The Max Level Hero Has Returned!-Novel

“D–Damn it!!”

Grell’s second death from a deadly crushing of his skull was in vain. The battle had an obvious conclusion from the start, with Davey having the advantage of attacking Grell right after the monster’s resurrection. Grell did not have the chance to even pull himself together.

[Contractor, the humans you are helping, they are already in battle. Blood and bone dust are falling on the ground.]

“What’s the situation?”

[Not even a headless beast could move easily.]

“Good work.”

Lich Grell Orfan had to concentrate to control the Undead. As long as he was entirely focused on Davey, the alliance should be able to take back the fortresses without difficulty.

Why wasn’t Davey helping and casting buffs on them? He didn’t need to, and he didn’t have the luxury to do that either. Grell, who had disappeared without a trace after complete destruction, was going to seek resurrection in a place he deemed safe; if he had even been given a bit of time, the alliance would have suffered great damage.

Necromancers were weaker during one-on-one battles but overwhelmingly powerful during large-scale battles.

Davey had suppressed the OP skill where one would instantly become an Undead upon getting bitten or scratched. He had stopped the transformation of the virus within new victims. However, that didn’t change the fact that existing Death Knights hadn’t gotten any weaker.

Of course, the Death Knights were weak enough to be taken care of by the alliance’s Masters running around on the battlefield.

As Davey quickly lifted his hands up and spread out his fingers, dozens of translucent windows appeared in the empty space. On those windows soon appeared arrangements of unique letters that looked like codes. Davey was looking for coordinates.

No matter how damaged, a diamond was still a diamond; Grell was an 8th Circle necromancer who could bring about catastrophe on the continent. He could recognize any peculiarities and make preparations against magic spells that he had never even seen before. Although, it was still undetermined if he could block the source of Davey’s magic or not.

Davey would only be faced with more trouble if he gave Grell time. He chose to ignore the warning that his powers were quickly running out and activated warping magic again.

[Contractor, your body will not be able to take it if I take any more of your spirit mana.]

“Just move.”

[Contractor.]

“Gnoass, I don’t want to repeat myself. I want you to listen to me,” Davey answered calmly.

Gnoass stared at Davey in silence, then slowly nodded. He began to dissolve his body and said, [The crazy student follows in the footsteps of the devil teacher; you two are both insane. Don’t forget… Yuriana, your teacher, only died because she had overused her power.]

“Gnoass, didn’t you learn that the price of lying is your tongue?”

Yuriana, the spirit empress, had died after living a long, healthy life. And yet, Gnoass was telling Davey that she had died from pushing the limits of her power.

[Damn it, you’re quick.]

Following Grell, who disappeared once again, Davey cast a warp magic and jumped through space; he could feel his surroundings change around him.

Davey soon arrived at a place that was full of dark smoke, which blocked his vision. This was a dangerous situation that limited what he could do, but he still found his location with relative ease. After all, he was receiving the necessary coordinates in real-time.

Perhaps this was the true definition of an abyss; this darkness where Davey could not see an inch in front of him. To make matters worse, it wasn’t just dark smoke but a nasty, poisonous fog.

Suddenly, bone-made spears that had blackened from the fog came flying at Davey. As soon as he dodged one, several more came flying in his direction. This was a surprise attack after Davey’s senses were blocked.

It was quite fascinating, but necromancers had eyesight that had some resistance to this poisonous fog.

“You’re not going to be struck twice, is that it?” Davey scoffed. He thought that Grell would have prepared something else unless he was an idiot.

Each spear made for a strong weapon, but they were not directly aiming for Davey. They were meant to block his escape routes.

Davey quickly slashed a bone spear that flew over to threaten him. Then, he jumped up into the air without hesitation.

The spears weren't the only problem; the moment the bone spears collided with each other, a dark and dense poisonous smoke began to surround Davey. His surroundings became even darker than before.

The poisonous smoke was so strong that even he would have been in trouble if he hadn’t reflexively covered his mouth and nose, and held his breath.

