Chapter 339
Chapter 339
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 339
Chapter Title: The Wave of Law (4)
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The Ice Queen swung wide around the perimeter, but she couldn't outpace Shirone, who pivoted at the center.
The moment the first shot slammed into her, a chain reaction of shockwaves followed.
As the trailing Photon Cannons rained down on her, a thin shriek escaped the Ice Queen's lungs.
“Kyaaaaaaah!”
But she wasn't destroyed. In fact, it felt as though Shirone’s own wrists would snap from the continuous barrage.
‘Ugh! Why won't she go down?’
As the Photon Cannons battered her, a frigid mist, like water vapor, began to spread from the Ice Queen’s body.
It expanded faster and faster, eventually becoming a massive cloud that obscured her form.
-Remaining oxygen consumption time. 1 minute 2 seconds. 48 seconds. 35 seconds.
His oxygen reserves were rapidly depleting.
When it hit zero, he would be forced to breathe the cryogenic air.
He desperately controlled his breathing, and just as the timer hit four seconds, the air supply began to replenish.
‘What happened? Did I win?’
He had blasted away with the Photon Cannon at a staggering one hundred and twenty shots per minute.
Any normal creature would have been reduced to pulp.
The cloud-like mist scattered, and at last, the Ice Queen revealed herself.
‘Th-that's...?’
Shirone stared, his mouth agape. His pupils trembled violently, his face a mask of horror.
* * *
Amy’s Red Eyes flashed as she saved the coordinates. Dante and Liria ran behind her.
They had already run over a kilometer, but due to the circular nature of the maze, it seemed they hadn't even gotten within a hundred meters of the center.
As they entered a shopping district, they saw buildings that had been sliced in half by the risen fortress walls.
Amy and the others ducked into a two-story house, its inner floors now exposed, to hide.
Dante peered out the window. Setting aside Zokre’s group, monsters roamed every section.
“We can't keep running forever. These monsters won't get tired. We'll have to fight our way out eventually.”
Liria shook her head.
“They're victims, too. We can't just kill them.”
“What if we die in the process? The Ice Queen will only get stronger with time. We need to help Shirone, but we're stuck here dealing with these monsters, let alone destroying the maze.”
“This isn't about efficiency or results. Violence without righteous intent is no different from the methods of evil. I'm not forcing you, but if you intend to help me, we must not harm innocent people, even if it costs us our lives.”
Dante gave a bitter smile. It wasn't an act or a lie. To strengthen one's will and control the laws of nature was only possible with a conviction completely free of falsehood.
“Is that how mages think? Then again, we have a naive teacher like that at our school, too. Etella.”
Liria spoke firmly, as if the suggestion was absurd.
“It's not naivete, it's conviction. The world is sustained because for every evil that rises, there are those who strive to uphold the will of good. If we resort to evil's methods just because the situation is dire, we will ultimately fall under evil's dominion! I don't expect a mage like you to understand the age-old conflict between good and evil, but...!”
Dante cut her off with a wave of his hand.
“Alright. Enough with the lecture. I'm a mage, as you say. So, what's the plan now?”
Liria calmed herself and explained.
“I'm going to shrink the effective range of the Wide-Area Magic Suppression Formation we set up at the castle ruins to increase its power. It's a technique called Bakyojin. If we get the coordinates just right, not even a demigod's law can escape it.”
Dante's expression turned serious.
“But that means if we fail...”
“Yes. Our last resort, the formation itself, will be destroyed. The Ice Queen will be even stronger once she gets out into the world. So we only have one chance. If we can't create that chance, I won't attempt the Bakyojin, even if it means my death.”
Dante agreed. If the Ice Queen escaped the formation, the scale of the damage would be uncontrollable. It would be better for all of them to die here than to let her out.
“Alright. So what do you need us to do?”
“The coordinates for the Bakyojin can't be chosen at will. It has to be placed at the point where the formation's power converges.”
“And where is that?”
“It's the apex of an inverted pyramid drawn from the formation. You need to get me there.”
“One obstacle after another.”
Finding the right spot for the Bakyojin within a maze crawling with monsters was next to impossible. The maze had to be dealt with first before they could even begin to see a path forward.
“Okay. Let's go with that. Liria and I will handle the monsters. Amy, you take out the maze. With your Red Eyes, you're the only one who can get to the center of the Spirit Zone.”
Liria said worriedly.
“Can she handle it alone? Their abilities aren't magic. The other two must have gained powers on par with the maze.”
“That's exactly why Amy has to be the one. They'll probably target her first anyway. So it's better if we split up. Amy. You can do this, right?”
Amy couldn't answer. Zokre's group was strong. No, even before they got stronger, they were skilled enough to pass the graduation exam.
‘And I... failed.’
Dante said.
“You can do it. Trust yourself.”
“I can't. I really don't have the confidence.”
Amy meant it.
“If you can't trust yourself, then trust your family name.”
Amy looked up, and Dante placed a hand on her shoulder.
“There's no way you can't do what everyone in your family can. You have to fight using everything you've got.”
Countless members of her family had proven their talent. That was reason enough to believe in herself, no matter the situation.
When a grim determination appeared in Amy's eyes, Dante left the building with a satisfied look.
“Let's go, Liria. While they're focused on Amy, we need to get as close to the coordinates as possible.”
Liria asked as she followed Dante.
“Will she be okay? She didn't seem very confident.”
