I Became the Mastermind Who Betrays the Heroines
Chapter 134

Chapter 134 - Traitor (5)

“Over here!”

BOOM—!

Flames struck the dragon’s face.

A remarkable performance.

At that moment, the fox had elevated herself beyond even most professors—pushing her potential to its very peak.

After all, growth often comes in direct proportion to the threat one faces.

Irene darted across the battlefield like lightning.

Of course—

SCREEEEEECH!!

That, too, was nothing more than a fleeting illusion.

You can’t hide from the gaze of a higher species.

The fox’s movements were finally caught.

A sweeping tail slammed into her delicate frame.

She was flung away before she had a chance to resist.

THUD—!!

She barely managed to raise her sword to guard, but it wasn’t enough to recover her stance.

The fox was thrown violently across the floor, landing far from the battle.

A groan escaped her lips—her body wracked with pain, as if every bone had shattered.

“Kh…!”

Her lips trembled uncontrollably.

Her stamina had long since hit rock bottom, and the blade she held was now broken.

And before her loomed the shadow of death.

Just for a moment, a wave of helplessness crushed her.

Those fangs looked ready to devour her whole.

Still—Irene forced her battered body upright.

“Ugh… ah…”

She could barely breathe, her lungs gasping for air.

Even so, she couldn’t collapse—not yet.

Not when her heart still held a single, unshakable wish.

A blind devotion, born of a desperate desire to give her all.

She whispered her prayer.

‘I want to help.’

The girl gripped her broken sword.

Her gaze remained clear.

Thinking it may be her last, she scraped together every ounce of strength she had left.

Sparks burst around her as flames began to rise once more.

A light that seemed to devour even the heat of the underground compressed into a single line.

Pressed, condensed, and refined further still—until it became a flame so perfectly honed it formed a razor-sharp edge.

A blade forged from crimson fire.

FWOOOSH—!

From the shattered hilt,

Only a radiant blade remained.

The fox swung that fire without hesitation.

“Hrgh…!”

SHHHHRIP—!

The crimson streak grazed the dragon’s face.

A clean, sharp line.

For the first time, the beast’s tough hide bore a wound.

Though it wasn’t a fatal blow, the scar cut directly across its left eye.

She had targeted a weak point, where the scales were relatively thin.

Irene collapsed where she stood.

Thump—

The flame that had wrapped around her faded away.

And the crimson glow in her hair slowly returned to its natural orange.

But death’s shadow was still upon her.

The miasma crept closer.

Grrrrrr…

The dragon parted its decayed jaws.

As if laughing at her—mocking her, saying “Was that all?”

The fox simply snorted.

“Ha… You got toyed with that much and you’re still smug?”

She raised a single middle finger without a trace of fear.

Before death could even process her insolence, Irene shouted:

“Now!!”

And in that instant—

Its left field of vision, momentarily blinded by the previous strike.

Someone slipped into that blind spot.

“You’ve done well.”

Golden hair fluttered into view.

The snake, who had crept all the way to the dragon’s snout, now revealed his presence in full.

A brilliant glow shimmered from both black and white at his side.

His once-closed eyes were now fully open.

“I call upon the summons.”

The boy moved his tongue.

Black light gathered at his fingertips.

–Ding!

[Remaining Output: 61.7%]

A faint blue window shimmered in his vision.

It felt a little lacking, but with what he had left, he had no choice but to make it work.

The snake activated his lie.

Monster.

What stood before him was, quite literally, a monster.

A being on par with a [Star] in both stature and power.

No ordinary attack could ever reach it.

For it was a creature that had transcended natural law.

In that case—

The boy would transcend natural law too.

For authority, by its very nature, is unjust.

“Stars—”

The snake mimicked the stars.

Expending all output, stamina, mental energy… and finally, life force itself, he surpassed his limits.

Recalling all the [Stars] he’d met, he reached for their essence.

This wasn’t just an act of equaling them.

He parsed the structure of their power, reconstructed it, and cloaked himself in a rank greater than even the stars in the night sky.

As the force unfolded in real time, it twisted the very dimensions around him.

KRRRRRRRR—!

The underground and the temple trembled violently.

Light began to orbit the boy.

A breathtaking afterimage the likes of which no one had ever seen.

Behind him, a cloak of pure white fluttered.

The haze trailing from it, like a shimmering mantle, declared his newly ascended [Rank].

The sword in his hand now glowed with blinding white light.

Omnipotence.

“Devour.”

For just a moment—

The boy stepped into the source of power itself: the star-filled sky, the origin of Authority.

A single swing of the sword tore open the very air.

CRACK—!

A crack spread like a mirror shattering.

The world broke into fragments.

And beyond those shattered rifts—nothing. Only void flickered in the gaps.

An error born from the warping of dimensions.

Thump—!

The boy thrust the white blade into the dragon’s heart.

A surprise strike, leaving no room for reaction.

And in a voice barely audible—

“Then, farewell.”

In the next moment—

The body forged from death split apart into countless fragments.

It broke, and broke, and broke—

Until it could no longer even be seen with the naked eye.

Erased without a trace.

