Ishura - Volume 1 - Chapter 20

Chapter 20: Foul Weather

At the same time as hostilities kicked off on the ground, the wyvern soldiers in the sky above the New Principality had a different threat to attack, and they assembled to face it.

The demolition squad that had stormed Mage City in advance of the salvo from the Cold Star was under attack by an intruder from the sky and on the verge of being completely wiped out.

Right then, as he waited for his enemy’s arrival, Regnejee declared to all his wyvern subordinates:

“His strongest weapon is Hillensingen the Luminous Blade. The moment he draws his sword, a blade of light extends outward. The reach of his slash is four meters. There’s no need to watch out for this attack. If he gets in a clean hit, you’re as good as dead. His other enchanted sword is Trembling Bird. It creates this noisy din while it flies about on its own. Assume that there are two enemies instead of one. Divide the force and have a group keep this sword in check.”

It was outside Regnejee’s predictions that Alus the Star Runner didn’t appear directly over the New Principality of Lithia, given the position of the Cold Star, but nevertheless, things were moving along even better than he could’ve expected.

He had been able to pick up on the special characteristics of a majority of the previously unknown magic items that Alus the Star Runner had at his disposal. By the time he had incorporated the news of the demolitions team’s engagement and subsequent defeat into his strategies, he had already finished preparing for another.

“He has a magic whip called Kio’s Hand. It has a range of at least twelve meters. There are times he uses it to close off his vicinity and protect himself. In those situations, its effective range is cut in half or more. This is the attack you need to be wary of. Twelve meters. Repeat what I said, scum.”

“Krak, twelve…meters.”

“Twelve…”

“Gwwwark, don’t g-get close.”

“Got that down? His main weapon, the gun, has a farther range than that. A grazing shot from its poison bullets is enough to give you an agonizing death, and he has magic bullets of roaring lightning that fire thunderbolts. If you keep interfering with his shooting stance or his reloading, you can disrupt these attacks. Disruption will be outside a twelve-meter radius, while those given the ‘death role’ will attack all at once in groups from a six-meter radius.”

“Operation…u-understood…”

“Kree-kree-kreeee…! Attack Star Runner!”

Alus the Star Runner was an unrivaled rogue. He outstripped and easily dominated many legends who had previously made names for themselves across the world.

However, the conditions for Regnejee the Wings of Sunset—and the wyvern soldiers he commanded—were different. They had anticipated the unbeatable rogue’s raid. They had also gained complete knowledge over Alus’s numerous methods of attack and could meet them with their own tactical answers.

The wyverns need no champion. I will end this right here, right now.

He saw slender wings swoop in, the moonlight of the big and small moons both shining behind them.

The one who brought legends to an end. Alus the Star Runner.

“Now…it’s been a while since I’ve seen your face. You’ve been running away for quite a long time, haven’t you, Three-Armed Alus?”

Regnejee sneered, full of malice.

“Finally returned to the flock, have you? Even scum like you is welcome—to my flock. I’ll go ahead and put you in charge of provisions.”

“………Be quiet.”

Gunshots. It was hard to believe the lightning speed of the rapid fire was occurring in midair.

Regnejee, opening up enough distance, used another soldier as his shield. He was always positioned near the center of the flock, and he assembled them in a formation to prevent any direct shots from reaching him.

“Kwa-ha-ha! Oh, are you angry? No, of course not, right? You don’t have enough brains in there to be angry. Born that way! Stuck crawling on the ground, barely able to ride a wind current! A three-armed reject, that’s what you are. I know all about you.”

Alus tried loading his next bullet. Several wyverns swarmed him, drawing his attention and interfering with his reloading. There was a group that dived down below and passed under him. On the backs of their armor, engraved with the New Principality’s crest, were burning bundles of straw, the acrid smoke blocking Alus’s vision for a quick moment.

He soared downward diagonally and escaped. Regnejee’s tactics had accounted for his path of retreat away from this snare, too.

“Why do you think we were waiting for you here in Lithia?”

“……!”

Faster than Alus could regain his bearings, gunshots rang out in succession. He evaded by contorting his body, and one of the bullets just barely grazed his skin.

The attack wasn’t anything special. A simple volley of gunfire. However, it hadn’t come from the wyverns in front of him.

Looking downward, Alus saw the glint of numerous gun barrels on the spires lining Lithia.

“Only a fool would think of using a gun himself—you know that, Alus?”

Driven back by the enemy in the air, the sniper attacks could kill him from his disadvantageous position. An effective strategy.

The wyvern soldiers again began dispersing smoke. The straw they burned also served as guiding lights to the soldiers on the surface, showing them Alus’s position. The gunshots from the towers continued without pause. Cycling out soldiers as they reloaded, the attacks went on in succession.

…If I break through an opening in their defense net— No.

One of the wyvern soldiers flew forward, challenging him to a close-quarters fight with his talons. It was a decoy. Alus knew that if he stopped his wings to deal with the challenger, he’d be brought down.

…What weapons can I use…at this range?

With his luminous blade and Kio’s Hand, he tried to regroup and start again. However, the enemy didn’t approach close enough for him to catch multiple wyverns in his attack. Faster than he could devise his next plan, the onslaught assailed him.

Smoke. Gunfire. Claws.

“Kekexy ko khar.” (From Regnejee to Lithia’s winds.)

Then Word Arts.

“……Irritating…”

“Kent kakor. Kokket korp. Kokaito.” (Returning mirror plate. Stringed sun. Shine.)

Alus avoided the red light of Regnejee’s Thermal Arts. A bullet tore a section of his wing. It was a premediated hit—to create a second to shift to the offensive. He began moving into his stance to let his sword fly.

“Trembling Bird…!”

With a shrill, piercing scream, the enchanted sword flew off. A section of Regnejee’s swarm responded immediately and intercepted the enchanted sword with their claws. The blade changed its arc in midair after being brought down and returned to Alus’s hand.

It was clear from the group’s immediate response that they were trying to capture the enchanted sword for themselves. Alus decided it was best to avoid using Trembling Bird recklessly during the fight.

“Kokket korp. Kokaito.” (Stringed sun. Shine.)

A tapered red light.

Regnejee again completed his incantation. Alus dodged the deadly light beam.

He couldn’t afford to take a single direct hit. He simultaneously needed to pay attention to the flow of battle and the enemy force itself, close to a hundred strong, and couldn’t afford to lose focus… “………”

Alus produced a small magic tool, resembling an urn.

The wyvern soldiers’ saturation attack continued mercilessly, constantly forcing Alus to deal with every assault levied against him. As a collective, the soldiers experienced no fatigue. They wouldn’t stop until Alus was dead.

“Having too much trouble to talk now, huh?” Regnejee taunted.

“Alus. Three-Armed Alus. You want the Cold Star? Kwah, ha. Let me try guessing what you’re thinking. You’re thinking how if you just had that Cold Star in your hands right now, aren’t you? Frustrating, isn’t it? Though…I doubt your brain’s even developed enough for an emotion like that!”

“…The Cold Star, huh…?”

