TWEM Vol. 5 Chapter 11
Chapter 11 – Fighting the Devil
I was standing in the air using my Sky Walk skill, facing Schwartz.
With a quick glance, I could see that even I would not be able to break the barrier that enveloped the entire holy city.
However, Ellis might be able to do something about it.
…What do you think, Ellis? Can you destroy it?
<<It is possible, but it will take some time.>>
Oh, so it’s possible. How long?
<<Calculating…without confronting Schwartz, the time it would take to destroy the barrier is ten minutes.>>
I see, so you’re saying that it’s faster to take him down first since he’s going to sabotage us anyway.
“Tsk, what an annoying barrier.”
“I am honored by your praise.”
Schwartz bowed gracefully in response to my words.
“——Aegis.”
I put up Aegis below me to prevent the city from being affected by the battle.
Aegis repels any physical interference by creating a spatial rupture between the layers of the barrier, but its only drawback is that, it doesn’t prevent mental attacks.
Well, I guess I just need to make Schwartz focus on only me and prevent him from unleashing any kind of mental attack.
“I see that you’ve made it so that the damage doesn’t spread. How unfortunate.”
“Is that——so!”
I unleashed Explosion, which compressed a huge amount of magic power, towards Schwartz as I said that. A fist-sized fireball approached Schwartz.
“——Abyss Sphere.”
In response, Schwartz released a sphere that seemed to be similar to condensed darkness. When my explosion hit the sphere, it got sucked into it and disappeared.
If he continues to use that technique, my magic attacks will most likely be rendered useless.
In that case——
I took advantage of my physical abilities and moved right in front of Schwartz.
He was caught by surprise and tried to retreat, but it was too late.
I lowered my posture and——unleashed a single swordflash using quickdraw.
And just like that, my blade severed Schwartz’s left arm.
“Ugh…this is going to cost you, just so you know.”
Schwartz gritted his teeth, but no blood flowed out of the cut wound.
No, looking closely, I could see a black misty substance oozing out.
Schwartz swung his right arm at me while I was observing him in a casual manner.
“——Devil’s Claw!”
The claws on Schwartz’s right hand extended and charged toward my torso.
——It’s too late to dodge it!!
I quickly raised my hands to guard myself in a defensive stance and strengthened my entire body with Diamond, the higher tier of Harden.
At that moment, Schwartz’s claws hit me squarely.
While being blown several meters away, I twisted my body and adjusted my stance.
Looking at my arms, I saw deep cuts with blood pouring out.
If I hadn’t activated Diamond, both of my arms would have been cut right off…come to think of it, this is my first time bleeding since receiving my ability from god, isn’t it?
Seeing this, Schwartz narrowed his eyes.
“And here I was about to cry out in triumph…so that’s how it is, you were disguising your status and concealed your skills.”
Guess he found out, huh.
Not that it matters anyway.
I used recovery magic to close the wound. I have the Auto Healing skill, but it would take too long to heal this wound.
“Good grief, what a nasty skill. Don’t you find it unfair using recovery magic?”
I used time-space magic to teleport behind Schwartz, but he must have read my move, and prepared his claws the moment I appeared.
I quickly repelled it with my blade and kicked Schwartz in the gut.
As Schwartz was blown away, I unleashed light magic to follow up, assuming that a devil should be vulnerable to attacks containing light and holy attributes.
“——Holy Javelin.”
The magic I unleashed was about to strike Schwartz, but exploded just before it did.
“I’m afraid magic of that level won’t be nearly enough to defeat me, my friend.”
Schwartz appeared unharmed from the explosion.
It seems to have been canceled out by some kind of magic.
“Then I should reciprocate——Dark Javelin.”
Right in front of Schwartz, hundreds of arrows, not unlike the ones I had just fired, emerged and were released.
“No friggin chance.”
I fired the same number of Holy Javelins to cancel them out, but some of them slipped through and came at me.
I avoided them with only minimal movement, while pointing my hand in the form of a finger gun at Schwartz, gathering magic power at the tip and releasing it.
“Let me see how you’ll deal with this!”
“!?”
Schwartz, who was avoiding some of my Holy Javelins that also slipped through, was surprised to see a completely different attack, but easily avoided it.
“Whoa, that caught me by surprise. What a neat trick I have to say. Then, allow me to also show you something interesting.”
While I was alerted by his words, four glowing magic circles appeared behind him.
“——Summon Devil’s Gate”
Four demons emerged from the magic circle.
All of them had androgynous-looking human forms, and I could sense that they possessed fairly decent strengths from their presences.
They’re probably high-ranking devils.
Five devils, including Schwartz, would be a bit troublesome…Do I have to use the skill that increases the power of my physical abilities and skills by five times, Limit Break?
“Now, go get rid of him. And if you’re unable to kill him, at least try and buy me some time.”
““““Yes sir!””””
The four devils bowed to Schwartz and came straight at us.
“Tsk, how troublesome.”
I looked at Schwartz with a sideways glance, and it doesn’t seem like he was going to join the fray.
Is he really just going to let the devils under his command take care of me? Yeah right, the fact that he’s trying to buy time, could be that he’s probably preparing to use some kind of large-scale magic?
I’d better take care of these ones first.
“——Holy Judgment!”
The moment I chanted that, a thick pillar of light descended from the sky and enveloped the devils.
“Ug-Ugh,arghhaaaaaa!”
The devils screamed in agony as their bodies were reduced to ashes and simply vanished.
When I turned to look at Schwartz——he was gone.
You gotta be kiddin’ me, in that split second I focused my attention on those devils? And here I thought he was preparing to invoke magic!
“Where are you looking? I’m right here.”
Immediately after the detect crisis went off, a voice called out from behind me.
