A stabbing pain blossomed through Kain's abdomen.
The man who had been more than a hundred meters away seemed to erase the very concept of distance. In a single instant, he crossed the gap and appeared directly in front of Kain.
The longsword in his hand sank into Kain's chest like a massive nail, pinning him to the throne.
Correction—he wasn't pinned to the throne, but to empty space.
The throne used for teleportation had already vanished like an illusion.
Kain had failed to react in time partly because teleporting through the system console known as the Throne had one major drawback: it left the user briefly immobilized upon arrival.
Furthermore, the Throne wasn't Underworld's true primary control system. It had only granted Kain secondary administrative privileges.
Its teleportation range was therefore limited to the Dark Territory. It couldn't transport him directly into the Human Empire.
"If you'd been a little faster—if you hadn't hesitated for that one second after I appeared—you would've put me in serious trouble."
Kain spoke calmly.
His sudden appearance had shocked his opponent, making the man wary. He had wasted a single second deciding whether to launch a preemptive attack.
That second had made all the difference.
The Knight Commander's Time Piercing Sword should have decapitated Kain.
But because he had hesitated, Kain recovered from the teleportation delay in time to react.
He couldn't evade the attack completely, but he managed to prevent the blade from taking his head.
Instead, it sliced into his chest.
The sword cut almost halfway through his torso before stopping, its progress halted when Kain's left hand clamped around the swordsman's wrist.
When Kain first spoke, the wound had yet to appear. It looked as though the sword had pierced him rather than slashed horizontally across his body.
As he finished speaking, the injury became visible.
A perfectly straight red line extended from the left side of his chest, cutting across his heart and ending near the center of his torso.
Less than a tenth of a second after the line appeared, blood erupted from it.
At the same time, Kain extended his raised right hand toward his opponent.
He had lifted that arm before the slash arrived, which was the only reason it hadn't been severed.
Lightning danced across his open palm.
In the next instant, the electrical light expanded violently, forming a sphere of lightning that swallowed the swordsman.
This was Kain's magic.
Under this world's rules, casting magic required an incantation. The caster had to speak a system command aloud.
Kain, however, could cast without speaking because he recited the commands silently within his mind.
Thinking an incantation was much faster than speaking it.
The system still interpreted his thoughts as a spoken command.
After connecting the Throne to the outside world, 6O had analyzed the flowing data and helped Kain optimize himself.
Underworld was effectively a computer system whose underlying structure couldn't be altered. If he wanted software to run more smoothly on such a system, the only option was to optimize the installed software itself.
Using 6O's analysis, Kain learned to split his consciousness between two simultaneous tasks.
He could silently recite system commands within Underworld while his real brain transmitted data equivalent to his avatar speaking aloud.
The system therefore judged that he had verbally recited the incantation.
As a result, Kain could activate system-command-based arts at tremendous speed, almost as if he were casting without an incantation.
The advanced attack he had used earlier to dismember more than a dozen people with a wave of his hand was another system-command-based art.
It created discontinuities of vacuum within the air.
Those discontinuities acted like invisible, razor-sharp blades, slicing his attackers into pieces.
In a way, the technique resembled the Knight Commander's Time Piercing Sword, whose slashes could remain suspended and fixed in space.
Crackle!
The sphere of lightning released a deafening electrical roar before dissipating.
The figure it had engulfed was nowhere to be seen.
He hadn't been burned to charcoal or vaporized.
The sword embedded in Kain's body had also vanished. His opponent had withdrawn it and reacted quickly enough to evade the sphere of lightning.
He hadn't escaped completely unharmed, however.
At least some of the electricity had struck him.
At that same moment, another Integrity Knight standing behind and to the side of the Knight Commander released an arrow from his Conflagrant Flame Bow.
The arrow crossed the distance until it was less than ten meters from Kain, then transformed into a blazing bird.
It seemed to release a piercing shriek as it lunged forward to devour him.
Their coordination was impressive.
The chained attacks left Kain little room to react, and the fiery assault would also expose the vacuum discontinuities he had scattered through the surrounding air.
Boom!
Roaring flames exploded outward.
The heat seemed to instantly evaporate every trace of moisture in the air for dozens of meters.
The rocks caught in the blast turned as red as heated iron within the blink of an eye, then rapidly blackened as their surfaces carbonized.
Every Integrity Knight stared tensely into the inferno.
Even Knight Commander Bercouli wouldn't dare take an attack like that from Deusolbert Synthesis Seven head-on.
Bercouli's pupils contracted.
The flames were disappearing at an unnatural rate.
Within moments, all that remained were several strange, blade-shaped traces of solidified fire hanging in the air.
They appeared to outline marks that had previously been invisible.
Each one had formed a strange opening that drew the flames inside and absorbed them.
If Deusolbert hadn't launched that ranged attack, anyone who recklessly charged forward might have been struck by those invisible blade marks suspended in the air.
How interesting.
Their effect resembled that of Bercouli's own Time Piercing Sword.
Those marks had absorbed the flames, protecting Kain from the attack.
But Bercouli noticed something even more alarming.
The devastating wound he had inflicted on Kain had vanished.
No—that hadn't merely been a serious wound.
It should have been fatal.
His sword had clearly cut through Kain's heart, yet the man remained completely unharmed.
The realization made the hearts of Bercouli and every other witness sink.
"Alice, what are you still standing there for? Leave immediately—and evacuate every village in the surrounding area!"
The Knight Commander's shout finally snapped Alice back to her senses.
Her lips moved, but no words came out.
In the end, she bit down hard on her lower lip, turned away, and ran toward her flying dragon.
The instant she turned, she sensed every Integrity Knight behind her unleashing their Armament Full Control Arts.
None of them were holding anything back.
They had immediately drawn upon their full power to confront the man who could only be the Emperor of the Dark Territory.
"Amayori, hurry!"
Alice urged the dragon she had named Amayori to fly faster.
She wasn't simply trying to escape.
She wanted to deliver the warning as quickly as possible so that she could return sooner.
Amayori seemed to understand the urgency. The dragon accelerated with unprecedented speed, carrying Alice far enough away that she could no longer hear the battle behind her.
Before the sounds vanished completely, she heard several thunderous explosions and the repeated clash of metal.
Alice desperately wanted to turn around and see what was happening.
She forced herself not to.
She was afraid that if she looked back, she might witness something tragic.
No.
That wasn't right.
Why was she being so pessimistic?
Wasn't thinking like that the same as cursing her uncle and the others to lose?
That was impossible.
Her uncle couldn't lose.
He was the strongest Integrity Knight in history.
There was no possible way he could be defeated.
Yes.
He couldn't lose.
(End of Chapter)
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