Ch.254254 – Stage 4 Dark Ball

# 254 – Stage 4 Dark Ball

The few remaining heroes’ Holy Mirrors all twisted their trajectories toward the ball with remarkable reflexes!

In the chaos, I injected all the power I could muster into the recovered ball, enhanced by the Dark Mana Overbooster, and launched it.

They seemed to sense the danger of this ball, but it was already too late.

‘If you wanted to block it, you should have done so while I was activating the Dark Mana Overbooster.’

There are certain ultimate skills that cause havoc once activated.

Like the Demon Lord’s <Death Ray>, the gods’ pathetic <Heresy Declaration>, or the Dragon Principal’s <Academic Warning>.

The Stage 4 Dark Death Ball was inspired by those unblockable ultimate skill patterns.

“Keuht…!?”

The hero’s eyes grew desperate.

<Full Power Release>

They say even a worm will open its mouth wide and bite your ankle when stepped on—the cornered hero’s resistance was no joke.

The remaining Holy Mirrors simultaneously emitted intense light, displaying tremendous output beyond anything seen before.

A total offensive that poured out all remaining ultimate skills without any thought of conservation!

‘Even Cassia would have been eliminated if she had to face this much attack alone!’

Yet even amidst this, they had hidden an insolent trap.

Among what appeared to be ordinary enhanced ultimate skills, one differently colored sword energy sneakily flew toward me.

When the hidden 100-stack ultimate skill suddenly emerged, even I, a veteran player, was startled by the hero’s thoroughness.

BOOM!

The impact was powerful enough to push back my steps!

The thick explosion made me cough, but through the smoke, conflicting emotions emerged at what was revealed.

Not a sword strike, but a ball.

I realized as I saw the slowly advancing form of the ball.

The Stage 4 Black Ball had overcome the hero’s 100-stack ankle trap.

“Heheng. My ultimate skill won!”

“You blocked a strike that even I would struggle to defend against…?”

Powerful attacks always have gimmicks.

The hero’s gimmick involves storing attacks through mirrors, passing attacks between mirrors to amplify stacks, or launching surprise attacks from unexpected angles, or attacking from multiple directions.

Storage, stack amplification, and firing.

That’s the essence of Holy Mirror.

My gimmick isn’t nearly as complicated.

It’s as simple as a child’s random scribbles on paper.

Colors become closer to black the more they overlap.

The same applies to attributes.

Fusion of attributes.

Multi-attributes starting from dual attributes.

Simple water becomes more powerful when mixed with wind pressure, and the incompatible water and fire can be utilized to create scalding steam that damages respiratory organs.

Multi-attributes are an inevitable rite of passage on the path to the pinnacle of all magic.

Those who reach the summit will always face it.

The attempt to integrate all attributes they know.

Of course, it doesn’t include all attributes in the world.

It only aims for the maximum within one’s knowledge.

Even then, due to lack of ability, resources, and various practical difficulties, some are excluded and compromised.

Magic Tower Masters grandly call such incomplete attribute magic <Ultimate Magic>.

‘Even I can’t contain everything right now!’

There’s no attribute I don’t know.

But my body hasn’t matured enough.

I don’t have a 230cm body stronger than steel to withstand countless attributes, nor do I have mana as vast as an inexhaustible sea.

I’ve compromised.

More than the Magic Tower Masters did.

It probably falls short of standing shoulder to shoulder with Ultimate Magic.

But if it’s just below that.

If it’s at the level of <Arcane Magic>, a technique that aspires to the ultimate.

Even this small dodgeball can adequately contain it.

“Stage 4 Dark Ball.”

Category – Dark Magic, Life Magic, Enhancement Magic, Arcane Magic

Activation – Gathering

Specialization – Omnipotence, Cancellation, Absorption, Tracking, Neutralization

Penalty – Regression of mastery upon defeat

The original <Gathering> magic isn’t anything special.

Gathering dust during cleaning.

Gathering items left in laundry pockets.

Among practicing magicians, it’s considered a rustic magic that only married magicians use, even mocked as something only housewives and househusbands would learn.

A trivial yet convenient magic used in daily life, something only cleaning maids would use!

In fact, even Leaf once used <Gathering> to find snacks I had secretly hidden in the cupboard and locked them all away in the snack box.

‘But for a veteran player, there’s no more broken magic than this!’

All magic or functional skills gain experience and improve in efficiency, power, or performance the more they’re used.

Just as <Hiding> unlocks the additional function <Stealth> and <Observation> unlocks the special effect <Auto-Analysis>, magic also dramatically improves in performance.

However, some magic has the secret and amazing characteristic of steadily accumulating invisible experience points even without visible experience gain.

For instance, ‘collecting’ a food encyclopedia.

Or ‘collecting’ an insect encyclopedia.

Gathering, and gathering more.

Magic that secretly gains experience through filling blank encyclopedias with knowledge, understanding, and experience.

That’s precisely what this <Gathering> magic is.

People say the difference between a child struggling to gather cookie crumbs and a housewife effortlessly matching chopsticks from a utensil holder is simply skill.

But they don’t know where that skill originates from.

That’s why the power only increases as much as what you’ve happened to collect and experience throughout life.

People think merchant and noble children are good at gathering because they received strict home education in organization, but it’s actually because they’ve done extensive collecting.

But I know.

That encyclopedia collection affects it.

