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Composed purely out of mana, the Blazing Lion held the natural advantage in terms of agility. It had initially tried to use its strength to suppress the Dracolich, but found its opponent much too strong for that. Thus it decided to adopt a new style; a hit-and-run style reminiscent of an Assassin.

It leapt at the Dracolich before pulling back to prepare for the next strike. Each time it did so, it prioritised making contact with the Dracolich instead, leaving a wound wherever it could, whether by claw or fang, or simply just bumping into the Dracolich. Being a creature of pure fire, even simple contact would leave burn wounds on its targets. Furthermore, flames left by a powerful being such as itself would burn for a significant period of time before being extinguished. If the next strike were to hit that exact same spot, the flames would spread even further and re-ignite. Thanks to that, the Dracolich was quickly covered in horrific burn wounds. Had it not been for the Veil of the Dead and its own regenerative abilities, it probably would have been destroyed already.

The battle was definitely in our favour at this point. Strong though that Dracolich might be, its zombified state dulled its senses to the point where it was half as reactive as a normal creature. My Blazing Lion could easily toy around with such a dull construct, though it couldn’t finish the job thanks to the Dracolich’s immensely sturdy body.

Hmm… now’s about the time…

Ferti’nier, do you have any method of taking out the Dracolich quickly?

“I sure do. If our little brother wants to learn it, his big sis would be more than happy to teach him.” Unlike her usual flippantness, she cut right into teaching me the spell right away. “Focus your mana into your left hand, then by using Lion’s Majesty as a medium, start pulling and twisting the mana as if in a whirlpool…”

I followed her words and soon a mass of flames burst to life, startling me in the process. Fortunately, I quickly recovered from the shock when I realised that this flame wouldn’t hurt, and began twisting the mana once again.

As time ticked by, my left hand became wrapped in a whirlpool of flames. This same phenomena was reflected on the Devil King Idol’s left hand as well. Faster and faster it spun till, finally, a sharp tip began to emerge out of the whirlpool, like the pointed end of a tornado. On the outside, the much larger flame whirlpool had stretched out into a spinning, drill-like, appendage!

The rapid rotation on this flame gave my Golem a much higher level of armor penetration than it ordinarily would have.

“Go then, let that brute over there have a taste of your Blazing Spear!”

Can you stop coming up with middle school names already?

“Should I call it the Hyper Giga Drill Break then?”

…

“Or maybe the Flaming Drill That Will Pierce the Heavens Drill?”

…

“Or…”

Blazing Spear is fine…

“Huhuhu, it’s your big sis’s victory then! Now. Go forth, and tear my enemies asunder, my faithful hound!”

Who are you calling a faithful hound?!

Even though I did not want to do as she said thanks to that bit of tomfoolery, now wasn’t the time for willfulness. The Blazing Lion couldn’t finish off the Dracolich itself, and letting that monster roam free for long was just inviting further trouble.

Blasted Ferti’nier… I’ll remember this!

Having to deal with the Blazing Lion was enough of a headache for the Dracolich already. It did not even have the mind to try and avoid me. When I stabbed my Blazing Spear in its direction, it met my attack head on, jaws opened wide, spurting out a water jet-like stream of its pesky green mist. Because of the abruptness of its attack, I wasn’t able to dodge the stream. I could only use the Blazing Spear as I would an actual drill, and try to drill apart the oncoming Veil of the Dead…

Hah. You’re still trying to struggle even at this juncture? Pointless. I’ve already foreseen your defeat, now die, monster!

Strangely excited by the sight of two giants duking it out with each other, our resident she-Devil, Ferti’nier seemed to have gotten into the mood as well. “Gou(dog), gou(dog), gou(dog)! Slam it right in the front, don’t be afraid!”

Gou, gou, gou? You mean ‘go, go, go’! How is your English even worse than mine? Geez!

(TL: Something inside of me died when I typed that out. Google Docs autocorrected me four times when I tried to type gou out.)

Flames being the bane of all Undead, the moment the Veil of the Dead touched the tip of my Blazing Spear, it instantly evaporated. Like a hot knife through Undead butter, I easily broke through the enemy’s high-density stream of particles, viciously stabbing into the Dracolich’s undefended chest. As the Blazing Spear sank in, it broke off from the Devil King Idol, continuing to drill itself further downwards till it finally disappeared from sight. All that remained from it was the red hot glare seeping through the ever-extending tunnel,reminiscent of a blacksmith’s furnace.

