"In an instant... he destroyed nearly half of my puppets?"
Several miles away from the razed deep pit, under the shadow of a giant tree, Samael sat leaning against the gnarled roots. At this moment, his face revealed its true expression—disbelief, along with a hint of heartache.
Tsukasa's Hollow Purple had not only leveled the mountaintop but also destroyed nearly half of the puppet network he had meticulously arranged in the surrounding area to deal with various situations.
"Aaahhhhh!!!" A violent roar sounded beside him.
Petelgeuse Romanee-Conti, the Sin Archbishop of Sloth, was in an even more miserable state.
He had followed Samael's advice to "disperse the Fingers to save his life" and hidden most of the Fingers a kilometer away, but the power of that purple light to annihilate everything still destroyed almost most of them.
At this moment, he suddenly turned his head. His eyes, burning with madness, stared fixedly at Samael. His twisted face was full of rage and accusation, clearly intending to blame this painful loss on his arrogant colleague.
Just a second before Petelgeuse was about to explode—
Samael raised his hand to interrupt him, pointing to the smoke-filled area in front of them.
"He's already here."
The smoke was dispersed by a sudden gust of wind. A figure stood quietly amidst the dissipating dust. His white hair was exceptionally striking in the dim light, and a black skin-tight suit outlined his lean, powerful physique.
It was Tsukasa.
He wore an almost leisurely expression as his eyes swept over the two Sin Archbishops under the tree, the corners of his lips curling slightly.
"You really do have life-saving skills."
He said in a relaxed tone, as if commenting on something interesting. "It's a good thing I came over to take a look. After all, I've suffered a loss before."
Samael stood up, his face once again wearing that perfect and fake smile. "You won't be able to use it a second time, will you?"
His voice was steady, but his gaze was as sharp as a knife. "That terrifying magic."
Although the current situation was pathetic and the losses were heavy, Samael's rational analysis told him: an attack of that scale and nature must consume an incredible amount of energy.
He didn't believe the opponent could perform it consecutively. As long as he couldn't use that move, with the coordination of his and Petelgeuse's abilities, there was still a chance of victory.
The moment his voice fell—
"Ugh! Unforgivable! Unpardonable! Diligence! Must be given!!!"
Petelgeuse didn't even listen to Samael finish. His reason, already swallowed by anger and madness, snapped completely. His arms spread out weirdly, and a non-human roar squeezed out of his throat.
Countless Invisible Hands burst frantically from his twisted body and obscured a large area of space above Tsukasa's head.
These Invisible Hands were terrifyingly fast, tearing through the air and smashing down in a continuous barrage from all directions.
Almost at the same time, Samael's hands gripped the air in front of his chest, and his eyes narrowed.
In the space around Tsukasa's body, dozens of "distortion points" appeared that were almost imperceptible to the naked eye. These points were the manifestation of air being compressed to the extreme, about to break through the critical state.
The rain of Invisible Hands and the detonation of the extremely compressed air points—the coordination between the two was completed in an instant, and the attacks arrived simultaneously.
However, moving even earlier than their attacks was Tsukasa.
He appeared abruptly three meters to the right of Petelgeuse, exactly in a blind spot that several Invisible Hands' attack trajectories could not temporarily reach.
He raised his right hand, fingers slightly spread, palm aimed at Petelgeuse. A deep blue light—not a massive vortex like the previous Blue, but a halo condensed like a solid substance—instantly wrapped around his palm.
"Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue!
A terrifying attraction force erupted from his palm as the origin.
Immediately, including Petelgeuse himself, several Invisible Hands around him were instantly distorted by this sudden gravity, and their attack trajectories were disrupted.
Petelgeuse's body flew backward, smashing through two trees before rolling to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.
In that instant, Samael's eyes narrowed.
Those Distortion Points originally distributed around Tsukasa's previous position instantly appeared around his current footing, blocking all his evasion space, and the internal pressure was pushed to the brink of explosion.
"Burst." Samael's thin lips parted slightly.
