Infinite Dendrogram - Volume 19 - Chapter 1

Chapter One: The First Battle

Paladin, Ray Starling

The Tournaments would be held on every day of a ten-day period.

One Tournament could have a maximum of 256 participants, all of whom would have registered themselves and signed their Contracts ahead of time. Since Masters might have real-life circumstances or other factors that would prevent them from participating, those who didn’t make it to their fight by the designated time would be removed from their slot in The Tournaments. A lottery would then be held to determine their replacement, with anyone who still held a slot in the rest of the competition being ineligible.

The first four fights of The Tournaments—the preliminaries—would be staged using the barrier function that accelerated the flow of time within it. Then, from the fifth battle onward—when all but sixteen of the day’s participants had been eliminated—The Tournaments would switch back to a proper show with an actual audience. This was meant to save time, as showing every single fight would be so time-consuming that the whole thing would take much more than a single day. Even with this arrangement, though, the finals wouldn’t happen until evening—but that might have been the best time for them anyway.

The preliminaries also had one rule that the actual Tournaments did not—specifically, we weren’t allowed to know whom we would be fighting.

The brackets were randomized, and they would already be set up by the time we’d have our first battles. However, they would only be made public when we would have our top sixteen.

There were multiple reasons for this, but one of them was controlling information.

In addition to accelerating time, the barriers that would be used for the preliminaries would also prevent anyone outside from looking in. That would make it impossible to see any of the battles or find out what the other contestants were capable of. That was a big reason why we weren’t allowed to know whom we’d be fighting until we actually stepped out to face them—if the bracket was revealed any earlier, we’d be able to investigate our upcoming opponents and find out what they could do. If they were famous enough, we could even prepare for the fights by changing our gear to hard counter them. For example, if our opponent specialized in fire magic, we could give ourselves an advantage by equipping armor or accessories that gave fire resistance.

I’d known about the importance of metagaming since my time in high school. The president of the EGRS had made sure of that.

Anyway, needless to say, I was no exception, and I had no idea whom I’d be fighting first.

The final brackets would be revealed when only sixteen of us were left. This was because if the remaining contestants weren’t already famous, the probabilities of any one person winning would be affected by whoever they’d defeated in the preliminaries. It was the kind of consideration you’d expect from the City of Duels.

Well, none of this actually changed what we contestants had to do. No matter whom we were up against, we’d just have to win the four preliminary battles and try to achieve victory in the actual Tournament afterward.

The other contestants and I were now in the waiting rooms, waiting on our turns. Since there were a bunch of these, we were placed among those we wouldn’t fight in the preliminaries.

“Hm...” I wasn’t going to be fighting anyone here, at least for now, but for some reason...I could sense them staring at me.

“I see nothing surprising about that,” said Nemesis. “You have become quite famous.”

“KSHAA!”

Smol Gar was chomping on my hair again with a loud munching sound. I couldn’t tell if she was agreeing with Nemesis or not.

“Yeah...even I’m pretty aware of that by now,” I said. My battles against Dryfe’s Superiors—with the added exaggerations—had become well-known, and the others here were reasonably wary of me. Everybody must’ve been wondering what they’d do if they ended up fighting me outside of the preliminaries.

To be honest, though, I wasn’t sure if I’d even make it that far.

In this tournament, being famous was a huge disadvantage. Anyone I had to fight would know my abilities the moment I stepped into the arena. Even if they weren’t able to prepare gear that countered mine, they would still have an advantage. This was exactly what I’d experienced during The Anniversary.

I did have a few things going for me, though—namely, the fights would all take place inside an arena. I was bad at long-range combat, so the fact that we would always be close enough for me to play most of my cards was a real advantage. I even had the option of equipping my Storm Visage and filling the arena with Hellish Miasma. Now that would really give me the upper hand.

“...A truly vile thought,” said Nemesis.

Yeah, if I did it in the actual Tournament, the audience would probably boo me real hard, I thought. Especially since the miasma would probably make it impossible to see anything.

