The battle's target had suddenly flipped from mage to warrior, maximizing the sheer contrast.
It inevitably called to mind Mentor Gandalf from Raya Lucaria Academy — apparently also a mage carrying extremely powerful combat skills. Every adventurer fortunate enough to become his disciple had walked away with an impressive martial repertoire on top of their magic.
Wait a second.
That train of thought had drifted a little off course.
Eliphis glanced down at Elsa on the ground.
Moments earlier, he'd redirected the incoming attack toward her. He hadn't lost his mind doing it. He'd simply trusted her.
Not long ago, she'd mentioned learning a new combat skill — using her greatsword as a conduit for both flame and healing, with capabilities still evidently unexplored.
The greatsword itself showed remarkably little damage. It kept emitting a faint light, slowly repairing her body.
She wouldn't die.
Given a little time, she'd probably be back on her feet, ready to fight again.
This girl really was incredibly convenient.
Picking up those kids back then had genuinely been the right call.
Under Eliphis's influence, even Sali had stopped paying Elsa any attention — directing the elite mercenaries into coordination with the captains instead.
Only fighters at captain level stood any real chance of exchanging blows with Sulyvahn's clone. Anyone else who got close simply died.
The elite mercenaries existed to support the captains. The captains existed to support Eliphis.
Even with the wrong read on the plan, that doesn't necessarily make it a bad outcome.
In pure close-quarters martial skill, the Light Eagle Corps might well hold their own. Their earlier crushing losses to Wolnir had only happened because they'd run into an enemy operating on completely unreasonable mechanics.
(He wasn't going to think too hard about the Black Knight incident.)
If this enemy wasn't relying on magic, the odds were good he lacked those strange, gimmick-heavy attacks entirely. A body shaped like a human's could only produce so many kinds of physical technique.
I once crossed blades with a descendant of the Southern Sword Saint. He told me that, had I lived in an earlier era, my swordsmanship alone could have made me the Sword Saint's successor.
I have what it takes to fight Sulyvahn.
That was Eliphis's read on it.
I'll stay back and use magic to support the captains — tie Sulyvahn down.
The elite mercenaries will use the enchanted restraint chains we spent a fortune acquiring, binding both his arms.
Then I amplify myself with the Ring of Harvest and unleash my strongest attack — end him in one strike.
A clean plan. It would even leave the mercenary mages room to act freely.
In theory, nothing about it was flawed.
But Eliphis's own presence turned out to be the single biggest problem.
"Look at me, you bastard!"
The Assault Captain shouted first, slamming his warhammer against his shield with deliberately provocative volume.
Not an ordinary shout. This was a combat skill mandatory for heavily armored warriors — a specific frequency, layered with magical power, designed to indiscriminately enrage nearby enemies.
Taunt, in short.
He'd tried it once against Wolnir. The result: it had drawn the Holy Sword from him while still at full health.
Which said something about how much genuinely useful material this world's combat skills actually contained.
With a wave from the Cavalry Captain, warhorses materialized beneath the elite mercenaries in groups of ten. The moment they mounted, magical armor wrapped fully around their bodies, transforming them into valiant chargers.
The Archer Captain drew his magic bow to full extension. Several of the more commonly used elemental magics wove together across the arrowheads. His bow carried the Ash of War Mighty Shot as well.
Once the Assault Captain drew Sulyvahn's attention and exposed an opening in his back, everyone would unleash their killing blows together, delivering a devastating combined strike.
Sulyvahn looked thin, emaciated — his tattered clothing apparently offering no defensive properties whatsoever.
They believed the attack would land.
Never again would they end up helplessly whaling on their enemy like a training dummy, the way they had against Wolnir.
Wolnir, apparently, had left the mercenaries with genuinely deep psychological scars.
Their carefully synced combination attack, though, never got the chance to fire.
Sulyvahn turned his head, glanced at the Assault Captain, and raised the Profaned Greatsword high overhead — clearly winding up to bring it down.
Everyone sharpened their focus, ready to punish him the instant his recovery frames opened.
A few seconds passed.
"Why isn't he swinging?"
Sulyvahn's clone simply held the pose, sword raised, refusing to commit.
