A frightening amount of severed limbs were scattered on the grassy earth, dying its verdant essence with sanguine marks. Hands, feet, arms, and legs—no one would ever think those human appendages came from a single person.
Beyond the intense war lies the match between Astley’s crown prince, Richard XVI, and Raphael Raevender. But if any eye could see the duel, they would not be able to consider it a match; for them, it was a one-sided massacre.
“Pant… Pant…”
Covered in his own blood, Richard was desperately running across the grassy plain as he was trying to escape from someone. No matter where he went, through running or teleporting, Raphael was able to catch him up before one of his limbs separated from his body.
Richard tried to fight back with either magic or a blade, but they were not enough to stop Raphael and were easily countered. Even soul-damaging spells seemed ineffective. He already spammed Bastion of Glory many times and barely blocked some of his attacks, but the technique had a cooldown and was only effective for a second.
He had used all the data crystals, and his power had already stopped rising several minutes ago. He peaked at Level 1000, almost a High Human-level strength. Even with mastery of both martial arts and magic, he was still a child compared to his opponent. His only salvation to keep moving was the Infinite Regeneration.
Splat!
“AAHH!!!”
With just a single fluid swing of the sword, Richard’s right arm was cleanly cut off anew. He agonized in excruciating pain, as he almost had no pain-relieving abilities. He left his severed arm behind and focused on regeneration instead.
However, as soon as his limb somewhat recovered, Raphael immediately sliced the other arm again and repeated. They had been doing the cycle for a while, and Richard could not think if that torture would ever come to an end.
Splat!
“AHHH!”
When Raphael targeted his right leg, Richard stumbled to the ground. As he was growing his leg back, he rolled his body in order to face his opponent, and Raphael graciously landed before his body.
“Now, after going through this torture, you still won’t spill the beans?” 𝘳.𝑐ℴ
“Like hell, I would! No matter how much you inflict pain on me, as long as I don’t die, I have no reason for me to confess!”
“How stubborn you are.”
Raphael would have ended Richard’s suffering by cutting out the source of his powers through Absolute Severance. But there was a probability that the one he borrowed power from was remotely watching the fight. Exposing his cards would not be a good thing.
Due to the fact that the source could not be tracked and the capability to share powers with someone, Raphael thought that the one behind the curtains was a powerful individual, probably much more powerful than his parents.
He even remembered that particular incident when he fought that Amphiptere, which resorted to him using his hidden card. As well as the one to whom Czarina, a powerful Ancient Dragon, feared the most, or the man that Rubina the Nightmare served.
Those circumstances might be related to each other or might not be. This case might be conducted by the same individuals or a new person. He could not have to make the same mistake again, so he had been thinking of a way to cut off the power source for the prince.
“Malignant Darkness! Dark Spear!”
“Holy Light. Light Shield.”
Richard fired a dark magic spell, and Raphael blocked it with a spell of the superior element. The Dark Spear was enhanced with soul-damaging properties, so Raphael enhanced his spell as well. As the law of primary elements stated, the light dispersed the dark.
“Okay. If those borrowed powers are your pride, I will strip them away from you, then.”
“Ha! Even the likes of you or your parents could not do anything against this power! Do you think you could do that?!”
“Yes.”
A few seconds before Richard could fully regenerate his feet, Raphael instantly teleported behind the prince and tapped his left shoulder. Before Richard could even react, the two of them vanished on their spot, leaving the prince’s parts and blood.
◆◇◆◇◆◇
“Huh? What happened?”
Once he opened his eyes, Richard realized that the scene before his eyes suddenly changed from the grassy plain to a gloomy wall of stone slabs. He eventually realized he was in an enclosed chamber. He turned his head around and saw Raphael behind him, nodding his head as he crossed his arms.
“It seems that my theory is right.”
“Where are we, brat?!” he furiously asked. “What is this place?!”
The prince immediately stood up and stepped back to distance himself from Raphael. But for some reason, he could not walk properly, and he felt strange.
“Look at your feet, Your Highness.”
Upon looking at his feet, he realized that his amputated leg had stopped regenerating, with blood dripping out of the exposed flesh and bone. Richard was horrified by that, and the pain he had been sustaining awfully got worse.
“Aaahhh!!!” He yelled as he staggered backwards until his back hit the cold stone wall. “What did you do, you bastard?!”
“Simple, I removed your borrowed powers.”
When Richard checked his stats, his Level turned back to normal, and the skills, techniques, and magic spells instantly disappeared like bubbles.
“But how?! Cutting the connection between me and that person is supposed to be impossible! It doesn’t matter how far I am from the source!”
“Well, it is true that severing the connection is quite impossible. But there are actually ways to do it.”
Aside from using Absolute Severance, Raphael theorized a way to cut the source. That way was to isolate Richard from the source. However, just as Richard stated, even putting him on the other side of the planet, opposite the source, was ineffective.
But Raphael had another way of isolating the prince—an isolation that would absolutely separate him from the world. With that, he brought Richard under the jurisdiction of a dungeon. Currently, they were on one of the extra floors of the 20-floored dungeon Raphael and his clones conquered.
“But what did you actually do?!”
“I apologize that I am not able to tell you that.”
“You basta—Ack! Cough…! Cough…!”
Suddenly, Richard started coughing and began to spew out blood from his mouth. As soon as those immense powers had been stripped away from him, the toll of the aftermath began to occur in his body.
“Well, I suppose that there is a price in exchange for that power. From what I could see, your life expectancy seems to plummet. Is the cost of those powers your life?”
“Cough… Cough…”
Unable to maintain his strength, Richard collapsed and got all fours to the floor. His breathing became heavy, and blood continued to gust out of his mouth. The more blood spilled on the floor, the worse his condition.
“I still have many questions to ask, so I won’t let you die right now.”
After that, Raphael thrust both his hands and continuously cast Light Magic Level 5: High Heal upon the dying prince. The spell seemed to slow down the rate of his death, so he immediately started looking for answers before he lost his life.
“Excuse me.”
As he was healing Richard, Raphael patted his back and closed his eyes. He then immediately used the Nightmare’s racial skill, Mind Dive, which required physical contact to work, and began his journey into the prince’s memories.
Finding the exact moment was difficult, especially when Richard’s lifespan drastically decreased after losing the borrowed powers, so Raphael better scanned his memory as fast as possible.
“Oh, I see. So you have no personal meeting with that person, huh, just an envoy, who probably has escaped the kingdom right now.”
As Raphael could read, the prince actually never met the person; they were just communicating through a messenger. From his memories, he was approached by the other party a few years ago, and they offered him basically anything he desired.
They wanted Richard to become the king for future transactions on a larger scale. It seemed they wanted to spread their influence in the kingdom of Astley. Raphael concluded that it might be related to the Five-Headed Hydra since it was a huge syndicate and even had a base within the kingdom.
“So that’s everything you got.”
“What…? You could read memories…? Cough!”
After acquiring enough information, Raphael ultimately canceled the healing spell. Almost immediately, Richard’s body started to wrinkle, and his muscle mass shrank as if getting older in a fast-forward motion. In a matter of seconds, his body completely withered, and the crown prince of Astley finally lost his life.
“Well, I guess I have to make up a reasonable story behind his death.”
Afterwards, Raphael brought the body of the prince back to the kingdom and announced that the prince had died from overusing his powers. Later on, the royal army declared its defeat, and the civil war officially ended with Paul’s victory.
𝘪𝑎.𝘤𝑜𝑚