Chapter 178

A Bloodstorm raged.

"Viktor! Behind you!"

"Urgh...!"

Kwoooong-!!

Heavy air-rending booms struck the ceiling again and again.

Even through the surging red, the blue barrier surrounding the sky island remained perfectly still.

"Your Highness!"

The battle in the plaza had been going on for quite some time.

No, in reality, not even twenty minutes had passed.

Yet it felt as though a full two hours had gone by.

I was living ahead of time. Ten minutes became an hour, one minute became six minutes, and one second became six seconds.

Click-.

The elder's time was denser than mine, so I had to dive deep if I wanted to keep up.

As a result, my life could only move faster than the hands of a clock.

Within each second, denser than anyone else's, we could fit in one more move.

The pocket watch was pressed without rest. The world slowed, and explosions and blood soaked the plaza floor.

"Hup...!"

Psssh-.

The sound of air escaping. Then the elder's slash missed.

A bright red line split the nearby structures apart as easily as tofu.

No matter how many times I saw it, the power was brutal.

'If this had happened a few months ago, I would've been chopped to pieces without putting up much resistance...'

Maybe it was thanks to all the major growth I'd experienced lately.

My body had undergone quite the stat upgrade.

It was nothing like when I first enrolled, back when my basic stats hovered around E-rank.

Now, my average stats were above B-rank, and one had even reached A-rank.

"You endure well."

"I'm... a rather persistent person, you see...!"

Thanks to that, I wasn't helpless.

I couldn't afford to relax, but I could at least barely keep up.

"Is that so."

"Phew..."

"It seems Her Highness chose her thrall well. Congratulations are in order."

-Lefil Style Bloodcraft, Second Form-

'Strike'

Kwoooong-!!

The attack, one beat faster than before, struck my abdomen.

The scene shifted.

The elder, who had been right in front of me, suddenly seemed far away.

I was sent skidding across the plaza and bounced all the way to its edge.

"Viktor...!"

"I'm fine!"

Bam-!

I kicked off the ground without hesitation.

The elder drew close again, and we clashed several more times.

The scent of blood spread through the air.

The hellish stench gradually numbed my nose.

Her Highness, meanwhile, supported my movements with Bloodcraft.

"Go!"

-Blandir Style Bloodcraft, Sixth Form-

'Piercing Kill'

Bright red arrows rained down.

The elder's movements were somewhat restricted amid those solid lines.

"Lefil!"

Carmilla shouted as she drew her bowstring.

"Why have you fallen so far? You were the one who taught me the value of nobility...!"

At a glance, she looked enraged and emotional.

But that wasn't the girl's true nature.

Her red eyes were colder than ever.

The princess had gone through too much to lose her reason over mere anger.

Memories of bitter defeat had become her foundation, keeping Carmilla from wavering now.

-How long do you think they have been preparing this plan?

-Thank you for being foolish enough to fall for it, Your Highness.

Jersian's provocation from long ago.

The girl had nearly died because she hadn't been cool-headed or composed.

"You dare...!"

One mistake was enough.

Carmilla was someone who learned from her mistakes and even knew how to use them.

"To betray every lesson you once gave me...!"

Her outburst was calculated.

She was trying to draw out her opponent's emotions and carelessness.

But the elder seemed to have seen through her ploy, because he didn't play along with Carmilla's provocation.

He only glanced at her with a look of mild surprise.

"Your acting has improved greatly, Your Highness."

"Answer me!"

"Excellent. The first rule of psychological warfare is to speak of the most irritating memory as calmly as possible, based on the emotion most widely shared. It was always something Your Highness lacked. You never liked deceiving others."

"..."

"But have you forgotten who taught you such techniques?"

Kwoooong-!

Carmilla's attack, fired from Lefil's blind spot, barely missed.

Lefil avoided the arrow with the slightest tilt of his head.

The elder had seen through the girl for a long time.

Refinement, martial prowess, scholarship, bearing... there wasn't a single thing he hadn't taught her.