“A Paladin who forces his opponents to duel in a cloud of poison gas...quite the concept.”

Honestly, my fellow freshmen in college already think I’m some kind of devil-eating berserker. I doubt too many people would be surprised if I did do something like that.

“...Anyway, it’s almost our turn,” Nemesis said.

The contestants were being called up pretty quickly—probably because of the barrier’s effect that sped up time. Some new numbers were called just a minute after the previous ones had stepped inside, and even the longest waits weren’t longer than five minutes. Considering that this wasn’t even the only waiting room, it was all going pretty fast.

At this point, it looked like everyone’s first four battles would be over before noon.

“Ray Starling, it’s your turn next.”

“Okay.” Called by the arena’s staff, I stood up from my chair.

“How exciting,” said Nemesis as she switched to her sword form.

“KSHAA!” Smol Gar hissed regrettably as she undid the summoning effect and became my Miasmaflame Bracers once again.

I equipped my Storm Visage and put up the hood of my Black Warcoat. Now fully prepared, I left the waiting room. I heard words like “Dark Lord” and “Devil-Eater” behind me, but I pretended that I didn’t.

“Please step into the arena,” said the staff member, pointing at the black barrier enveloping the stage. “Your opponent is already inside.”

“All right.”

I supposed that having us both enter at different times was another way to prevent us from knowing our opponents.

“All right...let’s see what kind of demons lie in wait for us.”

“I am quite satisfied with one demon, thank you very much,” Nemesis said.

Oh yeah. We’ve already got Gardranda, I thought. Though, in this tournament we’re fighting for the Orb containing Stern Face-Tender Heart, Sasage—a demon-type UBM. So if we make it to the end, we’ll be getting a new demon regardless.

With that useless thought in mind, I passed the dark barrier.

While it just looked like a wall of pure darkness from the outside, it was pretty clear when looked at from the inside, like a canopy of transparent glass. The light passing through made it easy to see the entire arena, including the opponent who was about to walk in.

“Oh, there’s my enemy this ti...wait, huh?”

“Huh?”

The person who’d walked to the stage was as surprised as I was.

The reason for that was obvious—we were already acquainted.

“Now that’s some dangerous-lookin’ gear you’re wearing. You’re Ray Starling, aren’t you?”

“And you’re...Lang, right?” It was one of the Masters who’d taken to the skies with me during the battle against Monochrome. He was also a member of Riser’s Babylonian Battlegroup and had fought alongside Kasumi’s trio during King of Thieves’ terrorist attack on Altea.

What were the odds of getting him as my first opponent?

“That’s me. Hey, you mind if I call you just ‘Ray’?”

“Not at all.”

“Thanks. Heh heh...but man, I sure got the short end of the stick this time, huh?”

“Short end of the...?” What did he think I was, anyway?

“I didn’t join the tournament for nothin’, though. I won’t give up without a fight,” he said, using Instant Equip to take out a lance.

“I’m not planning to lose either,” I replied as I brandished Nemesis and hopped onto Silver’s back. Silver counted as equipment, so I could “equip” him here with no problem.

I used Reveal on Lang, but didn’t get much out of it. I could see his job, but his stats were hidden. That meant he was using something to hide them, and my skill level was too low to counter it. I’d done a similar thing to hide the accessory I’d put on as a replacement for the usual Brooch.

That wouldn’t help much in this case, though. Just as I’d feared, I ended up facing an enemy who recognized me right off the bat. It was best to assume he knew about my combat style, Counter Absorption use limit and all. The exact same thing had happened during The Anniversary.

I, on the other hand, didn’t know the first thing about Lang’s combat style. I could recall him riding a hippogryph back in Torne, but Monochrome had taken him by surprise and given him the death penalty before he could actually do any fighting. Practically speaking, I had almost zero information on him.

