I Became a Raid Boss-Chapter 136: Final Farewell (3)

"Is this what you call a Master Mage?"

The barrage of spells raining down was anything but ordinary.

‘If I were the type to fall to something like this, I wouldn’t have survived this long.’

The other side knows full well that I wouldn’t fall to attacks of this level. That’s why, instead of responding with all my strength to the spells pouring down above me, I focused my attention elsewhere.

‘...So this is what it was.’

With my senses heightened to the limit, I felt a thread-thin strand of mana. If it were the old me, I wouldn’t have sensed it at all. Even if I had, I wouldn’t have been able to act on it. The best I could have done would’ve been to sever the connection to the clone.

And for that, I wouldn’t have needed to sense such a thing; I could’ve just destroyed the clone outright. But now, things are different.

This chapt𝒆r is updated by frёewebηovel.cѳm.

At the end of the mana connecting to the clone, I could distinctly feel the presence of a coiled serpent.

‘Can I do it?’

The answer came instantly.

‘Yes. Of course.’

I had never tried anything like this before, but my instincts were telling me I could pull it off. Trusting that intuition, I reached out my hand.

A distance far too vast. A range far beyond reach.

And yet, my hand gripped the serpent’s body, curled in its distant nest.

"Ahaha! Finally, I’ve got you."

That damned snake.

How much hell had I gone through to finally catch this thing? Even thinking back on it briefly, I could count more than ten times where I came close but failed. Every time I thought I’d caught it, it escaped. And when I was sure I had it, it turned out to be another clone.

"Ahahaha, ahahahaha!"

That must be why this victory feels so sweet.

Since I came into this world, have I ever laughed this much? I couldn’t even tell if I was laughing because I felt good or if I felt good because I was laughing.

But honestly, who cares?

"...You’re insane."

‘Insane? That’s rude.’

Who wouldn’t feel good after finally achieving something they’d desperately wanted?

I kept laughing, the pain tugging at my chest barely registering, until I finally stopped when I coughed up a mouthful of blood.

I could have killed it the moment I caught it, but I didn’t. Partly because I wanted to finally see its smug face for myself after all this time. But mostly...because simply killing it wouldn’t ease the grudge I’d built up.

Consider it a bonus for saving an old subordinate.

But how long did it plan to keep squirming? Sure, I’d thrown it down with some force, but for a so-called Master Mage to roll around on the ground so disgracefully... What a display. Wizards really do love to exaggerate their pain.

"How does it feel? Are you so shocked you can’t even speak?"

Not that I couldn’t understand. It must be quite the experience, suddenly being dragged out of what you thought was the safest place in the world and dropped into hostile territory.

"Don’t worry. I’ve been through it. If you flail around to survive, you’ll get used to it in no time."

"...What on earth are you talking about? Cough!"

The Sage tried to speak but ended up coughing up blackened blood. Such a pity—advice from a senior who had crossed dimensions didn’t seem to resonate.

After retching for a while, he finally regained some composure and wiped his mouth before standing.

"You’ve become a complete monster."

"Considering the things you’ve done, why wouldn’t I be capable of the same?"

"Think about your age. Who could have imagined a girl not even twenty years old could pull off something like this?"

"Well..."

He wasn’t wrong. But so what?

Whether it was something unimaginable or outright absurd, the reality that he was standing face-to-face with me was undeniable.

"If it were me, I wouldn’t just stand there."

Before I even finished speaking, his staff began to glow brightly. His signature move—spatial leap.

My eyes darted, tracking the flow of mana.

"You’re not going anywhere."

After all the trouble I went through to catch this elusive prey, did he really think I’d let him go so easily?

To counter that annoying spatial leap, I’d put in painstaking effort and concluded that ‘if you don’t interfere with space itself, you can’t stop it.’ That’s why I developed “Canary Style – Wind Cutter.” But even after creating Wind Cutter, I still couldn’t catch him.

The gap in spatial understanding was simply too vast to overcome with an incomplete technique.

"But now that I can see it so clearly, who needs understanding?"

If you can’t cut what you can see, are you even worthy of calling yourself a swordsman?

My shimmering blade tore through the fabric of space. The sword danced through the tangled, knotted threads of mana, severing a single critical point. It was the very flow I had been tracking all this time.

"Goodbye."

"..."

In the blink of an eye, the Sage, who had been standing before me, reappeared several meters away. He didn’t say a word.

He attempted to flee again, but every time, my blade intercepted the space he was heading for. Escape, intercept. Escape, intercept.

We repeated this dance five times before he finally stopped trying to leap.

"...This isn’t luck, is it?"

"Do you think this is something that could be done by luck? Shouldn’t you have realized that the moment you got dragged here?"

"Fair enough."

The Sage lowered the arm holding his staff. Had he given up, realizing escape was impossible?

"You’re not going to reconsider now, are you?"

No, he wasn’t surrendering.

Despite the absence of wind, his robes flared wildly.

"You already know my answer."

"Of course."

The mana surrounding him began to flow downward. His youthful appearance faded, replaced by the visage of an elderly man with a stern and heavy expression.

This was the true face of the man known as the Sage of the Empire.

"If only you had been born in the Empire. Fate truly is cruel."

"I don’t agree with you on much, but on that point, I can’t disagree."

"Could this, too, be Edel’s will...?"

"No."

I shook my head firmly.

"This is my will. Yours too."

Don’t even think about hiding behind the name of a god to justify yourself.

