Book Eater

Chapter 349: Prometheus’ Plot (3)

Space magic!

Space had shattered without the enemy uttering a single syllable. Space magic ignored normal defenses and could cause a fatal wound with just a light scratch, and this was at least at the level of an 8th Circle killing spell! The tips of Theo’s bangs were sliced off the moment he warned his colleagues, causing his spine to turn cold. If he had delayed for even a few more seconds, his head would be gone.

However, Theo regained his composure and shouted loudly, “Aquilo! Don’t transform! You will die as soon as you become a dragon!”

It went against common sense, but Theo had made the correct judgment. Dragon bones were protected by scales even stronger than mithril, but they couldn’t overcome spells that manipulated space itself. In particular, the enemy magician was a monster who had reached the 9th Circle and could easily overcome a dragon’s magic resistance. If Aquilo took the form of a dragon, she would just be an easy target.

“I understand! I will trust you this time, boy!”

No one knew whether a dragon’s natural arrogance would balk at following Theo’s instructions, but Aquilo was different. She had fought against Pride with Theo and realized that Theo’s strength surpassed hers. Several compressed water beads appeared around Aquilo as she prepared to fight in human form, firing them at the transcendent magician.

Kakiing.

However, one person attacked even faster than she did.

“Showing a gap in front of me, what an idiot!” Randolph accelerated so quickly that his body was a blurry afterimage, while the light of aura from his two blades stretched out like a comet tail.

Randolph’s falchions exceeded the speed of sound as they slashed at the enemy.

Clovis Two Swords Style. Special Hidden Meaning Technique. Thunder Claws.

It was a perfectly deadly blow. The whirlpool of blue aura maintained its momentum, not leaving a single piece of flesh behind. This was different from five years ago. Randolph had perfected his family’s swordsmanship since then, and his speed had more than doubled. If he concentrated his aura, he could even cut mithril.

... What?

However, the feedback from his blades felt strange. It felt lighter than a thin piece of wood, like air.

“Randolph!” Theo’s voice awakened him.

Jeeeong!

A merciless shockwave blew Randolph back. If he hadn’t blocked reflexively, he might’ve died from just one blow. As blood ran down his neck, Randolph flew back and realized his mistake. Transcendence, he had forgotten what that signified.

Damn, it would be a disgrace to die like this.

The magician was aiming his staff at Randolph, who had yet to land on the ground and whose aura was still shaken. It was impossible for him to defend against or avoid this blow. The reaper’s scythe was at his neck.

At this moment…

Pipipipiping!?

The tip of the staff was deflected by multiple arrows. Titania had covered for Randolph from the rear. The transcendent stopped trying to kill Randolph and aimed at Titania instead.

“□□□□.” The transcendent muttered a word, and the arrows that could pierce through walls of steel turned toward their owner.

He had completed a complex spell that combined both distortion and refraction in an instant! Titania dodged frantically as Theo reevaluated the enemy transcendent’s capabilities. The spells drove Randolph further into a corner and knocked away any projectiles. To think that they had just started the battle. Their enemy was truly a monster.

He avoided Randolph’s aura by expanding space around himself, and then immediately shrank space to create a shockwave to throw Randolph away. The magic that reflected the arrows is a higher application method that makes all physical forces flow in the reverse direction... I can’t beat him with space magic.

Even Orta, with his magic eyes, wouldn’t fight a magician in the arena they’d specialized in. Theo started to calculate a few strategies and delivered a message to Aquilo. The two of them were connected by blood, so they were able to communicate at high speeds.

[Okay, let’s try it.] Aquilo responded.

Unlike Randolph, who had still scrambling to his feet, and Titania, who was avoiding the arrows she fired, Aquilo had room to move. The beads floating around her headed in one direction, and the transcendent looked back as he sensed them. However, Aquilo’s attack was quicker.

Piiiiiik.

The eight beads shot forward as water jets. It was an attack method that exceeded Randolph’s swords and Titania’s arrows when it came to speed. Several years ago, Theo had almost been killed by this water jet when he first met Aquilo.

Thirty-two jets of water shot out almost simultaneously, aiming for the space between the arrows.

“□□□.”

At that moment…

Wuuuong...!

Even so, Aquilo’s attack was blocked. There was no time to reflect them, but the water jets coming from all directions were blocked. It was a simple response to an attack that was several times faster than the speed of sound, as well as proof that a surprise attack wasn’t enough to put him on the back foot.

“No, you thought you blocked it.” However, Aquilo ridiculed him as if she had foreseen this situation.

The real attack wasn’t the water jets. A blue dragon’s true power was their absolute dominance over the moisture that existed in this material world. The water jet was Aquilo’s favorite technique, but she had other ways to attack when it came to just killing.

After all, no creature could survive without water.

Dehydration, the water stream that stopped at the transcendent’s body faded, and the water dried up without leaving a drop. It was the method Blundell had used to kill Theo a few times during Abe no Seimei’s test. Dehydration evaporated up all the water in the body, killing them instantly.

Wuuong!

One or two seconds later, the transcendent’s flesh outside his robes cracked like dry riverbeds. He quickly realized the seriousness of the situation and instantly jumped through space. His soul wasn’t present, so his body moved instinctively. But Theo had been waiting for that precise moment. He read the destination of the space movement and cast a special magic at the coordinates before the enemy arrived.

「Rise, imaginary fingers! 」

Order!

It was the trick Theo had picked from the warlock, Jerem. An Order, based on the power of Dragon Words, amplified Theo’s magic power several times over. The original Eternal Prison (Aeternum Carcerem), a high-level shadow spell, required five seconds to cast.

