Transmigrated as the Villain: I Will Destroy Fate

Chapter 170: Duality [2]

Luca moved.

He didn’t think. He didn’t plan. The sight of Grace, standing firm against the storm of Bruce’s rage, reignited the fire in his own chest. His instincts, momentarily buried under pain and confusion, roared back to life.

He was a protector. He was the Hero, or so many people had called him such.

And that girl – that strange, impossible girl who he’d grown to call his friend – was fighting a battle that felt like it should have been his.

No. It was his. This wasn’t a feeling, this was a fact.

He was beside her in a heartbeat. As he did, he channeled mana into the floor, causing pillars of stone to appear under Bruce. He dodged them easily, his expression still furious.

A second after that, Iris was there too.

Ice spread across the ground, a massive sheet that disrupted Bruce’s footing. She fell into formation without a word, her expression cold. She did not need to understand what was happening to know there was a threat to be eliminated.

The three of them stood together, a united front against the snarling, wounded demon. The question of how Grace knew what she did still hung in the air. But there was no time to ask.

Bruce reacted before the first stone pillar had fully risen.

His body blurred, a phantom of wind and motion, but he did not move toward Luca or Grace. He moved toward Iris.

"Iris, watch out!" Luca shouted.

She was already moving. A wall of ice, thick and layered, shot up from the ground. It was a fortress, a solid, reinforced defense designed to stop a direct assault from someone far stronger than Bruce.

But Bruce was not in front of her.

He was behind her.

An illusion, again Luca saw it a little too late. The figure that had charged the wall was just an illusion Bruce had created. The real Bruce had flowed around them like a ghost. Wind gathered in his palm, compressed not into a blade, but into a narrow, vicious point.

He pressed it into Iris’s lower spine before she could turn.

The strike was not wide or flashy. It was precise.

"Ah!" Iris cried out, a sharp, choked sound of pain that cut through the chaos.

Her body went stiff, her legs buckling.

A snarl tore from Luca’s throat. He sent a torrent of mana toward Bruce. It was not a spell, it was pure force. But Bruce twisted around it, his body bending with an unnatural flexibility.

The mana went past him, and in the same fluid motion, he pivoted and drove a kick across Luca’s jaw.

The impact snapped Luca’s head aside, the force rattling his teeth.

He stumbled back several steps, his vision swimming for a second.

"One down," Bruce commented, his voice devoid of the earlier rage, looking at Iris. "This isn’t a three-on-one anymore."

But Iris was rising.

Not cleanly. But she rose. Grace was already working, a gentle healing light fading from her hands.

The wound in Iris’s back was healed, patched just enough for her to move, though it was not a complete fix. Iris was paler, and the left side of her body moved with a visible stiffness. But she could move.

"You’re wrong. It is," Iris stated, her voice tight.

Bruce’s expression changed. The irritation from Grace’s words was still there, but it was now combined with cold calculation.

His eyes moved from Iris, to Luca, then settled on Grace.

With danger.

Luca saw it instantly. Bruce was going to target Grace. It was the smart move. Grace had healed Iris. Grace had holy magic that worked against demons.

Grace was the one holding their shattered formation together with her impossible knowledge and calm demeanor. If Bruce removed the healer, the fight was over.

She said she had an artifact, Luca thought, his mind racing. One that could see through illusions.

He did not know if it was true, she’d never showed it, but he had to trust her. He watched Bruce’s posture, his footing, the subtle tension in his shoulders, trying to read the man, not the magic.

Then Bruce attacked him instead.

A katana appeared in his hand, its blade a dark, hungry steel. Luca couldn’t tell if it had been hidden by illusion or if this was just another layer of deception. There was no time to decide. Luca blocked with a hastily formed barrier of reinforced mana.

Sparks of lightning and wind scattered from the collision.

Bruce’s physical strength was far greater than it should be.

He was pushing Luca back.

At the same time, Iris attacked from the side.

A spear of ice formed in the air and shot toward Bruce’s exposed back.

The timing was perfect.

Bruce did not turn.

He simply shifted his body a few inches to the left, letting the spear hiss past him as if he had known its trajectory from the start.

He pointed one finger backward, never taking his eyes off Luca.

A spear of condensed wind fired from his fingertip.

It was impossibly fast, a grey blur that tore through the air.

The attack pierced Iris’s shoulder before she could raise a defense.

She staggered, another cry of pain stifled behind her teeth.

Grace moved to heal her.

Bruce moved faster.

The instant Grace began to cast, he broke from his engagement with Luca and appeared at her side.

The pattern was brutally clear now, injure the others to bait the healer, then strike when she was committed to a spell.

But Grace had expected it.

She cancelled the spell.

Luca’s eyes widened.

Stopping a spell mid-cast was not simple. It was like halting a river. Most mages either let the spell fire or allowed the structure of the spell to collapse, often causing backlash. Grace did it smoothly, the light in her hands vanishing without a ripple.

In the same fluid motion, she reached into a pocket on her thigh.

She pulled out a small, metallic object.

It was dense, ovular, and had a pin sticking out of the top.

Luca had never seen anything like it.

Grace pulled the pin and tossed the object toward Bruce as casually as you would throw a stone.

Bruce, confused but still committed to his attack, pressed forward.

The object exploded.