"I'm starting to get a bit of breathing room, aren't I?"
Thanks to having taken out a good number of zombies near the Lich, I was able to fight on even terms even without Grandpa's support. If Grandpa came back in this situation, we might be able to win without using any big move... but looking at the bigger picture, the number of zombies was still vast, and considering our stamina, it would be better to unleash the big move as early as possible for the best chance of victory.
"Tenma! I just got word from Jeanne's group! I've told them to pull back at a good stopping point, so there should be movement soon!"
Grandpa came back at just the right time, gave me a quick update on Jeanne, and then moved to keep the Lich in check. I'd thought I was doing well enough on my own, but with two of us, it wasn't just the extra margin—it was a feeling of security and stability.
Grandpa chipped away at the Lich with careful harassment while I landed heavy blows. That was our basic rhythm, and by occasionally incorporating attacks that caught nearby zombies in the crossfire, we kept the Lich's recovery rate in check while steadily dealing damage. This repetition created more and more openings for the Lich, and as the openings multiplied, it gradually weakened.
The Lich must have been acutely aware that its situation was clearly unfavorable. It started occasionally glancing back toward the zombie horde behind it.
"Grandpa, the next time I charge at the Lich, fall back to Jeanne's group right away. Until then, keep it pinned down like before."
"Planning to finish it on the next one, eh? Understood!"
I'd said "like before," but Grandpa—whether he sensed the end was near or not—began launching magic with even greater force than his previous harassment.
Unlike his earlier magic, which had focused on disrupting the Lich's actions, these enhanced attacks were not the kind of damage the Lich could afford to brush off now. It dodged or blocked every single one with careful precision.
In that opening, I prepared my finishing blow, timed it carefully... and slipped into the Lich's close range amid the barrage of Grandpa's magic.
"Tenma! The rest is up to you!"
Just before I slipped inside, Grandpa stopped his magic and pulled back toward Jeanne's group. He'd been firing all the way up until I got in close, so a few stray shots grazed me before he stopped, but there were no direct hits, so the damage was negligible. The Lich, on the other hand, had been distracted from Grandpa's magic the moment it noticed my approach, and just before I made it inside, it managed to land one direct hit on me. That was actually what gave me the opening to slip in cleanly and complete the preparation for my spell.
"Even someone as impressive as
you
would have a hard time tearing through a rope made of Shiromaru's fur, right?"
To set up for my spell against the Lich, I'd tied together several spare ropes woven from Shiromaru's fur and used them to bind the Lich, making it impossible for it to simply escape.
"Tempest!"
Keeping the Lich from fleeing while channeling my control, I unleashed the magic I was most confident in. It was the same spell that had failed to defeat an inferior specimen back in the Great Old Forest, but that time Jeanne had been nearby so I couldn't push its power to the fullest. Plus, the Lich at the start of this battle had clearly been a far superior being to the one from the Great Old Forest. But now, weakened as it was, it should be roughly on par—or maybe just slightly above.
"'Tempest F2'...'F3'!"
I activated Tempest, immediately increasing its power. Since the only ones inside the Tempest were me and the Lich, even if it cut through Shiromaru's ropes, its only options would be to either defeat me or fly high enough for the storm to weaken and escape outside. But I wasn't about to give it that kind of opening.
"'Tempest F4'!"
Pushing the power even higher, the wind inside Tempest grew so violent that even I, standing near the center, was staggering. If I was swaying this much at the center, then the Lich, several meters away at the outer edge, was being tossed around like a kite caught in a gale. On top of the twisting wind, sharp gusts like bladed edges sliced through from time to time, and the ropes woven from Shiromaru's fur had started to fray. They were holding for now, but at this rate, they would snap before long.
Still, that was within expectations. I'd actually anticipated the Lich might tear them apart outright, so all things considered, this was a relatively comfortable situation.
"'Guardian Gigant'!"
Last time I'd hit the Lich with Tempest, it hadn't been powerful enough to tear it apart the way I had the Dragon Zombie — or perhaps the Lich had simply been too light. So —
"Shave it down!"
I used the Gigant to ram the Lich toward the outer edge. It was the kind of brute-force move only a massive, sturdy arm-type Golem could pull off. If I'd tried that with my bare body, I wouldn't last a second against the Lich.
That said, once I pushed close enough to actually deal damage, a ceaseless sound like being sliced by blades rang out from both the Lich and the Gigant. I was using one of the Gigant's arms as a shield against the storm and also conjuring wind magic around my body for protection, but the gale raging inside Tempest was simply stronger, leaving small cuts all over me.
The Lich, it seemed, was protecting itself from the storm with magic, just as I was. However, unlike me in the flesh, the Lich was nothing but bones — it wouldn't bleed, and without cracks forming, it was impossible to tell how much damage I was actually inflicting.
"Just... a little more..."
I inched the Lich forward bit by bit, but the resistance was far greater than I'd expected. Pushing it even a single meter demanded a tremendous amount of stamina.
