Chapter 404: Growth and Proof (5)
Just as a person’s heart cannot be defined by a single form, so too is the Domain that projects their Mind Imprint.
In contrast to Domains that appear miraculous, powerful, and transcendent, humble Mind Imprints geared towards self-satisfaction can also exist in abundance.
Therefore, many people often strove to create powers similar to projecting a Mind Imprint, rather than refining their minds into an upright form.
Like a shadow play endlessly continuing behind a bright light, even if the existence itself isn’t true, as long as the form is similar.
They would at least be able to imitate that power.
The Archmage-level Spell Defense System, created by Achilles’ Technical Strategy Team, betting the company’s fate on it, was precisely a power forged with that desire held stronger than anything.
[What’s the system construction rate?]
[It’s not going above 50%. The mana pattern analysis is incomplete.]
Fwaaash!!
A rainy night street. Dozens of people, hidden in various spots around the edges of the giant hemisphere spread across the sky, exchanged communications throughout the street.
Achilles’ Technical Strategy Team’s Field Response Unit, led by Graham Campbell.
Experts who understood the defense system better than anyone and could adjust and deploy it in real-time on the battlefield.
Though their combat abilities weren’t great, they were veterans when it came to observing mana from a magical engineering perspective and adjusting devices using it.
In a way, they were one of Achilles Security Company’s greatest human assets.
Dozens of such individuals, hidden throughout the streets, were rapidly analyzing the battle situation unfolding in the inner city.
[The analysis device can’t go beyond observing the pattern’s surface.]
[That’s ridiculous. They’re spamming magic like that, and there are still unobserved parts left?]
Though they hadn’t often seen high-level wizards, the technical team employees weren’t blind either.
Even at this very moment, the relentless dance of thunder and lightning continuously striking the night sky.
Giant ice pillars soaring above a building cleanly snapped in half, and blizzards raging through the rainwater.
The heat and cold mixed chaotically, spreading out in a haze, chilling the spines even of those observing the situation from thousands of meters away.
Team Leader Graham, too, was an Archmage of considerable skill, but not someone who could unleash that much firepower.
If so, then all the destruction happening there right now must be a disaster created by just one person.
Yet, what did it mean that they still couldn’t properly observe the mana pattern?
It wasn’t that they couldn’t understand; it was that they didn’t want to.
[Damn it…]
Someone’s voice, thick with regret, echoed through the comms, but no one could rebuke them.
The ominous thought that perhaps coming here in the first place was a mistake was slowly gnawing at their minds.
[It’s not over yet. Focus.]
[Right, Team Leader Campbell was a recognized expert even in the Combat Response Team. If we just hold on a bit longer and buy some time…]
Shhhwwish!!!
At that moment, thousands of paper bundles fluttered and soared from the waist of the high-rise building that had snapped in half.
A whirlwind of pure white paper spun and raged in the middle of the rainy night street, and through it, a flickering blue light streaked, leaping upward from the ground to reach the apex of the hemisphere.
While all the technical team employees stood with their mouths agape, screams were heard from elsewhere first.
[Mana pattern analysis rate 48… 47… 45… 40%…!! Observation degree is actually dropping!!]
[What are you talking about?! They’re using more magic, so how can the pattern observation rate…!!]
Before the technical team could even react to a result completely contrary to the functions of the Spell Defense System they had consistently tested, the crack that had appeared quickly spread elsewhere.
[If it drops below 30%, the system cannot be maintained…!! The backup device for restoration isn’t responding!]
[Connect the spare power supply we brought! Open algorithm modification permissions and find the problem immediately!]
[It’s wrong, it’s completely unresponsive!! No, rather, this means control of this system…!!]
The giant blue hemisphere unfurled over the street.
Within it, the direction of the blue light that had been constantly pouring towards one wizard slowly began to shift.
Not towards the freelancer from District 49 known as Adamant Thunder, but towards their own team leader, who was directly commanding the defense system at the forefront of the technical team.
[Technical team, do you hear me…!!]
It didn’t take long for Graham’s desperate scream to reverberate.
[The Spell Defense System has been hijacked. Cut the power and shut down the system right now!!!]
Ziiing!!
A mechanical auxiliary device sprang out from around Graham’s waist. Dozens of mechanical arms shot out and rotated, looking almost like a tail.
Powerful heat sources emanating from the tips of those mechanical arms pierced through the spiders rushing towards him, one by one, shutting down their functions.
Pabababat!!
Penetrating power so fast and sharp it was almost like a laser.
The distinct mana felt within suggested that he was a mana user of considerable skill.
Lennok watched him, leisurely nodding with his arms crossed.
“He’s perfectly integrated his mana with magical engineering equipment. Or rather, has he even remodeled parts of his body into machines?”
“Ugh!!!”
“I don’t recall many Archmage-level superhumans attempting body modification, so he must have been confident in balancing human and machine. As Achilles’ Technical Strategy Team Leader, he’s certainly playing extraordinary games with his own body.”
“This is no… game!!!”
Kuuung!!
Sharp blades on the spider legs, the muzzles of machine guns spinning on their undersides.
