"[Time Stop]."

Clash I: Part 3

A black-and-white background took over the color of this world. The specks of grass floating through the air were stopped in its track. Air itself stopped. Sound, smell, taste, and all movement stopped within this spell. This was the 10th tier spell, [Time stop].

Ainz let out a deep sigh. The sigh was deep, and it was the only sigh that existed within the range of this spell.

"It was truly a gamble, Reinhard," he said. "Normally, in a PvP between two level 100 players, it is custom to have countermeasures against time-manipulation spells. Whether it is a magic item, spell, ability, or anything, really. Well, what an opponent can do in this frozen time depends on the skill and abilities available. Though, I suppose, I shouldn't waste my time talking to someone who cannot respond, right?"

–The sword saint did not move. He was frozen in time, stuck while reaching for his trump card. He did not move, did not blink, did not even take a breath of air. He was frozen, helpless, and unable to counter the spell. Not even his sky-blue eyes moved in this frozen space.

The fact that Ainz's gamble worked filled him with boundless joy. It was joy that leapt from his heart, and even with his emotion-inhibition, it continued to surge into a cycle of endless joy. Laughter filled the frozen space.

Ainz's play wasn't simply based on luck. It was based on the lack of knowledge. In Yggdrasil, the majority of players, especially the high-level ones, had knowledge of time-manipulation spells and made prudent preparations against it. Level 100 hundred players always had countermeasures against [Time stop].

This world was different, however. Knowledge of time-manipulation spells did not reach even the darkest and deepest corners of this world. The idea of a spell that could stop time was only attributed towards ancient masters of yin magic. It wasn't something common, well-known, and it was certainly not something that every high level warrior had a countermeasure for. Even if a countermeasure existed, most people did not even think about it.

"Even you did not have a countermeasure, Reinhard Van Astrea. Even an opponent like you would not think that their enemy can stop time, huh. I truly am glad that you did not possess a breakthrough . Now then, let's get rid of your trump card."

He leisurely walked right next to him. He stretched his bony fingers towards the hilt of Reinhard's trump card, but then hesitated.

Please don't tell me that there's some bullshit, 'if anyone other than the bearer touches it, they die,' condition.

The [Time stop] could only go for so long. Thus, he took a non-existent gulp, and grabbed the hilt. The sword was truly beautiful. He laid the length on his hands, felt the texture, and nodded in appreciation of such a rare object.

"I would thank you for such a gift, Reinhard, but I suppose I can't."

He could not pull the sword out of its sheath. However, he did not have the time to use [Perfect warrior] and see if that worked. The experiments for this rare item would have to happen later. For now, he dumped it in his inventory, out of reach, out of sight, and gone from Reinhard's bearing.

There was the chance that Reinhard had some 'recall' ability on his sword, and could teleport it out of Ainz's inventory. But that was unlikely given this man's reaction to teleportation spells, and the lack of common teleportation in this world.

He quietly waited for the appointed time. In truth, [Time stop] did not allow him to freely attack and kill Reinhard. Any direct attacks done in this stopped time would have no result on the HP of both the one casting [Time Stop] and the one defending or stuck in it.

But there was one way that he could. It was something that only around five percent—or less—of players could accomplish. It was a glitch in a sense, an unintentional result of game mechanics.

"It was truly a shame that your opponent was me, Reinhard. [Delay magic: True death]."

However, despite his ultimate words, he had a prediction that Reinhard would be able to resist this spell once it activates the moment this veil of frozen time goes up.

"Now all of Nazarick knows that Reinhard Van Astrea is susceptible to time-manipulation."

He walked back to his position, and waited. [Time stop] ran its course.

"Guh!"

A splatter of blood burst from Reinhard's mouth the moment time returned back to normal. Reinhard's skin went pale, and his body shuddered as if it was embedded under a cold breath. He fell to one knee, but used his left hand to keep his balance.

