Chapter 743: Low-Altitude Flight (11)
“You son of a bitch! Get out of my way now!!”
Gillian twisted his shoulder violently, a syringe still stuck in his neck.
“Oh, looks like I stuck it in his neck instead of his butt. Well, it probably doesn’t matter, right~”
The Clown cackled, watching Gillian, then slammed him into the rubble by stepping on his shoulder with one foot.
CRASH!!
“Cough…!!”
Unlike before, the Archduke gasped for breath, clearly in pain.
Lennok, who had walked out from beside the Clown, looked down at Gillian and said,
“You deployed your Miniature Universe to its extreme limit and then forcibly canceled it, so the backlash must be considerable. You’ll likely have trouble using magic for a while.”
“Manipulation Wizard…!!”
“The gigantification ability you use seems to focus on deployment speed and explosive power.”
Beneath the sea of mana threads that covered everything, Lennok, adjusting his mask, said.
“That’s probably because you weren’t fully deploying your Miniature Universe, but rather partitioning it and wielding it in parts. In that case, all I had to do was push you to draw out your Mind Imprint to its limit, and then force you into a situation where you had no choice but to forcibly cancel it.”
What Lennok paid most attention to in Gillian’s Miniature Universe ability was precisely the speed and explosive power of his gigantification.
The deployment speed was unbelievably fast and agile for someone expanding his own body.
Through it, Gillian’s combat ability involved repeatedly expanding and contracting, freely wielding his Miniature Universe.
But Lennok had surmised that this wasn’t Gillian fully deploying his Miniature Universe, but rather a partial deployment to minimize backlash.
Thus, after creating a situation where Gillian would pursue him using full gigantification,
he used the Thread Cocoon gifted by Agneta to massively release mana threads.
He bound Gillian together with the Corpse Giants he had manipulated beforehand, tying him down so that he could never escape while in his gigantified state.
Therefore, to escape the immediate situation, Gillian endured the backlash and forcibly retracted his Miniature Universe.
The Clown, seizing the brief moment as the backlash intensified, succeeded in subduing Gillian.
“See? No matter how I think about it, don’t we make a pretty good team?”
“I practically handed it to you, yet you still can’t grasp it. Don’t get it twisted.”
“Being quick to snap up opportunities is a skill too, you know.”
Lennok, facing Gillian directly, grasped the Miniature Universe’s flaws, and the Clown’s agility allowed him to exploit that momentary weakness without needing an explanation.
After the offense and defense intensified so rapidly that even Fio and Geo found it difficult to intervene in the battle,
the combat execution ability that, in a fleeting moment, guided Gillian’s thoughts as desired, and instantly seized the desired opening.
Meanwhile, there wasn’t a single error in any of the judgments, including massively releasing Agneta’s mana threads to block out surrounding interferences.
“Damn it… this can’t be happening!!”
“Fio, let’s go!!”
The twins, belatedly pushing through the sea of mana threads, rescued the subdued Gillian. But Lennok and the Clown, having already completed the blood extraction, willingly retreated.
Lennok, taking the ampoule containing Gillian’s blood from the Clown, smeared the blood onto the key he had acquired from the ruins.
Hiss…!!
The curse that had clung to the key’s surface was neutralized and vanished the moment Gillian’s blood was applied.
Lennok, confirming that the key now properly fit into Gyro’s Coffer, nodded with satisfaction.
“So, neutralizing it with the target’s blood was indeed the method. Not bad.”
Originally, he had planned to stall and hold out longer, but with the Clown’s help, subduing Gillian quickly had gone smoothly.
The curse on the key had been successfully lifted, so all that remained was to safely escape from this place.
The moment Lennok, thinking this, turned his gaze towards the outside of the fortress, a crimson curtain descended from the sky in all directions.
FLASH!!
As if to block any exit from the fortress, the curtain wrapped around the half-ruined stronghold, cutting off passage.
Lennok, discerning the source of the spell, shook his head upon seeing the Sixth Prince panting on the other side of the ruined fortress’s stairs.
“I’ll kill you!!”
“Oh, looks like he’s already woken up from the illusion.”
The Clown scratched his cheek awkwardly.
“I guess my makeshift illusion wasn’t as potent as I thought. Or perhaps his spell resistance was stronger than expected?”
