“Gaaaaaaah?!” The Bone-Eating General screamed as the giant skeleton’s sternum exploded. The rib cage shattered too, and the impact toppled it on its back. “H-How?! How could my Giant Marionette be defeated?!” He crawled out of the broken rib cage like a tiny insect fleeing its nest. “That’s impossible! My Giant Marionette is invincible! There is no way it would lose!”
“If those are your last words, then you must have had a really boring life,” Caim said coldly, sending a shiver down the old assassin’s spine. Caim was currently standing midair just above him. “I absorbed Millicia’s Sacred Arts and used Ouryuu. It was an unpracticed, improvised move, but it worked.”
Caim had accomplished what magic researchers called synchronicity—the act of multiple people combining their mana to use a single spell. Millicia had injected the purifying power of her Sacred Arts into Caim, and then he had released it together with his own mana. Ouryuu was a technique that sent a shock wave inside the opponent’s body, so it bypassed the mithril coating and exploded directly inside the bones, destroying the giant skeleton’s rib cage.
“That might not have worked if the mithril plating had been a little thicker, though... But anyway, how does it feel to be defeated by the woman you wanted to make into your plaything?” Caim sneered at the Bone-Eating General, glaring down at him. “You must be thrilled, no? I heard from Rozbeth that you’re a dirty old man who loves to torment women. It was Millicia’s mana that defeated you, so how does it feel to lose to the girl you were so eager to play with?”
“Y-You damn brat... I still haven’t lost yet!” The Bone-Eating General ordered the half-destroyed giant skeleton to attack Caim.
“Kirin.”
“Gah!” But it was too slow. Caim fired a spiraling mana shock wave that pierced his left side of his chest and shoulder. And yet, the old assassin still lived. “Ugh... Yo...u...”
“So I was right. You aren’t human anymore.”
“In that case, I shall deal with him,” Millicia said, seeing that the old man was still moving even with a hole in his chest. She had depleted almost all of her mana earlier, but she still had enough left to purify one more undead.
“Sto...p...”
“Holy Circlet.”
“Aaaaaaaaaaah!”
The withered old man—the Bone-Eating General, a feared, cunning veteran assassin—was disintegrated by the purifying light of Millicia’s Sacred Arts.