Beside him sat a blonde girl with eyes as blue as the sky, smiling as she watched him after he was dragged back by a Command Spell.
Solomon glanced at the back of her hand.
There were three Command Spells on each hand.
The three on her left hand were intact, while one was missing from her right.
“Now, you are my Master.”
His previous Master was dead, yet there wasn’t the slightest change in expression on Solomon’s face.
Even the fall of a god would only move him slightly; the death of a Master was not worth any emotional fluctuation for him.
However, there was one thing he couldn’t figure out.
“Why pull me back?”
Sajyou Ayaka laughed when she heard his question.
“Pull you back?
No—it’s more like I saved you.”
Seeing Solomon’s indifferent reaction, Sajyou Ayaka sighed and put on a bored expression.
“I thought you would at least argue back…
Now it seems you, just like this world, are incredibly boring.”
As she spoke, she flicked her hand to the side.
The water in the air began to gather together.
A sphere of water formed in mid-air, and the image emerging on its surface showed the battle that had just taken place between Sebastian and Solomon.
Sajyou Ayaka stared at the image.
But she wasn’t looking at Solomon—she was looking at Sebastian.
“Ah…
I searched for all the Masters, but it seems that person isn’t a Heroic Spirit.” She paused, then continued, “This was an accident to begin with, a mistake, I suppose.
I didn’t expect to run into someone like you…”
She reached out, her fingertip gently touching the water sphere.
As soon as her fingertip touched the water’s surface, ripples spread out, and the image shattered and fell apart.
“However, others might not know, but I do,” she said.
“This current form of yours isn’t your true self, is it?”
Sajyou Ayaka composed herself and turned her head to look at Solomon again.
“Prepare yourself; we will have to fight him again later.”
Solomon did not understand what this woman was thinking, but he couldn’t be bothered to argue.
Since he had to win in the end, he would have to fight that opponent again sooner or later anyway.
“Understood.”
Grayfia’s teleportation magic failed.
She didn’t land directly beside Sebastian.
Instead, she was forcibly stopped some distance away and landed on the ground.
Looking from afar, the area in front of her seemed fine, but upon closer inspection, the entire space looked wrong.
It was as if she were looking through a kaleidoscope; the light was completely twisted.
The space inside had been forcibly torn into countless tiny fragments, which were now slowly merging back together.
Grayfia frowned.
Her Devil magic power surged within her, and she charged straight in.
“Lord Sebastian…” she whispered.
Please, do not let anything happen to you.
Sebastian lay on the ground, watching the surrounding space finally return to normal, and let out a long breath.
His magic power was completely drained; even moving a finger was an effort.
A system notification rang in his head:
[Check-in Reward (Arjuna): Clairvoyance (C+)]
Tch.
Did Karna get things sorted out on his end?
It’s a good thing I didn’t gamble on that check-in reward earlier and didn’t fight to the death with Solomon, Sebastian thought.
Otherwise, if the system had suddenly given me a reward like this when my magic was completely gone, I would have been finished.
As he was thinking, footsteps sounded near his head.
Although he was lying still, his Observation Haki clearly told him who was coming.
“Artoria, did you finish your battle, too?”
Artoria looked around at the space fragments that were still repairing themselves, then reached out to help Sebastian up.
“Did something happen while I was fighting Sir Lancelot?”
Sebastian looked up with a smile.
Although he looked a bit disheveled, his eyes were very bright.
“Nothing major.
One Heroic Spirit has been eliminated, and I had a clash with Solomon.
Look at the state I’m in—yet he ran away much faster than me!”
Artoria was stunned for a moment.
While she had been focused on her past, such a tough battle had taken place here.
As the King of Knights, feeling like she was just cleaning up after a battle made her uncomfortable.
“Master, next time you encounter Solomon, let me handle it.”
“Then what if I have us fight him together?”
“That…” Artoria’s words stuck in her throat, and she couldn’t continue.
Seeing her expression, Sebastian laughed even harder.
“Alright, I won’t tease you anymore.”
He thought of Solomon’s face, and his eyes darkened.
“Next time, if my magic isn’t completely drained, I will definitely finish this fight and settle the score with him.”
“Master…”
Before Artoria could say anything more, Sebastian added, “Don’t worry, I will definitely have Karna and Grayfia fight together with me—three against one!”
“Master!”
While Artoria began to lecture him, Sebastian received another reward:
[Check-in Reward (Lancelot): Eternal Arms Mastery (A+)]
After seeing Grayfia, Sebastian was so tired that he fell asleep immediately.
