Demon King's Perspective "How pathetic."
The voice came from a speaker installed somewhere — an utterly loathsome sound.
"In the end, this is all you amount to. The only one I need to be wary of is Gyuliedistodius. Did you really think you could defeat me in earnest, when I've prepared specifically to counter a genuine god? This is precisely why you'll forever be nothing but a brat."
Was she being unusually talkative, or was it just my imagination?
Maybe this was how happy she got.
"Still, we've known each other for a long time. It would be rude to hold back as a final send-off. I value you enough to slaughter you with everything I have. That's why I'm choosing to use this Gloria Type Ω — a unit I built specifically for Gyuliedistodius."
The speaker's voice delivered that backhanded compliment in a flat, emotionless tone.
Before me, a mechanical weapon stood as though looking down from on high.
"What a sentimental moment. Our long history ends today, at this very hour. The situation outside will be settled soon as well. Farewell, my greatest failed creation."
And then the mechanical weapon raised its blade and brought it down toward me.
☆ The clock rewinds a little.
I had parted ways with Shiro and the others, descending alone down a long, winding slope.
A passageway sloping underground.
At the bottom of that slope lay a vast space resembling a warehouse.
It was probably meant to store the robots that Shiro had demolished on the surface.
But it wasn't merely for storage — maintenance equipment was scattered throughout, and machines of various kinds stood in every corner.
"So you actually came."
A voice suddenly echoed from somewhere.
In the enclosed space, it reverberated so much that its origin was impossible to pin down.
But even with all that echo, I could never mistake its owner.
"Potimas."
"That would be me."
Potimas answered in a bored tone.
At the same moment, a deafening roar came from behind.
I turned to find the passageway I'd descended sealed shut by a massive metal gate.
"Foolish of you. Did it never occur to you that this might be a trap?"
As Potimas's words of contempt reached my ears, the strength drained from my body.
The power that had been surging through every fiber of my being moments ago vanished like mist dissipating in the air.
Vanished — or rather, was *erased* would be more accurate.
An anti-magic interference barrier.
The entire warehouse was saturated with one, and it was erasing my Status.
With my Status gone and my Skills unusable, I could only fight with the raw physical strength my body actually possessed.
"I must admit, I didn't expect you to walk into a trap so readily. When someone in enemy territory so ostentatiously shows you the way, any sensible person would be suspicious. But you're a brat through and through. No — you're nothing but a worm."
From the depths of the warehouse, several of the robots I'd seen on the surface emerged.
They surrounded me — I, weakened by the barrier — and leveled their barrels in my direction.
"How anticlimactic. We've known each other for so long. The least I can do is make sure you go painlessly."
And then every barrel fired at once.
As if I'd just get riddled with bullets from every direction and turn into a honeycomb!
I leaped straight up into the air, twisted mid-flight, and planted my feet against the ceiling.
I kicked off the ceiling and drove a gravity-boosted flying kick straight into one of the robots.
The robot's armor crumpled under my strike, and it was crushed into scrap.
"Oh?"
Potimas made a sound that might have been admiration.
But there was still plenty of composure in that voice.
"You really don't get it."
So to shatter that composure, I made my declaration.
"I came here to make you despair. And you know what the quickest way to do that is? To shatter every single trap you've set, walk right through them, and stand in front of you with my head held high."
"My, my. That's quite the bold claim."
"Right now, you should be savoring what little life you have left while you still can put on that smug face. I'm going to grind every one of your precious machines and traps into dust, and then I'll be standing right in front of your true body. When that happens, you'd better be ready to go pale and beg for your life."
Hearing my tirade, Potimas let out a low chuckle through the speaker. "Ku ku ku."
"If you think you can, then by all means try, little brat."
Before those words had even finished, the surrounding robots raised their weapons in unison.
I kicked off the ground and cleared the spot just as a storm of bullets tore into where I'd been standing.
I talked a big game, but the situation was anything but favorable.
In a place without the barrier, I could manage — but here, where my Status was barely functioning, this kind of fight put me at a massive disadvantage.
No matter how tough I acted, I didn't have even a one-in-a-thousand chance of winning.
An anti-magic interference barrier.
It was the single most troublesome barrier for any living creature in this world — one that could even temporarily shut out the power of the System itself.
The Status that living beings maintained through the System's blessings was gone, and without it, most creatures in this world could only exert strength matching their physical appearance — or less.
In my case, as Potimas had said, I could only muster the strength of a little girl.
My body had stopped growing around the early teens of a human equivalent, after all.
I honestly wanted to complain — why couldn't it have grown just a *little* more?
My body was slight, with barely any muscle to speak of.
In this world, the Status was calculated from a combination of magical augmentation and the innate physical capabilities of the body.
In my case, the vast majority of my Status came from magical enhancement. My raw muscle strength was negligible compared to the total figure.
So what was I getting at? Simply this — with the magical augmentation stripped away by the barrier, I was in serious trouble!
Would Potimas even imagine that I was thinking something like that?
This outcome had been obvious from the start, so of course I'd prepared countermeasures.
The anti-magic barrier had a blind spot: it could not interfere with magic cast internally within the body.
Meaning — if I deliberately activated magic from within myself, it wouldn't be nullified.
Shiro and I had trained together to develop internal body-reinforcement magic that would let me fight with combat power similar to what the System provided, even inside an anti-magic barrier.
Not a Skill — a separate discipline: the art of magic.
Thanks to that training, I could now manually replicate the stat-based enhancements I usually outsourced to the System.
The barrier blocked external magic, yes, but the energy that comprised my Status still existed within me unchanged.
So all I had to do was wield that energy without relying on the System.
The result: while I couldn't use any external magic within the barrier, my raw physical abilities were nearly identical to my in-System performance.
Physical attack power of roughly ninety thousand. Physical defense of roughly ninety thousand. Speed of roughly ninety thousand. Those were my combat capabilities.
Robots with combat power on par with lower-tier Dragon Species didn't stand a chance.
I swept through the swarming robots, turning them all into scrap.
And then, from the depths of the warehouse, new robots emerged.
These newcomers were clearly different from the previous ones — distinctly special, with standout designs.
They were humanoid robots with aggressively angular forms and thin limbs.
About three meters in total length — not particularly large.
"That is our trump card. If you can defeat it, I will shower you with genuine, unsparing praise."
"Oh, sure."
I clenched my fists.
Whatever came at me, I'd crush it without exception!
"Of course, I doubt you'll even be able to put up a proper fight."
I tried to brush off Potimas's taunt and took a step forward.
I *tried* to take a step forward.
A dull impact hit my head, followed by a slow, spreading pain.
"Huh?"
I didn't understand what had happened.
All I knew was that I was on the ground.
But *why* I'd collapsed — that, I couldn't figure out.
I tried to scramble to my feet, but my body wouldn't respond. I couldn't move a single finger.
"How pathetic."
And as if mocking me in my fallen state, Potimas's voice echoed once more through the speaker.