Kwaaaang!
"Ghk!"
In the next instant, a shockwave burst out between the two of them.
That fierce, explosive force bent the Magus's body in half at the waist.
Crack!
"Aaaagh!"
"Lili-doll!"
Lili's arm, which had used [Reject], was crushed and torn away at a level she had never shown before, then sent flying.
The price was beyond imagination.
At the horrific sight, Welf hurriedly ran to her.
"You idiot! If I'd known it would be this bad, I never would've stopped you!"
"I-I'm fine. R-rather... thanks to the magic cloak, this was all it took...!"
"Lili-doll? Hey, Lili-doll!"
Leaning against Welf's arms, Lili lost consciousness on the spot.
The magic cloak wrapped around her mangled arm only twitched from the aftershock, unable to move properly like it had a moment ago.
No, perhaps that was just the final postmortem twitching of her arm.
"Kh, cough! Khek...! Kah...!"
Then, as if by baton pass, the Magus soon came to with ragged breathing.
For a moment he simply stood there, dazed, trying to steady his broken breathing. Then he let out a sigh at the considerable pain radiating through his body, especially around his waist, and at how stubbornly his body refused to obey him in proportion to that pain.
Well, should he say it was as expected?
Or should he say, as he thought it would be?
"I made it myself, but damn. This is seriously monstrous."
A man's waist was his life.
Even after he recovered for a while, he'd probably need to be careful with everyday movement for some time.
Even so, he couldn't help but say this.
"Well done, Lili."
A heartfelt exclamation.
All of this was exactly as she had said a moment ago.
The Magus's custom [Reject] dial was, like [Impact], a one-time consumable.
But unlike the weakened version, [Impact], this one had been recreated at a level close to the original... no, beyond it.
The shock output alone, by simple prediction and calculation, was enough to bring down a level 5 specialist tank in a single hit.
In fact, when he tested it against a normal Goliath on the 17th Floor, there had even been a case where its body was blown apart and collapsed in one shot.
It was that powerful.
But at the same time, the recoil cost was just as monstrous.
So the creator, the Magus himself, had judged it too hard on the body to use recklessly and had quietly stored away the remaining spare finished product.
And then Lili had used it here today.
Of course, there was no way a small, fragile level 1 like her could endure that terrifying recoil.
In fact, there was a real possibility that the recoil would be so severe it would throw off her aim and cause her to blow herself up pointlessly.
So the method she came up with was this:
With the help of the magic cloak, she suppressed the recoil as much as possible.
By enduring it, she forced the aim not to go astray.
A brute-force, reckless, utterly barbaric method that no sane person would ever even attempt.
At this point, calling it a new kind of suicide method would not have been out of place.
That his disciple had done such a thing to him.
And that the Magus, even while in pain, was grinning about it like it was great.
Welf, who had watched the whole thing from the side, found the man's way of thinking so twisted and warped it gave him chills.
Still, that was that.
With this, the ones who had won were none other than themselves.
Then it was about time to clean up this whole mess.
"All right, mister. Like you wanted, we won. So how about you stop that big guy outside now?"
At Welf's request, spat out with a bitter laugh,
"Ah, that's impossible."
The Magus immediately answered with refusal.
Of course, hearing that absurd reply made Welf's face twist as well, and the mood between the two grew ugly again.
"I can sort of guess what you're thinking, but let me make one thing clear first: there's been a misunderstanding in how we're communicating."
"A misunderstanding? What's that supposed to mean?"
"To put it more bluntly and in more detail... that thing outside can't be stopped. Whether I win or lose, it makes no difference."
"What nonsense are you talking about! You said just now to Lili-doll that the clothes you're wearing are...!"
"Right. I did say that this outfit I'm wearing is the giant outside, Keter Malkuth's 'controller.'"
And a 'controller' and a 'remote' were, strictly speaking, completely different things.
For Welf, who still didn't understand, the Magus decided to explain the current situation in more detail.
"First, let me point out one major misunderstanding on your part. Keter Malkuth, the imitation of the primordial human 'Adam,' is already an independent existence in and of itself. Call it a golem or a magical tool if you want, but in truth it's already an individual, a being with its own self and judgment."
In other words, the giant's birth was the very moment it began to move.
The instant it roared forth as an individual and as a life, the giant had already slipped from the Magus's hands.
To put it another way, the Magus was the parent who gave birth to the giant, and the giant was the primordial child born from him.
"Of course, that thing outside is a failure, plain and simple. Compared to the real original finished product, it barely has any self at all. But it still blindly follows and carries out the command code that was input in advance. For it, that's already a mission, a fate, something like a primal instinct. No matter what I, its creator, say, it will never stop midway, rebel, or twist my words into something else and act on them."
"Then that means...?"
At his explanation, delivered with a sly smile, Welf's face went pale.
Then that meant...
"Right. So that thing will never stop until either the life of its core runs out midway, or it's shattered to pieces and destroyed by some other impact. You could call it a runaway locomotive that started charging from the very beginning. It'll do its utmost to the end for the command code first engraved into it: 'the annihilation of Apollo Familia.'"
In other words, for Bell Cranel's party, the best possible outcome was not to simply defeat the black hand behind everything, the Magus, but to somehow steal the outfit he was wearing, the so-called 'controller' suit.
Using it, they would steer Keter Malkuth's attacks and actions in the wrong direction.
Then, in the meantime, they would destroy the core located around the center of its upper body, near the heart.
