Chapter 7

‘……Equal.’

Rex, the orc covered head-to-toe in blood, thought as he watched the Overlord and the boy face off.

Just the Overlord’s descent onto the battlefield alone was enough to tighten his legs with tension and bead his spine with cold sweat. Yet, against that overwhelmingly monstrous being, the white-haired boy was maintaining a taut stalemate.

“You are at least a 7th Circle mage. Considering you reached the 7th Circle at such a young age, you will likely reach the 9th soon enough.”

“Well, you seem to know everything, so there’s no need to hide it, I suppose.”

Lost in the intensity of combat, he hadn’t heard all of their conversation. However, the fragmented sentences were more than enough to grasp the situation.

‘The boy can’t be more than sixteen, seventeen years old. And yet, 7th Circle…’

Born a warrior, Rex, who’d lived his entire life swinging an axe, was able to maintain his reason and continue thinking even as adrenaline surged through him.

The boy he had carelessly let into the carriage headed for the capital was a mage with the greatest talent on the continent.

And the Overlord, in order to deal with that white-haired boy, a genius mage who reached the 7th Circle at the youngest age in history, had dared to brave so many dangers to appear here in person.

As those two facts settled in his mind, the next order to be given to the squad came naturally.

“…All personnel! Change the objective from ‘survival’ to ‘guarding the boy’! That boy is a valuable asset who must not die here! We must escort him to the capital, no matter what!”

The life of the boy alone was more precious than his own, let alone the lives of all the subordinates here. It didn’t take long to reach that conclusion.

Noble words about how all lives are equal were useless on the battlefield. How many variations would a single spell from a 7th Circle mage incinerate, and how many lives would it save?

On the battlefield, the value of a life is not equal. Rex, who had lived his entire life as a warrior, knew that fact well.

If someone had to die here, it should be them, not the boy.

“Damn it, we’re busy enough trying to keep ourselves alive…! Where are the mages!”

“The order is to protect the mage! All personnel, form a triple formation around the mage!”

“Arrow barrage from the right! Raise your shields! Think of it as instant death if you even get grazed!”

Then, a fire, sparked from a stray ember, seized the fletching of the arrows flying from the forest, twisting their trajectories into chaos.

_Kad-dud-duk!_

A hail of arrows, brimming with raw magic, hammered against the infantry’s colossal shields.

Arrows that, under normal circumstances, would have pierced shield and flesh alike with their potent magic, were now crippled, their flight paths erratic, their power diminished by the burning feathers.

“Hmm…”

The Archon, locked in a tense standoff with the white-haired boy-mage, regarded the soldiers rushing to the mage’s defense with a gaze of irritation.

‘An unknown mage… whose capabilities are entirely uncertain, whose magic remains a mystery…’

The Archon remained stationary.

He wasn’t about to expose a weakness against a 7th-circle mage—or perhaps something even greater—before him.

He merely glanced sideways at the soldiers charging in his direction.

_Kwang!_

As his gaze flickered, burning trees toppled in all directions, the ground convulsed in a frenzy, and embers showered down like fiery rain.

“As commanded.”

A hulking abomination, crafted from a 6-meter tall Great Orc Barbarian, materialized, engulfed in flames, wielding a massive axe.

The abomination slammed its enormous feet against the ground and swung its house-sized axe at the advancing soldiers.

_Kang!_

The axe of Rex, the hero-orc, met the blow in a clash of sparks and roaring flames. The size difference was immense, but through relentless training, he somehow managed to parry the gargantuan axe.

“Go! Protect the mage!”

Spurred back into action by the appearance of the colossal monster, the soldiers resumed their charge.

“Tsk.”

The Archduke flicked his fingers upward with a hint of annoyance, gesturing toward the soldiers charging at the boy.

Ebony magic gathered at his fingertips, vibrating wildly as if on the verge of exploding.

The boy’s blue eyes…

…did not miss the moment the Archduke’s attention shifted to the soldiers.

Massive currents poured from the boy’s arms and legs. His snow-white hair stood on end, and an eerie aura swirled around him, as if lightning were about to strike.

‘…He’s planning to exploit an opening and attack, is he?’

Maltiel noticed the mage who seemed ready to unleash a tremendous surge of power and chuckled inwardly.

‘He took the bait.’

Demons were inherently cunning, a race that delighted in deceiving their opponents.

