Chapter 742: Low-Altitude Flight (10)
Whoosh!
The fortress’s outer gate was shattered, and the sound of water draining from the inner courtyard could be heard.
The electrocuted corpses and all sorts of debris, remnants of the water the Clown had filled the courtyard with, were swept away by the current.
From far away, faint shouts could be heard. Uproarious screams and roars.
But they seemed utterly meaningless to the four figures confronting each other in the collapsed main hall of the fortress.
“Last time, we were helplessly ambushed, but this time will be different. Let’s really go at it.”
Pio and Geo, faces tense, glared at Lennok and the Clown, rapidly drawing on their mana.
Pio stood in front, while Geo retreated behind him, quickly forming their battle formation.
At his words, the Clown turned his head, his arm slung over Lennok’s shoulder.
“Oh? Victor, do you know them?”
“Not at all. First time seeing them.”
Lennok answered instantly, arms crossed.
Of course, he was acquainted with the twins under his Evan identity, but this was his first time encountering them as Victor.
If the twins showed hostility towards Lennok, it was likely due to the name of Pandemonium rather than knowing Victor.
“Hmm…”
The Clown wiped a hand across his bloodied face and looked at the twins.
Blatantly scanning them up and down, the Clown grinned as if he’d grasped something.
“Ah, you’re identical twins, yet you purposely learned different types of spellcraft?”
“…”
“Normally, if both have talent in spellcraft, it’s common to choose the same type… The fact that you specifically chose different types must be to pursue compatibility or linkage that transcends hierarchy, wouldn’t it?”
A question that immediately pierced to the core of Pio and Geo’s spellcraft.
But Pio merely let out a sharp laugh without properly answering.
“I didn’t know Pandemonium’s Clown was interested in other people’s spellcraft. I thought you were just trash obsessed with toying with people.”
“Oh, well, of course, I can’t say I have no aptitude for such things…”
The Clown mumbled, stroking his chin.
“I’m a soft-hearted person, you know. I don’t treat people so carelessly.”
“…”
Who could agree with that, seeing the corpse of a knight with his helmet crushed under the Clown’s feet right then?
Pio, who had been staring at the Clown with disgust, immediately drew up his mana, seeing Lennok wiggle his fingers.
“Victor, was it? So that’s your name.”
“…”
“They said you survived after doing that crap at the Well of the Codex. As expected, you’re just hanging out with others of your kind, huh?”
But Lennok snorted at his words.
“What a disagreeable assumption. Don’t lump me in with this clown.”
“…What?”
“No, Victor! What a hurtful thing to say!”
Lennok, completely ignoring the Clown’s dramatic fussing beside him, swatted the Clown’s arm away and spoke.
“It seems you know who I am, so this will be quick.”
Cold gleam in his eyes flashed from behind the obsidian mask.
A chilling voice sharply pierced the twins’ ears.
“I have business with your superior, so don’t interfere and get lost. I’m already annoyed by useless trouble.”
“Hey, Gillian isn’t my superior. There’s only one person I serve in this organization.”
Pio laughed.
“I don’t know what nerve Pandemonium has to crawl in here, but one such unpleasant experience is more than enough!”
“One time?”
Had another member of Pandemonium infiltrated the Lighthouse besides Lennok?
Before he could ask, Pio ripped through the air and accelerated with incredible speed.
Whoosh!
He thrust his blade unhesitatingly into the mana thread net Lennok had set up, tearing it apart.
He warped his body, squeezing it through the exquisitely opened gap, and instantly brought his blade down upon Lennok’s mask.
A direct strike aimed at the brow of the obsidian mask. But the severed mana threads reconnected as if time rewound, gripping the blade.
Shhh-crack!
Not stopping there, the explosively proliferating mana threads quickly entangled Pio’s limbs.
Lennok, who had instantly halted Pio’s movement in mid-air, tilted his head.
“A pathetic killing intent. Was that supposed to be an attack?”
“…!!”