If he had the city-leveling beam of light or a dragon’s destructive breath attack, he could’ve swept Regnejee’s whole army away at once.

The claws and guns urged him on.

Alus evaded the attacks, using the recoil from Kio’s Hand like a second tail. Although unable to catch and pull in midair enemies, by utilizing it this way, he was able to freely change his direction mid-flight.

“…Kekexy ko khar.” (From Regnejee to Lithia’s winds.)

Then, in the midst of his sudden evasive actions, something resembling small pieces of coal spilled out from Alus’s urn and fell down to the New Principality streets below. It was an attack of his own.

“Even without it…”

Flames rose up below his eyes.

“Kent kakor.” (Returning mirror plate.)

“…I can still wipe out a country, Ground Runner.”

The line of flames ran a direct path forward.

Regnejee looked down at what was happening. The charcoal that Alus was dumping below, bright fireballs that ran through the streets at high speeds, was spreading throughout the city. It was another of Alus the Star Runner’s magic items and one he had kept secret in Mage City.

Flames that seemed to travel of their own volition, growing stronger as they fanned out over the city. Its name was Ground Runner.

It’s only the urban areas. There aren’t any military facilities there. A meaningless attack. But Curte…

Even locked in a desperate fight to the death, Regnejee’s mind first turned to the one spire directly connected to the central stronghold.

…It won’t spread to Curte’s location. Only ones who’ll die are the minia civilians.

His sight relief was also an opening. The magic whip Kio’s Hand silently stretched out from Alus’s grip, piercing the cervical spine of the soldier Regnejee was using as a shield.

“……Sixteen meters. Kwah, ha… You were hiding your maximum range after all, weren’t you, Alus?”

When the wyvern leader was attacked, the closest soldier to him would sacrifice themselves—unflinchingly and unperturbed by death.

“A meaningless and shallow tactic in the end.”

“…What’s with them…?” Alus questioned as he continued to shoot down enemies, weaving his reloading in between gaps in his opponents’ barrage. The hole from the lost individual would immediately be replaced by another wyvern, and Regnejee’s tactical operations were entirely unaffected.

“These aren’t wyverns…”

“Kwa-ha-ha. Want me to tell you? I’m using Life Arts to mess with their heads. I’ll do the same to you.”

“……You’re lying.”

Life Arts involved skills able to enact restorative changes on cellular and biological activity, but they couldn’t distort the brain functions of advanced intelligences. Wyverns were different from bugs and fish. They were able to comprehend Word Arts.

A genius who could lead armies with his exceedingly high intellect and even cooperate with the minia races. Wyvern soldiers who, as a result of painstaking terror and oppression, served without fear of death.

This completely unexplainable abnormality was the very core of Regnejee’s army.

This leader, who’d had a majority of his original swarm annihilated by the True Demon King, had rebuilt it into an aerial force the size of a nation in only four short years.

“You started talking again… Trying to buy time, Three-Armed Alus?”

Alus’s luminous blade warded off the spray of gunfire. He then took emergency maneuvers to evade four shots beset on him at once. Then another gunshot. Evade. Repeat. He wasn’t given a moment’s rest.

Alus’s eyes flickered around the area, searching for a needed path of escape from the gunners’ lines of fire.

The besieging web of wyverns had formed again. There were no holes to slip through.

“…Are you stupid?! Kwa, hwa, kwa! With every passing second, you take one step closer to your demise! This is the New Principality! They can deploy as many minia marksmen as they need! They’ve been gathering in this area ever since you arrived, fool!”

“……You always…talk so much, Regnejee.”

“Indeed. Repent. Accept defeat. That’s why I’m talking to you. To make sure you realize how wrong you are and that you’re incompetent garbage. Listen, Alus. Listen and really think it over. You were strategically outmatched before you even arrived.”

Up until that moment, Alus hadn’t been able to topple the leader, Regnejee. Neither had he been able to greatly decrease the wyvern army’s numbers, either, as he had during his engagement over Mage City.

Thus, no matter how much longer this went on, Alus the Star Runner couldn’t overcome the current situation.

The density of the long-range attacks from the surface was increasing slowly, and the wyvern army restricting Alus’s movements was cycling through its soldiers to rest and recover their strength. Meanwhile, Alus was constantly pressured to keep evading attacks, extremely taxing on his reflexes and concentration, and eventually (or even sooner), failure would come.

Whether gunshots from average soldiers, without any special proficiency, or talons of rank-and-file wyvern soldiers, it didn’t matter when a single direct hit spelled death.

An army that crushed champions. Such was the strategy of the wyvern commander, Regnejee the Wings of Sunset.

“………Yeah. Time.”

Alus grunted, sounding exceedingly somber.

He folded his wings. There was only one meaning behind folding the wings, meant to be filled with the wind and air. Regnejee was suspicious.

A nosedive?

It was an act of suicide. Alus the Star Runner abandoned control over his own flight.

“…I needed time.”

The moment he spoke the words, Alus was hit in the back by successive gunfire. One shot. Two shots.

Five shots were direct hits. Alus was able to keep evading the previous gunfire entirely due to his knowledge-bending mobility, and with his simple, straight plunge down, the soldiers of the New Principality had no trouble hitting their mark.

“That’s it, then.”

Alus the Star Runner continued his descent.

He remembered the scene of days gone. The sea cliffs. Wings flying off into the sun, high in the sky.

The one who abandoned his flock as a right of the powerful and the one who protected the flock under the sense of responsibility his power bestowed on him.

Which one had managed to obtain something of true value?

“…I was right.”

The descending wyvern vanished into the sea of flames razing the town.

Flames. Spreading flames.

“…!”

Regnejee became aware of a certain possibility. He shouted to his flock of followers.

“…Everyone, drop down and pursue him! Assume he’s survived and surround Alus the Star Runner! If you find him, don’t move from your position! Even if it means your life, understand?”

“L-life… Kra-kwaaah.”

“Krrrk, encircle, u-understood…”

“Don’t repeat things! Hurry up and get after him, fools!”

The sky army began their descent, like a wave crashing, and dove down between the gaps in the city spires.

Assuming there was a deeper purpose to his actions, that would mean from the moment Alus the Star Runner released his fire…he had planned for this.

Then Regnejee saw the flash of an enchanted sword in a corner of the city.

The light signaled Alus the Star Runner’s survival. It was Hillensingen the Luminous Blade.

History’s most powerful rogue, in addition to possessing various offensive magic items, was also equipped with magic items to ward against attacks. The ornament he wore, a circular pendant, was called the Greatshield of the Dead.

Previously, when he’d brought low Vikeon the Smoldering, the truly invincible magic tool had nullified the dragon’s black breath and protected not just his body but the periphery around him, too.

While it shielded him, the immense erosion and pain that occurred as compensation for its activation rendered him unable to fly or attack, but as long as he was in the middle of a rapid descent, this wasn’t a big drawback.

“Found him! Kraaa-kraaak, found Alus the Star Runner!”

“P-p-pursuit… Go!”

