Chapter 304: Correct Usage of Magic of Obedience (Patreon)

"I'm sorry… Lady Aura… I think I'm already…"

Blood matted her beautiful blonde hair. The girl's cracked lips trembled as she forced out the apology.

"What nonsense are you babbling? You're my executive. I never gave you permission to die so easily."

Aura held Alice up and slowly laid her down on the ground.

She drew the Scales of Obedience from behind her back and cast the Magic of Obedience on the human in front of her.

Alice was gravely wounded and had burned through a great deal of Mana in her fight with the impostor, so the Magic of Obedience took hold instantly.

"Alice, you can hold on. A wound like this only needs a little Mana to heal. Live."

Alice had been barely clinging to life. Now the blood in her body, almost drained dry, surged and boiled. The pain at her wounds eased, replaced by a strange itch.

No one had stopped the bleeding or bound her wounds. It was only Aura's command, yet the fog of pain lifted from Alice's mind at once, as though some latent potential in her body had been awakened.

She was no priest who could wield the Goddess's healing magic, yet her injuries were steadily mending. The life-threatening hemorrhage had stopped, as if a Miracle had occurred.

Color slowly returned to her pale cheeks, and her chest began to rise and fall.

She wanted to live.

Her wish aligned with Aura's command. Mana enveloped that fragile but immensely gifted body, and the keen Mana that should have coated her weapon became the means of rebuilding her blood vessels. The torn flesh was actually knitting closed from the inside.

All this while, the impostor wearing Alice's face had made no move, because over a dozen Killing Magic circles had surrounded it in an instant.

"Impressive. I never expected Lady Aura's magic to have a use like this."

The impostor applauded with a smile on its face.

"You know me?"

"What member of the Demon Race doesn't know the great name of Aura the Guillotine, one of the Seven Sages of Destruction?"

As it spoke, the impostor even drew a finger across its own throat.

"I just never expected the cold-hearted Lady Aura of the rumors to treat a human like this. I'll admit, it's changed my opinion of you a little."

Aura ignored the chatter. Only after she had settled Alice did she begin sizing up this creature that had the same face and voice as her subordinate.

If she had arrived a little earlier, she might have gotten to watch a play of the real Alice versus the fake.

Aura couldn't read the impostor's Mana.

After breaking the barrier magic, the impostor had kept to its rule of three spells and layered a Mana-concealing spell over itself.

Aura was certain the impostor had lost a good deal of Mana to Alice. But because of that concealment, she didn't dare use the Magic of Obedience on it rashly.

Ever since the backlash from her first attempt to use the Magic of Obedience on Nanoda, Aura had never again used it carelessly without being completely sure.

From a human standpoint, Alice was an exceptional Mage and a formidable warrior, perfectly capable of arm-wrestling an ordinary Demon General.

An opponent who could defeat someone like Alice, even drained of Mana, wouldn't necessarily be weaker than Aura herself.

For all she knew, it was yet another millennia-old Great Demon who'd crawled out of nowhere.

She could never again be tripped up by her own magic. Better safe than sorry.

Aura held Alice's sword in one hand and the Scales of Obedience in the other, and a cold smile touched her lips.

The Magic of Obedience activated, but this time it was aimed not at her opponent but at Aura herself.

"I, Aura the Guillotine of the Seven Sages of Destruction, will cut off my enemy's head."

It was as if she'd been injected with a stimulant. Aura, who had never been good at close combat, lifted the sword one-handed with ease, and her figure vanished on the spot.

It was a technique she had learned from Nanoda.

With Aura's physique she should never have managed it. But with the Magic of Obedience drawing out her potential, Aura easily did what she never could before!

At the same time, the Killing Magic circles set around the impostor were no mere decoration. Blast after blast of Killing Magic roared out, driving it to scramble in every direction.

"What…?"

The impostor dodged the spells with its imitation of Hero Himmel's swordsmanship, and just barely caught sight of Aura's trail.

But as it moved to raise its sword and meet her, a violent pain shot through the shoulder Alice had wounded.

The injury hadn't fully healed; it only looked whole. The keen Mana Alice had poured into it had invaded its entire arm and destroyed the channels within.

Left with no choice, the impostor turned its body into an afterimage and used blinding speed to evade Aura's surprise attack.

"Shing!"

The sword grazed the impostor's cheek and forced it to drop low and roll away. A few drops of red blood fell onto the fallen petals and turned to rising wisps of Mana.

She had kept pace with the Hero's swordsmanship?

The impostor couldn't believe it. The rumors said Aura the Guillotine excelled at commanding armies and controlling others through magic, while her physique was as meager as her stunted height.

Matching the Hero's swordsmanship, even clashing with it? Was this some kind of joke?!

The impostor touched its wounded cheek, its pupils trembling.

Then it looked again at the figure striding toward it with a sword, radiating menace.

Was this really Aura? Wasn't she some veteran general of the Demon Race, a master of martial arts? Could she actually be Rivale, the Bloodstained War God?

The impostor slowly climbed to its feet, already weighing whether to switch to a different spell.

Meanwhile, inside her mind, Aura was frantically willing herself on.

I can do it. I can do it!

After all these years of training in Nanoda's wake, I can move like Nanoda too!

No. I can be Nanoda.

As though a shadow overlapped with Aura's current posture, she reversed her grip on the sword and dropped into a half-crouch, ready to spring.

Her violet eyes grew deep and utterly devoid of feeling, with no killing intent, no anger, no mercy. All sound faded to nothing. She simply regarded the impostor, the way one looks at an object, with a gaze that held it as insignificant.

"Gulp."

For some reason, the impostor felt a chill run through it. Relying on its imitated "Hero's intuition," it summoned its courage, slowly rose from the ground, and leveled the "Sword of the Hero" in both hands at Aura.

A phantom image rose behind the impostor as well.

"Cough, cough."

Under the sound of Alice's coughing, the two fell into a brief standoff. All it would take was a single signal, and the clash would erupt in an instant.

In the fight, countless petals had been crushed, and countless more had been torn from their stamens and swept into the sky.

Amid the sky full of five-colored blossoms, one peach-pink petal drifted slowly down.