"Do you see, Ainz Ooal Gown? You who claim yourself powerful has yet to taste the extent of the power that is our nation's guardians who built and protected this land for generations wield! Now have a taste of the power that is wielded by the strongest! May the Six Great Gods' power eradicate all but your ashes!"
Ainz did not even hear Archon's rambling as he continued to study the magical formation beneath his feet and above his head. It was unlike anything that he had seen in YGGDRASIL but Ainz guessed that it must be a bundle of spells from YGGDRASIL that had been collectively woven into this new formation that had the shape of a ten layered magic circle. The question now was how Ainz could negate or evade the damage itself as escaping had proven impossible even to him.
Teleportation doesn't work and breaking the seal with magic would be too risky, but I wonder…
At this point, the crystal's buzzing was growing intensely loud and Archon's vision was completely blinded by the intensity of the light that now emitted from the crystal. The entire treasury shook as if an earthquake was running through it as the piles of gold crumbled and the various magic items fell off their pedestals and altars, crashing down on the ground they created a symphony of metallic echoes. Not that Archon could hear it as he had long since covered his eyes to prevent himself from going blind and he was completely incapable of hearing anything due to the deafening buzzing of the crystal earlier which had left a piercing ringing sound in his ears.
All of this was inconsequential to Archon as even blind and deaf he still felt an indescribable joy in his heart. When he thought of how much power that crystal radiated and how heavy the shockwave of energy had been, in his heart there was not a shred of doubt that by now Ainz was nothing more than a pile of ash.
Carefully, Archon slit open his eyes to test if the light from the crystal was still blinding his view, but found that the light had faded and suspected that the buzzing sound had ceased as well despite the ringing in his ears that made him all but deaf.
Finally, Archon raised his head and looked towards the place where Ainz Ooal Gown had stood only to see a smoldering pile of bones that lay on the floor. Smoke was still rising from it as the charred pieces of marrow were steadily crumbling as well as fragments of what looked to be a black cloth that reminded Archon of the umber robe that the Sorcerer King had been wearing.
Archon reverted his gaze back to the item in his hands. The glowing ring of light still continued to glow brighter and Archon could guess that it would soon activate. With Ainz Ooal Gown gone, he had bought the Theocracy a considerable amount of time. If one took into account the various monsters and abominations that served under the Sorcerer King, it would not be too farfetched to imagine that with their master gone they would start infighting which in turn gave the Theocracy a chance for retaliation. Although they had lost some of their finest assets, they still commanded a vast army of some of the finest holy knights in the human realm. Adding to the fact that they had moved away a portion of their treasures and items as a safeguard, and a hope ever so faint could be detected.
Archon deactivated the item and moved to the very back of the treasury where upon placing his hand on one of the wall's stones caused a hidden passage to appear.
Archon felt extremely elated. Now that Ainz was dead, he could simply follow this path out of the sanctum and out of the city. From there it would be an easy escape to the neighboring city where the other Archbishops were. From there, they could formulate their strategy further. Although the loss of this city and its treasures was great, it was still manageable compared to the situation that they would have been in if Ainz Ooal Gown was allowed to live.
A hidden doorway opened before Archon as a slight gust of wind blew from the passage behind it. Feeling the refreshing breeze on his face, Archon calmed down as he began walking through the door.
Only to find an ice cold voice calling to him from behind.
"So you did have a hidden passageway that you could use to escape. I was wondering where you would go even if I did die."
At this moment, Archon's body halted to a complete standstill. His body did not move the slightest bit as he simply stood in mid motion with a joyous expression still plastered on his face. Right now both he and the world around him had frozen. Naturally the one responsible for this… was none other than Ainz.
In YGGDRASIL there were a lot of rules and restrictions regarding magic and skills. A game with so much diversity and room to experiment would naturally consist of some discrepancies and overpowered abilities. Even though the developers tried their 'best' to keep the game at least reasonably balanced, it was hard to believe that they were completely sane when they started adding World Class Items and other completely ridiculous gimmicks to 'enrich' the gameplay experience. Was it any surprise that naturally a lot of bugs and loopholes in the magic and skill system took sometimes years to patch? One of these was exactly what Ainz had been aiming for.
[Dimensional Lock] was a powerful ability to be sure as it truly did cancel every form of spatial magic of those trapped in its range. Even cash items were useless to fix this or else YGGDRASIL would become too 'pay to play' reliant, even more so than it already was. But a simple solution existed for those ensnared in this spell's range. If spatial magic was useless, what about a spatial skill? In such a wide game with so many variations of monsters, it would be no surprise to see a monster that could teleport as part of a passive or a skill.
One such monster was exactly what Ainz had summoned to help him escape the trap. Its name was [Undying Hero], one of the few undead summons in the game with good karma. The lore stated that it was the spirit of a fallen hero that retained its sense of justice after death and now existed solely to sacrifice himself for the sake of others. And its passive was to switch locations with another creature before a spell or attack hit them. Because this was its passive, there was an extensive period in time where this tactic would be used by necromancers like Ainz to evade attacks when teleportation was impossible but about two years before the game's shutdown there was a patch that finally removed this gimmick from the game.
Even Ainz did not know whether or not the blast from the crystal would have killed him. His build specialized in magic and naturally was rather well off when it came to magic resistance. Combine this with the fact that he wore a full set of divine items and perhaps he never needed to fear this crystal's power in the first place. Nonetheless, the risk outweighed the logic so he had chosen to try something foolish rather than rely upon his gear and stats with a complete victory as a result.
Now he had all the time in the world to take down Archon, steal the item, and end all hopes of activating its power.
Counting down the seconds, Ainz approached the unmoving Archon as he activated [Touch of Undead] in his right hand, he approached Archon…
To Archon everything happened in a flash but in those few short moments while his emotions had changed from despair, without him ever knowing why he had fallen to the ground in a daze, along with him so did the hopes and dreams of the nation….
He couldn't understand…
Why did he want to sleep so badly….
"Ainz-sama!"
Ainz heard a strange set of shouts behind him and headed back to the treasury only to find Sebas and Demiurge staring at the remains of the Bone Martyr in a stunned manner. He could guess what was going through their heads as he called out to them.
"You two are too noisy, I'm over here."
Responding to his minions' heartfelt cries Ainz emerged from the back of the treasury seemingly unharmed.
Upon hearing their master's voice, the two instantly showed an expression of both indescribable joy and relief. Even Demiurge had momentarily allowed his emotions to get the better of him which was something that even Ainz couldn't help but find funny.