Kanata’s face tensed up when the surprise attack he had been so confident in failed. To Vandal, of course, Detect Danger: Death had been reacting while the Kanata was prostrating himself on the ground. That was why Vandal had been watching so closely. Kanata had thought he saw an opening simply because he couldn’t read Vandal’s expressionless face. To top it all off, Vandal had already heard about Kanata’s power from the spirits of those he had killed. He had been pretty much ready for what happened, as he had already assumed that taking cover or using barriers wasn’t going to work.
“Hold on, please! I’m not doing this because I want to! It’s all Rodocolte!” Kanata recovered from his shock and channeled his surprise to start trying to explain himself again. Eleonora and Zulan, who saw no point in listening to him further, were ready to attack at once. But the name of the god he spoke created a moment of hesitation for Vandal. “I got cursed by that scum-sucker too! I can prove it—eat this!”
Kanata lied about being cursed and then threw the set of knives he had also been concealing in the ground with his crossbow.
“Hah! The same trick again?” Eleonora and Zulan moved to knock down the knives even as they passed through the barrier.
The moment they moved, Kanata celebrated. Got them! Lucky me, stealing these magic items! He had thrown magic items that he had stolen from the adventurer party Western Calm. Any strong impact on the blades made them explode, scattering fragments and smoke. His plan was to use the resulting smokescreen to rush forward and stab Vandal himself. Eleonora and Zulan would then kill him, surely, but he didn’t care about that. So long as he killed Vandal, his job here was done. Getting killed as a result just saved him from having to kill himself, and his fourth life of luxury could begin.
“Hold on! Don’t touch them!”
Just before Eleonora and Zulan touched the knives, however, a shadow moved in between them and their target. Some of the burning phantoms took the knives into their own bodies and contained them.
“These knives will explode to create a smokescreen! They come from our belongings! We know what they do!”
It was the same adventurers of the Western Calm, who had been killed by Kanata and turned into Fire Phantoms alongside Princess Lebia and the others.
“What do you want to do next?” Vandal asked. “If you have any last words, you can go ahead. I’m listening.”
Kanata’s face twisted with annoyance. His surprise attack had been foiled, and his backup had failed as well. “Gah! Belt of Flame, dance!” Kanata cut himself off from Vandal’s view with a blazing lash of fire magic and then leapt backward to put some distance between them.
The phantoms started to shout. “Enough games! Stand and fight!”
“You’ll pay for this!”
“Everyone, please, do as I said and leave this to me,” Vandal said. “Zulan, you take charge of Lefdia. I want to get some idea of how strong the other reborn will be, and I have some new skills I want to try too.”
Vandal used Steal Heat to instantly extinguish the raging flames and then followed up by deploying some powerful poison from his tongue and claws. Undead like Zulan, and Eleonora with her Resist Maladies, wouldn’t be affected.
“Floor, ground.” Vandal was proving faster than Kanata had expected. He quickly used Gungnir to pass through the floor and hide.
“Fall back, Death Shot.” Vandal instantly turned the ground into golems to expose Kanata, then used Detect Life to find his location and fired off Death Shots toward him.
“Argh! He’s so quick!” Kanata found the ground he thought had been shielding him actively moving out of the way. Completely unprotected, he managed to overcome his surprise in time to avoid the incoming Death Shot, only getting grazed by it. Now it was Vandal’s turn to be surprised—there should have been enough magic in that attack to kill him even from just a scratch, but Kanata was still up and zipping around. The poison also didn’t seem to be working.
“Based on your speed and the strength of your magic, I’d say your stats are similar to mine, perhaps a little higher,” Vandal observed. “But you don’t seem to have an unimaginable reserve of vitality, either. I’m guessing Rodocolte didn’t curse you. Rather, he gave you resistances.”
“Great Immolation, magical power!” Kanata ignored Vandal’s theorizing and launched a large-scale fire attribute spell. It was a technique that used intense temperatures to burn everything in its range to ash. Normally, he’d be able to use his barrier or that heal stealing technique to stop it, but I used Gungnir immediately afterward! There’s no way for him to protect against this heat! He’s going to roast alive, along with all his crazy creatures!
Kanata breathed a sigh of relief, assured of his victory. Once the flames died down a little more, he turned off Gungnir and used wind magic to create a vacuum, sucking away the last of the fire. His work was done here once Vandal was dead. He had been planning to kill himself and set off into his fourth life of luxury, but he also wasn’t dumb enough to choose death without confirming that the job was actually done.
“That was a bold move, even engulfing yourself.”
Vandal was standing there, covered in flames.
“Jesus! What the hell magic is that?!”
“Actually, my new friends are protecting me.”
“Who?” Kanata couldn’t believe his eyes. The flames around Vandal flickered and formed into female shapes. “No! Those dead bitches?!” He had seen their faces before. “Damn it! I drenched myself in holy water for nothing!”
The fire women were none other than the merchant’s daughter, Hanna, the receptionist from the guild, Aria, and all the other women Kanata had killed since coming to Ramda.
“You never made undead like that before!” Kanata shouted. “Not on Origin or here!”
“You know, I just learned how to do this. It’s going to need a name. How about Fire Elemental’s Embrace?”
Behind Vandal, the Fire Phantoms were protecting Zulan and Eleonora in the same way. The two of them looked pretty pleased at how things were turning out.
“He’s no match for Lord Vandal, is he?” Eleonora said.
“Nope. Can’t believe I was worried about this loser,” Zulan agreed.
The two of them were correct. This was no longer anything close to a fight to the death. It was completely one-sided, and Kanata was on the losing side.
“Can you do this for me?” Vandal asked, providing some MP and intent to the Fire Phantoms.
“Leave it to us!”
They were more like fire wraiths now. And those wraiths started to attack Kanata. Some of them turned into spears of flame, some of them slithered in like snakes, and some turned into giant skulls. All of them sought to burn Kanata with their blazing black fire.
This was the effect of the Necromancy Magic that Vandal had just learned. The name might have suggested the kind of things Vandal already did, such as turning corpses into zombies and skeletons, but it was actually a skill much more like Elemental Magic.
Elemental Magicians provided elementals with MP and the caster’s intentions, allowing them to cast spells with more efficiency than normal attribute magic. The principle here was the same. Vandal shared his power and wishes with the phantoms, and they performed the magic for him. The Fire Phantoms were under the influence of Death Attribute Allure, and quite a few of them had been killed by Kanata himself. Their attacks showed no mercy.
Kanata tried to dodge the attacks, at first, but these were Fire Phantoms that had turned themselves into fiery spears, snakes, and skulls. They chased him down no matter how he tried to avoid them.
“F-Fire, Wind—gaaaaah! Why isn’t it working?” Kanata turned on Gungnir and tried to fight back with wind magic. He had expected the black flames to just pass through his body, but that wasn’t what happened. When he started to burn, his screams cut off his attempt to cast magic.