My stamina was draining rapidly, and Shiromaru's ropes could snap at any moment. At this rate, I might not just fail to defeat the Lich — the entire plan could fall apart.
"Haa... ha!"
Steeled with resolve, I decided to go all out. I grabbed the Lich with the other arm — the one I'd been using as a shield — reducing my resistance to the storm, and unleashed my full-powered Flight Magic.
That sent me surging forward several meters in an instant, but the trade-off was even more cuts across my body, blood spraying into the air. The amount of blood flying around gave me a moment's pause, but these weren't catastrophic injuries like losing limbs or having my eyes crushed — they were the kind I could fully heal from once it was over.
"Is... this... the limit... of how far... I can push...?"
A few seconds after committing to my all-out charge, I'd driven the Lich as far as it could go — and could advance no further. But in those few seconds, my stamina had been nearly emptied, and so much blood had left my body that I was starting to worry.
The Lich had clearly taken serious damage as well, but it still hadn't reached the point of death. And then, at last, the ropes woven from Shiromaru's fur snapped. They'd held remarkably well all things considered, but with them gone, both of the Lich's arms were now free.
Up until now, my arms had been useless and I'd had to spend all my magic just protecting myself, so after getting bound by the ropes, the Lich had had no choice but to play defense this whole time. For some reason, its face looked like it was smiling at me.
"Tempest F5!"
Well, I'd been holding one more trick in reserve too.
By cranking the power of Tempest to its maximum, the Lich and I were shoved violently inward from the position we'd been locked in. Trying not to lose ground, I pushed the Lich outward and drove forward with everything I had — and while the force pressing against me was tremendous, the speed at which we were being pushed back was slow, which meant the damage inflicted on the Lich increased proportionally. And that same damage was being dealt to the Gigant as well.
"My right hand's fingers are starting to break... Just hold together a little longer!"
The part of the right arm that took the brunt of the gale — and the part that was the most complexly constructed, making it the weakest — began to crack under the amplified Tempest, and finally one finger shattered to pieces. And with that as the trigger, the entire right hand disintegrated around the broken finger's location. Even so, I used my remaining left hand to keep the Lich pinned and continued pushing with my now hand-less right arm.
Before long, the right elbow joint and left wrist started acting up as well. There wasn't any damage beyond the joints that was hampering movement yet, but if the joints gave out, the whole thing would become useless. However, even as the Gigant's malfunctions increased, changes were occurring in the Lich's body too.
First, even before the Gigant's right hand broke, the Lich's left arm shattered into pieces. Then its left leg broke away at the hip joint, and the right leg was gone from the knee down. All that remained was the head, torso, and left arm.
Even so, the Lich kept trying to break free from the Gigant's restraint, hammering repeatedly at the right wrist that was gripping it — but at some point during one of those strikes, it raised its arm and the arm itself crumbled, unable to withstand the Gigant's hardness and the raging wind.
To finish off the Lich, now without both arms and both legs, I added even more force — and the Lich dropped the magic it had been using for defense and fired a spell directly at me.
The Lich was weakened, sure, but taking a spell at point-blank range would have been devastating — it could have reversed the entire battle in an instant. But it was nothing but a bad move on the Lich's part.
Because even while defending with magic, the gale had been whittling away at its body — its bones — and now it had thrown that defense away. It must have been so panicked by the situation that it forgot what would happen to itself before the spell even reached me.
"This... is the end!"
I blocked the incoming spell with the Gigant's right arm and then struck the Lich — now stripped of its magical shield — with that very same arm.
The impact of the blow drove the Lich tens of centimeters further outward from where it had been pinned... its entire body burst apart into pieces and was swept up by Tempest. When it shattered, the glossy orb that I assumed was its magic core broke into fragments as well, so there would be no reviving it.
"It's over..."
The war wasn't over yet, but I figured my part in it had reached a stopping point. I watched the remains of the Lich get carried away by the Tempest and then dispelled the spell.
Then, as I looked around for a gathering of people so I could report the Lich's defeat to Grandpa and the others...
"Guah...!"
A searing, violent pain tore through me from my back to my abdomen.
For a moment, I couldn't even begin to understand what had happened, but I quickly noticed a black rod-like thing protruding from my stomach. If this rod-like object had a blade on it, it wouldn't have been the least bit surprising if my body had been split clean in half in the very next instant. But whether you could call it fortunate or not, this rod appeared to be a piercing weapon — its tip was pointed, but it had no cutting edge and couldn't slice through anything.
"Guah…! Nuaaah!"
I grabbed the tip of the rod sticking out from my stomach, pushed it through, and simultaneously kicked the
who
ever
was
behind me away, breaking free from the spot.
While casting a recovery spell on my stomach, I turned around to try and get a look at the identity of the bastard who'd tried to impale me…
"You've got to be kidding me…"
A woman draped in a black hood was floating there. However, while she carried a similar atmosphere to the Lich I had just defeated, she was clearly a monster whose presence revealed her to be far above the Lich in rank.