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Dazzling light exploded before my eyes.
"Hah!"
God charged toward me, shouting with spirit.
In his hand, he gripped a khakkhara staff that he had produced out of nowhere. A blinding flash followed by a hidden weapon? For someone calling himself God, he had a rather dirty way of fighting.
I raised one arm to block the strike—thrum!—a massive shockwave rang out, making the very air tremble.
"—Oh? To think you could so easily withstand a strike from me while I wield the Staff of Divine Punishment... I can hardly believe my eyes."
God seemed surprised, but I felt the same way.
What a blow. To think he could hold his ground against me in this Magic Body... he certainly earned the title of God.
While we were locked in a grinding struggle, sparks flying between us, a voice cried out.
"You rotten old geezer! Just die already!"
Beal lunged out from my tail with explosive momentum. His fist caught God square in the face, and he immediately transitioned into a relentless flurry of blows.
"Fuhahaha! Die! Die! Dieeee!"
"Ngh! Guh!?"
God guarded with his staff, but he was pinned to the spot by the relentless barrage of punches.
A brawl between two Magic Bodies, huh? This seemed like a good opportunity to test just how much durability this body actually had. Once the fusion was undone, I wouldn't be able to use this body again. Knowing exactly how far I could push it would provide valuable insight into my magic.
With that in mind, here I go.
"In... out..."
I focused the Ki within me through controlled breathing. Even with this Magic Body, it was possible to manipulate Ki if I forcibly created paths for it to flow through.
Control System Magic, Trace: Tao. I gathered the Ki circulating through my body into a single point and unleashed it.
"Hundred Flowers Fist: Camellia!"
Boom! My thrusting fist snapped the staff in two.
The halved staff shattered into fragments, scattering into the air as fine particles. Ah, it broke. It was one of the basic techniques of the Hundred Flowers Fist, designed to concentrate an impact on a single point to destroy an object from the inside, but it had incredible power when thrown with this body.
"I-Impossible...! This Staff of Divine Punishment is a supreme masterpiece crafted by Hephaestus, the God of Blacksmithing—the greatest blacksmith in the Celestial Realm and one of the Sixty-four Gods! It should not be something that could be shattered by a mere punch!"
"Well, I'm also disappointed that it broke so easily..."
I had wanted to analyze the staff a bit more... oh well, it didn't really matter. I mostly figured it out. While I was touching it moments ago, I had cast Appraisal on it. I had already analyzed most of its structure, and it was possible for me to replicate it exactly. Like this—
As I gathered and condensed my mana, an object identical to the staff God had held appeared in my hand.
"There, something like this?"
"What... You replicated the Staff of Divine Punishment!?"
God stared at me with an expression of pure disbelief as I gripped the staff.
I had been creating my own Magic Bodies for a while now, so making a weapon as an extension of that wasn't a problem. Though, of course, I needed to observe the object closely, and it wasn't quite a perfect match.
"Wait, wait, Master Lloyd! Creating a Magic Body is one thing since you can be somewhat haphazard with it, but creating an object with such a complex structure requires an extraordinary level of analytical power!"
"That is exactly where Master Lloyd's true worth lies, Grimo. Still, to mimic even a weapon created by one of the Sixty-four Gods of the Celestial Realm is no small feat..."
"Do you two not realize? Lloyd has added his own arrangements to this staff, making it far sturdier than the original! Hmph, as expected of Lloyd, my fated rival."
Grimo and the others were muttering something, but I was more focused on how to use this Staff of Divine Punishment.
"Hmm... a staff, huh... a staff..."
A staff is a weapon meant to amplify the spell formula itself. However, they are essentially just inferior versions of magic swords with formulas engraved on a stick, mostly meant for beginners. If I were to use one for its intended purpose, it would usually break in an instant.
But this staff was used by God himself, and it contained a considerably powerful spell formula. It looked like even I could handle it. In that case, I had to try it out. I immediately deployed a spell formula and poured the mana I generated into the staff.
"Whaaaat!? What is with that amount of mana!? This is way too dangerous, Master Lloyd!"
"It has been amplified so much that the mana has become terrifyingly immense!"
Grimo and Jiriel were freaking out, but the amplification wasn't over yet. If I was going to experiment, I might as well use the staff's functions to their absolute limit. Still, it was exactly what you'd expect from a staff used by God. I was surprised it hadn't broken yet, even though I'd poured this much mana into it.
"Lloyd. It is fine to get carried away, but cracks are appearing in the handle. It is likely nearing its limit, is it not?"
"Oops, you're right. I got a bit too absorbed."
Just as Beal said, the staff was starting to split. I wanted to charge it to full power before firing, but it seemed this was the limit of its capacity. I pointed the staff toward God and unleashed the spell.
"Fireball."
The flames produced from the tip of the staff grew into a gargantuan sphere of fire in an instant. It flew toward God, increasing in mass and distorting the very space around it.
"—!? F-Fireball!? How... How can something like this be a Lower Grade Magic!?"
God concentrated his mana into both arms in an attempt to block the flames, but his arms were incinerated in an instant, and his entire body was engulfed in fire. Even for a Magic Body that significantly reduces damage from magic, it will naturally take damage if the attack exceeds its defenses.
In other words, the staff had produced that much output. It was truly incredible.
"Being able to pour in enough mana to snap the kind of staff God holds is already abnormal in the first place..."
"Even with a Lower Grade Magic, the staff reached its limit first... I wonder what would have happened if Master Lloyd had seriously poured in his full power..."
"If he had done that, this space... no, the entire Celestial Realm might have collapsed. Heheh, as expected of my lifelong rival."
Grimo and the others were saying whatever they pleased, but I was too busy controlling the Fireball to listen. I had thought it would be difficult to control magic with this Magic Body, but using a staff made the control even harder. As I thought, this body was a bit too much for me to handle. I throttled the power down so as not to kill him, but—
"N-Nuuuooooohhh!"
The voice of agony was swallowed by the sphere of flames. Then, the Fireball hit the ground with a heavy thud, sending up a pillar of fire that seemed to reach the heavens, causing the space to distort violently.
...Hmm, maybe it's better if I don't use staves after all. Better extinguish it, then.