The wyvern soldiers swarmed Alus as he flew at low altitude, weaving through the city. Alus found both their speech and behavior altogether unusual. It struck him less that they were unintelligent but more that their language ability was simple and invariable.

“……Really creepy.”

Kio’s Hand, launched from Alus’s hand, pierced through three wyvern soldiers simultaneously, sending them crashing into the river.

The streets were turned into a sea of fire. Ethereal flames ran through the city. Alus controlled the Ground Runner, setting fire to more of the city and hindering the ground forces’ rapid response.

That was his plan.

If sniper fire from the minia was Regnejee’s method of attack, then he simply needed to fully dismantle the means.

Instead of high up in the air, where they could target him from the numerous spires, he flew low. He lured enemies into the spaces between the spires and other buildings, defeating them all one by one, now that they were cut off from the marksmen and their reinforcements. He had used his trump card in the Greathshield of the Dead because he had bought enough time to allow the Ground Runner’s fireballs to spread.

“Consider the source and take countermeasures.”

They were words his minia friend had once told him.

Even while he faced off against famous legends across the world, Alus the Star Runner was always thinking and always forming countermeasures.

He believed that itself was true strength.

“…I’ll counter this. That’s right…”

“Did you think you could escape?”

The voice came from behind him. Alus craned his neck to face it.

Regnejee was descending upon him, accompanied by several dozen other wyvern soldiers.

“I didn’t escape the flock like you did. That’s why…your escape ends here. You’re going to be killed by the same swarm you escaped.”

“…You say escape, but…you escape from your enemies, you know,” Alus replied sullenly.

“…So that means you think of your own swarm as your enemy.”

“Scum.”

The independent rogue never once cared about his swarm. From birth, he had been a heretic, outside the wyverns’ realm. To Alus, Regnejee’s insistence on belonging to the swarm, after so many decades had passed, was nothing more than a joke.

“Here is where you burn to death, Three-Armed Alus.”

The vanguard wyvern soldiers went into action. Their monotonous advance was easily knocked down with a flash from the luminous blade.

The lower altitude, lined against the buildings, made it impossible to pressure Alus on all sides like the wyvern soldiers had done before. They were forced to settle on a single direction. The carcasses of the wyvern soldiers descended to the city streets…

…and then burst.

“………Explosives.”

The abrupt blast caused his stance to falter, and in that second moment, the next charge came rushing at him. A mad army, where no one valued their lives. In essence, they were charging at him precisely to die. Diving into the conflagration, simply so Alus would be caught in the aftermath of their explosions.

“…What is this?” Alus spoke with irritation while holding off against the nightmarish and relentless assault.

“……This is absurd… These aren’t wyverns…”

They weren’t free. The soldiers had none of it—none of the traits wyverns possessed that made them wyverns.

The explosions continued. The luminous blade glimmered, rending the air in a flash.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! That’s right! They aren’t wyverns anymore!”

There was a disquieting sound of wings that Alus hadn’t heard until then.

“Kekexy ko kuyukha. Kirikiker. Kenhaor—” (From Regnejee to the Eupa wings. Dizzying canopy. Damp money—)

Mixed up with all the chaos, a battle-deciding situation unfolded.

At the center of the force, Regnejee spread his wings wide.

“—Kotastenon—”

There was smoke trailing up among the red flames. Though, this wasn’t smoke but an extremely small and fine type of swarm. Wyverns weren’t the only things residing within the spires, towering over the New Principality of Lithia.

Regnejee the Wings of Sunset released another army that lurked within the city.

“Fool. You’re a pathetic idiot. Did you think you fled in this direction of your own volition? Why don’t I tell you something interesting—?”

“…!”

Alus twisted his body in midair. The smoke was poisonous. He felt a definite foreign substance infiltrating his body with every breath.

“A certain species of pincer bugs is naturally attracted to the smell of burning pollen. These bugs are being controlled by my Life Arts. Back in Mage City, you burned through quite a number of my soldiers, eh?”

“……Gnnnaaak.”

“You’ve inhaled smoke from the kindled straw. The residue from those suicide explosions is stuck to your lungs, too. Those suicide attacks led you here, to the bugs’ hunting ground, flanked by their nests on all sides. Those puny thoughts of yours…from the very start, anything and everything has been entirely in line with my predictions. I don’t need nearly as many of them, compared to poison gas, to be effective.”

The bugs noisily began overtaking Alus. The soldiers’ forward charges had all been to pin Alus down at that location so the nauseating insect swarm could take hold of him.

His mobility couldn’t do anything to shake off the insects gathering inside his body. He couldn’t incinerate them with his luminous blade, either. Neither gunshots nor whip attacks was an effective solution.

“What do you think will happen?” Regnejee jeered, looking down from high above at the rogue, in agony but still continuing to put up a fight.

The New Principality of Lithia’s airborne army was a swarm of wyverns deprived of their own will. What exactly had the genius leader done to maintain his flock, despite having it taken from him during the True Demon King disaster?

“They’ll bite through your palate and nostrils…before devouring the freewill center of your brain.”

Regnejee the Wings of Sunset was a genius beyond compare.

A Life Arts prodigy, capable of conferring behaviors and traits to insects unimaginable in the natural world. That was the true form of his abnormal power to command a flock and make them transcend their natural instincts.

By controlling bugs to debase other wyverns until they had truly insectile cognitive function, he was able to give them a Life Arts treatment, instilling a blind subservience within them. He absorbed a number of other wyvern flocks like this, thus creating his current army.

A command of wyverns. Also capable of ruling over a horde, exceedingly animalistic in nature—a tamer.

“Let me guess what you’re thinking right now.”

“…What…think…?”

“That’s right. Unlike earlier, I’ve come up to the front so my Life Arts can reach you. You think you can just use your last spurt of strength to attack me by surprise and cut off the head of command, don’t you?”

“…Countermeasure…”

If the insects were blocking Alus’s respiratory tract, making it impossible to breathe, that meant there was little time left before they tore through his palate and infiltrated his brain. Though it was possible that, deprived of oxygen, the deluge of wyvern soldiers would tear him to shreds first.

“……!”

“Draw your enchanted light sword.”

The rogue unsheathed his enchanted light sword and slashed at Regnejee. A gamble in his final moments. Regnejee had seen right through this, too. Using several wyverns as sacrifices, he escaped upward, along the terrain.

“Meaningless, scum.”

Even if he managed to kill Regnejee, it wouldn’t change Alus’s doomed lot.

The bugs had already infiltrated his body. Their Life Arts–bestowed directives wouldn’t disappear even if the Life Arts user was eliminated. He would simply have his brain devoured from the inside, helpless to do anything to stop them.

“Kekexy ko kuyukha. Kirikiker. Kenhaor. Kotastenon.” (From Regnejee to the Eupa wings. Dizzying canopy. Damp money. Disturb.)

Alus shivered as, once again, even more bugs swarmed his body.

His attempt to close the distance with his final struggles and the position he flew into had both been within Regnejee’s expectations as well. From the start, Alus’s attack was never going to reach Regnejee, protected in his defensive formation.

