Ch.446Chapter 446 – Bad Blood (2)

‘It’s coming.’

Right after Phobia looked at me.

Immediately, Phobia stretched out her fingers, and magical threads flew toward me from their tips.

As if determined to turn me into her doll by any means necessary, the threads began flying in all directions. Just as I was about to change my weapon to a sword to cut through Phobia’s threads—

“Leave it to me, Helmet!”

Beatrice immediately wrapped her chains in flames and began spinning them.

The ends of the chains split into multiple strands and started burning Phobia’s threads.

When not a single thread managed to reach me, Phobia shouted.

“Don’t interfere…!!”

Was she irritated? Even though there was no one else around and exploding her magic would be meaningless, Phobia released a magical explosion.

Could she not control herself, or was she that angry?

The exploding magic felt exactly like mud, and I sensed its enormous quantity.

As if to confirm my impression, Beatrice narrowed her eyes and muttered.

“She’s not drawing magic from nature. Where is she getting such vast magical power…?”

Beatrice watched the opponent’s suspicious changes.

And as if she quickly found the answer, Beatrice shouted in shock.

“No way, it’s exactly like the soul-draining formation…”

But before Beatrice could finish, Phobia moved.

In an instant, Phobia was standing right in front of me and Beatrice.

“Don’t worry if you break. I’ll remake you.”

Phobia was raising her right hand.

Sensing that distinctive slimy magic gathering in her hand, Beatrice and I instinctively leaped backward.

Phobia’s right hand swept through the space where our bodies had been just moments ago.

A magical mark appeared in the air as if she had clawed through it, and it began to flicker as if about to explode.

As I quickly tried to block the explosion with my shield, Beatrice shouted.

“Don’t block it, Helmet! Roll!”

Forcibly lowering the shield I had raised, I quickly rolled across the ground, narrowly avoiding the explosion before standing up.

And I couldn’t help but frown at the sight before me.

‘Is the air… broken?’

There was a crack in the air, as if someone had shattered a glass window.

Though it quickly repaired itself, it was such an unusual sight that it captured my attention. While I was distracted, Beatrice’s explanation reached my ears.

“It’s hard to explain, but she’s impacting space itself! Normally it’s impossible to damage the very space we live in, but…”

“Explain it so I can understand!”

“Think of it as an application of warp! She’s opening a warp gate and then detonating it!”

I could see Beatrice getting up from her own roll.

Unfortunately, her hasty explanation didn’t clarify exactly how the opponent’s attack worked.

But hearing that it was an application of warp gates—which allow instant travel to distant places—and that she was detonating them, I could at least guess that if that attack hit me, some part of my body would instantly explode, no matter how thick my armor was.

Simply put, it was magic that ignored defense and attacked directly.

While I was tense from the opponent’s attack, Phobia swung her hand again, and despite the distance between us, claw marks appeared where Beatrice and I had been standing.

‘So the attack range is quite wide too.’

Her initial approach was probably just due to Phobia’s frenzied state.

While I was making that assessment, Beatrice was using her chains to escape beyond the attack range, and I rolled across the ground once more to avoid the attack.

‘This is troublesome.’

For an attack that supposedly used warp, the delay between attacks was too short.

Judging by Beatrice’s caution, this wasn’t something that should be easy to do, yet Phobia was using it repeatedly.

While I was briefly thinking, I dodged another claw mark that appeared and considered a solution.

‘She definitely won’t hold back.’

Though she’s been strongly appealing to me about making me her doll, she probably seriously doesn’t care if she takes my life.

If the target dies, she can just repair the corpse and make it into a doll.

That’s surely what she’s thinking.

With an opponent like that, there was no chance she would unknowingly hold back against us.

There was no way to exploit that angle.

‘Besides, these attacks can’t be easy to perform.’

If tearing and exploding space itself were easy, Beatrice of all people would have shown us her using it multiple times.

From that perspective, this attack couldn’t be something simple to execute.

However, seeing how Beatrice immediately identified the nature of the attack and warned me, she at least understood the principle.

It probably meant that Beatrice could also perform the same attack as Phobia if properly prepared.

In other words, it was an attack difficult to use but easy to understand in principle.

If so, there was something else to consider.

‘Magical power.’

Just now, Beatrice had found the opponent’s magic suspicious.

She thought it strange that there was such a vast amount of magic not drawn from nature.

There was clearly some secret.

‘Is it a characteristic of the Demon Lord?’

The opponent’s body was processed from the body of a demon race called Demon Lord.

Perhaps the secret lay in that body.

But I knew nothing about Demon Lords.

