Absolute Beings

The explosion unfolded at mana’s center disrupted Godless Tune’s trajectory.

Mardo, who’d grazed past Pernok’s right side, frowned.

‘Again that inexplicable power like before.’

The nature of the power that clashed with Godless Tune and the long needle now was the same as when he’d flowed away Godless Tune head-on.

The problem was he absolutely couldn’t know where that power originated.

Moreover, thanks to losing one arm, direction was gradually disrupted.

To control Godless Tune’s speed required minute mana flow of both arms, but with one arm gone he couldn’t draw out the desired precision.

Conversely, if he slowed speed, Pernok would react.

Ultimately, since it became wasting Godless Tune, lowering speed by controlling mana was poor judgment.

‘I should kill Arisha first.’

Her appearance trying to attempt something bringing both hands together at considerable distance from Pernok was ominous.

Pernok captured the moment Mardo’s gaze stayed on Arisha.

Bang!

Pernok narrowed distance with Mardo in the blink of an eye.

A long needle struck down before him.

Soon cracks starting from the long needle spread in all directions through the ground. Flames soared from there.

When Pernok scattered water-attribute magic and soared into empty air, Chris had already reached overhead.

Whoong!

But the arm he swung merely grazed Pernok’s afterimage.

Before he knew it, Pernok divided into hundreds of clones was pouring toward Mardo.

Chris didn’t panic and immediately shot needles.

When one needle divided into hundreds, thousands, Pernok’s clones futilely vanished.

‘He’s adapted to this speed?’

Chris’s eyes were precisely seeing through where Pernok was hidden.

Pernok, who lifted the long needle stuck in the ground and wore an indifferent expression, was hard to think of as the same human as when they’d first met.

‘What passed through Godless Tune wasn’t magic. What knocked down my needle at the first clash wasn’t Magus Arts either. It’s a very unfamiliar power.’

Chris’s eyes began scattering faint light. And Pernok was also facing that appearance.

‘As expected, this bastard’s Magus Arts isn’t imitation.’

Now with synchronization rate risen to rival Arisha, he was sensing more certainly.

‘He’s granting mana to this long needle. However, that mana granting method resembles magic I demonstrated.’

At first he’d thought Chris imitated magic as is and inserted it in the long needle to shoot.

Therefore, at the first strategy meeting he’d guessed Chris’s Magus Arts was imitation.

But through various fierce battles and the moment he directly held the long needle, that thought clearly reversed.

‘That bastard has something that sees through magic’s flow. With that he grasps magic’s generation principles and inserts completed mana into this long needle. Therefore, when he shoots the needle, that magic activates.’

The soul’s distinctive light captured by Observation Eye.

The light flowing from Chris’s eyes clearly revealed special constitution like Jan.

‘Those eyes see through mana.’

Chris reinterprets from mana the magic he saw.

After grasping what flow mana connects in to be born as magic, he creates the same method’s flow and breathes it into the long needle.

‘Magus Arts that grants flow.’

Granting Magus Arts.

‘That bastard can create and use the flow of all things where mana exists in his own way.’

He doesn’t discriminate type and target.

‘This is actual copies that surpassed imitation. As long as he remembers mana’s flow, he can copy any Magus Arts unfolded once.’

The special constitution of eyes that see through mana’s flow.

Innate talent that manipulates even mana’s minute flow.

Granting Magus Arts that breathes all of that into objects to use.

Chris was the absolute being where formulas that wouldn’t be established if even one was missing gathered.

“The long needle’s speed was simply a form that accelerated mana’s flow.”

At Pernok’s words murmured low, Chris’s eyes shook.

Because Pernok was seeing through his secret no one had known for decades.

But surprise was brief.

Chris didn’t care about exposing full strength.

Anyway, if he killed Pernok here, the secret would be buried forever again.

“Your body movements improved. However, that weapon is a different form from until now… moreover…”

Chris was also examining the secret of spiritual power Pernok possessed.

“…The grayish light is ripening temptingly.”

That moment Pernok realized the scenery Chris was seeing was approaching Observation Eye.