Just as he was about to pull the mana threads and snap Pio’s limbs to slam him into the ground…
The tip of the blade split open, and a shotgun barrel protruded from within.
Click!
“Eat this!”
The moment the trigger fired, an enormous burst of flame erupted, large enough to completely engulf the shadow robe.
CRACK!
The impact of a shotgun fired at point-blank range. It was Pio’s own bombardment, where he had used transformation spellcraft to maximize single-use firepower.
No matter how precisely one manipulated mana threads, it would be impossible to block each of the hundreds of fragmented bullets.
But it wasn’t Lennok who took the shotgun’s bullets after the firing ceased.
It was the figure of a knight clad in tattered armor.
The Clown had kicked the corpse of the knight, which had fallen at his feet, setting it up as a shield in front of Lennok.
“Come on, let’s not make things difficult, shall we?”
Taking out dice from his pocket and rolling them, the Clown looked at the twins with a leisurely air.
“Besides, this isn’t even the area overseen by the young Lighthouse Keeper. Why are you interfering with us?”
“That’s rich, coming from you…!”
Geo retorted, activating his synchronization spellcraft.
He synchronized with the mana of the fortress’s main hall, instantly collapsing the ceiling and walls.
Thud-thud-thud!
The inner walls of the fortress crumbled, revealing the open sky, which then swiftly darkened.
It was like the illusion of a colossal shadow. Those who looked up realized its true nature and made different expressions.
CRUUUUUMBLE!
Gillian, now several meters tall, looked down at the ground, scattering surging mana.
It was a full-body enlargement spell, cast by overlaying the image of his mindscape onto his physical form.
Gillian, who had been buried in the collapsed ruins, had arrived at this spot by unleashing his Miniature Universe to its full extent.
Gillian glared at Lennok through the crumbled fortress wall, then drew up his mana and let out a fierce roar.
[Oooohhhhhh!!!]
Thud-thud-thud!
Just by lightly inhaling and exhaling, the surrounding air vibrated with a tingle.
An overwhelming pressure, as if a giant race, thought to be long extinct, had appeared in this place.
But Lennok and the Clown looked at each other even as they observed him.
“For personal reasons, I need the Archduke’s blood. Cooperate.”
“Ah, so that’s why you suddenly came back? I actually expected as much.”
The Clown, who had originally needed Gillian’s bio-information, wouldn’t think of refusing.
Kicking the knight’s corpse he’d used as a shield into the moat, the Clown grinned and asked,
“Shall I go, or will you start first?”
“The opposite of at the Well.”
Lennok said, walking past the Clown and moving ahead.
Swoosh!
Simultaneously, dozens of thin lines fluttered like heat haze around his shadow robe.
Lennok, who had hooked mana threads all around the collapsed fortress ruins and tilted as if about to fall, spoke.
“I’ll clear the way; you finish it.”
“Excellent!”
The Clown and Victor’s bodies shot away in different directions as if rebounding.
“Damn it…!”
Pio gritted his teeth, quickly scanned the two, and then pursued the cackling Clown as he vanished.
The moment Gillian, who had turned himself into a giant, rolled his eyes back to look at Lennok, Gillian’s right foot disappeared from its spot.
A kick launched at a speed beyond sound.
Immediately after the castle’s outer wall shattered into pieces, the thunderous roar proving its destruction and pulverization followed.
BOOM!
The shattered and crumbled castle debris floated tens of meters into the sky, then scattered and vanished.
Before Lennok could even confirm if he’d been hit squarely, Gillian swung his hand again.
CRASH!
Every time Gillian, whose body had been maximized to its limits, twisted his shoulder, he struck the ground with such acceleration that his trajectory was invisible.
An unbelievable miracle of maintaining superhuman strength and reactions even after bloating his physique and mass dozens of times over.
An attack that unnaturally inflated only his physical stature while faithfully reproducing his own strength and technique, truly transformed into a world-shaking impact.
Thud-thud-thud-thud!
