The Devil Is Evolution Catalog - Chapter 816: Epilogue (10)

The battlefield is always changing. Nothing embodied that truism more than my own magitek knights turning their cannons towards me and firing off fireballs…

My mind was immediately thrown into disarray…

Exactly how am I supposed to dodge all those fireballs?! But if they are just fireballs… Maybe it’s not as bad as I first thought.

Heavensbreak!

The 72 plates of Heavensbreak formed up automatically into a giant shield. Just in time, too. As the last slice of Heavensbreak fell into place, the fireballs darkened the skies before me.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The explosions raged on unabated for five whole minutes before the dust began to settle around me. Flames scorched the lands, leaving nothing but a desolate wasteland as far as the eye could see.

While it might have seemed like I was in a bad shape, the truth couldn’t be any further. Lest one forgot, Wyrm was constructed with Red Dragon scales, and the one defining feature of such scales were that they could absorb Fire elements.

Forged with the same scales, Heavensbreak was unharmed by the barrage, even absorbing some of them in the process. Their scales gleamed that much brighter after what was supposed to be certain death.

Magitek knights all had their own mana limits. The mana cannons were mana intensive to begin with, let alone after having used a few barrages at the breach. At this point, they were spent and had to stop firing.

To the enemy, I was probably dead.

Technically speaking, the magitek knights could fire as much as they wanted thanks to their ability to absorb ambient mana in the air, but that level of replenishment wasn’t enough for such a concentrated barrage of fireballs.

“Oh my, maybe I shouldn’t have cut those corners during development, but that’s such a bother…”

Ferti’nier voice came in chiming, laced with the thickest sarcasm.

Hold on, Ferti’nier, what did I just hear you say?!

“Nothing. Your big sis wasn’t saying anything. Little brother, you must have heard wrongly. It’s actually sad. How can someone so young be going senile already? How about a hug to comfort you?”

Hmph. I know what I heard, don’t try to play coy with me. You thought it was a bother to implement a psychic defense system, that’s why you didn’t do it.

“Oh, that’s just hearsay, little brother. Your big sis said no such thing.”

Hah. And I thought you were a Lust Demon. Or did you change your Original Sin to Sloth?

“Mesmers aren’t even that common to begin with, even less so accomplished ones. To be able to control 90 pilots like that is even rarer. Your big sis just didn’t think you would bump into someone like that…”

So you did cut corners. Useless.

I blurted that out without thinking, but the moment I did so, I immediately regretted it. Ferti’nier wasn’t one to take a slight, no matter how minor, lying down…

“Oh… don’t be mad, little brother. Those brats are just under the temporary control of his Territory. Once you kill the mesmer, the control will come undone.”

I know that as well, but where is he?

“Above you, of course.”

Above me… She’s really being awful helpful today. Did her character change overnight? Or maybe she knows she messed up as well.

By now, the residual dust and rubble were gone, revealing Wyrm which was good as new.

“Impossible! After all that…”

A wizened voice gasped in surprise from above me. I looked up to find an old man hovering aboard a saucer-like magical tool. He was probably muttering to himself, but Wyrm was more than capable of picking up such anomalies.

That’s the mesmer? I guess there’s no one else other than him. If they were to bring too many, the plan would be easily exposed. And Ferti’nier herself said that he would be flying above me.

Still. That’s pretty high up. How cautious of him; he must have prepared for this ambush for a long time. I might not have even thought to look there if Ferti’nier hadn’t warned me beforehand.

“You think you’re safe just because you’re all the way up there? How naive… it’s time to pay for your crimes!”

Not wasting another word, I rushed at the old man with a surety completely at odds with the sense of safety he thought he enjoyed.

“Stop that thing!” Finally realizing how imminently dangerous my attack was, the old mage jumped back in fright, immediately commanding his enthralled magitek knights to try and stop me.

A second later, all 90 of the kids swarmed towards me without hesitation.

You think they can stop me? How futile. They aren’t as fast as Wyrm, and those mass-produced models aren’t capable of long flight.

Their lack of features was a conscious decision on my part, or rather, a conservative decision. I did not want the budget for each to go too high. Thus, they only had the ability to fly for short spurts.

I swatted away the closest magitek knight and sped on. Like a sword cleaving the sky, Wyrm took to the heavens unopposed, its target that old mesmer!

“Damned monster!”

His frail constitution obviously wasn’t suited for close-range combat. Psychic magic was an obscure discipline to begin with, so battle tactics were hardly on their minds when developing.

The mesmer had no guardian available to him. All he had were whatever tools he had for emergencies. Like a defensive scroll, or a magical shield of some sort. Naturally, he threw out all that he had, even going so far as to use that saucer as a shield.

I could see the fear in his eyes. But even his myriad layers of defenses weren’t going to spare him from my wrath!

“It’s no use. Cast all you want, but nothing will save you from daring to control my cute little subordinates!”

Having created over ten barriers, the old mage looked more like a flying saucer than a human at this point. Yet if there was someone I wanted to kill, nothing could stop me!

“Crack! Crack! Crack!”

Wyrm shattered each of his barriers without resistance, my dragonslayer greatsword tearing through them like paper. All around me, the signature cracking sound of a barrier shattering filled the air.

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