Since he’d died from a single hit from the laser—albeit to a critical body part—I could assume he wasn’t an END build, at least. This was supported by his Gale Rider job, so it was pretty obvious that he was focused on AGI.

“Ten seconds.”

“Hm...?” As I heard the staff start the countdown to the beginning of the match, a particular question came to mind.

Lang was a Gale Rider who had a hippogryph as a mount. Tamed monsters could be used in arenas as long as they didn’t exceed the minion capacity.

Why wasn’t he mounted like I was, then?

“Five...four...three...” Before I could come up with an answer to that, the countdown continued. “Two...one...zero!”

And with that, the match began.

“Heaven’s Circuit—Halley, activate!” Lang immediately used a skill named after a comet, drowning the arena in a blue light...

◇◇◇

Central Arena

Large crowds were gathered outside the Central Arena.

Many held tickets to The Tournaments without assigned seats. They had arrived early so they could get the best seats available.

Besides them, many people were simply out enjoying the events and food stalls that had opened up for the occasion, making the area pretty lively even by Gideon standards.

“Ah! Riser!”

“Hm? Oh! It’s been a while, Io.”

Within the crowd, Masked Riser the Kamen Rider had run into a girl he was acquainted with—Io, a member of Death Period. Both of them had been among those who had acted to protect Altea during the recent act of terrorism.

“The other two aren’t with you?”

“We split up to buy some food at the stalls. We’re getting ready to cheer for our leader!” There were quality inventories that preserved food freshness and warmth, so buying food ahead of time presented no issue.

“I see. So he’s in today’s Tournament.”

“Yeah! What about you?! The name of today’s UBM makes it sound like it’d become a mask, doesn’t it?!” Stern Face-Tender Heart, Sasage did indeed sound like it could become a demon—or more specifically oni—mask, but Riser chuckled and rejected the idea.

“I am fairly attached to my current mask, so I’m actually avoiding UBMs that could replace it. Also, while the UBM’s abilities are pretty versatile, they don’t really synergize with my build.”

“I see! It’s like how our bear wouldn’t know what to do with more costumes!”

“I guess it’s kind of similar.” In actuality, all of Shu’s MVP rewards besides one had ended up being costumes anyway, so he never had much choice to begin with—not that these two had any idea about that.

“So I suppose you’re just here to watch the fights, then!”

“Well, that’s part of it, but some members of our clan are participating too. Remember Lang? The hippogryph rider who fought with us in Altea? He’s in this one.”

“Oh, him! You don’t say... Wait...huh? I’m trying to remember—did he use his Embryo then?” Thinking back on the battle against Regina Apis Idea, Io found she did recall a Master who was riding a hippogryph. However, she couldn’t remember seeing him use his Embryo. His weapon, skills, and mount were all standard. She thought that maybe he just had an Embryo that was hard to see, but...

“He didn’t.”

...Riser immediately confirmed that wasn’t the case.

“It’s not like he was holding back, though,” he added. “It’s because his Embryo is...well, he just couldn’t use it back then.”

“Hm?” Io looked at him, puzzled, but Riser, who felt like he couldn’t reveal his own clanmate’s abilities, could do nothing but smile awkwardly.

The words “he just couldn’t use it back then,” though, said everything that needed to be said about it.

Lang’s Embryo—Speeding Comet, Halley—could only be used in a limited number of situations.

Therefore, its category had to be...

◇◇◇

Paladin, Ray Starling

“What...?”

Once the bright light subsided, my surroundings had completely changed.

There was now another boundary within the barrier—a gigantic, spherical cage made of metal the color of the night sky. Between the bars of this cage there was a metallic mesh of the same color, making it impossible for even mice to escape.

Silver and I were now trapped inside here.

Well, maybe “trapped” wasn’t the right word for it. The cage was large—about the same size as the stage itself. It didn’t limit my movements any more than the barrier did. Since this cage was spherical, the surface we were standing on was now slightly inclined, but that was the biggest change.

