Welcome to the Impregnable Demon King Castle

175 – The Tenth Stratum – The Realm of Demons and The Awakened Interceptors 8 / Events 2 Part 1

Naturally, while Leraje, Stolas, and Suuri were having their archery showdown, other people were fighting.

It was thanks to this man that Suuri could afford to put all his attention into confronting Stolas with his bow.

「Hoo boy… It really sucks fighting invisible dudes.」

The troubled-looking but still easy-going man who is laughing at the face of it all is the Far-Reaching Swordsman Hamill.

One-by-one, he defeats the Monsters turned invisible by Glasya-Labolas with his Flying Slashes.

「I was just thinkin’, ain’t this kinda lame? Cos the enemies are invisible, doesn’t it kinda look like we’re just waving around our swords at nothing? Will it look alright, Ewan buddy?」

「Uhm! Now’s really not the time!」

Ewan was currently fighting with his own Zombie and other Monsters.

「Ahaha, yeah, you right…schwing.」

Even though it seemed as if he was fooling around, that slash had tremendous speed to it.

It became a Flying Slash and intercepted a Wind Blade that was headed for Ewan.

「…! You have my thanks…!」

Hamill put his index finger and his middle finger to his eyebrow and swung his arm forward in a sort of salute pose.

「Don’t mention it. I’ll almost done here, then I’ll come over and help ya out.」

Warrior Job Adventurers who possess a Magic Sword are strong, but there are quite a few who tend to rely too much on their sword’s abilities.

Hamill is a sword-user type Warrior with his own strengths.

His ability in battle can be counted among five others in the world, including the Samurai Masamune of the 1st ranked party and the Knight Lord Arthur of the 2nd ranked party.

Said to be on the same level as Masamune, the Katana-user who can slice through magic, and Arthur, who can use a unique Holy Sword that isn’t for Heroes, he is an excellent swordsman.

However, he uses his abilities mainly for support.

Between defeating the enemy or ensuring an ally’s survival, he always picks the latter.

This is why he has so few outstanding achievements when compared to those two people.

However, if you looked closely at this Raid Battle, you would be able to surmise his true abilities.

In the third stratum, he protected his allies against Carmilla’s assault that used an enormous amount of blood, and he avoided Sitri’s surprise decisive strike in the fifth stratum.

Even though he suffered damage at the hands of Furcus in the eighth stratum, he was able to react to Furcus’s movements while she unleashed her Ogre strength in Human form.

Furcus was aiming for Aerial and that fight was decided more by her bizarre and unusual strategy rather than a pure and simple sword fight, so it can’t be easily talked about.

「The invisible guys are a pain, but the Skeletons make rattling noises, and you can hear the footsteps and breathing of the doggies so you can tell where they are.」

I don’t think that he doesn’t take things seriously.

But I do think that his priority is to make his allies look good.

Even now, he regularly takes on Monsters, taking down the ones that assault Suuri while letting others get really close to himself and saving Ewan at just the right time.

Of course, he has a reason for not participating in Suuri and Stolas’s match.

He believes in Suuri’s abilities.

As long as no one else gets in the way, he believes Suuri will win, which is why he never made any moves aimed at Stolas.

Of course, he is wary of the Demon King Castle side as well. Several of the Zombies of the Spirit Commanding General Kimaris were waiting on standby to provide support.

They weren’t interfering.

And then it happened, almost as if it was timed just as the archery showdown started.

No, the truth is that it probably was planned that way.

Those on the same side who were made invisible can see each other. Leraje knew of Stolas’s plan and the other Monsters knew it was time to move as soon as she did.

「I was wondering when the big shots were finally gonna come for me.」

Hamill audaciously swings his sword from the floor towards the ceiling.

The slash drew an arc heading directly upwards, intercepting a Glasya-Labolas that was about to attack him…at least that’s how it would have gone.

「Wha~t the…?」

A Zombie that could manipulate Wind Magic deployed an Air Wall to defend against Hamill’s slash.

At the same time, the air turns cold.

A freezing attack by Bella’s Zombie.

Hamill immediately jumps to avoid the ice attack from freezing his feet to the floor.

But the attacks didn’t stop there.

「Whoa, crap…! Godspeed?!」

Stolas fired off Godspeed while he was in the air, making it unavoidable for him.

The fact that she is firing at him means that Suuri has lost. Otherwise, Suuri would not have allowed her to fire at his allies.

