Juliet flapped her wings, trying to fight against the pull, but then G pulled the trident back, preparing to skewer her catch.
“Not happening!” Using my enhanced leg strength, I stuck out my left hand and rushed toward G. “Purgatorial Flames!”
The bracer opened its maw, releasing scorching flames from within.
“Whoa?!” G jumped away before they could reach her, but that made the thread of light vanish, freeing Juliet.
“That was enough to break it?” The thread of light had appeared without even a skill declaration, and it had disappeared just as easily. Maybe it was the type of thing that only activated under certain conditions?
“It probably requires her to look at her target or stay still herself... I think.” Juliet answered my question.
She’d actually experienced it, so she could probably feel a little bit of how it worked. The flames had blocked G’s vision of Juliet, and she’d moved away to dodge them. It seemed pretty likely that either of those things had interfered with the thread’s effect.
“That’s a good guess, Julie! You’re right! Harodihg Gnik’s ‘Attraction Anchor’ requires line of sight to work!” And with that, G herself once again revealed the nature of her power to us—as well as the viewers who would watch the video.
It’s rare to see people who reveal their hand so casually, I thought.
“‘Harodihg Gnik,’ though?” I said, after a moment. “That name’s pretty hard to say... Hold on! Is that seriously what it’s called?!”
When I realized what the name was when you read it backward, I couldn’t help but make that comment.
“Hey, this was made for me by my clan members. What’s your problem with the name? You’re being rude.”
“I’m being rude?! Tell that to whoever named it!”
“Hm?” G and even Juliet both tilted their heads, clearly not sure what I meant.
“You don’t even get the reference?! Damn it! First the monsters, now the weapon... Do you have anything with a normal name?!”
I mean, I get that these weird names might spice up the video, but still...!
There was one conclusion we could draw from the battle so far, though—that G actually was a combatant who used both weapons and magic, much like Juliet. She wasn’t the type who was impossible to counter on the first try, and she didn’t have any gimmicks that made her pretty much unbeatable. Sure, she had advantages like R’lyeh blocking all attacks from the outside and her ability to choose our location when we went inside, but they were irrelevant now that we were inside and fighting her.
Though, again... If she really wanted to have the arena, she could’ve just dumped us right into some instakill traps.
It really did seem like the arena and avenging F weren’t actually her top priorities.
“I already knew this from your videos, but you make a good comedic straight man! You’d be a great addition to my work. Would you like to appear in more of these? Julie can join too!”
“Nope.”
“Huh?” I sure as hell don’t wanna deal with a mischievous criminal more than I have to, but... Juliet, why do you sound a bit disappointed?
“Okay! I guess I’ll have to make the most out of...this!”
Laughing at my answer, G charged at me.
“Juliet!”
“Oh. Right!”
Juliet instantly understood what I meant and released a barrage of dark magic. Launched toward G’s head, it completely obscured her vision.
“You sure think fast! Already countering Harodihg Gnik, huh? But...!”
Though her threads of light were disabled, G didn’t falter one bit. She used dark magic of her own and swung the trident at Juliet, who met it with her sword.
G’s eyes widened. Her trident clashed with Juliet’s blade—but unlike me, she wasn’t sent flying backward.
“That sword...!” G said. While the two of them were locked sword to trident, G and I both noticed that Juliet had at some point switched her weapon.
It was a sword of a pure black color—the new weapon she’d won in her Tournament.
Its name was “Spiritblade Gleam, Gradsoul,” and it had come from Spiritblade Rider, Gradsoul—Juliet’s reward for Tournament day four and an Ancient Legendary UBM that converted grudge into power, just like the Revenant Ox-Horse, Gouz-Maise.
Adjusted to suit Juliet, the dark blade Gradsoul had two skills.
First was Curse Conversion. When cursed with the Fallen Knight’s “Darkness of Valediction,” it converted it into a buff for Juliet, giving a fifty percent increase to all her stats except HP, MP, and SP.
Clad in a dark, cursed aura, the sword had already activated this skill, empowering Juliet and giving her stats that brought her up to the Overlord’s level, if not higher.
“I saw you use that while sparring! It looks really useful! I’m kinda jealous!”
“Th-Thanks...!”
Now that Juliet was buffed too, we had the upper hand. G’s stats were very high. She was on about the same level as Juliet right now, as well as me with all my Reversed debuffs.
However...stats weren’t everything.
“G herself is not that skilled,” said Nemesis. Indeed—she was nothing like Figaro, Kashimiya, or other ranking duelists.
From our battle so far, I could tell that her fighting ability was limited by her use of sense skills—it was something that any regular player could have. Even if she had high stats, in practice she would lose against Juliet, who had both an SJ and excellent combat instincts—and her Embryo, R’lyeh, could hardly contribute to battles like this.
If we both attacked G now, we’d definitely overpower her.
Juliet demonstrated this fact by slashing close enough to slice off a bit of G’s hair.
G backed away, touching the now-shortened lock of hair. Her eyes widened as she looked at us.
“Yeah! This could be pretty bad for me!” G casually admitted that she was at a disadvantage.
“Could you stop this, then? If you turn off the ult...”
“Hm? You misunderstood, Julie. I said this could be bad for me. Not that it is.” G shook her head as she denied Juliet’s suggestion. “If anything, the fun is just getting started.”
Her smile grew wider, and a moment later, she jumped even farther back.
She was headed behind the throne—to the blue waterfall endlessly flowing from the ceiling.
It had just looked like part of the decor at first, but it turned out that it was more than that...
“Ah ha ha ha ha!” G jumped into the plunge pool, and her skin started melting away.
It didn’t end there either. According to Reveal, she was now afflicted with seven debuffs—Poison, Magic Drain, Soul Drain, Weakness, Lethargy, Paralysis, and Frailty.
“These debuffs... Wait, that waterfall is...!”
“Yes! It’s a source of the debuffs flowing through the Depths of Jealousy! R’lyeh could only take one of those sources... But that’s more than enough! That’s exactly why this place is the goal!” Despite being afflicted by so many status effects, G was still laughing. Like an ascetic meditating beneath a waterfall, she exposed herself to the deadly torrent.
The scene made Juliet’s eyes widen and her face turn pale. It felt like she couldn’t wrap her head around what G was doing or why.
“When I first watched the Unbreakable fight the Hell General...” The Overlord didn’t seem to care about her awful condition. Instead she just kept talking to me, or Juliet—or maybe to the cameras that were probably installed all over the place here. “This was before the Unbreakable’s fight against my brother, so I watched it like anyone would watch a viral video about a newbie. And it made me think...”
G placed her left hand on her chest and cracked a smile that only grew wider and wider.
“‘Oh, someone’s doing the same thing as me.’”
My eyes widened as I instantly understood those words.
“By the way,” G continued, “do you know what dark lords in RPGs always have?”
“What?”
“Ah...!” Juliet seemed confused, but I knew exactly what she was saying.
The bad feeling I had quickly turned to panic, and I rushed toward G.
I got to the plunge pool, but before I could swing my halberd...
“Paradigm Shift.”
...Overlord Invidia’s form was engulfed in a sinister light.