The concept of void consumed its existence, leaving behind only a white blankness.

As if someone had erased graphite from a notebook with a clean swipe of an eraser.

Srrrhh—

Before long, the remaining output was spent, and the underground returned to normal.

Aside from the devoured dragon, nothing else was out of place.

The snake whispered.

“It’s… over.”

His knees gave out.

He collapsed to the floor.

It had been touch-and-go toward the end—but in the end, they’d managed to stop the calamity.

It was a victory worth celebrating.

A wave of relief washed over him like a tide.

But he didn’t have time to savor that feeling.

There was a price to pay for pushing his power that far.

While massaging his aching limbs—

Blood suddenly gushed from his throat.

A crimson trail spilled downward.

“Kh…!”

And that wasn’t all.

Blood now trickled from his eyes as well—his body overwhelmed from the strain.

A sharp, crushing pain tore through every bone.

A price paid for drawing too heavily on his life force.

A familiar mechanical chime rang in his ears.

–Ding!

[Excessive life force consumption detected.]

[Further depletion may affect your remaining lifespan.]

A predictable result.

That strike had far surpassed natural order—almost as if it sought the seat of a god.

He should be grateful his lifespan hadn’t been shortened.

Since life force could still recover with rest, no permanent damage remained.

The snake wiped blood from his mouth and murmured.

“It hasn’t been this bad since the Usurpation Battle.”

He steadied his breathing and suppressed the pain.

As he finally regained a bit of composure, the girls ran over and supported him.

They had seen him cough blood—and looked understandably worried.

“Are you okay? You really pushed yourself…”

“I’m alright.”

Perhaps because she’d seen this before—

Irene, while clearly concerned, refrained from bombarding him with questions or worry.

Instead, she just embraced the snake with a sorrowful look in her eyes.

“Y-Yudah… You can’t die.”

By contrast—

The princess, usually the one with dull emotions, was crying openly.

It seemed even she was shaken by the thought of her savior possibly dying.

The boy gently patted her platinum hair, as if to say not to worry.

He whispered by her ear.

“I won’t die. These injuries will heal quickly.”

“…Really?”

“How could I ever lie to Your Highness? Please, believe me.”

“Sniff… okay. I believe you. Because it’s you, Yudah.”

“You honor me.”

The heavy air began to settle.

The three of them exhaled a sigh of relief.

“It’s really over now.”

“Good work.”

“You two are the ones who worked hard. I just put my hands on the table when the meal was already served.”

“Let’s just say we all worked hard.”

“That works too.”

Peace, at last, had returned.

With the girls supporting him, the boy crossed the underground temple.

They began making their way back to the surface.

Until—

“That’s far enough.”

A voice called out behind them.

They turned—

And saw them: cultists in deep crimson robes.

Villains who had appeared without the slightest presence.

The children froze where they stood.

No way…

They had seen those enemies dissolve to nothing with their own eyes.

So where had this force come from?

Everyone thought the same thing.

‘Reinforcements…?’

As if to confirm that guess, the cultists began to speak.

At some point, they had already formed a complete encirclement—over a hundred of them surrounding the group.

“The Puppeteer’s signal cut out, so we came rushing in… and what do you know, we walked in on quite the scene.”

It was the worst-case scenario.

The snake, the fox, the princess—none of them were in condition to fight.

And now they had run straight into reinforcements.

Among them were not just chimeras, but ritualists, officers—and even two more Katasto like the Puppeteer.

The children, driven to the brink of collapse, had no way to counter.

Cold sweat trickled down.

“To think you actually took down the calamity alone.”

There was no way out.

Under normal circumstances, the snake might’ve stepped forward.

But now, he didn’t even have the strength to stand.

Any further exertion would risk draining his remaining lifespan.

“……”

The boy said nothing.

The cultists began to close in.

“A shame your little plan failed… but even so, this is a nice bonus. If the academy still has assets like you three, they’ll only get in our way later.”

The girls, faces darkened, stepped forward.

As if to protect the boy behind them—they moved to shield him with their own bodies.

A meaningless gesture, perhaps—but defiant all the same.

The cultist sneered and delivered their sentence.

“We can’t let this chance slip by.”

The cult began readying their attack.

Dark mana surged around them like a crashing tide.

“We’ll erase you here.”

And then—

The shadows lunged toward the children.

But—

Did the cultists know?

That even this moment…

Had been resting in the palm of the snake’s hand all along.

From beneath his bowed head—

He smiled.

As if thoroughly amused.

“…Heh.”

A mocking laugh slipped free.

And then—

CRACKLE—!

A flickering sound like something blinking into existence.

A shadow stepped in front of the cultists, blocking their path.

Proving his presence by the way his empty right sleeve fluttered—

Standing against the pale light behind him—

Was none other than a white-haired old man.

“Hmph-hmm.”

An aura thick with overwhelming killing intent.

The old man casually scanned the area, then smiled upon spotting the boy.

That smile—so mature, no matter how many times you saw it.

“Did you miss me…?”

The old man’s name—

The Lord.

A man known across the underworld as the King of Shadows.