Maltiel, an Archduke, could erase the humans rushing to protect the mage from existence in an instant, without so much as a glance or a gesture.

Yet, he deliberately turned his gaze and pointed his finger toward the infantry.

To signal to the mage before him that now was the perfect opportunity to attack.

‘The moment you attack, your head will be the one flying.’

Maltiel had always employed tactics like this.

Feigning weakness, pretending to be vulnerable, acting as if he were cornered – the opponent would invariably unleash a full-force punch at him.

Maltiel relished the desperate blow that came roaring in with a fervent war cry, as if the attacker were pouring their everything into this one strike.

Because the more desperate the attack, the more devastating the counter when it landed.

‘Come…!’

A massive flash of light erupted from the boy’s fingertips. A terrifying surge of energy, enough to chill you to the bone, surged forth.

“Transformation.”

The demon’s crimson eyes and ebony hand swung back toward the boy.

Grand Lord Maltiel, having waited for this moment, released the demonic energy coalesced at his fingertips directly into a single point, aiming to obliterate the boy’s heart –the boy now momentarily frozen in place by the exertion of wielding such formidable power.

The stark black line sliced through the hundreds of thousands of volts emanating from the boy, its endpoint nowhere in sight.

It carved massive holes through the trees, stones, earth, and mutated creatures in its path, that endless black streak painting a scene as if a god had dipped a quill in ink and drawn a long line across the world.

“It’s over.”

Despair washed over the faces of the soldiers rushing toward the boy.

The white-haired youth before them was the only one who could restrain the Grand Lord in this battlefield.

If they lost him, they would all perish.

Just as emptiness and sorrow threatened to consume them…

“Son of a b*tch, that was a damn close call.”

A coarse curse, delivered in a chillingly calm voice, echoed from above.

“…Ha!”

The boy hadn’t died. Maltiel, confirming this fact, involuntarily uttered a sound of surprise.

The boy never intended to attack in the first place.

He was aware that the opening the Grand Lord presented was a deception – somehow, he had seen through it from the beginning.

Seeing the boy unleashing a massive amount of volts not towards him, but beneath his own feet, using the resulting recoil to launch himself high into the sky, a wide grin stretched across the Grand Lord’s sinister face.

‘He saw through it! He knew I was deliberately showing an opening! And so, he pretended to use an attack spell as a feint, making his escape to the skies.’

Frustration at having his ploy discovered mixed with admiration for the boy’s ice-cold judgment.

He couldn’t fathom how it was possible, but the boy seemed to anticipate Maltiel’s every move. As if he had studied ahead of time, like someone who had read the answers beforehand.

‘He’s planning to toy with me, keeping his distance meticulously. That fiend just needs to buy time until *he* arrives!’

The Grand Warlord was certain, observing the boy with the blue eyes’ impassive, cold expression.

‘This boy isn’t just magically gifted. He possesses a keen eye for the battlefield’s currents, a remarkable capacity for deception! The foresight to completely grasp my tactics, composure that doesn’t falter even in the most dire circumstances!’

The Grand Warlord spread his wings wide and soared directly toward the boy.

‘This is no mere seed of a monster. I must kill him here!’

Until now, he had always prioritized his own safety in battle.

His demise would cripple his subordinate demons, creating a significant void in the demonic army.

But just now, the boy’s judgment and his cold rationality had tipped the scales within the Grand Warlord’s heart.

He judged that eliminating the boy, here and now, was of greater long-term benefit to the demonic forces than safeguarding his own life.

His two thousand subordinate demons and the three hundred thousand mutated creatures under their control.

The Grand Warlord determined that the boy’s life was worth trading all of it for.

“Oghier de Astella!”

The Grand Warlord, hurtling forward like a bullet, heard the booming voice of an Orc.

A colossal, five-meter tall Orc was swinging a house-sized axe at him, intercepting the Grand Warlord’s trajectory toward the boy floating in the air.

“Protect him, aaargh!”

Rex, the Orc hero, missing an arm and bearing a deep gash across his abdomen, screamed that declaration as he gazed at the Grand Warlord and the boy bathed in moonlight.

Beneath Rex’s feet lay a five-meter-tall Orc mutant, chopped into dozens of pieces.

At his words, the soldiers gathered their scattered weapons and hurled them with all their might toward the Grand Warlord’s flight path.

“Tch.”

