You sharpened your nerves to their limit.
The Tin Knight’s body was telling you.
The enemy before you, the Wicked Witch of the North, was a completely different opponent from when you last saw her.
“You’ve crawled here on your own two feet, doll!!”
With a smile full of ecstasy, Mombi swung her right arm with all her might.
Her enlarged and distorted right arm, like a beast’s foreleg, tore through the air and pounced on you.
Even though you deflected most of the attack at the moment of impact, the shock that came through was enough to push your heavy body back smoothly.
Being able to freely change one’s body structure was an incredibly powerful merit in hand-to-hand combat beyond imagination.
On top of that, as if she had some proficiency in hand-to-hand combat, she even used her own martial arts, making her threat truly terrifying.
[The ‘Tin Knight’ kindly points out to the opponent with skewed eyes that he didn’t crawl but jumped!]
[The ‘Tin Knight’ expresses disappointment at the opponent’s lack of skill, saying is that all you can do with that body!]
In other words, it was just “her own” level.
Excluding that cheating body transformation, if we only considered pure skill, she was at best second-rate.
While it might be a problem for a rear-line position like Dorothea who only knew basic self-defense, even without going as far as Adelaide, a hybrid like Gale could easily handle this level.
There was a meaningless gap to even compare with you who inherited the Tin Knight’s techniques.
The reason was understandable.
Mombi’s main tactics were surprise attacks and deception using transformation.
On top of that, she had a cheat skill that instantly killed opponents who didn’t have a certain level of mana control just by touching them.
In terms of class, she was close to an assassin, and just as assassins didn’t need a certain level of frontal combat power, the same was true for Mombi.
There was no need to painstakingly hone skills like martial arts when she could approach opponents calmly by disguising herself as someone harmless with transformation magic. Most people would die just by her lightly tapping them with her fingertips.
You smoothly deflected the enlarged right arm while diving into Mombi’s embrace and stabbing with your sword.
As if stabbing a solid iron wall, your sword stopped in front of Mombi’s skin without piercing her heart.
The barrier enveloping her body didn’t allow any further attack.
Mombi twisted her body, almost lying backwards while kicking you diagonally with her left leg.
Since excellent defense power was itself like a weapon, just grazing your shoulder made of solid metal caused it to be shaved off smoothly.
For a doll’s body that knew neither pain nor fatigue, injuries other than fatal wounds were trivial problems that could be recovered from with just mana and time.
Taking advantage of Mombi’s unstable posture, you rotated your body and kicked her right leg hard.
While no wound was created due to the magic barrier, both of Mombi’s legs were lifted into the air.
And right after that, a flash of light flying from the side pierced Mombi’s side.
It was powerful enough that the torn air became a gust of wind that swept over a beat later.
Mombi’s body flew backwards like a skipping stone.
A considerable portion of the magic letters densely enveloping her body was lost.
Mombi clicked her tongue and tried to dive into the crowd again, but you predicted which direction she would move and blocked her path in advance.
Endure with the shield, check with sword energy, break posture with martial arts, then slightly move aside to let the White Knight hit easily, and that completed it.
Each of the White Knight’s strikes, having received Gale’s full buff, was at a level that could shatter castle gates with a single charge, so even when hitting a human body with a spear, it made a tremendous noise as if a catapult had fallen.
No, when striking downwards from above instead of thrusting or slashing sideways, it created a crater as if a catapult, no, a cannon had fallen.
You appropriately retreated once in a while to check the timing, and each time, Gale, who had teleported nearby, handed over mana received from Dorothea.
While you were replenishing mana, Mombi tried to dive into the complex melee with snake-like movements, but what blocked such a Mombi was the wall of undead created by Dorothea.
The undead legion made a wall with their bodies collapsed in heaps with a light gesture from Mombi, but in that gap, you were able to finish replenishing mana.
Mombi, who tried to hide her appearance with her specialty transformation magic by diving among the mages, failed to achieve her goal because you grabbed her ankle and forcibly pulled her out.
Mombi tried to shout something in irritation, but the White Knight’s spear struck her head again.
Instead of red blood, letters of mana scattered into the air and disappeared.
“You youngsters are truly persistent!”
“Why is it so hard!?”
Mombi was irritated, and Dorothea was also irritated.
Just as Mombi had tried to sweep away the surroundings in one go by transforming into the Tower of Protection head earlier, her transformation magic was most effective when hiding among a large crowd.
Knowing this, you and your companions tried hard to thoroughly isolate Mombi outside the battlefield.
Dorothea created a physical barrier with the undead army, Gale enhanced allies while delivering Dorothea’s mana, you hindered Mombi’s actions while creating gaps, and the White Knight approached and struck with full power.
Conversely, even doing all that, isolation was the best they could do.
No matter how much they beat her up and shaved off the letter barrier wrapped around her body, as time passed, the shaved-off letter barrier would restore itself.
There was a legend that a village under the protection of the Witch of the North Orin withstood a volcanic eruption range without a single casualty, and using such ridiculous defense solely to protect her own body made it hard to distinguish whether they were hitting a person or a castle.
No, you and the White Knight were beings who could destroy even castles if you had enough mana and time respectively, so she was tougher than a castle.
To stop that infuriating infinite regeneration barrier, they somehow needed to smash the tower’s core that was supplying mana to Mombi.
“…Fine. If that’s what you want, I’ll smash you head-on.”
Mombi seemed to acknowledge that hit-and-run was impossible with you and Dorothea present, and transformed her body again.
Not just changing parts of her body like before, but at a level of completely overhauling her entire body.
Arms twisted, skin distorted, and tentacle-like things sprouted from various parts of her body.