“There's a reason for that. But she'll be fine. She seems a little lost right now, but...”
Dante said with a smile.
“She's not so foolish she can't tell who's the better fighter.”
* * *
“Hohoho! What a sight, watching you run! Just what I'd expect from a student of a prestigious academy!”
“Tch! Shut up!”
Wherever Amy ran, Vivian would emerge from a wall to spew insults.
She was trying her best to find a path, but everywhere she went, she was in the palm of Vivian's hand.
A wall in Amy's path suddenly opened, and Rudvans appeared, chewing gum.
“God's Wrath.”
He slammed an invisible sphere of impact into the ground, and a shockwave with electric and elastic properties erupted, launching Amy into the air.
“I can see your panties.”
Amy did a somersault in the air and landed, just as Zokre closed in from the side at high speed.
“Speed Gear!”
The movements of Speed Gear, which controlled inertia in ten stages, completely defied the laws of physics. It felt as if spacetime itself was twisting as conventional logic was shattered.
Amy hastily threw up an Air Shield. Zokre's fireball exploded against it, blasting her backward.
‘I'll never find Vivian like this. I have to get on top of the walls somehow.’
If I were in the air, I might be able to use an Air Tunnel to strike Vivian's real body directly.
But getting that kind of opportunity against Zokre and his crew was no easy task.
‘The ground is blocked by walls. Does that mean Sniper Mode is impossible? Maybe if I injure one of them and tie them down...’
Amy shook her head. She was overthinking again. Dante's advice flashed through her mind.
-You don't have a style.
‘Style. My style.’
There was no single method for every situation. Amy focused her thoughts solely on Sniper Mode. At that moment, her eyes flew open. A core idea struck her mind like a bolt of lightning.
‘Maybe... No, I can do it. I know I can.’
Amy studied the structure of the walls, set arbitrary points A and B, and drew a virtual chord between them. Then, based on the wall's curvature, she measured the radian value and combined the theorem of three squares and trigonometry to derive the central coordinates where Vivian's real body was located.
‘I have the coordinates. But to actually hit her...’
Sniper Mode alone wasn't enough. With walls blocking every direction, her flames couldn't reach.
But Amy didn't give up. Just as Shirone and Dante had done, she delved deeper into her strategy.
‘It's possible. As long as it's heavier than air...’
Amy's Red Eyes flashed like electricity.
‘More. I need more power.’
Power. Power. Power. Power. Power.
Her Eidetic Memory began to eliminate all distracting thoughts, backing up hundreds of pages per second.
An extreme mental purge.
Her mind, now free of even one percent of impurity, burrowed toward a single objective.
Focusing on focus itself.
As if an explosion had gone off in her head, her mental power amplified exponentially.
One Path.
A temporary state of trance that occurs when one concentrates on a single thought, free from the slightest distraction.
‘Inferno.’
From beneath Amy's feet, two streams of fire twisted like braids and rose above her head.
“Wh-what is that?”
Seeing the size of the flame Amy had created, Zokre's group halted their charge, their faces stunned. The density of the gas was so thick that the flames dripped down like paint.
“That's...”
Zokre, who specialized in fire magic, realized what Amy was attempting.
The fire of a thousand degrees Celsius, a feat difficult even for professional mages.
Judging by the color of the flames, a heat of at least 1,300 degrees was blazing above her head.
“You... you... that's...”
Zokre and the others didn't dare get any closer. If that Inferno exploded, everything within its radius would melt.
Amy turned toward the wall and said.
“That's right. Something you could never even imitate.”
Zokre furrowed his brow in confusion. He couldn't understand why she would cast a spell powerful enough to turn the tables, only to aim it at a random spot.
But Vivian understood immediately. Even on her petrified face, a look of sheer horror was clearly visible.
“No! Zokre, stop her!”
Amy raised her hands, supporting the massive flame.
“Stop her! I said stop her! She's aiming for my real body!”
Zokre didn't understand. How could she attack the main body when a thirty-meter-high barrier was in the way?
Amy said with a triumphant smile.
“This is my style.”
She bent her upper body back like a bow, then snapped her waist forward, swinging both hands down.
The thousand-degree Inferno flew over the thirty-meter-high barrier and into the sky beyond.
Rudvans muttered with a blank expression.
“A howitzer...”
The fireball, boasting an immense gas density, traced a parabola across the sky.
While indirect fire could bypass cover, it suffered from low accuracy. But Amy, with her Eidetic Memory, could strike her target with machine-like precision.
“Kyaaaaak!”
Vivian's double screamed and vanished. If the Inferno landed in the center of the maze, her petrified and immobile real body would be melted in an instant.
With a tremendous rumble, the fortress walls, spanning a one-kilometer radius, simultaneously collapsed into the ground. Freed from her petrified state, Vivian took up her double's scream and hastily fled her position.
When the Inferno landed and exploded, the ground melted like molten iron. Murky, black impurities floated on the lava, which glowed a lurid red before rapidly cooling in the air.
The terrain was completely different from before the Inferno's impact. The ground was grotesquely warped, like the face of a demon.
Vivian, having narrowly escaped death, reached Zokre.
The maze was gone, but Amy was nowhere to be seen. Zokre scanned the area and muttered in irritation.
“Damn it! Where did she hide?”
A dull thud echoed from where Rudvans stood. A flaming rock slammed into the back of his head, and he collapsed without so much as a groan.