“Even with my artifact armor, I’m still in a pickle. These guys sure are tough.”
Oscar’s left shoulder had been petrified, while his entire right side was paralyzed all because one of the knights had a petrification-type special magic and had looked at him for a few seconds. And at the same time, Oscar’s blades were slowly being taken down and any knights he managed to injure got healed by other knights with healing special magic. However, it wasn’t any of the knights that were the biggest threat.
“The same trick won’t work twice,” the apostle said as she cut through the threads Oscar tried to trap her with. She was easily able to get through his swords and his Shadow Knight Lords to head straight toward him.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got plenty of new ones up my sleeve.”
Oscar blocked the apostle’s downward swing with his umbrella and grabbed her second claymore with his gauntlet as she went for a side slash. His artifacts’ ability to devour mana and their extremely reinforced, super-compressed composition allowed them to just barely hold back the apostle’s claymores. Furthermore, his metal threads, Metal Batlam, and his Ebony Coat all helped boost his strength to the level where he could match the apostle, while his upgraded glasses’ perception-enhancing abilities allowed him to keep up with her speed.
The apostle seemed momentarily taken aback that Oscar had been able to block her attacks head-on, which proved to be her undoing. The sleeves of Oscar’s Ebony Coat extended to grab the apostle’s arm and push her sword away, while he unleashed mana shock waves from his umbrella to force her back. And once she was on the defensive, Oscar slashed diagonally up at the apostle.
There was an ear-splitting screech as his umbrella made contact with her.
“Ngh. How—?”
“Nice. Looks like I can cut through even your ridiculously tough body.”
The apostle quickly put some distance between her and Oscar. There was a deep gash that started at her right shoulder and ran all the way to her left side.
Oscar had used a super high-frequency chainsaw to cut through her skin. When he’d slashed his umbrella it had morphed, and the outer two ribs had transformed into mana-eating bladed chains that rotated at an extremely high frequency.
Upon seeing that the apostle had been injured, Darrion immediately turned around and shouted, “Focus on taking down Oscar Orcus first!”
In a way, Oscar was the most dangerous opponent for the knights. Unlike Miledi or Meiru, he didn’t rely on magic or martial skill to fight. All of his strength came from the artifacts he’d created. And as a result, the cathedral’s Sanctified Purge didn’t weaken him as much as it did everyone else, though, on the other hand, he was far easier to kill than either Miledi or Meiru. He was the biggest threat, but also the one that was easiest to neutralize.
At Darrion’s command, three of the Paladins gladly threw their lives away to open a hole in the Shadow Knight Lords’ defensive formation for Darrion to rush through. And of course, the injured apostle took advantage of that opening as well.
Miledi fired off a series of insanely powerful lightning spears to try to back Oscar up.
“You just sit there and watch while your comrade dies,” Sone said, moving in the way of the spears and using his special magic, Purge Territory, to dismantle them. Naturally, he wasn’t strong enough to completely disperse Miledi’s spells and was sent flying by the spears that had made it through, but he was able to keep Miledi from helping Oscar. And worse yet, because Miledi had taken the time to fire off such powerful spells to try to help Oscar, she’d given one of the apostles enough time to break through her shawls and close in on her.
Miledi quickly used her spheres to defend herself, but they weren’t enough to fully block a barrage of disintegration feathers at point-blank range, so she was cut in numerous places. Thanks to Metal Batlam, she didn’t suffer any serious injuries...and she knew Meiru would be able to heal her up soon, but she hadn’t been able to help Oscar.
O-kun!
Her gaze met his. Darrion’s spear passed through Oscar’s defenses and stabbed him in the side, but he wasn’t fazed at all.
It’s fine. I’ve found what we’re looking for... Oscar thought. And even if he didn’t say anything, his gaze told Miledi everything she needed to know.
A second later, Oscar was sent flying downward as Darrion pulled his spear back and used his shield’s mana shock waves to blast Oscar away.
Oscar had used his metal threads at the last second to lock Darrion in place and reduce the force of his shield bash, but even so, any normal person would have had their body shattered by the blow. Plus, the apostle added in her disintegration beam to really make sure she got him. And yet, Miledi wasn’t worried in the slightest.
I’m counting on you, O-kun! Miledi screamed internally. She had absolute faith that he would return.
I know this was part of the plan, but man...I really don’t want to do that again... Oscar thought to himself as pain lanced through him.
“I didn’t think Longinus would be that strong!”
He held up his umbrella to block the apostle’s follow-up disintegration beam. The force of the beam sent him flying even further, and he crashed into one of the Holy Cathedral’s towers.
“Gah!”
Cracks radiated out from the wall and Oscar’s breath was driven from his lungs, while blood spurted from the wound on his side. Metal Batlam had absorbed a lot of the shock of the impact, but it still hurt enough to nearly knock him out.
Gritting his teeth, Oscar made sure to keep his umbrella up to prevent the disintegration beam from killing him.
“I won’t stop until you turn to dust,” the apostle said simply.
“Perfect.”
Pinned to the wall as he was, Oscar had nowhere to run. His umbrella was nearing its limits as well and was starting to crumble apart. Oscar kept bringing fresh materials out of his Treasure Trove to transmute emergency repairs, but he wasn’t able to keep pace with the rate of disintegration. However, the excess girth of the beam that the umbrella couldn’t cover was hitting the walls behind Oscar and slowly eroding them. The moment his umbrella gave out was the exact moment that the wall crumbled, so Oscar was sent flying into the cathedral.
“You’re awfully tenacious. I didn’t think there would be anything left of you after that,” the apostle said, following him into the cathedral. However, once she made it inside, she didn’t see Oscar anywhere. There was a hole in the floor though, which made it clear to her where Oscar had gone. The tower had a total of twenty floors, and the apostle was currently on the seventh one. Two floors down was the door leading to the central shrine.
“You’re wasting your time,” the apostle mumbled. She assumed Oscar was just trying to buy time to heal. She quickly flew through the hole to stop him, but to her surprise, the hole went all the way down to the ground floor, where Oscar was waiting for her. She figured he would have tried to leave the cathedral, but he’d decided against it.
“Have you finally given up?” she asked, wreathed in silver light.
Oscar said nothing. His back was resting against the wall and he had no umbrella or other shield. He had one hand on his wound and his eyes were closed.
Taking his silence as acquiescence, the apostle thrust one hand forward.
“You were a decently entertaining pawn,” she said, firing a disintegration beam right at Oscar’s heart.
“Perfect, it’s all done,” Oscar said in a light tone. He seemed not to have heard the apostle’s words at all as he thrust his gauntleted hand forward.
“Wha—?”
The apostle’s eyes widened in genuine surprise. Her ultimate attack, which could destroy anything and everything, had just been nullified. Oscar’s gauntlet had shot out a beam of sunlight that had completely countered her own.
“Thanks for your help, by the way,” Oscar said, adjusting his glasses with his free hand. His gratitude was genuine.
“Did you incorporate my disintegration magic into your artifact?!”
Oscar simply shrugged in response. Though that was, of course, exactly what he’d done. It was the true power of his gauntlet, after all.
The true nature of creation magic was the ability to manipulate all inorganic matter, including minerals and metals that possessed magical properties. In fact, when he made new artifacts with Miledi and the others’ help, he had them use their magic so he could imbue it into the material he wanted. And when he’d realized the fundamental concept behind what he’d been doing, Oscar had realized he could theoretically do the same with his enemies’ magic.