Just waiting.
The mercenaries watching for his window sat in genuine confusion.
An absurdly slow-motion attack.
The Assault Captain felt the pressure most acutely. Should he commit to a strike now?
What if Sulyvahn moved the instant he did?
What if he didn't?
Right then, Eliphis's holy magic condensed into a continuous stream of eagles, flying outward toward the formation. The other captains read the signal and charged together.
Sulyvahn finally moved.
The Profaned Greatsword crashed downward, and the Assault Captain scrambled to pour everything into blocking it.
"Clang! Clang! Clang—!"
A continuous barrage of impacts hammered his shield.
Whoa, the Assault Captain thought, genuinely surprised. How is this greatsword this light and this fast, and I'm actually blocking it?
Have I somehow gotten incredibly strong?
At the same instant, a single word carried over from Eliphis's direction.
"Idiot."
No need to guess who that was aimed at.
Turning his head, the Assault Captain caught sight of Sulyvahn's clone's Profaned Greatsword landing squarely against Eliphis. Surging flame swallowed him whole in an instant.
"Huh?"
The Assault Captain made a genuinely baffled sound.
If the real Sulyvahn's clone is over there attacking Eliphis...
Then who's attacking me?
Wait.
Don't tell me—
He glanced down.
His shield sat densely packed with arrows.
The Archer Captain's arrows.
Fresh marks from the Cavalry Captain's charge, too.
My own teammates were attacking me.
Once the captains fully registered it, horror spread visibly across every face.
None of them had even seen how Sulyvahn's clone had moved. It felt like, in the blink of an eye—
No.
They hadn't blinked at all.
Sulyvahn's clone had simply appeared in front of Eliphis, instantaneously.
What kind of speed is that?
Everyone spun to rush toward their commander's aid.
But Sulyvahn's clone swept his blade in a casual arc, and a towering wall of Profaned Flame erupted in front of them.
The blistering heat, strangely, wasn't even the real problem.
Staring into those twisted flames, the mercenaries felt an unfamiliar agitation building inside them — like something buried at their core was being deliberately stirred awake. Their thinking grew noticeably less rational with proximity.
Because that was precisely the Profaned Flame's function.
It twisted minds. Stoked ambition. Could, given enough exposure, drive someone toward genuinely depraved action.
Wade, naturally, had no intention of unleashing the original flame's real mental-contamination effect on his adventurers. But its surface characteristics remained perfectly usable — a temporary influence on the mind, nothing lasting. Once the boss fight ended, every trace of the effect would vanish entirely.
"Something's wrong! Stay clear of the fire wall! Commander — we can't push through right now!"
The main force had been cleanly severed, stranded on the opposite side. The handful remaining near Eliphis had no realistic chance against Sulyvahn's phantom.
In the end, the whole burden fell on Eliphis alone.
"Come on, then."
He settled into a thrusting stance.
His rapier carried a precious Ash of War, a gift from his mercenaries — Determination, boosting the power of his next strike. He used the weapon's own force to narrowly dispel the shockwave rolling off the Profaned Greatsword.
Before the flames had even fully cleared, he triggered Determination and charged for Sulyvahn's weak point.
"Bang—!"
Just as before, Sulyvahn's clone demonstrated genuinely astonishing combat speed. The Greatsword of Judgment swept Eliphis's blade aside with precision, and the Profaned Greatsword followed immediately, cleaving downward with vicious accuracy.
Eliphis twisted his body clear.
Every dodge was a gamble with his own life. Get caught once, and the odds of dodging the follow-up dropped sharply.
Now — strike now—
The thought hadn't fully formed before both swords converged on him simultaneously. All he could do was retreat and evade.
Then, an instant later, he lunged forward again — gambling that the enemy wouldn't have time to react to a second commitment so quickly.
Still not over.
Wings made of woven branches suddenly unfurled from Sulyvahn's back, lifting him briefly into the air, clean out of Eliphis's attack path.
Casting incoming?
Eliphis immediately raised a barrier.
But Sulyvahn's phantom dove straight back down from the air.
Still melee.
