Vampire-kid activates Vermilion Sea.
A technique that could be called a composite Skill magic—one that fuses the power of Skills and magic together. Something Vampire-kid developed herself.
That red liquid can be freely manipulated at her command, and anything it touches gets dissolved without mercy.
It's a combination of the Blood Mist ability inherent to vampires, a strong acid attack, and water magic.
The first time she showed me that thing, I was genuinely shocked.
I mean, she combined three different Skills and developed an entirely brand-new technique.
There's no way I ever would have come up with that.
To put it bluntly, when it comes to how Skills are used, Vampire-kid is better than me.
Sure, I can activate multiple Skills at the same time, but the idea of combining them together? Never even crossed my mind.
Well, the Poison Thread might be an exception, but if you call that a byproduct of Poison Attack's mechanics, then I guess that's that.
It's not like I never tried combining Skills.
Whether Evil Eye could stack Poison Attack on top of it, and so on.
But I couldn't make it work.
And when I couldn't, I just told myself it was a limitation of the system's design and stopped looking into it any further.
Vampire-kid, though, pushed even further—and made it happen.
Something I gave up on, she brought to completion.
In that sense, you could call Vampire-kid a genius.
Well, even so, she's nowhere near my current level, and I wouldn't have lost to her before my apotheosis either.
If I'd been in the mood, I could've just brute-forced it with parallel wills and simultaneous magic spam.
Heh, I never needed to develop new techniques in the first place.
This isn't me being a sore loser.
There's genuinely nothing to lose over.
As for Oni-kun—boy, I want to ask you which one-armed arsenal you think you are.
Is that you, Otto?
Or are you AuO without the A?
Oni-kid's fighting style—is this missile bombardment?
He's pulling exploding swords out of extra dimensions and launching them straight away.
That's Gate of Babylon, no matter how you look at it.
On one side, a tidal wave of liquid that evaporates anything on contact.
On other side, a barrage of missiles that'd make battleships blush.
At this point, isn't this just war?
I wonder if my fights before apotheosis looked this ridiculous from the outside too?
Actually, hold on—the forest is getting absolutely demolished here.
When Vampire-kid blocks Oni-kun's attacks with Vermilion Sea, Oni-kun dodges the Vermilion Sea waves in return.
A back-and-forth offensive and defensive.
Stop it! The forest's HP is already at zero!
Vampire-kid summons Shadow Demons.
Eight wolves born from shadow, their forms tinged red and black.
They all rush at Oni-kun simultaneously.
Even Oni-kun can't dodge that. While he's preoccupied with the Shadow Demons, a full blast of Vermilion Sea catches him dead-on from the head.
But… it doesn't seem to have done all that much.
Hardly looks like he took any damage.
He's got high base defense on top of his evasion abilities.
Hmm.
A slugfest, then.
Neither side has a decisive finishing move.
Oni-kun looks like he's holding his own so far, but in reality he's being slowly ground down.
His Status numbers appear to edge out Vampire-kid's, but he's been on the back foot the entire time against the sheer diversity of her Skills.
Case in point—he's run out of ideas on offense.
Vampire-kid, meanwhile, can't quite push for the kill either.
She's sticking to long-range combat, chipping away at Oni-kun's HP with her Magic Eye, but if this keeps up, who knows how long it'll take.
Hmm.
How should I put it—they're both surprised by how strong the other is and playing it cautious?
Vampire-kid looks like she's having a blast, but is the cool-headed part of her brain quietly calculating how to win?
The real mystery is Oni-kun, though.
I thought he'd gone completely berserk, but the way he's fighting, there's definitely method behind the madness.
Does he still have his reason?
Oni-kun makes his move.
He tries to close the distance, willing to eat some damage to do it.
Vampire-kid intercepts with Vermilion Sea, Shadow Demons, and a multi-layered magic barrage all at once.
The way she's intercepting while trying to maintain distance—she's dead set on settling this at long range.
That said, Oni-kun's no slouch either.
What's that wrapping around his body—Dragon Force?
Given how little Vampire-kid's magic seems to be fazing him, that's probably it.
He's taken that many of Vampire-kid's attacks and he's still bouncing around like nothing.
Under normal circumstances, he'd have been obliterated ages ago.
Hmph.
Getting anxious that the gap isn't closing no matter what, Oni-kun goes for a gamble.
Swords appear from extra dimensions.
More than I can count.
Let me peek into Oni-kun's extra dimension real quick.
Yep.
Completely empty.
Only a handful left.
It looks like Oni-kun's pouring in every last stored exploding sword he had.
Even Vampire-kid shows a flash of alarm.
If every single one of those swords detonates, even she can't dodge them all, and taking even a few hits would deal real damage.
She wouldn't die, though.
Countless swords rain down on Vampire-kid all at once.
Fair skies, occasional sword showers.
What horrible weather.
So—what will Vampire-kid do?
Vampire-kid activates a spell.
An ice-type magic.
And a highly advanced one at that.
A luminous mist blooms around her, gradually staining red.
This—I've never seen this one before.
The crimson-glowing mist collides with the sword rain.
The swords shatter. The glowing mist disperses.
That's incredible.
It's red and it glows—maybe I should coin a name by tweaking "Brilliant Stone." How about "Brilliant Crimson"?
Brilliant Crimson devours the sword rain whole.
Even the shockwaves generated by the explosions get frozen, then melted.
In the end, every single sword is blocked. What's more, the remaining Brilliant Crimson surges toward Oni-kun.
Having unleashed practically everything in his arsenal for that all-out attack, only to have it swatted aside like nothing—Oni-kun is stunned.
I can sympathize with the feeling, but this really isn't the time for that in the middle of a fight.
Brilliant Crimson takes his right arm as if mocking his desperate defense.
It broke through an earthen wall, punched through a counter-flame, and still claimed his arm.
Terrifying.
What kind of stuff has that girl been developing?
And in secret from me, no less.
Was that one… intended for me someday?
Scary.
!!
Oh crap.
At this timing!?
Oni-kun activates
Well, that's fine.
The thing that made me panic was something else entirely.
The black seal—it's broken.