The edges of his skin were crusting away; dry and dead. The tips of his flaming-red hair became as white as snow. There wasn't even a wave of sweat over his strangely dead skin.

"W-What…did-?"

He took deep breaths, and croaked that question out. The condition of this man made Ainz satisfied. He did a 'yay,' inside his heart. He stopped a, 'hell yesssss,' from getting out of his mouth.

This half-effected condition of Reinhard gave concrete evidence for one of Ainz's theories. That theory was that Reinhard did not possess complete immunity to instant death magic. After all, instant death magic did not even exist in this world. Even if the world could counter the magic and abilities of this world, it could not take into account ones from outside. In other words, there was a deep limit to divine protections, and it could not counter something that did not even exist in this reality.

The likeliest scenario was that Reinhad possessed a high immunity or resistance to magic, curses, negative effects, and debuffs in general. If Ainz was a magic caster or spirit arts user from this world, then everything he did would be hard-countered by everything that Reinhard possessed.

But he was from a different place altogether.

But it's as I thought. 9th tier instant death won't be enough. Or, to be precise, magic that cannot ignore any and all immunities won't be enough.

Other than his susceptibility to time-manipulation magic, Ainz had also confirmed one more thing.

It seemed that this person could absorb mana from the air, and used it to bolster his sword skills, offensive, and defense capabilities. The level of 'power-up' appeared to be dependent on the amount of mana used, the careful application of mana, and the amount of time used for its application. For that reason, while [Discern magic] had displayed him a negligible result before, now it displayed a tremendous amount.

He was cautious that Reinhard might use magic. After all, if someone had such an incredible amount of mana that they could freely absorb, then why wouldn't they use magic? However, there was the chance that this warrior did not possess the aptitude, or perhaps there were some other reasons.

Regardless, his absorption of mana from the air did not affect Ainz. The reason for that was quite simple. The magic system of this world, and the tier-magic system of Yggdrasil were fundamentally different from each other. In this world, mana was present in the air and magic-casters needed that mana. They would absorb it, funnel it through something called the 'gate', and then they could cast their magic.

Yggdrasil did not function that way. Mana belonged inside of a person. The amount of mana capacity they had dictated the amount of mana they held within themselves. For example, despite having more MP than the maximum limit, Ainz had all of it inside himself. He and the denizens of Nazarick could not take mana from the air and neither did they need to.

In other words, Reinhard's mana absorption ability would be poison to the magic casters and spirit art users of this world. They would not be able to do anything. However, this ability of his did not mean anything to those from Yggdrasil. Ainz did not need any of the mana that Reinhard had absorbed for his casting.

It made his recovery rate slower than those from this world; it would take him a whole day just to recover all of his MP. So, though he was envious of those who could absorb mana from their surroundings, he was glad to be confined to the magic system of Yggdrasil. With that concluded, this was yet another ability of the sword saint that Nazarick could counter with ease.

Reinhard recovered slowly and rose up to his feet. In truth, Ainz wanted to use [Grasp heart] right then and there, but he did not have enough mana to spare for that. His immense amounts of MP were meant for the next set of moves, not for [Grasp heart].

#

Reinhard quietly looked at his side, at the bare waist without his special sword.

"What did you do, Ainz-dono? In an instant, I was attacked by an unknown ability and my sword was taken to an unknown place," he tried to keep his voice steady.

Reinhard's heart was filled with trepidation despite the presence of divine protections that calmed and regulated his emotions. It was to be expected. After all, Reinhard had no idea what had happened. For him, the last thing he remembered before falling to his knee was reaching for his sword. Then, like a nightmare, his sword was gone and his life force was sapped away from a truly repulsive energy. Ainz had not moved.

He resisted the presence of death and recovered, but he still had no clue what it was. His divine protections allowed him to know the various spells that a magic caster of this world could cast. However, that didn't seem to apply to Ainz Ooal Gown. It seems the rumors were true; this undead monstrosity was of a different realm of existence.

