“I’m sorry.”
A figure in a blue robe intercepted the explosion of power as he raised his staff high into the air.
“Legis Stole. Shattering mystery! By your destruction, stop this raging power!”
Vengras brought his staff down, and the force that burst out perfectly canceled out the magical energy in the ground.
“No…no…”
The strategist of the Hero’s Army shook his head with a grave expression as he turned to the stunned Keita.
“I cannot allow such an attack to go through.”
The strength left Keita’s legs, and he collapsed to the ground.
The strategist’s moves had been precise. It was as if he had been reading Keita’s movements.
“How did you…know?”
“You would like to hear the reason?”
Poro, his face twisted with rage, approached him. Keita avoided his gaze and nodded silently.
“Everything was predicted. That you would attempt to assassinate the Hero. And how you would do it.”
“Every…thing?”
“If you hadn’t been within our ranks, we expected that a shot would be taken from an extremely…long distance, with your power amplified through a standby spell. And we had already placed ‘eyes’ in advance and deliberately set up points from which such an attack would be possible. The plan was to have you taken down the moment you were discovered.”
That method had also been explained by the Dragon God. However, sniping carried a high chance of failure and was easy to detect beforehand, so it ultimately had not been adopted.
“The dozen or so ‘resets’ also served the purpose of searching for your position. Ultimately, we determined that such an attack was not possible, and that you would resort to a special assault… An all-out surprise charge instead.”
“From the sound of it, you noticed the ‘path’ I set up as well?”
“Even for me, it is impossible to detect a spell before it is activated. But this camp is constantly watched by human eyes. Even if you used invisibility, the time and places where you could bury a device would be limited. After that, all we had to do was watch for where your plan would be triggered.”
By using a standby spell to shorten the chant and the convergence of magic energy… This had been the best and most promising method to kill the Hero in a single blow.
But now that all of it had been crushed, nothing remained in Keita’s hands.
“It is time you gave up. This is where it ends for you.”
The declaration of the strategist, Vengras, rang out darkly, as if it was coming from the Seer himself.