His final attack sapping his remaining strength, the enchanted light sword slipped down from Alus’s hand. His musket and the sack that collected his limitless magic items dropped to the ground.

The magic items, the foundation of Alus the Star Runner’s unparalleled power—

“…………”

Alus vacantly looked up to the sky above.

It was no longer within reach.

“Your life was meaningless. The treasures you collected and your fame, too,” Regnejee said, looking down at Alus.

“Do you know how to sing? I found a real treasure. Greater than any of yours.”

“……Upward,” Alus muttered as the swarming bugs obstructed his breathing.

He wasn’t looking up at Regnejee.

“……I thought…”

Instead, he was looking at the spire behind him.

“What…? I’ve had you beaten from the very—”

Moving their fighting to the lower altitudes meant there was a spire in every direction. The nation of the New Principality of Lithia had these wyvern lodgings sprouting up all over the city, like a forest.

Realizing where Alus’s eyes were fixed, Regnejee also turned to look at the spire behind him.

“……”

He turned to regard the blind spot at his back, where, as long as he watched Alus from up above and was protected by the wyvern formation, he didn’t need to worry about any danger.

Just what was Alus the Star Runner talking about? If Regnejee had to guess what the other wyvern was thinking, then—

—I thought you’d flee upward.

“I’ve won already, though.”

Enormous flames were pouring down from the spire’s peak.

The magic item of flame, which moved in accordance with its owner’s will—Ground Runner.

Rushing from inside the spire up into the heavens, it burned Alus and Regnejee together, both located at the zenith of the magic item’s path, with its monstrous heat.

“…You talk too much, Regnejee.”

The showdown with the wyvern leader was decided. Alus looked at the dozens of wyvern soldiers, hollow shadows of what they once were, piled on the ground. A light cough, and pieces of seared bug carcasses fluttered down.

Despite having his body engulfed in the roaring blaze, Alus’s only injuries were the burns inside his respiratory system from breathing in the blistering air. The instant before he was going to be incinerated with his opponent by his own attack, he activated the only remaining magic tool he had left—the Greatshield of Death.

Sitting at a distance beyond the range of his attacks. A lethal swarm of bugs buried inside his body.

Alus hadn’t predicted either of these gambits. Nevertheless, he was a rogue who had invariably responded to every single battle scenario, no matter how far beyond his abilities of conjecture, he had ever faced.

“………If you’d kept quiet, I would’ve had a bit more trouble.”

—Minimal defensive coverage. To protect only himself. The flames he had purposefully rained down had incinerated everything but his own body, with the swarm of insects invading him unsparingly exterminated.

He had needed to temporarily forfeit the enchanted sword and sack to ensure they weren’t caught up in the river of flame.

“……”

Flying down, he recovered his treasures.

Meanwhile, a winged silhouette departed into the night sky, leaving the fire-scorched earth behind.

From the ground, engulfed in the conflagration, Alus saw a winged silhouette depart into the night sky.

His whole body covered in severe burns, Regnejee seemed to be flying toward the central stronghold’s spire.

The wyvern who’d chosen freedom simply watched him depart. Though it was not an act of mercy.

“………Farewell.”

The Lithia nighttime, once bustling with activity, was now even brighter, though the illumination came from flames of destruction.

Many houses burned in the chaos, with citizens unable to find anywhere to hide, terrorized not only by the flames but the colossal tarantula that had broken through the defensive line and the military force that had infiltrated the city after it.

Two figures were running through the spectacle, shimmering in the heat.

“Elea! The city’s burning! Wh-where did this fire come from?!”

Elea grimly surveyed the scene. Right now, the head of operational command in Mage City was the Twentieth Minister Hidow. Even if she assumed he had mobilized his forces in response to the Cold Star’s surprise attack, he was not the type of man to go with any operation that involved reducing residential areas to ash.

In other words, this inferno is either due to the Mage City soldiers running wild or a separate factor… Did some other force start the fire? Whatever the cause, Aureatia is probably going to take advantage of the confusion to bring down the New Principality…

The situation was swiftly deteriorating. If the soldiers indeed were running amok, allies or not, they were dangerous.

“…Elea.”

Out in front, Kia abruptly stopped.

Her gaze had landed on two soldiers heading in their direction, and they clearly didn’t belong to the New Principality.

They seemed to have gotten separated from the main force’s movements and were conversing with each other, their bloodied swords hanging low in their hands.

“Hey. Look. There’s a woman. She’s a New Principality girl, yeah?”

“Stop. Focus on the task at hand. She’s not even a soldier.”

“Like I give a damn! Our city was destroyed by these bastards! They’re all guilty!”

One of the men raved, his eyes bloodshot. Elea could hear Kia gulp, faced with the threat before them.

Elea looked for an escape route. It didn’t appear that many roads had been spared from the spreading fire, but they weren’t in true danger. With the power of the World Word, it would be simple to drive the two men back, but—

If they’re Mage City soldiers, they’re allied with Aureatia… I need to dispose of every witness of the World Word’s power, but without some excuse, it’ll prove thorny down the line…

“You two… Okay, girls, stay right there…!”

The agitated man brandished his sword and threatened the pair. He began to draw closer.

Kia spoke up with a bit of a tremor in her voice.

“Elea.”

She only needed to give Kia her permission, and she could easily render the man powerless. Kia simply saying the words don’t move would do the job.

“Hold on, Kia. I… First, let me try talking to him.”

“What do we have here? Fighting over girls at a time like this?”

“Huh?”

Elea heard the low voice come from directly behind her—without any prior warning to its presence at all.

Abruptly wheeling around, she saw a skeleton wrapped in a tattered cloak lingering behind her. She had absolutely no idea how or when he had gotten so close.

The skeleton twisted his white spear and turned his hollow black sockets toward the men.

“Sounds fun. Let me join in.”

“Stay out of it! A construct bastard like y—”

His words were cut off. His tongue was sent flying, together with his decapitated head.

“Eek!”

The other man was given only enough time to react to the tragedy. His carotid artery had been sliced through, mere seconds prior.

No one there even registered the spear’s movements. Between the skeleton and the soldiers, there were two houses’ worth of distance, with Elea and Kia standing in the middle.

“Now then.”

Beside the corpses, the skeleton slung his spear on his shoulder and appeared to size up Elea and Kia.

The name of the spearman, the architect of the scene of slaughter before them, was Shalk the Sound Slicer.

“Neither of you look to be from Lithia, either. Who are you?”

“……”

“Silence, eh? Literally quieter than the dead, aren’t you?”

As he joked, Shalk twirled his long spear around again.

Even Elea the Red Tag could plainly tell just from the skeleton’s presence—the opponent before her was on an entirely different level than any warrior she had seen. If he felt like it, resistance or escape would be impossible for Elea and Kia.

We need to act first—have her tell him die.

Even constructs created from carcasses had a transient life, formed from Word Arts. The World Word’s orders still should have an effect. But would Kia be able to say it fast enough?

This skeleton’s spear was faster than speech. Could she direct Kia’s actions without speech?

