Chapter 164 : Chapter 164
Chapter 164: Phantom Liberty (2)
“Ha.”
Kurt, who possessed ‘Charm Immunity,’ naturally glared at me with the normal color of his eyes.
Therefore, 「Vicious Mockery」 and 「Word Command」 did not have much effect on him.
“I'll make you beg me to take you as my slave!”
It was time to utilize the skills I learned as a ‘Trickster.’
Flick!
But Kurt lunged toward me, pushing off the ground in the blink of an eye, even before I could finish casting my skill.
Snap crackle!
If it hadn't been for the 「Miracle of Protection」 that Lily cast beforehand, it wouldn't have been the barrier that crumbled under that club, but the bones of my entire body.
Kurt broke the barrier with a single blow, but.
“If my beauty pleases you so much, then look your fill.”
Thanks to that, I bought time to cast a skill.
「Mirror Image」.
While 「Advanced Projection」 was a skill that perfectly copied me and the target and allowed them to perform different actions ‘simultaneously,’ making them hard to distinguish, this one was.
“How about it?”
As you could hear from the overlapping sound of ‘my’ voice, it was a skill where the clone performed all actions exactly like me, thus making it easy to recognize as a ‘fake.’
“How does it feel to be surrounded by me?”
But since it was similarly difficult to distinguish which one was real, it was still a highly efficient skill.
In game terms, it was a skill that increased my evasion rate by summoning a clone.
“Feels like you're in heaven, right?”
Sure enough.
Whoosh!
Kurt swung his club again, but he ended up hitting the ‘dud’ and struck the clone version of me.
While that one clone of me scattered like smoke in the wind caused by the club.
“Enjoy it now.”
Toric, with red light flickering in his eyes due to 「Rage」, charged at the brute.
“Because you will never go to heaven.”
The large axe blade was brought down.
In response, Kurt quickly raised his club to block it.
Clang!
Sparks flew.
Meanwhile, on the opposite side.
“What about that guy?”
Evie, with purple light flickering in her eyes, instantly cut through the resulting opening.
And she began to perform 「Shadow Dance」.
“…!”
Kurt failed to react this time.
Even though he was a brute who moved as if ignoring the concept of turns, the current Evie was the same.
Swish!
Slice!
Whenever Evie, who also began to look like ‘multiple people’ just like my clones, danced and swung the two black and white daggers, red blood splattered everywhere, slicing through Kurt's thick, muscle-covered body.
“This is…!”
Frowning, Kurt finally reached out a hand and grabbed Evie's neck.
“Stop being so frivolous──”
But Evie, whose neck was seized like that, only curled up the corner of her mouth with a smirk.
“You moron.”
Then.
“──!?”
She vanished just like that.
As if a shadow had dispersed.
What he snatched was Evie’s 「Shadow Afterimage」, and.
“Is your brain made of muscle too?”
The real Evie was already behind him, stepping on his shadow.
Sssk!
The moment 「Backstab」 was plunged into his back, Kurt staggered, groaning in pain.
Simultaneously.
“Haap!”
Miki, who had charged without his shield, delivered a combo of 「Stomp」 followed by 「Triple Strike」.
Pow pow!
As Miki’s shoulder and two fists continuously struck Kurt's rock-like abdomen, Kurt grimaced in pain, took a few steps back, and finally dropped to one knee.
“I told you, I'd make you kneel before me like a dog again.”
As I sneered at Kurt like that.
“You lowly human bastard…!”
Kurt ground his teeth, crunch, and raged, perhaps recalling the memory of having actually been forced to kneel before me due to my 「Word Command」.
And then.
“Uraaaahhh──!!”
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
He began to furiously swing the large club as if turning a windmill.
“Ack!?”
In addition to Toric and Miki, who charged at him and were struck directly by the 「Whirlwind」 that tore through the air with every revolution.
“What──”
Even Evie, who dodged it, was caught in the air pressure of the ‘whirlwind’ and sent flying far away.
“Don’t make me laugh!”
