Hugo nodded and ordered three short-distance type puppet soldiers to chase after the three of them, who were running at full speed. However, even with the support of the puppet soldiers, the three of them had no chance of winning if they fought the Elemental Soldiers head-on.
That was why we were using tactic number 15.
「Shift Change, activate」
The moment the three of them clashed with the Elemental Soldiers, Hugo increased the speed of the puppet soldiers and at same time, he activated his new Skill.
When the Elemental Soldiers tried to smash the puppet soldiers, all of a sudden, the positions of the puppet soldiers and the Elemental Soldiers swapped. Unable to stop their attacks so abruptly, light on light, dark on dark, the Elemental Soldiers ended up hitting one another.
Puppet Skill: Shift Change
A Skill that switches the position of the target and the puppet soldier controlled by the user.
Through the tactic numbers, Hugo and I shared the knowledge of the timing and how the Shift Change was to be used. The Elemental Soldiers, which were made to attack one another through tactic number 15, took a great deal of damage from one another.
「Now! Follow-up attacks!」
「Accel——Duodecuple!」
「Iai Slash!」
「Divine Impact!」
「Union Burst!」
That simultaneous attack by the four of them, which was deserving of being called a certain-death attack, completed destroyed the Elemental Soldiers. We had succeeded in wiping out all of the subordinates. However, Elemental Soldiers were beings without a real body. So long as Noble Blood’s magic power held out, he would probably be able to re-summon them as many times as he wished.
「Don't give him an opening to re-summon them! Kouga and Alma, attack Noble Blood! Leon and Hugo, support the two of them!」
Kouga and Alma, both of which had excellent mobility, sprinted towards Noble Blood. Leon and Hugo deployed barriers on the two of them while using long-distance attacks to prevent Noble Blood from re-summoning Elemental Soldiers.
Leon and Hugo’s attacks scored direct hits, enveloping Noble Blood in a cloud of smoke. At that moment, Kouga leapt high into the air.
「Your head is mine!」
In addition, while still moving at top speed, Alma submerged into the shadows.
Assassin Skill: Shadow Dive
A Skill that allows the user to hide and move inside shadows. It constantly consumes a large amount of magic power when the user is moving inside shadows, but it allows the user to hide from most attacks.
Kouga swooped down from the front while Alma emerged from behind, both of them trying to finish off Noble Blood, who was wreathed in smoke.
But――
「Fools」
Noble Blood spoke with contempt dripping from his voice.
Despite taking Leon and Hugo’s attacks directly, Noble Blood was unharmed. While still sitting calmly on the throne, he mocked Kouga and Alma’s surprise attacks.
「What!?」「You’re kidding!?」
The two of them cried out in surprise. The blades that they had swung downwards were repelled by an invisible wall, and the two of them lost their balance in mid-air. And then, when Noble Blood snapped his fingers, violent thunderbolts struck all around him.
Though he was off balance, Kouga succeeded in avoiding the thunderbolts by kicking the air. However, Alma was slow to dodge and her body was struck by one of the thunderbolts.
「ALMAAA!!!」
My spine turned to ice as I yelled in spite of myself. The area surrounding where Noble Blood was sitting had been melted into magma by the heat of the thunderbolts, and the air around him crackled with electricity. No one could survive being struck by such powerful thunderbolts, even if they were protected by barriers.
When the black smoke cleared, I searched for signs of Alma, and was relieved to find her safe.
Assassin Skill: Ghost
A Skill that spiritualizes and makes the user untouchable for its effect duration of 3 seconds.
It appeared that she had managed to nullify the thunderbolt by activating the Skill in the nick of time. However, Ghost could only be used once every 24 hours. She wouldn’t be able to rely on it a second time. Alma’s face was as white as a sheet and she was breathing heavily.
「Alma, are you alright!?」
Kouga shouted to confirm Alma’s safety from atop a clock tower that he had jumped to. In that instant, in my accelerated mind, I saw the worst unfold.
「Kouga, get away from there immediately!!!」
When I shouted, without even asking for the reason, Kouga took a big leap backwards and landed on the ground. The orders that I gave in battle were absolute. I had instructed my allies carefully to obey my orders immediately without thinking about the reason.
Barely one second after Kouga had leap away, the 20 meters-tall clock tower suddenly turned into sand and crumbled. That was precisely the result of the limited prediction that my high-speed thinking had showed me. The only difference was that Kouga hadn’t turned into sand along with the tower.
「Oh? You were able to avoid that, huh……」
Noble Blood looked interested as he smiled.
It was unmistakable. That last attack was space-time magic. An instant-death attack, which couldn’t be defended against, that accelerated the target’s time and instantly weathered it. I was only just able to see through it because of my limited prediction, but it had a wide range of effect and was terrifyingly fast. If I misread it even by a little, we would be wiped out.
「I see, so it's a limited ability to predict the future brought about by high-speed thinking」
While resting his cheek back on his hand, Noble Blood looked at me.