A member of Kabahim’s royal family, and an envoy of the Order Alliance who had come to the Giant’s Fortress.
After having his face smashed by an ashtray and being hung on the wall of the fortress’s audience chamber, had he regained consciousness and broken free in the meantime?
“Enough with the excuses. My business here is done. What about you?”
“Um… excuse me, but could you wait a moment?”
The Clown, rolling his eyes nervously, raised the ampoule containing Gillian’s blood with an awkward expression.
“First, I need to finish processing this right here, and extract the sample.”
“…”
“Once this is done, we could attempt to escape much more safely than now, and perhaps even amicably, what do you say?”
As Lennok didn’t reply, the Clown feigned nonchalance and began to subtly gauge his reaction.
The Clown subtly slipped behind a stone wall in the fortress ruins, fiddling with the serum.
“Ah, while I’m concentrating for a bit, isn’t there a cool and capable Manipulation Wizard who could reliably guard my back~?”
“Good luck.”
“Is there anyone~~!!!”
Lennok, leaving the Clown’s wails behind, without a moment’s hesitation, spammed Blink at the moment he was about to escape the fortress.
The Sixth Prince, panting roughly as he looked at Lennok, then suddenly tore something from his embrace.
A necklace adorned with elaborate decorations.
He plunged the sharp tip of the necklace directly into his chest, as if it were a dagger.
STAB!!
“Gah…!! Agh!!”
The Sixth Prince writhed in strangely intense agony, twisting his whole body.
Yet, even so, he showed no intention of pulling out the necklace he’d plunged into his chest.
The moment Lennok realized that the significance lay not in the necklace’s power, but in the very act the Sixth Prince was attempting.
The crimson curtain spread across the sky, instantly began to converge and overlap in one spot.
WHOOSH!!
Like a spotlight illuminating a dark theater, a precise form of light descended from beyond the cloud-covered sky.
The Sixth Prince, holding the necklace and shedding tears of blood, dazedly raised his gaze to the sky at that very moment.
A pale, indistinct figure that fell from the sky instantly plummeted onto the Sixth Prince’s body.
FLASH!!
“Aaaargh!!”
The Sixth Prince screamed in agony, writhing his entire body.
He was clearly trying to do something, but there was no need to wait for that spell to complete.
The moment Lennok, without an ounce of hesitation, pulled up his mana to escape immediately.
A concentrated crimson radiance from the air shot precisely towards where Lennok stood.
CRASH!!
The speed was immense, so much so that even Lennok barely managed to react with Blink.
Lennok, barely maintaining his balance by manipulating his mana threads, glanced back.
Through the chilling crimson mist that had spread everywhere, a spine-chilling voice echoed.
[What a messy and noisy place this is.]
The Sixth Prince, writhing in pain, only then struggled to pull out the necklace embedded in his chest.
Someone who had descended before the Sixth Prince tapped his head and said,
[Didn’t I tell you to be mentally prepared when using a Spell-Binding?]
“Ugh, urgh…!!”
[Well, still, your decision to choose and summon me was excellent.]
With his hands clasped behind his back, he surveyed his surroundings, and mumbled contentedly.
[It’s not often one gets the chance to join such an interesting game. I’ll repay you handsomely later.]
Lennok could finally make out the figure that had slowly stepped forward.
His appearance defied age, and he had a slender physique.
He wore neat attire unfitting for the location. With thin spectacles perched on his nose, he stared intently at Lennok and smiled.
The crimson magical aura swirling at his feet was undeniably sharp and explosive,
but even more striking than those intense characteristics, one thing about the man’s appearance immediately stood out.
“…A spirit body?”
The man’s clothes, skin, hair, and skeletal structure—all seemed to shimmer faintly, like a hologram.
He clearly existed as a concrete entity in this spot, yet his presence was ambiguous, as if his form hadn’t fully solidified into matter.
In response to Lennok’s question, the man didn’t reply, but abruptly extended one hand to the side.
[Gillian, are you going to keep acting foolishly over there?]
WHIRRR…!!
A crimson orb instantly formed in the man’s hand, and then transformed into the shape of a giant hedgehog.
[Get up quickly.]
CRACK!!
The moment the hedgehog created in the man’s hand rolled once over Gillian’s body, all the bundles of mana threads binding him snapped.
