Experimental Log of the Crazy Lich

Sword Saints weren’t considered common in the world of Eich, nor was Sword Saint an actual power level, but rather a glorious title.

An elf, a human, or a beastman could all become a Sword Saint. This glorious title wasn’t limited to any single species or power level. The title of Sword Saint was given to those who had reached a certain level of expertise in martial arts. And, the symbol of being a Sword Saint was the ability to cast sword energy as one pleased.

Eich was no mystical cultivation world where existences could send out energy waves according to their whim. All martial artists would have to start by cultivating their physical bodies as the foundation. The physical body could only be strengthened slowly, step by step. And, most individuals would never amount to anything but a slightly strong melee combat unit no matter how much they cultivated, unless they could utilize the power of the elements or had an excellent bloodline.

Another way of putting it was that ordinary individuals incapable of casting sword energy would forever be nothing more than melee combat fighters. In that case, in front of any high-level mage, that warrior would be nothing more than a slightly tougher sandbag. So, one should never underestimate the fact that Sword Saints were now capable of casting sword energy. Quite often, the difference in reach would be the difference between life and death for a warrior.

Only the Sword Saints themselves knew that achieving their level meant breaking the boundary between oneself and the outside world. A special connection was created where one’s will and killing intent could be transformed into a physical threat. The energy inside one’s own body could be transformed into sword energy to attack others with. It would also be possible to begin using much larger area-of-effect ultimate sword techniques, transforming the impossible into the possible.

Didn’t this sound rather familiar? After all, the world of Eich already had the power level called Saint rank, meaning above Legend, and entering the realm of the divine. The specialty of Saint-ranked individuals was also that they could control the world around them, transforming their own wills into a power that could affect reality.

Everything stemmed from the soul. The will of a sufficiently powerful soul could distort even dimensional laws and interfere with the world. Of course, it would be correct to say that such individuals had reached the realm of the divine.

But, it was only the Sword Saints themselves who knew that the realm of Sword Saint was just a beginning…

“There’s far too much of a difference in power.”

Mercenaries were now lying helplessly after collapsing all over the ground. Meanwhile, Roland’s spirit image copy stood there, acting bored and condescending as always.

This was no result of having fought for something like three days and three nights. No, this was the end result of a mere ten minutes. The mercenaries had followed Timlad’s strategy of going up one at a time to use up the spirit image Roland’s energy, but since everyone was defeated almost instantly, that would be of barely any use in using up energy.

In the end, the mercenaries got angry and attempted to swarm the spirit image regardless of Timlad’s strategy…

“Twelve seconds? Or did it take eleven seconds? Forget it, it doesn’t make a difference. This is completely like an adult bullying a young child. He’s not even being serious yet.”

The mercenaries obtained experience regarding what it was like to fight against the most powerful Sword Saint in the world firsthand. Although the Roland spirit image was so lacking in physical strength that he could only wield a wooden stick, just the sword energy he produced from waving the wooden stick around felt like a tornado. No matter how fast the mercenaries attacked, the spirit image Roland was always faster, without the mercenaries even noticing his movements.

Twelve mercenaries went up to challenge spirit image Roland, and twelve mercenaries were sent back by twelve rays of sword energy. The spirit image Roland didn’t even need to use any ultimate sword techniques, because he didn’t need to.

The spirit image was so obviously condescending that it no longer even bothered with insults. Spirit image Roland simply crouched there while yawning in boredom. He looked at everyone with a patronizing expression as if they were just young children having a playground fight, which really injured the pride of all the mercenaries who had risked their lives in battle all this time.

Still, the mercenaries were secretly relieved that this spirit image had been created by a training field with the restriction of being forbidden from killing anyone. Otherwise, it was likely that there would be a mountain of corpses already.

Amongst all the collapsed mercenaries, Barton was the most seriously injured. He had charged at spirit image Roland several times already, and kept being manipulated by the latter to be injured by his own strength.

Even though the spirit image had the setting of being unable to kill, the duplicate Roland was unable to go easy against the other Sword Saint. And, not being able to go easy meant that Barton was the most seriously injured.

However, Barton still didn’t hesitate one bit. He gave his wounds only the most basic treatment before rushing to attack spirit image Roland yet again, and then Barton was sent flying back at an even higher speed.

This wasn’t because he had suddenly awakened to being a masochist or anything like that. Rather, this was his responsibility as the leader. He couldn’t be seen retreating in front of everyone. Timlad mentally praised Old Barton for his persistence…

“Are all of you idiots? There’s the strongest Sword Saint of all time who’s taking his time to practice swordsmanship with all of you, and you don’t even need to worry about dying against him. Where else are you supposed to go find such an opportunity!”