—Unbelievable. Such poisonous smoke would have taken out a Swordmaster instantly.

Necromancers used a lot of different ingredients when they made their poison, but such a strong poison could only be made from corpses.

The process, which used distinct magic from beginning to end, only gained efficiency when living beings were used. This meant that Grell had extracted poison by killing countless living beings before creating this trap. To create this one poison, he must have sacrificed countless lives of monsters, humans, animals, and other kinds.

Of course, Grell did not specially create this to kill Davey. He probably just ran out of options and could no longer hold back on his attacks.

Davey could not see Grell this time. With the Devil Eye of necromancy, he could only see a couple of inches in front of him with some clarity. It wasn’t easy to find Grell Orfan when this place messed up his sense of smell, hearing, and vision.

However, Grell Orfan did not know that Davey was tracking his exact location in real-time.

—To get rid of this fog…

“Ignore it.”

Not having to think for long, Davey was quick to take action. As soon as he dodged another rapid attack, he stomped on the floor and activated a magic circle beneath his feet. There was no reason for him to flounder in this trap when he knew Grell’s location.

The bone spears that were flying at Davey to block his escape routes were definitely threatening, but they weren’t OP enough to follow him through space.

Davey’s powers were starting to run out from his overuse of warp magic. He knew best that he was definitely pushing it, but he also knew that Grell had to die here.

“Damn it!! Does your mana never run out?! You’re using warp magic again!”

Upon coming closer to Grell, Davey could hear him shouting in shock. Grell wasn’t far now; although his sense of hearing was paralyzed, Davey could still catch faint sounds.

Of course, Davey could feel several layers of waves of magic coming from where Grell was.

Grell was trying to do more than just slow Davey down, having activated many types of magic circles right where Davey was. From basic curses like debilitation, corruption, aging, and exhaustion, there were also curses that reflected physical and magic powers, sense control, and mental destruction. All of them were being activated by an 8th Circle mage, so they were very threatening.

However, curse-type magic required time to come into effect after being cast. This was a reason why Grell was focusing his efforts on defense rather than attacking Davey actively.

The problem was Grell had no idea what Blue Ribbon could really do; originally, the blade’s power was not simply the destruction of the authority of immortality, but the power to cut everything, even things that did not physically exist. The destruction of immortality was just an additional power that came along with it.

“W–What?!”

The invisible waves of curses coming toward Davey were, logically, a power that would remain even after being slashed by a blade. In reality, aside from certain holy magic spells, there was no magic that could stop curse-type magic from coming at him.

However, Blue Ribbon cut through all of the curse-type magic and mana-type attacks. Needless to say, this was a blade that defied all logic and common sense.

Grell was shocked, but he was pretty smart. He instinctively cast whatever defense magic he could use to protect himself. However, Davey was going to make sure that he knew that he wasn’t here for attrition.

“I refuse to engage in a battle of unnecessary attrition.”

Longinus, the divine sword, floated into the air from Davey’s grip and transformed into a long, thin spear. Although Davey couldn’t deny the fact that Longinus’ spear form was so simple that it barely deserved the title of divine spear, its powers were so strong that it was able to crush the clone of Shandra Minea, the transcendental being, into the ground.

—Davey!! You are not the same as when you were in the Hall! Use your mana carefully!

Davey also had no intention of dying due to an inability to control his own powers.

[Divine Spear Longinus’ Second Natural Ability]

[Nuclear Spear]

As the several layers of defense spells cracked and collapsed, Grell screamed in shock, “T–This can’t be happening! This makes no…”

“It does make sense!”

As more life vessels were destroyed, Grell’s physical body seemed to become tougher and more durable. It was as if his remaining power would all move into the remaining life vessels he had left.

However, that didn’t seem to matter. As soon as Red Ribbon’s red blade slashed through Grell’s arms, Davey brought Blue Ribbon’s blue sword energy down to behead Grell in a brutal manner.

“Blue Ribbon, should we study mathematics?” Davey calmly asked Blue Ribbon, who had turned into human form in his arms.

