The only difference was that Brad was a bona fide—homosexual!
So when he smiled at Rimuru, Rimuru immediately felt deeply uncomfortable. He didn't discriminate against gay people, but the thought of one being attracted to him still made him feel...
"I can't accept this!!!"
Altrouge had done this on purpose, hadn't she?! She'd deliberately kept the Black Knight from chasing him and sent this guy to make him sick?!
"I advise you to surrender." Brad's tone was less steady and resolute than the Black Knight's, and more steeped in a gentle malice. "Otherwise, I won't uphold the chivalric code the way the Black Knight did—"
"Tch." Rimuru narrowed his eyes slightly and glanced around—
"You don't need to look. Inside my Reality Marble, unless you defeat me or I run out of mana, you won't be able to escape."
Brad blew out a breath and smiled faintly. "Or, if you returned to the way you looked at first, I might show you some mercy—"
"..." At that, Rimuru fell silent for a few seconds, then suddenly took out Wuyin and tossed it into the water with a splash.
In an instant, Brad's expression turned puzzled. Then he felt the ground beneath his feet shift!
Boom! Boom! Boom!
As the rumbling grew louder, Brad's eyes widened as a massive whirlpool appeared in the sea.
"I just want to be a Magecraft user in peace. Why do you have to keep coming after me?" Rimuru lowered his head and spoke softly, his voice low. "Anyone but you—"
"What?" Brad stared in astonishment as one water dragon after another surged from the sea. Rimuru's coat was already soaked, and scarlet had completely overtaken his pupils. On his arms, his neck, and even his cheeks—
his fully activated Magic Circuits were blazing densely across his skin!
"If you're going to come after me, fine—but you had to open a Reality Marble, and of all places, it had to be the sea." Rimuru suddenly smiled and raised a hand. "Experience it for yourself. What it feels like when a Magecraft user with 173 Magic Circuits, specializing in water, stands in the middle of the ocean."
"Sink into the depths, captain of the Ghost Ship!"
Chapter 29: Unknown and Ignorant
The seawater inside Brad's Reality Marble wasn't a pure blue like the sky. It was a murky, churning green, like the abyss beneath the waves. The port, with its murky waters and swirling currents, reminded everyone but Rimuru of a game he'd been deeply impressed by in his previous life—Bilgewater.
Unfortunately, when Rimuru looked down again, even the last patch of land beneath his feet had turned into churning waves. The Reality Marble had completely overwhelmed reality. The entire world was nothing but waves, storms, ghosts, and mist.
In that vast expanse, Rimuru casually waved his hand. A raging storm and towering waves roared as they engulfed Brad's Ghost Ship—
However, Rimuru didn't expect that the storm and sea alone would cause Brad too much trouble.
Although the other man's Reality Marble had, by chance, given him a considerable advantage and the confidence to fight back, a Reality Marble was ultimately a domain—and this domain belonged to his opponent.
Its rules followed the owner's will.
And the most basic rule of a Ghost Ship was often that it could never sink.
Sure enough, after a roar of waves, the Ghost Ship, which had been battered down to the ocean floor by the towering waves, slowly floated back up. Brad finally stopped underestimating Rimuru and narrowed his eyes with a faint smile.
"When the creatures on land lose the ground beneath their feet, they either get swallowed by the sea or board a ship to fight." Brad watched Rimuru standing motionless atop a patch of ice on the sea. He extended a hand, and a standard knight's longsword appeared in it. The eerie green mist behind him surged together with a thunderous roar!
Massive bat wings, formed from mana, materialized in an instant and swooped toward Rimuru.
He understood, and so did Rimuru—the Ghost Crew's most terrifying quality was its endless supply of ghostly sailors, who couldn't be destroyed. So although Rimuru seemed to be using whirlpools and wave after wave to try to sink an unsinkable ship, in reality, he was like a skilled control mage.
He was frantically controlling the distance and restricting the ship's surroundings, forcing Brad to come out and fight him one-on-one.
The three ferocious, emerald water dragons gathered behind him hadn't moved at all. Clearly, they were meant for Brad.
"Can I win, Great Sage?"
The mana required to forcibly control the water in his opponent's Reality Marble was considerable. Even with a Phantasmal Species' natural advantage in mana and its ability to draw mana from the surrounding world, Rimuru couldn't sustain it for long.
Once he was caught in battle, if he couldn't finish the fight, he might have no way out.
Rimuru wasn't without a trump card to save his life... but...
Great Sage didn't answer, because there was no time. In the instant Rimuru's scarlet eyes blinked, Brad's figure swept past his ear at incredible speed, his bat wings beating furiously. Brad's standard longsword clashed with the Magic Blade in Rimuru's hand with a clang, and Rimuru's tremendous strength knocked Brad's one-handed sword aside. At the same time, Brad smiled gently and raised his free left hand. Blood gathered into a deep crimson claw!
Boom!
With Great Sage's help, Rimuru reacted swiftly and twisted aside, barely dodging the blood claw's attack on his chest. In exchange, three deep, crimson gashes appeared across his shoulder.
