[Mephistopheles – Phase 3]
[HP: 1,439,294/4,444,444]
“Ah, I see. It doesn’t feel right. Baal Zebub, Belphegor, Asmodeus, none of them.”
With a bitter smile, Mephisto brushed back his white hair.
“All of them were taken out by you! Should I thank you for eliminating the competition?”
In the war among demons for the capture of Yggdrasil, Mephistopheles was left standing all alone.
How many long years were wasted gathering power since the ‘Primordial Annihilation’?
The will of evil wandering the world gathered again, turned to dust, and that dust became a lizard roaming the shadows.
Then that lizard grew into a snake, then an eagle, and eventually its will was passed down to humans over thousands of years.
Compared to the ten years it took for Yggdrasil to grow, it was an unfathomably long time.
“Right. They were too hasty. They couldn’t wait for the last ten years, wasting thousands of years of patience. But I! I won’t make that mistake.”
Bubbles began to rise from his gaping torso, and his flesh started to regenerate.
With about a million health points, his body was reminiscent of a celestial city.
Not a walking tank, but a walking city.
As his violet eyes shone brighter, the surrounding mana began to whirl chaotically, gathering in his palm.
Trees that couldn’t root deeply snapped with a crack, and massive boulders were sent flying helplessly.
To break through that was merely granted to Na-me, with just four laurel leaves attached with a 16x amplification ability.
– Isn’t his HP just way too much?
– Normally it’s 500,000, but what the hell, haha!
– His defense must be higher too; it feels like it’s not ten times but dozens of times stronger.
– Is this where NoName meets its end?
– A one-hit clear didn’t seem possible after all.
“No! My sister is not that weak!”
The Silver Cat shouted toward the viewers.
Can they really not feel this?
Mephistopheles is not the only one gathering strength.
And confirming that fact, the golden eyes of Na-me flared red.
“It’s only natural for humans to kill each other.”
Having lived through the chaotic era, Na-me had seen it all.
The scene of hundreds of corpses being turned into crow food, with no bones left to show, was no rare sight to her.
Humans killed humans, humans killed demons, and demons killed humans again.
In the endless cycle of slaughter, she remembered those who fell without leaving a name.
“But saving humans is also human.”
Ironically, the battlefield was a place filled with goodwill.
Women who carried soldiers who had lost their limbs due to bombardments, crossing mountains day and night,
mercenaries who sacrificed their own lives to protect the residents from demons,
and humans and demons uniting to protect the village children.
When killing enemies, there was no malice, yet in saving lives, only goodwill existed on that battlefield.
Na-me believed in the potential for goodness just as much.
If only she could stop the wars raging across the world, even for a moment, just to give everyone a breath of relief, perhaps the madness could come to an end.
Therefore, she stole the ‘Key to Heaven’ to turn back the forces of Alpenheim Kingdom and snatched ‘Agnes’s Tears’ to invalidate the Praha-in Empire’s participation.
“Eternal peace and rest for the world? Those who spout such sweet words are mostly just mad war fiends.”
Common folk didn’t desire such grand ideals.
They only wished that tomorrow would be just like today, where they worked hard in the fields during the day and gathered to share smiles and meals at the right time.
Whether they were human or demon, regardless of race, the princess always served as the representative of those people.
“If you dare call me the Demon King, then go ahead and call me that as much as you want.”
[Casting 5th Circle: Akashic Records]
Above Na-me’s head appeared five magic circles of different sizes.
They weren’t all distinct from each other.
The molecular structures forming polymer compounds were completed in an instant on each respective disk.
In magic, the speed of recording cannot exceed the thought speed of the caster.
However, in that brief moment, as a massive quantity of circuit structures, beyond what a human brain could grasp, was completed, it was enough to make one doubt that obvious proposition.
As the five circles merged into one, only then did the magic circle reveal its power, shining light on all things, even the small bugs hidden among the weeds.
The magic circle gradually shrank until it settled on Na-me’s head.