I tried attacking the cage with Nemesis, but it reflected her without issue. She didn’t even leave a scratch. It looked like destroying it using normal methods would be difficult.

“This is...” If this cage was an Embryo, its category must’ve been...

“Type Castle.” Nemesis finished my thought. This had to be a building Embryo. I hadn’t fought one of these since Franklin’s.

I’d heard that Castle types were rarely suited for direct combat. Many of them acted as a base or had abilities focused on crafting, and they couldn’t be moved by any means except by returning them to the crest and placing them elsewhere.

Franklin’s Pandemonium was a Castle Embryo that produced and stored monsters, and since it had legs, it could be used like a fleet carrier.

But this one...

“I see. A cage-like Castle would be useful in combat,” said Nemesis.

Obviously, a Castle that trapped your opponent would be an asset in battle. But...this one seemed a bit too big to feel like it “trapped” me, exactly. It covered the entire stage, so if it was supposed to limit my movement, that completely defeated the purpose.

And actually...where was Lang himself, anyway?

“Ha ha ha! This ain’t a cage, and it ain’t just a Castle.”

I heard a voice above me. At the very top of the spherical cage, haloed by the sun’s light, I saw a unique-looking silhouette.

“This one’s Type is...Chariot/Castle.” The figure was Lang, sitting on a large motorbike decorated with a ram on the front.

A motorbike sticking to the upper part of a sphere, and a rider sitting on it. Lang’s face was concealed, but rather than a tokusatsu hero’s mask, Lang was wearing a helmet like the ones used by racers.

“...A hybrid,” I said. His Embryo was both a Chariot—the motorbike—as well as a Castle—the cage.

This mix of spherical cage and motorbike reminded me of something I’d heard of before.

“This is a Globe of Death...!”

“You know about them? Guess I won’t have much explaining to do, then!”

A Globe of Death was a type of stunt where performers rode motorbikes inside a huge sphere made of metal mesh. Since it involved driving at high speeds without even knowing which way was up or down, it was extremely difficult and dangerous.

If this was Lang’s ult, this “Halley” Embryo must’ve been based on this exact stunt.

“...Weren’t you a hippogryph rider?” I asked.

“Unfortunately, this baby only works inside its cage,” Lang said. “I need Pete—that’s my hippogryph—so I can move around outside.”

So the hippogryph was just his spare mount, and Lang was at his strongest when he was in this cage and on that motorbike. That explained why he hadn’t used it during the battle with Monochrome—this cage sure didn’t look like it could fly.

“I heard you were like a junior Riser, and I guess that includes riding a motorcycle, huh?” I said.

“Hell yeah!” he replied with a laugh.

It really stuck out to me that he’d actually told me about his Embryo. After he’d used his ult, I’d lost sight of him for a moment, and that would have been a good opportunity for him to attack me by surprise. Had he felt that it would be unfair if I didn’t know his abilities like he knew mine?

This focus on fighting fair and square was just like Riser too.

“Anyway, I guess we should get this started, huh?” Lang said as he grasped the handle and revved up his Halley. As the engine let out a roar, the mufflers released a black smoke.

“...Yeah,” I replied. I made Silver use Wind Hoof to create a compressed air barrier. Instead of completely surrounding us, I made it holed like the metal sphere.

Then, I had my right Miasmaflame Bracer let out its Hellish Miasma. The spray of gas flowed out through the gaps in my barrier.

I instantly noticed that none of it was escaping through the metallic mesh, which made me suspect that it not only bound us physically with the visible cage, but also had some of the properties of a non-physical barrier.

“I said I got the short end of the stick, but I’m not gonna lie—the idea of fighting Ray Starling the Unbreakable has got me pretty excited.” Lang was giving me the same kind of vibe that I’d felt from the many duel rankers I’d sparred against. I could sense him smiling under that mask.

“Word of advice: try not to blink,” he said as he revved up his ride again. “My Halley...is pretty fast.”

