Chapter 589: Being Hunted

Translator: imperfectluck  Editor: Kurisu

“Return!”

I then unhesitatingly exited my bug-like personal Hell world. Now that Conservation and I had openly turned against each other, it would be the utmost foolishness to stay here and be attacked simultaneously by two powerful enemies. No, that wouldn’t be foolish, it would be suicidal.

The next instant, I appeared by myself in the middle of the sky above the Hass Oasis city. All around me were confused aerial knights and mages.

They had immediately flown here upon hearing the emergency alarm. However, the devil culprit suddenly disappeared, and this young knight in front of them appeared to be a friend rather than an enemy. The leader of the aerial knights tried asking me what happened.

“Sir—”

“Back away, it’s not over yet!”

His cautious and polite inquiry was answered with an angry roar. The aerial knight leader, who wore a yellow crown, now had an angry expression. But, before he could say anything out of dissatisfaction, he lost the ability to speak forever.

The aerial knight leader choked his own throat as his eyes rolled around while he foamed at the mouth. He killed himself before he could even make any screams of pain.

The other mages and aerial knights reacted similarly. They either killed themselves with their swords, or crushed their own vitals. They all had pitiful deaths that seemed very mysterious.

“What type of curse is this?”

“Who knows? We Gold Elves were no experts in curse magic. Perhaps it might even be the effect of Lasnina’s personal domain. These ordinary people don’t have such high magic resistance like yours.”

I had a bout of sudden realization. The aura of curses was still strong in the sky. Although Lasnina’s curse demon creatures had also been pulled into my world, just the aura they left behind would be far too much for these novice tiefling knights and mages to deal with.

To use an analogy, this was like a fight between an ice magic archmage and the Water Elemental Goddess. While the two having the fight would still be fine, anyone else around them would end up either frozen or drowned to death.

The Hass Oasis tiefling city was now in utter panic. Large amounts of tieflings were abandoning everything they had as they furiously ran out of the city. The veterans among them could tell that two powerful individuals strong enough to be dimensional rulers had chosen this location as a battlefield, meaning that there would be no hope left for this city.

“Tsk.”

I was quite displeased as I waved my wings and flew up into the clouds.

“ROLAND!”

As I expected, Lasnina suddenly appeared behind me in the next instant. Since my personal world didn’t have the power to lock my enemies inside, Lasnina had been able to find her way out in just a short ten or so seconds.

Originally, I had only wanted to fight in the clouds in order to avoid affecting the Hass Oasis too much. But, when I entered the clouds, I suddenly stopped as I had a new idea.

“Ice magic is an evolution of water magic. In the magical theory of Eich, although there’s no such thing as cloud magic, clouds are indeed an extension of the concept of water. Perhaps…”

I stepped into the clouds, changing the water vapor within them to ice that I casually tossed behind me.

“ROLAND!”

The angry roar coming from behind me indicated that I had apparently hit Lasnina.

And so…

I now focused fully on stepping amongst the clouds, leaving ice rain, ice needles, ice bullets, and ice flowers behind everywhere.

These instantly summoned ice shards lacked attack power. However, I hadn’t counted on being able to kill Lasnina so easily in the first place.

What I intended was…

“Ro… land… you… co… ward…”

Although Lasnina’s words sounded full of stuttering and quite awkward, she wouldn’t notice a thing at all. Of course, this was because my [Hibernation Chill] ability was taking effect on her. Her sense of time was now being slowed down.

However, just this alone would be unable to change the fact that she was far more powerful than I was.

I left the power of my [Hibernation Chill] behind in each and every cloud. Every time she passed through a cloud, the chill would affect her and bring her one step closer to defeat.

Perhaps I had unintentionally discovered an excellent new strategy with nice effects.

The slowing of Lasnina’s senses naturally served to greatly slow Lasnina’s speed. Meanwhile, I intentionally lowered my own speed and kept the same distance between us. Although she was unable to catch me, I still gave her false hope that she could. This was the most basic kiting strategy.

“I… can’t… catch him… have I… been… slowed…?”

Lasnina dripped her own blood in the air. She then confirmed that her own sense of time had been slowed when she saw that her blood dripped faster than she anticipated.

Her stuttering words sounded rather comical, but revealed an astonishing amount. She knew about my ability? Impossible! This ability of mine was one of my top-secret trump cards. Anyone who had experienced my [Hibernation Chill] should have been dead already. No, wait, there was one person who was still alive and well.

“Conservation!”

The answer was quite obvious now. Even though I had never said anything about my own ability, I had already exposed many of my abilities after two fights with Conservation.

This information leakage caused me to be at a disadvantage. My planned trap to kill Lasnina with [Hibernation Chill] was now rendered completely useless. Lasnina also seemed to become the proactive one in this battle.

What would she do now that she knew that her senses were being slowed?

Forcefully attack me? That would make her be at a disadvantage instead.

Hide until the slowing effects wore off? Then, I would escape far away quite easily.

My senses continuously locked on to the devil behind me. Suddenly, Lasnina’s aura completely vanished. She then reappeared with an evidently weakened aura.

“…Did she commit suicide? Or, did she tear off a part of herself?”

I was unable to tell what she had done. It seemed that she had broken free from the effects of the sensory slowing. But, no matter what, it would be correct of me to keep my distance from her. If she wanted to chase after me, she would be slowed all over again.

However, Lasnina suddenly turned around and flew down towards the ground. Was she heading towards the Hass Oasis?

“Ha, who do you think I am? Would Yongye care about the lives of such trifling existences?”

“…That woman told me you would! She said that Yongye is far weaker and softer than normal Undead Emperors, that you actually feel sympathy and compassion for ordinary people!”

One’s worst mortal enemy would forever understand you better than your best friend. At this moment, I truly realized how true this saying was.

“Damn it!”

Just as I turned around, I suddenly backflipped three times in midair as my heart was almost pierced through by a magic sword that suddenly shot through the clouds.

A venomous blood-red snake peeked out from the clouds. This sudden ambush had been swift and accurate, as if… as if it had already locked onto my position, waiting to ambush me at this exact location!

I looked around, and saw Lasnina amongst the clouds.

She was holding onto a soulfire skull that had tightly locked onto my location. This was an undead magical compass that had probably locked onto my aura of life.

Obviously, Conservation knew that I was able to instantly enter and leave my personal world as I pleased. It would be far too difficult for her to kill me there, so she was hoping that I would ask her to help me when I met with a strong enemy from the very start. Thus, Conservation had prepared many methods to help my enemy.

Of course, helping my enemy would also mean helping herself to meet her own death as the price.

“She gave Lasnina information and magic items. What else could there be?”

This time, I had indeed shot myself in the foot. I had underestimated how much Conservation hated me. Sheesh, women were truly such strange creatures with no sense of logic or reason whatsoever.

“Hey, you shouldn’t paint all women with the same brush.”

Harloys flew over to me by herself. She also knew that the current situation wasn’t good. Was she intending on intervening now?

We weren’t facing only Lasnina anymore. We also had to be on guard against Conservation’s tricks and traps. We would have to be absolutely careful.

“Roland, Little Red’s egg is moving.”

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