Hum…
[Unique Magic – Demon King’s Horn]
Piercing through her hair soaked in sunlight was a black horn about a foot long.
The ends of the straight bone structure stuck out sharply, appearing as if it had been part of her skull from the beginning.
Upon confirming the horn that rose with intense murderous intent, Na-me raised her lips in satisfaction.
“I’ll make sure you won’t be able to say such things anymore.”
*
Demons were generally more proficient in magic than swordsmanship.
The reason was due to the existence of horns intrinsic to the species.
The horn not only purified mana but also read the streams of mana.
Thus, demons could be said to have a calculator implanted in their heads and could easily cast spells, making them superior to humans in magical prowess.
Moreover, in the game world, mana was consistent.
In other words, as long as one could derive accurate environmental factors for casting magic, Na-me was confident that they could cast spells like a vessel flowing downstream without needing massive force.
How commendable it was to cast all magic as ‘optimal solutions’ was proven by Adella’s shock.
“A magic circle from the horn…! Was my sister once an angel…?”
Thousands of spears aimed at Na-me were deflected, the fierce wind altering their trajectories.
– What the hell is that horn?
– NoName has become a demon!!!!!
– What the hell is that demon?
– How is she casting magic without even using her hands? Is this possible?
└ Mana is coming out from the horn, holy crap.
Even the strikes from Mephisto that could send one to the other side of death, barely grazed Na-me’s swordplay.
Upon looking up battle videos of Mephistopheles, Na-me had already realized.
The reason a mere mortal could not defeat the final boss.
Mephisto learns and adapts to every attack from players, even mimicking it.
While that trait was somewhat similar to Schadenfreude, the difference was that it always allowed the first hit to land.
Therefore, users had to study different patterns or use different spells until the boss’s health drained to find a breakthrough.
The ever-growing boss will naturally have weak initial influence, but the sheer stat of 4 million HP compensated for all weaknesses.
However, all this didn’t apply to Na-me.
[Casting 4th Circle: Glacis Astar]
[MP: 9400(9520-120)/13500]
The 4th Circle magic used only 120 MP to cast.
A sharpened Niobium spear flew at supersonic speeds, piercing through Mephisto’s heart.
Seeing Mephisto falter, Na-me immediately linked the 1st Unique Magic with Adella.
“Let’s go, Adella, now!”
Thinking back to her time with Jin Chronicle (Asmodeus), the situation was much easier.
How restricted she was due to a single main penalty back then.
“I never thought I’d catch so many demons in my life…!”
[Unique Magic – Estasha Style 1 – Adella]
Hundreds of blades ravaged Mephisto’s body, which was caught in a stun state.
Adella sensed that her strikes felt completely different from previous ones.
The sword felt light; yet the power within was by no means light.
Two daggers and one longsword were scattered through the air, leaving a dizzying afterimage behind.
As the two girls executed a flurry of 300 strikes at an ever-increasing speed, they pulled away from the demon.
Na-me’s horn resonated at timed intervals.
[Unique Magic – Estasha Style 1]
[Adella – 300 Strikes]
[Smash]
Mephisto’s body began to crumble. Losing form, it turned into black goo like the demon from Jin Chronicle.
“How dare you play tricks…!”
Yet it seemed Mephisto was enduring until the very end.
“Watching an idiot who can’t even comprehend their own death talk about the world is truly…”
The mana whipped violently. Such was the force that the red hue of the mana was distinctly visible swirling around the demon.
It contained energy leagues apart from the magic she had cast until now.
[6th Circle High Spell: Hellfire]
“It’s laughable.”
Grrrrr… Kraaahhh!
The heat of 30 million degrees Celsius burned the demon’s soul to ashes.
A temperature twice that of the sun’s core was something that couldn’t be resisted as an intellectual being.
The blood-soaked skin melted away. The demon transcended the limits of the physical body, returning to the mist it once was.
The mist contained stars,
galaxies,
and in the end, the universe.
The bubbling mist swelled larger, repeating cycles of division and creation, covering the entire sky.
