Chapter 44. The Expedition Nears Its End (9)
As James tensed upon sensing Gordon’s gaze, a voice came from behind him.
“Gordon.”
“……!”
James felt a brief chill at the realization that he had failed to notice someone standing behind him.
But as an experienced assassin, he immediately suppressed his presence and quietly observed the situation.
“Hehehe. If this is our first meeting, shouldn’t you introduce yourself before suddenly calling someone else by name?”
Rather than answer Gordon, Shane removed the mask covering his face.
“Tsk, tsk. Young people these days have no manners. Let me see…… Your name was Shane, wasn’t it?”
Gordon slowly surveyed the surroundings.
“But did you come alone?”
“Is there any reason I would need someone else?”
“Hehehe. Your confidence is certainly impressive. It seems you underestimate me considerably. Then again, quite some time has passed. No matter. I already had several things I wanted to ask you.”
The signal Gordon had been receiving from Alpha had just disappeared.
Truly, it was a sorrowful thing.
Alpha had been his first child, after all.
He had never imagined it would meet such an insignificant end.
Still, the person standing before him was fascinating enough to ease that grief.
“I’m curious how you deciphered the Mana patterns of those pointy-eared bastards…… And judging by what I’ve seen, your analytical ability is far beyond the level of an ordinary human. Boy, I’ll ask you once out of courtesy. Listen carefully, because it is exceedingly rare for someone of my temperament to offer a choice. Would you like to become my disciple?”
Just as Gordon said, he was not normally the sort of person who sought another person’s permission.
The fact that he was asking at all showed how deeply Shane’s extraordinary analytical ability had captured his interest.
“You’ve intrigued me in several ways. You use the ancient Runic Language, and the way you personally modified it was rather impressive as well. You’re certainly qualified to become my disciple. What do you say?”
“I refuse.”
“Tsk. Of course. Then I suppose I’ll have to preserve only your head. Do not worry. Before long, I’ll modify you so that you’ll become my disciple whether you like it or not.”
It was no empty boast.
He might currently look like nothing more than a shabby old Alchemist, but he had once stood at the pinnacle of Black Magic and plunged the entire continent into terror.
“I may no longer be capable of fighting as elegantly as I did in my youth, but I have conducted plenty of entertaining research over the years. For example, there is this.”
Gordon pulled a grotesque mask from a drawer in his desk.
“What do you think this is?”
“……Your tastes remain as vile as ever.”
“Oh? You recognize this already?”
“Necronomi Mask(Necronomi mask).”
It was one of Gordon’s worst inventions—
And the object Shane had been most wary of on his way here.
A mask created by flaying the skin from a living human, curing it in the victim’s own blood, and trapping their vengeful spirit within it.
“Bwahaha! Correct. I would consider it one of my masterpieces.”
It was something Shane had already accounted for to a certain extent.
He had assumed its quality would still be inferior because Gordon had not been affiliated with Nameless for very long.
But judging by the object before him, Gordon had apparently completed the Necronomi Mask even before joining the Organization.
If there was one fortunate aspect—
It did not appear that Gordon possessed very many of them yet.
‘When I saw him before, he had dozens of those masks.’
That was why the Gordon of Shane’s previous life had possessed enough combat power to contend with an entire legion by himself.
“Such a delightful object. Though I did make it myself.”
The power of that mask was not something to underestimate.
The moment Gordon placed it over his face, the presence emanating from him became vicious beyond recognition.
“Do try not to collapse too quickly. This is my first time using this one in actual combat. I may accidentally kill you if I fail to control my strength. Hehehe!”
A sword the murky crimson of rotten blood had already appeared in Gordon’s hand.
‘So it had already been completed by this point.’
The absurd ability to reproduce the physical capabilities of the human used as its material.
That was the power of the Necronomi Mask.
Judging by Gordon’s presence, the person used to create that mask had undoubtedly been a warrior who had reached the level of a Third-Grade Master.
Gordon charged.
His movements were in no way inferior to those of Dominic of the Imperial Guard Knight Order.
No—
In sheer destructive power, he was superior.
Yet Shane avoided Gordon’s horizontal slash with a light movement.
At the same time, he fired a Layered Mana Bullet directly toward Gordon’s face.
Gordon did not allow himself to be struck so easily.
He wrapped Aura around his hand and destroyed the approaching Mana Bullet.
“Oh…… You’re faster than I expected.”
Gordon realized that Shane’s movements were anything but ordinary and stared at him with surprise from behind the mask.
It was rare for a Mage to possess reaction speed of this level.
But it was far too early to be surprised by something like that.
Gordon’s techniques might indeed have been comparable to disasters from the perspective of humans.
But when examined closely—
That was only true when compared against the species known as ‘humanity.’
