132 — Understanding

Ashid’s combat style was overwhelmingly long-range.

He preferred a fighting style where he relied on his aptitude to use grand magic and crushed his enemies with its overwhelming firepower.

And opponents like that were extremely compatible with me.

“Chaos Flare!”

The moment Ashid cast his spell, I took a large number of Wood Golems out of the Harvest Bag.

Ashid’s magic lost its power after piercing through the fifth Wood Golem.

Huh, its power didn’t seem as high as I’d thought.

I took a Dark Wood Golem out of the Harvest Bag,

“Fire!”

Since it was hard for Ashid to fight while holding back, I decided to face him with my full strength.

I took Dark Wood Golems out of the Harvest Bag and had them fire Black Projectiles.

“Tch, Wind Blast!”

Ashid met the Black Projectiles with attack magic.

His attack apparently had more power, and his wind magic shot down every Black Projectile and kept charging straight ahead.

But there were already no Wood Golems there anymore.

That was because I had put them back into the Harvest Bag and then used teleportation to take my distance.

“Then next, let’s buy some time.”

Using teleportation as I moved, I kept taking out more than a hundred Wood Golems so that they surrounded Ashid.

“Tempest Cyclone! Tidal Wave! Grand Bind OOOOOOOH!!”

While Ashid was attacking them, I placed Dark Wood Golems at long range and had them keep firing Black Projectiles nonstop.

Whenever the number of Wood Golems decreased, I replenished them while continuing my preparations.

—Among the golems I could produce through fusion, new variations called the Holy Wood Golem and the Dark Wood Golem had been added.

By bringing all of them out, I had succeeded in creating a new golem that surpassed the Frazard Wood Golem.

Fire, water, wind, earth, light, and darkness.

The strongest Wood Golem, created by breeding and fusing together Element Wood Golems of all six attributes.

Its name was—

“Iridescent Wood Golem!”

With a heavy rumble that shook the ground, the golem that appeared was smaller than a normal Wood Golem.

Its body shone with rainbow colors, and it was only about the same height as me standing beside it.

But its body was extremely heavy, and its feet were sinking into the soil.

I didn’t know why, but when a Dark Wood Golem was mixed in, the body ended up becoming smaller.

Its density seemed to rise instead, though, so its weight actually increased.

To create even a single Iridescent Wood Golem, I had to use a staggering 14,000 points.

But its strength was the real deal.

It took time to create and couldn’t be stored in the Harvest Bag, but this golem could display strength exceeding A-rank all by itself.

“Go, Iridescent Wood Golem!”

The rainbow-colored golem gave a small nod and headed toward Ashid.

Because I had focused too much on summoning the Iridescent Wood Golem, Ashid had already broken through the ring of Wood Golems and was in the middle of attacking the Dark Wood Golems.

“Chiih!”

Even Ashid seemed to realize at a glance how dangerous it was, because he stopped attacking the Dark Wood Golems and completely focused his target on the Iridescent Wood Golem.

Flaming spears, a rain of ice blades, sharp stones of earth… every kind of attack came crashing toward the Iridescent Wood Golem.

The Iridescent Wood Golem raised its hand and entered an interception stance.

Since this individual possessed the traits of every Element Wood Golem, it could naturally fire Black Projectiles as well.

DODODODODOT!

The rapid-fire Black Projectiles shot down every magical attack.

“Heh, take this too—Spit Fire!”

But in that interval, Ashid had already finished preparing his next attack and unleashed a fire spell that flew at super speed. The attack, shaped like a bird of fire, hit the Iridescent Wood Golem and pierced through it.

But it didn’t seem to have taken much damage, and it placed its own hand over the hole.

Then a healing light was produced, and the wound it had suffered healed up before my eyes.

Naturally, since it also possessed the traits of the Holy Wood Golem, healing was one of its specialties too.

Unlike the Frazard Wood Golem, it also had no time limit until collapse during battle, so it was vastly easier to use.

“Wh… what…!? Earth Needle!”

Even while Ashid stood there dumbfounded, the Iridescent Wood Golem kept closing in.

Its movement speed was fast, and in no time at all it was right on top of Ashid.

Ashid generated earth spikes around himself, trying to prevent the approach like a hedgehog.

But since the Iridescent Wood Golem could heal its wounds, it could keep attacking without caring if it got injured.

The fist it swung back and unleashed cleanly struck Ashid in the abdomen.

“Gah!”

Ashid went flying.

His eyes were wide open in shock.

And after glaring at me as though I were his parents’ killer,

“That’s underhanded, Woody! Aren’t you ashamed to win like this!?”

“Hmm… not really? We’re both just fighting using our aptitudes, so Ashid and I are standing on the same stage.”

“Tch, you cowardly… GYAAAAAAAHHHH!!”

While he was cursing me, the Iridescent Wood Golem landed a second blow.

The Great Magus aptitude had no equal when it came to firepower in long-range attacks, but of course it had its weaknesses too.

That was that once someone got inside its guard, the magic it could use became sharply limited.

That was why, if you forced it into close combat, its strength as the strongest at long range instantly turned into a weakness.

Probably one reason Father had tried to build ties with the Tristan family was to overcome this weakness against close-range combat.

Having fought for decades with the Great Magus aptitude, he had probably been able to see all sorts of things.

After taking a short break and checking with Aira and the others, it seemed we had managed to get through it safely without a single death.

In any case, that settled everything.

…Except for the relationship between me and Ashid.

Still, why had Ashid tried to do something this reckless?

He was my younger brother, but I really didn’t know anything about him at all…

When he woke up, maybe I’d try talking with him once.

We were both boys, after all.

I was sure there were things you could only say after fighting.