When he opened his eyes again, he was inside the Einzbern castle.
He didn’t see Kuroka this time.
Instead, he was focused on the new reward from Lancelot.
A massive amount of martial arts experience flooded into his mind.
Ever since he left the Naberius Clan, Sebastian had been wondering about one thing: why was his Judgment Cut so different from Vergil’s?
After gaining the experience of Vergil using Yamato, that feeling had become even stronger.
Clearly, the effect of the slashes was the same, he used plenty of magic power, he held Yamato in his hand, and he even activated his Devil Trigger.
Previously, he thought it was because his magic power was weaker than Vergil’s.
But now that the experience from Eternal Arms Mastery had fully merged into his mind, Sebastian finally understood.
Tch…
Last time I used Judgment Cut to push back Solomon, I was proud of myself for a long time, he thought.
I thought I looked as cool as Vergil, but that wasn’t the case at all.
Vergil’s sword slashes were incredible to watch.
At first glance, it seemed like he was just slashing wildly in every direction.
But that wasn’t what was actually happening.
Vergil’s blade was actually striking his opponent’s weapon as well.
When Sebastian had looked at Vergil’s memories before, all he saw was fast, chaotic slashing.
But those were just visual memories; they didn’t include Vergil’s thoughts at the time.
Now, with Eternal Arms Mastery boosting his martial insight, Sebastian could see the truth behind the technique.
Vergil’s slashes were not reckless at all.
Even at impossible speeds, he carefully targeted his strikes.
The actual killing move was the final slash—or the last two slashes—right before he sheathed his sword.
If the enemy tried to dodge before that, the earlier sword marks would cut them down.
But Vergil was so fast that the enemy couldn’t even move a finger.
So what were those earlier sword marks for?
They were meant to cut off all escape routes.
Yamato cut through space effortlessly.
Hitting the enemy with just one or two strikes was enough to end the fight.
The real challenge was making sure the hit landed.
Even if a strike was fast, an enemy might have automatic defense spells or secret techniques to slip away.
If the first slash failed to kill them, they would immediately react.
Because of this, Vergil used his initial sword marks to slice open the surrounding space and trap the enemy.
If the enemy tried to defend, those spatial tears would shred their defenses.
Once the enemy could neither move nor block, the final slash finished them off.
Vergil’s sword marks appeared instantly, but his true speed was even faster.
That final strike was the real lethal blow.
As for Sebastian himself?
Although I wasn’t slashing randomly, I always locked onto the target first and just hit them a few times…
No wonder Saint George was able to block my Judgment Cut with his Lord of Light.
I was only using the wide attack that Vergil used to trap enemies!
His understanding was clearer than ever.
He had focused so much on practicing the physical movements of Judgment Cut that he had missed the true strategy behind it.
Furthermore, Eternal Arms Mastery was Lancelot’s special ability—the core skill that allowed Lancelot to fight masterfully even while insane as a Berserker.
This meant the skill gave Sebastian far more than just combat techniques.
Even if Sebastian lost control of his mind while activating his Sin Devil Trigger form, this skill would keep his combat instincts perfectly sharp.
When he was conscious, he had to think through his moves.
But if he lost consciousness, these skills would take over automatically as pure muscle memory.
Currently, he could only maintain his Sin Devil Trigger form for forty seconds at most.
The lights in the hallway leading to the basement were dim.
Sebastian let out a sigh as he stood in front of the door.
“You can solve the issues between you and your sister yourself, so why drag me into it?
Don’t look at me like that—I can’t even sort out the mess in my own family.”
His younger half-brother, Vali Lucifer, had run away from home.
His father had been scolded by his grandfather until he couldn’t stand it, and then his grandfather ran out of the Underworld entirely and stopped caring about anything, leaving Sebastian behind to deal with the fallout.
“Don’t worry, Lord Sebastian…” Sakura Amagiri said softly, gently tugging on his sleeve.
Kuroka tried to pounce on him again, but Sebastian raised his foot and kicked her lightly on the forehead.
She tumbled backward into a laundry basket full of dirty clothes downstairs.
Grayfia stood in the middle of the hall, her face calm and expressionless.
Sebastian walked over and sat down.
“Why is the atmosphere so tense?”
“Lord Sebastian,” Grayfia reported, “Karna and the opponent’s Heroic Spirit have both been eliminated.”
Sebastian was taken aback for a moment, but then he nodded.
The result made sense.