"But that method has already gone down the drain. Ah, it's impossible now. With the controller broken, I won't be holding back anymore. No, I can't. The giant will rampage even more mercilessly. The restraints that were holding it down have already been released."
You are free now, Keter Malkuth.
The moment he finished speaking,
-KROOOOOOOO!
From beyond, outside, the giant's roar rang clearly in the ears of the two men.
The joy of a monster freed from its obstructing restraints settled thickly over the entire battlefield.
Hearing that roar, the Magus did not stop smiling.
From the listener's point of view, it was such a damnable reversal that it would have been strange to feel anything but nausea.
Of course, Welf's face was also filled with rage.
After making people suffer this much, this was what he had to say?
"Ah, but since the outfit broke, the barrier from before disappeared too. That's a relief, at least. Lili's struggle wasn't completely meaningless."
"Y-you bastard...!"
At last, his anger surged all the way to the top of his head, and his hand violently grabbed the Magus by the collar.
This damn heretic.
He had tried, in his own way, to look on him favorably as a friend of a friend.
But it had been useless.
The man before him was undeniably evil!
"Damn it! Why are you going this far?! What the hell for!"
"What for? Why, for romance, of course."
A reply that, unlike before, was impossible to understand at all.
Welf had thought that, as someone who pursued his own stubbornness and his own romance, he might at least be able to understand the Magus's position and way of thinking.
But even so, this kind of behavior that caused trouble for others...
He had no intention of tolerating that, not even a little.
"You bastard, can't you take it easy...!"
He simply gave up trying to understand the heretic in front of him.
"Even after Lili-doll ended up like that, it still isn't enough for you!"
"Enough or not, it was already all set in motion from the start."
"You...!"
"I'm the one who doesn't get it. As you know, they were the ones who started it first. So however it proceeds, however it ends, isn't it only natural that I handle it as I see fit?"
Could it be that fighting together for just a little while had somehow made him sympathetic?
The Magus's question carried a faint trace of mockery.
To that, Welf shouted back, as if saying, I don't give a damn about that!
Just as he said.
He didn't care about Apollo Familia and the rest of those guys.
He was simply worried about his own comrades from the bottom of his heart.
"I don't know what exactly you're so desperate to see, but Bell and Lili-doll! Both of them fought way beyond their limits! They pushed themselves with everything they had and went past their breaking points!"
"Yes. Both of them were truly splendid."
"Then that should be enough! There's no reason for these guys to keep forcing themselves any further...!"
"That's not for me to decide, and of course not for you either."
"But you can do it!"
"That is... well, if I pushed myself a little harder, it might be roughly possible."
But he wouldn't.
No, he couldn't.
Because that too was a pointless stubbornness of someone who pursued romance.
"Whatever the case, Bell boy and Lili both more than lived up to my selfish little play. For that, I'm grateful to both of them."
"Then...!"
"But that's that, and this is this. Besides, it seems the boy himself has no intention of quitting or stopping now either."
"What?"
At that, Welf's gaze turned.
Beyond the collapsed ruins.
Far away, his young and innocent, yet braver and kinder than anyone else, comrade.
The white-haired boy, Bell Cranel, came into view.
And the boy once again...
With an expression even more dignified than before, he was stepping back into the battlefield.
"I had my doubts... but did he really pull through?"
"And what's that supposed to mean?"
"Hoh-hoh-hoh, who knows?"
The Magus wore a strange smile, as if he understood something and yet didn't.
In truth, he too had hoped for a development like this miracle.
But he had never imagined Bell would really overcome his rampage in this way.
This was clearly an unexpected event far beyond the Magus's calculations and predictions.
They might need to set aside some time to talk about it calmly later.
"Well, in the end, the stage has come this far. If the director were to stop it now and tell everyone to go home, that would be quite rude to the audience who've watched this far."
"What? What the hell does that mea—!?"
Pshk!
"Here's a little life advice for you, young man."
If you've got time to stand there and babble at the Magus.
Use that time to make sure you finish the Magus off first.
"Though it's already too late."
"You... bastard... you...!"
Thud
"Relax. It's just a simple anesthetic... or something like a weak curse. At least until this whole mess is over, you'll be able to sleep soundly."
He might have a mild nightmare or two, though.
After moving the unconscious Welf aside, the Magus used the help of the still-functioning steel tentacles to crawl his way over to Lili.
Then he finished by giving her emergency treatment.
With that, she was safe for now.
As for the aftereffects and the treatment of her severed arm... he decided to leave all of that to her choice later.
Whether healing or a prosthetic arm.
Either way, it was something the Magus could handle however many times he needed, so it wasn't a big deal.
Still, if possible, his true feeling was that he wanted her to choose the prosthetic.
Because...
"It wouldn't do to leave a hard-working kid without a reward like that."
Clang!
At last, even the final remaining steel tentacle stopped functioning.
Now the only thing left was his bare body, unable to move properly, paralyzed from the waist down by the injury.
He could recover later, of course, but for now it was impossible.
So, if Keter Malkuth were truly defeated now, that would be game over.
It would be, without question, the Magus's defeat.
"I'm looking forward to it, Bell Cranel."
Looking up at the blue sky before his eyes, the Magus once again wore a broad, expectant smile.
Now he was just one step away from a happy ending.
At last, the stage had reached its final phase.
"No, maybe I should say there's no hope left here now."
In any case.
Please, give it your all, young hero.
========================
The website for reading paid chapters is available on my Patreon. The number of chapters on Patreon: 129
Link: patreon.com/UltraMagnus_T