The moment he revved a bit harder, he disappeared from sight.

My eyes widened. The trail I could see at the edge of my vision made it clear that it wasn’t teleportation, but actual extreme speed.

And I wasn’t using “extreme” lightly. I hadn’t even blinked, yet I’d already lost sight of him.

“Ah! Behind you!” Nemesis warned me, but I felt an impact before I could even turn around.

“Gh...!” The attack was so heavy it blew me and Silver away. Despite the compressed air barrier sheltering us, we both took a considerable amount of damage.

And that wasn’t all. We were sent flying all the way to the opposite part of the cage.

However, before we could actually hit the wall, a silhouette approached us.

It was Lang on his bike. I couldn’t see it before because the sunlight was drowning it out, but the bike was a blueish-white color, making it look like an actual comet speeding toward us.

The distance between us was quickly diminishing. “Nemesis!”

“Of course!” She activated Counter Absorption, and Lang drove right into it.

The damage that was supposed to reach us, as well as his kinetic energy, was taken by the barrier, briefly stopping him in his tracks.

“Purgatorial Flames!” I held up my left hand toward Lang and doused him in fire.

He quickly tried to turn away and evade it, but the fire reached him first.

“Damn it!” With his bike and rider suit singed, Lang accelerated and drove away from us. He was driving straight toward the inner wall of the spherical cage. He quickly reached a speed where I could barely see him anymore and instead of crashing into it, he began driving straight up the incline instead.

“Ah! SILVER!” Silver quickly used Wind Hoof to take refuge in the middle of the sphere, and a moment later a blue-white silhouette roared through the spot where we’d just been at a speed that not even sound could keep up with.

“...I see,” said Nemesis. “This sphere is a space where he never has to slow down.”

A Globe of Death was a stunt where the riders reached extreme speeds and spun around the inside surface of the mesh sphere until they were unable to differentiate up from down. Because of this, Lang could accelerate and crash into his opponents from anywhere as long as they were standing on the sphere.

The open space in the middle of the sphere seemed safe, but I didn’t feel like I could rely on it too much. Since this was Lang’s Embryo and this was his home turf, it was best to assume that he had some sort of counter to anyone who took refuge in the interior space.

He was still racing around the edge right now, but he would probably do something else soon.

“But man...” I said, trailing off. Lang’s speed really was insane. From what I could tell, it was considerably greater than even Marie’s, who easily broke the sound barrier.

And not only was he fast; he easily turned this speed into offensive power. If I weren’t an END build and hadn’t increased my HP with my new VDA, I might’ve gotten some bad injury-based debuffs, and my situation would’ve been pretty dire. Silver was slightly damaged too and couldn’t move as fast as usual.

“A high-rank job with a high-rank Embryo who reaches a speed like this...” said Nemesis. “I reckon there must be more to it.”

“Yeah...” There were multiple ways that enhancements to an Embryo’s abilities could be implemented, and the ones I was familiar with were “extra costs,” “conditions,” “uncontrollability,” and “limitations.”

“Extra costs” were obviously anything that enhanced skills or gave buffs using something other than MP or SP. Nemesis’s damage counter could be considered one of these.

“Conditions” were the—well, special conditions that had to be fulfilled in order for the enhancement to have an effect. In Nemesis’s case, Like a Flag Flying the Reversal was a good example.

“Uncontrollability” was trading control for raw output—in other words, discarding control over something, perhaps even making it dangerous to yourself, in exchange for increasing its power. Nemesis had nothing like this, but Miasmaflame Princess: Gardranda could be considered as such.

And finally, “limitations” were just that—anything that limited the scope or use of an ability. These included an ability having a set amount of uses or only being usable in certain environments. Needless to say, this included the use limits on my Counter Absorption.

I was pretty sure that Lang’s Halley also had to be operating under some limitations. He’d said that the bike could only be used within the metal sphere. So, by limiting where it could be used, Halley greatly enhanced its speed and charging ability as a Chariot.

