“You little piece of... traaaaaaash...!” he bellowed, swinging down a clenched fist.
The intense backhand blow bashed Horn’s face and sent her flying backwards.
“Nngh?!” she moaned as the hit blew her away.
She wobbled to her feet, blood dripping from her nose, staining her clothes red. Doriadanph was supposed to be some kind of mage, but his body wasn’t just fat — he definitely had brute strength too.
“You thought you could kill me with that measly dagger?!” he howled at her.
“Uu, uuu...” Horn breathed out bitterly.
Doriadanph was bleeding from his flank, but it was by no means a fatal blow. A potion would easily heal that wound. But that did make something clear: Doriadanph was definitely susceptible to physical attacks. On the other hand, it turned out he was surprisingly sturdy, but his defense was much less than his magic resistance, which allowed him to shrug off a Cross Blizzard.
Still, he took an attack from a level 80 thief and even launched a counterattack!
He had the body of a warrior.
“You puny little girl! I’ll crush your limbs and toss you into a Magimatic Sol!”
“Agh, nng...” Horn wheezed.
“To think you would injure m—”
But then, Doriadanph trailed off, and his eyes darted around in a panic as his hands flew to his throat. His lips moved, but his voice wouldn’t come out. Horn wiped her nose, but it was probably broken, because the bleeding wouldn’t stop.
“The sorcerer-killing dagger! Cast Breaker!” she exclaimed in a muffled voice and raised her dagger.
It was the dagger she borrowed from Diablo’s vault earlier.
A poisonous dagger that paralyzed the tongue, its special effect was that it inflicted the silence status on the target for a set amount of time after dealing damage. In the game, bashing mage characters down with physical attacks was a much more reliable way of defeating them than inflicting status ailments. To that end, Diablo treated it as a dud SSR.
But in this world, the silence status actually took away the victim’s voice. This means Doriadanph couldn’t give orders to his soldiers, or direct demands at the enslaved pilots. Doriadanph’s lips flapped ardently — he was likely shouting — but no voice came out of his throat.
He gestured with his hands, as if demanding something from the onlooking soldiers standing outside the courtyard. Perhaps he was telling them to get him a potion for curing status ailments. With so many soldiers around, one of them must have had something.
But a stir seemed to move through the soldiers. Not one of them was willing to help him. Doriadanph was barking silent orders from the center of the courtyard, but all the soldiers did was stare at him. The three Magimatic Sols did the same.
“Haa... Nng... We’ve been ordered to kill you intruders. So we will!” Raumunus of the Ash whispered. “But for just a little... Bear with it!”
“Haa... Haa...”
The two of them tried resisting the orders of the enslavement magic placed on them, as did Toaha.
“What should we dooooo? I was looking forward to fighting this sorcerer, buuuut, the one I really wanna kill the most is that fat piiiig.”
Even though she was a berserker addicted to combat, Toaha held a great grudge against Doriadanph.
“Nng, aah...” Horn wheezed as she held up her dagger. “I’ll defeat him! I will!”
“Aaag, gaaah!”
Doriadanph cradled his injured flank as bloodlust overflowed from his body. It felt like they were facing an injured, enraged bear. But despite being a child, she was still a high-level thief. She wouldn’t fall behind when it came to melee combat.
Still, Diablo wasn’t going to simply stand back and watch. He plunged forward.
“《Sword Smite III》!”
He closed the distance in the blink of an eye, and at the same moment drew a longsword from his pouch. It was the 《Seraphix Sword》 he used for training purposes, but it was still more than enough to finish off this injured Magimatic mage.
Diablo further augmented the blow with Outer Glow. It was a technique he’d learned in the southern frontier of Caliture, and though he’d practiced using it many times on the way back to the capital, he hadn’t quite mastered using it. That said, he didn’t sit in the cart doing nothing the whole journey.
He mixed the martial arts he learned from the Swordmaster Sasara with the power of the Glow, which he’d learned from the Gadou school’s assistant instructor, Solami.
“《Heat Sonic》!”
This martial art was unlocked by becoming a level 80 warrior. By level 120, one could unlock Heat Sonic II. While Diablo could only use its lower rank variant, it still dealt high damage. The longsword shone red with heat as Diablo raised it against Doriadanph.
Doriadanph noticed him, turning around to face him with a hand thrust forward. He was already covered in blood from his stab wound.
Did he use Magimatic sorcery?!
But while his lips moved, Doriadanph’s voice wouldn’t come out. Diablo didn’t know how much in common Cross Reverie’s sorcerers had with Girls’ Arms’ Magimatic mages, but apparently the latter had no spells they could cast while silenced. Nothing happened.
Diablo held his sword, glowing red with heat, in the air.
Am I going to kill someone again...?
“Kuh...!”
Diablo could see Horn at the edge of his vision, holding up her dagger. Behind him was Rose. Should he have let them do it... and not sully his hand?
If I do it, I know I’ll always regret it...!
He had to push forward and do it. And in so doing, protect the things he held dear.
Diablo parted his lips, exclaiming for everyone to hear.
“I am Diablo! A Demon Lord from another world! All who defy me will regret their foolishness in the depths of hell!”