D.I.O

Merlin kicked off the frozen sea and glided across the ice. Though the surface of the ice was slippery, Merlin was able to gain footing as if it were solid ground, and arrived in front of Heinkel in no time.

Crackle!!

Sparks flew as Merlin’s right hand, still glowing blue, collided with Heinkel’s magic barrier. The barrier was like an iron wall. Merlin could immediately tell that Heinkel had spent a lot of time and magic power to create it. Merlin also noticed that the source of the magic barrier was the bracelet that Heinkel wore on his arm.

‘Artifact?’

“How foolish. I still don’t understand how you were able to cast a wide area-of-effect spell, but did you really think you could contend against me in close combat?”

Heinkel sneered from behind the barrier as dark magic began to rise from his left hand. The amount of magic power Heinkel was using was easily more than Merlin’s total capacity. However, at that moment, Merlin’s hand, which was still pressed against Heinkel’s barrier, started glowing brighter.

Woong!

The magic barrier rippled like waves. Seeing this, Heinkel’s eyes turned fiery red.

“Ah, hahaha!! This is not even funny anymore. Human! I was wondering what you were up to, but using Spell Breaker? You’re trying to challenge me in magic systems! You really think you can go up against me, Heinkel, in foundational magic?”

Heinkel exuded an overwhelming sense of aura, and a clear intent to kill, but Merlin just smiled in response.

“Yeah.”

“Naive little fool!!”

After shouting angrily, Heinkel’s magic power infiltrated Merlin’s right hand and started enveloping Merlin’s blue magic power. This was a method called Erosion. Heinkel was able to start infiltrating and devouring Merlin’s magic power by fully controlling his own. However, before he could complete the Erosion, his magic barrier started to crack.

Crack.

“… What?”

Boom!

To his surprise, Heinkel’s magic barrier suddenly shattered like a stoneware vase hitting the floor. Reflexively, he blasted out the remaining parts of his magic barrier to push away Merlin’s approaching punch, but, as if he had planned for this all along, Merlin used the push force on his right arm to launch another punch with his left hand. His left arm shot forward like lightning.

“Ugh…!!”

Heinkel groaned in frustration. He was forced to use the dark magic he had gathered to construct another barrier, rather than launch an offensive attack as he had intended. Since he had little time, he was unable to create a finely crafted magic system barrier. This new barrier was essentially just a lump of dark magic power, of relatively low quality and possessing a short operating period. But, it had been crafted with dark magic, so it was still firm and seemingly impenetrable.

However, Heinkel felt that just having to respond this way was demeaning. For a being who had devoted his whole life to magic studies to use such a crude magic barrier to defend himself! This reactive, crude approach was not befitting of a high-level mage. It was something a non-intelligent species would do when faced with danger.

“You damn…!”

Having his pride damaged this way, Heinkel’s fiery eyes burned brighter. He had to preserve his remaining dignity by avoiding defeat. He was determined to block Merlin’s oncoming attack and then thoroughly destroy Merlin. Heinkel used his right hand to maintain his magic barrier, while he gathered more dark magic in his left. Once Merlin’s punch hit the magic barrier, he would be vulnerable for just a tenth of a second. Heinkel was planning on using that short window of time to counterstrike Merlin and turn him into ash. However, Merlin’s punch didn’t go straight for the center of Heinkel’s magic barrier as expected, but slightly above it.

Divine Tai Chi Hand.

“… What?”

There was no noise, but Heinkel felt as if he had heard something. With a sharp, high-pitched noise, Merlin’s golden fist went flying through Heinkel’s magic barrier. Rather than deflecting the punch, Heinkel’s magic barrier assimilated with Merlin’s fist, increasing its power even further. Soon, Merlin’s fist landed squarely on Heinkel’s chest.

“Later.”

“You bastard…”

Before he could finish, Heinkel turned into black smoke and scattered into the air. In Heinkel’s place, a spherical object hovered in the air. Merlin exclaimed when he realized that it was a drop item.

“Bracelet! Bracelet! Please give me that bracelet that he was wearing!”

However, what had dropped instead was a pair of boots. To be more specific, a pair of leather boots. The boots had a long shaft that rose up to the knees, like military-issued boots, and were a deep black. They were so black, they might have been completely invisible in a dark place.

“Is it a crap drop… no, it shouldn’t be. A Lich dropped this, so it’s probably pretty good, but…”

Merlin picked up the boots, which were very lightweight. He felt a dark, cool magic power emanating from the boots. He appraised the item.

