“Hmph. Curse your own weakness, human...” Zeke said.
“Guh... Agh...”
Blade was really hanging on by a thread. Clearly it was the suit’s defensive capabilities that barely saved his life.
But now that Zeke’s focused on the others, it’s time for me to get ready to take him out. Seems like my only option is to fight him. I erased my presence and approached to land a surprise attack on him.
“Combination Magecraft: Broken Blade!”
Using the pieces of rubble at my feet, I created a long sword with a blade honed to the maximum possible sharpness. I’d made it in the likeness of Mumei, my favored blade two hundred years ago. If I was going to fight with a weapon, it was best I used a familiar shape.
“Gruh?”
Thanks to his attention being occupied by the Chronos members, I was given a golden opportunity. I jumped off of the roof of a nearby building and swiftly stabbed my blade through Zeke’s back and into his heart. It was a smooth attack that’d resulted in Zeke’s dark red blood spurting out, and Zeke stopping in his tracks.
“Urk! Black cat... You’re resorting to such dirty tricks?”
Hm. I know I pierced his heart, but it doesn’t look like this is enough damage to kill him.
“Die!” Zeke yelled, whipping his blade-sharp tail at me in retaliation.
The speed of it told me that my attack hadn’t been very effective. But at least I’d succeeded in diverting his attention to me. I deflected his tail with my sword.
“Hmph! You really think you can defeat me with that blunt sword? Don’t make me laugh!”
Good grief. He’s still such a pest. Looks like he hasn’t lost his insane regenerative abilities from two hundred years ago. The hole I’d pierced through his heart was already mostly closed up.
“Come on! You’re slow—too slow!”
In a fit of blind rage, Zeke began furiously attacking me.
Wow, this is nostalgic.
Even two hundred years ago, there weren’t many individuals that I could have a true, all-out battle with.
What made Zeke unique was his ability to heal. No matter how strong my attacks were, or how much I could cut him up into little shreds, he could regenerate to full health in the blink of an eye.
Though it was theoretically possible to kill him once and for all by draining his mana through repeated attacks and thus preventing him from regenerating, the bigger issue was how much mana he had. Zeke’s latent amount of mana was much higher than other demons. As such, two hundred years ago, I’d used a sealing barrier to immobilize him.
“Ha ha ha! What’s the matter, black cat? Is this really the extent of your power?! Let me have some fun at least!”
I don’t get it. The seal on him was the ultimate, highest level of Obsidian Eye magecraft. There weren’t any mages I knew who could’ve undone it, which left the following questions: who did, and why would they release Zeke?
Suddenly, I began remembering something from my time at Chaos Raid.
“Waaah! I was so scared, Sir!” Ayane, my junior at the organization, had cried on our past mission.
If it’d been Ayane, she might’ve been able to do it. I knew that she was alive from what’d happened during the school trip. She was the only one I knew who was on a similar level to me in terms of Obsidian Eye magecraft.
“Break!”
Zeke’s patience must’ve run out, after finally getting to fight the person he’d been wanting to kill for so long. I could sense that there was a very slight opening in Zeke’s large attack. I hadn’t been simply running around this whole time—I’d been waiting for this moment.
“Burning Bullet!”
I tried a counterattack of my own, using a magecraft with a short incantation speed. Though it was a basic magecraft, in my hands, it became fairly powerful.
“Gah!”
Looks like my hit landed, but didn’t do much damage. Of course, an attack of this level wasn’t going to buy me too much time, but it was more than enough. I used this moment to construct an even more powerful magecraft.
“Big Bang!”
Big Bang was the strongest magecraft from the Fire Magecraft repertoire. A massive explosion suddenly erupted, with Zeke at the epicenter. I’d been sure to make sure nobody would be caught in the blast radius, and had even made sure not to hurt the buildings. As a result, a huge crater had appeared in the middle of town.
“A-A-Ah...”
Seeing me fight like this up close must’ve left Blade, who’d been nearby, struggling to speak. His jaw dropped in disbelief.
“I-I can’t believe it... You overpowered a monster of that level? Wh-Who—what—are you?”
My identity, huh? I didn’t expect him to ask me such a philosophical question.
“I’m nobody worth remembering. I’m just a simple magecraft student.”
