CH 314

“Basara……”

Basara was a powerful criminal group that even the Union, which ruled over the universe, couldn’t get rid of. With dozens of planets and tens of thousands of ships under their control, the Basara acted as the pirates of the universe. Moreover, along with the mechanized forces of the Legion and the monsters of the Grotesque, the forces of Basara were known as one of the three great adversaries of the Union.

“Dealing with just one Leviathan was already a headache…”

While Merlin, Arc, and Cruze’s pets groaned, the Masters, who had been hunched over during the mythic battle between Apollo and Leviathan, began to gather. This was because Merlin, who had been vigorously attacking Leviathan, was suddenly bound by an unknown energy once a new set of enemies appeared.

“What are those guys? Aliens?”

The gathered Masters whispered while taking combat stances. The man and woman had a human form, so their looks were familiar, and another two were in the form of beasts, one that possessed the head of a whale and the other the head of a dragon. These two were also relatively familiar appearances for the Masters, who had fought all kinds of monsters in DIO. However, the last being, a fish-like being, was a completely foreign existence to them. They had never laid eyes on that type of species before. For convenience of description, the existence could be described as looking like a fish, but its scales and half-transparent body resembled a dragon’s carapace, which made one think that it might be a spirit or a divine creature rather than a physical creature.

However, Cruze, who was aiming her sniper rifle at the newly appeared group, focused her attention on the whale-headed man that stood behind the fish-like being.

“What… is that?”

Even though there was quite a distance between them, the moment Cruze met the whale-headed man’s eyes, she felt all the hair on her body stand on end. It wasn’t a reaction and feeling one had just because one sensed that one’s opponent was strong.

Cruze felt something foreign yet familiar from the whale-headed man.

An existence like a mutant, something that shouldn’t exist in the world according to normal laws.

“My goodness, that guy…”

Cruze, who realized why she was so focused on the whale-headed man, groaned aloud.

“Isn’t that… an Irregular…?”

As she murmured, the whale-headed man turned his head and met eyes with Cruze.

“Aha, you must be the junior amongst the three Irregulars with the least presence.”

“…!!”

Cruze instinctively pulled her sniper rifle’s trigger. Her newly developed plasma rifle could fire a plasma projectile that inflicted shock and heat damage on its target.

The whale-headed man was about 300 meters away from Cruze when he deflected Cruze’s plasma bullet with his right arm. This was an unbelievable feat when one considered that the original distance between them was about 600 meters. In other words, the whale-headed man rushed towards her right when the bullet was shot off, so the man had met the bullet at the halfway point!

Boom!

Suddenly, the space in front of Cruze distorted, and then a sound shockwave, like a bursting balloon, struck Cruze. Belatedly, Cruze returned the plasma rifle to aura power and materialized her twin pistols.

“Wow, that surprised me,” the whale-headed man commented.

With a pale face, Cruze saw the whale-headed man fanning his reddened right hand.

‘Shoot, my reaction time was too slow!’

Her enemy was clearly a step above her in terms of power. She had been maintaining her distance to launch sniping attacks, but her enemy had bounded across that space before she had the time to react.

“Be careful.”

Lancelot had stepped in front of her. Lancelot, too, was equally perplexed. If it wasn’t Lancelot’s stabbing, which was completed through trillions of repetitions, the enemy’s attack would have been impossible to react to. The whale-headed man utilized his quick speed to literally penetrate the gaps in one’s consciousness. In truth, Lancelot’s defensive stabbing was done subconsciously.

However, it wasn’t just Cruze and Lancelot who were surprised.

“Who are you? You’re not an Irregular… you’re not anything. No, based on what I can sense, you’re just a normal, common human being, no? How is a guy, who isn’t even qualified to be a part of a main force, able to react to my speed?”

The whale-headed man looked at Lancelot with a curious expression. But that only lasted for a moment.

“Well, I guess it doesn’t really matter who you are.”

A whale-headed man, who had white skin and a height of nearly 3 meters, gave a wicked smile.

“You’ll just be swept up with all the other trash.”

Once he finished speaking, he charged again.

It was the start of battle. And they weren’t the only ones whose battle had started.

Bang!

“Oh! What is that armor? It can block my Magic Bullet of Erosion?”

