Not bad

Not bad

It’s obvious, but a single point explosion wasn’t enough to inflict fatal damage.

‘I can’t be certain if that guy is an Archbishop or not.’

Judging by the amount and depth of the magical energy emanating, it seems to be at least an Archbishop level.

It would be right to assume it’s an Archbishop from the start.

‘Well, whatever the case, Archbishops have extremely high regeneration abilities, as well as special powers.’

A light point explosion wouldn’t be much of a threat.

I thought that apart from blood splattering everywhere and chunks of flesh falling off, there didn’t seem to be much impact.

As I watched the caterpillar-like being slowly regenerating its head, I briefly said.

“Nice to meet you.”

“……”

Perhaps because its vocal organs haven’t fully recovered yet, I couldn’t hear any response.

I looked at the caterpillar-like being and threw another light point explosion.

Then, clicking my tongue, I looked around.

‘By the way, it seems to have dominated this place for quite a long time.’

Like an old tree that has spread countless roots into the ground.

I could see that the Archbishop, while embedded in the magic stone, had created ‘countless branches of magical energy’.

‘It looks like there are tens of thousands at least.’

It would be right to assume that it had been here for at least a few years.

I don’t know for what reason it’s been absorbing the magic stone here.

One thing for sure is that whatever it is, I judged it wouldn’t be for a good reason, and I took out my mace.

“… How truly foolish. A lowly species daring to cross the line.”

It seems my casual greeting from earlier had quite irritated them.

With a trembling voice, they revealed their killing intent towards me.

I fully accepted those emotions and replied with a mocking voice.

“You talk a lot for someone who couldn’t even defend against a greeting spell and got blown away.”

“……”

The moment I provoked them, the intense magical energy enveloping the cavern began to fluctuate greatly.

I watched the ‘rhythmic’ flow of magical energy spreading out.

Realizing that everything around was already within their control range, I let out a laugh.

‘This time it’s someone who can dominate space itself, huh.’

In a way, it’s somewhat similar to my magic, giving me a slight sense of kinship.

Of course, that sense of kinship wasn’t in a positive direction, but regardless, I decided to assess their abilities and spoke to the archbishop.

“Recently, I’ve developed a hobby of catching things like archbishops or bishops and raising them.”

Continuing with honest words without a single lie, I pointed my mace at the larva-like fellow and said.

“So I’ll make you my pet as well.”

At those words, Luna in my arms smiled brightly and said to me.

[As expected, Master really likes making pets…!]

It seems I made a slip of the tongue.

I grabbed Luna’s head as she tactlessly interrupted, gently pushed her back in, and continued speaking.

“Come at me. I’ll let you have the first move.”

At my words, the Archbishop, unable to contain himself any longer, began to emit a strong killing intent as his magical energy violently surged.

– Crack!

Along with the violently surging magical energy, ‘caterpillar heads’ quickly emerged from every corner of the cavern.

At first, I thought they might be illusions… but after lightly tapping them with mana, I realized they had substance.

I could tell that all of those were real.

‘He’s doing quite an interesting trick.’

As each one contained intense magical energy, the entire surroundings were filled with killing intent.

While I was contemplating how to react to the countless heads that had appeared,

The caterpillar began to spew out its own flesh and shouted loudly.

“Death to the heretic!”

As that sound echoed throughout, the caterpillar heads filling the cavern began to chant “Death to the heretic!”

I looked around at the surroundings that had become so noisy it made my ears ring, then smirked and stretched out my hand.

“Lightning Strike.”

Since the enemies had become stronger in many ways, it seemed that the ‘power’ of this spell had become too weak to use against them, making it awkward to use even as a restraining move.

However, in the battle with the Archmage, I realized there was one ‘advantage’ that surpassed this.

‘That advantage is that Lightning Strike consumes almost no mana’

Recently, I had been using Point Explosion as casually as a greeting.

But since Point Explosion is a magic that releases a massive amount of mana,

If I continued to overuse Point Explosion, there would inevitably be some repercussions.

‘Unlike Point Explosion, Lightning Strike consumes extremely little mana.’

Literally, it’s possible to use this without any burden, so I thought of this based on that.

