“…Heh, can I take that as a provocation?”
“Provocation? Hardly. Is a guy like you even worth provoking?”
Upon hearing those words, even the usually calm and composed Sonio lost his cool.
There was a limit to one’s patience. At the end of the day, Sonio was a Demon King who had ruled over his own territory for a long time. He naturally could not stomach such blatant mockery.
“Very well. It has been quite a while since someone forced me to use a weapon in a fight.”
As soon as he finished speaking, a staff with a short blade mounted at the tip appeared in Sonio’s hand.
Despite being a mage, he was actually quite accomplished in close-quarters combat.
“Finally willing to fight for real?”
Egrette lifted her scythe and closed the distance to Sonio in an instant.
Blood fused with Magic Power clung to the scythe. In a single moment, the weapon—already as tall as Egrette herself—expanded to several meters in length. The remaining Magic Power condensed onto the blade, flying outward as a sharp wave with every swing.
Faced with the rapidly approaching Egrette, Sonio pointed the tip of his blade staff at her.
“[MIND BLAST]!”
The moment the words left his lips, an invisible shockwave began to spread, originating from the tip of the staff. However, likely due to the effects of the staff itself, the shockwave, which would normally expand in a sphere in all directions, was focused into a directional blast that surged toward Egrette.
The shockwave clashed with the blade energy, but they did not negate each other; instead, they passed right through one another.
Seeing through her magic vision that the shockwave had not been neutralized, Egrette realized something was wrong and immediately tried to evade. However, the invisible shockwave was incredibly fast and struck her before she could move.
Just as it had when passing through the blade energy, the shockwave lacked physical properties. It did not even impact her body… at least, not directly.
Egrette’s movements stiffened as the invisible shock was swept over her. Her crimson pupils began to lose focus, and she collapsed to the ground, bleeding from all seven orifices.
“…A [Blood Clone]? Quite realistic.”
As soon as Sonio spoke, the Egrette lying on the ground turned into a pool of blood, which then seeped into the earth and vanished.
“You just called me a coward, yet aren’t you doing the exact same thing?”
“How is that the same? It’s only natural to use the safest method when testing an opponent, isn’t it?”
Following the source of the voice, the Egrette who had vanished appeared elsewhere. There was not a single trace of blood on her face.
[Blood Clone]— as the name suggested, it was a clone created using blood. As the Blood Queen, Egrette could fuse her blood with Magic Power to create a clone convincing enough to deceive even a fellow Demon King like Sonio.
“You really are quite underhanded, though, starting things off with a spell that directly destroys the mind.”
The [Mind Blast] Sonio had just used was an offensive form of Mental Magic. The damage it dealt was determined by the caster’s magical ability and the target’s mental strength; it could even bypass the physical body to shatter the opponent’s psyche directly.
This type of mental attack calculated damage differently from physical or energy attacks. Pure physical and energy resistances were useless against it. One could only defend against it through specific skills, equipment, or by increasing one’s mental strength. Even the health bar for such attacks was different from the usual HP; it was a hidden, secondary health gauge.
Of course, these mental abilities functioned differently for Players. After all, a game could not actually destroy a player’s mind. Therefore, this was implemented by adding filters to the player’s vision—such as the screen turning black or red—causing them to lose control of their body, or making everything they saw look like a soul-crushing nightmare. The lower the player’s mental strength, the more pronounced these effects became.
Incidentally, because attacks against the mind could not be quickly restored through physical regeneration, victims often faced dire consequences. Aside from using extremely high-level resurrection magic, they either could not be revived at all, or they would suffer a massive loss in combat power and intelligence after returning. For Players, the resurrection penalty was significantly increased.
“As you said, one should use the safest method when testing an opponent. So, I simply used the most certain method to ensure your death.”
Sonio threw Egrette’s own logic back at her, using her words to counter her.
“I see… Then the testing phase should probably come to an end.”
The moment she finished speaking, Egrette appeared behind Sonio like a dropped frame in a video. The scythe in her hand was already pressed against his neck the moment she flickered behind him.
In a single heartbeat, Sonio’s head would have fallen.
However, Sonio was not lagging behind. Cautious as always, he had already cast defense and evasion magic on himself. Just as the scythe was about to open his throat, the magic activated, and his body was instantly displaced to another location.
Seeing her attack miss, Egrette reacted immediately. She pointed a finger, and the flowers surrounding the displaced Sonio grew wildly, forming a cage of blood-red thorns.
Without giving him time to react, the cage contracted rapidly. The internal spikes acted like an iron maiden, attempting to shred Sonio from every possible angle.
“[MANA-BREAKING BLADE]!”
The tip of the blade staff in Sonio’s hand was enveloped in Magic Power, forming a larger, longer magical edge. He sliced through the blood thorns as if he were cutting through butter and quickly escaped.
However, Egrette had already used that opening to close in. In a single moment, she unleashed countless slashes. Blade energy filled the surroundings, making teleportation almost impossible, and her scythe was already in front of Sonio’s face.
The blood-colored Magic Power swirling around the scythe couldn’t even keep up with Egrette’s swinging speed; it could only trail behind. To Sonio’s eyes, the weapon was nearly impossible to track.
In the next instant, his defense magic was shattered. Blood sprayed as one of Sonio’s arms was cleanly severed. The shockwave from Egrette’s slash leveled the flower field ahead and seemed to clear the very sky.
“I am the First Demon King, and you are the fourth. There has always been a gap in our levels.”
Egrette was at the level cap of Level 100, while Sonio, the Fourth Demon King, was only Level 91. Those nine levels meant that, even without equipment, there was a difference of a full 20,000 points in their base stats.
“While your Mental Magic is powerful, the gap in our strength remains. You cannot win.”
Egrette pointed her scythe directly at Sonio as she spoke.
Sonio merely kept his head down, remaining silent.
“…Heh… Hahaha! Do you truly think I am the same as I was before?”
After a long pause, Sonio suddenly burst into laughter.
“Just because you have reached a bottleneck and cannot progress further doesn’t mean others can’t grow stronger!!”
As he spoke, Sonio’s arm regrew in an instant. The blade staff in his hand erupted with Magic Power once more. The magical blade, capable of dispelling magical effects to a certain degree, swung toward the nearby Egrette.