Lennok, who had quickly put distance between them and observed the scene, narrowed his eyes, recognizing the nature of the crimson magic.
The sense of incongruity was like hundreds of thin mana slashes, layered and fired repeatedly, as if pricking with needles.
It seemed as though he had forcibly specialized the mana’s properties specifically to sever the mana threads Lennok wielded.
But the hedgehog didn’t stop there; it rolled one more time, and with incredible speed, exploded right in front of Lennok’s nose.
BOOOOM!!
By making his own spirit body explode, creating a curtain of overwhelming force, the man turned to Gillian.
“Cough, cough!! Naiyab…”
[You’re utterly disgraceful, Gillian. What kind of state is this?]
The spellcaster called Naiyab scoffed at Gillian.
[If you had accepted the Alliance’s proposal and bowed your head sooner, you wouldn’t be in this predicament. Still as pathetic as ever.]
“…Shut up.”
Gillian glared at Naiyab and rose to his feet.
“We can talk about the details after we’ve caught that bastard.”
[Well, so be it.]
Naiyab, too, gathered crimson light in his hand once more, and replied.
[However, I fully intend to be properly compensated for this.]
“…”
Instead of answering, Gillian silently glared at Lennok.
Because he realized that merely overusing gigantification wouldn’t even guarantee capture, let alone victory, against this opponent.
Against a Manipulation Wizard, clumsily increasing only one’s firepower was tantamount to giving them more openings.
Fio and Geo, too, positioned themselves at close and long range, respectively, blocking Lennok’s escape routes.
Four superhumans surrounded a single spellcaster, while hundreds of knights simultaneously formed another encirclement around them.
Everyone was aware that they absolutely had to capture that spellcaster here and now.
In the midst of a murderous net with no apparent escape, Lennok, with his arms crossed, casually glanced upwards.
The crimson radiance that had fallen from the sky just before Naiyab appeared.
He could now vaguely understand why it had appeared.
“Summoning magic.”
“What?”
[…]
Fio frowned, unable to understand his words, but Naiyab, on the contrary, looked at him with interest.
Lennok ignored Naiyab’s reaction and continued.
“He designated himself as a summoned entity, and made arrangements to be summoned through another’s consciousness, didn’t he?”
[Oh?]
Lennok’s eyes, hidden behind his mask, had transformed into the shape of a Mystic Eye.
“He likely appeared as a mana projection rather than his true body for that very reason.”
What the Sixth Prince did to summon Naiyab was an act akin to a ritual.
A summoning ritual that used the act of plunging a necklace into his chest as a trigger, an action he would never normally undertake.
Through it, the powerful high-ranking spellcaster of the Order Alliance, Naiyab, suddenly appeared in this place.
Lennok, realizing that Naiyab’s physical body wasn’t real, understood that this entire process resembled that of summoning magic.
“He tampered with the system to transcend time and space. Is that the Order Alliance’s method?”
[Indeed. You have grasped the essence very precisely.]
Naiyab smiled and raised a hand.
[Gathering all spells in this world and connecting them into a single meaning. That is precisely the perfect answer and ideal that this Alliance pursues.]
It was difficult to precisely discern the spellcraft Naiyab wielded, but it was certainly not a summoning lineage.
Nevertheless, the fact that his appearance and manifestation took the form of a summoned entity.
Through this, Lennok instantly saw through that the Order Alliance was repeatedly attempting to transcend magical lineages.
[To discern that, you are no ordinary spellcaster either. Would you not consider joining hands with the Alliance?]
“Order Alliance. What kind of bullshit are you spouting now!”
Geo, startled, yelled at Naiyab, but he didn’t even twitch an eyebrow.
Instead, he took a step forward and merely nodded at Lennok.
[The Alliance is always open to spellcasters with rare talents. Spellcasters who mistake their talents for curses. Strange spells and techniques whose purpose and meaning are unknown. All of them are processes that converge into a meaning pointing towards the next stage.]
Naiyab pointed to himself.
[What’s important is not being constrained by lineage, but taking what is superior and discarding what is inferior!! Doesn’t my current appearance accurately represent the Alliance’s will?]
“…”
[If you join us, you too can achieve this. If you have ever felt the limits of the spellcraft you wield, if you have ever felt new possibilities from other lineages of spellcraft!]