Caught completely flat-footed, an X-shaped wound tore open across Eliphis's chest. Blood sprayed like a fountain.
Fortunately, his reflexes carried him into a roll across the ground, just clearing the follow-up grab aimed at his exposed chest.
"Damn it!"
His second miscalculation.
Eliphis abandoned, entirely, the idea that Sulyvahn had once been primarily a mage. From here on, he'd treat the enemy as an extraordinary swordsman, full stop.
Once that shift in perception clicked, the whole fight seemed to open up before him.
Sulyvahn's clone fought with broad, powerful, remarkably clean technique. But compared to the rigid, straightforward style of the Pursuer, this opponent moved with far greater ferocity — often chaining more than a dozen continuous swings, cycling through variations at a pace Eliphis had never encountered.
This wasn't a mage at all.
A genuine, thoroughgoing warrior.
Makes sense, in hindsight — Sulyvahn had once been a Blade of the Darkmoon himself. His martial ability had every reason to be exceptional.
Less than three minutes into the fight, and Eliphis was already drenched in sweat.
How many wounds had he taken? He couldn't have counted them if he'd tried.
Without the mercenaries around him continuously feeding healing magic in, he'd almost certainly be reduced to a bloody wreck by now.
Facing Sulyvahn's clone for the first time made every technique genuinely difficult to read. This was an opponent that demanded repeated failure before real familiarity could even begin to build.
Fast-slow rhythm attacks — a common enough technique across this world's combat systems. But Sulyvahn's clone deployed the trick with unsettling ease. Deeply counterintuitive. Even mercenaries seasoned by genuine life-or-death combat couldn't react in time.
I can react to this. I genuinely can.
Eliphis tracked the enemy's every movement with careful attention.
The instant the Profaned Greatsword crashed toward him, he slipped to the side.
He'd finally dodged one of the slow-timed strikes — the exact variety that had already caught him more than once.
Had his own personality allowed it, he might have thrown both hands up in celebration.
The satisfaction of that success genuinely felt like—
An unexpected problem surfaced right then.
Though he'd dodged the blade edge itself by the narrowest margin, the weapon carried both magic and fire. The Profaned Greatsword's flame erupted regardless, half-cooking Eliphis on the spot and snuffing out his fledgling sense of accomplishment before it ever fully bloomed.
Almost without warning, the arm gripping the Greatsword of Judgment surged with unprecedented speed and punched straight through his chest.
Not the end of it, either. This was a grab attack.
The follow-up after his brief success turned out to be, by far, the most devastating exchange yet.
Before he'd even recovered from the Profaned Flame's burn, an enormous hole had already opened in his chest — the kind of scene lifted straight from a grim reaper film. His entire body lifted skyward.
Darkmoon magic flowed from the blade into him, devouring flesh with frenzied appetite. A few more seconds, and he'd be finished entirely.
Sulyvahn's clone, though, seemed to understand precisely how far to push. Right as Eliphis clung to life by the barest thread, he flung him aside.
Eliphis bounced several times across the ground before finally sliding to a halt. The remaining mercenaries rushed to surround him, racing the clock to keep him alive.
Meanwhile, Sulyvahn's clone advanced slowly nearby, radiating overwhelming pressure.
Why hadn't he finished Eliphis off outright?
Because he needed the mana Eliphis's suffering was generating to make up for the earlier expenditure. Perfectly reasonable, wasn't it?
Wade wasn't singling Eliphis out. He treated everyone with exactly the same evenhandedness. Had Leon done the same thing in this position, Wade would've put him through the identical ordeal.
The Ring of Harvest activated, automatically amplifying the healing magic pouring off the mercenaries.
Genuinely versatile piece of equipment.
As the frantic healing continued, Sulyvahn's clone decided that, to avoid making his intentions too transparent, he'd turn and thin out the remaining mercenaries first.
Then something caught his attention.
Elsa.
The girl lying on the ground had woken.
Thanks to the greatsword's healing effect, consciousness had returned to her fully. But her eyes carried something that looked, unmistakably, like a woman reconsidering every single one of her life choices.
She'd registered Eliphis's earlier "redirect" perfectly clearly.
Once, she'd have accepted that without a second thought — perfectly normal, in her world.
