After forcibly completing the Obsidian Sorcerer's cocoon transformation and destroying the magic circle used for the process, I headed to the small chamber at the back that the leader had mentioned.
"Another damn huge gem..."
This time, an obsidian slab roughly the size of my back sat upon the altar.
The altar was covered in runic inscriptions for a magic circle, and when I deciphered them, they described using the energy stored in the obsidian to heal the True King when he was in danger.
"Sorry, can't do anything with this."
I looked at the obsidian through my [Divine Eye] and saw massive amounts of energy inside.
For a moment I even wondered whether I could use it to resurrect the victims who had died before I arrived, but the energy had already been reduced to a pure mass, so there was nothing to be done.
"Can't be helped. We'll go with the next best option — [Reverse]!"
Ideally, bringing them back to life would have been the best outcome.
I used [Reverse] to invert the effect of the altar's magic circle, so that it would weaken the True King instead.
Then I channeled mana into the circle and activated it.
The torrent of stored energy surged in a straight line toward the royal palace.
Through my [Divine Eye] I could see the flow of energy, but once I deactivated it, the stream became invisible.
Either way, this should deal damage to the True King.
That said, the obsidian hadn't stored that much energy to begin with, so unfortunately I couldn't say how effective it would be.
Eventually the torrent of energy subsided.
The last thing to do was destroy this place.
I activated [Divine Eye] and [Sword God] simultaneously, extended my left hand to aim, and used my upper body's spring-like motion to drive my right-hand sword straight through that single point on the obsidian.
Gotta love this other world — I can recreate the techniques I always dreamed of.
Oh, wait — are there any moves I still haven't used...?
While I was entertaining such pointless thoughts, cracks gradually spread from that point, and before long the massive obsidian shattered into pieces.
Seriously, my taxes were tripled for something like this...
If the commoners found out, wouldn't it spark a riot?
But in this other world, where raw strength matters more than numbers, maybe it was better not to let anyone know.
◇◇◇
"So that's what happened, Lord Harold."
"You never cease to amaze, Alan. No wonder Father had his hands full..."
"Just accept it as fate, won't you? It's noblesse oblige, after all."
"I have no objection to the concept itself, but hearing it from you of all people, Alan... I envy you, living life so freely."
Sorry about that, Lord Harold.
Without any warning whatsoever, I'd dumped a massive number of people straight from beneath the True King Temple into his family's garden.
On top of that, everyone had been properly cared for and returned to where they came from, so I really couldn't hold my head up around him.
"Still, to think there was something like that beneath the True King Temple... The king has really gone off the deep end, hasn't he? At any rate, we've managed to weaken the king's power with this. What's the situation down there now?"
"I sealed it off by filling the entire space with earth and rock using [Rock Iron Magic]."
"I see. Next... we need to figure out how to deal with the True King."
"Lord Harold, don't tell me you intend to confront the current king?"
"...I don't know what form it will take, but sooner or later it will come to that."
◇◇◇
Meanwhile, at the royal palace.
"Urgh... what is this flow of energy...? I haven't sustained any injuries."
True King Yulian suddenly felt the torrent of energy bearing down on him.
"My power is being drained... well, not quite to that extent. But what in the world are those mages doing?"
Later, upon learning that contact with the mages had been lost and the underground altar had become unusable, he flew into a furious rage.
◇◇◇◇◇◇
Skills: [Reverse], [Divine Eye], [Sword God], [Fist God], [Spear God], [Scorching Magic], [Frozen Ice Magic], [Clear Gale Magic], [Rock Iron Magic], [Sacred Magic], [Dark Magic], [Space-Time Magic], [Thunder God Sword], [Phantom Thief Gentleman], [Ninja Master], [Seeker of Truth], [Monstrous Might], [Idaten], [Pain Relief], [Complete Status Ailment Resistance], [Dark Spirit's Protection], [Super Intuition], [Heaven's Gate], [Abyssal Contractor], [Magic Hand], [Treasure Search], [Seduction], [Agitation], [Mesmerism], [Eloquence], [Strong Luck], [Growth Speed x10], [Growth Limit Breakthrough]
Rank: Orichalcum