Central Front Border Region (6)
Hellfire Phantasmal Palace (煥狀窟).
The moment he invoked the name of the spell and activated it, the blackish-green hellfire began to take shape according to Lennok’s will.
Fwoooosh............!!
The flames that spread along the blood dripping from his fingertips flowed between his grasp and curved outward.
Lennok seized the center of the long-curving hellfire and pointed it precisely this way.
“So that is the clue to victory you have chosen for this battle.”
Roberide tilted his head as he faced the shape head-on.
“It looks as though............ you are gripping flames in the form of a bow.”
Blackish-green flames wrapped around Lennok’s outstretched left hand toward Roberide, rising several meters high as they curved.
A sinister presence, as though he were holding an enormous greatbow made of hellfire and aiming it at the Legion Commander.
Yet even amidst the razor-sharp pressure aimed at him in an instant, Roberide maintained his composure.
“I had never heard that Treadburn possessed talent in archery.”
“There was one outstanding archer among the Watchers.”
Lennok answered.
“I learned by watching her.”
“......You mean Evelyn Marcia. This officer is well acquainted with the Missile as well.”
Clank!!
Roberide manipulated his heavy armor and vented steam as his eyes gleamed.
“One of the five greatest archers on the continent. She was once the top recruitment target of Headquarters and the 1st Legion, so there is no need to even speak of her skill.”
“......”
“However, even if she was a prodigy whose name was listed in the Central Front Extermination Campaign, teaching another is an entirely different domain.”
The Legion Commander’s gaze sank deeply as he stared at the blazing flame greatbow.
“No matter how profound your learning may be, it is difficult to believe that your arrow would be as sharp as the Missile’s.”
“That’s true. What I learned from the Missile wasn’t her archery.”
The moment Lennok, gripping the greatbow forged from blackish-green flames, pulled back the bowstring—
Krrrck...............!!
An ominously glowing fire arrow stretched from his fingertips and settled onto the string.
Under the night sky stood a mage holding a blackish-green flaming greatbow and aiming an arrow.
“What mattered was inspiration. The very idea of shaping power in the form of archery. Facing a Legion Commander head-on would probably take quite a long time. I’d need to preheat my flames to the limit before I could even establish an exchange.”
Lennok muttered, shadows cast across his face by the glow of hellfire.
“But this isn’t that kind of power. It’s closer to the backlash of sorcery that doesn’t follow that kind of logic.”
With the arrow nocked, Lennok openly aimed toward Roberide and tilted his head back.
“Especially against a warrior like you.”
“You believe you can oppose this officer with such wicked tricks?”
Fwoosh!!
The armor on his right arm tightened around it and emitted violent steam, rapidly increasing its weight.
Roberide lowered his stance deeply and hunched his body as he spoke.
“I shall teach you just how futile that attempt is for a soldier standing upon the battlefield.”
Kiiiirik.........!!
Ignoring those words, Lennok drew the bowstring and steadied his posture.
Who the string of that hellfire greatbow would be aimed at was obvious as daylight.
However miraculous the spell might be, once it had taken the form of a bow, his position would inevitably be exposed immediately after firing. In that case, even if he had to permit a hit, the best option was to kill Lennok with certainty.
Crunch!!
One step from Roberide, whose body weight had increased dozens of times over, shook the earth and crushed the ground beneath him as it swung toward Lennok at a speed invisible to the eye.
Booooooom!!!
The shockwave exploded right before Lennok’s nose and split to both sides of them, cutting across the horizon.
At that instant, Lennok raised the flame greatbow horizontally and released the drawn string.
Paaang!!
A blackish-green blaze beyond the limits of perception ignored the shockwave and pierced straight through the Legion Commander’s shoulder like lightning.
“......!!!”
Chiiiiiiiik.............!!!
A tearing sound that burned through the air. A chill felt before pain.
Not scorching heat, but a coldness that seemed to freeze him to the bone.
A sense of incongruity utterly different from every battle until now sent a chill down Roberide’s spine.