Even fully automatic shotguns emerging from inside mouths that scattered red eye-beams.
All that firepower was wildly spun and repelled by the mass of mechanical arms bursting from Graham’s waist.
Instead of Graham’s stumbling body, dozens of mechanical arms gripped the slanted wall of the half-broken building and began to quickly climb and move.
Dudududu!!
With some arms, he scattered lasers, and with others, he clung to the building, climbing and widening the distance from Lennok.
The moment a certain distance was created, he floated into the air, and simultaneously, the dozens of mechanical arms dangling from Graham’s waist merged at once.
They transformed into an colossal-caliber energy launcher, almost as large as his torso, and began to glow.
Shwooong…!!
A reddish glow of mana shone from inside the pitch-black barrel.
The dense energy, condensed to its limit, instantly passed through several triggers, traveled through the barrel, and shot through the rain.
[Achilles Combat Assist Device mk.9: Annihilation Enhancement]
[32-Fold Suppressing Artillery (鎭械砲)]
Kwaang!!
A compressed projectile fired using Graham’s own 7-level Archmage-level impact magic and the combat assist device’s firepower conversion ability.
An Archmage-level mana barrage, achieved by temporarily merging the mechanical arms, allowing the barrel’s trajectory to be artificially bent, and upon impact, the compressed mana splits into hundreds of strands, pulverizing the target location, making it nearly a guaranteed hit and guaranteed annihilation.
A red flash of light, cleaving and splitting the dark night sky vertically and horizontally, was fired directly at Lennok.
With its heat alone, the surrounding raindrops evaporated, and the building, broken in half, vibrated and shook, then slowly began to slide.
But even seeing this, Lennok merely leisurely raised his head from atop the spider he was riding.
Simultaneously, the mechanical spider he was riding swiftly twisted and spun, leisurely dodging the barrage fired before it.
Graham’s mana followed the spider, which had instantly moved to the other side of the building, penetrating and pursuing it through the building and its interior offices, but,
Chiiiiiiik!!!
“Good performance.”
“…!!”
Immediately after, a beam of light shot from the blue hemisphere hovering above both their heads, landing right in front of Lennok and blocking Graham’s Suppressing Artillery.
Graham’s expression, as he was counter-intercepted by the very system he had built and deployed, was not visible.
Kiliriririrk!!
The mechanical spiders, having somehow layered their bodies to build a tall tower, diligently latched onto Graham’s auxiliary device, driving his body into the ground.
Kwaang!!
“Iiiik!!!”
There was no need to describe how Graham must have felt dealing with the spiders that had been rushing him moments ago.
The combat ability of the security weapon 71-Araneia, whose decision-making circuits had been altered using Davi’s Cyber-Domain hacking ability, was comparable to a 5-level physical ability user.
The cost involved in manufacturing a single unit and inserting its combat algorithm easily exceeded hundreds of millions of cells.
There was no need to elaborate on how fatal a combined assault by dozens of such combat-capable entities, coordinating their movements down to decimal-point time, could be when targeting just one person.
But more importantly, every time he killed one of those spiders, his mana pattern was inversely analyzed and began to be recorded in the Spell Defense System.
The blue hemisphere, which had been intercepting Lennok’s mana the moment it was exposed, now changed direction and began to fire at Graham.
Lasers bursting from the auxiliary device’s tips couldn’t even properly extend before being counter-intercepted by the Spell Defense System’s heat source, scattering and vanishing.
Only then did Graham, fully realizing that the system had been hijacked, turn pale.
“No…!! This premise was flawed from the start…!!”
Every time he killed a mechanical spider rushing him, Graham’s mana pattern began to be recorded inversely in the system.
The moment the analysis rate surpassed 50%, his mana would be intercepted and scattered away the moment it was exposed, just as it had been to Lennok moments ago.
From that moment on, Graham would have no means left to resist the wizard before him.
Seeing Graham pull out his comms and scream for the system to stop, Lennok chuckled.
“Graham Campbell, was it? I recall seeing that name on Achilles’ executive organizational chart.”
Lennok spoke, watching Graham desperately shaking off the spiders while clutching his comms.
“Back then, it wasn’t the Technical Strategy Department but the Combat Response Team, wasn’t it…? I believe he was one of the executives in that department. Unless he changed positions in the interim, it means he originally had ties to both. It took me a moment to recall.”
[All system power has been cut!!]
“But why is it still…!!!”
Why isn’t the Spell Defense System ensnaring him disappearing?
Due to the system’s function of intercepting externally expressed mana, the mechanical arms of his auxiliary device, desperately fending off the spiders, were becoming tattered.
Kagagagak!!!
As the auxiliary device inserted near his spinal cord twisted from the impact, Graham’s expression also painfully contorted.
“Impossible… It’s…”
He could still fight indefinitely.
The mana remaining in his body was still considerable, and his physical condition wasn’t bad.
Nevertheless, the moment he tried to use a spell, all his attempts were intercepted by the Spell Defense System hovering above his head, binding his hands and feet, rendering him powerless.
It wasn’t a defeat where he expended everything and burned out, but a death approaching while he still possessed power he couldn’t use.