Most of the projectiles failed to pierce even the Grand Warlord’s skin, simply bouncing off harmlessly.

However, even the Grand Overlord found Rex’s massive axe a burden, forced to contort his body mid-air to avoid it.

Thus, a fleeting opening appeared.

In that instant, the boy’s blue eyes blazed as he once again gathered immense power within his hands.

‘…That monstrous brat!’

An opening.

One always had to be wary of openings when facing Grand Overlord Maltiel. Any chink he revealed was likely a ruse, meant to lure the opponent into complacency.

But this opening was a genuine flaw.

Maltiel’s vision had narrowed somewhat, too focused on the thought of killing the boy.

The boy had shown such limitless potential that he had unconsciously grown excited by it.

The thrill of battle, a feeling he hadn’t experienced in ages, had constricted his awareness; he’d failed to anticipate Rex hurling that colossal axe at him.

He’d reacted just barely, but his balance was thrown off, and he was left without any substantial defensive magic prepared.

“You like counters, don’t you?”

The boy’s arrogant voice echoed beneath the cloudless sky.

“…Magnificent!”

The conviction that he *must* kill the boy, coupled with the excitement of enjoying an evenly matched battle for the first time in eons, drove the Grand Overlord to unleash his full power.

‘I *must* kill him.’

‘I’ll end it with this strike.’

‘There truly isn’t much time left before *he* appears.’

The thoughts that spurred him onward.

Though he didn’t utter a thunderous roar, Maltiel’s attack carried the same ‘desperation’ as the humans he had slaughtered countless times before.

And the more desperate the attack, the more devastating the shock when countered.

“Discharge.”

In the boy’s hand, the immense sphere of electricity coalesced, shrinking to a minuscule point.

The millions of volts of energy threatened to explode, writhing madly, and the boy lightly sent the sphere hurtling towards the chest of the demon lord who had lunged within range.

For a fleeting moment, blinding light engulfed the jet-black sky.

A colossal lightning strike, seemingly out of nowhere, slammed down from the clear heavens. Flashes of light, so intense they stung the eyes, erupted from every direction.

The boy poured every last drop of his remaining mana into that single point.

In the game, an average NPC mage typically possessed a mana stat of only eight or nine. Even named mages rarely exceeded thirteen or fourteen.

But the boy’s mana stat approached a staggering twenty.

Stamina, Strength, Agility. Luck.

All traded for a divinely granted, innate talent.

And now, that culmination of mana, painstakingly gathered within the boy’s body over three days, without a single leak, had transformed into a pure white radiance, condensed at the tip of his fingers.

Even a grand demon lord, if struck head-on by this blow, would surely be reduced to nothing more than white ash.

…If struck head-on, that is.

The boy’s attack succeeded only in searing the demon lord’s right upper body and wing.

Just before the magic detonated from the boy’s fingertips, the demon lord, anticipating the attack, contorted his body in mid-air in a breathtaking display of acrobatics.

Though the attack was launched at near point-blank range, the counter punch, infused with every ounce of the boy’s mana, missed its mark.

It was the result of the blessed monster’s uncanny dynamic visual acuity, allowing him to discern the trajectory of the attack by interpreting the subtle movements of the boy’s shoulders, eyes, and fingers, predicting the timing with unwavering accuracy.

But the boy’s eyes and mind never registered that the demon lord had twisted his body in mid-air.

Because, in stark contrast to his divinely blessed magical talent, the boy’s physical abilities—his dynamic visual acuity and reaction speed—were nothing short of cursed.

As a result, the boy’s desperate strike, imbued with his everything, exploded harmlessly in the air, only inflicting a meager wound upon the Grand Overlord.

Thunder crashed, a colossal flash engulfing the heavens.

Everything beneath their feet was consumed by fire, the world pulsing between darkness and blinding light.

“Damn it, should’ve invested ten thousand more into agility…”

Those were the boy’s last words before oblivion claimed him.

The Grand Overlord extended his remaining left arm, seizing the boy’s neck.

Thin and fragile, like a newly sprouted branch.

There was no time to hesitate.

He appeared unconscious now, a side effect of momentarily unleashing a tremendous surge of magical power, but who knew when this monster would awaken and seek his life again?

The Grand Overlord tightened his grip, preparing to snap the boy’s neck…

“Enough.”

The voice they had all been waiting for resonated softly across the battlefield.