The Trial (2)
Creak. Creak. Creak. Her head grated as though the gears inside had broken. A high-pitched whine drilled into her ears. The staff in her grip trembled. No—her hands were shaking.
Azazel could not fully process the scene before her. It was beyond her capacity. Her brain had overloaded.
“That’s Ashtain’s sword.”
-Did I not tell you? I seized it.
Ashtain was not the sort of man who would quietly allow his weapon to be taken. If that blade truly belonged to him, then how was this black knight standing here unharmed? The implication was painfully clear: he had overpowered Ashtain.
Azazel’s composure shattered.
“Where is Ashtain?”
The black knight answered with lazy indifference.
-The Hero, you mean?
“I won’t ask a second time.”
-Where do you think he is?
The malice in his voice suggested Ashtain had not escaped unscathed. Gooseflesh rippled across her skin. Her heart hammered like a fist against a table. Her breathing turned ragged.
She had only just resolved to be honest. She had only just decided to lay her heart bare. Was even that small mercy forbidden?
Really. How cruel.
The mana in the air began to spiral violently. Aria instinctively backed away. The atmospheric mana churned like a living reflection of Azazel’s turbulent emotions.
Her icy crimson eyes locked onto the black knight.
“I said I wouldn’t ask twice.”
You’ll regret abandoning conversation.
Azazel stamped her right foot. A massive surge of mana poured from her sole and sank into the earth. From beneath the black knight’s feet, a huge conical spike erupted. She had reshaped the terrain itself with pure magical force.
The black knight let out a low murmur of appreciation.
Not bad. Rather sharp.
He moved with startling speed, retreating from the spot.
But Azazel’s spell was not finished. The earthen cone twisted like a living creature, reshaping itself to ensnare him.
Slash!
Her attempt at binding failed. The holy sword in the black knight’s hand sheared through the mass of earth without pity.
-How ruthless, little mage. Attacking without so much as a greeting.
Azazel raised her staff in silence. A pure white radiance gathered at its tip. Lightning.
The black knight’s tone shifted to genuine admiration.
-You have grasped the mystery of thunder.
“Die.”
Thunder roared from the ground.
Kwarururung!
The world flashed blinding white. A speed beyond sight. A power too vast to endure. Any ordinary person would have been cooked alive before they could even react.
Any ordinary person.
The black knight was different. He raised the holy sword as if to meet her spell head-on, then swung it straight down.
What had he cut?
The answer was obvious.
He had cut the lightning.
Kwaaaaaaaaang!
The deafening crash rang out again. It was no fluke. He had read her movements, traced the flow of her mana, and predicted exactly where the bolt would strike.
Azazel scoffed.
So he saw through the trajectory.
If he had defeated Ashtain, this much was only natural.
As though she had expected it, she stamped her left foot. This time the ground surged like a tidal wave, swallowing the black knight. At least four or five meters high, with a devastatingly wide area. Even if he predicted it, there was nowhere to run. No matter how powerful he was, such an avalanche of earth and snow should have been impossible to escape.
Yet he betrayed her expectations completely. He split the wave of snow and soil in two with a single stroke of the holy sword. Not metaphorically—he literally divided it. It was like slicing a small hill in half. A feat so absurd that seeing it with her own eyes still felt like a lie.
But Azazel had anticipated even this.
“It’s about to get hot, tin can.”
In that brief window she had completed her casting and hurled five fireballs at him. Each one was a pinnacle of flame magic capable of massive explosions. They were not to be underestimated.
Yet the black knight facing them merely offered a cold, mocking smile.
Kukwaaaaaaaaang!
Explosions and shockwaves tore through the forest in rapid succession. The dark mountainside blazed bright as noon. The driving snow halted for a moment in the blast. Trees, rocks, snow, dirt—everything visible melted away. Only the vivid flames remained, greedily licking at the ruins.
No one caught in that inferno should have retained even a silhouette.
Yet Azazel quietly stared into the heart of the storm.