Yet even knowing that, the Legion Commander roared and fearlessly raised his mana.
“Oooooooo!!!”
Kuuung!!
Without even pulling out the fire arrow lodged in his shoulder, he wrapped it in willpower and moved his heavy armor.
Flames that tore through and burned his body could not inflict major damage upon the Legion Commander’s sturdy physique.
As long as his body could move, his monstrous strength and mental image would never weaken.
Crack!!
He struck away the hellfire greatbow blocking his path with one hand and, the instant he thrust his willpower at full force toward Lennok revealed beyond it—
Roberide’s fist barely grazed past Lennok’s side and savagely swept through the ground.
Kwaaaaaang!!!
“Kuugh......!!”
He had avoided a direct hit, but it seemed he had failed to block all of the impact as Lennok’s body slid backward as though flung away.
Holding the flame greatbow in one hand, he staggered weakly before barely recovering his balance.
But Roberide’s face as he looked at Lennok was stiffer than ever before.
“This is......!!”
Roberide’s strike was itself an explosion, bursting forth in an instant after multiplying his own weight dozens of times.
Even without a direct hit, anyone caught in the area should have exploded apart the moment the attack landed.
Yet Roberide’s attack had not only failed to kill Lennok, it had not even inflicted a proper wound upon him.
It felt as though the very foundation of the power controlled by the heavy-armored commander had been greatly shaken, causing the attack’s force to veer astray.
Realizing the source of that strange sensation in an instant, Roberide roughly grabbed the hellfire arrow lodged in his shoulder.
Chiiiiik..............!!
Ignoring the pain of his hand burning, Roberide gripped the fire arrow and muttered in disbelief.
“A sorcery that forcibly manipulates and twists willpower............!!!”
The instant he had been pierced by the hellfire arrow, the consumption of his willpower had skyrocketed, momentarily distorting the manipulation of his microcosm.
Because of that, the weighting of the Legion Commander’s own body had failed to function properly, preventing the amplification of his power.
And Roberide immediately understood that the cause behind the sudden increase in willpower consumption was the arrow piercing his shoulder.
“Unbelievable. To think a power exists that interferes with a target’s willpower merely through contact!!”
“Flame-heat magic seems simple, but it has a profound side to it.”
Leaning against the ignition device, Lennok looked up at the Legion Commander and smiled.
“To produce power, it requires preheating. But once the preheating reaches a certain level, it starts devouring the caster instead. To avoid being consumed by the flames they themselves ignited, they must prepare another spark and fight fire with fire. The principle understood through learning flame-heat magic is forced upon the caster for the rest of their life.”
Fwoooosh!!
Aiming the blazing blackish-green flame greatbow at Roberide once more, Lennok spoke.
“This is a new [spark] ignited by exploiting that very contradiction.”
“......Evan Martinez.”
A kind of geas that increased a spell’s power by revealing information about it.
Roberide instantly grasped what Lennok was doing, but rather than those words, he focused on the phenomenon he had just experienced.
Roberide had failed to avoid the hellfire arrow, but conversely, Lennok had also failed to properly withstand the Legion Commander’s own attack.
Was Lennok himself experiencing difficulty in manipulating willpower while activating that flame greatbow?
As if he had read Roberide’s thoughts, Lennok smirked.
“There’s probably no need to explain further. If you still don’t understand, then this ends here.”
Kiiiirik...............!!
As Lennok spoke and drew back the string of the flame greatbow, another blazing fire arrow appeared atop the bow.
A blackish-green arrowhead overflowing with flames, aimed precisely at the Legion Commander’s heart.
Roberide slowly rolled his shoulder as he watched it.
The instant I was struck by the arrow, the consumption of my willpower increased sharply.
Steam burst violently from between his armor as the Legion Commander walked forward, his eyes sinking deeply.
The presumed ability is absorption of willpower, or perhaps predation............... a sorcery that devours resolve.
A warrior’s microcosm was a miracle that forcibly altered physical laws within the body through the harmony of willpower and mental image.