It was to use lightning strikes very frequently and in large numbers.

‘For example… it would be similar to the feeling of rain falling.’

Just as countless raindrops continue to fall.

If lightning also continues to fall and numerous lightning strikes occur simultaneously.

‘No matter how weak the power is, the enemy facing this won’t be able to simply ignore it.’

With such thoughts, I simultaneously unleashed countless lightning strikes.

Towards the Archbishop densely embedded in the cavity.

‘……’

It’s certainly tricky and difficult.

Until now, I’ve only used several dozen to several hundred spells simultaneously.

Even though it’s the same spell, trying to use thousands of lightning strikes at once felt like my head was about to explode.

So, I modified this spell further.

Rather than using each one individually, I decided to make it progress automatically with a single spell activation.

While I was in the process of bundling this together.

“Aaaaargh!”

The voice of the Archbishop, suffering from being struck by lightning all around, could be heard.

I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t using a barrier and was taking it head-on.

But I thought that what mattered was creating this spell, so I quickly started calculating the formula.

‘Well, the good thing is that it’s mainly just a matter of combining.’

Thinking it wasn’t too difficult, I completed the spell before the enemy’s screams even ended.

I slowly manifested the newly created magic.

“Infinite Lightning.”

With those words, just like before.

Countless lightning bolts began to strike endlessly throughout the entire cavern.

I was smiling with satisfaction at the sight of lightning pouring down so much that it was impossible to find a place where it wasn’t striking.

The archbishop in front of me, seemingly unable to endure the pain any longer.

Trembling, he reached out towards me, then went limp and collapsed to the floor.

‘He’s probably not dead. It seems this isn’t his real body.’

Wondering where the real body might be, I looked around.

The archbishop’s corpses that had fallen to the ground began to change into ‘egg’ shapes, preparing to hatch into something.

Of course, I continued to suppress them by bursting these as well.

‘They’re literally being generated infinitely.’

The moment I destroy them, the ‘eggs’ are continuously regenerated and appear endlessly.

As I frowned, thinking that if I hadn’t been destroying these with Infinite Lightning, the entire cavern would have been filled with eggs.

I felt an incredibly intense magical energy emanating from one of the walls, unlike anything I had felt before.

‘It seems the real body is over there.’

The moment I realized this, I struck the wall forcefully with a point explosion.

And what I saw was…

‘A spider.’

Unlike a normal spider, it was a giant spider with about 20 legs.

I chuckled as I saw the vast space behind me filled with all the eggs I had seen earlier.

Then, slowly extending my hand, I thought.

‘So this is why its regeneration was relatively slow, and it didn’t even use a protective barrier.’

After all, what I was destroying was just one of tens or hundreds of thousands of eggs.

It probably didn’t even feel the need to protect them in the first place.

‘Interesting.’

I felt quite pleased, thinking that I had finally met a worthy opponent, and loosened my shoulders.

‘Now, how should I deal with this?’

The first method that came to mind was ‘defeating the main body’.

The problem would be how to defeat that main body.

‘I guess I’ll have to confront it head-on.’

Of course, I needed to maintain the infinite lightning I had manifested earlier while fighting.

‘I don’t know what those eggs are exactly.’

But just by looking at them, it seems they would be quite troublesome if they hatched.

It would be right to prevent such a thing in advance.

As I was thinking this and about to manifest another point explosion.

A nearby egg transformed into the ‘larva form’ it had shown earlier.

And once again, it spoke to me.

“Since I’ve shown you my main body, let me tell you an interesting fact.”

Wondering what it was about, I looked at it.

The caterpillar speaks to me with an expression unable to hold back laughter.

“If you kill me, the Magic Academy will explode.”

“…Explode, you say?”

“I mean it literally. I’ve already assimilated with more than half of the Magic Academy, and I’m sharing mana with the mana stones. If you kill me, these will collapse and cause a massive explosion.”

With those words, it starts sneering at me, saying ‘Will you still attack me? Countless humans in the Magic Academy will die.’

I spoke showing rather a pleased reaction while hearing those words.

“Exploding is quite… good.”

The archbishop, the moment they heard my words, couldn’t hide their bewilderment and flinched.