Translator: Jiro Editor: Ryunakama 

「Let’s go!!」

「Hyaa!! It’s coming here?!!」

「Hey! Oaks, don’t run away!」

「D-Damn it…!」

After dodging the Dark Demon’s charge, he took out a spectacular shield from his bag.

Cross Shield.

It was a massive shield with a cross embedded in it, consisting of several layers of magical metal. It was quite costly, but it also had a lot of defensive power.

Oaks sure has quite the nice shield there. Good, with this he’ll be able to stop the Dark Demon.

「Hiii?!!」

Or at least he should have been able to stop it. However, Oaks let out a miserable shriek and jumped out of the Dark Demon’s way, avoiding the attack.

The Dark Demon was surprised by the sudden dodge as well and gave up on attacking again as it flew away.

As he saw that Oaks threw away the Cross Shield and hid behind a rock, trembling.

「You imbecile! Get yourself together!」

「I-I can’t do it!! There’s no way I can fight against something like that!!」 Oaks said while crying behind the rock.

I was right to think that this guy wouldn’t be useful at all. I guess he was all talk.

「I’m sorry. It was all a lie… I am neither the one who saved the town from the monsters nor the Holy Knight!! I just gave in to the urge and pretended to be him…!」 Oaks said with tears flowing down his face.

I see. So the Holy Knight who saved the Nanami wasn’t Oaks but someone else. And after that person defeated the Dark Zells he just left without saying anything. Oaks must have decided to imitate him in the hopes of receiving a reward meant for the Holy Knight. What a heinous crime, to say the least. He should have known that he would have been found out eventually.

「Jauuuuu.」

The Dark Demon threw a look at the Oaks hiding behind the rock and then pointed his spears towards me.

It chose me as its opponent instead of Oaks, who had already lost his will to battle.

「Sha!!」

I dodged the Dark Demon’s all-out attack by jumping to the side and cast Time Square.

While time was stopped I cast Red Crash and White Crash.

Double Fusion: Nova Crash.

A roar erupted, and the Dark Demon was engulfed in a ball of white flames.

It fell to the ground and after the flames died off it once again fled to the sky.

Good. With its current speed, I’ll be able to dodge its attacks while being able to counterattack as well. The problem is what I’ll do in case it decides to use spells. But I can guess if that time comes I can just dodge them or take them head-on. Either way, I must focus on recovering my magic power for the time being.

I lost myself in meditation as I began to recover my magic power while also keeping an eye out on my opponent.

While gazing at me, the Dark Demon began to amass magical power at its spear.

「Shaaaaaa!!」 It let out a loud shriek and swung the spear down.

As it did so dozens of flame balls appeared out of thin air. It was Red Bullet.

It’s easy to offset it, however, I want to preserve my magic power. I’ll just dodge them all.

I grasped the orbit of all of the incoming flames bullets and began to dodge without making any excess movements.

And if I encountered a bullet that I couldn’t dodge no matter what I blocked it with my arm which was still stuck in its shield form.

After dodging all of the flames bullets I quietly hid within the smoke.

He’s not moving. I should recover my magic power while I can.

I had managed to recover quite a bit of magic power thanks to meditating, however, the Dark Demon’s magic power was over 600,000. It was by no means a lot, but having it fly around made it quite annoying.

It was hard to hit it with a big spell and having spells fired at me from mid-air was troublesome.

However, there were advantages as well. Him being in the air meant that I could use my fivefold spells without having to worry that I would break the continent.

Still, I guess Platinum Slash is a no-go, considering its range isn’t all that big, which will make it harder to hit. I can only use Break here… But can I really pull it off?

Without Divine Greatsword Ainbelle’s assistance, a penta fusion of intermediate spells would be rather taxing on my body.

At the battle with Grain three years ago I had let my rage take over me and had managed to cast a couple of them.

As far as I remembered, each time I had done so, a number of my magic lines tore, and an unimaginable pain coursed through my body.

However, my current body is not as it was back then.

My body has grown considerably both physically and magically. The way I am now I should be able to withstand the burden from the penta fusion.

「Gihihi!」 The Dark Demon opened its red mouth wide and laughed. 

It must have been quite exciting after seeing that I wasn’t counterattacking.