A girl holding a huge pistol that didn’t match her relatively short height whistled as she saw Arc blocking her bullets. And soon, an elf man passed by the pistol-wielding girl.

“Hahaha! Ooh! Ah! Block it like you did before!”

“Uh, uh…? W-what… did he do something to me…?”

Leaf moaned as she felt the powerful divine qi that protected her shake from an unknown curse. Looking up, she saw a fish wielding its sword at her while muttering curse spell chants.

‘Ugh! Even though the instructions have been inputted into my mind, they’re so hard to use!’

Leaf was being assisted by a system, which gave her instructions on how to lift the curse that was brought upon by the curse-wielding girl, but the level of the curse inflicted on her was too high to overcome with just information and a set of instructions. Though she was receiving all sorts of help from the Celesti World, which was equivalent in quality to allow her to output power at the level of a transcendent… that did not mean that Leaf was capable of being a transcendent being.

Meanwhile, Merlin was clashing with the dragon-headed being, who was wielding a weapon similar to a samurai sword but with a laser as its blade.

Zeng!

“Ugh!!”

Merlin gritted his teeth after blocking a blow. The impact of the blow was transmitted into his body through his right hand and shook his innards. Realizing that his full power was not enough to face the opponent head-on, Merlin quickly summoned another one of his Flame Rubies and placed it over his shoulder, but…

“Oh dear! Do you think I’d let you wield something terrifying like that!”

Merlin had no choice but to counter the draconic being’s next oncoming slash with his Irrational hand strike. However, Merlin was at a disadvantage. His greatest weapon, amplification of his internal energy, was a one-hit kill type of move, so he couldn’t use it properly against an enemy who was pressing him tightly.

‘Dang it! I can’t continue fighting like this!’

The situation was becoming worse for Merlin; the fighting style of his opponent was directly oppositional to Merlin’s strengths in battle. Merlin was skilled in sniping his enemy’s gaps, in other words, landing a one shot one kill move. There wasn’t much he could do against an enemy who clung so tenaciously to him. Moreover, his opponent was clearly stronger.

“Ha!”

“Get out of here, fox!”

“Yikes?!”

Miho, who had raised her fox fire to create a penetrating fireball that was as sharp as an awl, screamed at the sight of the dragon-headed being easily neutralizing the fox fire.

“Fire immunity?!”

“I’m immune to magic, you silly fox!”

Bang!

With an explosion, Miho’s body was shot off and destroyed dozens of surrounding buildings before disappearing in the rubble. Merlin wanted to immediately run and check on her condition, but that was the worst of the worst decisions he could currently make.

Instead, Merlin summoned a Flame Ruby and refocused his attention.

Woong!

An enormous amount of energy roiled. Its power seemed truly inexhaustible. Even if Merlin gathered all the power he had and amplified that power hundreds or even thousands of times, he wouldn’t be able to amass anywhere near the power of the Flame Ruby.

However, because the power was so strong, it was rather difficult to use.

“Didn’t you hear what I just said?”

The dragon-headed being’s sword, which moved like it was an illusion, fell towards Merlin’s head.

“I can’t let you wield something so terrifying.”

With the colossal impact and aftershock, Merlin was sent flying backwards. The good news was that the Merlin was able to prevent the dragon-headed being from snatching his Flame Ruby. However…

‘This isn’t good.’

Merlin let out a groan as he felt blood running down his throat. Merlin was able to activate magic of such tremendous power that even a cosmic monster, Leviathan, was driven into a corner and into a dying state, but it was too difficult for Merlin to escape the current situation he found himself in.

In one sense, this was an obvious result. How could one use a missile to block a sword-wielding opponent?

“I guess… it can’t be helped!”

Merlin swung Irrational Hand strike and pushed the draconic being aside. Surprised by the sudden [amplified] attack, the draconic being was instantly pushed back quite a distance.

“Apollo!”

At Merlin’s shout, the Sun God, who had been trampling Leviathan while floating high in the sky, looked down at Merlin.

The Basara, who were pressuring Merlin’s party and driving them into a corner, were frightened by the scene.

“Eh?! Surely not, right?”

“Whoa, whoa… really?”

But whether they panicked or not, Merlin shouted.

“Get rid of these guys first!”

Holding the Flame Ruby and shouting with all his might, Merlin released a huge energy shockwave, which spread in all directions. It was a first-order command that used the same energy as the one used to summon the Olympian god.