“Uwaaaagh!”
Gillian’s thick forearm descended from the sky like a rain of stone pillars.
With each blow, it completely erupted and caved in the ground, spreading its damage like a natural disaster.
The fortress, reeling from his blows, was now on the verge of complete collapse.
But Lennok, even as he dodged the showering paths of death with blinks, shot mana threads up towards Gillian.
Thwip!
He hooked mana threads onto Gillian’s descending fist, binding it, then used them to spring himself upward like a rebound, his body suspended at the end.
In the midst of that, he collided head-on with Pio, who was rushing along the falling rocks.
Manipulating the mana threads hooked to his fingertips, he swapped his and Pio’s positions, even deflecting the rotating blade and shotgun pellets at point-blank range.
Kagagagak!
In a fleeting moment, he evaded over a dozen exchanges of offense and defense, then used a blink to spatial shift several meters above a pile of rocks.
The moment he slammed a shock spell into Jio’s back, who had been hiding in the rock crevices and using synchronization spellcraft.
THWACK!
“Got you!”
In that fleeting moment, Jio reacted, turned his body, and grabbed Lennok’s arms with both hands.
Realizing that Lennok’s physical strength was not very strong, Jio shouted.
“This bastard, he really has no talent for close combat! He’s just compensating for his lack of strength with mana threads!”
“No. The order is reversed.”
Grab!
Lennok grabbed a handful of Jio’s hair with one hand and grinned.
“If you master the power of spellcraft to its limits, you can achieve results without even needing to resort to close combat.”
“…!!”
“Let go of my hand, you bastard!”
Pio, who had followed behind Lennok, transformed into a massive beast, charging with jaws agape.
“As you wish.”
[Blink]
Lennok’s body, whose legs had been held by Jio’s arms, vanished from the spot without a trace.
The moment Pio, who had almost bitten Jio’s head off, stopped by putting force into his front paws…
A boulder the size of a car fell directly onto the twins’ heads.
CRASH!
“Argh!”
With a grotesque scream rising from beneath the rock, Lennok looked up at Gillian.
Seeing the giant’s ferocious gaze upon the ground, Lennok grimaced and adjusted his mask.
“He looks even bigger than before… It’s not just my imagination, is it?”
Instead of an answer, the giant’s blow returned.
Matching his breath with the descending fist, Lennok quickly scraped together his remaining mana and scattered it in the form of mana threads.
CRUUUMBLE!
Meanwhile, the twins painfully crawled out from between the falling rocks, coughing.
“Ugh, I’m going to die…”
Pio, his tongue lolling out, weakly grasped his throbbing head.
“It’s been too long since I’ve fought like this.”
“The mana threads he manipulates. The feeling is strange.”
Geo replied, rubbing his wrist with an exhausted look.
“It feels like my senses get muddled every time I make contact. He probably processed the mana on purpose.”
“He processes the mana he puts into mana threads? Does that even make sense?”
“Well…”
At Pio’s question, Geo glanced up.
“If he can do that, then isn’t that why he can fight in such a bizarre way?”
“…”
The giant’s slashes descending from the sky and countless fine lines intersected.
The twins stared blankly at the manipulation wizard’s battle, which defied common sense.
“Crazy bastard…”
“That kind of guy ended up in Pandemonium, of all places?”
He hooked mana threads onto the scattered rock fragments and boulders, using them to pull and redirect the giant’s descending blows to their absolute limit.
If Gillian amplified physical force by maximizing his size, then the other’s goal was to neutralize that impact with mana threads.
The mana threads, shimmering as faint afterimages, increased with each battle, hundreds of thousands of them covering the fortress ruins and spreading out like a spiderweb.
Manipulation-type unique magic:
[Thread-Bound Constraint]
Creak-creak-creak!
Vanishing and reappearing like a shadow, he evaded all of the giant’s attacks and counter-surged.
[Will-Thought Liberation]
Shhhhhh!
