“Tsk!”
Sheila’s sudden disappearance had my body moving before I could even think. By my hand, dozens of barriers—both magic and physical—layered over me, ready to block any type of attack.
BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM!
Successive explosions rattled by my ear. It was the sound of all my shields being shattered in an instant.
“How—?!”
I wasn’t looking down on Sheila. Far from it, I’d even deployed extra barriers for good measure. But she still broke through it all somehow.
Unfortunately, there was no time to stop and analyze my opponent. I redeployed my barriers up front in an alternating pattern, like stacking dozens of ingredients on a sandwich.
“A crafty little trick!”
Beyond my barriers, Sheila stopped for a moment—making herself visible again—to brandish her sword. Then, she charged in and once again shattered all my barriers, rattling the air with a series of loud explosions.
Absolute Force Shield and Absolute Magic Shield were, as their names suggested, ultimate barriers against physical and magical attacks respectively. In exchange for serving as the absolute defense against one type of attack, they were utterly useless to the other. The physical barrier was useless against magic, and the magic barrier against physical attacks.
When arranged in a pattern like so, you could only break through them by constantly swapping between magical and physical attacks—yet my efforts hardly seemed to have stalled Sheila in any way.
The hows and whys escaped me as of now, but the fact of the matter was that Sheila was alternately dishing out physical and magical attacks at a high speed. Not only could she wield both types of attacks, she could even use them both as freely and naturally as breathing.
Before all my barriers were shattered, I launched a quick magical counterattack with Magic Missile. Sheila cut down all forty-seven of them and parried my singular follow-up, Full Impact.
But I hadn’t thrown those out for naught. While she was busy dealing with those spells, I’d managed to strengthen myself with enhancement magic—just in time to engage in close-quarters combat.
“You’ve gotten much stronger,” I remarked as we exchanged blows.
“Oho ho ho ho! But of course!”
“Then how’s this? Amelia Emilia Claudia...”
I mustered all of my amplified mana into one spell—Time Stop. Sheila might be fast, but that meant nothing if time was frozen. Not even the dragons were immune to this spell. It was my go-to for tricky battles like these.
BAM!
Suddenly, a heavy impact ran through the top of my head. My vision turned white, and for a second, I completely lost my bearings. That single blow had caught me off guard and thrown me into disarray.
“Dodge.”
I jumped back again, my body moving sooner than I could think. Something sharp just barely grazed the tip of my nose, but I managed to save the rest of my body.
“Thanks,” I quickly told Lardon as I healed myself with magic.
When I turned my gaze forward, I saw Sheila bearing down on me, her eyebrows arched in surprise. “Oh my... I thought I had you just now,” she muttered before moving too fast to see again.
“I’m not done yet.”
“So it would seem. Good, good!”
With one more aria, I cast Another Dimension to replenish my mana. Though Time Stop hadn’t fully activated, it still cost me some.
BAM!
My head was subjected to yet another heavy blow—though after the first, I saw this one coming. My vision flashed white, but I bore with it through gritted teeth and immediately healed myself.
“This is nothing!”
“I suppose the same trick wouldn’t work twice,” Sheila said breezily. “But what of it? This changes nothing.”
“Yes, it does.”
“What did you say?”
Though I could hear Sheila, I still couldn’t see her. She moved too fast for my eyes to follow while breaking my barriers. Conversing with someone invisible to me was a strange experience, but I kept talking anyway—it bought me some precious time.
“After two hits, I’ve pretty much gotten the gist of it... You’re using magic that reacts to large amounts of mana, aren’t you?”
There was a notable pause from Sheila. “Impressive...” She sounded a little bitter—which meant my assessment must be correct.
“That’s my line,” I replied. “That magic is extremely reactive. It can stop a spell the moment it consumes a large amount of mana. In practice, that makes it as fast as my time-stopping spell.”
A beat later, Sheila revealed herself. Her expression showed no hint of the bitterness I’d previously heard from her voice. “Oho ho ho ho! Precisely. This is my new technique, my very own secret weapon! Superior speed... So simple, yet so powerful. And so frighteningly effective—as you now know firsthand, I’m certain.”
“Definitely.”
“Oh my, what’s this? You’re awfully meek today. May I take that as a declaration of surrender?”
“No. I think I can do something about that.”
“Oh...?” Sheila narrowed her eyes. Her lips were smiling, but her eyes were dead serious. She seemed to be challenging me, daring me to do just that.
Challenge accepted.
“Covenant Summoning: Liam!”
The sight of my clone caused a subtle twitch on Sheila’s eyebrow.
This spell didn’t cost enough mana to trigger her secret weapon. My clone and I chanted an aria, our voices meshing as one, and simultaneously cast Time Stop. My clone was blasted away—and Time Stop activated.
I knew it—that magic of hers can only react to one thing at a time!
My clone finished the spell just a smidge earlier than I had. By using him as a decoy, I was able to cast mine. With time suspended, I casually walked forward, circled around Sheila, and brandished my hand over her back.
Finally, time resumed.
Sheila solemnly closed her eyes.
“Well played,” she said, readily conceding when she realized that she’d been bested.