The moment his willpower was absorbed and the balance with his mental image collapsed, it was only natural that the manipulation of his microcosm would go astray.
But interfering with and absorbing or devouring another’s willpower was an act that imposed an enormous burden even upon the caster.
Especially against a powerhouse like Roberide, whose resolve and mental image were so firmly established, there was no need to say how inefficient such an ability would be.
At best, catching him off guard like before and causing his microcosm manipulation to twist slightly was likely the limit.
“......What a pity.”
A low voice flowed from Roberide’s lips after reaching that conclusion.
The eyes of the middle-aged man gleaming beyond the armor turned toward Lennok’s expressionless face.
“I thought that if a great mage who turned Vulcan into a sea of fire were to join the Legion, he could accomplish greater things than anyone else in future wars.”
“......”
“But if a warrior such as yourself were to devote himself to another faction, then surely you would become a far more dangerous enemy than you are now.”
Crack!!
The moment he lowered his stance in place and raised his mana, Roberide’s willpower activated to the extreme.
At the same time, the Legion Commander’s armor continuously vented steam as his body’s weight rose without end.
“To prevent losses greater than the sacrifices the Legion suffered today, I shall cleanly conclude matters here and now.”
“You could say things like that after the fight is over.”
“No, it would be too late then.”
Rumbleeeee······!!
The air around Roberide distorted and warped ceaselessly, brutally crushing space itself.
Slowly leaning his massive body forward and lowering his head, the Legion Commander pressed one hand against the ground and muttered.
“Because from this moment until I take your life, no conversation whatsoever will be necessary...............!!”
Booooooom!!
The instant a circular shockwave exploded outward, Roberide’s figure vanished.
The Legion Commander accelerated as though hurling his entire body forward at full power, surpassing the speed of sound and unleashing a shockwave.
Tatatatata-tung!!!
He crossed several hundred meters faster than sound itself, and only afterward did the atmosphere tear apart and release a sonic boom.
Without incantation, beast language, or chanting, the flame-heat magic completed itself the instant it began right before Roberide’s eyes.
[Red Axis]
[Wave-Blossom Resonance]
Kwaaaaaaaang!!!!
Upon the surging sea of flames, Lennok and Roberide collided head-on.
Lennok, wreathed in flames across his entire body, clashed like lightning against the heavy-armored commander venting steam from every inch of his frame.
[Linear Heavy Shell]
[Great Flame Wheel]
[Karmic Flame]
Kuwaaaaaaak!!!
Blinding beams of fire rained down like a storm, while waves of magma and pillars of flame crashed into Roberide.
“......!!!!”
The heavy commander’s body tumbled dozens of meters across the burning sea of fire.
Even Roberide momentarily found his breath caught by the tremendous heat crushing his body and melting apart his armor.
[Flame Curtain Piercing Rain]
[Vermilion Net Scatter]
Drrrrrrrrk!!
From beyond the sea of flames, flames of shape layered over one another and swept forward, erasing and annihilating everything upon the earth.
Like a living Flame God, every breath and every step burned heaven and earth.
The soldiers of the assault unit still wandering alive across the battlefield flailed helplessly amid the flames burning all around them.
“N-no!! Save me!!”
“Th-the staff...............! What is the staff doing?!”
“Look at me, Evan Martinez!!!”
Furious, Roberide stepped forward and explosively raised his microcosm.
[Crimson Seal]
[Flare Scarlet]
High-tier flame-heat magic that normally required at least minimal chanting was fired like artillery shells without any preparation or cost.
He launched them as though crushing down upon the heavy commander’s body rolling between the sea of fire and the magma lake.
Kugugugugugu!!!
“Not yet!!”
But Roberide also adjusted the direction of the impacts striking him, closed the distance, and collided toward Lennok once more.
Extending an arm melting away amid the burning pillars, he swung his fist directly toward Lennok.
Booooooom!!
The stream of flames bent gently and received the strike, but the impact still shoved Lennok’s body far backward through the inferno.
