Mushoku Tensei: Reincarnated as a Beast Race Chapter 393: 392 - Fool Me Twice, Shame On Me

Aisha and Rygar, even on different battlefields, were communicating constantly.

From the moment Rygar left the Dragon God's Hole, the two had been synchronizing information as the fight progressed. Every movement, every enemy, every death, every change on the field, and every possibility of interference was passed from one side to the other.

There was no time for long explanations, so most of the conversation was carried out in short sentences. But for the two of them, that was enough.

And while doing so, they reached the same conclusion. Preventing their enemies from meeting was the key to victory.

Badigadi, Technique God Laplace, and Saint Milis.

If all those monsters gathered on the same battlefield, the situation would become almost unpredictable and difficult to control. Even Rygar, with the Divine Armor newly completed, could not guarantee victory, since the full extent of Milis's abilities remained a mystery.

For that reason, from the beginning, both of them worked to prevent that from happening while keeping track of the chaotic changes across the battlefield.

Problems arose during the battle, and the field changed more than once. But when Rygar and Aisha finally gathered within the same operational range, their plan was completed without major difficulties.

The key was information.

Just as Rygar always mentioned to Aisha: Know yourself and your enemy, and you will emerge undefeated from a hundred battles.

He really had much to thank Sun Tzu for teaching him that.

Why did Laplace and Badigadi fall into the trap? Why did Rygar and Aisha implement the plan so smoothly?

The answer was simple.

Rygar knew about Aisha's trap. He knew about the teleportation circles scattered across the desert. And he knew that Aisha had a way to finish off their opponents if she received the right window.

Under normal combat conditions, both Laplace and Badigadi would have been capable of avoiding Axiom Frame.

Even if Aisha was powerful, in a frontal battle, she would easily lose to those two. But with Rygar creating the opportunity, Aisha only needed one shot.

She knew that, and trusted that her master would be fully capable of delivering that window to her.

While the Beast God and the Divine Sorceress made their synchronized and planned movements, Badigadi and Vita remained in the dark.

They knew only where they were going, but not what awaited them. They did not know how many enemies or allies would be there, nor how they would be received.

That difference decided the battle.

A massive crater appeared where the Fighter God, Badigadi, had once been.

Whoever had observed the sky a moment earlier would have had the impression that a new sun had risen over the Begaritt Continent, tearing away a large portion of the Desert Continent with its light.

And while that happened, inside Axiom Frame, Aisha observed her opponent.

Her mana was in a critical state.

She had already fought for too long and spent far too much mana. If not for Undertow reducing her consumption, she would have died from mana exhaustion long ago.

After casting Divine-level Magic, then, her reserves were dangerously low.

Aisha breathed heavily. Even so, she maintained her posture. Before her, Technique God Laplace tried everything to free himself from the magic.

But it was useless.

Jino could have attested to that.

When the very laws of physics on the battlefield were under Aisha's control, there was not much a pure warrior could do.

She smiled cheerfully as she manipulated the force vectors around Laplace's body.

Velocity, zero.

Air pressure, reduced to zero around specific points.

Gravity, compressed in layers to imprison him.

Traction, displacement, resistance, direction.

Everything was adjusted to prevent any attempt at escape.

The space around him distorted and dilated irregularly. For Vita, up and down ceased to be reliable directions. Near and far seemed to trade places. The cardinal directions became confused, as though the world had been folded and rearranged without logic.

Laplace had an absurd body, absurd techniques, and inhuman reflexes. But none of that mattered if the battlefield itself denied movement.

Acting decisively, Vita made a bitter decision.

To discard the Technique God's body.

Immediately, he tried to sever that body's connection with his other bodies scattered across the world, preventing Laplace's fall from compromising his own survival.

He felt incomparably saddened at losing such a powerful body. Those years of invincibility had been the most wonderful of his life.

The worldview of someone who could crush almost any opponent with martial arts alone.