All I knew was that he once used a magic formation called the soul-draining formation to convert souls into magic power to supplement his lacking strength.

‘…Souls into magic power?’

Just as that thought occurred to me, I stepped back slightly and something caught my foot.

Looking down, I saw fragments of a doll that someone had broken.

A doll based on a human.

However, with broken arms, legs, and jaw, it was a doll that could no longer move.

And I could see magical threads still attached to the doll.

To a doll that was already broken.

‘…No way.’

As I carefully observed the threads, they glowed slightly purple.

And the next moment, claw marks appeared in the air again.

“That bastard, is she converting the souls remaining in the dolls into magic…!”

“Correct!”

Phobia shouted with a bright smile.

Sia cried out in shock.

“What on earth are you doing, why are you doing this?!”

“Because souls are unnecessary!”

Phobia smiled brightly at Sia’s words.

“Only dolls need to remain, only beautiful things need to remain!”

Spreading her arms wide, she shouted.

“Souls have no place in a beautiful world!”

“How much more will you desecrate the dead before you’re satisfied?!”

Sia roared with anger and charged at Phobia again.

Dolls began rushing in to interfere with her, but she cut through them instantly as she advanced.

Phobia’s expression changed slightly at Sia’s charge, and she moved a finger to intercept her.

“I won’t let you approach again.”

And from somewhere, a giant snake-like doll with two heads appeared and opened its mouths.

Flames and lightning began gathering in each mouth, and just as the attacks were about to be launched, Sia pulled her sword back.

It looked as if she was preparing to deflect both spells with her sword.

Then Eve’s voice was heard.

“Keep running!”

“For fire-breathing types, use this!”

Along with Sera’s voice, something flew toward the snake’s mouth.

Following Eve’s direction, Sera had thrown something, and the next moment, smoke rose from the snake’s mouth before it began to burn.

And lightning shot from the other mouth, but…

“‘Protect the young lamb!'”

As always, Chris’s golden shield blocked the lightning.

And above the snake’s heads, small paper-like objects began to fly.

While attacking Phobia, I quickly found the source of these attacks.

“‘Great ancestor, bring down your punishment.'”

Riji, sitting atop the wyvern’s head, was clasping her hands together while glaring at the snake.

The papers she had thrown swelled like clouds and transformed into lightning spears that pierced through the snake.

The snake perished, and Sia spurred her legs to increase her speed even more.

“Tch!”

Phobia clicked her tongue and raised both hands, preparing to strike down.

Recognizing the attack she had been using, I quickly changed my weapon to a shield and threw it.

“What!”

The spinning shield hit one of Phobia’s hands, forcing it upward.

As her magic shot in the wrong direction, I saw claw marks appear above Phobia’s head.

With her expression changed, Phobia tried to strike down with her remaining hand.

-Clank clank clank

“Hey, don’t forget about me!”

Chains suddenly burst from the ground and bound Phobia’s hand.

Forced downward, her attack again went astray.

As Phobia quickly gathered magic to do something, Beatrice shouted.

“Helmet! Trust me and run!”

At Beatrice’s words, I dashed forward.

Catching up to Sia who had been running, I joined her in charging toward Phobia.

Phobia opened her eyes menacingly and tried to explode her magic.

“Fly away…!”

“Not so fast!”

Just as Phobia released her magical explosion, Beatrice stomped the ground once.

Immediately, an earthen wall rose from the ground surrounding Phobia, blocking her magic before crumbling.

“A mere dirt wall…!”

Phobia became angry that her attack was blocked by a simple earthen wall.

And Beatrice laughed as she called out to the enraged Phobia.

“A mere dirt wall, you say?”

Beatrice smiled triumphantly and stomped her foot once more.

“Let’s see if you still say that after being buried.”

The crumbling earthen wall returned to its original form.

The wall, now transformed back into a massive amount of soil, began to flow down in all directions.

Naturally, Phobia, who was at the center, couldn’t escape unharmed.

“This…!”

Phobia quickly spread her wings.

With soil rushing in from all directions, her decision to fly was correct.

If only she didn’t have chains binding her hands.

“Careless, aren’t you, wretched dollmaker!”

“Let go!”

As Beatrice pulled on the chains she had sent through the ground earlier, Phobia shouted.

Of course, there was no reason to let go just because she asked, so Beatrice continued pulling the chains, and Phobia couldn’t fly properly.

Though she managed to rise somewhat and avoid being completely buried in the earthen wall, she couldn’t prevent her lower body and one arm from being buried in the soil.

And toward that Phobia, Sia and I jumped onto the mound of earth.

Sia pulled back her greatsword, while I changed my returned weapon into a mace.

