Chapter 212: The Foolish Kazalim

Souei and Laplace faced off, each watching for the other's opening.

In the span of a few heartbeats, they exchanged multiple attacks and counterattacks before falling into a stalemate.

The invisible knives Laplace had launched first—all of them were absorbed into Souei's body.

Laplace thought he'd caught Souei off guard, but what he'd struck was merely one of the parallel existences Souei had created.

Souei is cautious by nature.

He never lets his guard down against an opponent he's meeting for the first time.

Whether he can win or lose, whether the enemy is superior or inferior, Souei never neglects his vigilance.

"So that's your way of doing things? With abilities like that, you could at least put up a decent fight if you went at it fair and square."

"Ha ha ha, I appreciate the compliment, but I'd rather win the easy way, if you don't mind.

Still… you really are trouble, brother.

I clearly saw a vision of me landing the killing blow, so I acted on it—but it was a fake.

Guess my gut was right after all. Retreating really was the correct call."

Laplace shook his head with a resigned sigh, though his hands were already readying multiple knives.

And on his lips— the grin of someone having a grand time.

True to his name as the hedonistic fool, Laplace lived for the thrill of battle.

The barrage of knives he unleashed homed in on Souei's main body, cutting down every clone in their path as they zeroed in on the source of his presence.

He had analyzed and memorized the magicule fluctuations Souei emitted.

"Oh? How resourceful. You're saying a direct interception is too risky, then?"

One of the clones deflected a Laplace knife before bursting apart.

The knife had been a bomb in disguise.

More specifically—a Holy Spirit Bomb. A bomb containing the seven-colored all-element attribute, the universal attribute that countered both magic and holy energy.

"Heh heh heh, that's right. Since big sis's attribute became the all-element type, I managed to get my hands on a few of these.

Honestly, there's no way you can beat someone who possesses both holy and demonic attributes, right?

And that other brother of yours is insanely dangerous too—wouldn't you be better off staying out of trouble and sparing yourself the embarrassment?"

"Do you really think so?"

"Well, who knows? Anyway, all I need to do here is pin you down.

Clones—real or fake, who can even tell? Probably all of them are real, but whatever. Controlling that many is a real pain.

But if I surround them all with Holy Spirit Bombs, even you won't be able to make a move, right?"

Laplace had already used his Unique Skill, "Swindler," to disguise every single knife.

No—his words themselves were the disguise. Every knife was already a Holy Spirit Bomb.

He had no intention of holding back. He was dead set on finishing Souei off for good.

"Hmph. Surround me? Something like that becomes meaningless if I simply teleport."

As Souei said this and attempted to move via "Spatial Manipulation"—

That was exactly what Laplace had been waiting for.

"Ha ha ha ha! Too cautious for your own good, as expected of you, brother!

I set the Holy Spirit Bombs to chain-detonate through dimensional vibrations.

They'll all pour into your teleportation spatial distortions and—BOOM! Inside.

I was actually breaking a sweat thinking about how even I'd take damage from that many bombs going off at once.

But the real mistake was that you didn't notice when I wrapped my puppet strings around you."

Laplace had wound puppet strings around his knives, which had ensnared Souei during the exchange.

More than that, he had linked the floating knives together and set them to react to the movement of the other clones.

Even if Souei hadn't used a teleportation ability and had simply charged through the Holy Spirit Bombs head-on, it wouldn't have mattered.

It would have blown away most of this great hall, but retreating with his comrades Tear and Footman would have been easy enough.

Manipulating the timing of explosions was child's play for Laplace.

Above all, his Unique Skill "Foresight" had shown him a crystal-clear vision of Souei being consumed by the blast.

Laplace had struck without a shred of hesitation, fully confident he could bury Souei here and now.

Thrilled that everything had gone according to plan, Laplace cackled.

"Sorry to interrupt while you're having such a good time, but I think it's about time we wrapped this up."

A cold voice came from behind him.

And then—the realization that a blade was protruding from his own chest. He couldn't hide his shock.

Unable to process the reality before him, Laplace could only blurt out:

"No way…"

To put it simply, here's what happened.

Souei had been hiding his real body in the shadows from the very beginning.

The one surrounded by bombs had been nothing more than another parallel existence.

Using his Ultimate Gift, "Lord of the Moonlit Shadow," he had pinpointed Leon's castle with the "Moonlit Eye" and executed a direct teleportation into the barrier.

Then, using "Law Manipulation (Shadow)," he kept his true body concealed within the shadows and delivered a one-hit-kill sneak attack.

It was classic Souei—no softness, no mercy, not a trace of the leniency Benimaru sometimes showed.

But—

"Well, well, well. To think that my little brother… could be killed so easily—"

"Your brother? What!? Hm!?"