There was no need to reveal that I was a mage who’d reincarnated two hundred years into the future, not right now.
“Ha ha... Wow... Is this a nightmare?” Blade muttered under his breath as I saved him.
Now then. Even with Zeke’s body in pieces, I can’t let my guard down. Though his body may be gone, I can still sense his mana and his soul nearby.
“Heh heh... Not bad, black cat!”
He really is still alive. The pieces of meat that’d been blown away began swarming in one place—Zeke’s body had begun regenerating.
“I should’ve known challenging you in my human body was taking you too lightly.”
As soon as he said these ominous words, Zeke’s body transformed into the shape that I was familiar with.
“Word of warning, I still have two more transformations. One is my demon form, and the other is the form I take when I’m fighting for real!”
I had no doubt he was telling the truth. Demons typically only had two forms—a demon form and a human form—with their demon form being the more powerful of the two. Him saying that he was going to get serious with a third form might’ve sounded like a bluff, but it was more than possible that it wasn’t. Two hundred years ago when I sealed him, even then, I thought that he’d still had an ace up his sleeve.
“I’ll play the tune of your death!” he yelled, transforming from his human form into his demon form before launching an attack.
All right, I’ve finished my final preparations. Sorry, Zeke, but it doesn’t seem like you’ll get an opportunity to show me what your “serious form” looks like.
“Th-This is—” Zeke stuttered out, as the hand he was using to attack was caught in a net.
I’d used the Regalia that Robelle had used earlier. I had the thought that they’d come in handy at some point, so I took them and set them up for a trap. I’d used Big Bang not to defeat Zeke, but to buy the time I needed to set up this trap.
“You bastard! You set me up!”
He tried breaking out of the net in a fit of rage, but the quality of the build was typical of Emerson, so it was pretty strong. Even so, his strength was unbelievable; I could see him getting out of the net in a matter of seconds. But those seconds were more than enough to complete the magecraft that would allow me to completely defeat him.
“You’ve lost, Zeke.”
In the next moment, I used a magecraft that I’d developed recently—a magecraft of the highest class among Obsidian Eye magecraft. “Barrier Magecraft: Infinite Domain.”
A black barrier swarmed to cover him. The weak point of this magecraft was that it took a long time for it to activate, but thanks to Emerson and the rest buying me time, I was just able to make it.
“Urgh! Back to what you’re best at—childish tricks?! I’ll burn it all down!”
Zeke, noticing the strangeness of what was happening, immediately tried breathing fire to break the barrier, but his struggling was pointless. Time and space meant nothing in this barrier. Everything that happened inside it only happened if the caster allowed it to.
“What...?!”
Zeke’s fire breath disappeared. From his standpoint, I could only imagine the total despair he was feeling. Once inside the barrier, there was absolutely no chance to counterattack—he was completely suppressed.
“My turn,” I said.
First, I created a sword out of the rubble at my feet. There was about fifteen meters between me and him, but that didn’t matter. Inside Infinite Domain, no matter where I attacked, it would become a critical hit.
“Rrgh!”
I ran my sharp blade through his left arm, separating it from his body.
“This is where you die,” I said.
Though his regenerative abilities seemed to be functioning as normal, it didn’t matter. Inside Infinite Domain, time didn’t exist. In other words, I could keep cutting him as much as I wanted, and get close to exhausting his troublesome close-to-infinite mana supply.
“Why don’t you show me your second transformation—your full strength, or whatever.”
“You bastard! Don’t get carried away!” he howled loudly.
Before I could blink, his body had transformed and he was showing his true power—it seemed that his dragon form had a second part to it. As a result, he was now over ten meters in height, and he was releasing an unworldly pressure proportional to the near infinite mana that he had.
“Can you handle my strength?!” he roared.
Zeke was no doubt powerful, but what was about to ensue was a one-sided match. He didn’t seem to understand that any attack I made was guaranteed to hit him, and that none of his attacks would ever reach me.
As our battle progressed, the expression on his face slowly turned to that of desperation.
“H-How... How am I, the strongest demon of all, losing to a human?!”
The answer was obvious. It was true that two hundred years ago, I had no way of dealing with him on my own, but that was in the past. I was stronger now. I’d learned about modern magecraft and grown even more. I might have grown past how strong I’d been at my peak.