Chapter 246: Unpredictable Strategy
I’m constantly using my blessing to create openings and chances to finish him, but Lucien is undoubtedly skilled, always staying alive by a thread.
’He switched weapons.’ I leap back, narrowly dodging an immense white and yellow slash fired at me. Marie uses her blessing to create a giant sphere of earth.
As Marie appears behind him with a hastily made, incomplete blade meant only to strike, Lucien kicks backward, hitting Marie and sending her flying.
"Oh, finally retreating? This is my Soul Devourer. Finally, a weapon you don’t try to just parry, huh?"
"[Armor Breaker]" I hold the spear with one hand, pulling it all the way back as I use magic, and when I’m close, I swing it violently forward.
’This fight has already lasted almost two hours...’ Marie appears floating atop a cloud and creates a kind of giant metallic structure, dropping it onto Lucien, who gets hit.
"I’LL DESTROY YOU BOTH!!" He becomes enraged and starts accumulating magic. Around him, a completely dark blue barrier emerges as he brings his hands together, creating a sphere.
Marie starts to cowardly retreat as I think about what magic to use. It’s not an undefendable attack, but I’ll have to expend a lot of magic to block it, making Marie a problem afterward.
Crack...
CRACK
"This is... EVELYN, YOU CRAZY WOMAN!!" I shout at this lunatic as the cracks widen.
And then it starts to shrink. The size gets smaller and smaller, going from the size of a forest to a city, a town, a house, a dining room, a table, a ball, and finally, it shrinks so much that it becomes the equivalent of a ping pong ball.
"Damn it!" The domain begins to collapse, cracking violently. Magic starts being drained like water going down a giant hole because of the violence with which it leaks out. Lucien deactivates his domain, and Marie does too, to avoid dying.
I look at Lucien and then use my domain’s power, which makes everything inside here occur according to my will. I charge at Lucien, whose magic is still active.
’...’ Quickly, I turn to Marie, but she’s 100 meters away from me. I expend a large portion of my remaining magic to knock Marie out with a mental attack spell, since I wouldn’t have the strength to kill her instantly due to my low magic reserves.
The two domains shatter like glass, forming a light dust cloud as we emerge inside a perfectly round hole that replaced the forest area. I look around, seeing that Augustus and Lucien are dead.
Laplace is... naked? And unconscious on the rocky ground, and Marie is also unconscious. Those who passed out were incapacitated, so they lost the fight.
"What did you do?" I ask with a furious look. She almost killed everyone with this madness.
"Domains inside have more space than outside. My domain alone is gigantic. Compressing it would still leave enough space equivalent to a mansion, even though I left a tiny space on the outside."
’Is she serious?’ She just casually broke the laws of physics, generating such a massive effect that it completely erased the forest around us, leaving only an immense crater.
"Strong, huh... it wasn’t strength. I just knew how to use what I had. The domain is a demon’s greatest advantage, after all."
Because they devastate everything around them. Evelyn generated almost the same effect that would occur from creating a domain without the limitations of external space.
Eve also has cracks on her body and is panting. Evelyn really sacrificed everything for this crazy attack.
’Damn...’ I look at my own state, and only now do I notice the immense number of wounds, tears in my military uniform, and the damage the weapon sustained. My domain, not being physical, caused me the most problems when it was compressed.
"Yes, I do. And that’s how I always felt when I was called a failure. It’s really ironic, don’t you think? I turned that incredible, legendary fight into something that looks like a pathetic show. Well, that’s how a puppet master operates."
"..."
"I didn’t lose."
"You didn’t care about sacrificing all those puppets to gain magic?" I ask, trying to get into her head.
"...No? You... you had planned to sacrifice them from the very beginning? You planned the entire fight around expanding the domain from the start and then compressing it when it was nearing the end?" I ask incredulously.
"Eve, finish off Esther. And [Desperation], you can come at me with everything you’ve got." Evelyn uses my title as Eve advances on me with her sword. I dodge, but much slower than usual due to exhaustion. I look at Evelyn, who watches it all.
Evelyn planned exactly as I would have planned. She really learned from what I taught her, and she improved upon it. Can I be any happier than this? I did this!! I created this monstrous, cold strategist!! I was the one who created this side.
Not underestimating her, because injured as we both are, Eve and I are evenly matched, and one mistake from me will be my end. That’s why I fight with everything, with my life on the line, because Evelyn "ruined" the spectacle on purpose to win, and I have to reciprocate that.
And feeling her play with the emotions of her "audience" like this fills me with that sweet sensation that this incredible girl is all mine. If I am both the audience and a participant, then I’ll cut the strings and see if Evelyn obtains victory.