The Scorching Majin reacted to my declaration that I would kill it, its black face leering through a veil of fire.
Its swelling magic power and the flames surrounding its body flared with an intense light, as if challenging me to make good on my word.
"It’s like looking at the sun."
Heat dominated the chamber, warping the view of the many towering temple pillars.
I was never particularly fond of magic that affected the surrounding environment on this scale. As I’d told Alicia and the others, maintaining a barrier to block out this level of heat was a constant drain on my magic power.
To my knowledge, the only entities possessing this much mana were legendary monsters like dragons and Fenrirs—or Demons.
In the latter half of the original story, a villainous Alicia would eventually sell her soul to one of these beings for the sake of revenge. Their defining characteristic was a grotesque humanoid form. Because these monsters hailed from another world and lacked physical shells of their own, they could only manifest in this realm by using a human as a medium. Once they appeared, they took a shape heavily influenced by the individual who paid the price, resulting in the Majin standing before me.
"Who’s the person inside?" I asked.
"..."
The Scorching Majin didn't drop its twisted grin.
The version of Alicia who became a Demon shouldn't have appeared until much later in the story, so I was genuinely curious about who was playing that role right now.
"Well, talking to you is a waste of time, isn't it?"
A human who strikes a deal with a Demon has their inner desires amplified until they collapse into madness; they lose any semblance of sanity.
"Gyahaha!"
I didn't know what kind of madness drove it, but its murderous intent came through loud and clear. I had no idea how it had entered this place, but I intended to make it pay for triggering Alicia’s trauma.
I gripped my sword with both hands and leveled it at the enemy.
In an instant, the Majin lunged, closing the distance with terrifying speed.
Whoosh!
Without a second's hesitation, the creature conjured a massive fireball from its hand. I sliced the sphere clean in two. Deploying barriers along the cut surfaces of the fire, I forced the explosion open and stepped through the gap. As the Majin tried to use the fireball as a distraction for its next attack, I lopped its head off.
"Gyaha!"
I felt the blade connect, yet the Scorching Majin simply reached out, caught its own head as it tumbled through the air, and slapped it back onto its neck.
"So that’s not enough to kill you."
It was the same with the Mage of Magic Insects; if someone could use chantless magic, they could survive nearly any fatal blow if they reacted fast enough. If you could trigger the spell in the nick of time, reattaching a limb was a simple feat—much like how that mage had used his bugs to patch his wounds.
Come to think of it, was that Mage of Magic Insects actually quite strong? I’d forgotten most of the details because he was too disgusting to remember.
Still, I’d never encountered anyone who could catch their own severed head and put it back on like that. I had fought the Demon-possessed in the neighboring country before, but they were usually lost in a frenzy that didn't distinguish between friend or foe.
This thing had defeated the Mithril Golem guarding the Holy Artifact, which meant it knew something about the core of the story and was acting with a specific purpose. To pull that off while steeped in madness was proof of its exceptional strength.
"Gyahaha!"
Faced with the Scorching Majin’s mocking laughter, I shifted my sword into a natural stance.
"No matter."
I stepped down with a physically reinforced foot, crushing a tiny, highly compressed barrier I’d placed on the floor.
Boom!
The dungeon floor—which hadn't even singed in the extreme heat—shattered under the force. Controlling the shockwave with a barrier wrapped around my body to propel myself forward, I vanished and reappeared directly in the Scorching Majin’s personal space.
"!?"
The leer vanished from its face as I moved at a speed that defied human logic. Expecting a slash, the Majin twisted its body to dodge, but I stopped dead in my tracks right in front of it. As I stared into its face—nothing more than voids for eyes and a mouth—its features warped with disbelief.
"Gi...!"
"What happened to all that confidence?"
With a mocking huff, I drove a Spear Hand deep into the Majin’s chest.
"...Wait, what?"
I’d assumed that no matter how monstrous it looked, it was still human at its core and would die if I crushed its vitals from the inside. But as I rummaged through the Majin's chest, I found nothing. Its body was made of nothing but fire; it was hollow.
"I see. That’s why you’re so lively even without a head."
This was a high-level puppet. The actual controller was somewhere else. Once I understood the trick, the threat vanished. Now, I just had to trace the magic power back to its source. Because my barriers had to distinguish what they allowed to pass through, I was naturally gifted at perceiving the nature of anything they touched.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGH!!"
Realizing what I was up to, the Majin let out an ear-piercing shriek as its magic power began to swell.
It was going to self-destruct.
Based on the sheer volume of mana, the explosion would be large enough to incinerate the entire Deepest Chamber.
"Tch. I wonder who’s pulling your strings."
If I were alone, I wouldn't care, but the two girls behind me wouldn't survive this. Even Mariana’s Aqua Veil would likely evaporate under this much heat.
"You coward. Laughing from your little safe zone, are you? I’ve got your signature now. I'll find your real body next, and I promise I'll kill you."
I spat the words at the Majin, which was now bubbling and losing its humanoid shape, then I released it and leapt back toward Alicia and Mariana. I deployed a dome-shaped barrier to encapsulate the thick Aqua Veil protecting them.
Would it be a single massive blast or a sustained wave of extreme heat? I couldn't tell for sure, so I constructed a reinforced barrier designed to withstand continuous impact.
A split second later, the expected wall of fire consumed everything in sight.
It was blindingly bright.
"Maybe I should wear sunglasses the next time we fight..."