Nothing Is Impossible in This World
There is nothing in this world that can't happen.
Chukachip's spear spun.
The air churned violently, her movement so fierce it seemed to tear the very space apart.
It was clearly the Spear's Roar.
And yet something was different.
A spear that resembles 'Annihilation.'
It fell far short of the original. It hadn't even managed to replicate a fraction of Annihilation's true essence — but the outward appearance alone was convincing enough.
So she couldn't copy the Spear of Annihilation, and substituted the Spear's Roar instead — the closest imitation she could manage?
If that was truly the case, her talent was anything but ordinary.
It might even rival Leo's.
"Good. You pass."
Except—
"...?!"
"You do know whose technique that is, don't you?"
She had learned a technique of the Celestials, the people called the race of the spear.
She had faced down spears that assailed her without end, and through 'him', shattered the walls that stood in her way dozens of times.
It would be no exaggeration to say she had died more than once along the way.
The Spear's Roar was a simple technique. One spun the spear through divinity — or mana, or whatever resource one had — and launched that rotational force outward like a breath of wind.
Those who witnessed the technique for the first time said it was like a storm raging from the tip of the spear.
But a true storm was nothing like this.
The Roar tore through the air ahead and came surging in. Because it carried the property of infallible accuracy, it flew straight and true — aimed precisely at her.
Once again, an authority that defied the laws of the world yielded an unexpected result.
Lily drew her spear back.
The spirit's wind, drawn out after so long, spun her divinity and raised a fierce storm across the entire area.
The storm of divinity devoured everything.
The surrounding wind, the soil and grass, the trees, the energy, the mana... all of it converged on a single point.
Eye of the Spear.
A storm raised by the spear of Rushala, the Angel of the Azure Sky whose eye pierced the heavens.
One of the authorities of the Eight Seats — powerful enough that, given the capacity to wield it, it could suck in even demons.
For all its power, few among the Celestials even knew of it, let alone could use it. But he had known.
...She hated to admit it, but when it came to the spear, he had been nothing short of a god.
Chukachip's 'authority' wavered before that wind like a candle flame.
Authorities were unreasonable things, defying the world's laws — but before a greater authority, they were nothing more than stubborn insistence.
The unconditional ceased to be unconditional, and the absolute lost its absoluteness.
The golden Roar dissolved into nothing.
The twin spears that had launched it could not withstand the raging storm, and were dragged into the Eye of the Spear.
In that instant, stripped of both her weapons, Chukachip's expression crumpled.
"That's impossible."
"There's no such thing as impossible in this world."
Everything in this world was possible.
From the moment she had become Lily, that was true.
The golden twin spears settled into her hands.
Mythic-grade, true to its name — the shaft clung to her palms as if it belonged there. Stat requirements and level restrictions kept it from being usable, but that meant nothing at all.
She could break it.
If she properly manifested the authorities she had witnessed in the past and carried in her body through her divinity, she could shatter even the system's constraints.
But she didn't.
...Why bother?
She didn't need the spear's power badly enough to break its restrictions over it. The person she was now knew what others didn't know, and didn't know what others did — there was no reason to go showing off the truly 'impossible.'
Though, if there was one amusing thing about all this...
Lily gave the golden spear a careless toss from hand to hand, then stepped up beside the girl as if to attack, and whispered.
"Right? Candy Star?"
"...N-no, I'm not—eehk!"
The shriek rang out at full volume. So Chukachip — no, Candy Star?
"Oh. Not that one? Then were you Cookies & Cream?"
"......!!"
"I was waiting to see when you'd tell me. But you never did, right to the end."
Did she really think she could put on that much of a show and not be recognized? The day 'Candy Star' first came to the classroom.
From the moment she used mana in that body, Lily had more or less figured it out — that Cookies & Cream, who had sniped at her, and Candy Star, and 'Chotachokachukachip' were all the same person.
Well, I only confirmed the first two were Chukachip today.
She'd never seen Chukachip wield mana directly, so she hadn't been entirely certain — but today had settled it.
And so she'd been curious. Why she wanted to beat Lily so desperately.
She had been just about to ask—
Under attack?
She had expected something of the sort, but something felt off.
If Chukachip's team couldn't finish Lily off for certain — no, even if they did — the surviving Chukachip team would simply march onward, and Leo's team would be in trouble. No matter how strong the Unicorn or the Generals were, if quasi-Grand General players like Chukachip's Yena or Raguel went straight for the Core alone, there would be no answer to it.
A named assassin and an archer had more than enough power to punch through them and shatter a Core.
"What? The Unicorn is attacking us?"
Chukachip's half-dead face shot up.
"Wait."
They're attacking both?
Both sides had to be attacked.