“Blood Magic. Did a Vampire drink your blood or something?”
“……You truly know far too much for a child.”
Vampires.
An ancient race said to have existed before the current era.
They were the originators of Blood Magic, and their authority over blood had caused countless races to tremble in fear.
But the Blood Magic Gordon wielded was merely a degraded imitation created by groups that once worshiped Vampires.
“Yes, perhaps I was arrogant. Naturally, I cannot be the only person who knows of their existence. I admit I’m surprised…… but knowing about them changes nothing about your current situation.”
Indeed.
Knowledge alone would do nothing to resolve the situation.
Shane himself did not know the weaknesses possessed by the ancient Vampire race.
“Arrogant…… Yes. Arrogance doesn’t suit you.”
But that only mattered when dealing with Vampires he had never encountered.
It did not mean Gordon himself possessed no weaknesses.
—
Humanity had walked a pitiful road toward extinction in Shane’s previous life.
But that did not mean they had simply allowed themselves to be destroyed without resistance.
After discovering that Gordon occupied an important position within Nameless, humanity had dispatched several expeditions to kill him.
Every attempt ended in a disastrous defeat.
At times, Gordon became a Sword Demon capable of fighting a hundred enemies alone.
At other times, he became an Archmage who rained fireballs from the heavens.
At night, he disappeared into the darkness and assassinated the expedition’s commanders.
At dawn, he became a Ranger capable of killing targets with arrows fired from a thousand li away.
Gordon became dozens of different masters by himself and toyed with entire expeditions.
His infamy alone had been enough to mercilessly crush what little hope humanity still possessed.
But one genius focused not on Gordon’s countless different abilities—
But on the source that made all of them possible.
When one thought about it carefully, there was no possible way a single human could perfectly master that many different talents.
There had to be something enabling it.
That genius therefore focused on understanding the principles underlying Gordon’s power.
And once—
Just once—
An expedition succeeded in forcing Gordon to retreat.
The person responsible for that achievement was a young man everyone else had dismissed because of his stutter.
Bernstein Auston.
At the time, Auston used his almost precognitive analytical ability to study Gordon through every expedition the man slaughtered.
Eventually, he found the answer.
Gordon had accidentally obtained a sample from an ancient Vampire and successfully incorporated its traits into his own body.
But he had failed to become a true Vampire.
His knowledge had always been rooted in Black Magic.
And Black Magic itself had originated as something unable to properly reproduce even degraded Blood Magic.
In other words—
Weaknesses undeniably existed.
One only had to find them.
And Auston was not the sort of person who would overlook something like that.
Ultimately, the expedition seized a single opportunity and succeeded in defeating Gordon.
At this point in time—
Shane was the only person who knew how they had done it.
The problem was that Auston had proven his theory back then with the assistance of numerous Mages.
Shane had no other Mages helping him now.
But Shane did not care.
“One chance. The single point that once reached a noble descendant of the Dragon.”
“Hmm?”
“The objective is a fatal strike.”
“You continue spouting incomprehensible nonsense. In any case, this conversation is beginning to bore me. It is about time we ended this. Do not be disappointed. Once you become my disciple, we’ll be talking plenty whether you want to or not. Hehehe.”
Gordon moved again.
A sword formed from dark crimson Aura drew dazzling paths through the air.
Sword Aura flew along those trajectories, making it seem as though Shane were simultaneously facing swords swung by knights from every direction.
Worse still, the sheer quantity of Mana behind them could not be taken lightly.
Ordinary magic would have struggled to defend against it.
Even so—
Shane fired Mana Bullets from his fingertips directly toward the incoming Sword Aura.
“Fool! You think those pathetic Mana Bullets can stop this?!”
But—
BANG-!
Ordinarily, Sword Aura of that level should have torn straight through such Mana Bullets before shredding Shane’s arms and legs.
Instead—
The Sword Aura was annihilated by the Mana Bullet.
Gordon’s expression stiffened.
“You…… How are you wielding that Mana?!”
Because the Mana Shane had just displayed resembled something Gordon utterly despised.
Mana found among the very Imperial Family that had once destroyed his Black Mage organization—
“It is astonishingly similar to what those Imperial cats use.”
“No. Wrong. It seems age has dulled your eyes as well.”
“What?”
“Why would I bother imitating such an incomplete technique when I could simply create something more advanced?”
“……Create? You, who haven’t even reached twenty years of age?”
“Against your techniques, which are nothing more than degraded versions of Blood Magic, I honestly have no need to use the Imperial Family’s techniques in the first place.”
“……Hehehe. It has been quite some time since anyone spoke to me like that. My techniques are merely degraded imitations? What nonsense!”
Degraded imitation.
That phrase touched Gordon’s deepest wound.
