Boom!
A thunderous roar echoed through the air, but Firefly's gaze remained fixed on the skeletal arm blocking her path, shielding Director Fujiwara. The arm was as unyielding as she had imagined.
Her kick shattered only the already cracked armor encasing the skeletal arm. The bone beneath, as pristine as white jade, remained utterly unscathed.
Normal attacks couldn't penetrate its defenses, and even 'Heavenly Fire' is useless? Firefly mused.
Meanwhile, Director Fujiwara finally realized he had been ambushed. His face turned livid. "You bastard!"
"Fine," Fujiwara retorted. "I was going to talk, but if you're so eager to die, don't blame me!"
From Fujiwara's perspective, the sudden appearance of SAM from the Dimensional Rift was unexpected, but nothing more than a minor complication.
The plan was already more than halfway complete. The Wizard and Hunter had fallen, and Fujiwara was now focused on gathering all his strength for a head-on confrontation with Mad Lion.
Indeed, there was no shortcut to defeating Mad Lion. Only overwhelming force, delivered face-to-face, would suffice.
Fujiwara's unchecked actions had led to a horrific tragedy in the Kingdom's Capital. It wasn't merely a lack of restraint; during the chaos that engulfed the city, Fujiwara had stormed the Royal Palace, slaughtered all the guards and His Majesty the King, and seized the nation's Treasury.
Having completed these atrocities, he summoned the Skeleton King and casually strolled through the streets, absorbing vast quantities of souls to further enhance his power. By this point, Fujiwara was confident enough to confront the Mad Lion head-on. Why should he fear the sudden appearance of SAM?
After all, SAM's only notable achievement was defeating a British general. In Fujiwara's eyes, killing that same general would now be child's play.
Therefore, he felt no fear of SAM. If they could negotiate and recruit him to his side, that would be ideal. If not, killing him would suffice.
SAM couldn't possibly be stronger than the Mad Lion, could he?
As he spoke, Fujiwara lightly leaped from the Skeleton King's palm onto its shoulder. The skeleton's now-free hand reached behind, drew a massive, rust-covered katana, and slashed at Firefly in mid-air.
Firefly easily evaded the slow, lumbering attack, sidestepping it with a casual movement. But the next instant, a beam of dark green energy slammed into her chest.
"Finger of Death!" Fujiwara, perched atop the skeleton's shoulder, raised his right hand, pointing directly at Firefly. A ring embedded with a green gemstone adorned his index finger—undoubtedly the source of the beam he had just unleashed.
Finger of Death—a classic necromantic spell from the D&D universe. Its effect was simple: to instantly kill the target it struck.
Naturally, the spell wasn't quite as potent as it sounded. It operated on a hidden threshold, functioning like an execution skill. Instant death only occurred if the enemy's "health" fell below this threshold. However, this threshold was exceptionally high, meaning most targets would fall within its execution range.
The spell also had another flaw: as a non-targeted skill, it could be dodged. If it missed, it had no effect.
It was precisely for this reason that Fujiwara deliberately cast the spell when Firefly dodged the Skeleton King's slashing attack. True to his plan, Firefly failed to notice the attack and was struck. But... nothing happened.
In truth, even if the spell had hit Firefly directly, it wouldn't have mattered. Her Life Level far exceeded the spell's lethal threshold.
"How is this possible?! Did I use it wrong? That can't be!" Fujiwara stared in disbelief at SAM, who floated unharmed in the air. The ring on his finger wasn't his own; he had looted it from the Wizard's corpse.
Though the Wizard was dead, his body was still laden with Magic Artifacts. While the Blade of the Ordinary had destroyed all his defensive artifacts, the offensive ones remained intact.
This was why Fujiwara had stormed the Royal Palace. He wasn't after the Treasury's riches, but the legendary magic circle capable of summoning a Hero.
He had slightly modified the magic circle, linking it to himself to draw magical energy. This allowed him to wield all the Wizard's Magic Artifacts as his own!
It's impossible not to mention Fujiwara's Super Ability: God's Left Hand. This power allows him to masterfully manipulate anything he touches. For example, despite knowing nothing about magic, he effortlessly modified the Hero-summoning magic circle into one that supplied him with magical energy, even though he himself couldn't explain how he did it.
Take, for instance, the Wizard's Magic Artifact he picked up. He easily bypassed its magical locks and claimed it as his own.
Consider the Skeleton King beneath him, originally someone else's summoned creature, yet Fujiwara controlled it with ease.
While Fujiwara was still puzzling over why his magic hadn't worked, Firefly clenched her right fist. A torrent of flames erupted from her body, surging skyward.
In an instant, she transformed into a blazing meteor and vanished from sight.
Supernova Overload!
Firefly's target was naturally Fujiwara, perched atop the skeleton's shoulder, a fact he was well aware of. As she raised her hand, the skeleton immediately positioned its katana in its right hand and its left arm to block her path.
Boom—!!!
As expected, the ancient katana shattered instantly. But when Firefly's attack struck the skeleton's arm behind it, she couldn't help but look stunned.
The force of her blow sent the thirty-meter-tall skeleton hurtling backward hundreds of meters. Yet despite the impact, not a single scratch marred its arm. Supernova Overload, her signature technique, was designed to unleash a piercing stream of flames that would erupt from the enemy's back.
Instead, the flames failed to penetrate the skeleton. They were deflected, scattering outward like the petals of a colossal fiery blossom blooming in mid-air.
"Hmph, futile," Fujiwara sneered from his skeletal perch, having recovered from the failure of his Finger of Death. He regarded Firefly with mockery. "This monster was cultivated over years, using the combined resources of an entire nation. Your attacks can't even scratch it!"