Once the transcendent appeared on the battlefield again…

「 Lock on for eternity, swallow it in your stomach! 」

Theo’s hands slammed together, and the shadows under his feet crossed like steel bars. Space magic couldn’t interfere with dimensional magic. Much like ordinary shadows, they had no physical presence, and there was no way for the target to escape once they were completely confined. Gluttony hypothesized that ultimate spells might work, but that didn’t seem possible in this situation.

- Once the soul is gone, ultimate spells can’t be used. They use the soul as the key to dominate the world. An empty shell without an ego can’t challenge that area.

A transcendent who couldn’t use ultimate spells had their power halved. Thus, Theo decided to fight with everything he had. Theo had more magic power than an average 8th Circle magician, and he still had three colleagues with him.

Of course, it would be best if he spent all ten minutes in this prison...’

Theo stared at the gradually diminishing Eternal Prison. Light could never coexist with shadow, and yet there was a pinprick of light in the prison of shadows. It was only one centimeter in diameter, but it still existed. Theo smiled bitterly.

... Well, I thought it would be like this.

The enemy might not have all his wits about him, but a transcendent was still a magician who had crossed the limits of existence and touched the 9th circle. His intuition was still a fearsome thing. He wasn’t an opponent that would be blocked by something like this.

Theo felt Randolph return behind him as he focused on the magician.

“Be prepared. He is coming out soon.”

“Yes.”

Speaking was too slow in a real fight between masters. They would lose their lives several times over before they could signal each other. Therefore, Theo and Randolph remained silent and concentrated hard enough that the powers of the two masters could serve as senses.

Ah.

It only took a few moments for the strike to come.

Paijijik.

Theo’s supersensitivity cried out as his body flashed with a blue light. He used lightning to momentarily surpass Randolph’s acceleration. The moment that a shadow popped out of the one centimeter hole that was too narrow for an adult male body to pass through…

Fairy Dance’s Direct Transmission. Four Major Hidden Techniques. Rain like an Axle.

Theo’s lightning fist scattered dozens of after-effects as they landed on the transcendent, who showed no signs of blocking them.

Kwarururung!

The second hidden technique used one’s fists. The power of one punch exceeded the level of 6th Circle attack spells, and it was equal to Aquilo’s water jet in terms of speed. A shockwave spread through the surroundings with a loud thunderous sound. It was a perfect surprise attack.

What?’

However, Theo was taken aback.

Not a single blow landed...?

It was a different situation from when the transcendent avoided Randolph’s sword. Rather than expanding the space, he had twisted it in various ways. Some of Theo’s blows lost strength by bumping against each other, and a few shot out in random directions. The more surprising thing was that the origin of the space distortion was the staff in the transcendent’s hand!

“Randolph! This bastard... can fight in close combat!.” Theo understood the situation at once and moved one step closer to the nameless transcendent.

Puhak!

No, it just seemed like a step. An opening was meaningless to a magician who could stretch and shrink space like a rubber band. The outstretched staff struck Theo before swinging back and hitting Randolph’s wrist. Despite two attacks, the sound only came out once.

“Kuk!”

“T-This!”

It was like battling Zest Speitem, 2nd Sword of the Empire, except far worse. The two masters felt a chill go down their spines as they narrowly avoided getting bisected by a space cut. The transcendent continued to hold his staff expressionlessly. Nothing could be felt from him. His martial art was just efficient movements of the body.

However, now that space magic was added to the close combat fray, there were no more gaps to take advantage of. What kind of lunatic magician trained to master level in melee combat?

- You are spitting in your own face, User.

Shut up.

Theo snapped at Gluttony who couldn’t read the mood and used his lightning again.

A high-speed attack clearly wasn’t the answer. While his magic power had increased considerably over the last five years, he had still been casting nonstop. It might be best to buy time with the recovered Randolph. In addition, both Aquilo and Titania were still alive.

- Let me ask you something. As I said before, in the old days, humanity had much better spiritualities and physical abilities. It was an era when a monster would destroy a hill with a single fist. There would naturally be magicians who are used to close combat.

Indeed, there would be those types of magicians.

It might not be his full strength, but if a magician who dealt with space magic, as well as his own martial arts, was this powerful... What was the use of martial arts against a person who could change the distance or pull the enemy in front of them?

Grandmasters at the apex would laugh at this battle. However, Theo and Randolph were still a long way from confronting it. But…

Theo murmured, “Well, isn’t it just ultimate self-defense?”

He blocked any attempt to move through space. However, if the transcendent tried to run away, he wouldn’t be able to beat Randolph’s and Theo’s speed. It was perfect as long as they didn’t put their bodies in the range of the space shredding.

They would use ranged tactics to defeat the magician. As a great being once said, transcendents who allowed enemies to approach were rare. Once they realized the magician could mix melee combat with space magic, it wasn’t unbeatable.

“□□□□.” The problem came from the transcendent who recognized this crisis. “□□□, □□□□□.”

The transcendent’s expressionless face distorted slightly, and light of an unknown color emerged from the staff in his hand. Then…

Kiiiiing!

The world turned black and white, while Randolph’s and Theo’s bodies and spirits froze. Since he was at the 8th Circle, Theo wasn’t completely frozen and struggled to break through.

Time magic? Moreover, this phenomenon is… Don’t tell me—!

It was possible, although he wanted to deny it. Time magic was the most similar to space, so it was certainly possible for a transcendent who trained in space magic to use time magic. However, time magic was usually in the ultimate magic realm, so Theo had been sure the opponent wouldn’t be able to use it.

“□□□□□, □□...”

In the black and white world where everything was stopped, the transcendent muttered strange words alone. It was a considerable burden to use this ultimate spell, and the transcendent couldn’t keep his balance.

Theo couldn’t understand the meaning of the words, but he sensed it.

I have to break this Time Stop somehow!

Theo’s blue eyes flashed once within the stopped world of black and white. In a way, this was his first challenge against ultimate magic.