So without separate practice, the power was guaranteed because I was more dedicated to encyclopedia completion than anyone else.

I further enhance this with the amplification power of <Dark Mana>.

By combining the various attributes possessed by a <veteran player> in appropriate forms like fitting puzzle pieces, I can activate an even more powerful gathering.

As a result, a pitch-black gathering that shouldn’t exist in the world was born.

Stage 4. Dark Ball.

Its effect is to absorb all attributes one possesses.

Swordsmen often misunderstand.

Thinking attributes are only handled by magicians.

But there’s also something called physical attributes.

Piercing attribute.

Slashing attribute.

All techniques activated by wielding weapons have attributes.

And there are applied attributes created from combinations of all these attributes.

The flash slash attribute that cuts faster than a normal slash.

The heavy strike attribute that crushes stronger than a normal impact.

Even in physical applied attributes, there exist extreme specializations that dig deep into a single path or arcane attributes that combine multiple attributes.

And among them, there’s no attribute I don’t know.

Even if it’s a hero’s attack.

No, especially because it’s a hero’s.

That’s obvious.

A veteran player who doesn’t know the skill composition of main playable characters shouldn’t call themselves a veteran, right?

“I’ve attacked this much. Why doesn’t it stop!”

That’s why all the attacks the hero desperately unleashed were neatly separated by attribute and absorbed into the dodgeball.

The ball approaches slowly, creating increasing despair as it gets closer.

Haha!

The Dragon Principal, who understood the principle of this ball, laughed saying it was “omoshiroi” and that he was dying of amusement, in inverse proportion to the hero’s face darkening with agony.

So delicious.

So satisfying.

This is dodgeball!

Just as I was thoroughly satisfied, a voice awakening the hero’s spirit was heard.

“Snap out of it, Ishtar!”

“Yufi…?”

“Did you start this fight to show the greatness of Dark Mana and make them submit? That’s not it, is it!”

Light returned to the hero’s eyes.

The hands that had been desperately unleashing various sword techniques stopped.

“That ball absorbs power. But there’s no ball in the world that can absorb power infinitely without conditions.”

Giving unnecessary advice.

“Eik!”

“Kyak!”

I threw a stone out of frustration, pushing the saint with her shield outside the line, eliminating her as she disappeared from the court.

I removed the saint, but the hero’s eyes, now regaining focus, stared intensely at the power elements constituting my technique with mana-infused magic eyes.

It’s not such an immature power that lower-grade students could comprehend it, but Ishtar is certainly not at a lower-grade level either.

“Dark Mana, I see. Dark Mana is using the force of opposing attributes pushing against each other to add rotation.”

“Hmph. What difference does knowing that make? Just get eliminated already. Bad hero. Shame of the first years, spy of the second years!”

I hoped the colorful insults would provoke them into an argument and make them lose their insight, but befitting the cheat hero chosen by the One True God, determination filled their eyes.

They figured it out.

Just by briefly examining what weakness exists in the <Gathering> deployed by inexperienced me.

It’s the effect of the hero class job characteristic that increases the probability of gaining insight by 5000% when cornered.

“Just as mirrors have a limit to how much they can hold, unable to charge beyond 100 stacks, your Dark Ball also has a limit to how much power it can gather.”

“Ugh.”

“If one type of power accumulates excessively, then that power will dominate and break the ball’s balance, right?”

It would have been nice if it had stopped there.

But as expected, the hero easily jumped over the veteran player’s trap.

Instead of swinging their sword to feed it slashing attributes, they shot only non-attribute energy without any attributes infused, feeding energy like a mother bird feeding its chicks.

The Dark Ball, with all sharp intent and dangerous attributes subsided, was overwhelmed by the colorless energy covering the entire ball.

Thud.

As a result of the colorless energy growing so large that even the <Tracking> specialization technique contained in the ball couldn’t exert its power, the ball simply dropped to the ground.

Using the principle that softness overcomes strength, they completely neutralized the ball by reversing the amplification effect of Dark Mana.

“Defeated by your own power… To reverse-engineer the ‘containing’ attribute of Holy Mirror right before my eyes like this. You really are a frightening child, aren’t you?”

The hero’s eyes settled calmly.

Somehow I could tell.

Despite having wasted a lot of power earlier and used great strength to stop the ball, the hero at their most exhausted state was actually in their most dangerous state.

“Tch. No choice then. I really didn’t expect you to block it, but since it’s come to this, I’ll finish this once and for all.”

Earthquakes returned to the hero’s eyes that had found composure.

“It’s not over yet? Don’t tell me… there’s a Stage 5 left?”

“Ah. Stage 5 is impossible. Not with a first-year’s body.”

The hero sighed in relief.

Isn’t it a bit too early to feel relieved?

<Stage 4 – Dark Ball>

Another Dark Ball began floating through the air.

But this ball wasn’t heading toward where the hero stood.

The hero’s gaze followed the direction the ball was heading.

TSUPABAABABABA!

Waiting in that direction was an infinite acceleration repetition zone where balls passed through with a tremendous roar, now moving so fast they were barely visible as white flashes.

“…Ah, no.”

A ball with a clever gimmick—its nature changed based on the most absorbed attribute, turning the high-powered ultimate skill meant to stop it into a threat to oneself.

I’m really excited to see what will happen when that ball reaches that terrifying infinite acceleration repetition zone.