Lucifer, Who Guides Evil – 3

The spear was traditionally the most recommended weapon for beginners in the Bra-Dark series.

This was because it was the only weapon type that allowed attacks while guarding with a shield, and its extremely long reach made it perfect for attacks where ‘I can reach, but you can’t.’

There was even a derogatory term for newbies who couldn’t develop any skill because they played the game by choosing Knight as their starting class, equipping a 100% physical cut shield, wearing heavy armor, and only poking with a spear from behind the shield.

Of course, it didn’t quite reach the level of being called overpowered.

As far as I know, it was powerful enough to be called overpowered up until Bra-Dark 1, but the developers consistently applied minor nerfs with each sequel, they say. Things like poise, or attack speed when guarding.

Still, the ability to attack from behind a shield and the weapon’s enormous reach remained unchanged, so even in Bra-Dark 4, it consistently appeared on the list of recommended weapons for beginners.

If so, what would happen if a boss wielded a spear with enormous reach, a spear that even a player would find to have immense reach, and attacked?

ㅡKwoong!

The answer is, ‘its range is ridiculously wide, so you can’t even properly approach.’

As tree roots intertwined and clumped together, Lucifer, who had grown to about twice my height, swung the spear in his hand wildly in all directions.

Practically, rather than a spear, it was closer to a cone with a handle. Moreover, its length was ridiculously long, so everywhere was within its attack range.

Even when Lucifer’s height was similar to mine, it looked at least 3m long, but as he grew taller, the spear’s length also increased proportionally, so now, even at a conservative estimate, I thought it must be over 6m.

After confirming that he thrust the spear forward, I dove inward. Despite rolling twice, it was still an impossible distance for the Wingless Nightmare to reach. The reach difference was too severe.

While I was mentally gauging the remaining distance, he swept the spear sideways. It was more of a sweep than a swing, but even that was sufficiently threatening.

I leaped high from the ground, avoiding the sweep. Immediately after, Lucifer, who had shattered the spear, created a new spear in his hand, and as if he had never performed a low attack, he switched to a thrust.

As soon as I parried it in mid-air, due to the recoil, my body was pushed back a considerable distance, and I landed far away.

I had expected this much. His spear wasn’t a fixed weapon but something he could dismantle and recreate at will. There were quite a few patterns like that in the game too.

‘He’s doing this again.’

However, I hadn’t expected the other thing.

Annoyed internally, I got up. Lucifer, from a distance, with his spear aimed, was in a stance as if he would attack at any moment.

But what he did after that was ‘you come here.’ As if he was waiting for me to exhaust myself and fall.

At first, he clearly charged first. The problem was, after being unilaterally counterattacked by me and getting hit a few times, he had been like this ever since. He seemed to have no intention of closing the distance at all.

In the game, befitting a final boss of a DLC, he was a renowned boss with an incredibly frustrating difficulty, monstrous combo patterns that could juggle players in mid-air, and a crazy aggressiveness that didn’t even give time to drink potions. But now, from a distance, he was just poking around with his spear, creating some strange hybrid.

The moment I tried to close the distance, a thrust would come in as a deterrent, and then I would have to either roll to dodge the attack or parry it. While I was doing that, he would widen the distance by backing away.

This was the first time I encountered such a guy. Unlike other enemies I had met so far, who would charge at me with all their might, determined to kill me regardless of their own death, he seemed to prioritize his own survival above all else.

‘……Actually, I guess that might be a normal way of thinking.’

Rather than desperately trying to kill me as if throwing away their own lives, the one who attacked while moderately preserving their life seemed much more normal.

From my perspective as the one fighting him, it was the kind of behavior that would naturally make me say, “He’s playing the game like shit.”

‘Alright. Let’s see if you still won’t attack even after this.’

I changed the Wingless Nightmare to a magic attribute. If he wouldn’t come to me, then I wouldn’t go to him either. And among the Wingless Nightmare’s special abilities, there was also a long-range deterrent.

No matter how little mana it consumed, I couldn’t fire it infinitely, but it didn’t matter.

He didn’t know that, did he?

Aiming the tip of the sword at him, I concentrated mana into the blade. In Phase 1 and Phase 2, where he was covered in tree roots like that, even attacks other than holy-type attacks dealt proper damage.

Of course, the elemental advantage still applied, so holy attacks dealt the most damage, but the key was that I could inflict damage regardless.

On the blade that had turned blue, blue mana began to swirl. The swirl soon transformed into a noticeable vortex and raged.

Lucifer, as soon as he realized a big attack was coming, charged in, but the distance he had maintained until now was actually poison for him. My special attack cast was one beat faster.

Holding the Wingless Nightmare horizontally, I pulled my right shoulder back tightly, then thrust it forward. A vortex made of blue mana extended towards him.

It was that damn vortex that had ground down about a third of the blue little train.

Sucking in all the surrounding heat and air, the blue mana storm that extended forward charged directly at Lucifer.

He seemed to judge that the vortex would reach him faster than he could thrust his spear at me, so he stopped in place and blocked the attack by thrusting his spear.

ㅡKwa-gwa-gwa-gwang!

As the tree roots and the vortex collided, a fierce explosion erupted.

Of course, there was no practical effect; the vortex merely blunted the spear tip slightly and then dispersed into the air. Since the blunted spear tip immediately returned to its original state, it could truly be said to have had no effect.

“You’re not attacking, are you? Shall I try it one more time?”

With those words, I fired another vortex. This time, he instead of blocking it head-on, chose to dodge. The torrent of mana futilely cut through the air.

