Chapter 76: Winner Take All
It's so nice when everything goes as planned, isn't it?
As I stood in the arena, watching the sequence of events go smoothly, I felt a bit proud. I wasn't sure if it was because of my high LUK stat or if I was selling myself short in the intelligence department and really had created a perfect plan, but it didn't matter either way.
My plan had worked, and it was working perfectly.
I stood casually in the arena, watching as Sirzechs looked into the sky in confusion. Serafall's voice came through the entire stadium, saying words that she didn't really want to, but had to because of our contract.
I felt a bit bad making her do this, as I genuinely liked the cheerful woman and considered us friends at this point, but I knew that no matter how much she liked me, she wouldn't help me take over her entire race willingly. I'd spare her family from the fate many of the other pillars were about to suffer, so hopefully she wouldn't hold it against me too much.
Katerea appeared in the sky above the arena, just as planned. There wasn't an anti-teleportation barrier set up in the stadium, but there didn't need to be because of the runes.
My [Runecraft] skill had reached level 45 because of how much time I'd spent slaving away with my cyclops soldiers to create enough runes to fill the entire floor of the stands, but it had been worth it.
It turned out that it was actually pretty difficult to create magic-absorbing runes, which was why the task had been so difficult. Combine that with making them subtle enough that no one would notice? Considering most powerful runes shone bright enough to look like a miniature sun when they activated, it was quite a struggle.
It was even more annoying considering Ajuka had been sniffing around the arena during its construction. I had to keep the runes under wraps until I sealed him, and then had my troops and Zekrel's servants working overtime to install them the night before the duel.
However, the difficulty that came with using runes actually benefited me here. Most devils didn't care for them at all, as their demonic power was much easier to use than learning how to program runes, so none of the noble devils in attendance knew what to do as their powers were suddenly made useless.
Most devils even tended to look down upon human mages with low power who had to use runes, but I bet they were regretting that now.