Chapter 474

Even as he seethed with anger, Tatsuro kept his mind clear, listening carefully to Leah's account and organizing the enemy's information in his head.

Any attack would be reflected without question, and if they blocked the enemy's attacks with magic or other means, the energy would be absorbed through the sword to build up power for reflection.

The reflection force applied to everything attached to the shield - meaning skills like the Ki blade that had sliced off Ai's finger were also imbued with it, making it dangerous to cancel out attacks by countering them.

Furthermore, the two long and short swords the demons carried could absorb energy from anything that conducted it, so even if Tatsuro and his allies were wounded directly, their Magical Power, Ki, and Dragon Force would be siphoned away.

Attacking the swords would also fall under the reflection target, and even if it could no longer reflect, the enemy could absorb energy by cutting through incoming attacks and recover the reflection power before the swords were destroyed.

In practice, they might as well consider it completely immune to destruction.

As long as the absorption continued, attacks would never land and would be reflected forever - so recklessly taking hits from all five demons was a bad idea.

"It sounds like quite the hassle at first glance, but the more I think about it, the less troublesome it actually seems."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Here's the plan I've come up with…"

Tatsuro kept one eye on the shield beast, which still hadn't spotted them hiding behind Ishtar's silver sand partition and was wandering aimlessly, while he quickly laid out the broad strokes of his strategy to the group.

Once everyone had the plan down, Tatsuro had Tsukuyomi create a palm-sized miniature dragon using an Attribute Body, and had one perch on each person's shoulder. Then, channeling through the Attribute Body, they activated a slightly weaker version of Spirit Division: Internal Access External Defense Sphere for everyone.

This meant that weak incoming attacks would be blocked entirely, yet they could still fire off as many attacks of their own as they liked.

With that, preparations were complete.

"Alright, everyone stick to the plan. 3, 2, 1 - scatter!"

At Tatsuro's signal, the group burst out from behind Ishtar's silver sand partition. The shield beast naturally picked up on their presence, but since everyone appeared in scattered directions at once, it couldn't decide which one to chase and froze in place. Taking advantage of that opening, everyone spread out to surround it from every direction and launched a simultaneous assault.

The attacks, however, were extraordinarily small and weak - powerful enough to defeat an Imomu at best. Yet the sheer volume was absurd, raining down from every direction upon the shield beast in a relentless torrent.

“”””””────!””””””

As if to say, so what, the upper-half bodies of the five demons sprouted from the shields and opened their maws wide, baring their threats. Attacks this weak wouldn't even register as damage without needing to reflect them. Whatever they were thinking as monsters, they likely assumed it was pointless no matter how many shots were fired.

But they hadn't noticed the critical flaw in reflecting even attacks that would deal no damage upon direct contact - doing so without exception.

After all, Jewel's Protection was a passive skill that activated at all times. It couldn't be shut off by any act of will, and it would continue reflecting indefinitely until its energy ran dry - the strength or weakness of an attack was irrelevant to that process. Certainly, weaker attacks meant less energy consumed per reflection.

But every little bit adds up.

Even low-power, small-scale attacks, when poured down like a heavy downpour the way Tatsuro and his allies were doing now, accumulated into a drain that was anything but negligible.

And to top it off, the reflected attacks were completely blocked by the Spirit Division: Internal Access External Defense Sphere distributed through Tsukuyomi's Attribute Body to each member of the group - meaning their side could attack freely without so much as the nuisance of anything hitting them.

“”””””────!””””””

Oblivious to their opponents' intentions, the shield glided horizontally through the air, chasing after the now-scattered members of Tatsuro's group in a frantic, directionless rush.

"This is kind of like a game of tag - and it's actually fun!"

Even when it charged toward Ai, her mobility was leagues beyond its reach, and she slipped away with ease.

"Peewee"

Next, Cardina flew in teasing circles nearby, peppering it with small, scattered magic shots, leading the beast all the way up to the ceiling as it glided in pursuit. But no matter how wildly it swung its sword, Cardina maintained a precise, maddeningly perfect distance - just close enough to look reachable, never close enough to actually be caught. Frustrated, the shield beast extended circular blades from its sides. Then the five demons sprouting from the shield swung their jagged, lightning-bolt-shaped longswords with all their might, and the bent sections extended whip-like, lashing toward Cardina.

But Cardina had already tracked all of it through Dispel Magic, and without so much as glancing in that direction, she accelerated sharply and widened the gap.

The five longswords sliced uselessly through the air, and the five demons gave up the chase with visible irritation.

“”””””────!?””””””

It was only then that they finally noticed the energy stored in the jewel was diminishing.

Had these been intelligent humans, they likely would have caught on far sooner - but even among monsters, this one didn't seem particularly bright. The reserves had already dropped to roughly one-fifth of what they'd been.

Alarmed at last, the demons plunged the short-sword blades into their own left hands. The short swords were absorbed into their left palms, and each left arm began to cloak itself in black flames. Then, as if that were the signal, they halted near the ceiling, thrust their left arms forward, and began charging up.

"Black flame flamethrowers incoming! They all carry the reflection property, so do not touch them! Also, those flames have the same absorption effect as the swords - if you block with barriers or anything like that, all the energy we've drained from the jewel will be recovered!"

Leah's voice rang out loud from her tiger-type machine, carrying the warning to everyone.

"That's completely unfair!"

"Dodging is the only option - here it comes!"