It wouldn’t be odd if his mind was taken over by the shock of Suuri’s loss and dulled his movements, but instead he…

He fired off two Flying Slashes at two arrows, skilfully used the belly of his blade and the pommel to block two more, caught one with his left hand, and tilted his neck to avoid the one aimed for his head. He dealt with all six arrows that were fired.

Very impressive movements, but as expected, doing so ruins his posture. In addition, the floor remains frozen.

He lands, almost falling over, but gets back up, then he swings his sword…

「I’m not gonna-」

-make it in time.

Gla-la lands while breaking the floor and bites onto his right arm.

He starts to fly away, still holding onto his arm.

Hamill grabs Gla-la’s fur with his opposite hand and jumps in the same direction as Gla-la flies towards so that his arm won’t get ripped off.

Gla-la’s flight almost reaches the ceiling.

Hamill is smiling as usual.

「Hey, you know my Magic Sword? It can make slashes go flying off, but you ever wonder what exactly a slash is?」

His Magic Sword draws from the will of the user. The slash is determined by the power as it is, and the speed is determined based on how fast it is swung. The user is the one who decides what is the start point and endpoint of a slash.

The user’s intention of「I am slashing.」to「I have finished slashing.」is the basis of whether something is a slash or not.

In other words, it isn’t necessary for him to swing the sword himself.

So long as the user thinks it is a slash and the sword itself is moving, a Flying Slash can be activated.

Which is why…

「’Cause I can’t use magic, I don’t get to fly like this often. It’s cool. I’ll die if I fall from here though. You shouldn’t fly this far with that kinda momentum.」

Gla-la’s actions weren’t wrong.

Just like that one time with that Thunder Hero guy, he would normally bite someone and then fly away while tearing off that part. Hamill instantaneously grabbing onto Gla-la, matching his movements, and flying away while he is still connected to his arm, essentially being eaten, is completely out of common sense.

In addition to that is his mentality of thinking that the moment his arm was bitten is the「I am slashing.」point, and approaching the ceiling is the「I have finished slashing.」point.

The Magic Sword manifests a Flying Slash based on Gla-la’s flight distance and speed.

The sword is in the Monster’s mouth.

The slash flickered, cutting up the Invisible Slaughterer from the inside.

Magical Energy particles scatter about in place of blood which bathes Hamill as he begins to fall.

Sadly, this means that Glasya-Labolas was defeated.

However, Hamill’s arm is barely connected to him. It no longer has the strength to swing the blade.

But this is just his dominant hand.

He immediately puts the sword in his other hand and shouts.

「Ewan! Defend!」

Ewan complies with his uncharacteristically serious-sounding voice.

Immediately after, a torrent of Flying Slashes rains down upon the first area.

All-Seeing Slash.

A skill of Hamill’s own invention where he instantly produces countless tiny slashes to rain down on the enemy.　

How it works isn’t too hard to understand.

If the Flying Slash is made from the movement of the sword from the「I am slashing.」point to the「I have finished slashing.」point, then it is possible to segment a usual single swing’s starting and endpoint into starting point till A, A till B, B till so on until it reaches the endpoint.

If his usual slashes are precise and meaningful, taking down enemies one by one, then this is an AoE attack. [1. TL Note: The word used to describe his attack is equivalent to what we use in English to describe enemy Area of Effect attacks in games where a single attack can damage multiple entities.]

He swung his sword in all directions sending out a flood of tiny swords boasting terrifying speed and power.

The problem is that, in a short amount of time that is further ticking away, he must change his perception rapidly to activate the Flying Slashes.

Above all, for this to be a successful AoE attack, he has to fire off an enormous amount of slashes instantaneously.

To pull that off with his non-dominant hand, while falling, and not be concerned that an ally is within range…amazing.

He continues to swing his sword towards the entire first area floor with his left hand.

The sounds of Hellhounds crying out and the bones of Skeletons breaking apart rang out.

Ewan seemed to be clad in an armor of air.

That’s right, Hamill was warning Ewan.

Even the Monsters of the Demon King Castle heard him.

Kimaris’s reaction was swift.

He probably started preparing the moment Gla-la was defeated.

Excluding a portion of them, he stored away his Zombies. Their shadows began to squirm and then they sank into them.

It proved useful in the Fenix battle how invisibility works well with Zombies.

Its abilities may be the same as the originals, but an Avatar without a personality cannot be said to be equal in strength to the originals.

By being turned invisible, they can put the strength of their magic to good use without having to fight a losing battle.