The sphere pulsed.
Dark blue energy swirled across the surface. A glow rippled, then another, like something made an impact from inside, pushing against the boundary.
Vel tightened the grip on his sword.
The dark ward muffled everything beyond the arena boundary, reducing the shouts and spellfire from the stands to distant rumbles. Whatever forces were trying to break through, they might as well have been in another world. Only what was inside mattered now.
The two generals had already begun to move, their attention fixed on the four remaining opponents. Clara's greatsword hung at her side, fully drawn. The insectoid warrior adjusted its stance, halberd shifting in its grip.
Three against five.
The numbers meant nothing when one of those three could cut down half of them without breaking stride. Elyssia had made the right call. Trapping the Demon Lord turned an impossible fight into something simpler.
Four against two.
Simpler. Not easier.
Vel's gaze swept across his team, his mind racing through assessments in whatever seconds he had.
Lyvenna had joined them, but her posture remained rigid, shoulders tight. Her attention kept drifting toward the man slumped at the arena's edge.
Can I even count on her in this state?
Tomas stood with his wand raised, the tip trembling despite his efforts to steady it. His body had assumed a combat stance, but his eyes told a different story.
Physically ready. Not mentally.
And Celia.
For her, nothing else in the arena existed. Only Clara. Frustration, fear, grief, all of it warring across her face in ways Vel had never seen before.
Vel forced his attention back to the enemies.
Focus. What do I know?
Two generals. Both boss-level if the Demon Lord's hierarchy followed any logic. If they closed on the same target, that target was finished. Simple as that.
Divide and conquer.
Keeping them separated was the only way anyone survived long enough for the barrier to fall. But to form a real strategy, he needed information. Abilities. Weaknesses. Anything.
Appraisal.
He needed time.
"Celia."
She didn't respond. Her eyes stayed locked on Clara.
"Engage your sister. See if she recognizes you." He kept his voice low, steady. "We need to separate them. But be ready for the worst."
A beat of silence. Then Celia's grip tightened on her rapier. She gave the barest nod.
Vel turned to Tomas. "Buy me some time. I need to set up something before we can take that thing."
Tomas swallowed hard, but his trembling eased. "Got it."
"Instructor." Vel glanced at Lyvenna. "Stay close to Celia. Support her if things go wrong."
Lyvenna's jaw tightened. "Understood."
Vel raised his sword. The crystal in the hand guard began to glow.
"Remember. We don't need to win. We just need to survive until that barrier comes down."
A beat passed. Vel glanced at Celia. She met his eyes.
"On your mark. We'll cover you."
Celia turned and charged. Sparks ran along her rapier as she closed the gap in an instant.
Clara answered with a shift in stance.
The insectoid lifted its legs. Halberd low. Heading straight for the clash.
Ice was already crawling upward from the sand, wrapping around the creature's limbs.
It stopped. For half a second.
Its head turned toward Vel. Its legs were still pushing forward, still trying to move, even while frozen. With one pull, the ice cracked.
Not strong enough.
"Tomas. Remember the trap we practiced?"
Tomas moved without another cue. Sand liquefied beneath the insectoid, rising to meet the frost, crawling up its legs alongside the ice. Steam hissed where the elements met. The two fused into something denser. Harder.
The creature strained against it. Cracks formed, but slower now.
"We need to cut its attention from Clara."
Lyvenna moved. A wall of sand erupted between the insectoid and the sisters, the particles rushing upward along its surface like an inverted waterfall. A storm compressed into a barrier.
The creature's attention snapped back to Vel.
Good. Look at me. Not her.
"Stay on it, Tomas. Counting on you."
Behind him, Tomas layered binding after binding onto the creature. Earth and ice, fused and hardened. The insectoid answered with a swing of its halberd's ferrule. The binding shattered. Another formed. Another swing. Shattered.
Effortless.
Over and over. Tomas's arms shook from the effort, but he didn't stop.
No time to waste.