The flaw with this arrangement was that it couldn’t do anything against anyone outside the cage, making Lang completely vulnerable to people with wide-range firepower, and they didn’t have to be as powerful as Shu to threaten him.

This weakness was what gave him all this speed and charging potential—but in a duel, this weakness barely meant anything.

The spherical cage was about as big as the stage itself. His opponents couldn’t get far enough away to avoid being enclosed, nor was there any space to attack him from the outside.

I would even say that it was optimized for duels.

“Lang...are you a duel ranker too?” I asked. Even as he replied, he kept up his insane speed that made him hard to see. The Doppler effect made some of it difficult to hear, but I could still make out what he said.

“I was! But right before we met, I lost to Max and got knocked outta 30th place! I hadn’t even gotten a nickname yet!” So he was an ex-ranker. The speed and attack power he had here suddenly made sense.

He was no different from all those rankers who’d outclassed me before. Were my MVP rewards enough to close the gap or even surpass him?

“...Ray, the Hellish Miasma seems to have no effect,” Nemesis notified me.

Since I’d released the poison miasma, it had filled the entire sphere. The triple debuffs it gave should’ve made it difficult for Lang to keep going as fast as he was, but he didn’t seem affected.

And then I began to notice a reason for that.

“The miasma...is being mixed with a gas.” The dark purple of the miasma was blended with something black—the gas released by the muffler as Lang revved up the bike.

I’d thought it was just the exhaust, but now it didn’t seem like it was quite that simple.

“Halley...Halley’s Comet... Oh, I get it now.” While thinking about what Lang’s Embryo was based on, I came across an explanation for the gas. “Halley’s tail...” Halley’s Comet was the first widely known example of a periodic comet, and over 130 years ago it was incorrectly theorized that its tail or “coma”—the gaseous bit—contained poison that would kill all life on earth, or that it would blow away the atmosphere and cause mass suffocation.

Of course, it had neither poisoned the earth nor rid it of oxygen, and ultimately, it turned out to be nothing worth worrying about. However, in this Embryo that was named after the comet, the dangers of its tail were very real.

The exhaust itself was a poisonous gas that filled the metal sphere. The reason why my miasma hadn’t leaked out of the cage was because it was designed to keep this gas in.

This made me realize something else.

“...So he’s wearing a gas mask too, huh?” That full-face helm must be gas-proof. He wouldn’t have used this skill if it weren’t.

Strangely enough, we’d had similar thoughts. And thanks to that, my Storm Visage protected me from his poison, but my Hellish Miasma couldn’t hurt him either.

Because of this, we both had to find another way to come out on top. However, I was having a hard time thinking of anything that would work on him.

Lang moved around at incredible speeds. I couldn’t catch up to him, and even landing a counterattack was a challenge.

Payback had to be charged, while Shining Despair was even harder to land than a regular counterattack. The same could be said about Grand Cross, which took a moment to activate. Using Chaser to copy his stats probably wouldn’t do much good either. It wasn’t Lang himself who was fast, but his mount. Taking his AGI wouldn’t let me catch up.

“He said he lost to Max, though...” Nemesis noted. I knew about Max—she was one of Juliet’s friends and one of the duel rankers. We’d recently teamed up for a quest, and she’d participated in The Anniversary too.

I vaguely knew her combat style and could imagine how she’d beaten Lang...but that didn’t help me much. Her Ipetam had the ability to create lots of swords that she could use like drones. She must’ve filled the cage with them, making it impossible for Lang to ride properly.

That was something I couldn’t do.

What else was there, then? Could I fill the area with Purgatorial Flames and cook him slowly? “No, I need something else...” I muttered. I got goosebumps just trying to search for some card I had to play.

This was a warning sign—my instincts were reacting to a danger my mind hadn’t consciously recognized yet.

I pulled Silver’s reins and dodged slightly to the side. The next moment, a blue-white silhouette passed by me at supersonic speeds.