That feeling of injustice and sorrow made Graham struggle even more desperately.
“Aaaaargh!!”
He hastily coated his entire body with mana to strengthen his physique, but his body and senses, not being those of a physical ability user, couldn’t withstand the sudden enhancement.
Any mana leaking from between his fingers was immediately intercepted by the defense system, scattering and disappearing.
Though called a Spell Defense System, even clumsy physical ability users who couldn’t properly control their mana couldn’t escape the system’s influence.
The mana filling his entire body quickly depleted, and Graham’s utterly pathetic form, with fingers and limbs gradually crushed and bleeding amidst the waves of spiders swarming like insects.
“Help me, someone… help me…!! Where is everyone?!”
Lennok replied with an absurd expression to Graham’s desperate plea for help.
“Didn’t you throw them all away as meat shields to buy time to build your system?”
“Useless bastards… The technical team, the board of directors, the vice president…!! What are they all doing?! I’m dying!!!”
Graham screamed as if in a frenzy, not even listening to Lennok’s words.
His eyes quickly became bloodshot, veins swelled around his neck, and then bluish bruises began to spread in places.
At the same time, the auxiliary device embedded in his waist vibrated, and dozens of mechanical arms spun wildly, beginning to draw unknown trajectories.
“Oho.”
Realizing that this was an act of drawing complex hand seals simultaneously using mechanical arms, Lennok briefly stopped his movements.
Graham, whose pure white pupils had turned red, gnashed his teeth, swallowing blood.
“Even if the power is cut, if the system won’t stop, I’ll crush it with sheer force!!!!”
Fwaaash!!!
Simultaneously, a colorless wave erupted centered around Graham.
At the end of the wave, which felt not just powerful but desperately intentional, a halo of light emerged, threatening to overturn the scenery of the rainy night sky.
The pure Archmage’s Domain, spewed forth with all his desires at the brink of death.
But Lennok merely smiled at Graham’s desperate struggle.
“Too late. You’re the complete opposite of that Word Magic user from before.”
“What?!”
“Adorning the beginning and end like this isn’t so bad, I suppose.”
Was it only after being cornered to this extent that he forcibly decided to activate his Domain to turn the tide of battle?
But if he wanted to reverse the situation, it was too late.
If he intended to forcefully escape this battlefield by crushing it with power, he should have thrown that gamble much earlier.
“Look up.”
The moment Graham, following Lennok’s gesture, carelessly cast his gaze upon the hemisphere spread above his head.
[Hello.]
Davi, who had climbed to the apex of the hemisphere and transformed into a giant three-tailed fox, wagged her three tails.
While Graham, startled by the utterly unexpected sight, forgot his incantation and froze, blue light cubes began to fall from the sky like snowflakes.
[Mana pattern analysis 120%. Pattern inverse calculation occupation distributed.]
[Cyber-Domain partial deployment based on Spell Defense System.]
[Dreamscape Virtual: Illusory Realm (所懷境)]
Occupying the already deployed Spell Defense System, and artificially partially deploying a Cyber-Domain within it.
The fact that the system remained active and suppressed Graham, even though Achilles’ technical team had cut its power long ago, was naturally Davi’s doing.
Going beyond merely seizing control of the system, she initiated a partial deployment of a Domain, which would be difficult for Lennok to deploy on his own, using the already established base.
Manifesting the cubes of the Dreamscape Illusory Realm Domain into reality.
Fwaaash!!
The moment the cubes, proxies manifesting the will of the Cyber Spirit, appeared in reality, the battle was over.
Following Lennok’s and Davi’s gestures, the cubes occupying the space inside the hemisphere gathered into one, rapidly shrinking the hemisphere’s area.
[System miniaturization algorithm inserted.]
[Cerebral cortex surface scan complete.]
[Sentence: Spell Defense Cyberization]
Patchchchchch!!!
In an instant, the blue sphere, rapidly shrunk in size, spun like lightning and plunged directly into the crown of Graham’s head.
“Urgh…!!”
With a single death rattle, Graham collapsed like a puppet with cut strings.
Lennok stared down at him, then dismounted from the mechanical spider he had been riding and quietly rubbed his waist.
He had been riding on the spider’s round body for so long that his back had started to ache.
“…It wasn’t designed for a person to ride.”
[I told you to ride on my back, didn’t I?]
Davi, lightly landing beside Lennok, boasted in her giant three-tailed fox form.
[A fluffy spirit’s back is much better than a pile of scrap metal like this.]
“…It was a chance to test out a newly learned technique. I couldn’t miss it.”
Lennok replied, wiping away rainwater with one hand.
“A Spell Defense System, huh… It’s a much better technique than I thought. It’s too much for my own power, but within a Cyber-Domain, I should be able to use it easily.”
If it can bind a 7-level Archmage, then it should be somewhat effective against higher-ranked Archmages too.
Though it’s a technique only usable within Davi’s Dreamscape Illusory Realm, it’s still a useful weapon added to their arsenal.
[Master will surely realize the value of spirits more clearly. It’s not a bad thing.]
Lennok, neatly ignoring Davi’s boastful