I shot thousands of magic bullet rounds at Aquarius, who was jumping through the air towards the golem while swinging his sword. Aquarius slightly changed the trajectory of his sword and swung it to wipe out my magic bullets.

"Chirps! Double circle formation! Wind Property! Flame!" The chirps followed my instructions and positioned themselves into two giant circles.

"Ceremony omission! To reach the end is to be destroyed for reincarnation! The Flames of the Stars!"

At the same time as the incantation, a tremendous amount of mana escaped from the magic stone, and individual magic circles engraved on the chirps began to respond. Then, white flames poured out of the vast magic circle embroidered into the sky. Originally, this magic required more than 15 great magicians to be cast, but it was completed in a heartbeat.

If the completed magic circle was a sentence, then the chirps flying in the sky were letters. In real-time, I moved the letters, known as chirps, to make a sentence called a ‘magic circle.’ To be honest, I didn't expect to use chirps on anyone other than my father.

Aquarius escaped the extreme heat of the flames that erupted on him by kicking the air and flying higher. However, there were already dragon tooth soldiers on horseback ready with ferocious aura blades. Six dragon tooth soldiers cut towards Aquarius’s neck, heart, sides, solar plexus, and legs simultaneously.

Aquarius smiled and cut off the arms of the dragon tooth soldiers before him that were aiming at his neck and solar plexus. He then spun around and put a strong aura on his legs, kicking away the swords of the dragon tooth soldiers who were aiming at his sides from left and right.

Finally, he turned around using the rebound from the kick and shot a strong aura at the dragon soldier who was aiming for his heart from behind him and completely destroyed it. He accomplished this while avoiding the sword of the dragon soldiers who aimed at both of his legs.

With my thoughts, I made the dragon tooth soldiers move away from their positions and ordered the golem to punch Aquarius with his full force. Even when Aquarius was off balance due to his body rotating in the air, he still managed to launch a sword aura at the golem’s fist to reduce its speed. Taking advantage of the reduced speed, Aquarius grabbed the golem’s fist and landed on its arm. Then he started running for the golem’s head, which held its temporary core.

"Magic circle number 41, activate!"

At my command, a magic circle on the arm of the golem glowed, and a huge stone thorn sprang up and stabbed Aquarius. Aquarius stepped on the thorns and jumped high. Then, he shot a strong aura at the golem’s arm, which he was running on just before.

"Magic circles number 45, 46, 47, activate!"

My command activated the defense magic circles on the golem's arm. Fortunately, the golem's arm was safe, but the three magic circles that blocked the strong aura were completely worn out and lost their function. Aquarius kicked the air and quickly moved towards the ground.

Aquarius landed and laughed merrily. "Ahahahaha! How fun! It's been a while since I’ve felt like this!”

I haven't met a monster like this in a long time since I last saw my father.

"Do you know how much each one of those dragon tooth soldiers that you just destroyed cost?!"

I cried out, genuinely irritated, "They’re like a half-year budget for a count's territory!"

Aquarius opened his eyes wide at my angry cry. "They are? This toy certainly looks good and performs well, but that’s a crazy price. Ahahaha! I'm sorry about this.”

My anger was quelled a bit at Aquarius’s casual and light apology. I didn't expect him to apologize. "No, I don't really want an apology, so it's fine."

It wasn't necessarily a loss because it was made to be consumable, and I was also testing its performance. Just getting the information from this battle so I could upgrade the dragon tooth soldiers was an affordable risk.

"I think we’re both done warming up, so why don’t we start for real!" Aquarius charged again, shouting.

"Golem! Sliding!" I ordered the golem, with its overwhelmingly colossal size and mass, to flatten Aquarius.

Aquarius naturally ran to the side to avoid the frightening mass, which was over thousands of tons, rather than face it head-on.

"Dragon tooth soldiers!" I naturally had five dragon tooth soldiers pounce on Aquarius to hold him back.

The sheer destructive power of the mass would destroy the dragon tooth soldiers, but it was a cheap cost to be able to hold Aquarius in place. I prepared the chirps just in case, and at the same time, also prepared magic by infusing mana into my magic wand. Aquarius quickly incapacitated the dragon tooth soldiers, but inevitably, there was not enough time to avoid the falling body of the golem.

At the overwhelming mass coming towards him, that monster couldn’t help but scream, "Wait, this size is cheating!”

I deeply sympathized with how Aquarius felt right now. Overwhelming mass was tantamount to cheating.

"Uahahahaha!" I was in a good mood and burst into laughter.

Being able to make someone else deal with the cheat-like situation that I once had to face made me feel so good that my mood couldn’t be any better. Life is normally a series of cheat-like situations. It would have been nice if it just ended like that, but Aquarius protected his whole body with a powerful aura and quickly crushed the ground to secure space.

"Keuk!"

However, no matter how much room he created, it was practically impossible to create a space large enough to protect against the ruthless mass of the golem. Still, barely holding on, Aquarius began digging with his sword.