In that instant, black flames shot straight from their left arms, surging forward to engulf and incinerate Tatsuro and his group. Since everyone had known in advance what was coming, they moved with careful precision, racing around the room and weaving between the five pillars of black flame.

Yet even this attack worked in Tatsuro's favor, and he realized it immediately. Even as they ran, the group never stopped firing their small, rapid strikes - and with the black flame pillars now also within the reflection range, the rate at which they were draining the jewel's energy had climbed even higher than before.

The black flames did carry the ability to absorb energy, but reflection took priority over absorption - so unless they stopped the flames with magic or shield-based Martial Arts, there was no chance of recovery.

Completely unaware of any of this, the demons sprouting from the shield watched Tatsuro's group scrambling around and laughed among themselves in amusement.

"Peewee!"

"The reflection is almost gone! 10, 9-"

If they kept attacking even after the reflection cut out, the sword's effect would start recovering the jewel's power instead. So they needed to stop their own attacks all at once, at precisely the right moment.

To time it properly, Tatsuro and Cardina used Dispel Magic to calculate the remaining time from the jewel's reserves and called out the countdown together.

"2, 1 - stop!"

Every attack from Tatsuro's group ceased in an instant.

At the exact same time, the energy drained completely from the jewel embedded at the center of the shield beast, and the reflection force was nullified.

Their attacks would now land.

At that moment, Aito - who had been quietly launching attacks from the back while clinging to Jeanne in her True Form - spread his angel wings and swiftly dropped to the floor.

"Over here!"

Aito called out toward the shield beast floating near the ceiling in his boyish, pre-adolescent voice, lighting up his right hand with holy radiance to draw its attention.

“”””””────!””””””

The demons sprouting from the shields flinched at the unpleasant holy light, then came hurtling toward Aito to recover the jewel's energy.

The shield spun sideways, and the demons sprayed black flames wildly from their left arms while thrusting their longswords forward, charging in to cut Aito down.

"Now!"

At Tatsuro's call, transfer portals opened right before everyone's eyes.

“”””””────!?””””””

Before the demons' swords could reach him, Aito merged with Aika - who had been clinging to Athena's back - and vanished from in front of the shield beast as though he'd transferred away. Simultaneously, through the transfer portal that had opened on the opposite side - the shield's back where none of the demons were sprouting - the combined attacks of the entire group came pouring through.

Under normal circumstances, the reflection force would have made an attack from that angle utterly meaningless - but with the Jewel's Protection depleted, the shield beast took those hits full-force and shattered apart.

With a heavy thud, the cracked jewel tumbled to the floor alongside the shield's fragments. Yet the level-up notification still hadn't come.

The shield's fragments began inching toward the jewel, slowly but unmistakably, as if being pulled toward it.

That left only one answer.

"Ha!"

Tatsuro encased the jewel in a mixed magic of ice and sealing. The shield fragments that had been drifting toward it stopped moving. The moment he confirmed it, he prepared Level Eater's black orb, transferred directly to the jewel, and pressed it against the surface.

---------------------------------

Level: 754

Skills: [Jewel's Protection], [Auto-Repair], [Absorption Magic Longsword]

[Absorption Magic Short Sword - Black Flame Pillar], [Air Glide Levitation Lv.16]

[Extreme Slash Inner Circular Blade Lv.20], [Sword Arts Lv.11]

[Slash Super Enhancement Lv.13], [Hardened Body Lv.18], [Magic King's Aura Lv.16]

---------------------------------

(Its external form is a shield, yet it has Sword Arts... on top of that, its related skills skew heavily in that direction - quite the misleading appearance. Well, if it has that reflection ability, I suppose calling itself a shield isn't entirely off-base - but anyway, it's almost at its limit.)

Weakened as it was, this was still a monster sitting at level 754.

The sealing magic looked like it would break before absorption was complete, so Tatsuro reapplied it and focused on draining the level.

---------------------------------

Level: 754

Skills: [Jewel's Protection], [Auto-Repair], [Absorption Magic Longsword]

[Absorption Magic Short Sword - Black Flame Pillar], [Air Glide Levitation Lv.0]

[Extreme Slash Inner Circular Blade Lv.0], [Sword Arts Lv.0]

[Slash Super Enhancement Lv.0], [Hardened Body Lv.0], [Magic King's Aura Lv.0]

---------------------------------

As always, he left the individual level intact and consumed the black orb to convert all skill levels into SP for himself.

Because he'd had to reapply the sealing magic several times mid-drain, the shield beast was growing accustomed to breaking free of it, and the time it held was getting shorter. After just a few more applications, even with the jewel's core exposed, it would probably only hold for two or three seconds at most.

"Then let's smash it before it comes to that."

Tatsuro raised his staff, from which he had grown a massive earth hammer hardened to its limit with Extreme Darkness Magic, and lifted it high.

"Someone's fired up."

"Of course I am. I haven't forgotten what it did to Ai. I'll grind it to dust."

"Fufu. Then I suppose I should put some fire into my counterattack as well."

"Go for it - give it everything you've got."

Ai let out a small laugh and pressed a light kiss to Tatsuro's left cheek, then, as if to match him, pulled out her Celestial Gear hammer Kachikachi-kun and raised it back.

Everyone else leveled their magic and weapons as well, surrounding the jewel that was moments away from breaking free of the seal and auto-repairing.

"Ready - go!"

On Tatsuro and Ai's call, they unleashed a simultaneous barrage against the ice-encased, sealed jewel.

And with a sound like a mass of glass being crushed inward, the jewel was, quite literally, obliterated - its life scattered to nothing.