Chapter 751: Episode 751

Simon pulled Manus’s skull from his subspace.

The moment it appeared, the former Swordmaster’s skull erupted with fierce killing intent and blinding rage. Simon quickly altered the formulas and circuits of his dragon magic circle.

[Did you bring out another strange toy?]

Bleta didn’t just stand by and watch. Absorbing a dark spirit into his body, he transformed his arm into a pitch-black, monstrous limb and reached his massive grasp toward Simon.

"Herseva! Hold him off for just ten minutes!"

"You got it, kid!"

The ground trembled violently. As if she had been waiting for the cue, Herseva unleashed her authority. Thick bars of sand pierced through the earth from all sides, instantly forming a cage that trapped Bleta inside.

Bleta tried to smash the prison apart, but thick bandages flew in through the bars from the surrounding structures, wrapping tightly around his bloated form. In an instant, they bound his neck, arms, thighs, and feet.

[And now, let’s bring in your cellmates!]

With heavy clanks, various structures materialized inside the prison. Mummies of all sizes burst out, drooling profusely. Some were as massive as Bleta himself, adorned with bizarrely styled hats.

The floor shattered as a sand crocodile wrapped in bandages lunged upward, sinking its teeth into Bleta’s leg. All around them, fox-shaped mummies with crossed arms opened their glowing red eyes from within upright coffins.

A massive, bandage-wrapped eagle mummy landed on top of the prison with a heavy metallic clang, letting out a piercing shriek.

"Do not interfere!" Bleta roared.

While Bleta engaged in a bloody struggle with the mummies inside the sand prison, Simon methodically prepared his next technique. First, he modified the specifications of the dragon magic circle. With a sharp click, the Dragonian suit reconfigured its armor, opening a hollow space in the center of its chest. He placed Manus’s skull directly into the cavity, kept the dragon magic active, and connected his mind to Manus’s lingering thoughts.

A suffocating wave of hatred and rage flooded his mind. Simon’s eyes turned bloodshot, and he writhed violently. It felt as though his consciousness was being wiped completely blank.

A harsh grinding noise echoed from the drake helmet as it fell under Manus’s control. The suit was going berserk, attempting to reverse the connection and hijack Simon’s body.

"Manus! Stop!" Simon gritted out.

Ever since the Balak incident, Manus had grown even more frenzied, consumed by an insatiable killing intent. Just as Aaron had warned, wielding Manus directly had become nearly impossible under normal circumstances. Simon’s will to maintain control clashed head-on with Manus’s burning desire to slice their enemy to pieces.

[That looks like a technique beyond your capabilities,] Bleta’s voice rang out.

Even though Bleta was buried beneath a swarm of dark spirits, his reason remained perfectly intact, uncorrupted by the negative emotions swirling around him. He had set the inside of the cage ablaze to incinerate the mummies, using his elongated arms to smash the sand bars to dust.

’I need to do something,’ Simon realized instinctively.

The rampaging thoughts of the former Swordmaster were simply beyond his current capacity to suppress. Therefore.

’I’ll synchronize with him.’

Bleta was a powerhouse he couldn’t defeat unless he fought with his life on the line and an absolute resolve to kill. He would match Manus. He would match his murderous intent. The conflicting, clashing wills slowly found a compromise.

As they synchronized, the Dragonian suit’s violent rampage gradually calmed. Simon took a long breath and let his arms hang loose. Opening his subspace, he pulled out an unremarkable sword and let it drop to the ground.

’The moment I grip the sword, it’ll be uncontrollable.’

But the die was already cast. Bleta was on the verge of breaking out of Herseva’s sand prison. Simon reached down, grabbed the fallen weapon, and lifted it.

’Ah.’

Had he synchronized too deeply with Manus’s thoughts? Merely gripping the scabbard washed a profound sense of psychological stability over him. Simon fastened the scabbard to his belt and drew the blade.

