I let out a grunt of pain as I held on to my left arm, the pain of the wound I shouldn’t have been able to feel coursing through my whole body.

«Due to divine intervention, an attempt to exorcise you has failed.»

The cold, mechanical voice snapped my attention away from the pain, and back to the god-sword and its wielder. Though shaky, I rose to my feet and leapt backwards in an attempt to create some distance.

«What’s this? I thought I’d managed to catch you off-guard with that, but… to think my exorcism wouldn’t work. I’m impressed, opponent.»

The wound had already disappeared, so I let go of my arm. Still, traces of black, shadowy, wavering blood ran along Claiomh Solais’s blade, and the pain I felt was very real.

“Heh. From my standpoint, too, I am impressed.” I shook my head as I slowly moved my arm to ease the pain. “This is the first time a wound has caused me pain. I suppose it is true, then, that you can cut through god-given protection.”

That said, it seemed its ability was not powerful enough to pierce an on-the-spot divine intervention. I made a mental note to express my thanks to Lady Entropy later.

«Ho-ho,» it laughed, «god-given protection, is it… Congratulations on your high evaluation, opponent. Now then, lord of evil… I invite you to dance!»

“I am grateful for your kind words,” I answered, my tone dripping with fake, overdone courtesy. “With that, allow me to accept your invitation.”

The puppeteered Hero’s body raised the sword with both hands in front of his body, and I raised the claws of one hand like a sword while the other hung at my side, ready to strike at any time.

With the sound of a nearby branch which happened to snap as the signal, we rushed at each other simultaneously-

While the lord of evil and the holy sword were facing off, a few metres away, a young shaman from Gehenna rained spells upon a Hero without thinking of anything.

Considering the state of her mind, it would be more accurate to say she could not think of anything.

«Lilith, get ahold of thyself!» a voice spoke directly into her mind. Yet despite her ability to comprehend the words, she could scarcely understand their meaning—for comparison, it was akin to attempting to explain quantum physics to a dog that happened to speak a human language.

“Like this, it’ll end up the same way as the last time, you know?” the Barrier Hero taunted, silently well aware her attacks were significantly stronger than back then.

Behind him, the poor human mage alternated her gaze between Lilith and the dark lord, slight traces of panic on her face. Who do I attack, which element do I use, what about the other monsters—in other words, various thoughts ran through her head, and it could be said her mind was in disarray. The one feeling that trumped all was worry for Reynald’s well-being.

“Still, though, that guy,” the Barrier Hero mumbled to himself. “I didn’t get a chance to appraise him last time, ‘cause he was gone in a flash, but… what the hell is this…?!”

The status he was looking at from the corner of his eye as he cast a variety of colourful Magic Guards looked like this.

Name

Astaroth Eskaria

Sex

Male

Race

Soul’s Avatar (Base: Demon Lord)

Grade

8 (Supreme)

Skills

Demon Lord

[True Demon Form] [Demon Lord’s Authority]

True Demon Form

A compound of several different skills, this skill makes you stronger in a variety of ways and brings out your true nature.

Demon Lord’s Authority

You may give absolute one-word orders that monsters of the 8th rank or below must obey.

If a monster is 6th rank or below, you may ravage its soul, leaving only loyalty to you. Such puppets will no longer have any autonomy, and cannot be restored, even if your power grows such that you can create puppets with autonomy.

Hero

[Storage] [Skill Borrowing] [Saviour] [Self-status] [Increased efficiency: Light]

Storage

Place an item you are in contact with into or retrieve it from a special sub-space. Living beings may not be placed into this sub-space.

Skill Borrowing

Use a skill that belongs to any being which recognises itself as your subordinate, although with decreased efficiency.

Saviour

Passive: anyone who you rescue from a life-or-death situation will forcibly have their mental state calmed, and gain permanent increased mental resistance.

Self-status

View your own status, as if through the effect of [Appraisal].

Increased efficiency: Light

Passive: the efficiency and effect of any light-attribute or healing-type magic cast on or by you will increase.

Aspect of Protection

[Barrier] [Protect] [Shroud]

Barrier

Form an unbreakable barrier around one area, to a maximum size of a small continent. Mana usage will increase as barrier size does. Nothing may pass through this barrier, in or out.

Protect

Form a protective barrier of light around yourself or an ally, protecting them entirely from physical attacks. Specialised barrier-breaking attacks may be able to pierce it. You may control up to ten, each costing more mana. Blocking attacks with such a barrier will consume mana.

Shroud

Wrap yourself or an ally in protective darkness, hiding them from visual detection and granting them complete protection from magical attacks. It only works in dark environments, and you may control up to ten, each costing more mana.