Vel extended his sword horizontally before him. The identification circle formed in the air, spinning slowly. Energy gathered at its edges, funneling inward toward the crystal in the hand guard.
"Visona Revelum Essenti."
The crystal glowed with information, only readable by his own interface. A translucent panel hovered over it as he read.
Demon Lord's General
Name: ????
Origin: Entomon
Class: Warrior
Power Level: Boss
Specialty: Impenetrable Defense
Boss-level. Of course.
Vel shifted his focus. On the other side of the sand wall, Celia was barely holding on. She dodged more than she struck, each swing from Clara's greatsword forcing her back. From where Vel stood, the wall didn't obstruct his view. He directed the appraisal toward Clara.
"Visona Revelum Essenti."
---
Demon Lord's General
Name: Clara Freznoria
Origin: Human
Class: Knight
Power Level: Boss
Specialty: High Combat Ability
Status:
Curse [Heart of Deceit] - Tier 4Soul Integrity: 10%
---
So that's their formation.
The insectoid was the vanguard. Impenetrable defense to soak whatever they threw at it, buying time, drawing attention. Clara was the finisher. The one who closed in when the enemy was exhausted, distracted, or out of position.
A tank and a striker. The Demon Lord completed their triangle. Classic.
But that curse...
Tier 4. Heart of Deceit. He didn't know what that meant exactly, but the name told him enough. Something was controlling her. Twisting her will. Making her fight against everything she once protected.
Ten percent.
A piece of the person he knew, refusing to surrender. Still fighting in there somewhere.
Celia needed to know.
But how could he tell her in the middle of a fight? And even if he could, would it help or make things worse? If Celia hesitated, held back hoping to reach the Clara inside, that greatsword wouldn't hesitate back.
Vel's mind flashed to Landre at the gorge. The way she'd thrown herself off the cliff rather than let the Void claim her completely. Even then, a part of her had held on.
Perhaps, Clara was the same.
If I could reach her...
A sharp crack echoed across the arena. Stone bursting apart.
Vel's head snapped up from the crystal. The layers around the insectoid were breaking faster than Tomas could form them. Each one crumbled before the next could settle. Tomas's arms trembled, wand wavering, his face drained of color.
The creature tore through the last binding like brittle clay.
It turned toward Vel.
And charged.
"Vel!"
An arc of steel flashed through the air. Vel ducked. The insectoid was nowhere near him, but he could still feel the wind of the blade passing inches above his head.
Then it spun once, halberd carving through the sand.
At the end of the rotation, it jumped.
The body twisted mid-air into three sideways spins, the halberd building momentum with each turn. Then it crashed down.
Three lines of force tore outward, zigzagging across the arena floor, pushing up sand like claws raking from beneath.
"Aeris Santorum Aeghis!"
A dome of protective air shimmered into existence around him and Tomas, intercepting the approaching wave of force. The barrier trembled violently as the shockwave collided with it, fragments of earth and sand penetrating through the weakening shield. Tiny particles grazed Vel's face as the barrier struggled to maintain integrity.
The shockwave ended. Vel's barrier dissolved with it. Dust settled.
The insectoid warrior stood, its mandibles clicking rapidly. It might have been communicating something to Vel, or perhaps simply taunting him.
Normally, that shield would withstand student attacks with no problem. But it had struggled to even stabilize against the general's single strike, despite how much mana he poured into it.
"Tomas, move back!"
Whatever happened, he must not let Tomas get caught in the crossfire.
"You okay?"
"I... I can't keep this up." Tomas's breathing came in ragged bursts. "I've drained most of my reserve in Kein's fight."
The insectoid tilted its head to the side slightly. Then it moved forward again, step by step. Slowly. Taking its time like it was enjoying their struggle.
No weakness.
That was intentional among his design. Some bosses were created to merely test player skill, not strategy. This one clearly belonged in that category.
"Save your mana, Tomas. Small, simple spells when needed."
