Chapter 686: Feel Despair

“Master Mentor, I want to make a deal with you.”

Sher straightened his clothes and spoke with forced composure.

“What makes you think you can?”

Loren shot back without giving Sher the slightest courtesy:

“A deal requires bargaining chips. I can indeed grant your wish, but what can you offer me?

“The most valuable thing you have is the Wheel of Fortune card. But if I kill you, it’ll be mine anyway.”

Loren advanced step by step, each one seeming to trample Sher beneath his feet.

Even so, Loren saw no despair in Sher’s eyes, which left him less than satisfied.

Loren hadn’t forgotten that he had received a blessing called [Fate of Descent] a long time ago. It granted powerful luck by sacrificing those who had fallen into the Pit through greed, and Sher clearly fit the bill.

His greed for worldwide fame had driven him to attack Loren, so it was only right that he fall into the Pit.

Loren had won this blessing as a bonus when he obtained the demon card, but he had never used it.

“I know everything about you. All those calculations you pride yourself on are child’s play to me.

“Even replaying events from the past consumes Mana if they have physical form. The stronger they are, the more Mana they consume. With your Mana, you can’t sustain this kind of use.

“But there’s a way around that.”

Loren continued to reveal Sher’s trump cards, trying to shatter his mental defenses completely.

“I told you before that you can pause a replay of the past. You could replay a powerful attack, then pause it before the attack appears. That way, you could simply resume playback later and use it without any loss.

“That’s what you’ve been doing here all this time, isn’t it?

“Replaying the past takes far less Mana than casting the magic yourself, but with your strength, I’d guess all the Mana you have is only enough to replay one attack.”

Before the fight had even properly begun, Sher was already sweating profusely.

He truly wanted to fall to his knees and beg Loren for peace, but his pitiful pride wouldn’t let him.

Even if he died, he wanted to leave behind a good reputation.

“If I…”

“I know. You probably have an accomplice. If you don’t return, your accomplice will report me to the Church.”

Loren interrupted Sher once again:

“You’re far too full of yourself. You really seem to think you’re the protagonist of this world, and that your utterly flawed plan could succeed.

“I saw this coming long ago. Before I came here, I had the Witches evacuate. Even if the Church receives a report, all they’ll find is Ofemia.

“Leaving aside whether I even care about Ofemia, the Church would never fall out with a Vampire Marquis over some baseless accusation.

“Your accomplice might not even get the chance to report you. Even if he’s absolutely loyal to you, I’ll use the Wheel of Fortune to find him before he can report me, then kill him outright.”

Loren had said all this as he kept drawing closer. Even so, Sher hadn’t moved an inch. Loren realized something:

“You haven’t moved at all. Is there something here protecting you?”

That question finally broke through Sher’s mental defenses. He launched an attack. In an instant, a ring of flames appeared around him. Loren couldn’t feel any heat from them, yet they filled him with fear.

“Endtimes Conflagration… Super-tier Magic?”

Loren suppressed his surprise. The flames appeared for only an instant before vanishing. With Sher’s Mana, even giving it everything he had, he could only make Super-tier Magic appear for a moment.

This had been a killing blow he’d saved for Loren, but under the pressure, Sher had released the magic early.

Even if he had timed it perfectly, it wouldn’t have changed anything. Endtimes Conflagration could indeed grievously wound Loren, but Loren’s intuition warning wasn’t for show.

Though surprised inside, Loren still wore a look of disdain, driving Sher even further into madness.

Dark clouds gathered overhead. Loren knew this was the prelude to Abyssal Sea Collapse, but since Sher was casting it through a projection, it became instantaneous. In a flash, the ocean engulfed Loren.

Fortunately, Void-walking was instantaneous too.

Loren counted the seconds, only ending Void-walking once Abyssal Sea Collapse had dissipated.

If the ground hadn’t sunk so much, Loren wouldn’t have been able to tell that Abyssal Sea Collapse had even happened.

No sooner had he dodged Abyssal Sea Collapse than his intuition began warning him again. Loren instinctively darted backward, and a thick pillar of lightning struck the spot where he had just been standing.

The lightning covered a wide area, and Sher couldn’t be sure where Loren would be, so he replayed only large-scale attacks.

“I think I understand now. This is where the Dawn Princess once fought the God of Night and Thunder. No wonder there was such a commotion. Nothing has grown here since.”

After explaining, Loren returned to where he had been standing. Now that he knew what this place had once been, things were simple.

“To cover as much ground as possible, you won’t replay an attack in the same place twice. And with your Mana, you can only replay one more.

“My intuition will warn me again when you do. Once you’ve used it, as long as I keep standing here, there’ll be nothing you can do to me.”

Loren had controlled every aspect of Sher’s situation from beginning to end. So even though Loren still hadn’t attacked once, Sher felt as if he were suffocating.

His body trembled. Seeing that he was on the verge of breaking down, Loren delivered the final blow:

“You still haven’t moved, which means you have another trick up your sleeve where you’re standing.

“Not bad. You haven’t completely fallen apart yet, and you’re still thinking about counterattacking.

“Someone else might really have fallen for your little ambush. Too bad for you, you’re facing me.”

With that, Loren simply used Abundant Magic to weave himself a lounge chair, then brazenly stretched out on it.

Sher pulled out the Wheel of Fortune card he had hidden on him. He kept staring at its face, as if searching for some divine oracle that could help him turn things around.

“You people take one Tarot card and think you’ve gotten some kind of cheat code, that you’re the protagonist of this world.

“Too bad. I’m the only protagonist in this world.”

Loren took out the Unabandoned Casket, and the Tarot cards immediately flew up and circled around him:

“You have one card and think you’re the protagonist. I have eleven, and I’ll soon have twelve.”

The Wheel of Fortune card fell to the ground. Only then did Sher truly despair.

No matter what desperate situation he found himself in, he would always look for a way to turn things around. The one thing he couldn’t accept was that he wasn’t the protagonist.

When he got the Wheel of Fortune card, he thought it was his destiny. But now, he was nothing more than a clown.