He went beyond knowing her habits in detail. He knew the reasons and history behind how those habits had taken root.

In other words, the elder might have known Carmilla better than she knew herself.

"Now!"

Still, that didn't mean he knew everything.

The girl had lived for nine months after leaving the kingdom.

Nine months the elder knew nothing about.

And she had spent most of that time with me.

Our time together had been intense, every day significant enough to write several more lines into the princess's history.

'Her Highness has already become someone different from the person you knew.'

The elder didn't know how much Carmilla had grown.

Taking advantage of that ignorance, I thrust a sharp awl toward him.

Psssh-.

A clean parry.

The elder's arm flew wide, throwing his upper body badly off balance.

"Now."

A softly spoken signal.

Then, at the perfect moment, a bloody spear shot forward.

The spear left the girl's fingertips and struck the elder's right arm directly.

Thud-!!

A dull impact rang out.

The elder barely managed to grab the spear.

He stopped it from piercing his arm, but the hand that caught its blade had been mangled.

"...Huh."

Blood dripped from the elder's left hand.

As though he truly hadn't expected it, his red eyes blankly stared down at it.

It had only disabled one hand.

Still, it was more than enough of a warning.

Without giving the elder a moment to rest, Carmilla and I tightened our coordination further.

'You're the one being hunted today.'

The tableau of the battle seemed to say exactly that.

My parries landed, and Lefil's attacks missed.

Whenever his Bloodcraft was disrupted, dark red storms of blood swept in every direction.

'We can do this.'

It was dangerous, but the balance clearly wasn't tilted to either side.

We pressed forward without rushing.

"Your Highness! Please, again!"

"I'm already preparing it!"

Kwoooong-!

Time wasn't on my side, but that didn't mean I could turn time into my enemy.

Ding-!

[The time limit for the item 'Broken Crown' has expired.]

[The skill 'Nightmare Transformation' is deactivated.]

The battle had already lasted more than thirty minutes.

The crown flickered and disappeared.

It wasn't a problem.

Maybe I had adapted, but I was somehow keeping up with the elder's speed.

Kwoooong-!

Of course, I still had to stay sharp.

If I relaxed even a little, the elder's slashes ate away at my stock.

Ding-!

[The item 'Mask of the Evil God' has activated.]

-Remaining uses: 1/3

-Time until a use is recharged: 47 hours 51 minutes 39 seconds

Still, we could do this.

The elder was beginning to accumulate shallow wounds as well.

If we added the move we had kept hidden all this time, this round would be ours.

[Absorption Rate: 21%]

[※Warning※]

[Once the absorption rate exceeds 30%, the Blue Knight will activate.]

Only 9% remained until the Blue Knight activated.

Just as I thought it was about time to settle this...

"Is that so."

"...?"

The elder suddenly stopped moving.

As if he had realized something, he stared at me and withdrew his Bloodcraft.

"So you're that person. The one the Cult kept emphasizing. It only just came back to me."

"Hm?"

"The Slayers... Garulik, was it? I heard about you from Oz, that strange mage."

"The Mage of Life? I never thought that terrible man would talk about me."

"He praised you endlessly. He said you used an unknown power and displayed monstrous strength. I heard you were the one who destroyed the Leviathan Project as well. I had little interest in it, but it came to mind while fighting you."

The elder's gaze darkened.

His left arm bore a dark red stain from his injuries.

"You are strong. I never expected us to be so evenly matched. Your techniques and strength seem lacking... yet you have some strange quality I cannot explain."

"Oz. How did that monster describe me?"

"He warned me. He said I should use my full strength if I ever met you. Even when it seems you've already lost, you turn the situation around in an instant. So I was told not to let my guard down. I was also told to use any means necessary."

"I see."

"That is why I intend to follow his warning."

Stab-!

The elder thrust his hand into his own chest.

His sharpened fingertips dug into his flesh.

"...?!"

Carmilla and I froze.

Ignoring us, the elder rummaged through his chest and pulled something out.

