Chapter 215: The Slightest Margin
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 215: The Slightest Margin
The White Lion was truly strong.
[Your turn. Time remaining: 46 seconds]
[Action Points: ■■■■■■■■□]
Guys like the Lancer who just run wild relying on brute strength are easy to deal with, but the cunning ones who use their heads are the tricky ones.
“Move.”
But we’re at the very end now.
The White Lion is on the verge of death, too.
I move the potion bottle toward his open, gasping mouth as he groans in pain. Inside the bottle, floating in mid-air, the water from the Oasis of Life sloshes.
It's been my life support system, preventing my death until now, but it's about to become a deadly poison for the White Lion.
Because the Eastern Emperor is about to die.
[Your turn. Time remaining: 41 seconds]
[Action Points: ■■■■■■■□□]
The Wizard King.
He certainly lived up to his name.
His meticulousness, using an 8th-tier scroll before even meeting me.
His analytical skill, figuring out the Oasis of Life while being relentlessly battered by lightning.
Switching his target to the Eastern Emperor immediately was a good move, as was pulling out a Status Effect Removal Scroll the moment the Oasis potion was shoved into his mouth.
However.
You still had that 1st-tier scroll left.
White Lion.
Let me teach you something. The more brutal the difficulty, the more you need to use every resource you have without holding back.
Just like how I used even a civilian like the Eastern Emperor in our battle.
If our match was decided by the slightest margin, that 1st-tier scroll was that very margin.
If it were me, I would have used a 1st-tier Status Effect Duration Reduction Scroll.
It's the same scroll I used when Sally the Plunderer cast Jester's Spell Disruption on me.
A much cheaper and simpler scroll than the one the White Lion just used. A scroll that removes the status effect within 60 seconds.
If it were me, I would have bought time like that, spent the 60 seconds recovering my own health, and tested the waters.
But you hastily pulled out a 4th-tier scroll.
Wasn't that the point where our victory and defeat were decided?
[Your turn. Time remaining: 30 seconds]
[Action Points: ■■■■■■□□□]
I have plenty of time and Action Points left.
But the potion bottle is already inside the White Lion's maw.
“Lightning Shock.”
I cast the spell to shatter the bottle, making the liquid splash onto the White Lion's tongue and down his throat.
Then, I use up all my remaining Action Points.
“Memory Book Editor.”
Just slot in a few missing spells, and it's done.
[All Action Points have been consumed.]
[End Turn.]
It was a long and difficult battle, but it's finally over.
Crash!
The sound of glass shattering in his mouth. The sensation of a passing spark. A brief, stinging electric shock.
He feels droplets soaking his tongue.
Shards of glass slide down past his jaw.
A high fever and pain spread throughout his body.
The strength leaves his legs.
He realizes it intuitively.
Oasis of Life.
His body, weakening at an incredible rate, was linked to the Eastern Emperor's life force.
The effect he had just removed with the Status Effect Removal Scroll was back.
The Oasis potion bottle had exploded in his mouth.
What happened?
He had already removed the potion bottle the Eastern Emperor shoved into his mouth using a scroll.
But how?
“Gahck.”
The Eastern Emperor, stabbed with a sword, was collapsing. So was the White Lion.
His vision tilted. His shoulder slammed into the cold floor.
The White Lion's already depleted life force was being averaged out with the Eastern Emperor's.
Together, they were plummeting toward rock bottom.
Something occurred to the White Lion.
Psychokinetic Teleport.
That wizard had such an ability. He was the kind of person who could instantly shove a potion bottle into someone's mouth and shatter it with Lightning Shock.
“Gahck!”
This time, a mouthful of blood poured from the White Lion's mouth.
Then… Caleb…
Shouldn't that wizard die too, since he's also bound by the Oasis?
But he wasn't.
“Hah… hah…”
Gasping for breath, Caleb was staggering toward him.
His body was wracked with excruciating pain from having his life force averaged out moments ago.
Clink.
He picked up a healing potion that had fallen to the floor, drained it, and collapsed beside the White Lion.
“…”
The White Lion understood what he had done.
Transcendent Perception.
The wizard of the hourglass was a monster plastered with all sorts of talents.
Among them was Transcendent Perception. With it, he could remove status effects afflicting his own body.
“Ha… haha…”
A hollow laugh escaped the White Lion's lips.
In that case, hadn't he essentially committed suicide by stabbing the Eastern Emperor?
But still, wasn't this just too much?
In that fleeting moment he killed the Eastern Emperor.
In that brief instant, he shoves an Oasis potion into the White Lion's mouth, shatters it to force him to drink, and then escapes the Oasis's bind with his own Transcendent Perception?
Isn't that just too absurd?
“Is this… the power of the hourglass…?”
As his consciousness faded, the White Lion felt a mixture of admiration, awe, and jealousy for the wizard's endless power.
And, of course, a sense of injustice.
“But… you didn't have… a potion…”
The White Lion had already checked for that.
While being pummeled by Caleb's lightning, lying on the floor, the White Lion had used ‘Steal’ on him.
The target of the steal was the Oasis of Life potion.
If Caleb had possessed one, the potion should have appeared in the White Lion's pocket.
But it hadn't. Therefore, Caleb must not have had a potion at that time.
So how did an Oasis potion that wasn't there suddenly appear?
“Potion regeneration… Was it the belt?”
The White Lion knew Caleb had a belt like that.
And he now realized that one of the ‘empty bottles’ slotted into that belt was now gone.
That bottle must have been the Oasis bottle. And of all times, it had regenerated in that final, fleeting moment.
Unbelievable.
My luck is just the worst.
A bottle that had been empty just moments ago had suddenly regenerated, and Caleb had fed it to him.
The White Lion's eyes slowly closed.