Other

[Darkness-Attribute Magic: Complete] [Original Magic] [No-Attribute Magic] [Night Vision] [Divine Protection: Luciel] [Divine Protection: Entropy] [Fragment of ∎▲z]

Darkness-Attribute Magic: Complete

You may use any darkness-attribute spell that exists, as long as you have the mana and the concentration.

Original Magic

You may use the spells you yourself have developed.

No-Attribute Magic

You may use various spells that are not bound to any particular attribute. You may use these spells without chanting.

Night Vision

Passive: you may see in the dark in greyscale, but otherwise as though it were light.

Divine Protection: Luciel

Passive: your affinity for light-attribute magic will increase. Your hardiness will increase. You will not feel pain. You will become a ‘Hero’ and gain appropriate power. You will find it easier to see through deception and discern secrets.

Divine Protection: Entropy

Passive: your affinity for darkness-attribute magic will increase. Your hardiness will increase. Your confidence will greatly increase. You will find it easier to keep secrets and remain unnoticed.

Fragment of ∎▲z

∎▲z%▯u23♕

“Seriously, what the hell is this?! This ain’t even at the level of a final boss… this is more like some kinda law-keeping NPC, ain’t it?!”

Due to the rather overpowering length of the status, the Hero did not appear to have noticed the presence of Hero skills, or the fact that the last skill on the list was anything but legible.

“For the sake of my own sanity, I don’t think I’ll appraise any of the others, I’ll die from fear… And their mana’s amazing, too. I’m sure that if Lilith were more composed, she’d be a serious threat all on her own…”

He also seemed to have overlooked the fact that skill quantity did not necessarily correlate with strength—though, this time, considering it lead him to the correct conclusion of “this man is powerful”, perhaps this was a good thing for him.

“Oy, mage!” the Hero shouted, whipping his head backwards between chants, “hurry up and do something!”

Though she was rather intimidated by the demonic mana spilling over from all sides and threatening to turn into miasma at any moment, the other Hero’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts. “Ah, uh, yes!” she said, starting to chant a spell with Lilith as the target.

Her mistake was choosing a fire-attribute spell.

Inside Lilith’s mind, a little girl cried and cried.

Without end, she called out to her father and her mother, but she received little response.

Once, the voice of the man she admired and pledged her loyalty to had called out to her, in an angry, almost dissatisfied tone. Yet that was only once.

With the only thing she recognised in her immediate vicinity being a Hero she hated for a reason she could not recall, she saw no course of action but to attack him.

But no matter how often, how quickly she attacked, her magic did not reach him. Her frustration only made her try harder, and thus, a cycle was formed.

Given she possessed [Limitless Mana Pool], she would not run out of mana no matter how much magic she used, but the same could not be said for her physical condition. To begin with, her physical condition was less than ideal; If she continued at this rate, she would collapse due to exhaustion within ten minutes.

Then a different voice called out to her.

Lilith was quite youthful—if a human had to give an estimate, they would likely say early twenties—but even then, this voice sounded much younger. It would be hard for people to believe you if you told them this voice belonged to a millennia-old vampire.

As a sidenote, it would also be a bad idea to state such, given the vampire in question had rather a fondness of good manners, in combination with quite some power.

“Lilith, get ahold of thyself!” she said, her tone somewhere between the strict admonishment of a nanny and the gentle guidance of an older sister.

Her voice did not reach the crying girl.

Tears flowed past the symbols on the small Lilith’s face, and her sobs were so loud she herself heard them clearly.

Once again, the vampire’s voice entered the young girl’s ears, like a clear, ringing bell. “Lilith, thou must calm down. I am here. We are here. Thou art not alone.”

“Don’ make me laugh,” the girl responded, her tears unending. “Wha’s yer help g’nna do f’r me?” It seemed that the combination of a throat blocked with mucus and a younger age was making her slurring even worse than usual. “Daddy, ‘n mommy, ‘n even that guy, they’re all gone. Wha’ can you do? Ya can’t bring ‘em back, righ’?”

“ ‘that guy’…?”

“Mhm. Black-eyed man.”

“ ‘Black-eyed’...” For a few moments, the vampire paused on these words, contemplating their meaning. Soon, she decided she had other, more important things to do. “ ‘Tis nary as though thy fam’ly are deceased. Barriers are annulled when the one who erected them is slain, nay?”

“E-ev’n so. You’ve seen ‘t, righ’? My spells ain’ ge’in through a’ all. He’s blockin’ ‘em. Whatcha gunna do ‘bout tha’?”

“Well, it cannot be denied he makes for a formidable foe, yet I have some strat’gems… Yet before that, I would think it crit’cal for thee to return to thy usual state.”

“U… usual? But this is no’mal, ain’ it? Wha’s wrong wi’ me bein’ like this?” Although the tears had far from stopped, they were certainly fewer in number than they were several moments ago.

“Thou knowst that perfectly well, thyself,” the vampire said, softly placing a spiritual hand on Lilith’s head and stroking her hair.