Roberide endured the bombardment of flame-heat magic head-on and charged forward while extinguishing any flames he could grab with his bare hands.
Bang!!
Stopping before the blazing solar sphere blocking his path, Roberide’s eyes shone with terrifying fighting spirit.
He seized the violently rotating sphere of flames with both hands and tore it apart.
Ttududududuk!!!!
“Haaaaaap!!!!”
Together with a monstrous roar that seemed to elevate his very soul, steam exploded from between the heavy armor and pressed down upon his body.
At the same time, the Legion Commander’s monstrous strength, amplified to the extreme, erupted outward and burst apart the Flare Scarlet solar sphere with his bare hands.
Unable to withstand the explosion, Lennok’s body was instantly hurled dozens of meters backward.
Swaaaaaak!!
The mage’s figure retreated between the two split pillars of flame.
The blackish-green greatbow wrapped around his hand flickered endlessly and emitted an ominous radiance.
The moment Roberide attempted to pursue him immediately afterward, he realized that the arrow that had been nocked on the flame greatbow’s string had already vanished from Lennok’s hand.
Puuuk!!
A hellfire arrow descended from behind the Legion Commander, pierced through the heavy armor from his back, and burst out through his chest.
A cold flame stabbing into flesh beyond armor that had endured countless impacts and spells.
“Oooooooo!!!!”
Yet even with the freezing heat boring through his chest, Roberide roared and fearlessly raised his mana.
‘Mana...............!!’
If his willpower was absorbed the instant he was struck by the arrow, then he merely needed to replenish it by drawing forth even more willpower than had been absorbed.
Robert Roberide possessed both the mental fortitude and the mental image necessary to make such a thing possible.
For an exceptional warrior, the strength of the mind was directly proportional to the strength of the body, and for a soldier with conviction, resolve was like an inexhaustible spring.
Using his body weight multiplied dozens of times over as a weapon, he smashed the surrounding area apart like bombardment.
Even the tension of the arrow lodged in his back became propulsion as he charged forward.
The Legion Commander’s weight increased hundreds of times over on the spot, distorting even the surrounding space in an instant.
And the moment Roberide’s body, leaping with full power, descended above Lennok’s head—
[Dragonfall Crash]
Kwaaaaaaaaaaaang!!!
A gigantic crater erupted across a radius of several hundred meters, causing the ground to cave inward.
The earth split and collapsed in every direction while shockwaves continuously exploded skyward.
Roberide’s body, having shaken the earth and plowed through the ground like waves, was embedded deep within a crater crushed dozens of meters down.
“Huuuu......!!”
The ultimate expression of mental image unleashed at full force to the point where even Roberide himself, clad in special transformed armor, could barely withstand it.
Once the gravity applied to himself had been increased by hundreds of times, the impact generated by falling toward the ground rivaled a tactical weapon.
There was no possible way to endure head-on an omnidirectional attack that crushed and detonated space itself.
The moment Roberide, convinced of that, withdrew his microcosm and tried to stand—
Crack!!
Cracks began spreading beneath the crater under his feet.
The ground, unable to withstand Roberide’s weight amplified to the extreme, began collapsing.
Crack, crack!!
Molten lava overflowed through the rapidly widening fissures all around.
Kuwaaaaaak!!
“This......!!”
The lava surging beneath his feet formed a gigantic volcanic crater and began swallowing the Legion Commander’s enormous body.
The amount of magma erupting from below the earth was far too immense to explain merely by a slight collapse of the terrain.
Realizing it instantly and turning his gaze, Roberide gritted his teeth upon seeing the Flame Heaven Steel Demon slowly breathing in the distance.
“You used your summon to melt the ground into magma!!”
Immediately after the battle began, Roberide had shattered the fire turtle’s shell and rendered it incapable of movement, but even then the Flame Heaven Steel Demon had not been unsummoned.
It had somehow endured in place, continuously pouring lava in place of blood beneath the earth.