Reacting to the killing intent, Souei leaped away from the spot.

Through his all-seeing eyes, he had sensed the danger alongside the wrongness.

At the same time, knives pierced Laplace's corpse, blowing his body to pieces in an explosion.

Had he been even a fraction of a second slower, the blast would have caught him, and he wouldn't have escaped unscathed.

"Psych! Did you really think he was my brother?

Turns out I have an ability similar to yours.

I was going to sneak attack you just like you did, but where's the fun in that? So I decided to show myself instead.

Man, it's been a while. It's been since last someone killed one of my clones!"

While landing a sneak attack, Laplace casually spun lie after lie.

His eyes narrowed to slits, a grin plastered on his lips.

True to his nature as a hedonist, his entire demeanor was one of utter contempt for his opponent.

The puppeteer, Clayman.

Laplace was Clayman's master. He had created puppet dolls modeled after himself and operated them automatically.

And the target of those puppets was—

"Now then, time I got serious and started raising some hell, don't you think?

If you underestimate me, you'll regret it. You'd better brace yourself!"

"You're the one who needs to brace yourself. Stop entertaining delusions about defeating me and crawl back into the shadows where you belong."

And so the two faced off, and their battle settled into a stalemate.

Benimaru and Kazalim, meanwhile, had smashed through the barrier Misery had erected, torn through the city barrier as well, and were locked in aerial combat high in the sky.

Kazalim wielded his vast energy to press the assault on Benimaru relentlessly.

A battle between spiritual life-forms ultimately came down to a contest of stealing each other's energy. The side that siphoned more and depleted the other's existence won.

Ultimate Skills existed precisely for this purpose, and Kazalim was efficiently draining Benimaru's energy by unleashing his ability.

—Or so he believed.

"What's wrong, what's wrong?! Can't even fight back?! Where's that cocky attitude you had earlier?!"

Carried by his momentum, Kazalim condensed concentrated energy into his fists and pummeled Benimaru with a relentless barrage.

For Kazalim, who had been optimized by the Ultimate Skill "Lord of Domination," the Eight-Star Demon Lords posed absolutely no threat.

Leon had been like a helpless infant before him.

Even Misery—who had lectured him at length—had been seen through as a trivial existence after just a single blow.

Yes.

Having integrated both holy and demonic powers, angel and demon alike, achieving the ultimate optimization known as "Sacred-Demonic Unity," Kazalim believed that neither angels nor demons could stand against him on equal footing.

If both the quantity and quality of his energy surpassed his opponent's, there was no conceivable way he could lose. That was Kazalim's reasoning.

In truth, he had successfully neutralized Leon's holy attacks and Misery's demonic power alike.

Without Kazalim even needing to try, his opponents simply destroyed themselves.

This was the "Cancellation Nullification" he had developed.

Naturally, he activated it when attacking of his own volition as well.

He would crash his energy into his opponent's to drain theirs, while simultaneously accumulating damage through nullification.

As long as the enemy's energy didn't overwhelmingly surpass his own, this was an invincible ability.

And there could not possibly exist a being more powerful than Kazalim, one of the Four Calamity Celestial Generals who possessed the greatest force among them. At least, that's what he believed.

"What's the matter?! Am I too much for you once I get serious?!

It's too late now that you've realized my power, I'm afraid.

You fool. If you hadn't gotten in my way, you might have lived a little longer.

I want to see Leon's crying face soon, so I'll be killing you now."

Sneering with malice, Kazalim moved to deliver the finishing blow to Benimaru.

Kazalim had become intoxicated by his own enhanced abilities, fully convinced from the start that no one could oppose him.

His ability was undeniably powerful, and perhaps it wasn't unreasonable for Kazalim to think as he did.

But one could say this was an exceptionally foolish thing to do.

Kazalim had convinced himself that his ability was the strongest and that he had no weaknesses. Because of this, he had placed far too much trust in it.

That was why he had failed to notice.

That his attacks were dealing absolutely zero damage to Benimaru.

"Come on, come on, come on, come on! What's the matter, what's the matter?!"

Kazalim grew even more carried away—

"Shut up!"

Benimaru's fist pierced through Kazalim's face.

"BLARGH!!"

A single blow nearly knocked Kazalim unconscious.

"Bubaa— wha— hah— gaaah?!"

Eyes bulging in shock, Kazalim turned his gaze toward Benimaru.

Gazing at the stunned Kazalim with something close to pity, Benimaru delivered the cold, hard truth:

"Your attacks don't work on me. Not even a little."

Kazalim couldn't process the words he had just heard.

Of course he couldn't.

Kazalim had prided himself on possessing the ultimate power, having stood as an absolute being up until just moments ago.

