Chapter 78

Grace of the Spirits.

Whether you were a by-the-book mage, a one-shot wonder, or even an Orc mage tank specced entirely into strength and constitution, it was an overpowered, top-tier spell that fit any build.

The magic conjured a barrier that absorbed all incoming damage for one second upon the mage being attacked, boasting performance far surpassing the paltry “Arcane Shields” or “Mana Barriers” of lesser spells.

The first and foremost advantage was that casting it consumed no mana whatsoever. A spell concept where the spirits protect you by deploying a barrier in your stead naturally made this so.

The second was that it wasn’t an ‘active’ spell that required timely deployment, specifically reacting to an incoming attack. The magic activated automatically whenever the mage was assaulted. With my abysmal reaction speed – a consequence of my 1 point in agility – I could hardly have wished for a better spell.

That’s not to say that it was an utterly flawless, absolute defense spell… because it wasn’t.

Immediately after returning from the Achilleptus Forest, I had experimented with the “Grace of the Spirits” with Rex’s assistance.

As such, I managed to unearth two significant drawbacks to this seemingly perfect defensive spell.

Firstly, Grace of the Spirits had a short, 15-second cooldown. This made it difficult to effectively counter enemies with low-damage, rapid attacks. In particular, it was easy to expose a vulnerability against assassins, such as rogues wielding daggers.

Secondly, the bar for the activation condition, “the instant the mage is attacked,” was set remarkably low.

A pebble tossed at me casually counted as an “attack,” triggering the barrier at random, and even a comrade reaching out toward me would activate the spell if they moved with sufficient speed and force.

In a game, developers precisely defined the concept of “attacks aimed at the mage” through elaborate programming. But in reality… there was no such coding.

…Though I’d never experienced it, I was sure that if even hail fell, I’d become like a disco ball, my shield popping into existence and vanishing every fifteen seconds.

Still, the fact remained that it was a captivating magic, a barrier that automatically nullified all attacks for a single second. Yet, I was discovering it wasn’t without its drawbacks.

The magic, Blessing of the Spirit… yes, it felt like a direct personification of Dajin the Transcendent.

Powerful, sturdy, and exceptional, but somehow…a little unhinged.

“From now on, please be careful. It goes without saying, but it’s best to avoid the barrier activating unnecessarily if possible.”

Naturally, everyone drafted to protect me, including Rex, knew this fact.

Thus, Rex was on high alert, carefully watching our surroundings. Even pebbles or scraps of flesh that he normally wouldn’t have given a second thought could trigger ‘Blessing of the Spirit’ if they strayed too close.

Fifteen seconds was more than enough to turn the tide of battle in a warzone of this caliber.

“High Lord approaching from the twelve o’clock position! It’s Raguel!”

The wings of a demon with stark white skin and enormous horns cut through the light, emerging from the clouds. That High Lord, skilled in flight and disruption, had apparently been observing the battlefield from within those clouds the entire time.

“Let us begin.”

Raguel, whose skin was corpse-white and bumpy, spoke as he yanked on his own tail. The vertebrae connected to the tail were pulled clean out of Raguel’s body. For a moment, his upper body went limp like a jellyfish, but he quickly regenerated the missing vertebrae and raised his head.

Raguel wrapped the detached tail around his hand, holding the extracted spinal column aloft like a blade. To be grazed by those sharp, venom-soaked bones meant death.

Faced with a weapon far more terrifying than anything I’d seen thus far, I took a moment to gather my breath.

Whoosh—!

While the attention of Rex, the elderly mage, and I were focused on Raguel’s appearance on the battlefield, I heard something tearing through the air.

I hastily turned my head toward the sound, and there I saw a massive arrowhead, unlike any I’d ever seen before.

The arrowhead was closing in, as if about to pierce my eye right then and there, with frightening momentum.

The fact that I, with my disastrous reaction speed, even registered the attack meant it was far too late to avoid it. The arrow had traveled hundreds of meters and was now only two meters away from piercing my neck.

Two meters was far too short a distance for me to evade an arrow that had traversed hundreds of meters in less than a second.

*Fssst……!*

With the arrow a mere meter from piercing my throat, the ‘Blessing of the Spirit’ activated once more.

The arrow, bearing down with terrifying force, met the instantaneously deployed barrier and vanished in a crackle of lightning.

Compressed air, escaping the arrow’s tip, rushed past, lifting my bangs. A blast of hot, unpleasant wind buffeted my face.

The arrow, traveling faster than the speed of sound, unleashed a sonic boom. An abrupt explosion ripped through the tense battlefield, and soldiers instinctively clenched their jaws, tightening their grip on their weapons.

“……Tch!”

Rex, having witnessed the arrow that streaked from somewhere and struck my barrier, clicked his tongue, then offered a loud apology.

“My apologies! I couldn’t react in time!”

“It’s alright, it was within the realm of expectation anyway.”