“I—”

Kia spoke up, her voice stiff.

“I came from the Eta Sylvan Province to study. This woman, she’s my teacher…so, um, you saved us…right? Thank you.”

“……”

“But.”

Kia’s turquoise eyes looked at the two, now silent, soldiers.

“But I don’t think you needed to kill them, you know.”

Shalk briefly stopped moving.

“Kia!”

“What? He didn’t! They hadn’t done anything! We could’ve handled it much better ourselves!”

“Heh-heh. Ha-ha-ha-ha.”

The skeleton’s shoulders shook. He was laughing.

“…You’re right. That little lady there is right.”

Again shouldering his blood-dyed spear, Shalk pointed off in one direction.

“The New Principality soldiers are evacuating people to the east side. They’ll get you out. The fire over there is still faint.”

“……What’s…your name?”

“It’s gone. At least, the one I had when I was alive is.”

Dodging a clash with the fearsome spearman, the two took a moment to hide themselves in an alleyway. They needed to pay attention to avoid more encounters like the last one.

“…Kia. You really should escape with me. I understand you’re worried about Lana. But you see now, don’t you? This…isn’t the time for childish self-indulgence.”

Elea crouched down and rubbed Kia’s cheek. The young girl nodded.

“…You’re right.”

—Kia knew nothing—that the horrible sights before her were scenes of war or that the woman she was trying to save, Lana, was a target Elea needed to kill. She was a foolish elf from a primitive forest who didn’t even think of questioning anything. Still, though, Elea asked herself—

What if I were her?

If at some point…there had been a single person, an adult she could trust, to shield her from the malice in the world, how would she have ended up?

No…I’m sure I would have had an even more wretched life. No one is on your side in this world. All I have is my own power. I, with my own hands, will find happiness…

Elea’s mother, a prostitute, had been kept as a mistress to an Aureatia aristocrat and had lived out her days without ever earning a single reward. Elea had no intentions of ending up the same way. Making use of every possible method at her disposal while shouldering dirty work like assassination and espionage, she had finally seized her chance.

The World Word. Truly genuine and unparalleled power, for Elea’s sake.

The girl glanced up and looked Elea in the eyes.

“…Still, please let me save her.”

“Kia…”

“I can’t stand it… I can do anything, except save a friend? If I don’t do something here, I just know when I grew older…I’ll definitely regret it.”

Kia’s small fingers grasped Elea’s hand on her cheek.

“So come with me. Teacher. I’ll protect you, so watch me do the right thing. I want you to come with me no matter what…Elea!”

“……”

Elea closed her eyes as an inexplicable idea, irrational even to herself, came into her head.

She had no reason to dispose of Lana the Moon Tempest. Lana wouldn’t be able to go back to either Aureatia or the New Principality now. There would be no reason to tell anyone about Elea’s connection to the World Word, nor was such an opportunity likely to present itself.

“I’m invincible anyway. I want to be happy.”

Elea felt the warmth Kia’s body and a slight tremble through her fingers.

Elea wanted happiness. That’s what she was always hoping for.

“…Yes. That’s a good point.”

Elea smiled. As she ran her hand over Kia’s blond hair, her tender turquoise eyes brimmed with tears.

“I ended up being the one taught something today. You’re my best student, Kia.”

Guided again by the detecting piece of cloth, they set out running through the middle of the disaster. Even as the atrocities of war unfolded both in the air and on the ground, none of the damage reached the two of them, just as Kia’s words commanded.

Once the war had started, the situation would quickly be settled through an unimaginable dimension of terror and fear. Whether in victory or defeat. Ironically, it also served to prove the righteousness of rule via the overwhelming individual strength to which Taren the Punished ascribed.

“Hey, Elea! We’ll still be able to go back, right…? Back to when everything was peaceful?”

“Well…”

“For the city Lana loved so much to end up like this, and, well…Lana’s suffered so much, too! It’s awful, isn’t it?!”

“Yes…quite terrible.”

Kia’s and Elea’s backgrounds were worlds apart from each other. Kia didn’t understand a thing. The Eta Sylvan Province where she had grown up was one of the few frontiers to escape the atrocities of the True Demon King. She knew nothing about how irrevocable tragedy and terror were in the current age.

“…I hope everyone can return to normal.”

The series of battles that broke out after the New Principality’s bombardment of Mage City was tilting in Aureatia’s favor.

From an onlooker’s perspective, this was the result of two factors—the command of Hidow the Clamp, who had anticipated the fall of Mage City’s military installations and split up his forces ahead of time, and the Mage City soldiers following Harghent the Still into a counteroffensive against the wyvern army’s raid, which normally would have annihilated the city’s defensive forces.

The New Principality had been quickly drawn into a decisive land battle, faster than they could set up their primary strength—the wyvern army’s air-defense network.

However, the greatest elements upsetting the tide of battle were two Shura who far exceeded any of the New Principality’s expectations.

The powerful rogue Alus the Star Runner, forcing his way into the battle and crushing a massive chunk of the wyvern army, together with the flock leader, Regnejee. Additionally, the construct weapon, Nihilo the Vortical Stampede, who single-handedly collapsed the defensive lines on the ground, inviting the enemy military force mustering behind her into the city.

Supposing this were the world of the Beyond, an individual with enough power to overwhelm a nation’s military wouldn’t be allowed to exist.

Even in this world—the place where impermissible deviants drifted as Visitors—during the twenty-five-year dark age of the True Demon King’s existence, there had been threats scattered across various regions lying dormant.

However, this was no longer the case. The Dungeon Golem destroyed Nagan, Vikeon the Smoldering died, and the newest self-proclaimed Demon King had assembled strong warriors of peerless strength together for the New Principality of Lithia.

The age that had been built on the terror of the True Demon King was, through the death of the former monarch, beginning to awaken.

“You know, I really liked that fountain, too.”

Dakai the Magpie lingered on a roof, looking down at the collapsed and smashed plaza fountain.

The smoldering fumes coming from the northwestern part of the city were visible even this close to the central stronghold. The self-propelling flames, stemming from the magic item Alus the Star Runner had let loose during his melee, continued to spread, abnormal in their disregard for the city’s structure, with a section of the conflagration making its way toward the city’s military facilities.

Looking at the sky, he saw a group of the patrolling wyvern soldiers cut apart and begin crashing down to earth. Nihilo the Vortical Stampede, continuing her advance toward the central part of the city, shot down the airborne threats without end.

“We’ve really lost.”

He lit his hand-rolled cigarette. The thin puff of smoke was carried on the winds of the New Principality. The taste of ruin.

Despite being proud of his supreme insight, even he hadn’t predicted that the intervention of two massive threats would have such an effect on the battle plan. He didn’t believe the New Principality was weak. In the face of Alus the Star Runner, average non-wyvern soldiers wouldn’t have been able to scratch him. This was even truer for the defensive line attempting to hold back Nihilo the Vortical Stampede, which would have been unable to defeat her even with technology from the Beyond.