「In all likelihood, you were able to predict the activation of my space-time magic by sensing the subtle fluctuations of space. For a worthless insect, that was well done. But it’s a little bit of a bother」
All of a sudden, his blood-red eyes narrowed.
「That’s why, I’ll start with you」
At that declaration, a tremendous amount of magic power poured out from Noble Blood.
「This is bad! Protect Noel!!!」
Leon shouted as he started to sprint towards me. Alarm showing on their faces, Kouga and Alma also ran over to protect me. However, the three of them weren’t going to make it in time. Hugo, the only one who would, quickly maneuvered the puppet soldiers to defend the area around me. Furthermore, multiple layers of barriers were deployed to further strengthen the defenses.
But――
「It’s futile, you fools」
That mirth-filled voice was coming from right in front of me.
「Wha—!? Kuh……hah……」
Noble Blood, who should have been sitting calmly on the throne in mid-air, was standing right in front of my eyes. And, his right arm had been thrust through my chest.
「I stopped time」
Noble Blood showed me a ghastly smile.
「No matter how much you strengthen your defenses, it’s meaningless within stopped time. Your role is command tower as well as to enhance the abilities of your allies. So long as that’s stopped, it’s your loss. It seems like I’ll be able to slowly torment your allies to death」
「Kuh, koff, kerk……」
I coughed out a thickened mass of blood and clutched Noble Blood's arm. Noble Blood wiped off my blood, which had splattered on his cheek, with the fingers of his left hand.
「Before that, I suppose I should fill my stomach first」
Noble Blood licked my blood. On his face was a cruel expression, which was brimming with sadism and delight, that only a winner was allowed to have――but in an instant, it twisted grotesquely.
「Wha, what’s with the taste of this blood!?」
Noble Blood hurriedly spat out the blood in his mouth. When I saw his flustered state, with his arm still thrust through my chest, I let out a roar of laughter.
「Hahahahahaha, it seems that my blood is not to your liking, huh!?」
「Y, you insect, what on earth do you――」
Noble Blood, who had noticed that something was wrong, swallowed his words and looked around. Despite the fact that my chest had been pierced through, none of my allies had come to save me. If anything, they had all distanced themselves from me. It was almost as if they were trying to not get caught up in an impending danger.
「Y, you insecttttt!!!」
Noble Blood, who had finally realized the『truth』, flew into a rage and tried to pull his arm out of my chest. But it was already too late. I wasn’t going to give him the time to activate his time-stop magic.
「Looks like you were the one who had been a fool」
The moment I muttered that contemptuously, my body exploded with a flash of light.
†
†
Buffers, which included Talkers, were said to be the weakest, even among all the combat type Jobs. The biggest reason for this was their lack of self-preservation methods compared to other Jobs. In battle, it was necessary for someone to protect them constantly, so they ended up holding back their allies.
However, the buffs of the Buffers themselves were extremely outstanding. They could greatly enhance the fighting abilities of everyone. And, the more targets there were for the buffs, the more their value rose. That was because the value of enhancing the abilities of four people by 25 percent, and the value of enhancing the abilities of 100 people by 25 percent were completely different, even if the percentage enhanced was the same.
In other words, it meant that large-scale battles were the very thing that allowed Buffers to show off their true worth. Consequently, it appeared that the military used to always deploy at least three Buffers.
However, deploying Buffers also brought with it one major problem. If a Buffer was killed by the enemy, the total amount by which the army’s abilities had been enhanced would drop, and as a reaction to that, the army would weaken.
If the army was able to protect the Buffers till the end, this problem wouldn’t occur, but when both sides understood the advantages of Buffers, they would prioritize the killing of their opponent’s Buffers, which made it very difficult to protect them.
In the first place, fighting while protecting someone greatly reduced one's fighting ability. Even if outstanding escorts were prepared, should the Buffer be targeted by someone with a Job like Assassin, which was specialized in covert operations, it would be next to impossible to protect them till the end.
As a result, most of the Buffers and escorts deployed on the front-lines died without achieving any significant results.
A history like that was also one of the reasons why Buffers were said to be the weakest. Of course, I didn’t think that a Beast like Noble Blood knew about the history of Buffers. But his excellent mind should have seen through my inherent weaknesses right away.
In other words, if he killed me, not only would my allies lose their command tower, they would be greatly weakened as a reaction to the disappearance of the buffs.
Above all, Noble Blood, who controlled space and time, had time-stop magic, which could be called the greatest and most powerful ability. If he were to just use that ability, it wouldn’t matter how much we strengthened the defenses.
It was easy for me to predict that Noble Blood would use time-stop magic. Which was why I decided to prepare a fake of myself.
Puppet Skill: Imitation
A Skill that allows the user to duplicate something that he touched. The fake’s quality isn’t as good as the original, and the Skill isn’t able to duplicate the soul of the living, but it can duplicate the appearance completely.
