I looked over at Itsuki to see the ball of light with the book swirling around him. Then the book within the light snapped shut and backed off. It looked like the vassal weapon wasn’t able to choose its owner. Then the ball of light with the book vassal weapon seemed to just give up. It then proceeded to pass through the wall and vanish.

“Well, well, well!” said the moron woman.

“Wait! Catch it!” Witch shouted orders, trying to get after the book vassal weapon.

“We’re not finished here yet!” I flourished my new mirror and stood in front of Witch and the other foes. I also quickly checked my status. It was a mirror, after all, not a shield. I prayed I would be able to attack.

All I saw were numbers that looked like a weakened shield state. “Dammit,” I cursed, even as I placed myself in the line of fire. I still couldn’t attack! The previous owner . . . Albert, wasn’t it? That guy had been able to attack all he liked . . . when Kyo controlled him, admittedly. So was this a different situation?

“Naofumi, the mirror vassal weapon chose you?” Glass said.

“Mr. Naofumi!” Raphtalia and the others suddenly looked a lot more cheerful.

“You’ve obtained a vassal weapon?! There’s no way this kind of last-minute save happens to someone so evil! Enough with your theatrics!” Armor swung his axe again, and he was now firmly fixated upon me as his target.

“Air Strike Shield!” I shouted, almost on instinct, but nothing happened. It looked like the skill system was different too. Then the skill item popped up. I didn’t normally spend much time looking in there . . . but I spotted a skill I could use. Perhaps the two weapons were still sorting out the sharing of information between them, as many skills were grayed out. But there was one that I could definitely use.

“Formation One: Glass Shield!” I willed it into existence, and a semitransparent glass shield appeared in the air.

“Hah! This won’t stop me!” Armor swung his axe at the glass shield I had created. With a high-pitched shattering sound, the glass shield shattered into fragments. Armor laughed.

“See, Shield Demon King? This is all the strength an imposter can manage!” he crowed. It certainly looked weaker than Air Strike Shield. Armor was using the axe seven star weapon, after all, not to mention a curse series. When I gave consideration to its potential attack power, smashing that shield seemed expected. I tried mixing in some life force, just in case, but it hadn’t seemed to do any good.

Even as I considered this apparent failure, the fragments of glass swirled through the air . . . and flew toward Armor. One after the other, glass shards stabbed him. Blood started to gush from all over his body.

“What! What the hell! Damn you!” he roared. Bleeding profusely pushed him to further heights of rage.