The spire he had his sights set on let out a shrieking crack and crumbled at its base. The ground-shaking collapse continued. Even among the vibrations, the barefooted Dakai’s stance didn’t move a muscle.

…Finally, the enemy appeared.

An enormous black arthropod leg stepped forward out of a gap in the debris, splitting the stone pavement under it. The red eyes, sparking clearly even in the dark of night, nightmarishly flickered.

Dakai tossed the radzio he was operating to his feet and confronted the horrifying monster.

“The unit here’s already withdrawn. Just me.”

“Is that so? How kind of you to inform me, thank you.”

The dead tarantula replied with the voice of a young girl.

“You should’ve done the same.”

“What’re you talking about…? That’d be such a waste.”

He’d ordered the soldiers to fall back because he didn’t want them getting in his way.

His sword blade was shaped similar to a bistoury—the Magicked Blade of Razhucort. Taking initiative against any and all attacks, it was a sword with absolute agility. It was a vessel that defied the logic of the Beyond and those exiled here. Prior to coming to this world, no one existed who had survived a fight with Dakai the Magpie.

“—In a world this fun, everything’s mine for the taking.”

“Tee-hee… Oh? Then be sure to get a good look before you die.”

A percussive blast echoed as the sound barrier was broken. Dakai instantly swung the Magicked Blade and evaded the deadly salvo of string. The incredible tensile strength forcibly repelled his arm.

At that moment, the colossus’s charge halted. The organic tank Helneten had crushed the entire house Dakai had been standing next to under its overwhelming speed and weight.

The young girl chuckled amid the echoes of the destruction.

“Everything ends up smashed to tiny pieces.”

Dakai had evaded the rush with the slightest motion and landed back on the ground. He observed his enemy.

…A construct, huh. Same as the ones I saw back in Nagan. That means this tarantula sucker’s gotta have a core keeping it alive just like those golems did.

The nefarious red light left a trail in the dark, getting a fix on Dakai’s position. The tarantula wasn’t solely reliant on its strength and speed. Its sense of perception was extremely acute, which had allowed it to lock and fire accurate long-range attacks at wyverns overhead.

The eight legs moved. Keeping his offhand in his pocket, Dakai observed its movements. One leg would begin its windup motion, and another would follow it. Then the next. Its chest joints moved. Head. Neck. Stomach. The deviant’s perception was able to grasp the flow of muscles and nerves even through the monster’s thick armor.

So it’s inside, huh?

He concluded the tarantula had a pilot. If there was a single reason why the minia supremacist nation of Aureatia had been able to throw an embodiment of carnage like this on the front lines, it was because there existed a pilot who could control its fighting power.

A vibrating tremor rang through the air. Dakai dodged with a half step. The stone wall behind him was sliced by the cutting thread and began sliding diagonally to the ground. He moved the fingers on his swordless left hand.

I gotta kill the person inside this thing. Now, how to do that?

The next charge pressed him back. He averted his upper body downward, as if falling. Diving underneath the tarantula’s body to dodge the charge, he simultaneously slashed with his enchanted saber in between its eight legs, utilizing the speed of his opponent’s attack.

“…Ha-ha-ha. C’mon now.”

He could tell from his saber’s feedback. He hadn’t notched a single scratch. The slash from the Magicked Blade of Razhucort, its speed making it always outpace its opponents, had simply slid right off the armored surface.

“Isn’t that a little too hard?”

“You’re quite skilled, aren’t you, Mr. Swordsman?”

His enchanted saber had targeted the joint connecting the leg to the body.

“But you can’t win against me.”

“…Swordsman? Swordsman, huh. Hmmmm…”

There was another attack Dakai had attempted during the previous exchange. By tangling the ultra-hard tarantula string from the last attack into a ringlike shape, he’d tried to use Nihilo’s own charging force to twist her neck and sever it. The movements in his left hand had been to draw the threads for the attack.

From what he could see, this, too, had proven ineffective. Despite focusing the brunt of his attack at one point on the head bearing those five glowing red eyes, only a single blemish was noticeable.

…Swordsman, huh…

The tarantula Nihilo piloted had had half its head sliced off.

Dakai the Magpie didn’t have the means to destroy his enemy’s armor with any of the attacks available to him, but if that was the case, who had managed that slash wound?

“Oh, over there… See that fountain?”

Dakai chattered idly as he moved into a position facing the organic tank head on.

“I was pretty fond of it actually. I like buildings and scenery, see. ’Cause you can’t steal them.”

Another long-range string attack grazed him.

“Ha-ha-ha.”

Dakai laughed. He was observing his enemy’s status.

Nihilo the Vortical Stampede’s armor was wet. Her last charge had destroyed the fountain’s water channel.

Initial preparations for another forward charge. He had seen them a number of times at that point, but there was a subtle difference to the motion.

…Planning to use her strings, then.

Strings stretched ahead of her as she struck. All the threads she had fired were a part of her web. Even if he dodged the initial attack, the recoil from her threads would send target his back. The tarantula’s string, durable enough to repel the giant’s weight, also served to reinforce its trampling power.

“Now…time to die.”

Just before the tank’s charge—Dakai made a hand signal behind his back.

“For whom, now?”

Suddenly, a beaming light from above caught Nihilo, sending the stone pavement into a boil. Her black arthropod legs sunk into the melting earth. While enduring the fierce heat, she tried crawling up with her front legs, but without footing, they, too, sank. The air sizzled in the heat, and the whites and blacks mixed into a gray haze.

The radzio communications Dakai had been sending right before the start of their fight were to prepare the salvo.

It was the strongest piece of firepower in the New Principality’s arsenal. A magic item used to bombard cities from long range. The Cold Star.

“………Hrgnk.”

The all-destroying beam of light, launched from a spire dedicated to magic item artillery, continued to shine mercilessly on the New Principality’s enemy. Even before the first blast had finished, the young girl’s cries of pain ceased.

“Tee-hee. Hee…hee-hee-hee.”

Because they had given way to laughter.

The cold stone pavement where her legs were sunk split open. With her monstrous physical strength, she extracted her body.

Immediately after, she fired threads into the sky, annihilating the artillery spire that had tried to kill her.

“Did you think that would be enough…”

Her armor was made from deep celestial charsteel, a supernatural magic gem. It was a material that average amounts of heat and force couldn’t scratch. Not swords, arrows, or bombardments could break it.

Even the transcendental Cold Star was no exception.

“…to kill me?”

The hard truth that the Cold Star was completely ineffective wasn’t what sent Dakai the Magpie into a true crisis.

Immediately before the bombardment, he had lured Nihilo to spray her with water from the fountain. Once she was hit with the beam of light, the air inside should have swelled up with the heat and formed bubbles in the cracks of the invincible armor shell.

However, even with Dakai’s peerless eyesight, he observed no such reaction.

Completely sealed. There aren’t even air vents? How’s the person inside still alive?

The lack of any gaps in the armor meant that the defect Dakai had intuited—an effective method to injury the pilot—didn’t actually exist.