Severely injured for the first time ever, the Blazing Lion immediately pounced on its prey, sinking its teeth into the Dracolich’s neck…

It was at that moment that I realised something was wrong… Why does it feel like my Blazing Spear is starting to lose control… don’t tell me it’s going to blow up?

With that in mind, I quickly retreated. And not a moment too soon as well. The Dracolich suddenly exploded after I had taken a couple steps backwards. Yet it wasn’t just my spear that exploded, the Blazing Lion had also exploded at the same time.

“Boom! Boom!”

The explosions ended up not causing much damage to the Devil King Idol. The Dracolich, on the other hand, was torn apart. A wave of black blood and rotten flesh flew straight for the Devil King Idol, bringing along with it a horrific stench.

Crap. That stuff is going to be a pain to remove if I let the Devil King Idol get stained by it… I hurriedly set up a barrier in front of the Devil King Idol. It didn’t have to be a particularly sturdy barrier, it just had to block that wave of gunk.

And now… to walk away from the explosion like an action hero!

With the Dracolich taken care of, I unsummoned the Devil King Idol, and returned to the rest of the Assassins. The remaining Undead were all low-starred and weren’t even worth mentioning. We easily broke through their encirclement without losing a single person.

However, now that we were in the clear, I had a whole host of problems to consider. For one thing, should I try and harvest those Undead souls by ourselves or just go get help.

It wasn’t that we couldn’t wipe the floor with them, it was just a bother. Furthermore, the villagers were now all dead, so there really wasn’t an urgent need to clear the Undead either. As long as we contained them within the village, it shouldn’t be a problem.

“Sister Mo Na!” Neneth immediately came flying into my arms, a wide grin on her lips. She tried to rub her face in my chest a little but stopped after a couple of spins. “Sister Mo Na, your chest is really hard!”

Don’t give me that look… What’s wrong with my chest being hard? Isn’t that the norm?!

Even though I desperately wanted to poke fun at her words, I still had an image to uphold in front of Nicole. Having no proper answer to her question, I brushed it off with a quick “haha”.

“Sister Mo Na, that big fellow was awesome! Is your summon as well? Neneth wants to learn some magic too!” Neneth kept tugging on me as she prattled on and on. Suddenly, she stopped. She rubbed her belly a little then looked at me with a sad face. “But Neneth doesn’t have any talent with magic, and she’s hungry…”

Why did you even lump the two together? That’s a really huge leap in logic there…

Next, I slowly carried Jezsere and a visibly shell shocked Ann off Mo Ning. The two of them were still traumatised by the destruction of the village by that Dracolich, even after its death.

Honestly speaking, I wasn’t sure myself how to react to the village’s destruction. Even though they were more than happy to lob insults our way, just watching them get wiped out like that was… upsetting.

While we might have escaped as planned, everyone was in low spirits. Something that had to be remedied fast. We just needed an outlet of some sort.

Another point of note was that the Dracolich’s death meant the Veil of the Dead would soon dissipate. Once that happened, the Undead would be weakened by the sun once more. Though that would also stimulate their thirst for blood and flesh.

“Those Undead will soon start wandering around, now that they’ve lost their leader. We need to prevent that before more casualties appear.”

The Devil King Idol was thoroughly exhausted after that fight, and shouldn’t be operable in the short term. My only trump card left was the hundred or so Assassin assigned under me.

“Everyone, get some rest first. Assassins, once you’re done resting, I need you all to track the Undead and their movements. Try not to come into contact with them, but make sure they do not bother the neighbouring settlements either.” I took this opportunity to leave a better impression on Nicole.

Shameless Self-promotion

Announcement: I’ve re-opened my Patreon in case anyone wants to sponsor more chapters. Every end of the month, those chapters in early access will be released for free for all to read. If you sponsored a chapter, you will gain permanent early access to these chapters. Essentially, everyone gets more chapters to read, but those who donated get to read earlier. More chapters will then be translated at the start of the month. Explanation on the Patreon itself.

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