Vel caught a glimpse of Celia's battle with Clara. Each swing of Clara's greatsword carried devastating force, leaving gouges in the arena floor where they landed. Celia wasn't blocking the attacks directly. She was deflecting them, using her rapier's flexibility to redirect the momentum. Despite her exceptional speed and agility, she was barely keeping up.
Watching her struggle brought Kein's words back.
Minimum? Strategy?
What was wrong with being resourceful? Or in programming term. Optimization.
Yet the slightest scoff escaped him. Not because he despised Kein's words, but because how true they slowly became with every passing moment.
He raised his sword, positioning it straight in front of his face. The crystal embedded in the hilt pulsed with energy as he focused his intent.
Without meaning to, he thought of Kenji. A conversation from his past life came back to him as the spell took shape.
---
Kenji was browsing for overpowered builds of their game, finding player exploits, his eyes bright with fascination.
"Senpai, check this out!" He turned his monitor to face Giri. "This guy's basically invincible. How do they always figure out builds like this? "
Giri leaned in, studying the build breakdown. "There's a fundamental principle players discover when putting together a strong defense."
Kenji scooted his chair forward, attentive. "What's the principle?"
"First, deflection. If an attack can be dodged or parried, there's no reason to let it land."
---
"Ordo Ventis Passus Ethrium!" Vel called out.
The embedded crystal blazed with light. Emerald orbs launched from the sword's tip, homing toward Vel's allies. Each orb met its target with a soft glow, then submerged beneath the skin. Celia's stance shifted instantly, her movements lighter, almost weightless.
---
"Second, mitigation. If an attack can't be avoided, you need to soften the blow." Giri ticked off his finger.
---
"Magna Omnium Sanxto Aeghis Duratium!"
Streams of light sprouted from the tip like a fountain. Each stream found its way to his companions, shifting through every color like a rainbow as it wrapped around them and fortified their defenses. The streams faded. A crack split down the blade.
---
"Third, recovery. When an attack gets past the first two layers, you prepare for the aftermath. Make it so the damage never mattered."
---
"Ordo Lienthar Solith Revinuem!"
Healing energy pulsed out in a wave. It passed through the generals without effect, but clung to his companions with a golden glow, slowly mending any injuries they might have sustained. Tomas stood a little straighter as the spell settled over him, color returning to his face.
---
"With those three layers of defense, when balanced just right, you have a solid build for every situation." Giri leaned back in his chair. "And it's our job to ensure it's rewarding without making the game too easy."
---
The final spell completed. Vel's blade shattered.
Beyond the falling fragments, the insectoid still advanced. Casual. Unhurried.
He pried the crystal loose and threw the hilt. It landed among the other fragments scattered across the sand.
He pressed the crystal against the back of his right hand.
"Glacis Solith Temporus."
The same incantation as ever, but his intent changed.
Ice crawled over his skin, winding around his fingers, his wrist, then his forearm. The frozen structure shaped itself into an elegant gauntlet of translucent blue. The crystal settled at the center of his backhand, fused perfectly into place.
The gauntlet finished forming as the insectoid leapt.
One long stride ate the distance, the halberd hauled back behind its shoulder as if the weight meant nothing.
Then it came around in a wide arc, scything at chest height.
Vel rolled.
The shaft hummed above his back, close enough to lift the cloth between his shoulders.
Not yet.
He needed both hands to stop a weapon that size. One gauntlet alone would shatter on contact, and his arm with it.
He came up onto one knee, footing set. Ready for another dodge.
It didn't come.
It stood where it was, mandibles clicking, watching him.
That wasn't a kill shot.
A single strike. Almost telegraphed. Slow enough to read. Yet lethal all the same.
It looked... Almost like boredom. Like it wanted him to hurry up and fight for real.
He set the thought aside and finished what he'd started.
Mana flowed toward his left hand, ice forming and climbing into shape, until the second gauntlet settled to match the one on his right. Cold vapor sheeted off both, drifting downward before thinning into the air.