After all, even with a sample from an ancient Vampire in his possession, he had still failed to reach their level.
The inferiority he felt because of that undoubtedly existed.
Gordon’s techniques were exceptional.
But Shane’s analytical ability allowed him to understand even Gordon’s techniques—
And advance beyond them.
A mask cured using another person’s blood and soul?
A technique that allowed its wearer to reproduce the abilities the victim possessed while alive merely by putting it on?
Shane could confidently declare that this was Gordon’s limitation.
He could only reach the level of an inferior imitation.
He could only copy.
That alone would never allow him to move forward.
Why could Shane, merely a Second-Circle Mage, read the movements of Gordon, who was displaying the abilities of a Third-Grade Master?
Because rather than simply copying—
Shane always sought a more advanced direction.
And above all—
Shane knew of another power whose performance could rival the abilities of the ancient Vampires themselves.
One of humanity’s Seven Desires.
Greed.
By understanding the power of Aumans J. Dyra, the Judgment Knight he encountered at the nobleman’s villa where Delilah had been imprisoned, Shane learned to imbue Mana with Origin.
Using that, he absorbed and neutralized Gordon’s Aura.
And the countless memories and experiences Shane had stolen from the Imperial Knights allowed his eyes to read Gordon’s movements.
Unlike Gordon, Shane could not transform those abilities into physical capabilities of his own.
But Shane had no need whatsoever for their physical abilities in the first place.
There was no reason for him to lose against a fake who brought nothing more than degraded imitations and copies.
“Hehehe…… Heh…… I am a degraded imitation? Nothing but a fake? I’ve changed my mind. I valued you enough to consider taking you as my disciple, but you’ve provoked this fickle old man far too much.”
Gordon released another barrage of Sword Aura from his weapon.
Then, while Shane countered it with Mana Bullets as before, Gordon pulled out another mask and put it on.
This time—
A storm of blood-red frost erupted.
Shane recalled the techniques of Raviata, the greatest Fire Attribute Mage he knew.
However, Shane did not possess the Fire Attribute.
Instead, he countered with magic incorporating the rune closest to it—
‘Decomposition.’
The storm of bloody frost broke apart and dissipated as though oxidizing when it collided with a Mana Mist created using only a small amount of Mana.
Gordon changed masks again.
“You bastard!!”
This time, a bow formed from Blood Mana appeared in his hands.
Arrows shot from it like lightning.
More than ten arrows flew toward Shane’s vital points in an instant.
There was no need to borrow anyone else’s memories for something like this.
Shane fired Layered Mana Bullets and twisted the trajectories of the arrows.
In the meantime—
A massive Battleaxe appeared in Gordon’s hands.
He charged with a heavy blow carrying enough force to bring down a mountain.
Shane avoided it easily using Layered Haste.
The Battleaxe instead smashed into the ground.
A massive crater erupted, throwing soil and fragments of wood toward Shane.
He blocked them with a Layered Mana Shield.
Then, while the air remained filled with dust, Shane fired dozens of Mana Bullets into it.
When the dust settled—
Gordon emerged wielding a sword and shield formed from Blood Mana.
He charged.
That was his mistake.
A real shield made from a durable material might have been different.
But against Shane’s Mana, which possessed the property of Absorption—
A shield made of Mana was easier to pierce than steel.
Even though it was Aura belonging to a Third-Grade Master, three Mana Swords formed by Shane converged upon a single point simultaneously.
Cracks spread across Gordon’s shield like a spiderweb.
Shane used Layered Haste once more to widen the distance.
Only then did Gordon finally stop moving.
“Heh…… Fine. I admit it. It appears killing you with only this much will be difficult.”
He had used every mask in his possession—
Yet he had failed to so much as touch a hair on Shane’s head.
Gordon had no choice but to acknowledge the situation.
“But the same applies to you.”
Gordon tapped his own mask with his index finger.
“As long as I have this, you may not be able to kill me either. At the very least, I can drag this battle out. Your heart is feeling rather strained by now, isn’t it?”
Gordon had identified the heart of the problem.
It was true.
Shane was compensating for the Mana he lacked as a Second-Circle Mage by absorbing Gordon’s Mana.
But the durability of his body and Mana Core could not keep pace.
After repeatedly releasing and absorbing enormous quantities of Mana without pause, Shane’s Mana Core was already shaking considerably.
However—
“Drag out the battle? No.”
“……?”
“You were never the one buying time.”
Gordon’s eyes shifted.
“I was.”
The Mana Shane had scattered across the ground throughout the battle had never lost its light.
It continued glowing faintly—
Connected together.
Runic Language.
[Expansion].
[Refraction].
[Contraction].
Space began to distort.
“Now.”
An assassin who had remained hidden within the shadows until this very moment—
Burst forth.