He cut off the 「Whirlwind」 and immediately pushed off the ground, charging toward me again.
“You must have been planning to bring the False God you enslaved to swallow Shurina whole!”
Whoosh!
The large club was brought down toward ‘me.’
It meant he picked a clone again.
But Kurt didn't care at all and charged toward the ‘me’ on the other side, swinging the club again.
This time, too, it was a clone.
“No way! This is my city! Neither the False God nor you bastards will take Shurina from me!”
But Kurt didn't seem to have any intention of picking out the real one from the start.
“I am the true master of this city!”
His momentum was that rather than bothering to distinguish which one was real, if he just eliminated all of them, eventually only the real one would be left.
“You're completely wrong. How can none of your words be right, you bastard.”
After sweeping away the remaining two clones with the club, he finally charged straight toward the one remaining me.
I did not possess the ‘Dexterity’ to counter such a Kurt.
“──Got you!”
Therefore, Kurt's thick hand seized my chin and lifted me straight up.
“…I really can't stand to watch this.”
But I looked down at such a Kurt and smiled contemptuously once more.
“No matter how much you swing that massive club with pride, the fact that you're going to kneel before me won't change.”
Kurt seemed to think my taunt was the bluff of a cornered rat.
“How long do you think you can keep running your mouth?”
And so he mocked me in kind, but.
“Well.”
It wasn't a bluff.
“Forever?”
Yes, I don't have ‘Dexterity.’
I don't have the ‘Strength’ to shake off this thick hand either.
But Toric did.
“──!”
「Change」.
Last time, I quickly swapped positions to take Rine’s place when she was targeted, but this is how this skill is originally meant to be used.
Thanks to the position swap with Toric, I easily escaped from his thick grasp.
And Toric.
“Another trick…!”
Had a difference in height compared to me.
So his chin wasn't even grabbed by the brute's hand.
Instead, appearing from ‘below’ him.
“Take this──”
Thwack!
He extended the butt of his axe handle and struck him squarely in the solar plexus.
“──Cough!”
Kurt's upper body bent instinctively as he gasped for air.
“Uryaaahht!”
Toric, still under 「Rage」, didn't stop and swung his axe.
Crack!
The axe blade couldn't completely slice his hardened skin, but it certainly inflicted a major blow.
“Ugh…!”
Unlike when Toric was directly hit by the 「Whirlwind」.
Thanks to Lily’s blessing, the damage was halved, and even that incurred damage could be quickly recovered, allowing him to be perfectly fine again.
And this.
“Lord Toric!”
Meant that Miki, who was sent flying by the direct hit alongside Toric, was also fine.
There was no verbal response to the shout, but Toric already understood Miki's intention.
Therefore, while giving space for the charging Miki to throw his punch.
Pow pow pow!
As soon as Miki's combination strikes landed, he swung his axe from the opposite side.
The fact that the two people looked fine without any major damage.
“Peek-a-boo, you son of a bitch.”
Meant that Evie, who was merely pushed away by the air pressure and not directly hit by the club, was perfectly fine, needless to say.
Evie leaped up, lightly climbing onto Kurt's shoulder as if giving him a piggyback ride, and then stabbed her dagger straight into his chest.
“…!”
Kurt let out a brief groan of pain and immediately raised his arm to grab Evie, but Evie had already leaped off, performing a somersault behind his back just as she had when she climbed up.
“Boom.”
With a relaxed middle finger raised.
Shhhwak!
The dagger plunged into his chest emitted a 「Thorn of the Wind」, scattering red blood as if it were bursting out with it.
“Kuaaak…!”
Kurt was clearly in great pain and staggered, but it was only for a moment.
“Did you forget…?”
Miki and Toric’s combined attack, and even Evie’s 「Dandelion Thorn Dagger」.
It would have been a fatal injury for a normal person, but.
“I am immortal…!”
Kurt was no normal person.
“Did you think you could kill me with just this rubbish!?”
In fact, Kurt, who quickly recovered from the damage, vigorously stamped his foot.