From the moment Lily's team and Chukachip's team clashed yet again, Leo had conceived a single strategy.
'Beating Professor Lily is impossible! Avoid a head-on fight at all costs and go straight in.'
Even setting Lily aside, Lily team's castle held strange presences boasting Grand General-class strength — Vlack among them. No matter how much the growth buffs had been raised, nobody short of a Grand General could break through them.
Ehehehehe~
Granted, her side had its own Grand General-class Unicorn of Purity and Nobility, but...
"We've got a bit of a problem!"
"...I've never seen anyone like Lily before."
She was the only person Leo had ever seen, NPCs aside, carry the trait of 'nobility.'
Frankly, looking at Lily, it seemed only natural — and yet it was a little hard to accept. Because 'nobility' had seemed like a trait no player could ever have.
Anyway, since the Unicorn was nothing more than an obedient horse in front of Lily, Leo had sent the Unicorn and Fracion — to support it — over to Chukachip's team.
'Strike both sides at once and finish everything in one go.'
Lily and Chukachip. If the two fought, it was 99% certain... no, absolutely certain, Lily would win.
But who won and who lost didn't matter. What mattered was that both teams' greatest assets were away from their castles.
'And we strike at that gap!'
THOOM!
The energy of the earth flooded Iron's body — a reinforcement drawn from the spirit of the land. He charged in a single burst and smashed through the castle wall blocking Lily's team.
The wall collapsed in one blow, and beyond it stood a startled little brat — no, Devil.
'Where's the rest of Lily's team?'
"Human!"
"We meet again, shorty!"
"Come at me one-on-one again!!"
FWOOSH! Devil scattered black flame and hammered down on Iron's twin arms, raised into a guard in an instant. Even as Iron was driven back into the rubble of the broken wall, Devil's hands never paused, the attacks flowing one after another.
Arms and legs. And the bald head.
"...Striking the head is fair enough in a duel, but aren't you being remarkably disrespectful in your thinking?"
"Die, bald human!"
"I'm not bald!"
There's just a bit of a shortage! So protested Iron, scattering radiant light despite not being a Celestial.
"What was that, baldy?"
"I'll have to fix those manners of yours."
"You can't beat me! It's different from last round!"
Sure enough, Devil and Iron were close in strength, but Devil held a slight edge. Unless the gap opened to last round's disastrous degree, Devil would clearly win.
'In a fair fight, that is.'
Shiing.
"Not that I'm the one fighting you."
"Wha—"
The word had barely left his mouth when the blow landed. A pure-white line was drawn across Devil's chest.
PUHWAHK!
Blood of black particles scattered into the air.
"A... Nymph...!"
"No time to waste. Play around like last round and you'll lose."
Leo, who had cut her way in through the wall, felled Devil with one more stroke and took her place beside Iron.
True, she spoke and thought like a small child — but that didn't make her foolish or green. Leo had run a marquisate with a child's body and mind from the very start, and she was a player brilliant enough to stack up achievements beyond counting.
"When Lily gets here, you're all dead meat!"
"...That is, true enough."
Iron nodded, watching Leo shift and adapt from moment to moment.
White light seeped in. Hair blazing white, and a sword of light raised in her hand.
'The target is the Core.'
A single strike to cleave the way forward was ready.
"My job is to—"
"You'd better start thinking about dodging."
SHWAAANG!
"Light Sword."
Swaaan-gaaaak...
"Diagonal Sunder."
The light drew a diagonal line. A playful stroke, sketched by small, dainty hands.
But the result was anything but 'playful.'
CRUUUUMB... THOOM!!!
The castle split in two. A fortress that would never, under any normal circumstance, break was cut clean in half, and darkness stirred in the seam between the severed halves.
A black greatsword, evocative of the moon, flashed in the gloom. A gleam within the dark.
"HYAAAP!"
It was not light. It was simply so deep and dense that the surrounding light only made that darkness stand out all the more. The greatsword plunged on, aimed to split Leo's body in two—
"You know what? Professor Lily is really, really, really strong."
The ground beneath Leo's feet turned blue. The castle's ruins merged with nature itself. Sprouts bloomed. Tree trunks thickened and rose. The power of life surged in like a rising tide.
The World Tree was growing.
"What did I tell you? Professor's the professor for a reason. How else could she kill me four whole times?"
In an instant, the World Tree's branches had seized the castle and wound themselves around Vlack's arms and legs. Try as he might to cut them free, escape was impossible. Cold sweat running down his face, Vlack looked up at that tiny figure of a girl.
The savior of Epocis, kingdom of the elves, and inheritor of the World Tree's authority. One of the only players to bring down a kingdom single-handedly and earn the Empire's recognition.
"But still!"
Leo smiled.
"I'm glad you won, Vlack!"