Rimuru hurriedly retreated, stinging with pain. When Great Sage knew so little about an opponent's attack patterns, it had no advantage in close combat—especially when his opponent was even faster than he was!
However, just as Altrouge had said, Brad was better at pursuing and killing his enemies, and he especially enjoyed... chasing them down!
Once his opponent showed weakness, slowing his assault and switching to a defensive stance, Brad immediately closed in, the corner of his mouth lifting. It meant his opponent had fallen into his offensive rhythm and was slowly being worn down to death!
Rimuru had prepared a backup plan. As he rapidly retreated to create distance, the seawater began to churn, and the three water dragons behind him roared and surged toward Brad.
This meant he was abandoning the Executor's hand-to-hand fighting style and returning to a Magecraft user's way of fighting—
He had no choice. Against an exceptionally skilled fighter and bizarre vampire Earl, Rimuru could only rely as much as possible on the natural advantage of a Magecraft workshop surrounded by seawater and fight from a fortified position!
But that played right into Brad's hands!
He didn't immediately destroy the water dragons. Instead, he turned into a ghost and let them pass through him, enduring some of their mana's effects, before forcibly flying toward Rimuru!
First, he wanted to press his advantage. Second, he wanted the water dragons to keep draining Rimuru's attention. A Magecraft user's familiars and summoned creatures weren't like the ghosts in his Reality Marble. The members of his Ghost Crew could all fight independently, but everything in a Magecraft user's workshop—
could only unleash its full power when the Magecraft user personally operated the traps and other preparations!
You could summon water dragons, control a giant whirlpool, and create storms?
Fine. But could you multitask? Could you do three things at once... or seven?
Thinking this, Brad charged at Rimuru without hesitation. He expected Rimuru to be in a momentary lapse of concentration as he controlled the water dragons—the brief instant when he wouldn't be able to react.
However, Rimuru had Great Sage. Multitasking was the most basic thing it could do!
So, under Brad's slightly startled gaze, slender water ropes, each no thicker than a thumb, emerged from the water in front of Rimuru as he retreated. Clear and transparent, they quickly wrapped around Brad from every direction. At the same time, several glowing seeds appeared in Rimuru's right hand. They burned into smoke, which surged into the ropes alongside a burst of Mana Burst.
Snap!
The water ropes glimmered, then suddenly tightened. They managed to trap Brad in his ghost form and dragged him underwater with a splash!
Mana Burst, combined once again with the Church's spirit-exorcising Magecraft.
Watching Brad get dragged underwater, Rimuru let out a small sigh of relief. He glanced at the wound on his shoulder, which still hadn't healed, and frowned. If he hadn't devoured a few Executors earlier, he wouldn't have had much of a way to deal with the Dead Apostles' strange abilities.
Rimuru was only immune to physical damage, but Brad's ghost form had passed through the water dragons while being completely immune to physical collisions. It was probably not quite as powerful as that masked man's intangibility, but it lasted longer.
He closed his eyes and sensed Brad struggling underwater. After silently creating a few more water prisons and seals, he turned around and gathered a weak purification spell in his hand. "Ultrasonic Regeneration didn't work. A curse?"
"That's why I hate these attacks that come with extra effects, you—"
"Boom!"
Before Rimuru could finish muttering, a burst of water exploded behind him. His pupils contracted, and he reacted instantly, pulling back the Magic Blade in his hand as it roared with flames. With a bizarre twist, he held it behind his back—
However, Brad didn't attack.
"Such a familiar move. You've already learned all of Sturt's techniques."
Brad's soft, even voice sounded beside Rimuru's ear. Rimuru slowly turned and saw that Brad had completely returned to his vampire form. His delicate, frail, blond-boy appearance had transformed into a grotesque face with crimson eyes, slit pupils, and bared fangs. His once-frail limbs had grown longer and more powerful, too.
"Tsk. Do all the Dead Apostle Ancestors transform? Are you some kind of magical-girl squad?" Rimuru mocked him without hesitation. "Why not show me a second transformation while you're at it?"
"It's simply easier to walk among humans in a human form." Brad seemed completely unfazed by the mockery. He shrugged—if those could still be called shoulders—and appeared to be easygoing.
"Still, I'd originally intended to bring you back alive. I rather liked your earlier, youthful appearance. But... it's been a while, and Princess of the Black seems to be getting impatient." As he spoke, he revealed a mark. Mana flickered on its surface. It appeared to be a communication contract shared only between him and Princess of the Black.
"Well, a corpse can be revived too... don't you think?"
As he spoke, the Ghost Ship in the distance finally stopped struggling against the storm. The crew began jumping straight into the sea, then ran across the water toward the two of them.
"..."
Rimuru blinked, suddenly overwhelmed by the urge to complain. "If ghosts can run across the sea, why the hell did you let them watch for so long?!"
"I wanted to wear down your mana," Brad replied with an easy smile. "Besides, I did want to try fighting you one-on-one..."
"..." But you're a summoner!
Rimuru was exhausted. In an instant, he canceled the whirlpool and downpour restraining the Ghost Ship, then fell silent.