Next. A third vortex immediately flew towards him. In the meantime, perhaps having gotten used to dodging, he dodged the vortex with much less movement than before. The vortex harmlessly ground the innocent ground.

There was still no effect. At least for now.

“If you’re just going to dodge all day, then do it. Because I can just use this all day too. If you keep dodging until you die, you’ll die, won’t you?”

As blue vortices continuously wrapped around the Wingless Nightmare, he seemed to think he couldn’t just keep dodging anymore and charged forward, kicking off the ground.

Even if he kept widening the distance, he seemed to have judged that such actions would be useless if I had a long-range attack method that could be used from a greater distance than his spear.

He completely miscalculated.

Just as I intended, the moment he charged in, I changed the Wingless Nightmare’s attribute and charged in as well. From the blade, a brilliant light, a mix of gold and silver, emanated.

Finally, after a very long time, the distance between me and him narrowed to within the Wingless Nightmare’s reach. Lucifer seemed to have only intended to close the distance to about his spear’s length, but I wouldn’t let him.

A familiar sight appeared. The spear’s length shortened to about his height, and instead of sweeping a wide area broadly, it changed to sweeping a narrow area briefly, but more frequently.

It was the combo pattern I had seen in the game.

‘Thrust.’

First, a standard thrust came in. As I parried it, he nonchalantly, as if to repeat the previous thrust, raised his spear.

Naturally, it was off-beat.

I counted the beat internally, and only after half a beat had passed did I swing the Wingless Nightmare. The spear tip collided with the blade emitting holy light and was deflected sideways.

Lucifer, as his spear was deflected sideways and his body half-turned, immediately came in with a shoulder bash. With a ‘Thung!’ sound, I parried it and immediately thrust my sword. Several tree roots were cut and fell to the ground.

As if not even caring about such things, his leg was half-raised. It was a stomp pattern. Surprisingly, that too was a pattern that could be parried.

His large, bumpy foot stomped the ground. Just as shockwaves and dust swirled in all directions, I swung the Wingless Nightmare into the dust cloud.

The shockwaves and dust, as if swirling around my body, swept past me sideways.

It wasn’t over yet. Immediately after stomping his left foot down hard, Lucifer took a step forward with his right foot and swung the spear from bottom to top. At some point, the top and bottom of the spear, which had been pointing upwards, flipped.

The tree roots that formed the spear, at an immense speed, moved towards the opposite end. Lucifer, who now appeared to be holding the spear upside down, slammed it downwards.

I moved one step sideways and dodged. Right next to my shoulder, a massive pillar slammed down and passed by. As the spear’s tip dug into the ground, the ground rumbled, ㅡKu-rurung!

He, instead of pulling out the spear stuck in the ground, chose to swing his left arm. New roots sprouted wildly, and his left arm swelled several times in size.

That several-times-enlarged left arm, as if spreading a net, swept across the nearby ground. While pondering how to dodge it, I leaped high like the standard method.

While I was suspended in the air, the tree roots swept the area below, and as I landed on the ground, I slashed at his chest. This time too, clumps of tree roots were cut off.

In the game too, when hitting Lucifer in his Phase 1 and Phase 2 states, there was an effect of tree roots falling off, so it wasn’t particularly surprising.

Immediately after landing, I immediately raised the Wingless Nightmare. Light gathered on the blade, and as I brought my arm down vertically, a pillar of light plunged down, striking his head.

I thought, ‘So special abilities work here too.’ The pillar seemed to have descended from the sky here too, but thinking about how this was possible was a waste of time.

Anyway, even if I tried, I wouldn’t get an answer. Now was not the time to ponder why it worked, but to simply accept the fact that it did work.

‘My ability wasn’t amplified this time either.’

After getting hit in the head by the pillar, I plunged my sword into Lucifer’s staggering thigh, thinking that.

Since Lucifer was also strictly speaking a demon, I had wondered if it might happen, but unlike when I fought Behemoth, the pillar of light wasn’t amplified. Whether it was because it didn’t help or couldn’t help because this was hell, was unclear.

While I was thinking this, his abdomen split open vertically, and from within it, disgustingly wriggling tree roots burst out.

His abdomen, like a mouth, just before biting the front, I widened the distance. The tree roots that had taken a big bite out of the air slowly slithered back into place.

ㅡI will ask again. Do you have no intention of following the true God?

And then, as he stood still in place, I thought he was going to try the ‘you come here’ tactic again and was tensing up, when his voice echoed.

“That again? I told you I had no intention.”

ㅡWhy do you reject salvation? Truly ignorant.

With those words, from behind his back, a massive wing made of tree roots spread open with a ‘Chwaak!’. As if to prove that those roots themselves were alive, they were constantly wriggling.

Originally, it was a wing that should appear in Phase 2, but now it wasn’t particularly surprising.

‘It’s too late to be surprised by that.’

After seeing the Demon King of Hell worship and revere the World Eater as a god, something like a phase skip wasn’t even worth being surprised by.

Lucifer finished preparing to attack again. Holding the spear upside down so its tip pointed at me, pulling his shoulder back slightly, and raising his wrist near his head, he prepared to throw what was in his hand.

As it appeared, it was a spear-throwing pattern and also the opening pattern of Phase 2. Phase 1 had been skipped entirely.

Just as I was about to cast the ‘Ashes to Ashes’ spell at the right moment.

‘Wait a minute. Just now… what was that?’

In the blood-red sky, an even redder eye flashed past.