head to tail.
I would draw my magic circle within them.
The magic circle itself would be much smaller than the Gourmet Whale, of course, but the mass of clouds was organically connected and would be treated as a single, massive entity. Just as Dagger Raptor was afflicted with the Curse of Moisture Absorption over his entire body by just stepping on the magic circle instead of being fully immersed in it, this colossal cloud bank would pour down a rain of blood.
"Vampiric Magic Circle."
[Your Turn. Time Remaining: 17 seconds]
[Action Points: ■■□□□□]
The moment I cast the spell, I realized.
The magic flowing from the fountain pen far surpassed anything I had imagined.
*
Fwoosh!
Finger of Death went wide.
Control of the wand had been stolen.
The fledgling adventurers on the scene, and even the Gourmet Whale itself, had no idea what was happening.
"Wand control..."
The Labyrinth Master was momentarily startled, his concentration broken. His psychokinesis dissipated.
Freed from the spell, Caleb fell to the floor with a thud.
"Hahaha!"
In that tense moment, the Labyrinth Master's face filled with ecstasy.
"This is it."
The demon's shoulders trembled with excitement.
"This is it! There is only one person who can wrest control of a wand from me."
"Aaaaaaaargh!"
The Gourmet Whale collapsed to the floor, howling in agony.
The regeneration of its jawbone had stopped.
The Labyrinth Master knew what was happening.
"And there is only one who can use such magic."
"Master! P-please, save me!"
"Ha... hahaha! I knew you had it, Caleb. I knew you were the one chosen by Wizus. Hahaha! As expected, you are the only one worthy of being my final enemy in this eruption!"
He looked up at the sky and burst into a fit of crazed laughter.
"Turn-Based Wizard!"
*
Fweeeet-!
Meldini, who had been flying toward the Gourmet Whale's mouth, stopped short in astonishment.
"Wh-what is this?"
His staff had suddenly shot off on its own, breaking free from his grasp and unleashing an immense amount of magic power.
The staff drew a magic circle in the sky, on a scale no human could possibly create.
A magic circle larger than the Gourmet Whale, vast enough to cover all of Sohen, now adorned the sky above.
And that wasn't all.
"What in the world..."
A massive image was etched across the Gourmet Whale's entire body, like a tattoo.
It, too, was a magic circle.
"A Moisture Absorption Magic Circle...?"
Shwaaaaaa!
An apocalyptic red rain now poured from the sky.
But thirty meters below the hovering Gourmet Whale, all was calm.
The adventurers on the ground were witnessing a phenomenon as bizarre as the appearance of the Gourmet Whale itself.
The immense volume of rain pouring over Sohen was converging on the Gourmet Whale, drawn to it as if being sucked into a black hole.
"What... what is that..."
Isilof muttered, staring blankly up at the sky.
"My god."
Blackdog and the Consul also looked up, stunned.
It was like an ethereal lake from hell.
The massive torrent of red rainwater converged on the whale's body, causing it to bleed, and mixed with that blood, growing even more immense in scale.
It was similar to the ethereal lake Dalstream used.
Except it wasn't a beautiful sapphire color like his, but a horrifying blood-red.
And it was vast enough to engulf the entire Gourmet Whale.
It looked as if Wizus himself had sent it down to punish the mortal world.
The whale was swimming in the sea of blood.
Or more accurately, it was thrashing.
And then...
"It's falling!"
Unable to withstand the massive blood loss and water pressure, the colossal beast began to plummet.
*
'I don't care if the Gourmet Whale dies.'
I could almost read the thought behind his crazed eyes.
'As long as I can kill you.'
The whale would hit the ground in just a few seconds.
Just as my story has been destined to be from the very beginning.
Our battle would be a duel that lasts but an instant.