With a crisp metallic ring, the pure white blade slid free, gleaming in the sunlight. The moment Simon leveled the unsheathed sword forward, Manus finally seemed satisfied. He halted his rampage, reverently preparing for battle.

’Here I go.’

Shattering the sand bars with an explosive blast, Bleta charged at Simon, sprinting on all fours like a wild beast. In response, Simon simply gripped his sword with both hands and slashed horizontally.

A sharp, striking sound rang out, as clear as a silver bell.

Instantly, goosebumps erupted from the hand holding the sword, traveling up his arm, past his shoulder, and prickling across his entire body. Bleta’s head was sent flying high into the sky, severed cleanly. The decapitated spirit monster lost its balance and crashed heavily into the dirt.

[Kid! Watch out!] Herseva’s shout echoed.

From Bleta’s fallen, headless neck, small spirit faces emerged and began relentlessly firing a barrage of black projectiles. This time, it was Simon’s turn.

’Dragonian - Defense Mode’

Purple, honeycomb-shaped scales unfolded like a blooming flower, blocking every single attack. Maintaining the shield, Simon and Manus gripped the sword in unison and advanced toward Bleta.

With a sickening crunch, the headless Bleta pushed himself up. A new head sprouted from the severed stump. This time, it took the shape of a hound with a protruding snout. Simon adjusted his hold, flipping his grip on the hilt.

To his surprise, countless functions, powers, and applications of the sword techniques flooded his mind. It was as if he had stepped into a massive library; he could execute those sword techniques at will, as easily as pulling a book from a shelf. He shifted his hands again, reversing his grip.

Instantly, the mental library flipped, and the list of available sword techniques completely changed. The corners of Simon’s mouth curled up. This was a truly absurd experience.

[Fascinating. A Swordmaster recreated by a Necromancer?] Bleta grinned, his houndish maw stretching wide.

[How poetic. In this era ruled by Priests and Necromancers, a duel between an old-era Swordmaster and an Elementalist takes place.]

"It’s not the old era," Simon replied.

The foundations might have been techniques from a distant past, but both sides had completely transformed their respective sword and spirit arts using a Necromancer’s dark magic. It was a duel between a Swordmaster and a High Elementalist. But more accurately, it was a duel between two Necromancers.

"Herseva."

[Okay! We need a new stage fitting for this fight, right?]

The earth quaked violently. The terrain beneath them shifted from deep, sinking sand to a hard, flat plain. Towering walls erupted from the ground, forming massive spectator stands around them. Before they knew it, the two were standing in the center of a colossal colosseum.

Bleta raised both arms. Six dark spirits dripped from his body like viscous ink and shot forward, blazing fiercely. Simon simply swung his sword.

With a sharp clang, the bodies of the spirits—which shouldn’t have been able to be cut by mere metal without resonance—were sliced perfectly in half. Simon walked forward, casually flicking his blade. Every time he swung, the charging spirits split apart with a loud tearing noise, their internal ’cores’ laid completely bare before dissipating.

[To cut down and erase the very existence of a spirit!] Bleta exclaimed in awe, even as he continued to fire a relentless barrage.

[I often wondered how swinging a mere piece of metal could be considered a virtue of a wise man, but when it reaches its absolute pinnacle, it cannot be ignored.]

"Well." Having effortlessly cut down all the incoming spirits, Simon smirked and twirled the sword using only the strength of his wrist. "It’s probably not a good idea to provoke him too much."

With that, he sharply jerked his arm upward.

’Imperial Sword Art - Rain Blossom’

The moment Simon’s arm went up, Bleta’s extended right arm was severed clean off, sent spiraling into the air. However, Bleta calmly reached out with his left hand, grabbed his own severed right arm, transformed it into a jagged blade of dark energy, and struck down at Simon.

Simon smoothly adjusted his sword path and swung to meet it. The two blades collided with a deafening crash, shaking the entire colosseum. Sparks flew with every thunderous strike. Despite the overwhelming difference in their physiques, Simon wasn’t pushed back in the slightest.

