I Became the Patron of Villains (Novel) - Chapter 30 - What Is a Duel Meant to Protect (2)

Chapter 30 – What Is a Duel Meant to Protect? (2)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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All eyes focused on Count Palladio.

The soldiers who had fallen into fear.

The knights who had fallen into despair.

Penia and Deus.

Even the giant standing before him.

[…]

The giant’s expressionless eyes looked at Alon.

Alon’s emotionless eyes looked back at the giant.

And then.

[Hah.]

A smile appeared on the giant’s lips.

[Ha ha ha ha ha ha!]

The mad laughter bursting from his mouth rang throughout the entire space as though it were pressing down on it.

It was laughter strong enough to shake the earth and make even the dead singing of despair fall silent.

Most of the living thought that the suddenly laughing giant was mocking them with contempt and scorn, but contrary to what they thought,

[Good. Good indeed, noble one!]

The giant’s laughter held boundless sincerity, joy, and ecstasy.

The atmosphere flowing from the giant’s body began to change.

From contempt to joy.

From joy to exhilaration.

And then,

[I, Ultultus, shall accept your duel beneath the great covenant!]

At the giant’s cry, the dead singing of despair all began moving in unison, forming a vast circle centered on Ultultus and Alon.

Drip. Drip.

Blood flowing down from among the dead stained the ground and drew the boundary.

Thus was born a blood-red coliseum.

Within the gray dueling ground shaped by blood and adorned by bloody flowers,

[By the great covenant, none may interfere with the sacred duel until it ends!]

And with that declaration, the bodies of the dead burst apart and formed walls of blood, while a deep smile spread across Ultultus’s face.

It was vivid ecstasy.

But by contrast, Alon’s face as he stood before him was endlessly expressionless.

But,

‘…I want to go home.’

behind that blank face, Alon was trembling pitifully.

* * *

As must be repeated again and again, the reason Alon came to the north was to kill the Outer God standing before him, Ultultus.

To do that, from the moment he heard the Outer God had awakened, Alon had prepared every item necessary to face him, and now he had reached the point where all that remained was execution.

But even though he had prepared everything, Alon’s mind was still feeling fear under the unimaginable pressure emanating from the Outer God.

‘…Stay calm.’

Even though he had clearly taken the Tonic of Distinction, which was meant to keep one’s mental state steady, Alon could only barely soothe his thoughts, and unlike his expressionless face, the heart pounding in his chest refused to settle.

Part of the reason was the instinctive pressure the Outer God radiated, but there was also one thing different from what he had expected.

‘Why has the incarnation process already progressed this far?’

Every Outer God, from the moment it descended, gradually adapted to reality over time and completed the process of becoming an incarnate god.

Ultultus should have been no different.

And yet, even so, Ultultus’s rate of incarnation was faster than Alon’s expectations.

Even though nearly a month should still have remained, the Outer God before him had very clearly reached the point where just a little more time would make him a complete incarnate god.

And that rapid pace of incarnation had never existed as a variable in Alon’s expectations.

Because the closer a god came to an incarnate god, the stronger it became.

[How curious. Noble one who bloomed amidst savagery, if one peers at you, why is it that you know our covenant even though you are not of the same age as us?]

As Alon recalled that point and swallowed against his dry throat, Ultultus questioned him.

But Alon no longer had enough room left to calmly receive those words.

‘Can I do this?’

Countless doubts and delusions rose in his mind.

Ultultus, now far stronger than Alon had expected, violently shook even the mind the potion was only barely maintaining.

But he soon cast aside that denial.

Because from the moment he had reached this point, he understood perfectly well that only one path remained for him to walk.

Even through Alon’s silence as he sorted out those wavering thoughts, Ultultus only spoke with a deeper smile, as though he were in an excellent mood.

[If you do not wish to speak, then so be it. You possess the right to choose that. Then shall we begin the sacred duel?]

As the giant’s smile deepened, his arm rose.

[The Babylonia duel.]

Ultultus began walking toward Alon.

Even though each step left noise and footprints in the bloodstained gray earth, Alon did not make a single move.

He simply stood still, waiting for the being before him.

And,

thud,

when Ultultus arrived in front of him with that great sound and raised his fist, Alon still remained silent and only watched him.

From far away, confused voices of the living began to rise, but he still kept silent and watched the giant’s actions.

The reason was,

‘rule.’

because moving or trying to flee in this situation would violate the rules of the great Babylonia duel that had existed in the forgotten age of the gods.

The rules of the Babylonia duel were only two.

1. The attacker and defender alternate, and the one defending cannot move.

2. The side that requested the duel yields the first strike.

This duel style, almost like a turn-based game, would lose all meaning if Alon took even a single step now.

And if that happened, he would lose his chance to deal with the Outer God before him.

Because without the restriction of a duel, there was no way he could ever kill the Outer God before him, a being that could kill even Master Knights in a single blow.

In other words, this duel was also the very constraint that made it possible for Alon to beat him.

“Fixation.”

That was why the only thing Alon could do here was defend.

A sphere formed before him.

“Compression.”

