What...is going on?!
All semblance of composure had fled IX. When the insolent nexus being who didn’t fear the Wards in the slightest finished talking, IX had immediately activated Unlimited Sword Glint. While they had been leisurely chatting away as per his invitation, he had located the three people positioning themselves out of his view and set at least ten thousand targets each on the tank right in his face, the nexus being, the healer at his side, and the three monsters who served him. He merely had to pull the trigger, then take down the three in his blind spots one by one.
The monsters merited some caution for their durable HP barriers, but they would become stun-locked the instant a single flying slash made contact. The nexus being and his companions didn’t have barriers and would therefore pose no challenge, so IX’s plan was to first finish them off and then focus on wearing down the monsters. The power that had been granted to him when he became a Ward was a perfected version of Unlimited Sword Glint, which could be used as much as he wanted without having to build up a stockpile. It was a godly power. He was a god.
And yet, the young girl surrounded by large floating arms disappeared from view after he managed to target her only a few times. There was another girl who wasn’t floating like the others but standing on top of magic threads she had set up, but she popped in and out of his field of vision too fast for him to go through the “see, lock on, fire” routine—it was as if there were clones of her. His descendant, clad in a shapeless, semitransparent blob that was apparently Blue Water’s new form, was the only one that the slashes were landing clean hits on.
No, everything was wrong. Instead of the familiar clear ping and flash of white light caused by dealing damage to an HP barrier, what filled the air was an insistent, dull, low-pitched metallic clanging and shattered fragments of the slashes’ blue glint.
Alarmed, IX quickly looked over at the monsters, realizing he would be backed into a corner if they made a move now. Thankfully, they seemed content to stay put, though every last slash he sent their way seemed to fade the moment they appeared. He suspected the All Dragon was crushing them. He wasn’t surprised that the monsters were still standing, but the nexus being and his healer not having been chopped up into pieces already was unexpected. Again, thanks to the All Dragon, most likely.
Put simply, Unlimited Sword Glint had yet to claim a single life. The only result was the deafening clamor, and the fight that usually ended in what felt like the blink of an eye was drawing out into an uncomfortable eternity. Less than ten seconds had actually passed, but that had been more than enough to finish off the two nexus beings he had met before.
With that realization, IX slowly slid from mere confusion into fear. The memory of the day he’d lost to Country Eater flashed across his mind, as vivid as if it were yesterday. For the fifteen years since coming of age, he had diligently stored up slashes made using his large mana pool. He had thrown every last one at the boss, but to no avail. So what choice did he have? He’d gotten on his knees and begged for his life.
To banish the terror and shame coursing through him, IX directed his full attention toward the four people and three monsters in his view. But just then, the loud clanging abruptly let up. At the same time, the countless magic circles serving as targets, which only he could see, all moved over to his descendant on their own. After that, every time he attempted to set a target, he ended up selecting her regardless of where he looked and what he intended.
“What is happening?!”
IX was so bewildered that he asked the question out loud this time. He had lost control of his own skill. With the targeting magic circles cleared away, it was now obvious to him that Sol’s side remained entirely unharmed. And last but not least, the blob that his descendant was floating within was quietly swallowing up all the flying slashes launched in accordance with the targets gathered on it. Nothing about this situation was making any sense.
“Long story short, the skill that all your confidence is based on, Unlimited Sword Glint, doesn’t work against us,” said Sol, who had dispelled Thought Acceleration after confirming that Intimidate had an iron hold on the slashes.
There was no need to continue burdening his mind by speeding it up. Though Julia could completely heal the damage, the pain he felt when his brain was overloaded scared him. It wasn’t so much a matter of the intensity of the pain as it was the knowledge that he was breaking something that had no business being broken. He didn’t think he would ever get used to the instinctive fear that the sensation invoked. If needed, he wasn’t beyond maintaining the spell for a prolonged period of time with Julia healing him nonstop, but his policy was to push himself only when absolutely necessary.
“That...can’t be.”
“I’m more astonished by how overconfident you got from that skill merely being unlimited. And based on your reaction, it doesn’t seem like you have any other cards up your sleeve.”
Frankly, Sol was pretty disappointed. That, and embarrassed about how anxious he had been moments ago at the prospect of facing an enemy with a skill that seemed likely to have been touched directly by God.
When he’d learned of Unlimited Sword Glint from Rosalind and Blue Water, he had naturally analyzed its capabilities and limitations, focusing less on adding it to his party’s arsenal and more on how much of a threat it would be should his party face an enemy wielding it, as well as how to foil it. Ultimately, he had concluded that the skill in its current form was no threat at all, and being pelted with a version that was truly unlimited had upheld that assessment.
What Sol had been afraid of was the slashes themselves getting a power up. For example, if they were combined with the ability to see through matter, they could perhaps manifest directly inside what someone was wearing and therefore completely circumvent armor. Thought Acceleration would be of no help against such a threat, and it would be game over the moment someone’s HP barrier was bottomed out. A beefy barrier might buy someone a little time, but Sol himself would have been easy pickings.
As a less extreme example, if the slashes were guaranteed to damage all weapons and armor a little like they did HP barriers, their becoming limitless could also make them a huge threat. Zero times infinity was still zero, but any number above zero, no matter how small, multiplied by infinity could eventually overcome even the All Dragon, the Elven Queen, and the Demon Lord.
These were the concerns that had gone through Sol’s mind when IX first showed up. Now, along with feeling relieved, he was having trouble understanding how IX could have been so full of himself when he couldn’t do any of those things.
For his part, IX was also left dumbstruck by Sol’s reply, but it was true that there wasn’t so much as a scratch on anyone on Sol’s side, and Rodem remained hale and hearty despite being bombarded with flying slashes this very moment. No matter how much IX hated to believe it, there was no denying cruel reality.
Sol was already familiar with how capable Reen was as a tank, and now, he was realizing how suitable Rosalind was in her Numbers armament. Where Type Kuzuryuu was an orthodox shield-based tank, Type Rodem was the special kind that nullified or reflected attacks. Since his party already had dedicated attackers, a buffer and healer, and a debuffer, keeping two tanks on hand was by no means a bad choice.
When he realized that a Ward’s strength was nothing against humans bolstered by Player, much less the monsters, he had immediately wanted to use IX to gauge Rodem’s ability as a tank. It was a pity that IX had no more cards to play, but being able to completely nullify attacks from a being who had one foot outside the natural order of this world made Rodem more than adequate. If Reen would take Rosalind under her wing and teach her everything there was to know about being a tank, it would allow her to step away from the front line when needed, thereby expanding the strategies available to the party.
“Ugh!”
Having barely come to terms with the highly degrading fact that he was now little more than a test subject for Sol’s group, IX decided to take the best course of action available to him—flee. He had used Teleport to get there, and was sure he could escape the same way any time he wanted. After all, the opponents he had faced in the past had all been inferior beings who didn’t even know the spell existed.
Of course, as previously proven by a certain succubus, it was categorically impossible to escape the All Dragon. But IX didn’t even get to find this out, as his spell fizzled out right before activating. In the dozen or so seconds that he had been unsuspectingly floating in the air since the start of the fight, Eliza had woven a barrier of at least twenty layers of magic threads all around him. These threads now reacted to his cast of Teleport and severed the flow of mana that the spell needed.
When deployed, Number Three: Type Atlach-Nacha’s barrier of thread could cancel out all skills and spells that those trapped within tried to use by expending an equal amount of mana. IX’s Unlimited Sword Glint and Float only remained active because Eliza allowed it, and she could take away that permission any time she wished. The only way to get out was to use brute strength to physically tear the invisible threads that the spider nest was spun from.