Master’s Smile

The force was enough to easily blow off a human arm, but for Lintz, who was now a demon, it was only able to stagger his huge body.

“Ritter! Are you fine using your demonic power…?”

“…Fine.”

Ritter replied to Neena’s worry.

In truth, her body was still not in perfect condition and she wouldn’t be able to fight for a long time.

Nevertheless, if she did not fight here, her master, who was very enthusiastic about their escort duty, would fail his mission.

If that happened, he might be disheartened.

That’s the one thing she could not let happen.

“I~hihihihihihihihi!!! I love it, I love it~!!! The demon I created and the demon Ritter-san possesses. Which one of them is stronger, I wonder~!?”

While Wissen was laughing hysterically, Lintz, who had his arm repelled, turned his gaze downward.

How dare a small human get in his way.

With that thought in his mind, Lintz swung his arm down once again.

This time, he did not just casually swing it like he did to the knights and Neena.

He swung hard with the clear intent to kill.

Ritter also clenched her left fist, which had become demonic, and intercepted Lintz’s arm.

“Kuh….”

With a smacking sound, Ritter was blown backward.

Lintz, too, was unable to launch a follow-up attack as his body was also thrown back far from her.

It seemed as if both of them were injured, but in actuality, Ritter felt a pain running down her left arm.

Wissen, who had been watching her closely as she glanced at her left arm, laughed eerily again.

“Ihihihihi!!! Well, of course Prince Lintz would win~!! Judging by your appearance, Ritter-san only has one demon in your body! Meanwhile, the liquid that the prince had drunk contained several low-ranked demons that I had created~! In other words~, Prince Lintz is now being possessed by several demons~!!!”

Indeed, Lintz was able to gain tremendous power thanks to this.

However, it resulted in him losing his human speech and becoming a monster that only wields raw power.

“You! How dare you give such a thing to my brother…!!!”

Neena expressed her anger.

No matter how hostile he was and no matter how incomprehensible his ideology was, Lintz was still her brother.

She would never be this furious at him for preying on his own family.

But Wissen only scoffed at her argument.

“Oh, dear, please don’t blame it all on me~! It was Prince Lintz himself who sought power in order to become the king and I only helped him ju~st a bit to achieve that. Seeing that his body was taken over by the demons and he lost consciousness was only because he was weak!!”

“……!!!”

Neena wanted to deny all of Wissen’s words, yet she couldn’t.

Like her, Lintz should have competed for the throne fairly and squarely.

Yet, it was Lintz who had poisoned the current king and allowed Wissen to conduct inhumane research and experiments in order to obtain demonic power.

It was, so to speak, karmic retribution.

“Now, Prince Lintz! Isn’t this the time to be the king you always wanted to be!?!”

“OOOOOOOOOOOOHHH!!!”

Lintz roared in response to Wissen’s words.

He then swung his arms in all directions, many times faster than before.

Part of Neena’s estate was blown away, and gales of wind, similar to when Theldorff was using his magic sword, blew violently.

“Ugh…kuh…!”

Ritter managed to defend against it by using her left arm, but her face was distorted, albeit thinly, due to Lintz’s power.

She could only exercise her demonic power in her left arm, whereas Lintz, who had already lost his human consciousness, was possessed by the demons all over his body.

Without any restrictions, he was able to wield his power to the fullest.

Moreover, that power was also tremendous.

Meanwhile, Ritter’s left arm was the only thing that could fight against him.

Alas, she, who had to fight while protecting her body except for her left arm, was completely pushed back by Lintz.

“I~hihihihihihi! As expected from the skilled fighter who defeated the strongest knight in the kingdom. If that’s the case, then~….”

Wissen said so and snapped his fingers.

Hearing that, Lintz stopped swinging his arms.

“……?”

Ritter stared at him, questioning what he was trying to do, and soon after, Lintz opened his mouth.

His mouth, too, was not that of a human, and his lips were nonexistent.

The back of his mouth, hidden by his fangs, was as dark as the void.

Then, a dim light converged inside of it.

“W-What is that amount of mana…?”

Neena sensed the enormous amount of mana contained in the light and was astonished.

“Ihihihihihi!!! He’s a demon, so of course he can use magic~…!”

Ritter and Neena no longer care about Wissen, whose face was contorted in delight.

Considering the amount of light that is converging inside Lintz’s mouth, they analyzed how much damage would be done when it was unleashed.

Even Neena, who was not that knowledgeable about magic, understood that not only her estate, but also the surroundings within a radius of several hundred meters would be blown away by the explosion.

“Run-…!!”

“Too bad. It’s too late now~”

Wissen interrupted Neena’s words and told her the cruel reality.

As he replied, Lintz stopped the convergence of the light.

“Now then! It’s time to defeat the princess, Prince Lintz!!”

“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHH!!!”

With a roar, Lintz unleashed the beam.

He shot the dim-glowing beam towards Ritter and Neena as if to swallow them.

“Flood.”

Ritter, too, was not to be outdone, and she used her own demonic magic.

It was a heinous magic that would make everything disappear.

The huge beam that Lintz shot should disappear with this, or so she thought….

“Kuh…!!”

The magic that Ritter unleashed could not extinguish the beam.

All she could do was to make his beam and her Flood collide and push against each other.

The dark magic, Flood, wriggled to swallow the beam, but the beam intensified its brilliance to purify the darkness.

“I~hihihihihi! Amazing~ How can such a slender body stop a combined magic attack of several demons? Still~…, I wonder, how long can you last~…?”

“Guh…!?”

The beam increased its output power once again.

In the end, her dark magic gradually began to be pushed back.

Essentially, even if she couldn’t overcome the beam, Ritter would still have been able to at least offset it.

However, she, who was yet to be in perfect condition after using her demonic power once before in the duel against Theldorff, was currently unable to do so.

“…Looks like Ritter-san will be the first to die~”

The next moment Wissen said so, Ritter’s Flood was finally drowned out by Lintz’s beam.

“RITTER!!”

Along with Neena’s shriek-like calling, Ritter was finally swallowed by the light.