Wishing for him to fall from something like this would be too greedy.
Clank. Clank.
An ominous metallic sound rang out.
-First you played with dirt, now you play with fire?
Just as she had expected, the black knight had not fallen. He walked out of the smoke completely unharmed. His armor should have conducted heat like a furnace, yet he showed no sign of discomfort. Then again, he was the sort of monster who wore full plate in this bitter cold. Common sense clearly did not apply to him.
He maintained a relaxed stance, as if inviting her to do her worst. The attitude grated on Azazel’s nerves.
“You seem very confident.”
-I have faced mages like you so often it has become routine. It might appear that way.
His tone was so matter-of-fact it could not be dismissed as mere bluff. Still, it was not enough to make Azazel turn tail.
“I hope that’s not just big talk, you bastard.”
Frigid air condensed around her. This was no ordinary cold. It was a temperature that would freeze everything that existed. Absolute zero. Extreme cold.
The air itself sparkled. Even the moisture in the atmosphere must have frozen solid. In that perfect stillness, Azazel glared at the black knight, burning with denser emotion than anyone.
-You show quite entertaining tricks, young lady.
The black knight remained leisurely, as though daring her to display every card she possessed. That arrogance, that complacency, would be what dragged him into the abyss.
“Your smile is about to vanish.”
She formed a fist-sized orb of pure cold. Its name was the Core of Cold—an ultimate freezing spell that would freeze its surroundings the instant it activated. It was the strongest ice magic Azazel could wield.
But she judged it insufficient. So she added a variation. She raised the difficulty.
What she created now was no simple Core of Cold. It was ice imbued with the nature of flame.
She knew the properties were contradictory. She knew it was impossible. But possibility and impossibility no longer mattered to her.
She would make it work. She would make it work and kill this bastard without fail.
Her head throbbed as if it would split from the clashing laws. Her mana was being drained at a frightening rate, leaving her body heavy with exhaustion. The calculations were nightmarishly complex. Difficult. So difficult.
But I will do it.
This was resentment. This was a grudge. This was revenge. That tenacity, that obsession, that stubbornness birthed a magic that defied reason.
The orb of cold flickered like living flame, surging in waves. It looked like burning ice. It could no longer be called the Core of Cold. This was a new realm. A new spell.
The long-imagined Essence of Ice Flame had manifested perfectly.
The area around Azazel no longer radiated harsh cold. It could not. All the chill and frost in the vicinity had been drawn into this single orb. It was a sphere containing a miniature winter.
Having completed the spell, Azazel gestured to Aria, who had retreated a safe distance.
“Come closer, Aria. This is dangerous even for me.”
Until Aria reached her side, the black knight made no move. Suspicion bloomed. Why was he waiting? To demonstrate overwhelming superiority? For something so petty?
Whatever. It doesn’t matter.
With a venomous expression, Azazel snapped her fingers. The floating orb—no, the Essence of Ice Flame—flew toward the enemy at a moderate speed.
The instant the sphere touched the ground, everything stopped as though the fabric of space itself had frozen. Air, objects, flames, trees—everything became encased in ice. The frost bloomed like wildfire. It would not have been an exaggeration to call it a catastrophe.
Azazel swiftly shaped similar ice into an igloo around herself. It was the logical choice. The same element could not invade itself.
The black knight, however, had no such barrier. He would be fully exposed to that overwhelming cold.
Azazel smiled thinly.
Let’s see how long you last.
The black knight was impressed. It had been a long time since he faced magic of this caliber.
Ice that burned like flame.
-Magnificent. Beautiful as a work of art.
Beneath the black helm, blue eyes gleamed.
-However, it is still incomplete.
Light gathered upon the holy sword. Just as Ashtain would, the black knight drew the blue radiance together, condensing it into a single point. A glowing holy sword.
When he swung, the blue light surged forward. It shattered layer after layer of ice as it advanced. The burning frost tried to freeze even that crushing radiance, but it was useless. The black knight’s blue light possessed far greater density than Azazel’s ice flame.
