The Spearmaster and the Black Cat

e sword blades protruded out of the magic spear’s surface, extending like the needles of a hedgehog.
Suddenly, Liliza’s entire body was shredded into pieces by those blades.
An explosive spear attack that seemed to demolish the monster’s body from within, huh?

“…”

Being penetrated by the blades, the two arms holding onto the spear turned into finely chopped chunks of flesh, and fell to the ground.
Without saying anything, Liliza collapsed into a clump of meat.
Her beautiful silver hair also drifted towards the ground as if wilting and melting.

“You were way too persistent…that should deal with you.”

Kreuz’ forehead was drenched in cold sweat as he had apparently exhausted a great amount of mana, but he revealed a bitter smile on just one side of his face.
The black fog and explosion spear might have been his trump cards.
The magic book in Kreuz’ hand had automatically closed once the magic spear vanished.
He stored it away inside his mantle.
It’s pretty obvious that he’s quite exhausted.
The melted silver hair and scattered chunks of meat had formed a pile.
…A faint, blue mana is engulfing the flesh, so I don’t think that she’s finished with that.
Is she going to metamorphose like that guardian on the 20th floor? At least that’s my prediction, but I will postpone those thoughts for now.

“Kreuz――” I shot from my left hand while addressing him.

“Kuh――”

In an instant, something like defense magic automatically activated from the pointy hat worn by Kreuz.
His movements abruptly sped up.
He managed to avoid my that flew at the speed of a bullet.
Amazing.
But, manipulating the chain, I made it head for Kreuz once more.

“――You can’t call a surprise attack very gentlemanly, can you?” Kreuz rambled while splendidly dodging the chain’s tip which was moving like a coiling snake.

A skill or magic that quickens the bodily acceleration, eh? The blue eyes in his cow face shone as he spurted out a nihilistic laugh.
The magic crests in the iris of his eyes that increased their brightness rapidly rotated like the dial of a lock.
Illusion magic against me even while being exhausted? I think it’s pointless, though.
On the contrary, the space in front of my eyes bent, creating a visual field as if a circle had been divided at several places which allowed me to see the optical illusion.
Kreuz’ face and eyes have split? It’s a mysterious view as if looking through many mirrors.
Whoa, it looks like I got caught in the illusion technique.
The instant I reflexively blinked several times like an owl, my sight suddenly returned to normal as if having regained a sense of distance.
Huh? It got fixed?
It worked to some degree, but did I resist because of ? It’s great to be a Light Demon Lucival.
Otherwise I would have been definitely out at this point.
He, who had attacked me through illusion magic, reached with one hand into his mantle while continuing to evade my chain’s attacks with swift movements.
And then he retrieved a bloodstained eyeball from his mantle item box.

“Again with another weird item…”

The bloodstained eyeball in cow-face’s hand…reminded me of the vertically-slit eyeball of a snake or another beast.
It was an eye with a light dwelling deeply within, making me sense a dense mana from it.
Is it possibly something similar to the Blue Eye of the Ancient Dragon in my possession?

“It’s not weird.
It’s one of the gifts I received from the goddess.
!”

At the moment Kreuz held up that eyeball while proudly stating its name, a hand tinged blood red came out of the eyeball?
A sealing sign of crushing evil4 manifested.
In that instant, the surface of the chain, which was in the middle of pursuing Kreuz, hardened with a blood red color.
had stopped in midair.
It didn’t budge at all.
So, such attack, no, interception methods exist as well, huh? Let’s have disappear for the moment.
I pretended that was done in by that eyeball.

“…That demonic eyeball seems to be special.”

“Of course! It’s an artifact like the spirit world’s 4-9-3 book.”

A treasure.
The spirit world appears to have various of those, too.
Once Kreuz poured mana into that treasure, the eyeball, it started to sickeningly tremble.
And then it split into countless smaller versions like frog eggs, transforming into feather-like items.
Ugh, that was surprising.
The compound eyes amassed, and the thin, feathered wings releasing an oily brilliance automatically moved to Kreuz’ back and mounted it.
A moth cow, eh? Kreuz furrowed his golden, bushy eyebrows.

“…Here I come.” Saying so, he accelerated – probably owed to the wings equipped to his back.

He charged at me with a speed similar to wind tearing through space.
At the same time, he thrust his hands inside his black mantle.
That mantle is an item box.
His hands completely entered into his mantle, looking as if his fingers had vanished within.
Once he pulled out his arms, they were grasping a curved magic sword possessing a poisonous-looking blade.
It seems as though he can freely take out items from that mantle.
I’m slightly jealous because I can’t equip items into my hands unless I configure my item box in advance…
I want it, if possible.
However, it’ll probably be difficult to finish him off without damaging his mantle that’s located on his back.
While pondering about such things, I counter speed with speed.
――
――
I took out an ancient dragon dagger from my chest strap to restrain him.
I threw the dagger with after extending my bent, left elbow as if snapping it in an instant.
At the same time, I invoked three instances of 《Frozen Arrow》.
Kreuz, who had accelerated, stopped moving.
He nimbly moved the curved blade in his hands, repelling the dagger and the ice arrows.
Those sword movements didn’t resemble the swordsmanship of Naromivas.
It was a swordsmanship that seemed to have a forceful, special assistance added through magic to it.
It was stiff like the movements of a robot with inflexible joints.
He must originally be a sorcerer after all.
The umbrella-like magic lines springing forth from his magic hat radially expanded around him, but do they have an effect of boosting Kreuz’ speed like the moth wings on his back, instead of just being of a defensive nature?
Once he repelled my ranged weapons I had released to check the situation, Kreuz came charging at me again.
However, he’s challenging me to close combat despite having accelerated? It’s a poor move…incomprehensible.
Did he judge that his illusion magic is working on me? No, he has a desperate look.
He might be close to running out of mana.
So that’s why he bet on his illusion working?
While analyzing his state of mind, I quickly thrust out my Magic Halberd’s red spear towards Kreuz’ chest.
Kreuz slashed his green sword from the left to the right with a mechanical motion similar to the one when he repelled my restraining dagger.
The red spear was repelled by the green blade, but I didn’t mind――
I quickly unleashed a chain of thrusts, thrusts, and thrusts aimed at Kreuz’ chest and abdomen.
The barrage of thrusts stopped Kreuz’ charge that felt like the wind as he was using those eerie, feathered wings on his back.

