298 Elf Village Battle

As the robot begins to regenerate the broken drill, I grab its head and immediately sink my teeth into it. The bitter taste of metal spreads through my mouth. That only lasts for a moment though, as what I had bitten off in my mouth is disintegrated, and transformed into pure energy.

My Gluttony skill works properly within my mouth at least. While it means I need to get things into my mouth first, so long as I can get it into my mouth then it gets disintegrated into energy no matter what it is, and I can then absorb that. It makes no difference that its built to be an anti-god robot. While the amount of energy that I can snatch in one mouthful is small, it should be more efficient than simply continuing to punch it endlessly.

Ive already figured out the rough design of this robot. At any rate its a war-of-attrition type that has been infused with plenty of energy. Relying upon its quantity of energy, its made to be tough enough to instantly regenerate no matter how hard its beaten up. Excess functions are excluded, and its specialised only in efficiency. At the same time the combination of the magecraft jamming field and the poisonous gas exhausts the opponent. I see, I see. It might be in a roundabout way, but if you consider what kind of strategy has the potential of defeating a god, it makes pretty good sense. Even while Im actually using Humility, its still a real struggle. As for whether it would really work in practice against Gyuri I dont know, but what I can tell is that Potimas has really thought long and hard about perfecting this battle formation. Precisely for that reason, and because I am the opponent, that will be the reason for its defeat.

I thrust into the robots torso with a spear hand. Then, I activate magic inside the robots body. The magecraft jamming field is not omnipotent either. For the interior of living bodies inside the field, and in particular, for the interior of allies where the activation of magecraft must not be jammed, the effect does not reach. Well of course, since the robot regenerates using magecraft, jamming that would turn it into a simple lump of metal. Unlike Shiro-chan, Im not capable of actually analysing the construction for neutralising the magecraft jamming on the robot, but even without such laborious methods I am able to activate magic. So long as its inside the robot.

What I activated, was level 10 Heresy Magic. Its name is Soul Break. Heresy Magic is magic that directly acts upon the opponents soul. And, Soul Break is magic that destroys the opponents soul. I drive that into the robot.

The robot becomes wild as if it hated that, and it slams the side of my face. Along with a nasty sound of my cheekbones breaking, Im blown away and separated from the robot. I quickly regain my stance, watching out for pursuit from the robot. However, the pursuit doesnt come, and instead the robot took a vigilant stance as if being cautious.

That worked, huh. Well, it was something I already knew about already. Energy dwells within the soul. Without the container called the soul, the energy will quickly dissipate. The ones with an extremely large soul container are gods. To kill a god, you either need to destroy the container called the soul, or to cause all the energy inside it to be consumed.

Potimas chose the method of causing the energy to be consumed. He chose it, or rather, he didnt have any other method available. Like I just did, its also possible to use Soul Break to destroy the soul. However, thats simply because I could borrow the Systems power. Without the Systems support I cant use Soul Break. Even Shiro-chan has yet to be able to reproduce Soul Break after all. So Potimas also wouldnt be able to reproduce Soul Break without the Systems assistance. Therefore, Potimas could only choose a different method.

Its not like Potimas wouldnt be able to use Soul Break either. All hed have to do is make the elves learn Heresy Magic after all. However, Potimas would never choose to do that. After all, Potimas doesnt even trust the elves either. To Potimas, the elves are convenient tools. Tools that must be safe to use. Thus, he wont let them learn anything that could become even slightly harmful to him. So for Potimas, Heresy Magic is a two-edged sword. That my Heresy Magic worked on the robot is good proof of that. Against this robot which is Potimass secret weapon, since Heresy Magic is effective, it should also be effective against Potimas himself. In the theoretical case where Gyuri was the opponent, having one or two people learn Heresy Magic would be a drop in the bucket. Taking on him would surely require hundreds of people to learn it else it likely wouldnt be effective enough. If Potimas had that many people learn Heresy Magic, then what if they rose in revolt against him? Since he would worry about such things, he wouldnt be able to take such measures.

Its often said that its lonely being a king, but its a bit different with Potimas. Hes alone by choice. Hes satisfied with being shut in his confined miniature garden. Because as long as hes inside that miniature garden, he can be number one. Because as long as hes inside that miniature garden, whatever he does is forgiven. Really, what a petty man. Because of which, hes a sleazebag.

Potimas. To make this robot, just how many peoples souls were used?

Since I can hear Potimas muttered groans over the speakers, Im not expecting some kind of decent reply. However, I just wasnt able to keep quiet. Energy dwells within souls. Since it has energy, it means that this robot has souls within it. Also, there is a threshold for how much energy can be saved up in souls. A threshold that Potimas and I were unable to exceed. This robot was specifically granted energy under the assumption that Gyuri was the opponent. That amount of energy cannot possibly be retained by a single persons soul. If hed been able to do that, then Potimas would have become a god long ago. Therefore, this robot has several, no, several dozen peoples souls infused into it. All their souls have been reconstructed into this metal body.

I pity you all. But, I wont go easy on you. For Soul Break to destroy a soul, it means that it returns to nothingness rather than rejoining the cycle of reincarnation. Quite literally, a heretical magic. Even so, I will not hesitate in making use of this. Its not like I have the luxury to choose otherwise either. Gluttony and Soul Break, and finally the time limited Humility. I will used these to overcome Potimas.

Sorry.

To these pitiful souls that were reduced to a weapon I give a single word of apology, then I took a step forwards.

Translation notes:

Soul Break skills with this word () have appeared before, though not in pure spell form. Eg the Evil Eye of Soul Break in chapter 119 or how the Heresy Attack skill uses the Soul Break attribute in chapter 110. Break Soul or Rend Soul would be a more literal translation though.

Quite literally, a heretical magic the Japanese word for heresy or heretical more literally means off the [proper] path. As Ariel said, it takes souls outside the (proper) cycle of reincarnation.