Losing that was painful, but survival was more important.

So Vita tried to cut the connection.

And froze.

What...?

How?!

Aisha began to approach, Undertow pointed downward in her hand.

She was smiling.

"What? Confused?"

Vita tried to force the connection again.

Nothing.

Aisha tilted her head slightly.

"'Why can't I cut the connection?!' Something like that?"

As she spoke, she continued approaching.

To say Vita was afraid would be an understatement. He feared for his life more than anything.

Even if everything went wrong, he had always believed he could get away by severing the connection to the compromised body. That was exactly what he had done with Randolph.

He abandoned the body at the right moment and saved himself.

But now...

Aisha's smile widened even further when she saw his despair.

"My master once told me an interesting phrase."

She reached Laplace's range. The space around him was already completely frozen. The Technique God watched her with silent terror, immobile, unable to move even a finger.

"It went something like this..."

Aisha raised her free hand.

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

She looked directly into Laplace's eyes. In the next instant, she grabbed him by the neck.

Her hand began to shine with a red light. The same light that had expelled Vita from Nina's body in the cave of the Gaia Kingdom.

Aisha laughed softly.

"Fufufu... Did you really think you could use the same trick twice?"

She remembered perfectly when she had almost caught Vita in one of her last battles.

On that occasion, he had cut his connection with the Death God in the middle of the battle and saved his main body. Obviously, Aisha had prepared for the moment when he would try the same thing.

Vita tried to beg, tried to flee, tried to scream.

But space was frozen, and his body did not move. He was as trapped as he could possibly be. Truly, that was an inescapable trap for anyone who did not understand spatial magic.

Axiom Frame was the ultimate weapon against warriors in the World of the Six Faces.

Aisha became serious and took a deep breath, then used almost everything that remained of her mana.

"It's a shame I can't research you, disgusting slime."

The red light pierced into the depths of the Technique God's body, hunting and searching for a small dark-blue organism.

When the light found it, it burned. A sharp shriek echoed inside the dome.

A strange reverberation, as though several minds were screaming at the same time in different places. The collective minds of the Nether King, Vita, scattered across the entire world, burned.

Aisha nearly fainted.

Her vision blurred and her legs weakened, but she remained standing.

She had no more mana potions with her, but even so, she still had the strength to look carefully at the Technique God's inert body.

Panting, Aisha analyzed his condition with care.

She celebrated inwardly, joyfully.

Yes, he's alive!

---

Meanwhile, in another part of the Begaritt Continent, in a territory that had not even been evacuated by the Iron Legion, residents and adventurers gazed up at the sky in wonder.

Above them, an enormous Floating Fortress hovered beneath the clouds.

Children pointed upward. Veteran adventurers, who had faced high-level monsters and survived labyrinths, fell silent before that sight.

That Fortress could answer one of Aisha's questions.

Why had Orsted not saved Rudeus when he was killed by Milis?

Well, it was very simple.

He had not been there to begin with.

Currently, inside the Floating Fortress, Perugius Dola sat on his throne with a grave expression.

His eleven spirits were tense, positioned throughout the hall and ready to attack at the slightest sign of conflict.

Standing before Perugius was the Dragon God, Orsted.

Wearing his traditional white mantle, he faced the Armored Dragon King impassively. His posture was as intimidating as always.

The two remained that way for several long seconds. If Perugius's spirits could sweat cold, they would have been sweating.

Both dragons stared at each other with golden reptilian eyes.

Until, at last, Perugius broke the silence.

"Are you truly going to block my path, Orsted?"

Perugius tightened his grip on the armrest of his throne.

His aura spread throughout the hall with an unmistakably murderous battle intent.

But Orsted remained impassive.

"I will not allow you to get in the Beast God's way, of course. But it is for another reason that I decided to prevent any action on your part."

Perugius raised an eyebrow.

"I can set aside the Apocalypse Beast, though I do not understand why you insist on defending that monstrosity."