What did he do? What if he does it again? If I could not defend against it, then what about my country?

Doubts entered his heart. He knew the true power of the Dragon Sword Reid. Thus, he knew that once that sword was taken out, victory would be a certainty unless the enemy escaped instantly. Yet his trump card had been taken away with such ease. The undead Ruler of Death in front of him simply stretched his arms out. Though his skull did not show any emotions, Reinhard knew that he was smiling underneath. He could glimpse that surface level intention with his divine protections.

Reinhard shut his eyes for just a second. He found the locator type divine protection that existed in this world. He had tried to use it before when searching for the last Royal candidate. However, it had been of no use. There were limits to the divine protections, limits that pertained to range, object, and other variables.

He had tried to create a divine protection that could instantly locate the Royal Candidates, but such an effect was not possible. Such divine protections could not be created. If they could, then he would have found Felt-sama, found the child of Royal bloodline that had been kidnapped, found a method to fix his mother, found the home base of Ainz Ooal Gown, and found the location of the secret organization—the six tongues—that had once threatened to kill his family if he betrayed the Kingdom.

Reinhard knew the limits of the sort of divine protections that could be created, and the sort that could not. Not everything could be created. If it could, then he would have cured his Mother already.

If anything could be created, then he would made a divine protection that allowed him to instantly teleport, to clone himself, to negate all damage, to gain complete immunity to authorities, to fix his family issues, to get rid of the disgustful history behind the divine protection of the sword saint, to be informed whenever danger is near his loved ones, to use magic regardless of his defected gate, to create brand new swords out of nowhere, and to gain eternal youth.

In his fight with the archbishop of Greed, Regulus, he would have created a divine protection that allowed him to completely bypass the invincibility of that person. He would have created a protection that granted him and his allies immunity to all and any attacks by that specific person. Yet he did not make those protections. The reason was simple: such protections could not be made. There was a limit.

Even his resistances to fire, wind, water, ying, and yang magic were mostly capped at eighty percent reduction and absorption, with exceptions regarding debuffs, curses, and buffs. That wasn't because he was stupid and chose not to take one-hundred percent absorption, but he could not do so.

The other issue was that in order to receive a divine protection, he had to convey his desires regarding it to Od Laguna. Od Laguna was a construct. It was the system of the world. It did not have a personality, or anything resembling sentience. It did not whisper into his ear the exact combination of divine protections available to him in any given time.

If it did, then that particular situation when his liege, Felt-sama, had been taken hostage by his Father would have flown differently. He did not receive the miracle of getting automatic divine protections for any and all situations. No, Reinhard had to be the one who reached out to Od Laguna. Od Laguna did not do anything in that hostage situation. When Otto Suwen had helped with his divine protection, Reinhard had realized that such a divine protection could have been so useful in that scenario. Yet because he did not ask for it, he did not receive anything.

In fact, he had been the one to reach out and get the divine protection of judgment. That was the pure deal of it all. If he conveyed his intentions and asked for it, then he would receive it if it existed or could be created.

This was both a blessing and a curse. It was a blessing because he did not have to be plagued with a constant influx of divine protections for every situation, such as when cleaning the bathroom or taking a shower. It was a curse because his intentions weren't always properly conveyed to Od Laguna.

That system of the world did not have a mind or a personality. It did not understand what Reinhard could not convey properly. Sometimes he would receive something completely different. Other times he would get nothing.

His ability wasn't absolute.

Which makes this situation the worst.

His compatibility with Ainz Ooal Gown was the worst. He judged it so after coming to this point. He did not understand the majority of the tricks and tools in his opponent's position. And because he did not understand it, he could not convey anything to Od Laguna.

He had tried to create protections to counter everything that Ainz had thrown at him, including that strange teleportation, but the only ones available were ones for magical immunity and resistances. Those had helped to a certain extent.

Finally, after the scan of his locator type divine protection ran its course, it displayed a result, or the lack of one.

The sword is not here?