In the process, the battlefield where Lennok and Roberide fought had weakened below the surface, transforming the entire battlefield into a gigantic volcano.
Kuwaaaaak....!!!
Now Roberide was slowly sinking, buried past his shoulders and up to his neck in magma.
Roberide immediately tried to cancel his microcosm and reverse his body weight, but the gravity pressing upon him only continued to grow stronger.
Crack, krrrack!!
Only then did the Legion Commander finally understand the abnormal phenomenon occurring within his body, and his expression stiffened.
“This cannot be. My microcosm...............!!”
An 8th-level physical ability user.
A mental image that had transcended hierarchy and reached its own path.
The microcosm of a warrior who had reached the pinnacle realm was spiraling out of Robert Roberide’s control.
This was not the aftereffect of something Roberide himself had done.
Realizing that instinctively, the Legion Commander roared with veins bulging in his neck.
“Evan Martinez!!!!”
“There’s no need to shout. I can hear you perfectly well.”
Lennok answered as he walked out from above the crater.
Looking down at the Legion Commander buried within the crater he himself had created, Lennok smiled.
“I wondered if it might be the case, but you really are absurdly sturdy. You increased your weight that much and you’re still enduring?”
“What did you do to my mental image!!”
“You already know, don’t you?”
Lennok said as he tapped his chest.
“The second arrow that struck you. By now you should be able to guess.”
“No. Your hellfire should possess the power to forcibly absorb a target’s willpower............!!”
Roberide shouted harshly.
“It is impossible to interfere with my mental image merely through the absorption of willpower. Twisting manipulation alone is one thing, but how could you............!!”
“No. The ability of the Hellfire Phantasmal Palace is not the power to absorb willpower.”
“......What?”
“Hellfire is a flame of the negative dimension. In other words, a flame possessing negative properties.”
Krrrck...............!!
At the chilling sensation that numbed his entire body, the Legion Commander’s rigid gaze met Lennok’s directly.
“The ability of the Phantasmal Palace is the overloading of willpower that forcibly draws out positive properties through negative properties, and through the process of increasing the consumption value by means of that...............”
Looking at the Legion Commander slowly sinking beneath the ground, Lennok spoke.
“It eventually becomes possible to forcibly drive even a microcosm into rampage.”
“......!!”
If it were merely an ability that devoured and absorbed willpower, then one could simply pour forth even greater willpower equal to what had been absorbed.
To begin with, the willpower of an extreme-rank transcendent had already surpassed hierarchy and was not greatly affected by acts such as absorption or predation.
But the ability of the Hellfire Phantasmal Palace was a power that forcibly drew out and repelled positive properties through negative properties.
It was itself a spark of contradiction and repulsion that forcibly drew out existing properties and drove them into frenzy.
Because it was effectively an act of drawing out and amplifying the target’s willpower, even Roberide had been slow to realize the true nature of the strange sensation.
And the microcosm, which had begun rampaging through willpower overload, had started amplifying its abilities to a level even Roberide himself could no longer control.
Thud!!
Roberide’s body gradually sank deeper into the collapsed crater.
The gravity acting upon his massive frame increased by dozens, then hundreds of times, until now it crushed him so completely he could not move at all.
The magma filling the crater below formed a gigantic volcanic pit that swallowed the Legion Commander’s body and slowly dragged him underground.
“Kuuuuugh............!!”
Deadrise 3rd Legion Commander.
Lieutenant General Robert Roberide.
A fierce general who led his troops personally at the forefront of every operation undertaken by the 3rd Legion.
Unrealistic monstrous strength and endurance.
Special transformed heavy armor supporting the abilities of his microcosm.
Vast combat experience earned through surviving countless battlefields.
Yet the thing that would kill him here was not another powerhouse nor another’s spell, but the very microcosm he had trusted above all else.
“There’s no reason to struggle trying to break apart that grotesquely durable body of yours here.”
Watching the Legion Commander self-destruct as he was crushed beneath his own mental image, Lennok nodded.
“Remain there and die crushed beneath your own weight.”