– Is this Phase 3?
– The damage output is insane.
– No, it’s not about Phase 3 patterns.
This was a death scream.
“Already utilizing the self-destruct mechanism…”
Their strike was already more than sufficient to end the demon’s life.
However, protected by the system, a demon could survive once, transmogrifying all available stats into energy.
Na-me quickly tossed Adella onto her shoulder and slammed the ground.
[System: Mephistopheles is casting ‘Requiem of Death’. Evacuate immediately from a 3km radius.]
[▶ Navigation Assistant – ON]
[▶ Mini-map – ON]
“Wait, the map size…?”
Seeing the reduced map, Na-me swallowed a groan.
No matter where she went, she couldn’t escape beyond 3km.
– The map is blocked?
– Can’t we simply break through like before?
– Back then, the overlapping open world made it possible, but it seems the restoration magicians corrected that.
– If they’re gonna fix it, they better fix it properly; this is ridiculous.
– What the hell is going on!?
– Teleport? Portal? Oh right, there’s none of that here.
– Think of something, collective intelligence!
– How many people are watching? Use your brains!
[‘Veixel’ donated 1,000 won!]
“Teacher! The Undying Curse Trait!”
A viewer shouted in desperation.
A nearly game-breaking trait that grants invulnerability for 5 seconds.
Fortunately, the cooldown was gone, but there was one problem.
– It only applies to oneself, right?
– Ugh, isn’t there any method…?
– Originally, it was a simple pattern of just running away…
– Seriously, I’m about to lose my sanity.
Na-me closed her eyes, recalling the countless Nightmare clear videos she’d studied.
In two minutes from now, the instant death skill would drop on top of her.
What comes next?
After the requiem spell is cast, 3 seconds later, the world would be reconstructed, and the power assessment would begin with the ending.
‘When is the clear condition?’
Caught in harsh winds, Adella clasped her eyes shut, unable to let out a sound, nestled against Na-me.
“When will you determine the story clear condition!?”
– Story clear?
– It must have already been cleared.
– Yeah, Mephisto’s HP is at 0.
– If a berserker was internalized with an invulnerability skill, they wouldn’t have had to run like this.
The clearing ended.
However, players must survive until the very end of the requiem.
Combining those two conditions in her mind, Na-me’s thoughts raced faster than ever.
No hope for a trait-sharing bug; it was already listed in the patch notes as resolved cleanly four years ago.
Could the map-breaking strategy work? She had yet to find out on Mephisto’s battlefield.
‘There’s only one evacuation area that can guarantee survival…!’
If they had cleared it, that meant the open world had now been assimilated into Wearsoft’s database.
Then with admin rights, they would have access to the world’s very ‘data’.
She couldn’t touch traits tied to entities, but individual skills were a possibility.
[System: Run as administrator]
[Panthemaime: Steal one skill from the target to use.]
[MP Consumption: 2000, Cooldown: 80 seconds]
‘If I could expand the theft from skill to the entity itself…’
If she could clearly ‘identify’ Adella, she might just transfer her skills.
560 lines of skill code unfolded before her eyes.
It was a simple skill of copying an entity, but it was loaded with additional codes to deal with all manner of bugs and errors.
Quickly skimming through the source code, she confirmed that even adding one line wouldn’t cause problems and began to unfold a new spell.
[Code Change: base World -> %PrivateRoom/NoName%]
[SessionTask failed with error: Network connection has been lost.]
[System: Broadcast has been terminated.]
Blue Dragon,
The great sage of the Black Magic Tower,
was the creation of Tsurevis Ostantin, her master’s master.
[7th Circle High Spell: Persona Pyxis]
[Insufficient MP.]
Na-me’s one horn couldn’t withstand the pressure of compressed power and shattered.
[7th Circle High Spell: Persona Pyxis]
[Insufficient MP.]
A box that contains a persona, Persona Pyxis.
[7th Circle High Spell: Persona Pyxis]
[MP is…]
[MP: 0(6795-6795)/15000]