His locator type divine protection was attuned towards an object that belonged to him—the Dragon Sword. It only worked at a certain range, but this range—the distance between him and Ainz—was more than enough for it to work. Yet it showed no results. It was as if the sword had been thrown into a different space entirely.

This is bad. I cannot retrieve it. Do I retreat for now? No, this might be the only chance to end Ainz Ooal Gown. I have to use all of my limbs, and then, if he still survives, then I cannot achieve the conditions for victory.

Thanks to his divine protection pertaining to mental attunements, Reinhard had thought through everything in a matter of seconds since his question to Ainz.

"Your sword, huh," Ainz said. "No, no. I was so fast that I snatched it away."

"That is a lie," he said as he observed the wind of lies blowing around him.

Ainz's eyes—red dots in his eye sockets—flickered. Using his divine protection, he glimpsed and understood that Ainz was even using this simple reply of his to gain more information. Normally, the divine protection would allow him to completely see through his opponent's intentions depending on their skill level. Yet with Ainz, it did not seem to work to its full effect. All he could glimpse was surface-level flickers of emotions.

"Well," Ainz continued. "I hope you can forgive me for my lies. I truly am sorry."

Another lie.

"Either way, the answer to your question is simple. Your sword is no longer available here, sword saint. Even if you kill me, you can no longer take it back."

That is a…truth.

"As for the other attack, well, I have no reason to tell you that, right?"

Indeed, he was right. Reinhard was and had been the naive one in this battlefield.

If so, then I have no choice but to try that. Sorry, my past self. I apologize, my Father.

He reached into the grasp of Od Laguna, and retrieved a divine protection he had vowed not to use again. It was the rare and dangerous divine protection of mind-changing. It was something horrendous, repulsive, and absurdly powerful. He had used it once, regretted it all, and had removed the divine protection, vowing to never use something like that on anyone, no matter if that person was a witch cultist. His past lesson, taken from his Father, had embedded that ideology inside him.

Yet here he was, betraying his past self, and launching the full power of mind-changing towards Ainz. His intentions were to make him surrender himself and to vow to never hurt anyone from this world.

He aimed those intentions and—

"-!"

A large explosion covered his entire body. Other than the knock back from the force of this fiery burst, the rest of the effects were mostly negated. His skin was left flushed, but that was all. Yet his mind was in a net of panic. Ainz had not attacked. So why?

"Oh? Oh…ah, I see," Ainz nodded his head as he muttered. "I see. So that was it. Dangerous, indeed. But now I know, so it's not so dangerous anymore. So what you did was a sort of divination spell? No, wait, it was similar."

Divination magic? I don't understand these words. This is bad. Even that didn't work?

"I see. I apologize, Reinhard. You tried to use a high-tier mind control spell—no, my apologies, a mind-control ability, didn't you?"

How?!

"So there were divine protections such as those! I thank you for this precious knowledge. But it is a shame," the glow of Ainz's eyes was a true terror to him now. "Not only do I possess complete immunity to mind-affecting spells, I also have countermeasures in place. Of course, such a low-level spell could not even begin to hurt you. Just think of it as some trivial harassment."

What should I do? He has an answer to everything I put forth. What should I do? What is left?

His divine protection of the sword saint was still a god-given grace to him. It allowed him to see the trajectory of all attacks with the exception being many of the strange instantaneous spells that Ainz had used, such as that [Grasp Heart] and the unknown spell he used to snatch away his trump card. It also allowed him to see the best possible trajectory for his attacks to follow in order to get a certain critical blow.

Combined with his divine protection that guaranteed hits and guaranteed that his hits would get critical strikes, it was a powerful combo. Yet, once again, the battle with Ainz was different.

He could not see any trajectories that would allow him critical strikes. It was as if those were prevented entirely. He could only see the trajectories that would guarantee him a small amount of damage. In addition, those trajectories were all away from the red orb that Ainz possessed on him.

