Rhys looked at him without saying a word.
With the support of his domain, his magic was inexhaustible.
Unless Parr could unleash enough lightning in a single burst to cover several hundred miles and completely envelop Rhys's domain, the amount of damage he was doing was nothing more than a drop in the ocean.
Rhys could stand there without moving and let Parr attack him like a training dummy, and it still would not stop the domain from expanding on its own.
Wave after wave of mud surged forward.
Before long, Parr was breathing heavily.
He realised this approach would not work, so he gritted his teeth and gathered all of his magic together.
Then a lifelike dragon made entirely of lightning appeared above the swamp.
Simply by standing there, the mud around it evaporated on its own, drying into sand and earth.
After creating the lightning dragon, Parr's face turned pale, but his eyes shone even brighter.
"Go!"
He stared fixedly at Rhys, standing atop the dragon's head as it charged toward him.
He had always believed that as long as his lightning could kill Rhys, this hundred-mile swamp would collapse on its own.
Rhys sighed.
How had someone who understood domains this poorly become so famous?
He could have simply allowed Parr to blast his body apart, then reconstructed himself nearby and mocked him mercilessly. But in order to keep that ability hidden, he chose not to.
It might have been satisfying, but this was not going to be just one battle.
Countless streams of mud rose into the air, forming layers upon layers of nets that weakened the lightning dragon again and again.
The dragon smashed through them with ease.
From appearances alone, the lightning dragon seemed to hold an overwhelming advantage.
Yet the distance between it and Rhys did not shrink at all.
And those seemingly weak nets of mud always managed to strip something away from the dragon each time they were broken, even if it was only a faint strand of lightning.
After only a few dozen seconds, the dragon's presence had weakened dramatically.
Even its form had begun to turn indistinct.
"Why..."
Parr's eyes were filled with unwillingness.
That man always seemed to be only a few dozen metres away.
Yet no matter how much magic he exhausted, even if he burned through every last bit of it, those few dozen metres remained impossible to cross.
In the end, the lightning dragon was engulfed by the mud and vanished into the endless swamp, meeting the same fate as all the carriages and houses that had been swallowed before it.
The only difference was that it produced a few more bubbles when it disappeared.
The instant Rhys extinguished Parr's final trace of life, every hair on his body suddenly stood on end.
He vaguely sensed that something was wrong.
But by the time he noticed it, it was already too late.
Bang!
A cloud of blood burst from Rhys's mouth and nose at the same time, while a searing pain tore through his head as though a red-hot blade had sliced it open.
'A curse targeting the soul!'
Rhys abruptly raised his head and looked toward his rear flank.
His gaze crossed the hundred-mile swamp and locked onto a figure whose mouth and nose were also spraying blood.
The next moment, both of them appeared together in an empty wilderness.
"What kind of monster are you?!"
After seeing the true form of Rhys's soul, the man could not help crying out in shock.
"Why ask so many questions?"
Blood flowed down from the wound on Rhys's forehead, staining the scales on his face red.
He charged forward with a savage grin, wrapping his body tightly around the other man and slowly constricting.
Although this was a clash on the level of the soul, the sound of bones breaking still came from the man's physical body.
"Urg... ngh..."
Before long, he forced out the final bit of air in his lungs.
Amid a series of cracking sounds, his soul was completely crushed by Rhys.
After dealing with his opponent, Rhys immediately returned to reality.
The instant he returned, he felt that something was lodged in his chest.
Looking down carefully, he discovered that someone was standing directly in front of him.
The man's arm had pierced straight through Rhys's chest, his blood-covered hand protruding from Rhys's back.
In his palm was a heart that was still faintly beating.
"You're very good at seizing an opening."
Rhys praised him.
A look of utter horror appeared on the man's face.
Why was this monster's vitality so absurdly strong?!
Rhys grabbed the man's arm.
His body began swelling rapidly like a balloon.
Then...
Pop!
He exploded.
Rhys waved a hand and collected the world fragments from the people he had just killed.
Immediately afterward, the surrounding magic became turbulent.
Dozens of people who had been concealing themselves were instantly exposed.
A second later, they had all turned into dried corpses.
Even after Rhys eliminated dozens of enemies in a single sweep, people of this other world continued rushing toward him, intent on taking his life.
Boom!
Ripples spread outward beneath Rhys's feet.
Then white light swallowed everything.
When the light finally faded, a crater more than ten kilometres across remained in the ground.
Looking toward the bottom through the drifting white smoke, one could even see that the earth had been vitrified.
"Did we get him?"
Several people inside a magic formation stared anxiously toward the battlefield, desperate to see the result of their all-out attack.
They had not hesitated to sacrifice dozens of their own allies in that strike, all for the sake of killing this living calamity.
But when they finally saw the battlefield clearly, their pupils contracted sharply.
Rhys's figure stood at the edge of the enormous crater.
Not only did he appear completely unharmed, but the gaping wound through his chest had also disappeared.
"Impossible!"
They had no time to remain shocked.
The solid ground beneath their feet abruptly turned into swamp.
The group barely had time to cry out before they were dragged beneath the surface.
Within moments, it was as though they had never existed at all.
Feeling the magic boiling around him, Rhys realised that he had finally entered the proper state for battle.
His blood surged violently through his veins, making his temples throb.
The physical excitement coursing through his body even dulled the pain coming from his soul.
It had been a very long time since he had felt this excited.
Probably around a thousand years.
Those last few waves of enemies had genuinely managed to injure him.
But they had also finally brought him into the mood.
"Hey, is there anyone else?"
He could not help shouting.
"Don't tell me that's all you've got! That wasn't even enough for a warm-up!"
Hundreds of faint points of light rose from the swamp and gathered in Rhys's palm, condensing into an enormous mass of world-core fragments.
It was possible that nearly every powerful person on the continent had already come here.
At this moment, he was Insuperable.
Then Rhys sensed an overwhelmingly powerful surge of magic descending from above.
Something extraordinarily strong had appeared.
They had not even revealed themselves yet, and his domain was already beginning to operate sluggishly.
They were obviously the strongest beings in this world.
Rhys raised his head.
The dark clouds in the sky were slowly dispersing.
High above, he could see four vague figures.
They were looking down at him with emotionless gazes.
"So you've finally appeared...."
Rhys licked the corner of his mouth and smiled happily.
"...Gods."
...
Meanwhile, back at Hogwarts, Rowena stared in astonishment as she pulled out her crystal ball.
Just moments ago, Salazar's score had suddenly skyrocketed, shooting all the way to first place on the rankings.
Even she had been startled.
What the hell are you doing, Salazar?!
____
12 Chaps ahead at Patreon.com/HornyFBI