But after tasting a Happiness Egg and coming back to herself, the whole gesture read as bizarre. Genuinely, thoroughly bizarre, however she examined it.
You couldn't fully register a wound until you had something to measure it against.
If she'd been with the Skyrim Group instead, both Tami and Luluwo would have taken that hit alongside her without a moment's hesitation. Might've even shoved her clear and taken the whole thing themselves.
For the first time, real distaste for the Light Eagle Corps settled into her chest.
She glanced at Eliphis, slowly recovering. Then at Sulyvahn's clone.
Finally, she made a decision — lay flat on her back and resumed playing dead. She even dragged her greatsword over her body like a blanket.
I'm done. Not doing this anymore.
"If you hate something, just slack off and coast instead~" — Luluwo.
Elsa — a woman who had always thrown herself entirely into diligence — had officially decided to slack off.
The sight sent Wade, watching quietly from behind everything, into genuine laughter. A delighted, faintly mischievous grin crossed his face.
Humans really are interesting.
Casually, he turned his attention back and ordered Sulyvahn's clone to unleash another ultimate, clearing the field again.
Eliphis, only just regaining consciousness, watched Sulyvahn's clone wind up the exact same devastating attack from the fight's opening. Genuine terror snapped through him — he scrambled upright, throwing himself into a desperate evasion.
Then the ultimate's telltale visual effect simply vanished.
He hadn't been hit at all.
What?
Looking around, he found Elsa — previously lying on the ground — entirely gone.
Even Eliphis, a man who held no belief in gods whatsoever, found himself muttering:
"Gods, help me..."
His expression twisted, genuinely unpleasant.
People always claimed there was an enormous gulf between fighting unarmed and fighting with a weapon. And yet, weapon in hand or not, he still couldn't clear the mountain that Sulyvahn's clone represented.
The technique on display was genuinely exquisite. Not fundamentally impossible to counter.
The real problem was the sheer, overwhelming gap in raw stats separating them.
"So — in the end — it comes down to magic after all."
A flicker of the Black Swordsman's silhouette crossed his memory. He gritted his teeth.
Right as he moved to trigger the Ring of Harvest for a fully amplified, pseudo-Legendary strike, a realization hit him.
Where's my weapon?
Checking, he found it lying right beside Sulyvahn's clone's feet.
The mercenaries had scattered too hastily earlier and simply forgotten to grab it on the way out.
"Hiss..."
Eliphis sucked in a sharp breath.
Right now, he genuinely felt like coughing up blood.
He looked back toward Sulyvahn's clone — advancing at a leisurely pace, not a single visible mark of injury anywhere on him.
Exactly what he should have expected. Eliphis had thrown everything he had into that last exchange and still couldn't land a hit.
Not that he literally couldn't. He'd simply never found the window to attempt one.
Every ounce of his effort had gone entirely into defense.
And even that had left him utterly drenched.
He still hadn't won.
"How... am I even supposed to fight this?"
The foundations of his mental composure began cracking a second time.
Right then, Sulyvahn's clone charged. Eliphis raised his sword in a desperate block.
Naturally, the result was a terrifying diagonal slash carving from shoulder to waist.
No blood sprayed out this time. The wound had been cauterized instantly by the flame itself, sealed clean and sterile in the same motion.
Was Sulyvahn's phantom just a little too strong?
At this rate — could anyone actually defeat him?
Because Wade had never intended for anyone to win this fight. Not yet, anyway. He had too much else demanding his attention lately.
Watching Eliphis on the ground, quietly reconsidering his entire life, Sulyvahn's clone raised a hand and wrapped him in Profaned Flame once more.
He didn't kill him.
Instead, he leveraged the flame's mind-altering properties to keep tormenting him further — making him replenish, personally, the mana income the dungeon had lost earlier.
Careful not to push too far, of course. Adventurers were a renewable resource. Draining one dry in a single use would be genuinely wasteful — they'd need to be reused down the line.
Under the Profaned Flame's illumination, whatever ambition and sin Eliphis had kept buried finally rose to the surface.
For the first time, his face revealed something entirely unmistakable.
Fear.