His divine protection of intuition also forbid him from striking that red orb even with a sword.

On top of that, he no longer possessed a sword to use the divine protection of the death-god with. Even if he possessed one, Ainz would probably use that strange [Greater break item] thing.

Even if he went full speed, Ainz would use that troublesome teleportation.

Reinhard took stock of all this in a matter of seconds. He wasn't exhausted, and the spirits in the air had already helped him recover his life force.

"Now then, sword saint," Ainz said. "Let's try this."

"Try what–?"

"Bear witness, Reinhard of Lugunica. Take a good look and tell those dogs of the Kingdom about what you will see. [Super tier magic: Fallen down]."

A sense of danger flared up inside him. His divine protections of intuition and danger-sense warned him of what would happen before it even happened. He hallucinated the sight of a large explosion, one that could take out a town with ease.

Multiple magic circles, unknown and foreign, surrounded and revolved around Ainz. It was a sight of magical beauty, one that even the strongest of magicians could not attain.

Reinhard charged immediately. He understood at a glance that this spell was something that needed time to charge up. In other words, if he could stop it then—

Ainz pulled out a small hourglass.

"-Huh?"

The sense of danger blared inside his head. It was coming. He knew it was going to fall upon him.

"What are you going to do, Reinhard?" Ainz questioned. "What is your choice?"

He understood what he was getting at. The first choice was to take the full brunt of this unknown attack. Reinhard was certain that he could survive one of them, and even if he died, he could come back. But how much damage would be done? What about the delay between his death and his resurrection?

Would Ainz use the chance to escape? Would he use that chance to destroy his country?

He did not know. He could not read this Ruler of Death.

Thus, he chose the second choice. He turned around, stepped on air, and dashed outside the range of this attack. He did not know how fast that attack would be, but he understood its general range from his divine protection of intuition.

So he ran. He ran with his speed maxed out.

Glass shattered from a distance behind him.

—A bright light fell upon the world.

# #

Ainz watched as the bright-blue light destroyed the world around him. The range was absurdly large, and its power decimated the plains, leaving behind a burned and crystallized crater. The earth was scorched to the point that light-purple crystals had formed. However, he was certain that Reinhard had escaped from the range of the [Super-tier magic]. He had timed it with that intention.

There were about forty seconds or more worth of distance created between them. This was exactly the sort of distance and time Ainz needed.

He used [Teleportation] to go to the far end of the crystalized crater, and started his ultimate process.

"[Create low-tier undead: Elder Liches.] [Create low-tier undead: Wraith]."

Fifteen Elder liches were spawned and five wraiths were spawned on the battlefield.

"""All hail to our Master!"""

They proclaimed, casted [4th-tier summon undead] and increased the amount of undead warriors present here.

"[Create middle-tier undead: Death Knight and Death warrior]. [Create middle-tier undead: Jack the ripper]. [Create middle-tier undead: Soul eater]."

He had already used two of the twelve-per-day middle-tier summons. So, this time, he created six Death Knights and two death warriors, one Jack the Ripper, and one Soul eater.

With his orders, the new stream of elite undead streamed into this army, taking over command of various sub-units, and hastily constructing their formation in accordance to their Master's will.

"[Create high-tier undead: Eternal death]. [Create high-tier undead: Eyeball corpse]."

He divided up the usage of his four-per-day high-tier undead creation skill. A level 90 Eternal Death was created, and it quickly hid among the army. The other two were the sensory-type Eyeball Corpse who would help the army's commander's in observing and reacting to the movement's of their single enemy.

"[Summon undead 1st]."

Low-tier dog-undeads were created. They served as the distractive hounds of the warriors made by the Elder Liches.

"[Summon undead 3rd]." Skeleton warriors entered the army, serving the subunit of each Elder Lich.

"[7th-tier spell: Undeath army]."

