Chapter 298: Elf Village Battle ⑩

298 – Elf Village Battle 10

As the robot begins to regenerate the broken drill, I grab its head and immediately sink my teeth into it. The bitter taste of metal spreads through my mouth. That only lasts for a moment though, as what I had bitten off in my mouth is disintegrated, and transformed into pure energy.

My Gluttony skill works properly within my mouth at least. While it means I need to get things into my mouth first, so long as I can get it into my mouth then it gets disintegrated into energy no matter what it is, and I can then absorb that. It makes no difference that it’s built to be an anti-god robot. While the amount of energy that I can snatch in one mouthful is small, it should be more efficient than simply continuing to punch it endlessly.

I’ve already figured out the rough design of this robot. At any rate it’s a war-of-attrition type that has been infused with plenty of energy. Relying upon its quantity of energy, it’s made to be tough enough to instantly regenerate no matter how hard it’s beaten up. Excess functions are excluded, and it’s specialised only in efficiency. At the same time the combination of the magecraft jamming field and the poisonous gas exhausts the opponent. I see, I see. It might be in a roundabout way, but if you consider what kind of strategy has the potential of defeating a god, it makes pretty good sense. Even while I’m actually using Humility, it’s still a real struggle. As for whether it would really work in practice against Gyuri I don’t know, but what I can tell is that Potimas has really thought long and hard about perfecting this battle formation. Precisely for that reason, and because I am the opponent, that will be the reason for its defeat.

I thrust into the robot’s torso with a spear hand. Then, I activate magic inside the robot’s body. The magecraft jamming field is not omnipotent either. For the interior of living bodies inside the field, and in particular, for the interior of allies where the activation of magecraft must not be jammed, the effect does not reach. Well of course, since the robot regenerates using magecraft, jamming that would turn it into a simple lump of metal. Unlike Shiro-chan, I’m not capable of actually analysing the construction for neutralising the magecraft jamming on the robot, but even without such laborious methods I am able to activate magic. So long as it’s inside the robot.

What I activated, was level 10 Heresy Magic. Its name is Soul Break. Heresy Magic is magic that directly acts upon the opponent’s soul. And, Soul Break is magic that destroys the opponent’s soul. I drive that into the robot.

I pity you all. But, I won’t go easy on you. For Soul Break to destroy a soul, it means that it returns to nothingness rather than rejoining the cycle of reincarnation. Quite literally, a heretical magic. Even so, I will not hesitate in making use of this. It’s not like I have the luxury to choose otherwise either. Gluttony and Soul Break, and finally the time limited Humility. I will used these to overcome Potimas.

「Sorry.」

To these pitiful souls that were reduced to a weapon I give a single word of apology, then I took a step forwards.

Translation notes:

“Soul Break” – skills with this word (破魂) have appeared before, though not in pure spell form. Eg the “Evil Eye of Soul Break” in chapter 119 or how the “Heresy Attack” skill uses the “Soul Break” attribute in chapter 110. “Break Soul” or “Rend Soul” would be a more literal translation though.

“Quite literally, a heretical magic” – the Japanese word for “heresy” or “heretical” more literally means “off the [proper] path”. As Ariel said, it takes souls outside the (proper) cycle of reincarnation.