The Lady's Butler: I Reincarnated To Serve The Villainess

Chapter 220: Ignis Is....Dead?

BOOM!

Another explosion went off as an attack was launched at the Excidium, only to have it blocked by a golden barrier.

The arena was now full of ice shards, vines, craters and scotch marks everywhere and although the Grand Dukes and the king seemed completely exhausted,

The Excidium seemed completely unharmed.

The Archbishop had disappeared earlier with the claim that the civilians outside might need help.

No one tried stopping him since one more would make no difference against the creature before them.

"Tell me," Ignis said between breaths, "that someone has an idea."

They were quickly running out of mana, but they seemed no closer to defeating this creature.

Zephir was silent after that question. He might be the biggest planner amongst them, but even he had no idea how to take the creature before them down.

It was almost as if they were facing someone on the Founder’s level.

Speaking of which, he was certain that the Academy’s headmistress must’ve felt the creature’s presence by now.

So why wasn’t she here?

Unfortunately, the cult master had ensured that headmistress Evelina wouldn’t interfere with this experiment of his just as he had done during the attack on the academy.

She was currently isolated in a different space until the cult master’s experiment was completed.

Or she figured a way out before that...which would almost be impossible.

Though the cult master failed to account for the fact that the mesmerling was with her.

But that was a problem for later.

Right now, the problem was the creature standing in the center of a destroyed arena, completely unharmed, ’watching’ them run out of mana with patience.

"Someone say something useful."

One could tell that the situation was quite grave from the fact that Ignis was trying to use his brains rather than fists.

Boreas had a frownon his face as he looked at the Excidium. He seemed to have figured something out as he turned towards Magnus.

"Can you isolate this arena?" He asked, looking at the king.

Magnus looked at the Grand Duke for a while before nodding and creating a barrier that enveloped only the arena.

"You have a plan?" Zephir asked, and Boreas nodded before turning towards Sebastian, "Keep it busy."

Sebastian nodded and disappeared. The next second, the butler reappeared behind the creature.

The creature was fast enough to react and put up a barrier just before Sebastian’s cane tapped on the ground.

A wise choice, because the moment the cane reached the ground, what seemed like a blast of wind was launched towards it, quickly shattering the barrier.

If the creature had facial features, one would realize that it seemed mildly interested in the pest before it.

So it decided to see how much the pest could push it.

Which was exactly what Boreas needed.

Sebastian disappeared just before the Excidium could retaliate, reappearing a distance away...well, rather than disappear, it would be more accurate to say that he moved fast enough to avoid the creature’s attacks.

Meanwhile, the grand dukes looked at the cold coming from Boreas’s body as he said, "Ignis, you’re responsible for keeping Horus and Zephir from freezing. "

The King could handle himself, but the other two weren’t bonded to spirits that could particularly resist his cold.

Sebastian, on the other hand, had developed an immunity to cold...even one at a level that Boreas was about to release.

"Alright," Ignis nodded, grabbed Zephir by the shoulders, and set him on fire.

Literally.

"..."

Though the flames did no harm to the Grand Duke of the West, they did catch him off guard.

Without a word, Ignis launched himself towards the still unconscious Horus before also wrapping him in flames and going back to his previous position.

"Done," he said, and Boreas nodded.

The next second, the temperature suddenly dropped drastically, immediately catching the attention of the Excidium itself.

Unfortunately for it, that second of distraction was all Sebastian needed to land an attack, launching the creature the stands.

BOOM!

The stands collapsed inward where Excidium landed, rubble cascading down, completely burying the creature.

Sebastian was certain that the rubble would barely do anything damage to the creature but that wasn’t his goal in the first place.

He looked up and noticed the snow falling within the barrier that the King had created.

It seems his task had been completed.

Just as he had expected, the rubble where the Excidium was buried suddenly started glowing before exploding as the creature walked out of it,

Completely unharmed.

But there was something different with it.

It was subtle, but Sebastian noticed it the moment the creature took its first step out of the rubble and launched itself towards him.

At first, he could barely track its movements, but now, he could properly see the path it took towards him, and that’s when the butler realized what his master’s plan was.

The creature was now slower due to the rapidly dropping temperature, which meant that their chances were a lot higher now.

Sebastian dodged the attack a lot easier than earlier as he quickly retreated.

The Excidium tried chasing, only to stop and put you behind a barrier by its side, just in time to block a flaming kick.

The force of the attack pushed both the creature and its barrier backwards before it recovered and looked towards its attacker.

Ignis landed and looked at it with a grin, "That’s more like it."

The Excidium wasn’t given a chance to retaliate before the ground beneath him suddenly cracked open, and out came vines that completely wrapped it up.

The creature ’looked’ at the vines, but the attacks were far from over, because the next second, multiple weapons made of golden light were launched at it.

The vines managed to hold on long enough for the weapons to reach their target.

BOOM!

The explosion that followed was the largest since the fight began, and since the flowers on the vines also detonated the moment the weapons made of light landed.

The entire arena was covered by a smoke cloud, but they didn’t let down their guards as they waited for it to clear up.

Sebastian sped up the process, clearing the arena of the smoke, and they were finally presented with a view of the results.

Where the Excidium had once been restrained now lay a massive crater, with no sign of the creature anywhere.

Given that Zephir hadn’t felt his vines going loose even as the attacks landed, it was safe to assume that the creature had been turned to ash.

"We did...it?" Ignis’s words were cut off as he lowered his head, noticing a hand going through his chest.

He didn’t register what just happened until the attacker withdrew its hand, causing him to fall towards the floor.

The other grand dukes and the king looked towards him with wide eyes as they looked at Ignis’s attacker.

The Excidium, the same creature that was supposed to be nothing but ash right now, was now standing there, completely unharmed, with Ignis’s beating heart in its hand.

The arena was completely silent as they realized what had just happened.

What they had been attacking just now was only a clone, similar to how Lucian had created a clone in his match.

How had they not noticed such an obvious trap?

A trap they had ended up falling for, and now,

Ignis was dead.

***

Meanwhile, in a land unknown to only a few, Ignis’s eyes opened, and the first thing that came into view was bright blue skies.

{Well, that was disappointing.}

His view of the sky was blocked by a large scaly head, one that belonged to a creature that he was contracted to,

A black dragon.

"I didn’t expect it to use tricks either," Ignis said as he sat up and looked around, recognizing where he was, "Am I here here for another trial?"

{Not quite,} the dragon’s said, {after all, you are dead.}

"Hm," he let out as he looked up at the skies again, "I see."

{That’s all you have to say?} the dragon asked.

"Regrettably, I didn’t get to tell my wives goodbye, but there’s probably nothing to be done right now," he said in a tone that was quite unlike him.

The dragon looked at him for a while, knowing exactly what its contractor was feeling right now, after all, it had been with him for years now.

{There is something we could do,} the dragon said, {though, I’m uncertain it’ll work.}

Ignis looked at him before grinning, "Let’s do it then."

***

Back in the arena, barely any time had passed since Ignis fell to the floor, but the next second, heavy pressure suddenly fell on them all.