However, the expected chain explosion did not occur.
Tsukasa didn't even look back. He just waved his left hand backward casually. A crimson sphere suddenly streaked past his fingertips, passing through all the Distortion Points around him and flying into the distance.
Cursed Technique Reversal: Red!
This scene caused Samael's pupils to shrink suddenly.
He saw it clearly. At the moment the repulsive force of Red contacted the Distortion Points, that power destroyed almost all of them.
In the instant Samael's thoughts raced,
Tsukasa's figure had already closed in.
A side kick tore through the air, carrying a dull sound of breaking wind, and rapidly zoomed in on Samael's pupils.
Too late to finely control the air!
With a thought, a translucent Air Wall instantly condensed in front of him.
Bang!
The Air Wall vibrated violently, ripples spreading across its surface, but it didn't shatter, steadily blocking the strike.
Samael's pupils narrowed slightly. He clearly saw that the moment Tsukasa's leg kicked the Air Wall, a faint deep blue halo shimmered on the surface.
Blue... it's gravity control.
Based on the performance of the two colors in that terrifying strike earlier, blue represents "attraction," and red represents "repulsion."
He attached that blue thing to his leg to increase the impact? No, perhaps to...
Just as the thought arose, Tsukasa's voice rang out calmly. "Maximum Output."
With Tsukasa as the center, an irresistible and terrifying suction force erupted. It wasn't aimed at a single point, but an all-encompassing, violent pull like a black hole descending.
Everything around—trees, rocks, even the thick dust and gravel on the ground—broke free from the shackles of gravity as if seized by an invisible hand, rushing frantically toward Samael and Tsukasa from all directions.
'He wants to use the environment to attack me?!' Samael's heart skipped a beat.
This puppet's mana consumption was higher than imagined, and the functions of his new body were slightly stiff due to the hasty reconstruction. Faced with this full-speed, indiscriminate physical impact, he was temporarily unable to make an effective evasion or defense.
Just when the two about to be swallowed by this ocean of matter—
"Ahhhhh!!! Diligence!!!"
Petelgeuse's frenzied roar tore through the air.
He forced his way against the gravitational pull that hadn't fully dissipated, activating his Witch Factor. Dozens of Invisible Hands surged out from his twisted body, no longer attacking Tsukasa, but instead acting like a giant net, fiercely meeting the incoming torrent of matter.
Boom... Boom...
Broken wood was crushed by the Invisible Hands, rocks were slapped away, and gravel was shaken apart.
Petelgeuse, with his own strength alone, forcibly carved out a small foothold for the two of them in this destructive torrent of matter.
Not only that, several Invisible Hands even penetrated the splashing debris and lunged toward Tsukasa not far away.
However...
Tsukasa's voice, carrying an unabashedly arrogant laugh, reached Samael's ears. "I never said that my attack was just this."
Just as the Invisible Hands were about to touch his back, the movements of those few Invisible Hands suddenly became incredibly sluggish, yet they were still advancing.
What is this?!
A guess flashed in Samael's eyes.
But just as Petelgeuse and Samael's attention was drawn to those few slowly advancing Invisible Hands—
A strange crimson light suddenly lit up behind Samael.
Samael turned his head sharply.
It was that crimson light ball—hadn't he already thrown it away?
It actually came back?!
No, it didn't come back on its own.
Samael understood instantly—it was that blue thing.
While Tsukasa was using the maximum output of Blue to attract environmental objects, he had already precisely calculated the flight trajectory and speed of this "stray bullet," including its return within the pull of the attraction force.
He might have even used Blue to fine-tune its path, making it circle in a large arc like a boomerang, attacking from the most undefendable blind spot... behind him!
Even without Blue's active attraction, with the initial velocity of that compressed bullet and the mountain terrain around this place, it was very likely to return to this area after circling the mountain.
This guy...
Samael looked at the arrogant, in-control smile on Tsukasa's face, and he was once again shocked.
His tactical adaptability, his utilization of battlefield details... it's simply terrifying.