The very notion that an opponent existed against whom his attacks were completely useless was something he simply could not accept.

"Y-you've got to be kidding me! What— what kind of insane nonsense is this!

I see… I see! It's a bluff! This is all just a bluff, isn't it!

Ha ha ha, clever little trick. But I'm not the kind of fool who falls for such a pathetic lie!"

He desperately forced himself to rationalize it.

Then, compressing energy between both hands at maximum output, he took aim at Benimaru.

"You're finished!

No matter how many little tricks you pull, you can't bridge the absolute gap in power.

Too bad! You just couldn't understand that, could you, little fool?"

He flashed a grin, and feeling the solid power in his hands, he regained his composure.

"Well then, goodnight! If you're going to hold a grudge, blame your own powerlessness!

Melancholy of the Ruler!!!"

What he unleashed was a terrifying energy wave—something akin to a Sacred-Demonic Oscillation Cannon—that rapidly drained the target's energy.

At a velocity exceeding dozens of times the speed of sound—faster than any dodge could hope to match—the lethal wave bore down on Benimaru.

But Benimaru's expression didn't change. He simply held his beloved sword, "Guren," and calmly took his stance.

"Did you know? Speed is power. In other words—"

He swung his blade, and with the deflection technique of "Hazy Black Flame Funeral Destruction," nullified Kazalim's ultimate strike.

He could have deflected it back, but deliberately chose not to.

He intended to finish Kazalim with his very next attack.

"Huh?! Wha—?!"

Kazalim's eyes were stretched to their absolute limit, trembling with shock.

He had witnessed something impossible, and his mind simply couldn't keep up.

"Your sluggish attacks can't even keep up with me.

That's what it means when I say your attacks don't work on me.

If I were to give you one credit—it's true that in sheer volume of energy, you were above me.

But in terms of quality, I was overwhelmingly superior.

That's all there is to it.

Understand?

Then die!

Solar Black Flame Supreme Acceleration Excitation!!"

Benimaru's ultimate technique crashed into Kazalim, who had frozen in place, paralyzed by panic.

Taking the shape of an Eastern dragon, the black solar flames writhed with apparent sentience as they swallowed half of Kazalim's body.

Just as Benimaru had claimed about quality—the nature of the released energy unleashed a devastatingly violent force.

Because that was the energy of nothingness belonging to Benimaru's beloved master, the Great Demon Lord Rimuru.

Some of Rimuru's subordinates had been drawing closer to the nature of Rimuru's nothingness through the corridor of the soul.

And so, even Kazalim's attacks—which possessed both sacred and demonic properties—couldn't hope to neutralize it.

Blocked by Benimaru's superior quality of Magicules, Kazalim's attack had been rendered completely ineffective.

Though he couldn't match the original Rimuru, the fact that Benimaru had further amplified his Magicule count by moving at extreme speeds had been the decisive factor.

In every respect, Benimaru had been the better fighter.

"Tch. My control still isn't there yet."

Benimaru grumbled.

The power was unquestionable, but his accuracy left something to be desired.

The technique was one Rimuru had taught him, modeled after the ultimate strike of the "Scorching Dragon" Velgrynd—"Scorching Dragon Supreme Acceleration Excitation."

Unlike Velgrynd, who had originally been an extremely high-density spiritual life-form, it was still too early for the newly evolved Benimaru to wield it with full mastery.

However, Benimaru's own Ultimate Skill, "Lord of Heat Haze," was built on acceleration through heat and light domination, so there was much he could learn from Velgrynd's abilities.

Or rather—

(Most likely, this was an ability Lord Rimuru had acquired from Lady Velgrynd, and I inherited it from there.)

—That was the conclusion Benimaru had reached.

And as for Zegion and Ranga—they must have inherited their abilities from Lord Veldora, he figured.

As for Diablo—

(That bastard probably inherited his ability directly from Lord Rimuru.)

—he thought of the opponent he had fought to the death countless times in the labyrinth.

Using the labyrinth's property that prevented death, he had engaged in real combat training with Diablo over and over again.

The result: total defeat, every single time.

At public venues like the Fighting Festival it was one thing, but in places where no one was watching and no one could see, Diablo showed absolutely no restraint.

(Seeing a glimpse of that bastard's true strength was useful, but mark my words—one of these days I'll beat him for real!)

Kufufufu. The memory of Diablo's high-pitched laughter surfaced, putting Benimaru in a slightly foul mood.

He had realized it lately, but Diablo seemed to play the part of a loyal servant quite convincingly around Rimuru.

But then again, the fact that Benimaru could see through to the feelings hidden beneath meant their relationship had grown closer than before.

Having forced himself to accept that conclusion, Benimaru shifted his gaze toward the falling Kazalim and gave chase to deliver the finishing blow.