Rex, tasked with my protection and obligated to intercept arrows or spells on my behalf, deserved no reprimand for failing to stop that attack.

The sniper who loosed that arrow possessed a skill beyond standard measure.

“……Ariel has shown herself.”

Without a doubt, that shot was the work of Ariel, a Great Lord of the demon army. A cannonball-sized arrowhead, a velocity far exceeding the speed of sound, and the devastating sonic boom born from their combination. It was precisely as described in the lore.

“……The shot originated from approximately the 2 o’clock position, but the enemy’s exact location remains unknown!”

An elf soldier, keenly observing the battlefield from a short distance, shouted the information.

“Approximately?! Elf, are you not doing your job properly? Who here has better eyes than you to pinpoint a sniper’s location! Not an approximate direction, give me their exact position!”

“……Silence, I am concentrating.”

The elf, visibly frustrated by his inability to immediately pinpoint the sniper’s location, bristled at the order.

It was hardly surprising. A cautious, sniping-specialized Great Lord like Ariel would never snipe from a mere few hundred meters away. She would be positioned at least several kilometers away, and the arrow’s extreme velocity would make precise observation and reverse tracking difficult.

Furthermore, Ariel’s unique appearance would be a major hindrance to pinpointing the sniper’s location.

Ariel possessed a physique so strange, even standing in the middle of a barren wasteland, devoid of any cover, her entire body would be cloaked in shadow.

Her appearance was uniquely advantageous to a sniper, one whose exact form ordinary eyes could never truly grasp.

‘Tracking her position back from the shot with the naked eye is practically impossible.’

“Lire, are you ready?!”

“I know! Two o’clock, right?”

A sniper whose location was impossible to pinpoint, who shot with terrifying accuracy, and unleashed arrows like enormous bolts.

The moment most soldiers realized a sniper of this caliber lurked on the battlefield, they’d panic, immediately diving into trenches or scrambling for cover.

But I, and my escort, didn’t retreat a single step from the no-man’s land.

“Get down, sir! With that kind of skill, it’s probably Ariel!”

“Damn it, General! That’s one of the two Great Overlords, Ariel and Raguel! We should retreat a step here…!”

We’d been aware of Ariel’s potential appearance on this battlefield for quite some time.

We even had a plan to deal with this ludicrous, insane sniper who was almost impossible to observe through ordinary means, who fired arrows the size of cannonballs faster than the speed of sound, and boasted one-hundred-percent accuracy.

“Retreat?”

I turned around and spoke.

The eyes of the soldiers looking up at me from the trench were filled with anxiety. I tried my best to plaster on a relaxed smile to reassure them.

In truth, I, too, was overwhelmed by this battlefield where Great Overlords popped up like common fodder, and I was just as afraid of death… but if I, the General, showed signs of fear or unease, the soldiers’ morale would plummet.

If I was afraid, they would be afraid. If they were afraid, no one would fight to protect me.

And if they didn’t fight for me, I was powerless. A mage, after all, was someone who invariably needed the aid of others on the battlefield.

“Something like that isn’t even worth my time.”

To survive, I had to wear a mask of composure. I had no choice but to feign an absurd level of bravado.

“……Those things? I’ll need to test if they can still make such noises after their heads leave their bodies!”

Raguel, Grand Duke and especially proud of his enormous wings, roared, face painted crimson by my taunt.

“…….”

Raguel was unique among the normally rational and composed demons, Grand Duke or not. Emotion and impulse colored every action.

His divergence from his brethren stemmed from no grand tragedy.

Only from the Demon Lord’s lighthearted experiment: ‘Wouldn’t the organization function more efficiently with one Grand Duke acting on “emotion” and “impulse”?’

Because of this, Raguel managed only half the number of high lords and demons as the other Grand Dukes.

To the Demon Lord, Raguel was, after all, merely an experiment.

And he knew this fact perfectly well.

“Don’t you dare look down on me so arrogantly. You defective piece.”

Therefore, if provocation was in order, he was the most efficient target.

I gazed up at Raguel, whose wings stirred with chaotic energy, and said, wrinkling my nose.

“…Defective.”

The provocation seemed to land rather successfully. Veins throbbed beneath his brow, and green blood dripped from his clenched fist.

“I’ll swap your guts with those of a pig. I will tear off your arms and legs and replace them with those of beasts, ensuring you feel the agony of stabbing blades across your entire being, every moment.”

Raguel was a simpleton. Had he started attacking instead of wasting time bellowing curses at me in his rage, things would have become considerably more tangled.

“Eye of the Star, Cloud of Light, Scale-Covered Sea and Salt Flower.”

Thanks to his dull pride, Lir could complete the incantation without issue.

The dark clouds above began to churn in the next instant. A searing light momentarily consumed the sky, followed by the ear-splitting crack of lightning ripping through the air.

“Lightning Strike.”

Lir raised her small staff toward the heavens, murmuring quietly.

The storm clouds blanketing the sky are now ours.