Slam!
By 「Crushing」 the floor like that, the three people around Kurt instantly lost their balance and fell into the ‘fallen’ state on the floor.
Kurt did not stop.
“To lend power to a Succubus, I can clearly see how dirty the god you serve is!”
He threw the club in his hand directly at Lily, who was the reason why the three people, unlike him, who was ‘immortal,’ could still move normally just like before.
“Kuh…!?”
Lily, hit directly in the abdomen by the club that flew in the blink of an eye, without even a chance to react to the remark insulting Sistina, ended up collapsing onto the floor.
Of course, since the blessing surrounding us was also around Lily, she seemed to have avoided taking major damage, but it was certainly a blow that would prevent her from getting up easily for the time being.
In short, Lily's blessing would not be available for the time being.
“Try another one of your petty tricks!”
It meant that I had to either dodge or block that huge punch, which had instantly closed the distance and was being swung at me.
The 「Mirror Image」, whose last clone had just vanished, was not ready yet.
And even if I hastily used 「Advanced Projection」 here, he would see right through it.
If I even had the time to cast it, that is.
Kurt knew this too, which is why he shouted mockingly, as if telling me to try if I dared.
And so.
『──The die is cast』
I did not use a petty trick.
Instead, I raised one hand.
“──!?”
And directly caught that thick fist of his.
“H-How──”
Considering the difference in ‘Strength’ between him and me, it should have been impossible.
It was my ‘fate’ to be crushed by the raised hand.
Unless I twist that fate.
“How could you……!?”
Kurt stared with eyes of utter disbelief at the current ‘twisted fate’ where his thick, vein-popping arm was blocked by a single hand—an extremely small part of my delicate body, which was almost the same thickness as his arm itself.
In the meantime, Evie, who had quickly regained her balance and charged forward like a ‘Phantom Thief’ as soon as she fell, stabbed her dagger into his heart.
“Kuheok──”
As she simultaneously twisted the blade, Kurt spat up blood.
It was a strike that guaranteed ‘death.’
The problem was that he continuously evaded that concept of ‘death,’ but.
『──Get down.』
Well, there was a way for that part too.
“Again…!”
So, while he briefly fell into the state of ‘death’ and his resistance was weakened, I succeeded with 「Word Command」.
“I told you.”
In the end, Kurt was again forced to kneel before me like a dog.
“That you would kneel before me like a dog.”
Yes.
Kurt was certainly a strong boss, but we had already defeated a stronger boss on our way here.
Kain Midrashi.
A Corps Commander-level boss, one of the seven strongest people even beyond the Wall.
Which was far more dangerous than this Shurina.
Given that, an ‘intermediate boss’ like Kurt was not a big problem for us now.
Simply based on strength, Kain was stronger than this guy.
But as I said earlier, this guy had something beyond mere strength.
“…Fine, keep stabbing me.”
The trait of ‘immortality.’
“Do you really think you can kill me with just this rubbish?”
In fact, he felt the pain of ‘death’ for a moment but didn't die and was mocking us.
Therefore, as soon as he was released from the domination of 「Word Command」, he would try to beat us down again as if nothing had happened.
“Stab me! Stab me!”
In other words.
“No matter how much you bastards stab me, I won't die──”
We had to finish him off decisively while he was under 「Word Command」, which was difficult to successfully cast again.
“──ing!?”
So I stabbed him.
Pulling out Evie’s dagger that was plunged into his heart, I quickly thrust it toward his heart again.
At that moment.
“What…”
The eyes of Kurt, which were overflowing with confidence and anger just a moment ago, began to waver.
Because the sensation must have been different from when he was stabbed with a dagger until now.
Yes, Kurt is immortal.
He became immortal by receiving Shurine’s blood.
Therefore, the only one who could kill him was Shurine, who directly possessed that blood.
──Or.
“You felt it too, didn't you?”
A being who had entered a ‘blood contract’ with such a Shurine and was connected to her.
“That it’s different from before.”
Yes, I mean me.