He had indeed wasted a lot of mana because of it.
But he had no reason to complain. Their calculations had been going back and forth ever since the fight began.
A fight between evenly matched opponents was more like a game of strategy. Forget all that talk about first-level, second-level, or fifth-level thinking. The outcome of a battle between true experts often came down to one move—or one instant.
But that didn't mean their fights were quick and clean.
On the contrary, the decisive move that ended a fight required dozens of probing attacks and ambushes as groundwork—
Like the hidden magic spear those two brush-wielders had used against the Saber-faced King.
It was a little dishonorable, but when it came to a fight to the death, there was no point talking about holding back. If you didn't use your ultimate move at the start, it was only because you weren't sure it would work.
Put simply, it was like saying, "I don't think one ultimate move will kill you, so I'll use a few weaker skills to build up my passive effects and whittle down your health first."
But now, it seemed both sides had figured out what the other had up their sleeve. Brad might have lost the trade, but he felt he'd already uncovered Rimuru's trump cards, and was ready to—settle things in one decisive fight.
"Damn it." Rimuru sighed. The wound on his shoulder couldn't be treated, and the pain kept gnawing at his focus. Slimes were immune to physical attacks, but Brad's blood claw and its curse were clearly not physical attacks.
In that regard, his opponent had the advantage over him.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
With bursts of water, a translucent image of Rimuru appeared in front of every ghost. Amid the spray, each one drew a transparent two-handed greatsword.
For a moment, under Great Sage's control, hundreds of Rimuru's water clones managed to hold off the enemy's ghost army.
Rimuru didn't know whether the Ghost Ship's crew had strange skills or abilities that inflicted negative effects, so to be safe, he didn't want them getting too close.
"Oh..."
The sight clearly stunned Brad. "Honestly, your skill in Magecraft is astonishing. No wonder Princess of the Black thinks so highly of you... But a Magecraft user this powerful shouldn't be unknown—"
"It's not that I'm unknown..." Rimuru lowered his eyelids slightly. "Your master is interested in me, so she must have recognized me or heard of me... Which means you're the one who's ignorant—"
"I'd say I'm reasonably well-known... in the Magecraft world..."
"Ah, is that so? Then I suppose I am ignorant. I'm sorry." Brad smiled. His vampire face was grotesque, yet Rimuru tilted his head and found that, thanks to Brad's personality, it somehow had a peculiar charm.
But his appearance only made it clearer that he was confident of victory. He was obviously sure he had Rimuru beat.
Closing his eyes slightly, Rimuru raised his Magic Blade and ended the conversation himself.
Let's fight, Rimuru thought. He wasn't without a way to save his life: his other body, the one at the Clock Tower. That body was far more than a mere familiar. What Rimuru had said was true.
Slimes could split apart.
Ever since he'd used one of his split-off bodies to enhance Wuyin, Rimuru had spent the past month doing little else but researching ways to save his own life. He'd finally found inspiration in Touko's puppet Magecraft and created a split body like a lifebox, dividing himself in two.
But... to make sure his talent and foundations wouldn't be affected, Rimuru naturally hadn't split himself in half. As a result, the split body was only a tiny fraction as strong as his main body, and could only reach less than two-thirds of its fighting strength when controlled by the main body's mana.
If his main body died, his soul and consciousness could be reborn through the split body. His life would be saved, but even with Ultrasonic Regeneration, it would take at least five or six years to regain his original strength.
So unless he had no other choice, Rimuru truly didn't want to find out what it felt like to die.
Because it would leave him weakened for five or six years, and delay his journey home indefinitely!
Even if he had only an eighty-percent chance of losing... he still had to risk his life and fight!
Chapter 30: He Won't Be Coming Back
Bang! Bang! Bang!
A ghostly sailor, its skin a sickly green, pierced the exploding spray with a cannonball. The water slowly gathered again, taking Rimuru's shape once more.
The ghost army relentlessly wore away at Rimuru's limited mana, but it was stopped outside by an impenetrable defense. At the center—
A ghost's eerie sobbing drifted through the gloomy mist. The dark sky poured down mana-infused rain, but it couldn't wash away the fetid, swamp-like Mourning Mist that filled the air.
Within it, eerie and delicate figures clashed repeatedly. At one moment, the clear ring of metal rang out; at the next, a sword sank into flesh with a dull, painful thud.
"Roar!"
A crystal-clear giant hand suddenly appeared from beneath the sea. A water giant, nearly a hundred meters tall, surged upward with a howl, sending shock waves that swept away all the ghosts and soaking Brad's blond hair. His eerie, pallid face flashed with a grave expression, but he still smiled as he conjured a blood-red Magic Blade!
Slash!
Boom!
Before the towering hand could fall, the blood-red slash had already passed through the enormous body of the water elemental, splitting the sea behind it in two and revealing the reef lurking beneath. It also forced Rimuru out from where he'd been hiding underwater. Once more, he found himself targeted by Brad's slash and had to unleash the Magic Blade in his hand to block the blow that had split the sea.
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