I once again swung its spear and this time bullets of wind flooded the sky. Black Bullet.

Now!

I aimed for the moment it cast its spell and cast Time Square.

While time was stopped I cast Red Crash, Blue Crash, Black Crash, Green Crash, White Crash.

Penta Fusion: Platinum Break.

As time began to flow again a dazzling light burst forth.

The swirl of white-gold light burst out from my hand and pierced through the Dark Demon.

It completely destroyed its Black Bullet and flew past the cloudy sky, leaving behind a shining line.

「…?!!」

A feeling of pain coursed through my whole body as I felt my magic power lines burning.

However, it wasn’t something that I couldn’t withstand.

「Ha… Ha… Phew…」

Wiping off my sweat I tried to calm down my hastened breathing.

It certainly does take out a lot of me, but with breaks, I think I can fire off a number of them.

The worn-out Dark Demon emerged from the smoke after the light faded.

Dark Demon

Level 166

Magic Power 5,856,631 / 6,666,666

Quite a chunk of its magic power had been shaved off.

Magician-type monsters usually had a high resistance towards spells, but no matter how strong it may have been, it would have been impossible for it to completely block Platinum Break.

With a face full of anger, the Dark Demon began to gather power in its whole body, and its wounded body began to restore itself.

Perfect. The longer it takes to restore itself, the more I can meditate to restore my magic power.

I concentrated in an attempt to cool down my burning magic power lines.

…Good, I’ve healed up quite a bit.

However, it wasn’t enough as to where I could take down the Dark Demon.

I must restore as much as I can with mediation and save up as much of my magic power restoration medicine as possible.

「Shaa!!!」

I continued to meditate while dodging the Dark Demon’s Red Bullet spell.

True, magic thrown from the air was terrifying, but it also meant that there was some distance between the spell and the target, making it simple to avoid.

After dodging the rain of fire I looked up at the angry Dark Demon and laughed.

「Kuku. You won’t hit me with that. Use something flashier.」

「Giii!!!」

After hearing my words, the Dark Demon got angry and once again began to cast something. Good.

It took the bait.

As soon as dozens of wind bullets appeared around the Dark Demon I once again cast Platinum Break.

And then the whirlpool of light on again enveloped all of the wind bullets as well as the Dark Demon.

When casting it was leaving itself wide open.

With Platinum Break I was able to completely destroy its spell as well cause damage to its body as well.

7 more…!!

I heard a piercing yell from afar as I wiped the sweat from my brow and attempted to slow down my breathing.

Looking towards the direction of the voice, I noticed that the Dark Demon had already begun gathering its magic power.

「…Gi…iii」

The rhythm of this chant… It’s a curse! And on top of that, it’s one that I’ve seen.

The Dark Demon’s right hand, which was pointing towards me, had amassed a great deal of magical power.

Deciding not to regenerate itself this time, the Dark Demon concentrated a great deal of magic power on one point.

「…Gigi, GIIII!!!!」

「This is bad!!!」

It was Black Zero.

The wind, which had taken on the form of a spear, flew towards me.

The Dark Demon had decided to take on my spell head-on, just so that it could counter with Black Zero.

Although Black Zero’s cast was quite lengthy, its speed was the fastest out of all of the intermediate spells.

It had a wide range as well and I had no means to dodge it, considering I had just fired off a Great Spell.

As the spear of wind drew closer I could feel the fierce wind.

I prepared myself for the impact, however, for some reason it never came. 

Did it fail to cast it? … No. Did something block it for me…?

The smoke in the area cleared and my view became clear.

Then a silhouette appeared out of the smoke.

「Are you okay?」

I heard a dignified female voice, which I was quite familiar with.

As the wind blew, the smoke cleared, and the person revealed himself.

Standing before me was a blonde girl donned in white armor.

The girl’s long hair fluttered in the wind. Her face, however, was for some reason hidden behind a mask.

As her eyes, behind the mask, met with mine we both froze up.

Silence enveloped the area around us, just as if time had stopped.

The shape of the girl’s face was quite similar to the face of a girl that I had known for a long time.

It was the face of the beautiful girl knight, who had accompanied me on my journey three years ago.

「Claude… Is that you?」

「….?!!!」