Isn't this just ridiculous?
This has to be against the rules, right?
Red liquid was closing in on me from every direction.
It melted through the surrounding trees as it went.
I'm pretty sure it was some kind of potent acid attack, but the speed at which it dissolved things was absurd. It broke apart whatever it touched on contact, and by the time the red liquid passed through, the trees were completely gone.
If that stuff hit me head-on, even my defense wouldn't save me.
And it was coming from every direction at once — sweeping across the battlefield with total freedom.
Being a liquid, it could move however it wanted. And to make things worse, it was surprisingly fast.
I dodged the red tide while firing off Explosive Swords.
Five Explosive Swords launched in a volley hurtled toward the girl, only to be stopped cold by a thick wall of the red liquid just before reaching her.
So that's how it was.
It was bad enough as an offensive tool, but she could use it for defense too.
The explosions from the Explosive Swords scattered some of it, but it replenished itself almost immediately.
I only had a limited number of Explosive Swords, so I couldn't afford to waste them.
She, on the other hand, could keep fighting indefinitely as long as her MP held out.
And speaking of her MP — there was no bottom in sight. She regenerated it at a ridiculous rate the moment she used it.
If I tried to drain her MP dry, I'd be looking at an incredibly long battle.
I'd need to forge new demonic swords on the fly during the fight, not just rely on the ones I had in storage.
That was what I was thinking, but my opponent clearly had zero interest in dragging things out.
The girl's shadow swelled enormously, and from within it, a dark crimson wolf-like creature crawled out.
One of a vampire's abilities — a Shadow Demon.
[Shadow Demon — Level: ??? Status HP: 3000/3000 (Green) MP: 1/1 (Blue) SP: 2500/2500 (Yellow) Stamina: 2500/2500 (Red) Average Attack Power: 3000 Average Defense: 2500 Average Magic Power: 1 Average Resistance: 1500 Average Speed: 3000 Skills "Destruction Amplification LV2," "Blunt Force Amplification LV1," "Slashing Amplification LV3," "Piercing Amplification LV1," "Impact Amplification LV1," "Potent Acid Attack LV8"] Hold on a second.
Wasn't this way too strong?
This thing was far more powerful than any Monster I'd run into out in the wild…
The fact that it even had Skills at all was startling.
And I'd thought there was only one — but more of them kept pouring out of the shadow, one after another.
Eight Shadow Demons in total lined up in front of the girl.
Then, the instant she raised her hand, they shot forward like they'd been launched.
The red tide and the crimson Shadow Demons attacked simultaneously.
No way. There was no dodging this.
I barely managed to avoid the red tide, only for a Shadow Demon to lunge straight at me.
I couldn't deal with everything at once — a Shadow Demon's fangs sank into me.
I cut down the one that had bitten me and struck the rest of the incoming Shadow Demons with lightning.
The very next moment, water came pouring down from above.
At the same time, I felt the searing pain of acid eating into my skin.
It had been a while since I'd taken real damage.
But it wasn't unbearable.
I didn't have acid resistance, but my raw defense alone was enough to mitigate a good deal of the damage.
I unleashed the power of thunder and fire, blasting away the red liquid clinging to my body.
As long as I wasn't standing in it nonstop, it wouldn't be fatal.
The girl knew that too.
That was exactly why she kept her eyes locked on me.
Eyes that housed the power of a magical gaze.
A gaze of Curse and Stasis.
The Curse gaze drained HP, MP, and SP from its target. I had a similar Skill called Curse, but mine required physical contact to activate — whereas this gaze worked just by looking at someone. That felt a little too overpowered.
On the flip side, it seemed to drain relatively little per activation, since my HP and the like hadn't changed much.
The Stasis gaze induced the status ailment of paralysis.
Both were problematic, but the Stasis gaze was the more dangerous one.
If I got paralyzed, I'd be helpless.
I was resisting it for now, but if enough time passed, the effect could accumulate until paralysis set in.
At worst, like I'd said before, I could end up helplessly soaking in that red tide over and over.
If that happened, even I would die eventually.
Die.
Wait.
Wasn't I supposed to want to die?
And yet here I was, thinking about winning.
Why?
As if ignoring the turmoil inside my head, my body moved on its own.
I charged straight into the Shadow Demons, cutting them down one by one, fully prepared to take damage.
Of course, with my attention on the Shadow Demons, the red tide seized the opening and crashed over me.
My body was swallowed up, dissolving under the acid.
I blew it away with thunder and fire.
Hm?
My output was… weak?
I looked at the Thunder Blade and the Flame Blade in shock.
Both blades had been half-melted, their durability severely depleted.
She got me.
My body could handle the acid, but my weapons couldn't.
I wasn't sure if she'd been aiming for that specifically, but weapon destruction was a terrible matchup for me.
Terrible — but not the worst-case scenario.
I funneled MP into the Thunder Blade and the Flame Blade.
Repair.
As my Phantasm Weapon Forging Skill level had risen, I'd gained the ability to repair demonic swords.
That would keep the Thunder Blade and Flame Blade in the fight a while longer.
But the MP cost was nothing to scoff at.
Phantasm Weapon Forging was convenient, but it burned through MP like crazy.
I couldn't afford to repair over and over.
This meant a long battle actually worked against me.
If I wanted to win without activating
I'd have to use the other demonic swords stored in the other dimension without holding back.
That was how strong this girl was.
If I held anything back, I couldn't win.
The girl summoned more Shadow Demons.
She was committing fully to a long-range strategy.
In that case, the key for me was finding a way to close the distance.
There it was again.
I was thinking about winning again.
If the girl was strong enough, she could kill me.
Wasn't that fine?
Wasn't that what I wanted?
So why was I thinking about winning?
Caught in the grip of that contradiction, I charged straight toward the girl.