I can’t try to suffocate her. Flooding is useless. My enchanted saber has no effect. Even if she’s buried, she can pull herself free. Tricks to twist her threads, aiming for her joints, a direct attack from the Cold Star—none of it does anything.

He could only accept that destroying the tarantula was impossible.

He was sure this construct far outstripped the Dungeon Golem he’d witnessed in Nagan. This world’s ultimate weapon even surpassed the wildest imagination of a deviant from the Beyond.

“Seriously… Ha-ha. How the hell did someone even cut this thing…?”

“You’re in my way.”

With both arms at his sides, Dakai looked at the tarantula drawing near him. The cross section carved off its head looked like a smooth mirror’s surface. The magic-gem armor appeared to permeate into the flesh within, given how well-preserved the shape was despite its nerves and inner flesh being burned raw.

It raised its chela. Faster than the average person could finish a single breath, Dakai’s eyes were able to perceive the movement. He watched the glowing red eyes. Observed them. An attack came at him from the left. With a subtle move, he parried and—

“…Hngaaah!”

The overwhelming impact sent Dakai flying. He collided with an iron pole that had survived the fire in the plaza.

His supernatural Visitor martial skills enabled him to deflect most of the damage, barely keeping his left arm from breaking from the impact of her rush. An average person would have felt the energy travel through their whole body and been scattered to pieces.

“…Okay.”

It was fun. Dakai the Magpie enjoyed this world. Before he’d arrived here, no one had been capable of standing up to him in a fight.

“All right. Let’s go… Time to give it a shot.”

“…You’re still alive?”

The young girl’s voice was suspicious. If he’d been able to react this way, he should have been able to dodge the strike entirely from the start. It meant he’d wanted to take the hit.

“Why doesn’t…koff, anyone ever believe me?”

Dakai spun his enchanted saber in his hand. His opponent was already right before his eyes.

“I’m a bandit, you know…? I’m not actually a swordsman or a doctor, see?”

“I see. I think we’d get along, then.”

Nihilo readied her next attack. She knew that Dakai’s current stance meant he was prepared to evade her string. Her kicks to send him flying would be similarly ineffective. She needed to stomp him into the ground or pinch him between her two chela and crush him.

“I want to be friends with minia, too, but no one will believe me.”

“Ha-ha-ha. Really now. First time we’ve been able to have a chat. I’m quite the talker, see.”

She approached. Before Dakai had finished speaking, the colossus’s legs were a blur. It was an instantaneous offensive, too fast to be dodged in time, taking her opponent’s reaction speed into consideration.

The attack cut through the air. Dakai moved, with speed faster than his physical body could manage.

“See, like this…”

…The threads! Nihilo realized. He had utilized the threads she had been stretching around the battlefield during their fight. He used their elastic recoil to slip right into Nihilo’s bosom.

“I steal weapons…”

The tarantula’s injured face—the deviant bandit pulled a sword out of the monster’s sole laceration.

“I pick locks, too.”

This was not the Magicked Blade of Razhucort. It wasn’t a long sword, either. In fact, it was Dakai’s first time using it at all.

With her mount unexpectedly stabbed, Nihilo backed off and tried to regroup. Even if her head was attacked, it would have no impact whatsoever on the undead’s functions. It could attack, defend, and execute maneuvers.

“……What…?”

The young girl was flustered by what she was sensing.

“……What did you do?”

She felt the night air on her bare skin. The sensation was being sent to her through her mount, Helneten, but she was feeling her own skin.

“Well now, just as I predicted—quite the pretty face.”

She could still control the tank, just as before. Its mobility hadn’t been impacted at all. However.

Helneten’s cockpit was open, and Nihilo’s body packed inside was exposed.

“I thought about it.”

“……!”

The deviant bandit’s figure was right before her eyes. Nihilo—her actual form—was face-to-face against an enemy who had climbed inside her cockpit.

“If this tank’s made from organic material, then it uses its nerves to move. So if someone’s piloting it, then it must be relaying commands via the nerves spreading through its muscles… And I thought, well, if that’s the case, then I destroy those nerves, right?”

In his left hand, Dakai the Magpie held a nondescript short sword.

“With nerve-rendering mandrake poison.”

It was a dagger from Higuare the Pelagic.

When they first met and he’d seen Higuare slice up the hawthorn berry, Dakai had already given one of the numerous daggers concealed within Higuare’s body a once-over—in his own hands. Right before everyone’s eyes, with such dexterity that no one even noticed, he had already stolen one of the deadly poisoned blades.

The observational power of an otherworldly deviant, able to perceive even the flow of another’s nerves. He had confirmed through his observations that no matter which part of the brain the nerve-tracing poison infiltrated and paralyzed, he would be able to unlock the opening and closing functions. He had purposefully taken a direct hit so he could observe from point-blank range.

The small wound that Soujirou the Willow-Sword had carved into her was, to Dakai the Magpie, a keyhole.

Comprehending her own demise, the undead Nihilo laughed.

“Tee-hee…hee… You do love to chat, don’t you?”

“I tell a good story, don’t I?”

“…Perhaps you’re right.”

Nihilo’s back tendrils flashed, their metallic terminals aiming for Dakai’s neck.

Just a few beats faster than her attack, the Magicked Blade and its absolute speed sliced the girl’s head from her neck.

“H-Higuare…was killed.”

As she scrambled up one of the charred towers, Lana the Moon Tempest moaned in terror. He was supposed to be one of the strongest of all, who the New Principality had scoured the ends of the wide world to finally find. Yet an even greater power had handled Higuare the Pelagic like a baby, snuffing him out with what seemed like no difficulty whatsoever.

From Lana’s perspective, it was clear that the World Word’s power had brought instant death to the mandrake.

“Ha, ha-ha…”

She looked up at the sky. The army Regnejee had boasted as unbeatable had been driven back by a single wyvern and was on the verge of total defeat. All at the hands of a champion and deviant from the wyvern race, Alus the Star Runner.

The Lithia troops Taren had trained up herself were dead, too. The inside of the tower was nothing but miserable corpses, unable to speak of their ultimate fate.

The men of the New Principality were Lana’s—and Aureatia’s—enemy. She had kept her dangerous infiltration duties going in order to defeat them, believing they needed to someday be destroyed, and bring back peace. Nevertheless—

“How did it happen so easily…?”

They were enemies. However, Lana had seen up close just how powerful and fearsome Lithia’s military might was. Lithia’s power and their will, aiming to be the last self-proclaimed Demon King, shouldn’t have been so easily trampled underfoot.

The foul stench of burned flesh and death drifted in the air. She couldn’t tell if it was because of the conflagration itself or the flames of war, but sweat poured endlessly down her tiny body—and she herself couldn’t even be sure if it was actually blood or a mixture of the two.

“Haaa… Ha-ha.”

After crawling up the final stair, Lana grabbed hold of what she had been after. The Cold Star. The dead bombardier continued holding it tightly, despite his body having been sliced in two, but she forcefully tore it away from the clutch of fingers strengthened by rigor mortis. The magic item that spent many long years gathering sunlight in the Great Nagan Labyrinth. It was filled with enough power for one final shot. If Lana could use this—

“…Lana, what are you doing?”

