“Good riddance.”
The angel was sinking into the ground. A bottomless dark pit opened up below it, and the hands were pulling it under. The more the angel fought to free itself, the more it became entangled.
“Those who dare harm us can be certain of punishment…”
“Call more angels to help you or even call your god if you wish. I assure you, you will all die. I will kill you slowly, and you will regret ever having been born… An eternity of painful death awaits you.”
The angel got pulled under, and the lab became quiet again. Vampy was no longer looking in the direction where the angel had vanished, though, but toward the underground room behind the glass, where Sylvia was cradling Kettle. The girl was sleeping peacefully with Shuutarou’s hand in her grip.
“…”
Vampy’s gaze was drawn to her master. His eyes were brimming with tears, but his face shone with relief. Vampy had never seen him like that.
What is this that I’m feeling?
With her hand pressed to her chest, she watched Shuutarou and the others.
I used to resent anyone who touched Master, so much that I wanted to kill them. Why does this scene bring me such comfort?
Traveling together with Misaki and Makoto had changed Vampy more than she realized. Confused by her own emotions, she couldn’t take her eyes off the group below the glass.
High in the sky above the ruins, two mighty beings were battling it out, unleashing powers beyond human comprehension.
“Punishment—!” the angel shouted.
A forest of swords swarmed Elroad, approaching him fast.
“Guardian of Time,” Elroad chanted.
Unfazed by the countless swords, Elroad opened his hand, upon which a clockface appeared. The book he always carried with him flipped open, its pages turning quickly, until a bookmark fell in between them.
“Dimensional Wrench.”
The fabric of space around Elroad twisted. The swords froze in the air for a moment before turning one hundred and eighty degrees and launching themselves back at the angel.
“God’s Shield!” the angel cried.
Elroad narrowed his eyes wearily as a giant shield silently appeared in front of the angel, repelling the swords like a magnet before they could even come in contact with it. The blades plummeted toward the ground.
It has skills of this kind, too? Hmph.
Elroad clenched his fist, and the swords shattered before reaching the ruins below.
“A pompous name for a skill: ‘God’s Shield.’ Who is this god anyway?” Elroad asked, snorting a mocking laugh.
The angel turned its smooth face toward him. “God is our master.”
“That tells me nothing, doesn’t it?”
The angel’s wings flashed brightly, sending countless beams of light toward Elroad. They reached him in a split second, but something invisible turned them before they hit him, launching them toward the sky instead.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Oh dear. What if they hurt your god up in the heavens?”
The angel didn’t react to Elroad’s goading, floating in the air, unsettling in its enigmatic stillness.
Seeming rather bored, Elroad flicked through his book again, placing the bookmark on a different page.
“Where did you take the girl’s friends?”
He knew the angel would guess he meant Kettle.
But the angel didn’t bother replying. It stroked its swords wistfully before suddenly lifting its face toward Elroad again, as if it had made a difficult decision.
“You leave me no choice.”
Its swords began to glow, unraveling into flickering lines of strange symbols resembling cuneiform writing. They spread out around the angel, and the air started thrumming.
“Commencing judgment.”
In an instant, the symbols spread all over the sky, perhaps enveloping the entire world. A network of light lines stretched above the angel and Elroad, as if some enormous computer had just been switched on.
And then the angel vanished.
“!”
Elroad looked around for his foe with alarm, and it reappeared—right in front of him.
The angel reached toward Elroad and touched his protective barrier, shattering it. Then the angel touched Elroad’s right arm, which began to disappear as if it were being rubbed out with an eraser.
Elroad reflexively moved away from the angel, eyeing his injury curiously. The part of his arm below where the angel touched him was being erased, too, as if a contamination was spreading through it, making it rot away.
This is a different type of attack from what it used before.
He calmly severed his injured arm. Blue fabric stretched over where his arm used to be, and a moment later, his arm was restored.
My LP hasn’t been affected.
Elroad was unusual in that damage taken reduced his MP instead of LP, and a certain buff made his MP limitless. To kill him, an opponent would need to be able to deal limitless damage to negate all of Elroad’s MP and his LP at the same time. The angel’s attack, though, appeared to use a different mechanic, which gave it the potential to be lethal to Elroad. He suspected this mechanic was similar to the unique skill of the Second Evil Overlord, Vampy.
“Your power is too great to be allowed in this world. I must erase you, along with the sinner whom you take for a master,” the angel announced in its robotic voice.
Elroad’s face clouded over. “…Erase my master, you say?”
The air thickened with powerful magic that circled around him. For the first time, the angel felt fear.
Until then, Elroad had been toying with the angel, using but a fraction of his actual power.
“He has become such an inconvenience. And yet he is merely a caged bird,” the angel said quietly as if to itself.
Elroad’s eyes sparkled strangely.
“Ultimate Magic, Tier One: Fireball.”
Elroad used a spell available to every beginner wizard, conjuring an ordinary fireball. It wasn’t particularly big nor fast-moving…yet it caused the angel to panic.
“That power… It can’t be…!”
The angel pulled the cuneiform symbols back toward itself until they reformed into its twin swords again. It summoned God’s Shield once more and surrounded itself with various defensive spells.
The fireball was moving through the air toward the angel. It reached the angel’s protective barrier…
“!”
…and went straight through it, destroying it in the process without losing its own momentum or attack power.
The angel dropped its shield and began fleeing. Its judgment was correct—the fireball had gone through all its barriers including God’s Shield, and it wasn’t slowing down at all.
“Surprise.”
This time, Elroad appeared out of thin air right behind the angel, who tried to swiftly block him, summoning God’s Shield again.
“Ultimate Magic, Tier One: Windcutter.”
There was a flash, and then the angel’s body split into two. Shining polygons appeared around it.
“I see… You are irregularities…,” it said before suddenly switching to a more humanlike voice. “I remember you now.”
Elroad’s eyebrow twitched at the change. “I will ask you one more time,” he said. “Where did you take the girl’s friends?”
The angel giggled as it started to vanish. “Nowhere. They are simply dead.”
And then the angel was no more. Light particles rained down, glittering beautifully.
Deep in thought, Elroad looked at his arm where the angel had touched it.
The mystery of the spirits’ Prayers and the hordes of monsters remained unresolved.
The Evil Overlords began to change in order to connect with their master.
Who were the angels, and why did they kidnap Kettle?
And what was the sin these angels spoke of?
End of Volume 5