"Ha. Is that so."

That was the end of our conversation.

A silver stream of mana drew a line. Through the torn boundary, the faint night sky peeked through.

Flash—

Rooooooar—

A massive meteor, drifting through the night sky, pierced the boundary and descended to the ground.

Its immense mass, capable of crushing a castle with ease, pressed heavily on the air. Yet even as the colossal object loomed ever closer, my heart remained calm.

“I’ll return this to you.”

Just as the Sage had done, I raised my sword and swung it down. Three colors of mana unfurled, soft as paint dissolving in water, and tore through the fabric of space.

Beyond the rift in space, I glimpsed a vast, sturdy castle, numerous buildings, and well-maintained streets. It was an unfamiliar landscape to me, but...

Would it also be unfamiliar to them?

I had no time to dwell on my curiosity as the gaping void swallowed the blazing meteor.

‘Hmm.’

Even as the meteor descended toward the Imperial capital, the old man’s expression didn’t waver. Did he believe others could stop it?

Still, he didn’t seem entirely unconcerned. The spells he directed at me after that were noticeably smaller in scale. Not that they lacked lethality—they were just as dangerous as the meteor in their killing power.

Swish—

My crimson blade sliced through the shimmering mana. The silver energy, unable to coalesce into a spell, dispersed in all directions.

Crackle.

The dense mist dispersed, revealing flashes of crimson light, one after another. The spells surrounding me dissolved into pure mana, retreating completely.

But I didn’t stop there. With my left hand—unburdened by a weapon—I grasped at the air.

Crack, crackle!

The sound of paper crumpling echoed as the scenery warped. Between the distorted images, I caught glimpses of the old man.

Rip!

The ground beneath his feet yawned into a bottomless abyss just as a storm of frozen spears rushed toward me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the frigid air solidifying and shattering along the spears' trajectory. There were dozens of them, enough to make it feel like an ice age had descended in an instant.

Haa—

The breath I exhaled rose as a mist before freezing solid.

Below me, a bottomless pit. Around me, frozen spears sharp enough to pierce souls.

“...Heh.”

Laughter slipped out before I could stop it.

When it comes to battles involving weapons, there is no one who can best me. Not even weapons crafted from magic. If it takes the form of a spear, it cannot harm me.

I took a short, steadying breath.

Slash!

A single streak of light cut through one of the spears, splitting it in half.

One spear fell to the ground, but there were still dozens racing toward me.

I didn’t swing my sword again. I didn’t need to.

Shh, shh, shh!

Dozens of streaks of light wove through the spears like a spider spinning its web, ensnaring its prey.

There were exactly 45 streaks—matching the number of spears that had been halved and vanished.

Finally, I lifted my heel and stomped down hard on the ground.

Boom!

“Close your mouth—it reeks.”

The miasma, thick and greedy, swallowed the abyss that had sought to consume me.

Screeeech!

A grating noise scraped at my ears before abruptly stopping, and soft soil greeted my feet once more.

A mage thrives in prepared environments.

Even when unconscious, my body had wreaked havoc, yet the old man’s preparations had still held firm, keeping me on the defensive until now.

“My turn.”

That was over.

As the magical circle subtly revealed its intricate patterns, I stabbed my sword into it and launched myself forward with both legs.

Flash!

In an instant, the old man’s face, distant a moment ago, was right before me.

His long beard, stained with dried blood, irritated me to no end.

“Ahaha! What a sight!”

Wouldn’t it be even more amusing if his beard were dyed entirely red?

My crimson blade wavered, and in the next instant, it was pressing against his chest.

“...[Fall back]!”

A force lifted me off the ground. I didn’t resist. Instead, I spun midair a few times before landing gracefully.

Tap.

A perfect landing—ten out of ten. No need to adjust my balance.

I surged forward again, my long hair brushing against my back.

Swish!

As I closed the distance, I adjusted my grip on the sword, swinging it upward at an angle. The blade cleaved through the ground, exposing the earth beneath, but the old man’s flesh remained unscathed.

Instead, the sturdy barrier protecting him shattered into fragments, leaving a faint red line on his body.

If he’d tried to escape with spatial magic, he would’ve been cleaved in half.

Clicking my tongue in mild disappointment, I clenched the space around him with my free hand.

“Not bad for your age. Your knees don’t ache?”

The old man responded with heavy breaths rather than words.

Having spent so long cooped up in his nest, controlling clones, moving himself must’ve felt like torture. Even more so now that his spatial leaps were blocked, forcing him to run.

‘...It’s not enough.’

The memory of my father enduring unbearable pain flashed through my mind.

This wasn’t enough to repay the suffering he had endured.

“Let’s end this.”

I swallowed the hot, metallic blood rising in my throat.

‘I’m sorry, Dad.’

Even so, forgive me. I’ve done my best.

Swallowing my unspoken plea with the blood, I raised my sword.

The old man’s face stiffened as he realized the end was near.

‘The final stroke of the sword.’

The answer had already been decided.

A technique born from a will to soar, crafted as I broke free of the cage my parents’ name had bound me to.

The crimson blade, dragging along the ground, quivered. The smallest of birds, born from the lowest point, began to flap its wings.

It wavered, faltered, and broke—at times battered by silver winds—but the little bird never gave up.

Finally, as the bird fully spread its wings:

Canary Style – Flight (飛上)

A myriad of radiant colors spread as the blade sliced through the old man’s body.