Towards the silent Lennok, Naiyab spoke with a tone of certainty.
[Then you are already aligned with the Alliance and its purpose.]
“You have a remarkably slick tongue. Are you daring to proselytize to me now?”
Lennok chuckled faintly and slowly uncrossed his arms.
“I understand what you’re saying, but for the Order Alliance’s logic to persuade me, your method of existence seems far too crude.”
[Crude… you say?]
Leaving the seemingly provoked Naiyab behind, Lennok slowly began to move.
At his movement, the superhumans surrounding him all tensed and watched him intently, but Lennok ignored them and spoke.
“The idea of manifesting beyond location as a summoned entity is indeed novel, but its limitations are just as clear as its advantages.”
The shimmering violet light from behind his mask instantly directed itself towards the Sixth Prince, who lay collapsed behind Naiyab.
Barely recovered from the agony of ingesting the necklace raw, the Prince, who had regained his senses and was wary of Lennok, flinched.
“A manifestation that can’t even begin if the summoner doesn’t perform the ritual personally. And—”
At that moment, Lennok’s body seemed to sink into the ground like a shadow right where he stood.
Without using any mana at all, he seemed to flicker and vanish into thin air, as if disappearing from nothingness.
At this unreal disappearance, the others froze, unable to even react.
Lennok, appearing behind the Sixth Prince’s back, patted him on both shoulders.
“During the manifestation, doesn’t it have to rely entirely on the summoner’s mana and existence for its burden?”
“…”
A sudden approach with no prior indication.
Even Naiyab, who had been watching the Prince, had not noticed his appearance at all, and the others immediately moved.
Naiyab quickly conjured a crimson monstrous bird from his fingertips and sent it flying towards Lennok, while Fio leaped forward.
The Sixth Prince, whose shoulders were gripped by Lennok, also seemed to attempt a counterattack amidst this, writhing his whole body and spewing mana from his mouth.
Mana and slashes poured in from three directions almost simultaneously, projectiles of magic and slashing attacks.
But Lennok, even knowing this, calmly extended mana threads towards the Sixth Prince.
“Heavy, but slow. It’s tedious to even watch and react to.”
SWISHH!!
He pulled and stripped away all of the Sixth Prince’s attacks, which rushed forward with mana wrapped around his body, with just a few strands of mana threads.
He read all the mana and will-thought the Prince extended three breaths ahead, and crushed them before they could even begin.
The Sixth Prince’s limbs, flailing like a puppet, instantly bent in unnatural directions and were completely crushed.
“Aaaargh!!”
He bound Fio’s spear shaft, which was rushing from behind him, with mana threads and slammed it into the ground, and dodged Naiyab’s spellcraft once more with an in-place Blink.
Lennok caught a dagger that had fallen from his robe sleeve with mana threads, and said,
“Order Alliance. If you are a being who appeared here by borrowing the principles of summoning magic—”
Holding the twisted dagger in a reverse grip, he plunged it straight into the crown of the Sixth Prince’s head.
STAB!!
The Sixth Prince’s eyes rolled back as his head was pierced from the top without any resistance.
A meaningless death, even more futile than those he had tortured and killed himself in the fortress’s basement.
Lennok, pulling the dagger from the Sixth Prince’s bleeding, lifeless corpse, asked,
“What happens when the summoner dies?”
[…You rootless Manipulation Wizard, how dare—!!]
“Victor, it’s done!!”
Immediately after Naiyab’s spirit body violently trembled and swayed in place, letting out a roar, the Clown tumbled out from amidst the stone ruins as if bounced.
Wiping his blood-smeared mouth, the Clown smacked his lips, looked around, and clasped his hands together.
“Let’s start right away!!”
The moment he forcibly twisted his broken fingers to form a hand seal, monochromatic ripples began to burst forth in all directions.
WHOOSH!!!
Above the fortress’s sky, a gigantic roulette wheel in the shape of a clown sticking out its tongue popped into existence.
The clown’s tongue vigorously began to spin the roulette wheel.
WHIRRRRR!!
Simultaneously with the intense whirring of the roulette wheel, loud enough to echo in everyone’s ears, the Clown, having completed his hand seal, grinned and muttered.
“Domain deployment.”