Taking Silver’s left plating and my left leg with it, the speeding figure pierced through to the other side of the cage.

“...Wh-What?!” I did my best to stabilize myself so I could stay mounted on Silver. I was so stunned it took my mind a moment to catch up and realize that the silhouette was just my opponent speeding around on his bike.

Spinning like a bullet, he’d flown through the air straight toward me. My guess was that he’d somehow jumped his bike off the cage’s wall the moment his speed reached the maximum.

The move was like a racer flying uncontrollably off the course, but it had enough power to pulverize both me and Silver.

“Gh...!” I looked at the wall he’d flown toward, but there was nothing there now. I didn’t see the destroyed remains of Lang or his bike, and I could only hear the engine sounds ahead as I tried and failed to catch up with him.

It seemed like he’d landed without a problem and was accelerating once more.

“...How does that technique work?” Nemesis, who’d finally caught up with the situation, said with mixed terror and amazement.

I was wondering the same thing—except I thought this technique seemed familiar somehow.

Back when I was in high school, our clubroom had volumes of a hobbyist manga about four-wheel drive car races lying around. I’d read them, and I was pretty sure I’d seen a technique like this in there. Doing it with a bike you were still riding seemed extremely reckless, but Lang was the Master of Halley—an Embryo focused on bike stunts. For all I knew, he was the perfect candidate for pulling off such a dangerous move.

“So he can even run us down if we’re in the air. How shall we approach this, then?” Nemesis asked, slightly distressed.

Lang had already begun accelerating again, and he would probably pull that stunt on us one more time.

I felt like we barely had thirty seconds until the next attack, if that. If he kept up this hit and run strategy, we’d eventually mess up on our defense and be defeated. We could use Counter Absorption to cancel both his damage and kinetic energy, but he was so fast that we couldn’t tell which direction he’d attack from. We’d most likely put up the barrier on the wrong side.

“...That leaves just one thing.” The situation wasn’t great for us, but we still had one card we could play.

“Our MP stores...are good.” After the battle at the peace talks, I’d uncursed a whole lot of items. The nameless axe was an especially good source, and my Grudge-Soaked Greaves now had enough grudge to use that. Even though I’d lost the left one along with my leg, I probably didn’t need more than the right for this.

The rest depended on how Halley worked—but in the worst-case scenario, I’d cover for it with Hellish Miasma.

“Ray...are you actually planning to use that?”

Yes, I am, I thought in response.

“Are you certain it’s a good idea?”

We have Halley and the duel barrier. That’s two layers of protection. Also, we don’t have an audience this time, and I don’t think it’ll be enough power to break out. And honestly...I doubt we’ll need to make it that powerful anyway.

“I suppose we can give it a try, then,” Nemesis said.

“Yeah,” I said as I lightly tapped Silver’s neck. “You know what to do, Silver.”

My steed let out a noise that was almost like a neigh.

And I...

“Wind Hoof...Activate.”

...prepared to use a certain tactic.

◆◇◆

Central Arena, Stage

“He’s tough,” said Lang to himself. “Just what I’d expect from Ray Starling the Unbreakable!”

He was speeding along Halley’s walls, half excited and half tense. The poison gas skill his Embryo had—Halley’s Tail—was still active, since it would give him the upper hand if the suffocating poison gave his opponent a debuff. The person he was fighting right now, however, seemed to have nullified this effect in the same way Lang himself did.

But that wasn’t a problem, since Lang had one more way of fighting—in this case, his max-speed flying charge attack.

Halley the bike could only work within Halley the metal sphere. It could only travel within this dark metal cage like a comet speeding through the night sky.

But because of this, within the cage, Halley’s speed was unmatched.

Combined with Lang’s job as Gale Rider, Halley could currently go over five times faster than the speed of sound. It needed some time to accelerate, but once it topped out, it had a level of speed and power that was completely unexpected from a fifth-form Embryo.