To be honest, the skeleton was far tougher than Firefly had imagined. Supernova Overload was nearly her strongest single-target attack in her Secondary Combustion State.
Even the Mad Lion had fallen to this technique, yet this skeleton remained completely unscathed?
However, Firefly also noticed that the skeleton seemed to possess only one defining trait: extraordinary toughness. The creature itself appeared keenly aware of this limitation, which explained why it had first made the skeleton draw its blade to distract her, reserving its true killing blow—the Finger of Death—for later.
In other words, this skeleton was merely a monster specialized in extreme defense?
What kind of strategy was that? Had it simply poured all its points into defense out of fear of death?
Logically, the best course of action would be to ignore the skeleton and attack the summoner directly, just as she had done during the School Dimensional Rift Incident.
She could either use a powerful attack to knock aside the skeleton's arm or rely on her lightning-fast speed to bypass its defenses and strike Fujiwara directly.
But seeing the skeleton's arrogant demeanor, she abandoned both ideas.
"You claim this skeleton was cultivated using the full might of your nation?" she scoffed. "Are you so confident that its defense is truly invincible?"
"Fine, then! I'll shatter it right in front of you!"
Ignoring the enemy's weaknesses to focus solely on their strengths was, by any measure, an irrational idea. Firefly knew this, but she was simply too furious to care. She wanted nothing more than to wipe the smug look off Fujiwara's face.
Firefly took a small step back. Fujiwara grinned even wider. "What? Giving up already? Too late now! Prepare to pay for everything you've done!"
As he spoke, Fujiwara raised his hand. The other red ring on his finger began to glow, and a terrifying surge of magic power coalesced around him.
Meanwhile, the fiery cross on SAM's chest gradually faded, giving the impression that its engine had been shut down and that it had truly given up. But the reality was quite different.
Under Firefly's will, SAM hadn't ceased operation at all. Instead, its power output was surging at an unimaginable rate. The red flames vanished, replaced by cyan wings of light that unfurled behind the mech.
Simultaneously, two cyan lightsabers materialized in Firefly's hands.
Without a doubt, this was SAM's Full Combustion Mode! It was only the second time Firefly had ever entered this state.
(The first time was during a private experimental test.)
Immense pressure bore down on Firefly, making her feel as if she were bent double, carrying ten buckets of water on her back. Every second she held on was a brutal test of her willpower. Inside SAM, her brow furrowed so deeply it almost formed a V-shape. Her expression was grim, her jaw clenched tight.
Unbeknownst to Firefly, cyan veins had appeared on her cheeks—a visible manifestation of the extreme connection and overload with SAM.
But... if that were all, she could still endure!
Strangely, this scene evoked a strong sense of déjà vu. It reminded Firefly of the time at the School Dimensional Rift when she had deactivated the Lightsaber mode on her Transformation Device, which the Sakura Nation person had mistakenly taken as a sign of surrender.
Now, was the preparatory phase of her second-stage transformation being misinterpreted as surrender?
The next instant, a blinding red beam shot toward Firefly with incredible speed. Fujiwara had clearly learned from his earlier failure; when his Finger of Death spell had failed, he immediately switched to a different type of magic.
To Firefly, the attack seemed to move with the speed of a crawling turtle. The most noticeable difference between her Secondary Combustion State and her current Full Combustion State—aside from the immense pressure—was the staggering increase in her speed, a leap so vast it defied imagination.
It was akin to comparing a baby's crawl to a rocket's ascent.
"...!" In the time it took to form a single thought, SAM vanished into thin air, teleporting to land near the skeleton's shoulder, less than three meters from Fujiwara. The man stood frozen, grinning with his hand still raised in the afterglow of his spellcasting motion.
In truth, Firefly could have easily severed his head with a casual swing of her weapon. But she didn't.
Instead, her gaze shifted to the skeleton's hands. One clutched the Broken Blade Handle, while the other, palm facing Fujiwara, formed a protective barrier before him. Of course, this also inadvertently shielded Firefly.
She turned, her hand moving with lethal precision. In stark contrast to its previous invincibility, her cyan lightsaber sliced through the skeleton's wrist like a hot knife through butter, encountering no resistance whatsoever.
Firefly was even slightly puzzled. Had she truly severed the wrist? After all, it remained connected to the arm after her strike.
But as this thought crossed her mind, she clearly saw the severed wrist subtly slip down the arm from the point of impact.
Ah, so that's why, she realized. It's not that I didn't cut it off, it's just that my speed is too fast. It's like I've entered some kind of super "bullet time" where everything around me is in slow motion. The skeleton's reaction to being severed is simply delayed.
"So that's how it is?" she muttered to herself. Firefly casually swung her twin lightsabers, tracing swift arcs across the skeleton's wrist.
Only after confirming the separation did she retreat to a safe distance.
Fujiwara had just cast Disintegrate on an enemy who had lost the will to fight. He had aimed carefully, and the spell had succeeded. But then, he felt something flicker past him, or perhaps it was just an illusion.
A moment later, he realized the "enemy" was gone—or, more accurately, had shifted positions.
Fujiwara frowned. "What's going on? When did he move to the left...?"
He couldn't finish the thought. His expression shifted from confusion to shock, then horror, then sheer terror. The skeleton's arm, which had been a short distance in front of him, suddenly exploded like shredded paper, scattering bone fragments in all directions.
"What's happening?!"
"No, this can't be real!"
"This must be an illusion! Illusion Art? When did he cast it? When did I fall for this?"
Fujiwara's pupils trembled violently. What he was witnessing wasn't just the destruction of a skeleton; it was the shattering of his entire worldview.