“Yeah! Yeah! Blue Ribbon can do it well!”

“Red Ribbon, too!”

Perhaps a little jealous of the fact that Davey was only giving his attention to Blue Ribbon, Red Ribbon also turned into human form by herself and charged into Davey’s arms.

“Alright, let’s see. How many times do we have left?”

“Four timeees!”

“F… Fo… Four times!”

Blue Ribbon jumped up and down while holding up four fingers, and Red Ribbon shouted quickly after stuttering for a while. Blue Ribbon giggled in delight, having answered the quickest. At the same time, Red Ribbon pouted.

“A living sword… A divine sword, I see,” Grell murmured. He was flustered upon realizing that the two swords were something far beyond what he had imagined.

“What divine sword?” Davey firmly denied Grell’s assumption. He declared, “These are my children.”

Davey had given birth to Red Ribbon and Blue Ribbon by crafting them to life. He was raising them too. Nothing changed just because they were swords and their abilities were specialized in slashing enemies.

“Are you listening? Four times left,” Davey warned.

“Nasty kid…”

There was even a hint of nervousness in Grell’s eyes before he turned into dust a moment later.

* * *

Grell was desperate. Davey’s continuous attacks gave him no time to control the Undead, and he was losing his life vessels at a rapid rate. Out of the eight life vessels he had originally split his soul into, only four were left.

Grell resurrected inside the necropolis, where Davey had destroyed him once.

—There’s a need to take a look inside the ancient ruins where he was sealed before.

The necropolis was most likely the safest place. This was especially true since Grell was using his remaining energy to block all paths that led there.

Molecules that were surrounded by a bright light began gathering together. Then, a huge skeleton of a giant was formed. Grell’s body was made up of pure power, so its reconstruction was relatively easy.

“Nice to see you again.”

As soon as he came back alive, Grell felt his jaw drop to the floor. Davey was already in front of him, waving and smiling.

“Let’s hurry this up! Three more times!”

* * *

“Keugh?! G… Go away!!” Grell, who had yet to fully come back to life, screamed and rejected Davey with every inch of his body.

“Hey, why are you being like that? I said that I’m going to wait until you come back.”

“You evil bastard! A demon would be far less evil than you!”

“Man, how can two slaughterers such as us talk about good and evil? Is it about ten seconds?” After asking that question, Davey took out a specially designed watch and shook it in front of Grell’s eyes.

Grell was still reconstructing his body, so he was washed over by a sense of urgency. He said, “L–Let’s negotiate! I acknowledge your power! This thoughtless war of attrition and slaughtering is not good! I… Yes, I surrender!”

“What are you talking about, slaughterer? Ten seconds is up. Is it two times left now?”

* * *

What was the most effective way to crush someone? It was to pressure them with continuous attacks and give them no time to make any preparations.

It was somewhat of a relief that Grell ended up not realizing that Davey had applied another type of [Re-fix Curse] on his soul and bones. He would have discovered that if given the time, but thankfully, the curse was far too advanced for him to figure out in an instant.

[Re-fix Curse] was a magic spell with the unique language made by an actual Death Lord.

Strictly speaking, Rho Aias, Davey’s necromancy teacher, had already been strong before reaching the Hall. As for the other heroes, they had gotten stronger in the Hall. What this meant was that she had possessed monstrous strength even when she had been alive.

“The Death Lord is not weak enough for someone like you to take care of them. Oh, is there about thirty seconds left? How come your resurrection time is getting longer and longer?”

“Don’t come near me! Damn you! Why are you doing this to me?!” Grell shouted fiercely, unable to hide his anxiety. He had seemingly thrown his former unwavering attitude out the window.

“What do you mean why? Is there ever a reason for battle?”

“You’ve crossed a line! I showed my intent to surrender!!”

“Surrender?’

“Haven’t you killed humans who have surrendered to you?”

“...”

It was all just wordplay.

“Now, that’s one time left, right?” Davey said with a smile.

Grell’s face went pale.