The huge horde of undead covered the battlefield. A headache throbbed inside his non-existent skull. The sensory overlord of the servant-and-master link was only sugared over by the leadership skills of his elite undeads. Yet, despite the exhaustion slowly filtering into him, Ainz continued to shout and continued to use his MP.

"[Summon undead 10th: Doom lord]!"

The elite Doom lord, a level 70 monster with higher stats than its level, took full control as the Commander of the army and stood at the very front as the leader of this set of army. Its crown was beautiful against the light of the sun, curving across the sky and towards the horizon.

It used [Rumonius night] as the red dot known as Reinhard Van Astrea started to get close to the battlefield. A black smoke exuded towards the surroundings. It made it's HP depletion faster, but it increased it's combat related stats, increased the resistance of the undead around him against light and holy-elements, and ignored any damage reduction caused by a level difference.

The undead were strengthened and their power was increased to a high degree due to his racial class strengthening skills.

"[10th tier spell: Armageddon–Evil]."

His skull hurt from the insides, as if ready to burst. It was due to his undead nature that Ainz did not fall to his knees at the pain inside his skull. But he knew his limits were encroaching upon him.

In addition, this was the first time he had gone all out in this summoning manner.

The horde of demons made up the second part of the army. They had a tendency to go berserk and out of control, but he was betting on Reinhard's ability to kill them all before that happened.

The riled up demons, from different shapes, sizes, and breeds, all growled and grunted at the figure of Reinhard Van Astrea. Their enemy had been decided, and this ridiculously large horde rushed in front of the first army, led by Doom Lord. It seemed that they would be the first ones to face off and die to Reinhard. How many seconds would they buy?

He noticed that the flying Reinhard had now taken off branches of nearby trees and had them quipped in his hands. Quite strange.

However, Ainz wasn't done yet.

He reached into his inventory and pulled out the item, Armageddon Evil(prototype).

Sorry, Ulbert-san. I am going to be using this, okay?

It was an item created by his past comrade, Ulbert. His attempts to replicate a world item that could summon an infinite horde of demons had failed. These prototypes had been left, however.

Ainz raised it up, and used all three gems in its three arms. The gems contained the [10th tier spell: Armageddon Evil], free of cost to Ainz, and when the gems shattered, three large armies of demons descended upon the earth.

They covered the sky and the ground. The flight group immediately left off for Reinhard. Thankfully, another great effect happened at the same time. Large groups of these demon armies began to seek out nearby settlements of human life.

As they staggered away from the battlefield, Reinhard immediately changed his trajectory and went after them first. His righteous branches shone. They shone just like his sword had when he had done his 'swordplay of the Astrea family thing'.

Ridiculous. An ordinary branch is turned that strong?

But as he watched Reinhard confront the stragglers and take them out with incredible speed, Ainz relaxed his shoulders.

"You really are a hero, Reinhard. But this is why you will lose. It might be overkill, but now that I have been given the chance, I will take it and have a few more summons for myself."

He used the statue of the magical beast–Cerberus to summon the [10th-tier monster: Cerberus].

The powerful, three-headed dog was much more powerful than the other demons summoned. Thus, with his instructions, the monster quickly took control of the remaining army of monsters as its Commander. With this, the third army had been created.

"Can't believe I'll use this as well," Ainz muttered and took out four horns of the Goblin General. He blew these useless consumable items, and summoned four groups of nineteen goblins of different classes and roles.

They made up yet another army of meat shields.

Next, he summoned a War horse for himself from a similar statue of the magical beast magic item. He would ride it once his trump card came into play.

Lastly, Ainz took out another hourglass, one of the last remaining ones, and casted [Super-tier magic: Pantheon].

Six level-80 Cherubims Gate keeps were summoned as the final elite guard.

They were powerful angels with the head and mane of a lion, four wings, and a shining suit of armor with a lance of fire and deadly shield. These were his guards, his tanks against anything Reinhard might put forth.

And with this, Ainz's MP was mostly depleted. He had just enough for a single [Greater Teleportation], a [Widen magic: Cry of the Banshee], and a [Perfect warrior].