And the witch who had transformed so threateningly sprinted straight towards where Dorothea and Gale were, ignoring you and the White Knight.
Complaining that as expected of an wicked witch who spec’d into the rogue class tree, inconsistency between words and actions was a basic skill, you swung your weapon.
Sword and right hand collided.
Every time Adelaide’s two-handed sword and Lotbart’s scepter collided, the air rang out and shockwaves spread.
Just as Adelaide was about to step forward and swing her sword again, ice spikes sprouted like chestnut burrs from the ground around Lotbart.
Adelaide instinctively stepped back, but the ice spikes pursued her like they had a will of their own, trying to pierce her body. It looked like a single snake.
Lotbart didn’t stop there and struck the ground with his scepter.
A wave of cold energy spread out from where he was standing, and the flow of air became slow like jelly.
Moreover, something sparkled as it caught the light around Lotbart.
It looked beautiful and mysterious at a glance, but its true nature was brutal.
Ice blades smaller than fingernails, each containing mana, had hardness and sharpness beyond ordinary sword energy.
If an ordinary person walked through there, they would immediately lose their life with tiny holes all over their body, and this was even more so for high-speed moving warriors.
Moreover, such ice blades were increasing their range as time passed, trying to fill the entire 10th floor.
At this rate, Adelaide would be caught without even a place to escape.
However, there was the need to correct a single misunderstanding.
Adelaide had no intention of escaping in the first place.
Adelaide’s two feet stepped on the wall, then leapt towards the ceiling.
As four sword energies scattered and carved out the ceiling, a square stone wall fell downwards, following gravity.
Adelaide turned her two-handed sword sideways and struck the falling stone wall hard.
The stone wall became an impromptu cannonball, flying in a straight line towards where Lotbart was.
As a bonus, the ice blades set up in its trajectory were swept away as if erased with an eraser.
Even if his physical abilities had increased, Lotbart was originally a mage.
He was more accustomed to blocking attacks with magic barriers than moving his body to avoid attacks, and this time, too, he put that familiarity into practice.
When Lotbart stomped his foot, 3m high ice spikes sprouted in front of him to block the flying stone.
More precisely, they almost blocked it.
They failed because Adelaide, who was clinging tightly to the stone wall, rammed the stone wall with her body once more.
With an impact like a truck collision, rock, ice, and Lotbart’s body became entangled and flew backward.
Adelaide tried to launch a follow-up attack, but before that, an ice storm swirled around Lotbart.
Due to the wildly rotating ice blades, grinding things around like a blender, Adelaide had no choice but to dodge backwards.
As if chasing Adelaide, spikes made of ice were fired like a machine gun.
Adelaide dodged sideways, and the wall pierced by the spikes froze snow-white as if infected.
Creaking sounds began to come from various parts of the building.
The floor they were on screamed, unable to withstand the extreme cold emitted by Lotbart.
Although coldness that would freeze the moisture in her eyes enveloped her entire body, Adelaide was already a swordsman who had half-transcended in terms of physical abilities.
Even faced with cold that seemed like it would peel off her skin the moment she touched an object, she was hardly affected other than her body becoming slightly dull.
This time, she carved out pieces of the building wall, then sent them flying towards Lotbart one after another as if playing hockey.
Lotbart in turn created a three-headed dragon made of ice and had those dragons bite Adelaide.
Part of Adelaide’s hair froze and shattered into powder, and Lotbart’s right arm was slightly crushed by fragments.
Lotbart calmly assessed the battle situation and came to a conclusion.
…Not bad. At this rate, I have the advantage.
The main magic used by the Rognir family was handling cold and ice.
Lotbart, as the head of the tower and king of Rognir, could handle cold magic to the extreme, and moreover, he was now in a situation where he had received additional enhancement using the transformation magic left by Mombi and the mana from the ley lines.
The opponent’s ability to only become slightly dull in an environment where ordinary living beings would freeze to death in just a few minutes was incredibly amazing, but in other words, it also meant that the opponent couldn’t completely ignore the effects of cold either.
The enemy’s tactic of carving out the building itself and using it as a cannonball was quite threatening, but once he got used to it, it was sufficiently bearable.
The other side must know it’s disadvantageous if time drags on aimlessly . These bricks and such aren’t real attacks. They’re just trying to distract my attention.
If there was a real attack separately and he predicted that attack would come soon, responding wasn’t such a difficult task.
The opponent’s talent could indeed be called innate, but the old man with rich life experience knew that such geniuses often lacked the patience to endure situations that didn’t go their way.
Moreover, from the opponent’s perspective, he was the enemy who killed her father. The more unfavorable the battle situation became, the faster her impatience would inevitably grow.
Lotbart calmly waited for the patience that would reach its limit someday, and finally that moment came.
Building debris flying through the blizzard.
And the cold light of a sword blade approaching as if hiding in the shadow of that building debris.
At the timing of the approaching counterattack, Lotbart unhesitatingly poured out mana.
With a crack, Adelaide’s sword was trapped between ice pillars without reaching Lotbart.
Only the sword was there.
Before Lotbart realized something was wrong and acted, a hand stretched out from below and grabbed his collar.
There was no soft cloth suitable for grabbing on his body, but it didn’t matter.
Because each of Adelaide’s fingers firmly fixed his body, crushing the crystal itself near his neck.
Lotbart’s and her eyes met.
— [The ‘Tin Knight’ says that since they’ve endured well so far, they should sometimes go all out!]
Adelaide, with various parts of her body frozen, exhaled white breath and said in a low voice.
Before Lotbart could react, Adelaide slammed the back of his head hard into the ground.
The 10th floor collapsed.
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