Across from him, he could see the equally dying Eastern Emperor.
I never thought I would meet such an end.
He who once stood at the pinnacle of magic, who had become the nemesis of all wizards.
He who had served as the Labyrinth Master's top enforcer across the continent for tens of thousands of years, wiping out countless genius wizards, Deep Layer adventurers, and hidden masters.
That same White Lion was now being poisoned to death by a single civilian.
No one would ever believe it.
Suddenly, the White Lion remembered the 1st-tier scroll still in his left hand.
It felt just like that civilian, the Eastern Emperor.
Did Caleb win because he used even that, holding nothing back in his strategy?
“Eastern Emperor.”
Caleb looked over the dying man.
“I will save you, I promise. Just wait a little longer.”
“How…”
In front of the gasping White Lion, Caleb used a shorthand magic.
“This is Caleb. The two ossuaries now being stored…”
A pen quickly transcribed his words onto a shorthand notebook.
“…must not be damaged. One is the White Lion, and the other is the Eastern Emperor.”
“Hah…”
Another hollow laugh escaped the White Lion.
The Halfling Prime Minister.
Shark the Marksman had brought him here and hidden him in the sanctuary.
Caleb had figured that out, too.
“Send Message.”
During the last war on the surface, the White Lion had been captured by the Public Security Headquarters. And when he was executed, they had witnessed one of the ossuaries light up.
Caleb knew that as well.
That when an Inter-floor Lord dies, their soul is stored in an ossuary.
So he was planning to have the ossuary destroyed from the very beginning.
It's over.
His perspective on the battlefield is on a completely different level.
“As I thought… you are a threat to the Master…”
The White Lion couldn't finish his sentence.
His fading consciousness was completely severed.
[This is Caleb. My party will save you, Halfling Prime Minister. In return, if you are in the Soul Sanctuary right now, please destroy the ossuary that just lit up. It belongs to the Inter-floor Lord, the Lancer of Black Gloom. Also, hide yourself as best you can. Don't let other monsters into the sanctuary.]
CRACK!
The Halfling Prime Minister stomped on the ossuary, shattering it.
Then, two more ossuaries lit up, along with a message.
[This is Caleb. The two ossuaries now being stored must not be damaged. One is the White Lion, and the other is the Eastern Emperor.]
“Thinking about that arrogant brat, the Eastern Emperor, makes me want to smash them both.”
The Halfling Prime Minister carefully stored the ossuaries.
“But can these guys really beat an Inter-floor Lord…?”
The Lancer's ossuary had arrived, but the Halfling was still so anxious his shoulders trembled.
He was a Deep Layer adventurer himself.
But the power of Shark the Marksman had been shocking.
Even if it was a surprise attack, it had taken less than thirty minutes to wipe out his four-person Halfling party.
The monster had killed the Halfling party's priest first, and then…
“Droplet of Suffocation.”
A magical mass of water enveloped Yernil's face.
Blub, blub, blub!
Yernil stumbled backward in shock, spitting out a mouthful of bubbles.
“Yernil!”
“Gotcha.”
The Southern Dwarf Citadel is a city forged in fire. There, blast furnaces always burn, and skilled artisans craft weapons, armor, and cannons in the flames.
In the Age of the Nine Kings, that city was an impregnable fortress that no valiant lord dared to touch, but its citizens feared one thing.
The sea.
The southern seas are mostly calm, but occasionally, a tidal wave would surge in with an eerie, ghost-like wind. Some waves were so large and high that they would crash over the breakwaters and shatter the city walls.
The southern dwarves feared the sea most of all.
What the Labyrinth gave the Dwarf Lord in exchange for swallowing his kingdom was not merely a single naval cannon.
It was the ancient sea itself.
The power to control the vast waters that covered the 7th Floor.
“Drown!”
“!”
Shark the Marksman had crushed the Halfling party with this very technique. He killed the priest with the water-breathing magic first, then enveloped the other three with Droplets of Suffocation and dragged out the fight.
Wham! Wham!
Yernil frantically tried to claw the droplet off with both hands, but her hands just plunged into the water.
“Yernil! Put on your underwater breathing mask!”
Back Attack shouted.
Shark the Marksman had anticipated this. Caleb's party had walked down to the 7th Floor this time. They had masks enchanted with water-breathing magic. Shark the Marksman knew this, too. However…
That one lost her bag!
Yernil had lost her bag while being chased by the Lancer on the 8th Floor. She didn't have her underwater breathing mask right now…
WHAM!
The tip of the Monk's iron staff created a wave, blowing the droplet away.
“Hah!”
Yernil gasped for air.
“I'm alive.”
“…”
Shark the Marksman was slightly shocked.
He knew that Monk had the Iron Staff of Tidal Waves, but he didn't know it could do something like that.
“It works!”
It seemed he himself had only just found out.
“I just tried it because I was desperate.”
“Weren't you about to blow my head off by mistake?”
“Hey, Elf!”
A clone of Back Attack shouted as he took down Water Ghosts and Mermaid Crossbowmen all around.
“Go land a hit on him with the big guy!”
“I've been trying to, but he keeps dodging!”
Shark the Marksman is fast. Faster than anyone else here.
He was fast on land, but now…
“He's impossible to catch in the water!”
Shark the Marksman summoned a massive amount of water, much like Caleb.
The difference was that instead of spreading out and seeping into the ground like the downpour from a Cumulonimbus, it formed cohesive blobs, like water on a waterproof surface.
Giant masses of water, like ethereal lakes, rolled about, carrying Mermaids and Void Torpedoes within them.
“He's too fast…”
“I will catch him for you,”
said the Spider Doctor, who had been preparing a spell for a long time.
Fwwwiiiish!
A massive amount of spiderwebs gushed from his palm.