“――The illusion magic isn’t working!?”

“Of course not――”

Cow-face’s gamble went amiss.
The realization of that showed in his expression.
When Kreuz’ movements came to a complete halt, he was in the range of my spear kumite.
Using my left leg, I unleashed a low kick with the image of breaking my opponents knee as the opening move.

“――.”

Kreuz seems to still have something up his sleeves.
While spitting out words that sounded like a skill, he flapped his wings, quickly floating up.
At the same time as he evaded my kick, his wings truly scattered dark green, eyeshadow-like scales.
The scales fell on my face and arms, and disappeared as if being absorbed into my skin.
I didn’t receive any damage.
Using that timing, I rotated the Magic Halberd in my right hand towards my back while focusing on the muscles across my whole body, and especially my spinal muscles.

“N-No way――”

It was probably a darkness attribute-based attack, but it didn’t have any effect at all.
Seeing that it hadn’t worked on me, Kreuz revealed an expression full of despair, but it was too late.
I rotated backwards, and charged the power, which I had amassed so strongly that my waist was creaking, into my right arm.
I thrust that right arm forward in one go at full power, activating .
――One flash of an imprisoning whirlwind.
While leaving a crimson trace behind in midair, the red ax blade dug Kreuz’ left flank that was protected by his mantle.
The ax blade cleaved Kreuz’ torso right in half alongside his mantle without any resistance.

“Gyaaaaoooaaaahhh!”

As if mustering his last strength, the cow’s voice resounded as if ripping the stillness of night apart.
His two parts rotated with a tailspin while scattering blood and intestines.
After rolling across a part of the magic crest carved into the ground with a force that shaved some of it off, both parts stopped moving.
In the end, I ended up severing his mantle, huh?
The moth wings into which the bloodstained eyeball had transformed had been bisected as well.
I suppose the mantle’s item box has become unusable as well.
Though I kind of wanted to have the magic book that created the explosive spear, and the magic books with contents of the spirit world.
The green magic sword fell to the ground, but…
The two chunks of meat that used to be Kreuz didn’t even twitch anymore.
Going by the amount of blood and his internal organs, he seems to be close to a human.
Since the blood and flesh are wriggling, it looks like he’s regenerating, but no black flames are emitted from the cut wounds as it was with Naromivas.
The vitality to show signs of recovering from such a state exceeded that of a human, and was obviously abnormal, but it didn’t seem that he completed a complete reincarnation into a demon.
I stopped and .

At that moment, “――Nyao.”

RollodeenBlack Panther came back while making her beautiful, velvet-like black fur sway.
She stared at me with her red eyes as if greeting me.
Once I nodded, she approached Kreuz’ upper body while bobbing as if responding to my nod, and sniffed Kreuz’ odor while revealing red, sharp, beast eyes.
Her nostrils widened and shrunk repeatedly as she obviously made use of her beastly sense of smell.
Seemingly having gotten her dose of cow scent…Rollodeen placed her forepaw on Kreuz’ chest, and brought her panther head close to Kreuz’ thick neck.
And then she deeply dug her saber-like fangs into his neck.
I don’t know whether it’s her habit as a beast or her understanding that Kreuz’ flesh is regenerating.
She tightly held his neck in her mouth, pulled it up, and forcibly tore off the head as if to display her strength as a divine beast.
She proudly lifted up cow-face’s head that had the spinal cord protrude out.
She showed off that blood-smeared head to me as if saying, “I caught a mouse nya.”
Instinctively I shook my head, signaling her that I didn’t need something like the bloodstained head of a cow.

“Garuru.” Seemingly excited, Rollodeen released a low, beastly growl.

After crushing the head in her mouth with a crunching, she tossed the remains, which still retained the shape of a head, into the sky.

“Nn, nyaoooon.”

A divine beast’s shout of victory.
Kreuz’ crushed head fell to the ground after revolving through the cave’s air.
After rolling around for a moment like a potato, it stopped.
My eyes met with Kreuz’ head as it laid on the ground.
I felt like a part of his crushed eye socket squirmed and his mouth moved…just as Rollodeen had smelled, it was in the middle of regenerating.
This heretic cow fucker.
I sent towards his head, which reminded me of his expression filled with despair, and made it explode into smithereens.

“Rollo, go ahead and burn the torso as well.”

“Garuruuuu!”

She released an unusually throaty roar.
Opening her panther mouth widely, she released a directional flame breath.
The scorching hot fire crawled across the magic crest on the ground.
As if indicating the direction of the fire, a part of the magic crest was eradicated, and Kreuz’ two parts were instantly engulfed by those flames.
The melted ground transformed into a warped, sticky mass.
I felt like the oxygen in the vicinity decreased radically.
Well, this is a wide cave.
No need to worry about carbon monoxide poisoning.
The body of Kreuz completely disappeared due to Rollodeen’s fire breath.
The sound of oxidation was audible, and the rising heat similar to dust being burned looked as if the air boiled due to geothermal heat.
I felt like he would revive even after evaporating if he was a vampire lord, but…at that moment, flesh pieces wriggling on my left side, which were different from Kreuz, entered my sight.
They had been outside the range of Rollodeen’s fire breath.