A dark red lump.

His own heart.

"W-What...!"

Carmilla faltered.

Holding his heart, the elder raised it high into the sky.

But more than the heart itself, I was shocked by what had been embedded in it.

'That's a Fragment of Calamity...?'

A Fragment of Calamity.

An item that was supposed to appear whenever one of the Seven Calamities was defeated.

I had three myself.

What shocked me was that the elder had it.

In the original story, it was supposed to have been embedded in the Blue Knight from the beginning, shortening the time it took to absorb the sky island's magical power...

'...The butterfly effect!'

The details had changed because of me.

This was far beyond my expectations.

As though casting a spell, the elder held his heart in his hand.

I urgently kicked off the ground, but the elder had already put too much distance between us for me to reach him.

"I offer twenty thousand Ghouls here, thirty thousand Chimeras, two hundred dark mages, three hundred vampires, five pureblood vampires, and myself."

A cursed chant rang out.

Then the monsters swarming around us began to explode one by one.

Boom-!

My delayed strike hit the elder.

But the withered elder only collapsed, shriveling like dried flesh.

"It's already... too late..."

The elder continued to dry up.

Looking up at us, he only moved his dying lips.

"Run now... Take Her Highness... and flee..."

The monsters' screams rang out around us, then fell silent as they exploded.

The barrier stretched across the ceiling shook violently.

Rumble-!

Its meaning was simple.

I hurriedly opened my status window.

Beyond the blue screen, the percentage rose rapidly.

[Absorption Rate: 22%]

[Absorption Rate: 25%]

[Absorption Rate: 29%]

[Absorption Rate: 31%]

[Absorption Rate: 35%]

Then the figure floating above Lusilion twitched.

The knight in blue armor had awakened.

A crushing killing intent weighed down the entire island.

Pressure intense enough to make breathing difficult wrapped around my body.

Beyond my distorted vision, the status window sounded an emergency alarm.

Beep! Beep! Beep-!

[The absorption rate has surpassed 30%.]

[The Blue Knight's activation begins.]

[※Warning※]

[Once the absorption rate exceeds 50%, the sky island 'Lusilion' will completely crash.]

The knight awakened with a tremor that shook heaven and earth.

We were witnessing the end, a page from the foretold apocalypse.

Ding-!

[Name: the Blue Knight (The Blue Knight)]

-Race: ■■■, ■■

-Description: ■■ ■ ■■■ ■ ■■ ■■■.

A notification that begrudged insignificant creatures even their breath.

Amid that grim funeral dirge, a bead of cold sweat ran down my face.

Beep! Beep! Beep-!

[The Blue Knight's activation has begun.]

[The apocalypse begins.]

"We're fucked."

I looked up at the scene.

A hellish sight.

I searched inside my clothes.

Then I finally found what I was looking for and roughly pulled it out.

"I guess it's time to reveal one of the cards I've been saving."

What I held was a single black ticket.

One of the cards I had kept in reserve as a joker.

Ding-!

[You use the item '???-Rank Reward Selection Ticket'.]

[You may choose and obtain one of the rewards presented.]

A long list of options followed beneath the ticket.

Every single one was absurdly overpowered.

My eyes moved down the words.

-Selection Ticket-

[Please select one of the options below!]

1. Obtain Merit Points (10000p)

2. Damaged Item Repair Ticket ×1 [Sold Out]

3. Broken Item Restoration Ticket ×1

4. Item Rank Downgrade Ticket ×1

5. Space Leap Ticket ×1

6. Item Cooldown Reset Ticket ×1

7. ■ ■■(???)

.

.

.

28.■■■■■■(???)

29.■■■ ■■(???)

30.■■(???)

'This one.'

Without hesitation, my index finger selected an option.

Then the screen flashed brilliantly.

Fwoooosh-!

I opened my eyes wide.

Now it was time to move on to Plan B.

Footnotes:

The source plays on two homophonous words meaning “second” and “move” in the line about fitting an additional move into each second.