Eyes trying to see through the incomprehensible realm were trying to reach something new beyond mana.

‘I absolutely mustn’t leave him alive.’

‘I must definitely kill him here.’

They began excavating each other’s secrets.

Whether they could imitate it.

Whether they could kill before imitating.

Lightly raised momentum entangled and coolly settled the heated earth.

And.

[Activate!]

The start was the Floating Castle.

The Floating Castle’s supreme siege function Trident Force shot toward Chris’s head.

Mardo, who’d been concerned about the Floating Castle’s mighty mana, switched direction from Arisha to Trident Force.

KABOOOOM!

When the black armor devoured mighty mana and heated Mardo, one long needle and pure white lightning crossed.

Fierce collision didn’t occur.

Because surprisingly, the long needle had absorbed Divine Punishment.

‘Energy absorption magic?’

If he’d tried to merely absorb mana, Divine Punishment would have climbed riding momentum. But Chris had already switched thinking.

That Pernok’s spiritual power was higher purity power than his mana.

The moment judgment changed quickly, response also became practiced.

The long needle that absorbed Divine Punishment dyed pure white and burst out together with lightning-attribute magic Chris had granted.

Bang bang bang!

Lightning divided into minute needles invisible to eyes and exploded in all directions.

If he hadn’t blocked with Full Body Weaponization, his breathing might have been cut off in one breath.

To that degree, Chris’s sense mixing mana into Divine Punishment was excellent.

‘Did he grasp amplification’s concept?’

The method of mixing even opponent’s unfamiliar power into mana and amplifying from the thought of merely using mana was similar to circulation Pernok had granted artifacts.

Chris was seeing through not only spiritual power but even artifact Full Body Weaponization’s principles.

‘However, you can’t imitate the same power you cannot activate. Unless I shoot spiritual power, attacks like just now are impossible.’

Before he knew it, 15 circulation cycles had finished.

When Pernok shot Maximum Impact, Chris’s long needle spun round and round before his nose. And surroundings were eroded by thick darkness.

Thought Conversion.

Surprisingly, Chris was trying to change space’s light to darkness and alter the recognition of those touched.

Maximum Impact was swallowed by darkness without even going 100 meters.

Each time Pernok breathed, pain as if thorns were embedding inside his body began penetrating.

Thought Conversion’s domain was made only in the form the caster desired.

Here Chris mixed several special Magus Arts.

A method only Chris who’d been stringing deceased 13 Lords’ Magus Arts from before could do.

He’d infiltrated their Magus Arts into each element within Thought Conversion.

Sharpness like blades where inhaled breath made insides melt, or the whole body was carved even moving one step.

He erected barriers again within Thought Conversion’s inner wall so space couldn’t be shaken off, overlaid reflection membranes to make all Pernok’s attacks remain inside.

Sixfold Complex Magus Arts.

Even Mardo widened his eyes at the unimaginable sight.

‘What kind of Magus Arts is this?’

A wall was felt from Chris who indifferently watched light going out with arms lowered.

‘Truly, are you trying to reach X, Chris?’

If a god of Magus existed, it would refer to Chris.

Chris’s Thought Conversion domain that simultaneously wielded complex Magus Arts seemed like even Godless Tune couldn’t pierce it.

But Chris raised the long needle again.

“Surprising.”

It was around when words flowing out flatly penetrated Mardo’s ears.

Pernok had somehow vanished from that spot.

Chris immediately withdrew space.

Beyond Complex Magus Arts, Pernok was catching his breath.

‘He passes through even this kind of thing?’

It was the inexplicable ability that received Godless Tune.

The nature that easily crossed places where even reflection membranes and barriers were erected had nothing similar even throughout all Magus Arts Chris knew.

‘But though he has that degree of evasion ability, he’s not properly attacking.’

Chris examined Pernok who kept maintaining distance.

‘An ability capable of only evasion. Did he judge he can’t reach my body through other methods? If he lacks decent attack ability, the reason for continuing to buy time is…’

Chris glanced at Arisha who’d somehow climbed the hill and finished judgment.