If he used the Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown, then he could summon the primordials and many more. In addition, he would be able to strengthen them and himself to an absurd degree. Victory would be a guarantee, and his army would buy entire minutes worth of time, instead of just seconds.

However, he did not wish to risk the Staff. If it was destroyed, the entire guild would dissolve, after all.

Suddenly, Ainz was contacted through [Message].

"Ainz-sama," Albedo's wonderful voice spoke from the other end. "Do you wish for more troops? Currently, we have around two thousand Death Knights prepared to be deployed if necessary. In addition, the rest of the undead army are also ready. If we have the leeway of a few more minutes, then we can pull back our main force from the war and increase the number of Death Knights to over ten-thou—"

"No, there's no need for that, Albedo."

As much as the cautious part of his brain urged him to literally deploy the entire troop, he refused to do so. Firstly, this large of an army, the one present in front of him, was already way too much of an overkill and a complete waste in hindsight. All he needed was twelve seconds.

This army would be wasted once his trump card was used. Thus, he did not want to waste the main force of Nazarick for no reason except to satisfy his caution.

"Then, Ainz-sama. I wish you well in this battle," her voice stopped and then cracked a little as she continued, "Please come back safely."

"...Yeah. Yes, I will. You can count on that, Albedo!"

The [Message] was disconnected.

After Reinhard took out the stranglers, he entered the battlefield.

With all of his summons and armies in front, the true Ruler of Death, Ainz Ooal Gown, stood near one end of the army. This was an army capable of destroying the mightiest of kingdoms. The threat was on full play.

In truth, Ainz did not need this army to use his trump card, [The Goal of All life is Death]. As someone efficient in chronomancy class, Ainz could have saved up his MP for a [Time Stop], and would have timed his ultimate skill right.

As someone who had practiced and pulled it off multiple times back in Yggdrasil, he could time it efficiently. He would cast [The Goal of All Life is Death], then choose [Delay magic: Cry of the Banshee], and time [Time stop] in a way that he wouldn't have to sit around and wait for twelve seconds to pass in real time.

It was a cheap move, akin to a glitch that many players who had been killed by Ainz had complained about. Yet he did not choose this strategy against Reinhard.

The reason was simple:

I have to make sure it connects for the sake of my experiment.

He could not afford to mess it up by even a millisecond. If this was a game, back in Yggdrasil, then he would take the risk and do it. But this was reality, and Ainz could not play around.

Reinhard Van Astrea, Sword Saint of Lugunica, slammed into the other end of the battlefield, and fended off the attacks of the incoming horde of demons. His eyes were set on the figure of Ainz Ooal Gown.

"Oops," Ainz said. "Almost forgot."

He equipped himself with a full suit of divine class items. His robe fluttered in this arena, and a black-and-red aura exuded from the King of this army of demons, angles, goblins, and undead.

He mounted his war horse, and exclaimed his final card:

"[Skill: The Goal of All Life is Death]."

The clock–a timer for death—appeared behind him like the scythe of the grim reaper itself. As it ticked down, Ainz stretched out the limits of his range.

"[Widen Magic: Cry of the Banshee]."

If Reinhard did not understand the ticking clock behind Ainz, then he must have understood the cry of this screeching banshee spreading to the inner ranges of this large crystallized arena.

The [Cry of the Banshee] was now amplified to bypass any and all immunities to instant death and resistances. Once the clock struck twelve—twelve seconds had passed—everything, including the air itself, would turn into dust.

This was the true peak of the one who stood as the Ruler of Death.

"Now, what will you do, Reinhard Van Astrea?! What choice will you make?!"

Now all he needed was for Reinhard to willingly step into the range of effect.

The Overlord's aura turned the sky into a scarlet red color.

To run away, out of the range, or to enter the jaws of death for the sake of victory. Which will it be?

As the Sword Saint smashed into the first army, the horns of battle blew.