His gaze grew colder.

"But Jino Britz's head will be mine, regardless of your interference."

Perugius was ready to enter into conflict with Rygar if necessary, though he hoped he would not have to.

After all, he had conveniently learned from someone that this would be his best opportunity to seek a reckoning.

Orsted, still impassive, spoke once more:

"As I mentioned, that is secondary."

He paused briefly.

"Keep in mind that this conversation is not common. Normally, you would already be dead by this point."

Perugius narrowed his eyes.

For an instant, Orsted seemed to recall old memories.

"But over time, I learned that a proper conversation can be advantageous before making a decision about apostles. Although you have been influenced by that filthy god, you may still live if you retreat."

He looked into Perugius's eyes again.

"Leaving aside the fact that I need the Beast God alive for my own objectives, the moment you chose to become Hitogami's pawn, you became my target. Anything he told you would be for his own benefit, something I cannot allow."

Perugius frowned.

His face remained serious and noble as always.

It was true that he had received advice from Hitogami, but he had never considered himself a pawn.

Just as he was about to refute Orsted, a clear cutting sound rang through the hall.

The sound reverberated throughout the entire Fortress.

In the next instant, the great metal door flew uncontrollably inward with a crash, cut into two clean halves.

Orsted moved slightly to the side, avoiding being struck by one of the pieces.

Then he looked at who had arrived.

At that same moment, everyone felt as though a beast were trying to devour them alive.

The fact that they had already been tense did not change anything. The presence that had just entered emanated a completely different kind of bloodlust.

It was like a hungry predator.

Eris Adoldia entered with sword in hand, dressed in her armor.

Her gaze passed over Perugius Dola, then over Orsted.

The killing intent in her eyes made no distinction between them.

At her side were two warriors. One of them was a shrimp-man, the infamous Pistol Shrimp, the strongest warrior of the Sea Race. On the other side was Ku, the crab-man and second strongest.

Both were prepared to attack at the slightest sign from Eris.

But Eris, deeply affected by Orsted's curse, stared at the Dragon God with even greater intensity.

Her mission was to contain or eliminate the Armored Dragon King, who had entered the continent in the direction of the Ever-White Desert.

Along the way, Perugius had eliminated every Iron Legion warrior who stood in his path.

That alone was enough to seal his sentence.

But since the times were chaotic, the priority was preventing him from intervening in the battle.

If Perugius were added to the confrontation in the Ever-White Desert, everything would become even more complicated.

Even knowing that, the Dragon God's Curse did its work, turning anyone into Orsted's mortal enemy.

Eris was specifically aiming at him for no reason at all.

Orsted raised an eyebrow, then placed a sinister helm over his head. This was the artifact that drastically reduced the effects of his Curse, though not perfectly.

Before any fight began, he spoke directly to Eris:

"Sword God, Eris Adoldia. I have no intention of fighting you or your allies."

Orsted had learned to converse far more eloquently over the last few years. Although he was still not a great speaker, he was no longer as terrible as he had once been.

And his words, at the very least, managed to communicate his lack of hostility.

Eris did not answer. She continued looking at everyone in the hall like a beast about to leap.

Perugius, however, was especially impatient.

Watching the situation grow increasingly terrible for himself, he decided he could no longer wait.

Perhaps outside the Fortress, he would not be capable of defeating that group. But now they were inside it.

Inside his territory.

Having come this far, he would not retreat a single step.

His mana synchronized with the Fortress, and the entire hall trembled.

With a wave of his hand, Perugius ordered:

"Kill them all."

The spirits did not wait, advancing at the same time against their enemies.

The Pistol Shrimp, who had been waiting until then, suddenly snapped his claw. A shock wave fired through the hall.

Eris vanished in the same instant, becoming a crimson blur as she used the Longsword of Light.

The spirits used their strange abilities one after another.

And then, Orsted made a decision.

----

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