He soon spotted an opening, launched a blindingly fast strike through it, and severed Bleta’s left arm as well.

"Now!" Simon shouted.

[I was waiting for your signal!]

The colosseum hadn’t been made just for decoration. The moment Bleta lost both arms, the massive structure rapidly collapsed inward, wrapping its endless tons of sand tightly around his body.

[You bastard!] Bleta roared.

Bleta’s body was completely buried in the sand, compressing into a massive, diamond-shaped golden prison. Heavy chains shot out from the ground, anchoring the floating golden tomb in midair. Leaping high into the air, Simon gripped the sword with both hands and raised it high above his head. He unleashed the strongest sword technique Manus boasted.

’Imperial Sword Art - Surging Sky’

Simon carved a perfect diagonal arc through the air, landing softly on the ground. Blinding light flashed through the cracks of the split golden prison above him as he slowly sheathed his sword.

The moment the hilt met the scabbard with a sharp click, the golden prison exploded.

Bleta plummeted from the wreckage, coughing up black blood. A massive, gaping gash ran diagonally across his chest. The remnants of the golden prison dissolved back into sand, and the towering colosseum walls crumbled, vanishing along with the desolate plains. The massive eye of Herseva floating in the sky slowly blinked closed.

Before long, the world had returned to normal.

Silence fell over the area. All that remained was Bleta lying in the dirt with a fatal sword wound across his chest, and Simon standing with his back turned, still holding his sheathing posture.

"You did it, Sir!" Lethe shouted, running over to greet him as he turned around.

Simon waved with a tired smile, but suddenly let out a sharp groan and hunched over. The Dragonian suit trembled violently. The battle was over, but Manus was trying to go berserk again.

Simon hurriedly deactivated the dragon magic, ripped Manus’s skull out of the suit’s chest cavity, and shoved it back into his subspace. In the process, the furious skull resisted, chomping down hard on Simon’s hand.

’Damn, that stings.’

Honestly, he was lucky he had gotten off this lightly. Shaking out his hand, Simon turned and looked down at Bleta.

"If you heal your wound right now, you might live," Simon said. "But you’re going to have to spill everything you know about the Society."

Bleta let out a wet chuckle. "It is already too late."

"What?"

Bleta weakly raised his arm. As he pulled off his limp glove, his hand was already turning to ash, scattering into the wind.

"This is...!" Simon’s eyes widened.

"The risk of time travel," Bleta rasped. Before they knew it, his face was also slowly beginning to fade. "I am an entity that should not exist in this era, so I am being erased. You two might have Nephthys protecting you, but I was merely using every scrap of spirit magic I had to forcibly delay my own erasure."

His body dissolved more rapidly now. Bleta closed his eyes.

"Still, I am glad you were the last thing I saw... Simon Polentia."

Simon stepped forward. "What? Wait, what do you mean by that?"

Ignoring Simon’s question, Bleta raised his fading arm and gazed up at the sky as his form began to blow away like dust.

"For the Society."

With those final words, his body scattered cleanly into the air, vanishing without a trace. Simon bit his lip hard.

"Are you alright, Sir?" Lethe asked, coming up beside him.

Simon glanced back at her. "What about the other Society agents?"

"I crushed them all, of course," Lethe reported crisply. "I tried to take them alive, but they all bit down on poison capsules in their mouths and died."

Lethe let out a deep sigh and crouched near where Bleta had vanished.

"Still, we should search their belongings. You never know if we’ll find a clue."

Simon nodded and began searching the pockets of the clothes left behind by the vanished Elementalist. Bleta’s bag, enchanted with spatial magic, contained quite a few items.

"Entry documents, a wallet, and fake IDs," Lethe muttered, sifting through her own pile. "Looks like only personal items are left now."

"What’s this...?" Simon pulled a small notebook from the folds of Bleta’s discarded cloak.

"What is it, Sir?"

Simon’s eyes narrowed as he thumbed through the worn pages.

"A research manual..." he murmured. "On dark spirit magic?"