I Am Strong

There was something oddly satisfying about opening the doors in front of me.

Even though I should be feeling nervous right now, the only thing I could feel was excitement. I didn’t know why, but the feeling only magnified as I saw the man behind the door.

Archbishop Taunes.

The familiar face of the archbishop came into view. He was sitting on an iron-wrought chair placed atop a raised dais. Next to him was Aurelia who lay sprawled across the ground, a chain securing her to one of the chair’s legs.

The black tiled floor shared the same design as the rest of the structure, but there was an intricate set of magic circles carved into its surface. There was no doubt in my mind that the archbishop intended to enact some kind of ritual the moment he got his hands on Lucrezia.

I wasn’t particularly in the mood to let that happen, though.

“Welcome, heretic. You have reached the end of your journey. I must ask, how do you feel? Do you feel as if you have accomplished something great? Do you believe that you’ll truly walk out of here alive now that you have come to confront me where I am strongest?”

“Yeah.”

Archbishop Taunes raised an eyebrow. “Quite confident, are you? Such a mediocre increase in strength won’t be enough to defeat me.”

“Why don’t you come and find out?”

The archbishop rose from his seat, and I stepped forward. He still radiated an immense amount of power, but this time it was much less overwhelming.

“It puzzles me why you have brought the offering vessel here as no more than a mere accessory.”

“‘Offering vessel’ this, ‘offering vessel’ that. That’s all you Black Constellation cunts know. Can’t you get a bit more creative?”

Without responding, the archbishop dashed forward, closing the distance between us instantly. This time, I could see his movements.

They weren’t sluggish like they were when I was empowered by that insanely ridiculous temporary buff, but they weren’t too fast for me to follow either.

I leaned to the side as he extended an arm to grab me and then pressed a hand to his stomach. I wasn’t sure how much damage it’d deal, but I had to give it a shot.

[Fa jin]!

The archbishop froze for a moment. I took the opportunity to fire off a wicked side kick that sent him skidding backward against the smooth tiles of the ground.

“...How interesting.” The archbishop spat out a mouthful of blood, placing a hand on his abdomen. A mass of shadows detached itself from the darkened corners of the room and gathered to his hand.

[Complete Analysis] told me that the skill he used was called [Umbral Healing], and the mere fact that he bothered to heal from my attack told me that I’d dealt significant damage to him.

Yeah, I can do this.

I noticed that Lucrezia’s glance was strayed toward Aurelia who was still laying on the dias next to the archbishop’s iron throne.

I couldn’t blame her for being distracted by her sister’s unconscious presence, and despite her training thus far, I doubted she could actually track the archbishop’s movements reliably enough to help me out.

She noticed my glance, so I gave her a nod.

Lucrezia returned the gesture and started making her way to Aurelia. Though the archbishop’s eyes flickered to her for a second, his gaze quickly returned to me.

He probably debated going after Lucrezia, but decided against it in the end most likely because he didn’t want to risk a counterattack coming from me.

I gotta say, it was a pretty good decision ‘cause I’d probably punch a hole in his chest now that I knew I could actually hurt him.

“It seems I’ve underestimated you.” The archbishop said as he stepped toward me while he removed his gloves, throwing them onto the ground. “However, make no mistake. It won’t happen again.”

Flames exploded from his hands, dyeing the room in a bright orange glow. He was probably trying to avoid using any skills that were fueled by Darkness due to what happened during our previous encounter.

Even so, it didn’t matter.

He charged directly at me, his flame-encased hands creating a blazing trail through the air as if they were shooting stars.

I activated [Devouring Healing] the moment he entered my range and prepared to counterattack, but strangely enough, the flames never died as I parried his strike.

Shit!

The fire exploded around me in a very controlled and precise manner, causing me to shoot through the room and crash into the obsidian wall. The arm that I’d used to block his attack was broken.

I hastened to stand, using [Devouring Healing] to fix my arm while simultaneously dodging his follow-up attack, causing a hole to open up in the wall where he’d struck.

As his hand passed me by, I saw something that I should’ve noticed before I even tried negating his magic like that. His fingers were each adorned with a simple band of silver steel, but there was something important about them.

The gemstones in the center of his rings all pulsed with an inner light, and I immediately recognized them as idrite crystals.

My foot snapped forward and issued a quick front kick to his side that pushed him away from me, giving me a smidge of time to plan out my next move.

He was already coming at me again, but the slight increase of distance meant that it wouldn’t be difficult to dodge unless he had some trick up his sleeve. It was best to assume that he did, and since I’d just used [Devouring Healing], I wasn’t able to teleport as [Spatiomancy] required mana.

Or so I initially thought.

The archbishop’s fist was dangerously close to my face now and I could see that he was doing something with his other hand. I didn’t know exactly what, but I wasn’t going to wait around and find out.

Instead, I simply teleported behind him and smashed him to the ground with a powerful strike. In the heat of battle, I’d almost forgotten that I could just use [Penumbric Conversion] to fuel my magic with Darkness instead of mana.

The archbishop screamed out in pain as my second attack hammered him even deeper into the crushed black tiles of the floor.

Even with his high constitution stat, he wouldn’t be able to last long against my repeated attacks, especially while I was being buffed by [Demonic Enhancement] as I never bothered deactivating it before teleporting past the Shades in the previous room.

I continued firing punch after punch into the archbishop until the room became silent save for the sound of my strikes.

When I stopped, I was breathing hard and blood covered my hands completely. I could see several holes in what I assumed to be the now-pulverized corpse of the archbishop.

I used [Hydromancy] to generate water, washing off my hands before heading over to Lucrezia. In just a few minutes, we’d all be out of here and I’d be facing the possibility of being alone once more.

The mere thought slowed my stride, but I pressed on anyway. All things came to an end.

“Lucrezia. How’s Aurelia doing right now?”

“She’s stable, but she’s not waking up...”

I frowned. I wanted to use [Complete Analysis] to figure out what was wrong with Aurelia, but I thought it might’ve been rude. I shrugged. It didn’t hurt if no one had to know.

But before I could make the call, I had a sneaking suspicion that this had all just been a little too easy. I mean, I’d gotten stronger, but not enough to completely manhandle the archbishop like that, or so I thought.

As if on cue, I heard the sound of debris falling from behind me.

The archbishop had stood from his previously prone position on the ground, shaking the pieces of smashed tile off of himself. His entire body and face was covered in his blood, which made the sickening smile that he was wearing even more disturbing.

“...Very impressive. I was not expecting to be overwhelmed like that... But this is the end. Allow me to show you the face of true despair!”

“Oh, fuck off.”