Lennok’s body, ghosting over the crumbling walls and ceiling of the ancient castle, instantly moved to stand on Gillian’s shoulder.
[Oooohhhhhh!!!]
At the same time, a dozen or so corpse giants, having broken through the ruins’ walls, all began to rush towards Gillian.
With gaunt, skeletal forms, they charged out and simultaneously pressed down on Gillian’s colossal body, grasping him from all directions.
[Circulating Melody]
[Thread Spinning: Gate Opening]
Mana threads, layered like a net, unfolded between the corpse giants’ bodies, pressing down and tightening around Gillian’s form.
CRUNCH-CRACK!
[I’ll kill you…!!]
At that absurd, bizarre restraint, Gillian gritted his teeth and unleashed his Miniature Universe to its limits.
Inner World Miniature Universe: Colossus Armament
[Pseudo-Giant Manifestation]
Thud-thud-thud!
The moment Gillian’s already massive physique rapidly grew even larger amidst the surrounding corpse giants.
“Right. I knew you’d come out like that.”
Lennok took out a Thread Cocoon from his pocket and clutched it.
A small cocoon-shaped object made of thin threads. It was a gift from Agneta, given on the condition that she accompany him on this mission.
Outwardly, it seemed like nothing more than a simple bundle of mana threads, but Lennok knew its value wasn’t in its appearance.
The moment Lennok imbued the cocoon with mana and threw it forcefully before Gillian’s eyes.
The threads inside the cocoon snapped, and the mass of threads bundled within began to burst forth under Lennok’s hand.
Pop-pop-pop!
Vast bundles of mana threads, countless in number, exploded and scattered, instantly covering Lennok’s surroundings.
The innumerable strands of thread did more than simply unravel onto the ground; they burst forth, completely filling and overflowing the fortress ruins.
Thud-thud-thud!
“I-impossible…!!!”
“Mana thread compression?!!!”
“How could he have this much material…!!”
The illusion of a pure white sea unfolding before their eyes.
Hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of mana thread bundles burst ceaselessly from within the cocoon, covering everything.
Even the surrounding knights and all the superhumans were swept away by the wave of mana threads without putting up any significant resistance.
SWOOOSH!
Hundreds of thousands of mana thread bundles clung densely to the giant’s fortress, completely engulfing the entire collapsed ruin.
[Oooohhhh!!!]
Gillian roared, drawing up all the mana in his body to break free, but the more he struggled, the more tightly he entangled himself.
His body and the corpse giants were submerged in the wave of mana threads, then tangled, wrapped, and bent.
The more he thrashed to escape, the more tightly he was wrapped, and his arms and legs were twisted in directions opposite to his will.
A masterful technique that used the very weight of the ancient fortress as leverage, pulling the mana threads to completely bind the giant’s body.
Connecting elbows to knee backs, joint to joint. Shoulders to inner thighs. Crown of the head to heels, and shaking him from every conceivable direction, making him unable to even maintain balance.
CRUNCH!
As if a spider were ceaselessly wrapping its web around a massive prey, he completely enveloped and captured the giant’s form.
Thousands of mana threads descended upon the ancient castle ruins, binding the giant’s limbs like a prisoner, a tragic scene.
CRUUUUUMBLE!
He was so completely bound that he couldn’t move, especially now that he was using his gigantic transformation to its limit.
Gillian, realizing this, gritted his teeth and forcibly canceled his Miniature Universe deployment from the spot.
The moment Gillian’s body shrank back to human size.
“Very well done, Victor!”
The Clown, who had burst through the mana thread bundles as if he had been waiting, stamped down directly on Gillian’s solar plexus, crushing him.
CRASH!
“Cough!”
Gillian, who had coughed drily, still gritted his teeth and tried to kick the Clown away.
But the Clown twisted his waist at a grotesque angle to dodge, instantly closing the distance to Gillian.
“Now, now, bad children get a shot in the backside~”
Thunk!
With those words, the Clown pressed a long ampoule he held in his hand into Gillian’s neck.