However, with Schwartz, who can move at such high speed as my opponent, it would be too late to turn around and prevent the attack. And there’s nearly not enough time to activate teleport.
Dammit, I guess he leaves me no choice.
“——Limit Break!”
“Ugghhhh?!”
I activated my skill and at the same time, released my magic power and blew Schwartz away behind me.
Schwartz positioned himself at some distance away from me and smiled amusedly.
“Kufufufuu! How enthralling, this is so much fun! A battle ought to be like this!”
“How about you shut the fuck up!”
I closed in on Schwartz and gave him a fist full of light magic to the gut.
My speed also became much faster than before, so it seemed that he could not avoid it.
“Guhaaa!”
“I’m not done yet, just so you know! Killer move——Judgment Blow!”
It’s not really a killer move or anything, just simply hitting the shit out of him with my fist covered in light magic.
However, the continuous blows from my current physical abilities must seem like a thousand-hand Avalokitesvara to him.
“Fughh!”
I continued with the barrage for a while and finally hit him as hard as I could.
Schwartz was blown away again, but this time he barely managed to regain his stance.
Looks like he felt this one.
“Ugh, ggh…you’ve really gone and done it this time, haven’t you…but it’s still far from over.”
“You don’t say? Then allow me to end it.”
When I said that and pulled out my blade, Schwartz smiled.
“Kufufufu, now you’re talking. Come on out.”
Then a jet-black sword appeared from the void right beside Schwartz.
It’s not as powerful as the sword Zero has, but it looks hella strong.
“——Here I come.”
Schwartz’s figure blurred.
Fuck, so he can still tune up his speed!
Just as detect danger was triggered and I crouched down as quickly as I could, his sword passed above my head——
The sword then suddenly stopped directly above me, and the blade swung downward.
I quickly blocked it with my blade, but the impact was heavier than I could have imagined.
I tried tripping him up by sweeping his foot while still crouched down, but Schwartz leapt backward and easily evaded it.
“What an incredible reflex. Then, how about this?”
Schwartz swung his sword and several purple slashes came flying at me.
I swung my sword as well to create slashes to counteract them, but the slashes were probably a decoy, as Schwartz himself was coming right at me.
I blocked the sword aiming at my neck with my blade.
With that, we began exchanging blows.
We clashed violently, and the number of wounds on each of our bodies increased.
Schwartz had more wounds, but none of them were fatal, and it would be a waste of time to continue hacking down at each other.
“——Pandemonium*!” (TLN: Lit. Magic Battle)
I then buffed myself with a skill to further increase my physical abilities.
Crimson magic power began to overflow from my body, clinging to it.
Since it was forcefully activated, the burden on the body was considerable, but I couldn’t help it in this situation.
Until a moment ago, the weakened me and Schwartz’s strength were balanced, but I wonder now.
“What an unbelievable amount of pressure! Fine. Let me follow suit.”
Schwartz smiled, and almost immediately, magic power and pressure started overflowing from his body.
The magic power that overflowed from Schwartz flurried and became a storm.
Perhaps he used a skill similar to limit break.
Schwartz and I glared at each other silently.
“Fufufuu, here I come again.”
The exact moment I heard his voice, Schwartz appeared in front of me and swung his sword downward.
I dodged and swung my sword in counter, but——
“——Afterimage?!”
Schwartz’s body, which I had sliced, dissipated into a black mist.
I was surprised, and without a moment to react, I raised the sword above my head following detect danger, and at the same time, a high-pitched metallic sound rang out.
“Oh, can’t believe you actually blocked that.”
“What can I say, I have a keen intuition.”
“Is that so? But——”
Schwartz distanced himself from me.
“I guess this is it. It was quite fun though.”
What’s he talking about?
“…Hey, what’s the rush, how about we keep the fun alive for a little while?”
“Nah. Think I’ve had enough.”
With Schwartz’s words, a huge magic circle with a purple glow appeared under my feet.
◇ ◇ ◇
Ilmina was watching the battle between Haruto and the devil unfolding in the sky above.
The aftermath of their battle won’t affect the holy city thanks to the barrier that Haruto put up.
Ilmina, in fact, everyone who could wield magic in the holy city was astonished at the amazing barrier that Haruto had deployed over the entire city in an instant.
When it comes to an attack as powerful as the Demon Lord’s, each attack is a lethal blow.
However, Haruto’s barrier prevented all of them.
“Amazing…”
Gawain nodded his head next to Ilmina who let out her voice unintentionally.
“So is Zero, but still Haruto is amazing. He’s fighting an opponent we were too scared to even look in the eye, while protecting the entire holy city…”
“That’s true. He is the one and only hope we have left now.”
Ilmina agreed with Gawain’s words and quietly looked at Haruto, their last hope.
Folding her hands together in prayer.
The intense battle had been going on for a while, but then crimson magic power erupted from Haruto’s body.
The sheer force of this power was felt tinglingly by Ilmina and the others who were watching from below.
“What’s with this pressure, this extraordinarily dense amount of magic power…!”
“My god, he’s still hiding this much power?”
While Ilmina and Gawain looked up at the crimson magic power that was surging to the heavens and muttered, tremendous pressure was also released from Schwartz.
The battle between the two from that point on was truly a fierce one.
Once they crossed swords, the shockwaves generated from the exchange shook the barrier.
The battle of those who stood at the top of this world, allowing no outside intervention, was being waged up there.
If Gawain were to join this battle, he would not last a minute——scratch that, not even a few seconds before getting himself killed.
Gawain and the holy knights clenched their fists in frustration.
Ilmina, too, was feeling frustrated at her inability to help Haruto.
Still believing in Haruto’s victory, she looked up to the sky.