"Impossible? It's not impossible... Your mind simply can't perceive what lies beyond your limits," the boy with pale skin and extremely long blond hair said nonchalantly.
Mama Ipoh, watching him with beads of sweat down her face, thought to herself: Damn it, I can't afford to waste any more superflux. I've only been using low to mid-tier Shikatsu techniques, but if I push further… and what about him? How was he able to retrieve Hephaestus's severed limb without me noticing? He was also able to get behind me…
Immemorvis then put his hand in his pants pocket and said,
"You're looking really thoughtful right now..."
A tired smile appeared on his face.
"But preparation is useless against my power, you see."
Mama Ipoh, her voice hurried, asked,
"Wait! I can understand why he wants to kill me, but why you?"
Immemorvis let out a tired giggle and replied,
"You're right about that... I have no problem with you, and I genuinely don't care if you live or not. But I was watching the entire fight. You said he wasn't able to land a hit on you... on both occasions that you two fought."
Mama Ipoh, nervous, replied,
"Yeah?"
Immemorvis pulled his hand out of his pocket.
"I'm kinda curious to see how I'll fare against you. If even the self-proclaimed strongest of the ten of us couldn't land a hit on you... wait, that's right, he was able to land one. I must've forgotten. Well, I wonder if I can land more than one."
As she took a battle stance, preparing for a full confrontation, she didn't keep her eyes off Immemorvis's body. He didn't move—he just stood there, smiling.
Let's see if you can take me by surprise again...
Then she felt an intense pain in her stomach. Looking down, she saw a blade pierce her abdomen. The one wielding the blade... was Immemorvis Obscuritas. A pure white sword extended from his arm. Blood spilled from her mouth and wound as she could only manage to whisper in a low voice:
"...How?"
Immemorvis Obscuritas let out a tone of obliviousness, as if completely unaware of his feat.
"Why do you mean? You just stood there and let me stab you. Come on, you weren't putting as much effort against me as you did against Hephaestus... It's not challenging if you just let me stab you."
He let out a wicked smile and said,
"Maybe you'll put in more effort if I kill the girl over there?"
Mama Ipoh's eyes widened in rage at the threat. With a determined glare, she gripped the blade in her abdomen, yanked it out, and began a hurried invocation:
"By the red light of the dark red sea… grant me your destructive power and erase this miserable insect so that he may be an offering to the dark red sea, to drown in your endless ocean of suffocating heat."
An intense red glow began emanating from Mama Ipoh's palm. She pointed her hand toward Immemorvis, who remained standing there with that same smile.
"Hametsujutsu of the Third Tier: Red Offering of the Red Sea!"
A blazing red light erupted from her hand, engulfing everything in its path. The beam tore through the landscape, evaporating trees and ground alike, leaving a wide, scorched hole spanning 100 meters. Steam billowed out from the devastation, filling the air with suffocating heat.
"Don't you dare lay a single finger on my daughter!" Mama Ipoh shouted, her voice heavy with anger and blood spilling from her mouth. Then she heard something behind her.
"What do you mean? I'm already holding her in my grasp…"
She turned, her heart sinking, and saw Immemorvis Obscuritas holding the tiny body of Viora in his arms. Viora, wide-eyed and trembling, muttered,
"Huh? What..."
Mama Ipoh screamed in rage,
"Get your hands off her!"
She dashed toward him with inhuman speed. Immemorvis sighed and said,
"Fine."
With a casual flick, he tossed Viora toward her.
"Velum Oblitorum," he whispered, vanishing from Mama Ipoh's sight.
Catching Viora in her arms, Mama Ipoh scanned her surroundings, her thoughts racing.
What…? He disappeared?
Viora, still in shock, looked at her own arms as if trying to ground herself in reality. Mama Ipoh asked urgently,
"Viora, are you okay? Did he hurt you?"
Viora snapped back to awareness and replied shakily,
"No, I'm not hurt… It's just... I didn't even notice him grabbing me."
Before Mama Ipoh could respond, a sharp, searing pain erupted from her back. She gasped as she realized Immemorvis was standing behind her, his white blade piercing through her.
"Two hits… so boring," he said flatly. "Hard to believe you're the one who completely annihilated Hephaestus, leaving behind only a hand."
Viora's voice cracked with fear, tears welling in her tiny eyes as she screamed,
"Mama Ipoh!"
Still clutching Viora tightly, Mama Ipoh glanced over her shoulder, her vision blurry with pain.
"You bastard… How the hell are you doing this?"
Immemorvis tilted his head nonchalantly and replied,
"It's simple: from point A to point B. Your mind never processes my future actions. For example, when I was on that tree branch earlier, you might've thought I was fast enough to get behind you. But the truth? I simply jumped down and walked behind you.
"My ability lets me completely erase myself from others' consciousness for a certain point in time. Or better yet, I make it impossible for your mind to process my existence at all. Of course, there's more to it than that... but have you finally realized the limits of your mind, Ipoh?"
As he pulled the blade from her back, Mama Ipoh grimaced in pain. Immemorvis, still speaking in the same detached tone, said,
"You might have thought you never took your eyes off me, but in truth, all you were looking at was your mind's inability to perceive my future actions. What you saw was merely a past image of me—where I had been, not where I was."
As he slid his hand into his pocket, a smirk crossed his face.
"Now, now... I managed to land two hits. Funny, isn't it? I'm not the fastest among the ten, nor the most powerful. It's just that against my abilities, there's so little you can do. But now..."
He tilted his head slightly, his tone turning contemplative.
"I'm wondering—should I just kill the two of you? I wonder if I'll even remember committing such a barbarous act. No... I'll probably forget it, just like how everyone eventually forgets about me."
Viora, still cradled in Mama Ipoh's arms, sobbed in fear as tears streamed down her cheeks.
"Mama Ipoh… Mama Ipoh!" she cried repeatedly, clutching desperately at Ipoh's clothes.
Mama Ipoh, struggling to steady her breath, whispered in a low but comforting voice,
"Don't worry, sugar... I'll get us out of this…"
With pain evident in her voice, she began a solemn incantation:
"By the purifying, healing light of the seven halos... halo of Michael, halo of Gabriel, halo of Raphael, halo of Uriel, halo of Camael, halo of Jophiel, and halo of Zadkiel…"
She turned her gaze toward Immemorvis, her eyes blazing with determination as she completed the invocation:
"Let the seven halos of the seven archangels of pure white come to my aid! Chiryōjutsu, Taiyō Rank of the Fifth Tier: Seven Halos of Pure Light!"
chapter thirty-eight end