@Image 3-5

“It looks pretty good, but the requirement is a problem. It’s not like I can just go out and get thirty points in the darkness attribute. It would have been nice to get something that perfectly fit my personal qualities, like that pair of glasses earlier… oh, that reminds me. That pair of glasses…”

Merlin opened his inventory and took out the A-tier rare-rated eyeglasses that he had obtained in the Seadragon’s Temple. The frame was a sleek black and had gold engravings, which gave it a premium-quality look. Without any hesitation, Merlin put on the glasses.

Cling!

“Huh?”

Merlin’s Enhanced Eyesight was limited by the glasses. In the corner of his vision, where he did not have to look through the lenses, he could still see with Enhanced Eyesight. But when he looked straight ahead through the eyewear’s lens, the ability failed to work fully. Enhanced Eyesight allowed Merlin to see tens of times better, but the glasses restricted this to just two or three times better. It had reduced his eyesight ability to 10% of its normal level, and it even cost more magic power to use Enhanced Eyesight while wearing them.

“Ah, my eyes hurt… I shouldn’t wear this.”

The eyewear was described as being for training purposes, but since Merlin didn’t feel the need to train his eyesight at the moment, he soon lost interest in the pair of glasses. He took off the pair of glasses and placed them back into his inventory. And at that moment…

Crack!

“… What?”

Kyak!

With a monstrous cry, the Kraken broke out from the ice that was covering it. The Kraken had lived through the undead’s attacks and Merlin’s Howling spell!

“I-I’m in trouble! I need to rush back into the water!”

Of course, since Merlin had the water attribute affinity, he could control the ice just as well as the water. However, he wouldn’t be able to maneuver as quickly through a solid medium. Hiding within the ice was an option, but the Kraken would likely smash the ice with its powerful tentacles. Merlin’s face paled as he rushed across the ice.

If the Kraken took a few seconds before launching an attack, Merlin felt that he’d be able to make it to the water, and to relative safety. However, if the Kraken immediately launched an attack, he was certain he’d be smashed flat like a pancake. While Merlin’s mind raced, the Kraken unfurled its tentacles and turned around.

Sss…

“Huh?”

Merlin didn’t know, but the Kraken had already made its decision. Due to fighting against the undead monsters and the effects of Merlin’s Howling spell, the Kraken had lost a third of its life bar. It had more than enough life left to continue fighting, and it certainly would have if it felt that its life was in danger. But, the seas were now calm, and the Kraken was programmed to only sink large ships and other vessels that tried to go beyond the boundaries of Dynamic Island, anyway. It was not ordered to kill users.

Crack. Sss. Crack!

The Kraken was simply going underwater, but its movement caused the ice to violently crush together and toss the sea, as the Kraken’s massive body caused the water to be displaced. However, rather than mind the destruction and chaos, Merlin peacefully watched the Kraken as it made its exit.

/As if one’s heart was burned, as if being cut by tears./

Music started playing in Merlin’s ear. The music quality sounded different than what one would hear from an MP3 file. The only connection between the world of DIO and the real world was currency conversion; turning gold into Won and vice-versa. It was impossible to download or receive a music file from the game to listen to in real-life.

What Merlin was listening to wasn’t something that he had downloaded or recorded in the real world to listen to in-game. Essentially, Merlin ‘recreated’ the entirety of the song, from the singer’s voice to the accompanying instruments and sounds, from memory.

Splash!

Diving into the water, Merlin started gathering the drop items that were scattered all over the place. Though there had been ten thousand monsters in the monster corps, there weren't ten thousand drop items. The Kraken had taken care of over half of the undead monster corps, most had died when the Dead Man’s Ship was splintered and crushed. About two thousand were still alive at the bottom of the sea, but the tremendous water pressure and the medium of water seemed to greatly restrict their movement. If they were living organisms, they would have drowned long ago. However, as they were undead monsters, they were alive. Furthermore, they retained most of their power.

‘I should just leave them alone.’

Since he had already used his Howling spell, Merlin would have had to contend with and dispatch the undead monsters individually. Of course, in the water, Merlin had the upper hand, but he didn’t have a way to kill off such a large group of monsters easily. Moreover, the two thousand or so undead monsters had grouped together, so if he approached them, it was likely that he would be counterattacked. Additionally, Merlin wouldn’t be able to launch long-range attacks using his bow. He couldn’t control water that was too far away from him, so he would be unable to part the water all the way so that his arrows could fly without added friction. On top of all that, there were still around a hundred undead mages. If they all launched magic attacks, even Merlin would have trouble avoiding being hit. If these monsters were all above water, Merlin could have thought of a way to defeat them. But in this situation, there was not much he could do.