I had gotten Hugo to duplicate me and then control the fake to make it look like the real thing. My instructions and buffs had been sent via Link, not my voice.
In addition, a bomb had been concealed inside the fake. It wasn’t an ordinary bomb, but one containing the bone-marrow fluid of three Garms. When it exploded, it would absorb magic power from the surroundings to further increase its power. Not unexpectedly, if a Noble Blood that had a huge amount of magic power was nearby, its power would be increased to the limit. It would have the power to possibly turn this abandoned capital into a vacant lot.
For that reason, Hugo’s puppet soldiers had covered the area with barriers so that the power of the explosion would be contained in one spot. The real purpose of Hugo's quick maneuvering of the puppet soldiers to defend the area around the fake was to prevent us from falling victim to the explosion.
The power of the fearsome explosion had ultimately blown away all of the barriers, but they had somehow managed to limit its area-of-effect to the square. We were unharmed as we had been protected by Leon’s barriers. I took off the armor that I had donned to disguise myself as one of Hugo’s puppet soldiers and then stepped forward.
「Noel, is it a good idea to reveal yourself?」
I nodded at Kouga’s question.
「It’s fine. This kind of petty trick won’t work a second time」
There was a huge gaping crater-like hole before my eyes. Inside it, I could still feel a strong presence.
「……You insects. You insectsss……」
From the depths of the hole, a bitter voice could be heard.
「Are you just going to hole yourself up in there and complain? You coward. You don’t deserve the title of Lord」
When I provoked him laughingly, the smoke filling the inside of the hole was blown away by a sudden gust of wind, and a huge winged monster flew out from within.
「The likes of insectsssss!!!」
His angry roar shook the air. After taking a tremendous amount of damage, Noble Blood had transformed from that false appearance into his true form. The practically shining appearance of a beautiful young man was no more. In its place was an ugly monster that was flapping its wings and hovering in mid-air.
It had wings resembling those of a bat, two twisted horns growing from its head, a bulging muscular body that looked as strong as a mountain, and a blood-vessel-like pattern that glowed red against its dark skin.
「Hahaha, your mask has been torn off」
「How dare you expose this form of mine! You deserve to die a thousand deaths for your crime!!!」
「Don’t threaten me, half-wit. How about using the time-stop magic before you run your mouth? Hmmm? What’s wrong? Aren’t you going to use it?」
「Y, you insect……」
I had left Noble Blood speechless with rage. I was the one in control of the situation. No matter how it threatened me with its terrifying appearance, it only looked like a clown to me.
「You can't use it, can you? Even for a Lord, there’s no way you can use an ability as powerful as stopping time in quick succession. To say nothing of the immense damage you suffered from the explosion earlier. Considering the amount of magic power that you used for regeneration, it's impossible for you to use time-stop magic in this battle a second time」
It was all according to my calculations. Even if the enemy had the seemingly invincible ability to stop time, I――we would definitely be able to defeat it.
「Kukuku……AHAHAHAHAHAHA」
I couldn't suppress the laughter that had welled up inside me. The battle wasn’t over yet. Even if it could no longer use time-stop magic, our enemy was a Lord. It wasn’t an opponent that could be defeated using straightforward methods. If we couldn’t grasp the chance of victory that was as slim as the tip of a needle while we shaved off our lives, then what awaited us was death.
But, even so, I laughed.
It’s fun. It’s unbearably amusing. Making those with absolute strength fall for my plans and kicking them down to the depths of disgrace and fear. Is there anything more fun than this?
No, there probably isn’t.
「Fufufu...... Well then, shall we go for round two?」
Actual cliffhanger this time. Yup, longest and most complicated battle so far in this novel. The Lord has transformed into the 2nd form, so still a lot of battle to go. Or rather, they haven’t actually fought it yet, since all it did was fall for Noel’s trap while showboating.
But I have to mention, I was so tempted to put “it’s meaningless in the world of frozen time”. ZA WARUDO! And Noble Blood said MUDA(futile) before that too, so it would have been perfect. Well, it would be once a WRYYY is fitted in there. Alright, alright, I’ll stop with the references but come on, it’s a vampire that stops time, can you blame a JoJo fan like me?
Some of you might have noticed, but the author probably made an error on Ghost’s duration. It used to be 3 secs when Alma was C Rank, then apparently became 5 seconds after she ranked up and fought Dantalion, but is now 3 seconds again. I’ll wait for the next time it gets used to determine which is the correct duration, though I suspect it’s 5 seconds. I did check the source, just in case author had changed something, but nope.
So, like I mentioned, actual boss fight starts next chapter. And it’s even more flashy than the battle against the Elemental Soldiers. If you think that you’ve already seen all of their new Skills, here’s the first line from the next chapter: “Everyone, we’ll now begin aerial combat!” We’ve got a dogfight next! Don’t miss it!
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