Once, twice, Lilith blinked.

“Y… Yeah, you’re right, Charlotte,” she said eventually, as the flow of tears finally stopped. “I need to stop actin’ like a kid and take my revenge properly.”

The rain of spells blasting at the Barrier Hero’s Magic Guards stopped just as Lilith’s movements did the same. She blinked slowly and flexed her hands as the colour of her eyes returned to normal.

«Because you have become mentally composed, you no longer meet the conditions to be a ‘Grand’-grade Berserker Devil. You will revert to a ‘High’-grade Arch-Devil. The changes to your parameters will revert.»

“... Uh-oh,” the Barrier Hero said after a few seconds, the dots in his head connecting as he realised what he was looking at.

«Lilith, I have appraised the Barrier Hero for thee,» Charlotte said through the still-active telepathic connection, «and it seems as though he is the possessor of a skill which pr’vents mag’cal interf’rence. Skilled a mage as thou art, thou wouldst need to be at the level of one like Tempest to el’minate his barriers.»

“Tch. So even now tha’ I’ve calmed down, I can’t hit ‘im…”

«Rest assured, Lilith. I have devised a plan for thee to use. The mage lass has an el’mental spell aimed at thee, so if thou simply keepst the Barrier Hero occ’pied for a moment, thou canst make use of…»

Lilith lent her ears to Charlotte’s surprisingly simple plan, which made use of the god-sword, the powerful demons in the vicinity and the fact that light and dark mana really didn’t like each other.

The god-sword’s wielder and I both let out groans of exhaustion as we jumped away from each other. Although my claws had clashed with the god-sword several times, neither weapon had suffered even a single chip.

By my estimation, then, Claiomh Solais must have been made from Orichalcum. A valuable sword, indeed.

“Even if it is the wielder of the god-sword, a human body cannot take so much stress, can it? Your fighting style worries me.” Despite the concern in my choice of words, my sentence dripped with so much courtesy it could not be interpreted as anything but mocking.

«Your words aren’t wrong, opponent. If this had been a regular human body, it would long have split in two at the waist. But surely you of all people know the effect of divine protection.»

Once more, the blade clashed with my claw, sparks scattering about.

“The increased hardiness, is it… Certainly, given I have two divine protections, I should know their effects well.”

I pushed the blade away and made a slash at the wielder’s chest.

«Two of them? So that is the source of your tremendous power!»

The puppet jumped back to avoid my claw, and then jumped forward once more, making a slash at my arm.

“ ‘Tremendous’... Indeed, I am powerful, god-sword. You, too, are not bad.”

I jumped backwards, and ended up gracefully landing amongst the branches of a tree. I found my attention pulled away by a sudden change in the environment’s mana, not caused by me.

“But will his soul be able to stand something like this?” I asked—a poorly-veiled attempt at a distraction—as I focused on the source of the change, and reached the conclusion the mage was finally acting.

My attempts to identify her spell were unsuccessful. Given the high mana concentration in the area, from various sources—powerful demons tended to leak demonic mana, the god-sword was a constant source of light-attribute mana and the forest itself was rich in earth- and wind-attribute mana—it was nigh impossible to probe the environment this way.

Of course, I didn’t visually recognise the spell, either—it would be a madman’s work to attempt to commit every spell in existence to memory. The only thing I could tell was its attribute, fire.

«Estimated time until control starts eroding soul… one minute, thirty seconds. Damn, that’s too short.» Claiomh Solais’s response to my question came a little later than I had expected.

“In that case, you should give up and flee. You cannot win, but I cannot destroy you, either.”

«I cannot leave the mage behind. If I ignore the user’s wishes too much, he could forcibly regain control.»

“If control is what you seek, eroding his soul is not a bad thing.”

«Theoretically, yes. However, the user is more accomodated to training this body than I. It’s imperative for him to get stronger.»

Of course, this whole conversation was based on a false premise. If I killed the wielder, I could simply steal the sword. But I needed survivors to spread tales of me, and the Goblinoids were unlikely to comply with requests of that nature. Thus, the wielder and his partner had to be my messengers.

“In that case, Claiomh Solais, I propose we call this fight a draw. You shall leave, and in return, I shall let him live.”

«Neither of us can win… Very well. I accept your offer, opponent. A draw in your favour.»

The mana left in the sword dissipated, further saturating the area and irritating my senses, and Claiomh Solais’s wielder collapsed onto the ground.

I turned my attention to the other fight. The mage fired her fire-attribute spell, and as if waiting for that moment, Lilith rapidly used a spell which seemed to belong to [Hell Magic]-

The Barrier Hero, the mage behind him, the Saint and everything around the three of them were engulfed in an explosion, which seemed to have been caused by a conflict between light-attribute and darkness-attribute mana.