A voice from behind reprimanded her. It was Elea the Red Tag.

She was responsible for bringing the wielder of almighty Word Arts, the World Word, here to Lithia.

“Elea… It’s okay. I’ll do it.”

Lana’s voice trembled as she spoke.

It had to be this way.

The current scene before her was exactly what Taren had feared. It was the reason she’d decided to make the world her enemy.

The True Demon King was defeated, but the world was still filled with beings that shouldn’t and couldn’t continue to exist.

“I’ll kill them all. This… It’s just…it’s so horrible. Monsters, all of them. I’ll use the Cold Star to blow them all away and the whole city with them! Someone…s-someone has to do it, or it’ll never end!”

“Lana…!”

Without waiting for Elea’s next words, Lana pulled the trigger on the magic tool. The crystal lens fired a bright light, like the midday sun. It radiated out directly below to blow apart the central fortress, the city streets, and Lana herself altogether.

The light, and the destruction, rushed forward.

And then—

“Stop.”

—it ceased.

The light from the Cold Star hung suspended in midair, gathered into a sphere.

Unable to advance any farther, the doom-bringing light stalled in the air. It was an impossible sight to bear witness to, one that twisted and bent the fabric of the world’s reality.

“Scatter.”

With a single word from the young girl, the city-leveling orb burst open, vanishing into thin air without destroying anything.

“No…n-no…”

Lana collapsed in despair.

How were people supposed to stand against power mighty enough to stop light itself?

Was there anyone in the land…able to kill the World Word, the embodiment of the world itself?

“Calm down, Lana. You’re probably…just so scared you can’t think straight. The Lana I know isn’t like this at all… Right?” the incomprehensible entity asked, acting as though she were a normal young girl.

Her face had the appearance of worry.

Even though despite her elf-child nature, her existence, her unlimited omnipotent power, was a sinister divinity given form.

“It’s all because there are atrocities like this…”

She looked down on the burning town visible from the tower.

The myriad calamities and tragedies scattered before her showed a merciless world, utterly unimaginable to the still-fourteen-year-old Kia.

“…Hey, Elea. You said my power was a power to bring happiness to people, right?”

“Kia!”

Lana saw Elea try to stop Kia.

As though she knew what the young girl was planning to do.

“You can’t, Kia! You shouldn’t show your—”

“Go out.”

It happened exactly as she commanded.

The inferno spreading through Lithia, the fires of war, was extinguished all at once, without so much as a breeze.

The quiet and darkness of night returned like the end of a bad dream.

This fearsome Shura, who surpassed all minia knowledge, could both cause terrible calamities and make them disappear as if they’d never happened.

“…I put out the fire, Lana. There’s nothing to be scared of anymore. Um, actually…the truth is…I can do pretty much anything… Sorry for keeping it a secret. If only I could’ve saved your city sooner…”

“Wh-what the hell…? What the hell is with you people?!”

“Lana…!”

“Lana, let’s go home.”

Elea embraced the frozen-stiff Lana in her arms.

The gentle and cozy body warmth traveled through her. The beating throb of a living person.

“…Elea. You…,” Lana spoke, smiling through her tears. Her former intelligence agent colleague was now one of the Twenty-Nine Officials of Aureatia.

Elea had climbed to that position because she didn’t hesitate to stamp out her enemies to seize power.

Thus, she knew why Elea had come up close to her.

“…want to kill me, don’t you?”

“……”

“I get it, though. You can’t, can you?”

Her hoarse whisper sounded entirely like blackmail, but Lana didn’t mind.

With her voice directly in Elea’s ear, too low for the World Word to hear, Lana spit out her final, spiteful words.

“If you truly planned on killing me as soon as possible, you had plenty of chances to do so. Y-you…can’t, though. You can’t kill me in front of Kia, can you?”

Considering Elea the Red Tag’s callousness, Lana’s accusation was an absurd joke. A laughable jest, even in this nightmarish, rock-bottom situation.

“Only in front of Kia…no matter how monstrous that girl may be, you want to remain her beautiful and kind teacher, don’t you?! Professor Elea!”

“…Lana,” Elea replied with a whisper. She looked at Kia, on the verge of tears out of bleakness and bewilderment.

Far too many things had happened. But with this, she would end it all.

She had come to kill Lana the Moon Tempest.

“A teacher…would never do something like that, would she?”

The door opened again not long after the tumult of the conflagration in the streets had reached Yuno’s ears. The location of her cell, far from the northwestern area where the fire had kicked up, had saved her life.

“Get out, Yuno the Distant Talon.”

“…Dakai.”

“What’s wrong? I came back to save you, just like I said I would.”

Yuno glared at the reappearance of her homeland’s ruination. Dakai the Magpie was abnormally calm given the extreme circumstances, the city streets in flames, and the situation descending into chaos.

“…You’re telling me this now?! Isn’t that army of yours fighting right this second?! And you still have spare time to free someone like me?!”

“It’s not my army,” Dakai replied coolly.

“Scream and cry all you want; the results are the same. I’m simply here keeping a promise. Plus, Higuare roped you into this, and then there’s the Nagan thing, too, huh. That and, hey, I’m a scoundrel, sure, but I never lie.”

“Sh-shut up…! So what, being strong means you don’t give a damn if your city gets destroyed?! It’s not sad?! Painful?! You won’t fight to the death?!”

—While I’ve felt like I’ve been in the depths of hell dealing with just one person’s death, Yuno thought.

A nation in ruins. Citizens burned alive and all bonds lost forever. If Dakai wasn’t tormented by the same thing happening to him, then Yuno’s vengeance for Nagan’s destruction would be eternally unattainable.

“…Got a point there. By now, I don’t really feel a thing. I mean, I did have a thing for Taren, but you know. Long as I’m alive, I’ll meet other people, yeah?”

Yuno thought of the circumstances surrounding the Visitors—people severed from their own world, the Beyond.

Did both Soujirou and Dakai not feel a thing because of how strong they were? They were mutated deviants born among other minia, but even among their own people, they had always been strong. Isolated.

Just as Dakai was going to live on now, even if a Visitor’s countries and cities were destroyed, they would always survive. Was that really the special privilege of the strong that Yuno thought it was? Was growing accustomed to ruin and death truly a comfort to them?

Dakai turned and began to depart. Yuno’s vengeance was on the cusp of ending unfulfilled.

“Wait, Dakai the Magpie!”

“What? You still have something to say to me?”

“You said if I was going to get vengeance, to kill you right now, yes?”

She extended both arms toward him.

She could utilize Force Arts to send the arrowheads hidden up her sleeves flying.

More so than other girls her age, she knew some botany.

She recalled the star that she and Lucelles had discovered together.

Because she was the last surviving scholar of Nagan Labyrinth City, destroyed by a colossal injustice.

They were the only things Yuno the Distant Talon happened to have at her disposal.

Face-to-face with an extreme power far beyond her reach, she was all alone.

“Fight me.”