The halberd might ruled at range. But up close, it turned clumsy in its wielder's hands.
Probing with spells to see what stuck would only burn through mana he couldn't afford to lose.
The moment he gave it room, it could turn on Tomas, Lyvenna, or Celia. He needed to get close.
And the monk arts gave him what his spells couldn't.
Reflex.
He fell into the breathing rhythm Honka had taught him. His arms began to move in slow circles at his sides, water tracing through air. Blue light bled along his forearms, thinner than what Honka could summon, but unmistakably the same shape.
One final deep breath. What came out wasn't just air. Cold mist poured from his nose and mouth, spilling into the space in front of him.
"Flowing River Stance." Vel finalized the monk art.
His vision widened all at once. The edges of his sight, places normal vision could never reach, came clear, as if in focus.
Three problems. One answer. Thanks to the bald monk.
Vel charged.
Each step measured, purposeful. Blue light trailed off his body, soft and constant. A swirling tornado wrapped around each gauntlet, the force inside it ready to fire on impact.
The halberd rose, the blade angling for a diagonal cut, shoulder to hip.
He read the line before the swing came down. At the last moment, he shifted his weight aside. The blade carved through the air where his shoulder had been, close enough that he felt the wind of it pass his cheek.
The insectoid clicked multiple times as it tried to bring the halberd back into position, but the weapon's reach worked against its wielder now. Two body lengths was the halberd's optimal range. Anything closer, and the wielder fought their own grip.
Vel ducked under another wild swing and closed the rest of the distance.
The general slid its hands down the shaft, trying to compensate.
Too late.
Vel pivoted to the creature's right flank and drove his right gauntlet into the armor with everything he had. The impact rang up his arm.
A heartbeat of triumph.
Then he saw the armor. Unmarked.
Impenetrable Defense
The creature pivoted with sudden agility. The halberd reversed in its grip, the pommel coming around like a weighted club aimed at his head.
His body moved before his mind caught up. Torso arching backward, the pommel hummed past his face. The stance had taken his reflexes somewhere his thinking couldn't reach.
He sprang back, putting distance between them.
The insectoid lower jaw snapped. It adjusted into a shorter grip and came forward, eating the ground he'd given.
Shorter wind-up. Less force.
Vel raised both gauntlets and caught the blade. The strike halted, locked between his arms.
With a slight push, and the ice cracked.
He twisted away, circling right, dropping low. A blind spot opened above him. He took it.
His right gauntlet drove into the armor at full extension. Frost bloomed across the surface where he struck, the cold working visibly into the plate.
Still nothing.
Then the insectoid showed him what a human enemy never could. Two extra limbs.
The claw came down like a dagger from an angle he hadn't accounted for.
Crap.
His gauntlet barely got there in time. Claw rang against ice, the impact jarring him sideways as he scrambled backward.
Both gauntlets had cracked through the exchange. He poured mana back into them, the ice reforming as he moved.
Brute force doesn't seem to work.
Think. What could its weakness be? Not the obvious one. Something I could exploit.
Its head? No.
A memory surfaced from his past life. Cockroaches could live weeks without their heads. Ants, days. The nervous system was distributed across the body. No single point to sever.
Even if I could target the head—
The halberd swept in mid-thought.
Vel twisted, the edge catching a thread of his uniform. The backswing came hard. He dropped flat to the sand, the pommel humming over him with inches to spare.
He rolled sideways and was on his feet again, heart hammering.
Every strike he'd thrown had failed against the shell.
His eyes narrowed. He turned his attention to the plates, tracing every seam this time.
Organic, or mineral?
Every material has a weakness. Diamond is hard but brittle. Steel loses strength under heat. Iron corrodes.
What if...
Vel called the appraisal panel back up. He'd only glanced at it during the first exchange, the attack coming before he could read past the headline. This time he expanded the panel, and several lines highlighted across the view.
Smooth surface. Thick plate.
High stress dissipation.
