When Ren Kuroda showed no fear or anxiety toward that unknown power—charging straight at him again instead, eyes alight with interest—Maxwell felt a headache coming on.
Just as Ren had guessed, the force that had caused Divine Protection to swing wide and saved Arudap earlier really was Maxwell's doing. And just as Ren said, that power seemed incapable of directly affecting the male adventurer before him—or the goddess standing off to the side. What it could influence, however, was everything around them.
Moments ago, Ren's slash should have cleaved Arudap in two without fail. Instead, Maxwell had used his ability to twist that reality itself—rewriting the "truth" in which Arudap was struck by the blade into a different "truth" where Arudap narrowly avoided the attack.
The distortion hadn't acted on Ren at all. It had acted on Arudap.
Once Ren realized that as long as Maxwell remained standing, any attack aimed at Arudap would end the same way—missing at the last second—he abandoned Arudap entirely and shifted all his focus to Maxwell.
Slashes detonated one after another throughout the underground chamber. Faced with a truly powerful opponent, the battle-hungry oni blood in Ren's veins began to boil, his assault growing increasingly ferocious.
As for Maxwell, now facing a Ren who fought like a wild beast, things only became more and more miserable.
He had never imagined that a demon duke like himself could be driven into such a corner by a single adventurer.
Ren's martial skill was astounding. In close combat, Maxwell was constantly skirting the edge of disaster, and whenever an attack proved impossible to dodge, he had no choice but to twist the reality in which he was hit—and counterattack in the opening that followed.
During the fight, Maxwell even used his power in subtler ways: twisting the "reality" where the ground would not collapse into one where it suddenly gave way beneath Ren's feet; turning the "truth" where the ceiling would remain intact into one where it crashed down without warning—using the environment itself to force openings.
If his power couldn't affect the opponent directly, then he would manipulate everything around them.
Yet even after forcing Ren to reveal opening after opening, Maxwell still couldn't shake off the pressure this young adventurer exerted.
Ren possessed not only formidable technique, but instincts and reaction speed rivaling a wild beast. On top of his outstanding close-quarters combat ability, he wielded a baffling variety of strange spells—
Spells that required no chanting, yet carried tremendous power.
What truly pushed Maxwell toward disbelief, however, was this:
Whenever Ren failed to evade an attack and Maxwell managed to leave wounds on him, those injuries regenerated in a short time—without Ren even activating any form of healing.
And as if that weren't absurd enough, even though Ren's mana—boosted by the goddess's support skills—had originally been inferior to Maxwell's, and even though such an intense battle should have drained it rapidly…
Every time Ren's mana began to run low, he simply pulled out that enormous gourd, took a swig—and his mana recovered immediately.
Immense magical power. Exceptional martial skill. A vast arsenal of chantless spells. A body capable of self-regeneration. And mana that seemed to never run dry.
Maxwell couldn't help but think that compared to him, the demon duke, the one who truly resembled a legendary demon god was Ren Kuroda.
Humans weren't supposed to have physiques and talents this outrageous.
If humanity had a few more monsters like this, the Demon King's Army would have been wiped out long ago. Maxwell knew that much for certain.
Even the current Demon King—though stronger than Maxwell—was only stronger to a degree. Someone like Ren would never have allowed the kingdom to be pushed to the brink in the first place.
The battle between Ren and Maxwell dragged on for several hours. When Maxwell saw Ren block with Oni Art: Severing Void—only to calmly pull out that massive gourd yet again—his teeth ground together in fury.
At first, Maxwell had assumed the gourd contained some kind of high-grade mana recovery potion.
And consumables, no matter how rare, always ran out eventually.
Ren cast spells far more frequently than he did, and his natural mana recovery was inferior. As long as Maxwell could outlast the potion in that gourd, victory wasn't impossible.
Every time Ren lifted the gourd, Maxwell told himself this would be the last refill.
Before long, despair set in.
That "last time" never seemed to arrive.