The condensed sphere concentrated into his left arm.

“Reinforcement.”

With the murmured phrase, what had condensed into Alon’s left arm began to shine with a thick light.

“Deepening.”

And with that final word and the hand seal completed immediately after,

Ultultus’s fist, beneath a deep smile, had already been drawn back.

His fist struck.

The world inside the range of that blow became vacuum for a moment.

And then.

KWA-BOOM.

After the delayed, ear-rending roar, gray dust spread everywhere.

“Impossible….”

They could see it.

A world in which nothing remained, centered on the place where Ultultus’s fist had landed.

A gigantic conical crater had been carved into the earth.

The gray-covered sky had split, and through it a violet sunset shone down on the land.

Overwhelming power.

As the living stared blankly at Ultultus standing beneath the sunset and began feeling despair together with reverence,

“Th-the count is still alive?”

“What? What do you mean…”

At one knight’s mutter, all eyes turned toward the conical space.

And then,

“Damn….”

with a low curse from one knight, everyone saw him.

Count Palladio, rising to his feet while blood poured from all over his body.

The count’s condition was no longer normal.

His right arm hung limp as though it no longer held any strength, and the blood streaming from all over his body seemed to announce that death had drawn very near.

Even so, Alon finally stood back in place while looking straight at the giant without showing even the slightest fragment of emotion.

The lotus-patterned pendant at the count’s neck crumbled into a handful of ash and vanished.

Then,

“All the conditions have been met.”

Count Palladio’s voice,

“I invoke Constraint.”

rang out.

* * *

The `Ring of Madness`, like the `Constraint` he had originally obtained, was an item that granted power in exchange for a price.

In the game, the difference was only that the item one obtained changed depending on whether the protagonist’s class was a mage or something else.

Beyond that, there were two other differences.

One was that, unlike the `Constraint` he had originally used, the ring provided four constraints at once.

The other was that, unlike the `Constraint` he had originally used, the activation condition for the ring was that the wearer had to be in a near-death state.

That was why every condition had now been fulfilled.

He had deliberately lured the Outer God into a duel that carried a constraint.

He had blocked pain beyond a certain threshold with the Lemiteon Potion.

Before stopping in Caliburn, he had obtained the one-use artifact `Pendant of Reincarnation`, which ensured that no matter what attack he received, he would take damage but never die instantly.

He had obsessively reinforced only his left hand so the potion would not shatter, then forced the healing potion he had been holding into his mouth.

Even fulfilling the final conditions for `Constraint` through that.

“…Proceed.”

Within the time in which everything seemed to have stopped, after completing `Constraint`, Alon looked ahead.

There stood the giant, full of deep ecstasy, arms spread and not moving a single step.

As though waiting for Alon’s attack, the giant remained there unmoving, and Alon, looking at him, staggered and raised his intact left hand forward.

‘I took too long getting the Lemiteon Potion and almost didn’t bring it. If I hadn’t had it, I wouldn’t even have been able to stand up.’

That thought escaped amid the faint pain.

Even after taking the Lemiteon Potion that blocked pain and forcing a top-grade recovery potion into his mouth, Alon’s body was naturally still ruined.

Unless it were an elixir, there was no way to immediately heal Alon’s body.

But at least for now, the simple fact that he could raise his left hand was enough.

The giant, who treated duel as sacred and had obtained honor precisely because he had reached the far end of savagery, would neither interfere with nor dodge his attack.

Even if that attack required an absurd amount of time to prepare.

“Hoo.”

As he watched mana haze rise from the raised hand and twist itself into a spiral, Alon recalled the constraints he had just invoked and smiled crookedly behind his blank face.

Because `Constraint` granted a greater reward for a greater restriction, what he had invoked this time had become even more limited than his original plan.

Ultultus’s rapid incarnation had made him stronger than Alon had anticipated.

But.

Precisely because of that, Alon could now be certain.

That this strike would reach the Outer God.

Kiki-kiiiiik.

Looking at the electric current beginning to spin in a spiral with that grotesque shriek, Alon recalled the four constraints with a low murmur.

“Refraction.”

First constraint. May the laws of the world be twisted when this magic is used in a land of extreme cold.

“Single Point.”

Second constraint. May the laws of the world be twisted when this magic is used while in a near-death state.

“Compression.”

Third constraint. When facing a god with magic, may the laws of the world be twisted.

“Extinction.”

Fourth constraint.

When facing the great god of duels, Ultultus, with magic,

may the laws of the world be twisted.

Alon looked forward.

Before his hand a great line of lightning had been formed.

Thin.

Long.

A red line of lightning, shining violet beneath the sunset.

Gray mana flowed like smoke from the bracelet on his left hand and wrapped around the red line of lightning.

In the eyes of the knights and soldiers, Alon stood with the sunset at his back.

In the eyes of Deus and Penia, two eyes that had appeared behind Alon were engraved together with that sunset light.

With that,

“Silent Line.”

With Alon’s murmur, a pure white flash shot toward the giant wearing a deep smile.

KWA————-!!!

For a brief moment, the gray earth regained the appearance of a white snowfield.