The remaining Hero’s Holy Mirror reacts with nimbleness enough to twist the ball’s trajectory!
In the chaos, I infused the retrieved ball with all the power I could muster, drawn from the Dark Mana ramp-up device and launched it.
It seems they sensed the danger of this ball, but it was already too late.
‘If you wanted to stop it, you should have done so while the Dark Mana ramp-up was triggered.’
Once activated, there are finishing moves that can’t be blocked.
The Demon King’s [Instant Death Ray], the gods’ petty [Heresy Declaration], and the Dragon Principal’s [Academic Warning] are examples.
The Stage 4 Dark Death Ball was inspired by those unblockable finishing move patterns.
“Guh…!?”
The Hero’s eyes widened in urgency.
[Full Power Unleashed]
Even a worm will snap and bite your ankle if stepped on, and the Hero’s resistance was fierce when cornered.
The remaining Holy Mirrors radiated a tremendous light, exerting incredible power beyond anything seen before.
A total offensive without any thought for distributing the remaining instant kills!
‘If Kasia had taken this level of attack alone, she would have been out!’
Moreover, I had sneakily hidden some audacious traps in between.
Among the seemingly ordinary enhancement instant kills was a blade of a different color that flew menacingly.
When the hidden 100-stack instant kill sprang forth, even I, a veteran player, was taken aback by the Hero’s meticulousness.
Boom!
The power was enough to push me back with a strong explosion!
Fighting through the thick blast, a cough escaped me, but joy and despair crossed faces as shapes emerged from the smoke.
Not a sword strike but a ball.
I realized the shape of the ball advanced slowly.
The Stage 4 Black Ball overcame the Hero’s 100-stack ankle trap.
“Heheh. My finishing move won!”
“Did I just stop a blow that even I struggled against…?”
Strong attacks have gimmicks.
The Hero’s gimmick stores attacks through the mirror, amplifying stacks through exchanges between mirrors, or ambushing and attacking from unexpected angles.
Storage, stack amplification, and launching.
This is the essence of the Holy Mirror.
My gimmick isn’t nearly as complex.
It’s as simple as a child’s doodle on a blank canvas.
Color gets closer to black the more you layer it.
Attributes are no different.
Fusion of attributes.
Multi-attributes starting from dual attributes.
A mixture of wind and water creates a greater pressure than simple water, while using non-mixing water and fire can boil into steam that damages the respiratory system.
Multi-attributes are an inevitable rite of passage encountered on the path to mastering all magic.
A person reaching the peak will inevitably face attempts to integrate all known attributes.
Of course, this does not include all attributes in the world.
It merely aims for the maximum within one’s realm of knowledge.
Yet even that is limited by lack of ability, resources, and various practical difficulties that lead to compromises.
Those lacking attributes call their magic [Ultimate Magic] in grandiose terms.
‘I too am lacking to contain everything for now!’
There’s no unknown attribute.
However, my body hasn’t matured yet.
I lack a 230cm sturdy body that could withstand countless attributes stronger than steel and isn’t enough to claim a mana reservoir like an endless sea.
I made compromises.
More than what the mages did.
Perhaps even falling short of standing shoulder to shoulder with ultimate magic.
But in that baseline.
If it’s the realm of the art of [Vision Magic] that looks beyond the ultimate…
This one simple dodgeball can contain it all.
“Stage 4 Dark Ball.”
Type – Dark Magic, Life Magic, Enhancement Magic, Vision Magic
Activation – Gathering
Specialization – Omnipotence, Nullification, Absorption, Tracking, Nullification
Penalty – Diminished skill upon defeat
The base [Gathering] spell isn’t anything special.
Gathering dust while cleaning.
Collecting items left in washing pockets.
Among current mages, it’s a spell only used by married mages and is considered a rustic spell.
It’s mundane and convenient—one that a Cleaning Maid would typically use!
In fact, even Reap once used this spell to find the snacks I had secretly hidden in the pantry and completely imprisoned them in a snack box.
‘But for a veteran player, there’s no better cheating spell than this!’
All spells and functional skills gain experience the more they are used, enhancing efficiency, power, and performance.
Just as [Hide] unlocks the additional feature [Stealth], and [Observation] opens the special effect [Auto Analysis], spells also significantly increase performance.
However, some spells have a sneaky and astonishing characteristic where invisible experience accumulates smoothly even without visible experience increase.
Such as ‘gathering’ a Cooking Handbook.
Or ‘gathering’ an Insect Handbook.
Gathering and gathering.
Through the process of filling a white blank book with knowledge and understanding, this spell quietly gains experience.
That is exactly what this [Gathering] spell represents.
People say a child struggles to collect candy crumbs, while a married person skillfully matches chopsticks from a utensil container, distinguishing this as a difference in proficiency.
Yet where that proficiency stems from is unknown.
That’s why the power only rises to the level of what one has collected and experienced haphazardly in life.
Upper-class nobles are thought to be good at organizing due to strict family education, but in reality, they have accumulated a wealth of collections.
But I know.
It’s the collection of books that influences everything.
So without even needing to practice, my commitment to the gathering is secure, guaranteeing its power.