That was the answer. Any blow would spread across the body before it stayed anywhere. Force was getting shared out faster than it could break anything.
I need to hit the structure. Not the surface.
If the plate sat over a softer layer beneath, the bond between them was the weak point. Heat one side, cool the other, and the bond would fail before either material did.
Dentin base structure failure.
The warrior advanced, mandibles working in something that almost sounded like mockery. Its armor gleamed.
A smirk spread across his face as the plan crystallized.
"Ignis Plasmare Mantis."
Mana flowed toward both his hands, displacing the ice.
Blue flame bloomed across his knuckles, then compressed into the same shape.
He hadn't thought he would ever need it.
The ice gauntlets had always been enough for anything that came down to punching.
But while he'd been experimenting with different elements, fire had come with a special condition. It wasn't solid, and it burned. When compressed, it turned into plasma, the burn turned into something that would cook him through. To wear it, he'd had to write the exception in by hand, a passing damage.exclude(self) to keep the plasma off his own skin.
The insectoid warrior hesitated, its compound eyes reflecting the dancing flames on Vel's arm. That momentary pause was all Vel needed.
He darted forward, closing the distance in a blur of movement. The warrior brought its halberd down in a powerful arc. Vel's palm caught the side of the blade, redirecting it just enough. He stomped hard, throwing himself to the opposite side of the strike.
Deep breath.
"Flame Flurry."
Plasma fists hammered the chest plate, one after the other, every strike landing on the exact same spot.
The insectoid stepped back, hauling its halberd into a full circle around its body. Sand rose with the swing, a wave of grit and force following the blade.
Vel jumped, tucking into a tight somersault that carried him over the curve of the swing. He landed near the insect general's flank and dropped into a low run before his momentum could waste itself.
He circled around.
I need to be fast before the same spot cools.
Two limbs sang down behind him with a deadly hum, claws striking the sand right where he'd just been.
He flicked both his arms. "Glacis Solith Temporus."
The plasma collapsed. Ice formed in the same instant.
"Ice Flurry."
His fists hammered the same spot where the plasma had marked, frozen knuckles driving cold into a plate that was still hot.
Vel retreated several paces, his chest rising and falling with controlled breaths.
The warrior adjusted its stance, mandibles clicking rapidly in what sounded almost like language.
The plates of its exoskeleton had paled where the strikes had landed, frost laced across the surface like rime over stone.
But there was still nothing. The plate held.
Try again. Quickly.
He shifted his weight forward.
The general brought its halberd to its side, and began to twirl it.
The speed picked up. Sand rose in a cylinder around the creature, climbing with each rotation until a wall of grit and dust hid it from view.
What
From inside the obstructed view, an arc of cutting force tore outward, shaped like the halberd's blade itself.
Vel barely dodged the first. The second came faster on the heels of the first. The third he felt the wind of as he twisted past it.
He landed from the third dodge, and the tornado burst outward in a single concussive expansion.
Shoot!
He crossed his arms in a defensive guard, mana surging as he conjured a barrier across them to soften the blow.
The wave hit. The barrier shimmered with the impact.
Then, in the single beat where the blast should have spent itself, a tremendous force slammed down into the barrier.
Vel's eyes widened. The halberd's blade hung embedded in the barrier surface, held there for the space of a breath.
The next breath, the barrier cracked.
The blade cut down through the failing barrier and bit into his forearm.
His arm twisted with the strike on instinct, turning the blade so it slid along his forearm instead of cutting straight through. Pain lanced up to his shoulder. The halberd's edge skimmed past him and buried into the sand.
He dropped, rolling sideways across the ground to put distance between himself and the warrior before it could free the blade and follow.
He came up at distance, breath ragged in his throat.
The defensive and healing buffs he'd layered before the fight were holding. The skin began to knit itself shut almost as he watched.
A cut, the buffs could close. A severed arm, an eye, those they couldn't bring back.
That came too close.
But I can't stop now.