Finally, the weight of the golem destroyed the heads of the dragon tooth soldiers, and Aquarius, crushed under the golem, was no longer visible. Now that he started digging, he’ll most likely show up somewhere using a tunnel.

"A single trajectory. The tip of seven spears fixes the future. What happens is only one result." The magic wand's mana stones began to rotate furiously.

"One death that encompasses dozens of possibilities. The spear of the thorn tree is cursed." A red light fluttered from my magic wand, even consuming mana from the magic stone that I got from the ruins.

I looked at the ground with concentration. "Puhat!"

Aquarius popped out of the ground and breathed roughly.

I didn't miss the chance and shot my magic right away. "Gae Bolg!"

From my magic wand, a red flash shot out at Aquarius. It was the magic of death that I made while recovering lost magic, and it couldn’t be dodged nor blocked. That being said, I’ve used it twice, and it has failed to kill the target both times. However, it was still a lethal move mixed with an ancient curse that would definitely lead to death.

The newly-emerged Aquarius took a deep breath, put a strong aura around his sword, and swung it towards the red flash. Gae Bolg was a magic that could fix causality and had the property of being able to pass through non-living materials. Common sense would dictate that no matter how strong one was, this was not magic that could be cut or blocked with a sword.

"Haaaaap!"

However, Aquarius cut the red flash as if he had the power to convert things that were beyond common sense and cause them to make sense. The red flash was literally split in half, and its power to change causality to absolutely hit its target, as well as its curse to absolutely cause death, were also extinguished.

"Hahaha." I burst into laughter at an unexpected sight.

Previous failures were because the target was changed by an unknown force or the heart was not reached due to the target’s massive size. I'd never thought someone could destroy my magic so perfectly.

“Lethal move, what bullcrap!” 

“Keuk!”

But it wasn't entirely ineffective. Aquarius also seemed to have consumed quite a lot of energy to cut down the red flash. Before Aquarius could recover, I conjured up a magic circle with the chirps that I placed in advance and poured mana into it.

"Ceremony omission! Beautiful and valiant from myths and legends! Symphony of falling stars! Stardust of Falling Star!"

To control the magic that cost hundreds of times more than the one I just cast with the chirps, not only was the magic stone required, but the mana from my own body was also being drained. The mana that moved the chirps, dragon tooth soldiers, and the golem was purely my own, so I was slowly running out of mana too. But thanks to this, the powerful magic that required 30 great magicians was instantly prepared and fired.

Immediately from the sky, a column of white doom fell down toward Aquarius, and I yelled, "Dieeeeee!"

At the same time as my cry, Aquarius also screamed. "Ahhhhhhh-!”

Before it reached Aquarius, he roared and shot an aura blade with all his might at the pillar of light. This magic was one that ended a great demon. Just a strong aura was not enough to fight against it. I hope that he’ll learn the lesson that if a swordsman gives a magician time, then he’ll be hit by insane magic like this. That is, if he survives, of course.

As I was smiling triumphantly, the strong aura shot by Aquarius began to cut my magic in half. "The hell?!"

That's possible?!

It wasn't this surprising when Aquarius cut down Gae Bolg. After all, it wasn't that hard for me to destroy Gae Bolg either. But that wasn't the case for Stardust of Falling Star. This magic was originally designed to deal with troops at the level of an army division, not individuals.

Using the crack created by the strong aura, Aquarius went through the pillar of light and escaped the range of the attack. As soon as he was out of range, the pillar of light overcame the strong aura that was cutting through it, slamming back towards the ground once more.

"Wow, I almost died! Hahahahaha!” Having escaped the pillar of light, Aquarius laughed cheerfully.

Then, as if he finally got genuinely angry, he began to emit killing intent, not just martial aura, and said, "Now, I'm going to kill you."

As it changed from martial aura to killing intent, the pleasant atmosphere became cold at once. Well, if I almost died, I'd get really mad too, so this was expected.

My purpose here in the first place was to buy time for Duke Asteria to flee to the capital. It doesn't matter to me whether the opponent was sincere or not. I was just planning on buying time before running away. Then, I felt an unusual energy emitting from Aquarius.

"Come! Demon Sword!" When Aquarius shouted, space contorted, and a single sword appeared.

Demon Sword? If it’s the Demon Sword, it was one of the swords called the Four God Swords, standing alongside the Holy Sword that I had. As far as I knew, it was lost around the same time as the Holy Sword, but it suddenly appeared here. The hideous aura from the sword mixed with Aquarius’s killing intent exuded a horribly dreadful energy.

"Now, let's start for real."

As soon as that sword appeared, the Holy Sword inside my clothes began to jolt around.

Aquarius’s eyes glistened as he showed a murderous smile. "Don't worry; I’ll only kill you a little.”

The Holy Sword resonated violently and fiercely as if it had met its archenemy.