Crushing the encroaching ice with brutal force, the blue radiance reached the Essence of Ice Flame, destroyed it, and continued on to shatter even the ice wall Azazel had erected.
“...Fuck.”
Azazel, exposed behind the broken ice, wore a dazed expression. To think even that had been countered.
-Is the performance over?
The black knight walked forward, brushing frost from his holy sword with a gauntleted hand.
Azazel bit her lip. Not yet. She had not lost yet.
-I grow tired of simply receiving.
The black knight’s form vanished. He was suddenly standing right in front of her. When? How had he closed the distance so quickly?
-Now it is your turn to receive.
His holy sword rose high. Azazel stared at it blankly. She had to react. She had to do something. Ashtain. She still had to finish avenging him.
The sword descended. Its arc seemed almost gentle. To Azazel, the entire world moved in slow motion.
“Ah.”
She fell hard on her backside. She had been shoved aside. By whom? Aria. She had taken the blow instead.
Why? It didn’t make sense. You didn’t have to do that.
A dazed gaze turned toward her. Aria smiled through the pain.
“Heh… ack… heh. Meat shield… good enough… right?”
She must have said something like that before they came. That she could be a meat shield. What kind of idiot took a joke that seriously and threw away her life for it? I told you I didn’t want that.
Azazel rushed to the fallen Aria and examined her. Thick blood spread between the torn fabric of her clothes. The wound was deep—a diagonal slash running from her left shoulder to her right waist. It was fatal.
“...Ah.”
What are you doing? Why would you do something so stupid?
“A…zel… are you… okay?”
Who’s worrying about who? Look at yourself. It’s serious.
The protest refused to leave her lips.
“...I’m fine.”
“Ah… good…”
“What do you mean, good?! What the hell is good about this?!”
Azazel’s eyes burned red with unshed tears. What is this? You should have just stayed back.
-A sight difficult to witness without tears.
A mocking voice drifted down from above. Azazel bit her lip. Because of me, Aria—
“Uwaaaaaah!”
She seized her staff and charged the black knight in a blind, emotional rush. It was completely irrational.
Thud.
The holy sword casually knocked the staff from her hands. Then his steel-hard leg drove into her stomach.
With a heavy thud, she collapsed, clutching her abdomen.
“Khuk… heuk…”
-Little mage. There is a difference between courage and recklessness. Did your comrade die because of your naïve judgment? If there was no hope, you should have fled from the start instead of charging in like this.
Tears spilled from Azazel’s eyes. Helplessness. Self-loathing for failing to protect anything. Her fingers dug into the snow-mixed dirt until blood welled beneath her nails.
“She’s… not dead.”
-She will be soon.
“No. No!”
-How stubborn. But do not worry. I will send you to her side.
The black knight raised his sword. More than fear, Azazel felt rage at the sheer absurdity of it all. To die without having accomplished anything? To die without protecting anything?
The blade descended. She squeezed her eyes shut.
Then a sound rang out.
Kang.
Metal clashing against metal.
-You’re late.
The black knight spoke with satisfaction.
“Thanks to someone.”
-Blaming your own inadequacy on others is unbecoming.
“Is that so, former Hero?”
The voice was low. It brimmed with fury. And it was intimately familiar.
Azazel opened her eyes. There stood the man she had longed to see—Ashtain—with a face twisted in terrible anger. After Aria had suffered such a grievous wound, his rage was only natural. She wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear. Because of me. Because I was weak. Because I was pathetic. Aria ended up like this because of me.
“I can’t forgive you for touching our children.”
Our children? Azazel froze at his words.
Kwaang!
Ashtain kicked the black knight’s torso with his heel and created distance. Then he looked at Azazel and offered a smile as gentle as spring sunlight. The warmth she had craved so desperately was contained in that smile.
“You did well holding on.”
The hero had arrived.
A little late.