However…

- Hahaha, this guy.

The being Merlin was speaking with…

- Do you think…

Wasn’t a normal being…

- … you can order me around? 

Apollo wasn’t a normal summoned ‘being’.

Thud!

Merlin’s knees were bent violently just by the wind qi dwelling in Apollo’s spiritual words. Fortunately, this phenomenon wasn’t just restricted to Merlin and the Masters but also to all the alien pirates.

Whoosh!

Everyone looked up at Apollo with terror-filled expressions.

Apollo emanated an absolute divine status!

Although he descended to the material world through Merlin… in the first place, he wasn’t an ordinary summoned creature. Even if he lost everything right now, his power as the god of the highest and most brilliant sun wouldn’t disappear.

‘Damn it!’

Under the tremendous pressure exuded by Apollo, Merlin gnashed his teeth.

‘I miscalculated!’

Merlin had acted too rashly. He used his Howling Spell as a power source to recharge and maintain Apollo’s summoning; however, for a moment, he had forgotten why he had specifically chosen that approach.

It was an undeniable fact that the Data Copy loophole he discovered was a miracle, an error of the world, something that even the gods hadn’t even considered or thought of. Taking advantage of this loophole, Merlin could perform miracles that neither gods nor Demon Kings could do.

But that didn’t mean his overall ability power would change.

In fact, this was an obvious fact. How can he freely use magic at the Demon King level, that is, Ten Class, when he himself had not risen to the level of transcendence, let alone pseudo transcendence? Even Muspelheim, which Merlin had acquired after killing its original owner, Igniz, wasn’t recognizing him as its owner, so it was only natural that there would be limitations in dealing with such a powerful summons.

Because of this, rather than creating and controlling the magic power and its system himself, Merlin turned to creating a flame attribute vessel that Apollo could descend into.

And this workaround was effective. Coincidentally, since all of the Howling Spells he was using were using the names of the gods of Olympus, the great miracle of advent succeeded without a hitch. However, this didn’t mean Merlin had full control over the descended god.

- I am very grateful to you. I am very happy now. It’s been hundreds, no, thousand times more exciting than being in that beggarly nothingness.

Seeing Apollo looking down at him, Merlin felt a tinge of regret. Of course, Merlin could make excuses. When Apollo was first summoned, Apollo moved according to his will, so there was plenty of room for misunderstanding.

‘But I guess he wasn’t truly listening to my orders.’

Merlin now realized this fact.

Apollo wasn’t following the [order] contained in his spell.

It was just that Apollo personally had ill feelings toward Leviathan, so he took this opportunity to unleash his anger towards Leviathan.

Apollo continued speaking.

- It’s not like you can summon me for a thousand or tens of thousands of years, so you’re not one to give me orders.

Apollo’s eyes were full of madness. Actually, it would be rather strange if Apollo’s eyes were calm and serene, since he was once a being who occupied the top position and ruled the entire universe before losing everything in vain.

Just then, Merlin thought…

‘I think I can maintain the summoning…’

Apollo assumed that ‘there must be a limit to this source of energy”. However, if desired, Merlin could [copy] Muspelheim over and over again as much as he wanted.

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Moreover, his Pathway to Hell didn’t have any durability issues, and there were countless wicked beings in the world.

‘But…’

At this moment, Merlin couldn’t say this aloud. The sense of madness he felt from Apollo made Merlin hesitate.

What would happen to him if he announced that he had the power to continue Apollo’s advent? Would Apollo be grateful and follow his orders? Would Apollo, with his strength and pride as a god, lower himself and be subservient to Merlin?

What if Apollo revealed his greed instead?

‘If that happens… I’ll be making an enemy more terrifying than Leviathan with my own hands.’

- Be careful. Don’t overstep.

Merlin was glad when Apollo returned his focus to Leviathan and stopped intimidating him. It seemed that Apollo was clearly aware of the fact that his summoner was Merlin.

However, the problem was that when this happened, Merlin was back to square one; the situation hadn’t changed.

No, to be precise, it didn’t even return back to square one.

Woong! Woong!

The space shuddered, and an eerie sensation pressed from all around him. It was a precursor to the interference of two new forces, who had decided to move after being convinced that Apollo wouldn’t help Merlin.