“I can’t help but say,” Luck couldn’t help but exclaim, his body crackling with blue lightning.
He had always been supremely confident in his speed, but only now did he realize that he wasn’t as fast as Asta—a guy who relied purely on physical strength!
“So the third member of the Black Bulls is actually Luck the Ecstatic?” Klaus looked at Luck in surprise.
This was definitely a formidable opponent.
If it weren’t for the controversy caused by the excessive damage he inflicted on his opponent during the Magic Knights exam, he would be a genius that many captains would fight over!
At this moment, Klaus felt deeply frustrated.
The prestigious Golden Dawn, the top Magic Knight order, had actually been outdone and rescued by the bottom-ranked Black Bulls!
“Look what you’ve done to my teammates!”
Asta’s smile faded as he stared directly at the Diamond Kingdom’s magic warrior.
It seemed this was the strongest war machine the Diamond Kingdom had sent on this mission; he wondered what made him so special!
“So what?” Mars spoke, his pale face emotionless and his crimson-ringed eyes completely cold.
“The strong survive to the end, and the weak are eliminated.
Isn’t that just normal?”
Another Gaara…
Upon hearing this, Asta’s mind went blank.
This world really had quite a few problem children, but he had no interest in saving them all.
If they were enemies, he would just take them down!
“In this world, the weak have no value.
I was born to destroy people like you.” After Mars finished speaking, a crisp sound of colliding diamonds echoed through the chamber, and a massive horde of diamond clones condensed out of thin air!
“Is there no limit to his magic power?!
He can create that many diamond clones!” Klaus was stunned again.
Faced with such a powerful opponent, he had no confidence at all.
But the three members of the Black Bulls, on the other hand, all looked full of fighting spirit!
Before Asta could charge, Yuno gritted his teeth, stepping forward with unyielding determination.
Recalling Asta’s words that teammates were family, Yuno unleashed a fierce, double creation spell—Wind Creation Magic: Gale White Eagle flanked by a storm of wind daggers!
Mars countered by materializing a colossal ten-meter diamond sword—Harvester’s Greatsword—and smashed forward.
But Yuno pushed his limits past their absolute brink.
Channeling every drop of his remaining mana into a final, concentrated strike, Yuno’s wind blades bypassed the heavy diamond sword, slicing straight through Mars’s defenses and delivering a deep, bone-severing gash across Mars’s chest!
The pressure of the wind even sheared through a section of Mars’s dense diamond armor before Yuno collapsed from magic exhaustion.
Mars stumbled back, blood spilling from the deep wound, but his expression remained icy.
Raising his hand, a completely different magic attribute flared—flames burst around his body as Phoenix Robe activated, rapidly mending his flesh and knitting the shattered armor back together.
Asta swooped forward just as the fire flared up.
Seeing Mars use two different attributes, Asta didn’t pay much attention to it—to him, coming from the shinobi world where ninja regularly wielded multiple elemental natures, using fire and stone together was no big deal.
However, behind him, Klaus, Yuno, and Luck stared in absolute shock.
In the Clover Kingdom, it was common knowledge that a person could only possess a single magic attribute.
While that attribute could manifest in different forms, the core element never changed.
Yuno, still new to the world of Magic Knights, looked toward Klaus for an explanation, but Klaus was equally dumbfounded—this was a complete first for him as well.
Luck, whose face had darkened into a deep, displeased frown, sensed their bewildered glances and spoke up in a low voice.
“I heard about it from Captain Yami a few years back…
The Diamond Kingdom was researching ways to make their soldiers stronger.
The obvious solution was increasing someone’s mana, but increasing your mana pool isn’t a privilege just anyone can have.
Not even all royal children have access to that kind of growth—sooner or later, you hit a wall and can never increase your mana pool further.
So, they moved toward human experimentation.
I don’t know the exact details, but you can’t exactly change or add to the magic of someone who already received their grimoire…”
Luck stopped talking there, but everyone understood the heavy, dark meaning behind his words.