Alright then, it would seem that perhaps Barton wasn’t thinking so deep into things after all. Could it be that he was simply a fanatical martial artist? But, Timlad saw the seemingly coarse Old Barton’s mouth arcing upwards rather strangely. Perhaps Barton wasn’t as simple-minded as he appeared.

Pleasantries would never be as effective as taunts on these mercenaries. Benefits would motivate them far more than volunteering could. Barton’s angry roar was quite effective. With Sword Saint Barton leading the way, everyone else recovered their courage. They agreed that this was indeed a rare opportunity.

Meanwhile, Timlad was busy fiddling with his scanner.

“…Something’s not right with the situation. The training field has been locked into the ‘active’ mode.”

“Of course it wouldn’t be right. This place is rarely used. But since that Roland spirit image is blocking us, the Sky Tower Spirit will naturally take advantage of this opportunity to stall for time.”

Compared to earlier, Katerina’s eyes no longer had strange colors or data flashing within them. However, her word choice and aura indicated that she was no longer that simple bartender girl that she used to be.

“The Sky Tower Spirit being so quiet seems even more wrong. We need to break through here immediately. Sister… er, Brother Winlair, could you please…”

“I don’t know any martial arts. Will magic be alright?”

“Yes. There’s no helping it. The more time we spend here, the more dangerous things will become.”

Dragon lich Winlair who was with the party had originally been worried that using magic in this training field used purely for the physical martial arts would cause some new problem, so he hadn’t acted as of yet. Now that Timlad asked him to take action, Winlair immediately started gathering mana and locked onto the spirit image Roland. This suddenly caused a strange machine language to start ringing in the air.

“Magical reaction with vicious intentions detected. Invader judged to be present. Self-defense mode automatically canceled, changing to counterattack mode. The spirit image is now allowed to kill. The spirit image is now allowed to duplicate power above Legend rank. The spirit image is now entering free action mode to begin eliminating the invaders.”

Although it was nice that Timlad acted as a simultaneous interpreter for the machine language, his suggestion to have Winlair use magic had pushed everyone into a pitfall yet again.

At this moment, Timlad realized what was going on here. This section was likely a highly unique independent section of the Sky Tower that wasn’t under the Sky Tower Spirit’s direct control. Naturally, that meant the spirit images here weren’t restrained by the master-servant relationship with Katerina—they were perfectly capable of killing her. That was the Sky Tower Spirit’s true intention all along.

“Be careful! Retreat immediately! Don’t allow this facility to create any more troublesome spirit images.”

However, the mercenaries didn’t even have the chance to retreat when a black shadow appeared in the middle of the room. Now that its restrictions had all been lifted, the spirit creature creation room was no longer satisfied with duplicating the strongest warriors in the mercenaries’ memories.

“Foolish carbon-based life forms, this is the end for you. Witness the power of the strongest warriors from our generation!”

The spiritual creature creation room activated itself once more as it constantly scanned the shadow that just appeared, giving birth to several new spirit image warriors.

“Soaring Sophe, Blood Butcher Girwell… Damn it, they’re all legendary heroes from the Haletdam generation!”

Even Timlad began despairing when he identified who these new spirit images were. The newly arrived spirit images were actually duplicates of the most powerful warriors from the scholars’ generation!

While Timlad and Barton’s adventuring team was in grave danger, the main battlefield became abnormally silent.

The Undead Calamity’s reinforcements were still on their way. Meanwhile, Conservation was using all her efforts on absorbing the power of Death here to help herself recover. At this moment, she found that everything around her changed, with the abnormal world appearing in front of her once more.

Although Roland’s personal world of Hell had just suffered through a nuclear bomb level explosion, this pitch-black world was still completely intact. The only difference was that much of the ground had collapsed, revealing deep pits which surprisingly contained valuable minerals and mines. Magma and flames could be seen pouring through other parts of the ground, and dense plumes of smoke were wafting up into the sky. The ground had been baked into a high temperature. It was evident that this was no place suitable for human habitation.

Of course, this type of environment would be irrelevant to Conservation. Not only that, she had already learned that Roland’s world was unable to prevent anyone from even normally entering or exiting.

‘Is he trying to play a new trick on me by obscuring my vision? Or is he trying to dispel the dense aura of Death here?’

Conservation was just about to leave Roland’s world when she suddenly stopped herself. She discovered that the aura of Death here had become even denser, and more… delicious?

“This doesn’t seem natural. Perhaps this location is even more suitable for the undead to live in compared to the Death Planes. Is this where Yonge keeps his servants? He miscalculated this time. With such a powerful aura of Death, I’ll recover even faster here…”