Landing on Phobia, we each swung our weapons.

Phobia’s wings were cut by the greatsword, and her horns were broken by the mace.

Phobia began struggling desperately to escape from the soil.

Of course, we couldn’t miss this opportunity, so Sia and I continued swinging our weapons, adding more wounds to Phobia’s body with each strike.

“Ugh, stop…!”

“As if we would!”

I shouted as I swung my mace at Phobia, who was letting out slightly weaker sounds.

However, I clicked my tongue slightly at the dull impact coming from the mace.

‘She’s tough.’

Though I had just broken her horn, the main body was incredibly durable, producing only a dull sound when hit on the head.

Sia’s greatsword also seemed unable to properly cut Phobia’s skin.

But she wasn’t completely uninjured.

We could finish her if we continued attacking.

To land even one more blow, Sia and I continued our attacks without stopping.

After being hit for a while, Phobia finally shouted.

“Friends, help me!!”

Threads shot through the soil toward the dolls.

Some dolls were hit by these threads and began to change.

They swelled up, became muscular, or twisted in various ways, then turned their attention to us and tried to charge.

And the very next moment.

“Uaaaahh!!”

Rizanis was seen pushing away about half the dolls with a battle cry and sheer force.

And from behind Rizanis, Noah leaped up and swung his sword at several dolls.

The dolls fell to the ground without offering any resistance, and Noah coldly remarked.

“Nothing special.”

“My friends…!”

Phobia, whose attempt to overwhelm us with numbers had been thwarted, began grinding her teeth.

Meanwhile, after being attacked by us for so long, Phobia finally reached her limit of patience and shouted loudly.

“That’s enough!”

“Get back!”

As Phobia’s magic exploded and blew away the ground.

The soil began to collapse, and the chains seemed to have broken in the explosion as Beatrice was seen retrieving her chains.

However, thanks to Sia’s warning, I had already retreated with her from Phobia, so I remained unharmed.

While regrouping briefly, I looked toward Phobia, who was staggering as she rose from where she had been buried and landed back on the ground.

With her injured body, Phobia looked at me and muttered.

“…Too cruel…”

With her body broken and injured all over, Phobia muttered.

It wasn’t just from our attacks.

She had been caught in her own desperate explosion earlier.

Looking at Phobia, who seemed too weak to continue fighting, I was considering whether to offer surrender when a weak voice flowed from Phobia’s lips.

“Can’t stop, can’t stop, must increase friends…”

Staggering like a broken wind-up doll, Phobia looked at me and muttered.

Looking at her eyes, already lifeless and wavering, I knew what she needed.

“I’ll end it for you.”

Even if I offered surrender, Phobia probably wouldn’t understand.

She couldn’t be left alive. From the beginning, she was beyond being indifferent to the life and death of living beings; she seemed to see them only as materials for her dolls.

Better to stop that madness than let it spread further.

I briefly exchanged glances with Sia and nodded.

Knowing she had reached the same conclusion as me, I raised my weapon and slowly approached her.

Seeing us approach, Phobia’s face momentarily relaxed.

“End… no… don’t want…”

Phobia muttered like a broken doll.

One eye was wavering lifelessly.

The other had regained a strange vitality.

Two contrasting eyes were looking at me.

Just as I was about to raise my halberd to end it gently—

“Dodge!”

At Chris’s shout, Sia and I quickly jumped backward.

And an explosion occurred at the exact spot where Sia, Phobia, and I had just been.

“What was that?!”

Sera’s surprised voice came from behind.

And as if answering Sera’s voice…

A man I had never seen before rose from the explosion.

He was a muscular, sturdy man wearing silver armor with a grayish tint and had thrust a massive sword into the ground.

Either he wasn’t wearing a helmet or his long gray hair was flowing freely.

‘Who…’

Since he was clearly someone I had never seen before, I first tried to identify him.

And this unfamiliar man looked at me.

He quietly opened his mouth and said.

“So you were here.”

Though I had never seen him before, his manner of speaking was familiar.

Without realizing it, I opened my mouth.

“Idea.”

I called this completely different person with a different face and build by that name.

In response to my words, the man nodded expressionlessly, as if it held no significance.

And from behind this newly appeared Idea, another familiar voice was heard.

“Well, this is fortunate. I came because I sensed Phobia’s reaction, and here you all are.”

Somnus was slowly walking toward us with his hands behind his back.

Protected by ten angels with faces identical to Cara’s, Somnus smiled as he looked at me.

“Have you found the Philosopher’s Stone, test subject?”

Somnus’s words quietly spread through the air.