That held true even if it was in the air, and unless they had some special means of defense or incredibly high stats, anyone would die instantly when hit by four hundred kilos of raging metal moving at those unreal speeds.

Most of his defeats in duels—including the one against Max—had been because he was defeated before he could reach his maximum speed.

Because of this, people like Ray—who stayed in the air and observed—were only setting him up for victory. As long as Lang attacked at the right time and from an angle where Ray couldn’t defend with Counter Absorption, he could end this battle in a single hit.

That was what he’d planned to do with his first flight, but Ray’s own instincts prevented that. The deadly attack had only taken away a part of Ray’s body, and Lang was forced to accelerate once again.

Even so, it was effective enough to make him certain he could win if he only landed a direct hit.

Twenty seconds until I top out! I’m moving at a speed he can’t even track! I’ll win as long as I don’t let him guess the timing of my next jump, and I make him miss with Counter Absorption... Lang thought. It didn’t even matter to him if Ray dodged the attack, since he could just repeat it over and over.

All he had to worry about was a scenario in which Ray used Counter Absorption with the correct timing and direction, but that was pretty unlikely.

Lang truly believed he could win this.

And that was when something happened to Ray.

That’s... Lang began to realize what was going on.

Ray...or to be more precise, Silver underwent a change.

He was gathering the surrounding air and building the compressed air barrier once again. The barrier was all black, likely due to the miasma and poison gas that flooded Halley’s cage.

I guess he wants to defend against my jump! It’s my most powerful attack, though—it’s gonna take a real good wall to protect against it! Lang was confident that his momentum could break through even Mithril and Ancient Legendary metal, so a wall of air barely fazed him.

He also realized that Ray may have also been using this omnidirectional barrier to determine where Lang’s attack was coming from and then use Counter Absorption, instead of trying to block it.

“Now that’s an idea! Let’s see if you’re fast enough!” Lang cried.

Thus passed a window of time that felt both short and long.

By the time Lang reached his maximum speed, Silver...was still gathering the air.

Despite that, he wasn’t creating a vacuum. Halley had a function that prevented air from flowing out so that the poison gas from Halley’s Tail could stay within its confines, but there was nothing keeping air from flowing in. The arena barrier also worked in a similar way in order to prevent vacuums caused by fires and the like.

The presence of air or the lack of it, though, didn’t affect Lang and Halley’s speed at all.

“A balloon’s not gonna protect you—doesn’t matter how thick it is!” Lang shouted as he prepared to jump with his bike for the finishing move.

Wait, no... In a moment, Lang’s instincts told him something his mind didn’t, just as Ray’s had earlier.

Or more accurately, they’d remembered something.

It was a scene he’d witnessed—a color he was familiar with.

The reason Silver’s barrier was black wasn’t because of how much poison gas it was absorbing.

The blackness was due to the air in the barrier being so dense that not even light could pass through it.

This is... Lang knew about this strategy. In fact, most people with ties to Gideon knew about it.

It was the tactic that had led to Ray becoming known as the “Unbreakable.”

It was a trick well outside Ray’s usual combat repertoire, used only in that specific battle.

“Wind Hoof, cancel.”

It was the Wind Hoof Bomb—a compressed air explosion.

The immense volume of air that had been compressed was released with Ray’s words. The blast of air delivered destruction in every direction, and this time it was far worse than it had been when used against RSK—and that was because of Halley itself, which didn’t let any air escape outside.

This was like dynamite going off inside a safe. In this airtight space, the blast was extremely fearsome.

Even so, it wasn’t enough to shatter Halley’s bars. The sturdy Castle designed to not let anyone out was able to withstand an explosion like this.

However, there was something that couldn’t.

It was neither the safe nor the dynamite in this case—it was the safe’s contents, lacking the endurance of the exterior—Lang himself.

As the interior of Halley was engulfed in violent destruction, his HP quickly began to drop...

...and it reached 0 before Ray’s did.