Before the warrior could read its own success in his face, Vel was moving again.
The ice on his gauntlets gave way to flaming blue plasma in the same instant.
He drove inside the warrior's guard, ducked under the rising halberd, and landed three plasma strikes in a row on the same spot. Blue flare with each contact.
He broke away. The blade came around behind him, cutting through the air where his shoulder had been.
He was risking getting hit just to land the blows.
The warrior pivoted, halberd raised for the next exchange.
But just as it prepared its next strike, something happened that the insectoid had not expected.
A sharp crack, audible even from where Vel stood.
The insect warrior froze, halberd still raised. Its compound eyes shifted downward toward its chest plate, where a single fracture had opened across the precise spot Vel had been targeting. A clean line, dark against the gleam of the surrounding armor.
The creature tilted its head, mandibles going still as it regarded Vel. The gesture seemed almost contemplative. If an insect could express emotion, Vel would have sworn he saw something like surprise, or perhaps respect, in that alien gaze.
Vel stood poised, studying the insectoid warrior as the crack in its armor widened. Physics combined with magic, the application of scientific principles through magical means, had proven effective where brute force failed.
Before either could exchange another blow, a brilliant flash of lightning erupted nearby. Vel's attention snapped toward the source. Celia, launching an attack against Clara. The lightning crackled around Celia's blade as she pressed forward with determination.
Clara responded by extending her greatsword to the side, a visible ghostly image of herself materializing alongside her physical form. With deliberate precision, she executed a single horizontal slash aimed at Celia's midsection.
Celia twisted her body, the massive blade passing inches from her abdomen.
Clara didn't immediately recover her stance after the attack, her body remaining extended, sword arm outstretched. It was a textbook opening, a vulnerability any trained fighter would recognize.
Celia certainly did. Her eyes narrowed as she spotted the opportunity, pivoting on her heel to launch a counter-attack against Clara's exposed flank.
Something flashed in Vel's mind. A memory, attack pattern designed to punish overconfident players who rushed in at the first sign of weakness.
"DON'T! CELIA!" Vel shouted, his voice cutting through the arena's chaos.
Echo Slash.
Out of nowhere, two additional slashes manifested in the exact space where Clara's initial attack had passed. The air itself seemed to tear open as ghostly blades followed the path of the original strike, one after another in perfect succession.
Celia halted her advance just in time, the spectral blades passing through the space she would have occupied had she continued her charge. Her eyes widened in shock as she comprehended how close she'd come to walking into the trap.
Clara didn't pause, immediately transitioning into a powerful downward strike. Celia barely managed to dodge sideways as the massive greatsword cleaved through the air beside her. Two more phantom blades followed, continuing along the same trajectory before merging with the real weapon.
Each echo ended with a metallic clang as it struck the arena floor, the sounds ringing out in perfect rhythm like some deadly metronome. The phantom strikes left visible gouges in the sand where they landed, proof of their lethal potential despite their ghostly appearance.
Vel's heart pounded as he watched Celia and Clara's lethal dance. No battle cries, no dramatic declarations. Just the whisper of blades through air and the subtle shifting of feet in sand. The silence made it all the more terrifying. Each movement could mean death if miscalculated.
A click of mandibles pulled Vel's attention back. The warrior was already moving.
It came at him without the patience of before. Each strike widened the fracture across its chest plate. It didn't seem to care. Vel sidestepped the halberd's edge by a hand's breadth, the plasma on his gauntlets leaving trails of blue flame as he twisted past.
The warrior wasn't bored anymore.
It was faster now. The dodges that worked before barely worked.
He dodged each swing, but his mind kept showing him Celia.
Is she going to be okay?
No. Trust her. Trust them. Or it'll be me taking the next hit.
Strike, dodge, counter. Look for the gap in the armor, or for the chance to strip it off entirely.
The only sounds were the scrape of chitin against sand and the soft hiss of his own magic. Every near miss carried weight. One slip, one breath of hesitation, and it would be the last.