The boy standing before them wasn’t just an enemy commander; he was a survivor of ghastly, inhumane experiments.
While they were talking, Asta had already moved to end the fight.
Opening the Second Gate—the Gate of Rest—chakra emerged through his body to relieve his fatigue, even as his muscles stung under the high-stress output.
“You stone blocking my way, move!”
Mars unleashed an angry punch covered in heavy diamond crystals weighing over a ton, but with the Eight Gates active, Asta’s speed soared beyond visual tracking.
Dodging the massive strike, Asta closed the gap instantly.
The heavy Demon-Slayer Sword smashed through Mars’s fire-healing barrier and cleaved straight into his Diamond Titan Armor!
BOOM!
The massive blade shattered the double-attribute defense, blasting Mars completely out of his armor.
Mars crashed heavily into the stone floor, unconscious and bleeding out.
Turning back, Asta noticed the heavy, gloomy atmosphere hanging over Klaus, Yuno, and Luck.
“What’s with the faces?
What happened?”
Luck briefly explained the Diamond Kingdom’s human experimentation and how Mars possessed two grimoires stitched together.
As Asta listened to Luck’s explanation, a realization dawned on him.
So that’s why I felt like someone was watching us earlier…
Without another word, Asta walked straight over to the fallen Mars.
For good measure, he raised the flat side of his heavy Demon-Slayer Sword and struck the unconscious boy a few extra times, knocking him completely senseless and ensuring he wouldn’t wake up anytime soon.
Then, like picking up a sack of flour, he casually hoisted Mars onto his shoulder.
Everyone stared at Asta in absolute horror, looking at him as if he were some heartless monster.
Even Yuno, who always backed his friend, stood frozen, unable to find a single word to defend him after seeing such a ruthless act.
Asta caught their horrified looks and merely sighed, rolling his eyes.
“What?
He might be useful as leverage or intelligence.”
Ignoring their stunned silence, Asta turned around and strolled right up to the massive, locked treasure doors.
Raising his sword, he broke through the ancient magic seal in a single, effortless strike.
Inside, the group was greeted by a mountain of ancient gold, artifacts, and glowing tools.
While Klaus tried to maintain decorum despite his lingering shock, everyone began exploring the vast chamber.
Drawn to a hidden chamber by the anti-bird Nero, Asta shattered a golden mirrored wall and discovered a second anti-magic blade—the Demon-Dweller Sword.
As he pulled it from the pedestal, the system loaded its attributes, granting him the ability to absorb and launch elemental magic slashes.
At the same time, Yuno was guided by a floating light to an ancient scroll, which dissolved into his four-leaf grimoire, awakening the Wind Spirit, Sylph.
The sudden acquisition of these ancient relics triggered the dungeon’s collapse mechanism.
Boulders began raining from the ceiling as the ancient structure started caving in.
As the cavern shook violently, Asta gripped Mars firmly over his shoulder.
Looking up toward the dark shadows where Lotus was hiding with his smoke creation magic, Asta shouted at the top of his lungs over the roaring rumble:
“I know you’re hiding out there!
If you want your little test subject back alive, you’ll clear out that gold and deliver it all to me once we’re out of here!”
Not waiting for an answer, Asta closed his grimoire and led the group as they evacuated the collapsing ruins onto Yuno’s Windless Ark, safely escaping out into the open sky.
Sometime after Asta and the Magic Knights left the area, Lotus and the surviving Diamond Kingdom soldiers emerged from the shadows.
True to Asta’s threat, Lotus had used his smoke carts to haul out a massive portion of the gold from the crumbling ruins before it sank completely into the earth.
Now, sitting atop a massive, glittering pile of gold coins on the quiet hillside, Lotus didn’t look happy at all.
He stared blankly at the sky, his usual lazy demeanor completely replaced by deep sorrow and exhaustion.
“To lose our secret weapon, get threatened by a magic-less monster, and be forced to act as a delivery boy…” Lotus sighed heavily, rubbing his face with his bruised hands.
“Today is officially the worst day of my life.”