Worse still, despite the gourd's size, the total amount Ren had drunk far exceeded what its volume should have allowed. Maxwell was absolutely certain of that.
"Bastard! Don't tell me you brought multiple identical gourds just to mess with me! Otherwise, there's no way there'd be any potion left in that thing!"
Watching Ren's mana recover yet again, that was the only explanation Maxwell could come up with.
"You mean this?" Ren said, lifting the gourd. "This might be hard for you to accept, but it's called the Endless Wine Gourd.
"What's inside isn't a potion—it's sake. And if you're waiting for it to run dry, you're going to be disappointed. The wine in this gourd can never be exhausted. Otherwise, why would it be called 'endless'?
"That said, the quality's not as good as what I drank earlier. For me, it can't increase yokai power—uh, mana—anymore. It can only restore it."
Ren smiled faintly.
"But even if it's just good for recovery, it should be more than enough to deal with you right now.
"Didn't you notice? You started out with more mana than me—but after all that constant expenditure, you're down to about my level. Maybe even less."
Ren didn't need to point it out. Maxwell already knew how dire his situation was.
As a demon duke, Maxwell's strength was unquestionable. Even in Hell itself, he was a figure of considerable status.
The problem was compatibility.
Maxwell wasn't particularly suited for prolonged combat. The majority of his power came from his unique ability.
And once that ability failed to function properly against Ren, his overall strength plummeted.
If any of the other Seven Dukes of Hell were fighting Ren instead, this battle would not have gone so easily. Ren might have been forced to reveal even more of his cards.
"…Are you one of those so-called 'Heroes'?" Maxwell asked at last. "A normal adventurer shouldn't be able to possess such absurd physical ability and skills."
Only now did Maxwell truly understand why, from the very beginning, Ren had felt more dangerous than the goddess herself.
His abilities and constitution were simply too abnormal—abnormal to the point where he genuinely possessed the power to kill a demon duke.
The ability to distort reality was undeniably powerful, but it wasn't free. Each use consumed an enormous amount of mana—far more than ordinary magic.
Even with mana reserves vast enough to be described as an ocean, they weren't infinite.
After using his ability repeatedly throughout the battle, Maxwell was starting to feel the strain.
And for reasons he couldn't quite explain, Maxwell sensed that although Ren appeared to be fighting with everything he had… he was also holding something back.
Near-infinite mana recovery. A self-healing body. Overwhelming combat ability. And some hidden reserve of power.
All of it together was enough to make Maxwell's resolve waver.
"We've been fighting long enough that I'm starting to understand your ability," Ren said calmly. "It's something close to a law-type power, isn't it?
"And when you add your name—Maxwell—it inevitably brings to mind a certain famous physicist…"
At first, Ren had thought this other world likely bore little connection to his original one. A power that twisted reality itself seemed far too outrageous.
But as the battle dragged on and Maxwell's ability remained elusive, Ren finally tried mapping it onto a familiar framework—and suddenly, everything clicked.
That explained why the citizens of Axel hadn't suffered any physical magical interference, yet their memories had been altered.
Maxwell wasn't rewriting individual memories. He was distorting the truth of events themselves—rewriting reality so that people's perceptions changed naturally, without leaving a single trace.
Compared to ordinary illusions, this was on an entirely different level.
It altered cognition at the root.
And once changed, there was no way to undo it.
"To analyze the essence of my power in such a short time…" Maxwell laughed bitterly. "You really are a freak.
"Not just your body and mana—even your instincts and observation skills are monstrous.
"Seriously… why did a human like you have to appear now?"
Maxwell had already been contemplating retreat. After Ren bluntly exposed the nature of his ability, that thought solidified completely.
His mana reserves were down to roughly half. Ren's mana, meanwhile, was fully restored—and he still had hidden options.
A goddess watched from the sidelines, ready to act. And on top of that, Maxwell still had to protect the deadweight that was Arudap.
The situation couldn't have been worse.
This adventurer was no ordinary man.
If Maxwell continued to hesitate here, he might truly end up being cut down on this battlefield.