‘…If he’s trying to attempt something, I’ll use it from this side.’

He’d create a situation where Pernok had no choice but to fight desperately.

Three long needles burst out simultaneously.

Each carrying different Magus Arts tried to pierce Arisha, so Pernok blocked with heavenly punishment.

When he learned Arisha concentrated on something couldn’t unfold Thought Conversion, Chris was already charging there.

‘She’s not a woman lax to that degree.’

Pernok conversely crossed to Mardo.

And when each arrived at their target, Chris faced results different from expectations.

[I thought you’d come if it were you.]

Suddenly reality distorted and Arisha’s voice began echoing.

‘Magus Arts?’

Arisha’s other Magus Arts as a Double Magus.

Distortion.

All phenomena occurring inside flow in the direction Arisha desires.

Unlike Thought Conversion, though not the nature of changing forms or newly granting, it was Magus Arts that made any attacks refract and scatter.

‘With this scale of Magus Arts unfolded, there’s no way I didn’t sense…’

Chris discovered faint light flowing within Distortion.

That was certainly the inexplicable power Pernok had used when penetrating Magus Arts, spiritual power.

‘…Don’t tell me, this ability affects not only his own body but also environment?’

Pernok’s etherealization was originally an ability that made only his own body into etherealization.

But Pernok whose synchronization rate had risen through continued battle became able to broadly scatter spiritual power. And he recalled a new method he hadn’t used in Netherworld.

What would happen if he spread etherealization’s principle of hiding appearance to space?

Pernok scattered vast spiritual power in all directions with synchronization rate reaching 74 percent and obtained unexpected results.

He could hide Magus Arts within spiritual power.

A method that hid lower-grade power than spiritual power without even traces beyond simple penetration ability.

It was Severance, an application of etherealization.

When Pernok came out of Chris’s Complex Magus Arts, he hid Arisha’s Distortion with Severance.

Expecting Chris would certainly target Arisha, he’d scattered minute spiritual power difficult to see even with his eyes.

Ultimately, Chris and Pernok’s thoughts were the same.

That made the two people’s tactics cross.

Bang!

As soon as he avoided Mardo’s Godless Tune with etherealization, Pernok grabbed the back of his head, crushed it to the floor, and drove Maximum Impact into his back.

The armor that hadn’t digested Trident Force’s mana overheated at successive shocks.

“Kheurk!”

The suppressed groan made Chris within Distortion chilly.

No matter how much trapped in Magus Arts, it was Chris who’d even seen through Thought Conversion.

He’d already captured Distortion’s method in his eyes.

If he interpreted and conversely offset it, that was all.

Chris’s eyes saw through mana’s flow and granted the same Distortion to the long needle to shoot into empty air.

Mana spread like an umbrella and began straightening distorted space again.

Beyond mana flowing down like light powder.

Arisha was smiling gently.

“We certainly cannot kill you. But.”

A wooden box floated up before her.

When she breathed in mana she’d gathered until now there, the box shattered and a pure white cup appeared.

“We can erase you from this world.”

The Holy Kingdom’s three denominations’ sacred relic that had now lost all power.

Originally it had originated from one divine object.

The sacred cup stored in the Holy Kingdom’s most sacred place, known to project God’s image.

Altier.

It was made from this land’s most sacred stone that existed even when the Holy Kingdom didn’t exist, and its special power accompanied the Holy Kingdom’s history.

Holy Kingdom Magus’ mana inherited through generations accumulated to make a solid vessel and imprisoned all things of creation inside.

Even S3 Magus couldn’t break the vessel called Altier.

While gnawing away all the mana of swallowed targets, it continued until they died.

Therefore, besides the term divine object, Altier had another epithet.

As a torture tool that gnaws demons.

Whoooong!

The long needle Chris shot was futilely sucked into Altier.

Altier that once mana activated had to sleep again for a hundred years.

But if the opponent was Chris, giving up the Holy Kingdom’s hundred years wasn’t wasteful.

“A. ri. sha…!”

When Chris who ground his teeth knelt on one knee, Arisha resonated with Altier and flashed pure white light.