Chương 18: Chapter 17: Equilibrium Joins the War

My team and I split into two groups, moving swiftly to intercept the leaders of both factions before they could escape. These two figures were far too powerful to be left active. Eliminating them now would save me an immeasurable amount of trouble down the line. However, we had no intention of wiping out the rest of the forces on either side. Doing so would solve nothing and only draw unwanted attention to our existence. Taking out just the top two powerhouses was a much more manageable compromise.

Lucy and I took charge of the respective teams, which were divided as evenly as possible. To balance our combat capabilities, I led the squad targeting the demon Phelian. My team consisted of Himari, Thea, Nao, and Shiro—our bottom four Rooks. Because my personal power level was so high, I needed to keep the teams balanced. Meanwhile, Lucy's squad was tasked with intercepting Randel. Her team included our top five Rooks: Sophia, Maria, Claire, Suzune, and Akane.

They needed every bit of extra firepower they could muster to safely subdue a human of Randel's caliber, even if he was already heavily exhausted and injured from the battle. We arrived at our designated intercept points almost simultaneously. This time, we deployed incredibly high-grade magical disguises. The two targets we were facing were far too perceptive to be fooled by standard illusion techniques, so I had to be absolutely certain our covers would hold.

I stood my ground, focusing my gaze on the heavily wounded demon before me. Phelian stared back, his expression a mix of fury and bewilderment. He clearly couldn't comprehend what kind of human would possess the sheer audacity to block his path, especially given the fearsome power he had displayed. But Phelian had no time to waste. He needed to retreat immediately to tend to his wounds. Setting aside his curiosity, his eyes became cold and murderous. He wanted to eliminate us instantly and open an escape route.

Drawing upon his remaining reserves of magic, Phelian conjured a massive sphere of darkness. While it was nowhere near the size of the spell he had cast earlier in the main battle, it still hurtled toward us at high velocity. Had I been an ordinary person, this single strike would have easily killed me. Fortunately, I was far from ordinary. I then summoned my own light magic, enveloping his dark sphere in a blinding glow that neutralized the shadow energy until it dissolved into nothingness.

Seeing his attack dismissed so effortlessly, Phelian's arrogance vanished. He finally stopped underestimating me. Even if he didn't believe I was stronger than him at his peak, he knew he was currently crippled by severe injuries and massive magic depletion. Realizing a fight to the death wasn't worth the risk, Phelian attempted to use his superior speed to slip past us.

"Form the perimeter!" I commanded the girls. As they spread out to encircle him, I moved forward to cut off his escape route. Appearing directly in Phelian's path, I delivered a heavy, physical strike. It wasn't my strongest move, but it carried enough force to blast him backward, sending him back towards the encirclement. Yet, I found myself quietly impressed by the high-ranking demon's sheer durability.

Despite being on the brink of exhaustion and heavily injured, he had managed to endure my strike while taking only minor damage. My original plan was to wear him down further and keep him alive for interrogation, but it was clear he wasn't going to break easily. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. Still, I wanted to capture him alive for two main reasons.

For one, taking someone this powerful off the board would prevent him from disrupting the war's balance in the future. Secondly, I wanted to uncover whatever secret trump cards the demon faction was still hiding. After spending so much time in this world, I had finally encountered two individuals besides myself who had passed level 3000. It made me deeply curious: were there more of these monstrously powerful entities hiding in the depths of the Demonic Continent?

Phelian quickly realized that slipping away unnoticed was no longer an option. Surrounded on all sides, he scanned our formation before locking his eyes onto a target. He decided to gamble everything on a single breakthrough, aiming to crush our weakest link and force an opening. That link was Himari. The moment Phelian lunged toward her with explosive speed, I watched closely, preparing to act. Fortunately, I hadn't chosen Himari to be a Rook randomly without assessment.

She was more than capable of stalling the enemy to survive. Instead of panicking, Himari instantly conjured a series of layered magic barriers between herself and the charging demon. She didn't expect them to stop him entirely; she just needed to buy the rest of the team a few seconds to close the distance. Phelian, desperate to break through before the others could react, used whatever power he had left to try to shatter the barriers. But he quickly ran into a wall of cold reality.

The precise angling and overlapping reinforcement of Himari's barriers made them incredibly tedious to break. By the time Phelian finally smashed through the final barrier, his window of opportunity was gone. The other girls had already closed in, unleashing their most devastating spells and physical techniques in a coordinated onslaught. Because of the vast level gap, they knew they couldn't hope to pierce his defenses unless they went completely all-out while he was weakened.

Unable to dodge the synchronized barrage, Phelian took the full force of the attacks head-on. The simultaneous onslaught from so many angles left him battered with fresh, bleeding wounds. I stepped back and watched from the sidelines. My intervention was no longer necessary. At this rate, Phelian was bound to collapse under the sheer weight of his accumulated injuries. Sure enough, a few moments later, Phelian crashed hard against the ground.

Completely drained of magic and covered in severe injuries, he slipped into unconsciousness. Stepping forward, I used high-level magic to bind his body, securing him completely before we prepared to transport him back to our base. I then turned my attention toward Lucy's side to see how they were doing. From the looks of it, they still weren't finished. I wouldn't say they were doing poorly, but their progress was slow, likely due to the massive difference in levels.

Randel was still managing to hold them off and fight back, sustaining a new injury occasionally. Each fresh wound left him even more exhausted than he already was, but he stubbornly pushed through his fatigue. Seeing that the situation was favorable, I decided to handle something more important. Looking around, the war was still raging despite the fact that both leaders had retreated. While some soldiers had indeed fled after losing confidence, a stubborn bunch still remained and refused to back down.

What I wanted to do was retrieve the staff that the old man had used to injure Phelian. This staff was far too powerful for the humans to keep; it could easily prove deadly later, even to me. Since this weapon had managed to injure someone above level 3000, it could not be underestimated. I headed toward the spot where the old man had died, while directing the rest of my team to reinforce Lucy and help her deal with Randel. We split up once again as the girls rushed off to join the fight.

Arriving at the location, I was greeted by a vast expanse of nothingness. I searched the area closely, but there was still nothing there. I could only assume that someone had swiped the staff right after the old man died. Frustration washed over me. I had let such a dangerous threat escape, and now it was in the hands of an unknown person. I scanned the surroundings one last time, but there were absolutely no clues as to where it could have gone.

I then left the area, deeply displeased that my detour had been for nothing. When I returned, I saw all ten girls simultaneously fighting against Randel. The man was an absolute monster, managing to hold out against all of them for so long. Part of this was because the girls were trying not to kill him, but even with that restriction, Randel had held on and was actively fighting back even now.

As the fight dragged on, his injuries kept piling up, and Randel began to make more mistakes, allowing the girls to take advantage and deal more damage. This resulted in him taking several direct hits to his body. After being struck several more times, Randel finally fell unconscious from extreme fatigue. The girls immediately stopped their attacks and restrained him, preparing him for transport back to headquarters. Seeing our success, my sour mood from the wasted trip eased slightly, and I walked over to regroup.

Standing with the girls, I looked around at the ongoing battle but decided our intervention was more than enough.

"We have achieved our goal today," I said to them.

"Now that both the humans and the demons have lost a powerful asset, we won't have to worry about them making any unexpected moves for a while. We will head back to interrogate these two and leave the rest of this war to play out on its own. The remaining forces on either side simply don't have the power to change the outcome." Obeying my orders, the girls said simultaneously, "Understood."