I use every fiber of my concentration and willpower to keep their bodies immobilized, gravity mana constantly trying to compress them. I’m not worried about their safety or anything like that; their bodies are extremely resilient, and their Jurisdictions are powerful forces capable of breaking through my prison if I relax for even an instant.
The deep hatred is reflected in the eyes of the noble I’m holding by the neck, his gaze showing nothing but the desire to tear me apart.
On the other hand, his babysitter’s eyes are different. I can see a hint of fear, astonishment, and resistance. His brain seems to be working at full speed as he tries to find a way to escape.
I have to disrupt their attempts to use mana and Imra with my own. Under normal circumstances, this should be impossible, but with how badly injured they are, their bodies aren’t responding the way they want them to. On the other hand, my Imra is extremely powerful, and my death mana helps me destroy any attempt at forming a construction.
I tighten the prison of gravity and Imra around them even further. I can’t give them room to breathe and allow them more opportunities.
Should I kill them? It’s the only possible solution. I can’t think of another way out of this problem. They’re both Diamond ranks, capable of wreaking havoc in any of the towns whenever they want and escaping if they act quickly enough.
Another problem arises if I kill them. This bastard’s father could demand unthinkable compensation for the death of one of his sons. I’m within my rights after being insulted in my own territory and attacked first, but there’s no conclusive evidence proving that.
I let out an internal sigh. It doesn’t matter, I’ll kill them. I can deal with the problems afterward, and I have a slight suspicion that this idiot noble doesn’t have his father’s support or is acting against his wishes.
When nobles find themselves in serious trouble, they tend to do something in particular, especially the more idiotic ones. They tend to bring up their families to escape the consequences, always telling the same story about how you won’t be able to withstand their family’s fury if one of their children dies.
This time, there are no pleas, no complaints, and he isn’t bringing his family into this. That smells a little strange. Well, it’s not like he can talk much in his current condition… he already has enough to deal with trying to break through the powerful gravity barrier that threatens to crush his bones if he relaxes for even an instant.
He had plenty of opportunities to stop and involve his family in the middle of our confrontation, but he never did.
On the other hand, the babysitter is a special case as well. That smoke affinity isn’t something common, and messing with those people could also become a headache. He hasn’t begged or brought up his family either.
Well, I don’t care about that right now. I just want to finish this. I wish I were stronger so I could restrain them long enough to bring them to trial.
I’ll start with the babysitter. He’s the one who can cause me the fewest problems or bring the least trouble to my family. He doesn’t seem to belong to a main or secondary branch; perhaps he’s simply the result of someone’s careless affair, otherwise I would probably recognize his face.
His eyes widen even further when he senses my intentions, and he desperately tries to break free from the gravity prison around him. My lips and tongue bleed from how hard I’m biting down. I’m doing everything possible to contain him.
Shit, this isn’t going to work. That thought crosses my mind as I swing my sword to cut through his neck. Enormous amounts of smoke mana burst out of the prison and try to restrain me in the same way. He wants to stop my movements.
I endure the pain. The smoke has transformed into tiny blades that dig deeply into my skin; my defenses feel like paper. My arm doesn’t stop because of the pain. I feel his skin being sliced apart and his neck almost completely severed.
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At the very last instant, I can no longer contain his uncontrolled mana, and an enormous explosion erupts with the three of us at its epicenter. I try to protect my body as best as possible, abandoning my efforts to keep them imprisoned and focusing my entire mind and mana on surviving the explosion.
The smoke mana becomes incredibly dense and different types of constructions take shape, all of them imbued with Imra, powerful Laws, and a resilient Jurisdiction.
My body is launched away like a missile. The mana around me manages to destroy every obstacle before I touch it; trees and rocks are pulverized before they can get within even thirty centimeters of my body.
The problem lies elsewhere. One of my legs has been completely erased, and I nearly lost the most precious part of my body in the explosion as well. I had to put several extra layers of protection around that area.
My other leg is also mutilated halfway up, and there are enormous holes throughout my body with blood pouring from them. My face was almost completely disintegrated; my left ear and cheek have been vaporized.
In the end, my body slams into a tree. “Shit, that desperate idiot.” I complain as I try to get up, having to use gravity mana just to force my body upright.
Is my life mana not working properly? When I push my healing ability, I encounter enormous resistance. My death mana is eliminating every trace of his Imra, smoke mana, and Laws from my body.
I collapse onto the ground again like a sack of potatoes, my body trying to endure an immensely painful reaction. Life mana? Did that bastard put something inside my body? He’s also a life mana user, and he seemed to be a rather unusual one.
I can feel his life mana trying to deform my entire body from within. One of my legs, which had already partially healed, explodes again, ending up in an even worse condition than before.
I grit my teeth and focus my own life and death mana on fighting the invading mana. It’s far more resistant than I expected. Xinu must have poured all his willpower and desire to kill me into that ability.
My body, which should have healed within seconds, remains in such a miserable state even after more than a minute.
“That was very dangerous…” I relax slightly when I finally manage to eliminate all of that invasive life mana. Luckily, I detected it in time and managed to stop it. If I had taken a few more seconds to identify it, I could have ended up in a vegetative state or even dead.
His life mana tried to camouflage itself using the properties of his smoke affinity, and it almost succeeded. If it had, my body would have begun developing abnormalities and all kinds of diseases from within.
I don’t have much mana left in reserve. I’d like to save it in case something unexpected happens, but I can’t leave my body in this condition. I could lose consciousness at any moment if I keep losing blood.
My ability is also passive, and all of my mortal wounds have already healed relatively well. My legs grow back, my wrist, which had been nothing more than a horrible stump, once again has a functional hand, and the wounds throughout my body begin closing at an alarming speed.
If I ended up in such a disastrous condition, they shouldn’t be doing any better than me. Once I’ve healed enough, I shoot toward the point where the explosion occurred. I need to find out what happened to both of them.
When I reach the epicenter, I see a completely mangled body. The force ultimately finished separating his head from his body; the power of his own ability ended up decapitating him in the end.
His body is also unrecognizable. Not as much as I expected, but still in a condition impossible to recover from. What surprises me is that I found his body at all. I thought I would only find chunks of flesh scattered throughout the entire area.
Did he not take as much damage because he was the origin of the explosive ability? Did his body automatically heal before he died because of his life affinity? Maybe both are possible? I don’t know, but at least I’ve confirmed the death of one of them.
I freeze the body to see if anything can be done with it later. It’s better to preserve it as well as possible… although there isn’t much left to preserve. It’s in a condition where it looks like an amorphous block of human cheese.
“You’re still alive…” I had already detected the other person the moment I reached the epicenter of the explosion. The noble named Prito wasn’t thrown nearly as far as I was; his babysitter must have done everything possible to keep him from being caught in the full force of his explosive ability.
“You look terrible.” My words are empty; there’s no way I’ll receive an answer. Half of his face is destroyed, his mouth and jaw are nonexistent, his body is missing three limbs, and the cuts across him have only gotten worse after the explosion.
This noble is completely unconscious; there’s no way he’ll recover anytime soon. For a moment, I consider taking him back. With the elders’ help, I could keep him in custody until we call the Marquis, but I discard that idea. Diamond ranks are extremely vindictive. It’s better to eliminate the problem at its roots.
I construct a black sword, holding it horizontally, and before I can swing it to cut through his neck and the tree behind him, something happens. My sword is stopped in the middle of its swing. A person wrapped in purple layers has just stopped it with a single finger.