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Chapter 25 – Battle with the Grave Keeper
Does it have the intention to attack? It stands there, swaying quietly like a shadow, but the magical power directed at Clare remains the same.
It is occasionally reported. It is a magical creature that appears in ruins. Their appearances and abilities vary widely, but they are collectively called grave guardians because they try to protect the ruins.
“I’ll stop touching the ruins, so why don’t you stop? …But you can’t understand what I’m saying.”
Clare tries to convey that she is not proactive in the fight with the wavelength of her magical power, but–
“Oh…!”
The answer is a sudden attack from the ground. A black tentacle jumps out and slams into Clare’s body with a trajectory that seems to pierce it.
It doesn’t hit. It jumps into the sky as if pulled by the deployed thread. Countless tentacles extend from the black shadow as if chasing it.
At that moment, Clare’s thoughts are completely switched to combat.
“Lightning!”
Even though it resembles a human, it is essentially formless. The card Clare chose to counterattack was electricity. It was different from the one she used to take control of the city. It was a lethal combination of voltage and current. Purple lightning ran through the threads stretched across the space, and the slash of the approaching tentacle touched it.
Sparks burst and the sound of sparks burst. The tentacle flinched and retreated for a moment, but before it could fully return, it was thrust again like a spear. It showed no signs of pain, but was it damaged or not? It was too early to tell, but I didn’t think a normal slash or a string bow would work.
So–
All of the slashes and string bows she unleashed were wrapped in electricity. The threads wrapped in purple lightning drew an arc and collided with the tentacle, and arrows flooded the black shadow from the surrounding trees.
It spreads a defensive membrane over its entire body, and moves between the threads, pulling itself together and flying between the trees as if firing arrows.
Is it okay to call it the main body of the black shadow? The part that seems to correspond to its head also moves between the trees at high speed. It moves its main body at high speed in all directions as if pumping liquid toward the tips of its outstretched tentacles. Is it a slime-like mollusc? Or is there a weak point somewhere in its black body, like a core or a main body?
It distributes its magical reactions, so it’s hard to tell where its weak point is, but lightning attacks are probably effective. There is a part of its thin, elongated body that is round and bulging and moving at high speed. It moves away from the lightning of the thread arrow that pierces it, and wherever it moves, a part that looks like a body or a head is formed. There is something – a base point. It is not completely formless.
The dispersion of magical power is also the same when attacking. Because the magic power is dispersed until the moment of attack, it is difficult to know where the body will move on the extended tentacles and where the attack will come from.
Like Clare herself, the shadow is also the type that does not care about the distance between the opponent. Clare will be exposed to the attack no matter what.
“I’m glad I practiced with Selena!”
By dispersing magic power, she has been training with Selena to mix reality and fiction in offense and defense, and to prepare for close encounters.
She reacts to stabs coming from outside her field of vision with her sensing magic. By pulling threads on the trees and showing unpredictable movements with her movements, she shows evasion beyond the black shadow’s predictions.
From the offense and defense up to this point, the shadow understands that the seed of Clare’s movements is threads. Her high-speed movement in the forest that makes it impossible to predict is also incredible. During the offensive and defensive battle, the shadows launch slashing attacks from their tentacles here and there, cutting the threads that have been stretched out around them and hindering their actions, while Clare, on the other hand, fires new threads in all directions each time one is cut, creating a field that works to her advantage while fighting.
Clare also guides them. She moves away from the adventurers and heads in the direction of Rona and the others, who are heading in this direction. Clare’s attacks are piercing with lightning bolts, but they are not decisive. However, if she fights alongside Rona and Selena, it’s a different story.
(She’s noticed, isn’t she?)
The shadows also move in advance, as if they have noticed the unnaturalness of their movements. If they fight while moving around, it works to the shadows’ advantage. If they know this and still choose to fight rather than just run away, it’s because they have a vision for what lies ahead. So, to some extent, they go along with Clare’s plan and interfere with it. He blocks her path, attacks her with murderous intent at key points, and a blow to decapitate Clare and pierce her heart. His shield deflects them. He deflects them with an umbrella-like thing woven with vertical and horizontal threads, and while hiding in the shade of the umbrella, he jumps in the wrong direction.
He connects the stones he picked up with threads, covers them with magic, and slams them down.
He slams the sharp stones into the bulging parts, but it doesn’t work on the shadows. He absorbs the impact, shatters the stones he has taken into his body, and shoots them back like shrapnel. He blocks those with his umbrella, too. The strength of the cloth woven with magic threads is also extraordinary.
As they continue their attack and defense while moving at high speed through the trees – the time Clare has been hoping for comes.
“Clare!”
“Lady Clare! This way!”
Beyond the trees. He can see Rona and Selena, who have rushed over, out of breath.
Clare turned her gaze in the direction of the voice and was about to jump towards it – at that moment.
A black shadow appeared right behind Clare, moving at an explosive speed that surpassed anything she had seen before, swelling up.
A high magical response. Clare looked over her shoulder with a surprised expression. A voice warned of danger.
It all happened in an instant. Along with the swelling magical power, several tentacles shot out from close by with incredible force.
Clare’s chest. Her stomach. A jet black spear pierced her. A vital spot. It was obvious from the side that she would not be saved.
The black shadow held its impaled body up high as if to show it to Rona and the others, and roared in victory as if to demonstrate. It tried to.
“Is the main body there?”
A quiet voice came from a distance. There was something strange about the sensation coming from the piercing tentacle.
The black shadow’s head’s single eye widened, and at almost the same time, a torrent of light as thick as an arm pierced the trees from the side and struck the shadow’s heart.
The resistance was momentary. Something metallic shot out of the black shadow’s body, piercing it. It was a beating metal heart. It was silver and pierced by a spiraling beam of light.
The black shadow roared in frustration, but its body collapsed in an instant, pouring onto the ground of the Great Sea of Trees like black water and raising white smoke.
The one who launched the attack was… It wasn’t Clare, who was at a distance. The being next to Clare was a Robin Hood-like hunter doll, kneeling and frozen in the act of firing an arrow.
A doll carrying a huge bow and a thick string. Clare’s magic was amplified when it was used through a doll. This was no exception even for a string bow, and she was able to fire an incredibly powerful bow.
Clare used two dolls and an umbrella to kill the black shadow.
The umbrella was meant to block attacks, but also to block the line of sight for a short time. She hid the witch doll, which was her fake, behind the umbrella and returned it to its original size, while Clare herself dwarfed it and used concealment magic to put some distance between them.
After that, she dispersed the magical reaction – she showed an opening just before it was about to join up with Rona and the others, forcing Clare and the others to fight before they could join forces.
If the shadow, which was dispersing its magical powers and hiding its weak point, was going to fight, she could determine where the power was concentrated. If she could just catch that, it would be the best chance to kill it.
All that was left to do was to return the imitation hunter doll to its original size and deliver a powerful blow to its weak point. If she couldn’t defeat it that way – the three of them would have joined forces to fight, using the information she had given to Rona and Selena.
“The grave keeper of the ruins, huh? Well done.”
“That’s really impressive. But even though I was told about the plan, it’s not good for Clare to see something like that happen…”
“Thank you. I also thought there could be a use for this. But I don’t really want to do that, having the doll I made broken every time… Ah…”
Even though Rona and Selena said this with smiles, Clare seemed a little depressed. The girl doll on her shoulders slumped, and Rona shook her shoulders at Clare, who gave a bitter smile.
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