All of that is further amplified by the power possessed by [Dark Mana].
And by combining various attributes that veterans possess into a suitable form, I can trigger an even stronger gathering, like fitting together puzzle pieces.
As a result, a gathering of pitch-blackness that should not exist in this world has been born.
Stage 4. Dark Ball.
Its effect is to absorb all attributes within oneself.
Swordsmen are often mistaken.
They think attributes are exclusive to magicians.
Yet, there is something called physical attributes.
Piercing attribute.
Cutting attribute.
Every technique activated through wielding a weapon has attributes.
And there are also application attributes generated by the combinations of all those attributes.
The slicing attribute, which cuts faster than a standard strike.
The smashing attribute, which breaks stronger than pure impact.
There exists a vision attribute that has carved a path deep into the physical application realm by combining extremes or multi-properties.
And among those, I know of no unknown properties.
Even if it’s the Hero’s attack.
No, rather because it’s the Hero.
It’s natural.
A veteran player claiming to know the skill composition of the main and sub playable characters has no right to boast if they don’t.
“I’ve attacked this much already. Why aren’t you stopping?”
Thus, the Hero’s desperate barrage of attacks was neatly absorbed by the dodgeball, sorted by attributes.
The closer it got, the greater the sense of despair grew.
Ha ha!
The Dragon Principal found the principle of this ball amusing and laughed uproariously, contrasting sharply with the despair on the Hero’s face.
So alluring!
I’m quite satisfied.
Now this is dodgeball!
At that very moment, a voice rang out, waking the Hero’s spirit.
“Pull yourself together, Ishtar!”
“Yufi…?”
“Did you start this fight to show off the greatness of Dark Mana and succumb to it? No way!”
Light returned to the Hero’s eyes.
The hands flailing wildly with various techniques came to a halt.
“That ball absorbs power. But there’s no such thing as a ball that can absorb power infinitely and unconditionally.”
Unnecessary advice was given.
“Ugh!”
“Yikes!”
In a fit of rage, I threw a stone, causing the Saintess to be pushed out of bounds with a shield and vanish outside the court.
The Saintess was removed, yet the Hero’s eyes, now filled with focus, gazed intently at the elements of power that compose my techniques with the magical eye imbued with mana.
Not a rookie-level power that could be seen through, but neither was Ishtar merely a rookie level.
“Dark Mana, huh? The Dark Mana was revolving with the force of opposing attributes pushing each other away.”
“Hmph. What difference does it make to know that? Hurry up and fall out, you bad Hero. A disgrace to First Year, a spy of Second Year!”
While engaged in a quarrel fueled by unfiltered insults, I hoped the Hero would trip over the realization, but proving to be the ultimate cheat chosen by the One God, determination shone in their eyes.
They realized.
That just by briefly observing the weakness present in my [Gathering]…
A probability of enlightenment skyrocketing 5000% emerges for the Hero class when cornered.
“There’s a limit to how much can be contained in a mirror, just as more than 100 stacks cannot be charged, so too does your Dark Ball have a limit in the power it can absorb.”
“Ugh.”
“When one type of power accumulates excessively, at that point, the powers associated with it will dominate, disrupting the balance of the ball, correct?”
If only it had ended there.
The Hero, of course, lightly leaped over the veteran player’s trap.
Instead of feeding in attributes like cutting attributes, they shot out nothing but attribute-less energy, injecting power like a mother bird feeding its chicks.
The dark ball, devoid of sharpness or terrifying attributes, became engulfed in an overwhelming quantity of colorless energy.
Thud.
As a result, even the specialized tracking magic of the ball couldn’t exert its power, causing it to drop to the ground helplessly.
Using the principle of softness overcoming hardness, they thoroughly neutralized the Dark Mana amplification effect.
“Falling due to one’s own power… To think you would turn the ‘Storing’ ability of the Holy Mirror against me in such a manner. You really are a scary child?”
The Hero’s eyes settled calmly.
For some reason, I felt it.
Although the Hero had wasted much power previously and put significant effort into stopping the ball, the most dangerous state was now the most exhausted state.
“Tch. It cannot be helped. I didn’t expect you to block it, but now that it has come to this, it’s time to finish things.”
Tremors resurfaced within the Hero’s eyes, having regained calmness.
“Is it not over yet? Is 5th stage up next?”
“Oh, the 5th stage is a burden. With a First Year’s body, that is.”
Sighing, the Hero swept a hand across their chest.
Isn’t it a bit too early to feel relief?
[Stage 4 – Dark Ball]
Another Dark Ball began to float and drift through the air.
Yet the direction it was heading wasn’t toward the Hero.
The Hero’s gaze followed the direction of the ball.
Baba-Baba-Baba!
What awaited at that trajectory was a tremendous roaring sound, and now it was in an incorporeal form, a ball whizzing through a realm of infinite acceleration and repetition.
“…Oh no.”
The attribute that the ball had absorbed most became its quality, turning a high-powered finishing move launched to stop it into a cute gimmick that threatens itself.
What would happen if that ball reached the terrifying realm of infinite acceleration? The anticipation builds!
