Dreamer's Trance
Vermund versus Phantassus. It was like watching the world end in real time. Blues and reds collided and tangled in a riot of chaos while lightning tore down from the sky and hail hammered the earth — it took everything one had just to follow the flow of the battle.
As time passed, the fight only grew more violent, and its theater kept expanding. Before anyone realized it, the flood had swallowed not just the ruins of the Tower of Time but the whole city around it.
Nearby one-story buildings were submerged, and debris — chunks of wreckage, park benches, shattered streetlamps — drifted bobbing across the water. Vermund's lava, cooled by the flood, hardened into sheets across the ground, piled into hills, or broke off into islands of its own.
And here was what made Phantassus extraordinary: even in the middle of this insane battle, he was saving people.
He's rescuing everyone?
The guards, scholars, and guests who had been inside the Tower of Time — people who, by all rights, should have drowned as the waters rose. Yet Phantassus, while dueling the Lord of the Ivory Tower, was using current-domain magic to ferry over a thousand of them to safety. Glance around, and you could see the unconscious riding the waves he steered.
"I am burning through my very life fighting the Lord of the Ivory Tower — where would I find the luxury of saving people?!"
At Vermund's gesture, lava gushed from his magic circles like the mouth of a blast furnace.
"That is my will."
Phantassus swept his arm and raised a tidal wave to meet it.
"I did not come here to fight. I came to save people."
"If that is your ego as a necromancer, then I can do nothing but respect it. That, too, is the root of your strength. However—"
Vermund drew his palm upward in a slow, taunting motion.
"Pray forgive me if I make use of it."
Kuwururung!
Kwarung!
Lightning poured down across the flooded ruins, followed by a merciless rain of volcanic debris — and Phantassus had to focus harder than ever on keeping the people riding his waves under control.
The head of the Ivory Tower trying to kill his own people, while a Kizen graduate fought to save them — a bitter irony, indeed. The battle between the two powers was growing fiercer by the second.
"Hup!"
Phantassus closed the distance. Riding a wave at five hundred kilometers per hour, he shot behind Vermund in an instant, grazing his back as he passed.
⟨Phantassus Original – Sleep⟩
It looked like a single blur of a pass — but in that fleeting moment, Phantassus touched Vermund three separate times, stacking a full three layers of the curse.
I won!
Watching from a distance, Simon clenched his fist.
Three stacks from Phantassus at full power. No human being could endure that.
And yet.
Vermund, perfectly composed, curled his lips into a smile.
"Impressive. As the 'first-priority recruit candidate' among last year's Kizen graduates, your specialty was reported to me in exhaustive detail."
KKurururung!
Lava poured from Vermund's body and sheathed him from head to toe once more.
"Even among necromancers, compatibility exists. Your Sleep and I — we are a poor match."
"……"
Phantassus, standing atop the water, visibly dimmed.
"You can't be serious."
"Why do you suppose I chose lava magic as my mainstay, when I have mastered ten thousand spells?"
BBuruguruguru!
Lava of several thousand degrees streamed down from his shoulders, drenching his entire body.
"My body is protected from the lava it emits — but my sense of pain remains intact. Right now, I am receiving the agony of every single one of my cells burning in molten rock."
At his gesture, volcanoes far larger than any before surged up behind him.
"My ego is pain itself. The more I suffer, the stronger I become."
QUAAAAAAAAAANG!
In an instant, thick clouds swallowed the sky, and through them a deluge of massive volcanic debris began crashing down like rain. It rivaled the ancient spell Meteor in sheer force. Phantassus hastily raised a tidal wave to shield himself.
"Strictly speaking, your Sleep is closer to a non-curse. Its mechanism doesn't force the target into slumber — it simply, purely makes them drowsy until they drift off. Which means that I, steeped in infinite pain—"
Vermund raised both arms. In the distant sky, hazy magic circles unfolded by the hundreds.
"—have no room left in which to feel sleepy."
KWRRRRRRRUNG!
KWRRRRRUNG!
This time it was Jet-Black lightning. Phantassus threw up defensive barriers one after another and weaved away, but as he dodged the falling debris, the pursuing bolts hammered him again and again until he plunged beneath the water.
"Phantassus, sir!"
Simon shouted — but lightning was falling on his position too, and he immediately stepped off the Jet-Black and leapt skyward.
"Hmph. Honestly, what a pathetic senior."
Serne, perched on a tree across the way, said flatly.
"Can't even finish off one dying father properly."
"That's the Lord of the Ivory Tower he's facing! And his compatibility is terrible — of course it's not going well."
A curse specialist whose entire art was Sleep, forced to fight with Sleep sealed away. And on top of that—
The wound my future self inflicted.
Vermund's abdomen was still blown wide open. But he kept it unrepaired, held together by magic alone — because the agony pouring out of it was being transmuted into strength.
Phantassus's Sleep pierced through curse resistance and could not be unraveled even by Cancellation. But against a man armed with pain, it simply could not be expected to land properly.
"Hahahaha! Worry not, my junior! And Serne, my junior!"
CHWABANG!
Phantassus burst up through the surface beside them, entirely unharmed.
"To be fair, I've never seen a necromancer built on such a mechanism, so I was caught off guard! But I still have a trump card up my sleeve! Mm!"
"A trump card, sir?"
"That's right!"
Phantassus glanced back and grinned.
"It's you two!"
With that, Phantassus bent his knees deep and launched forward, kicking up a mountain of spray.
"Ugh, this is going to be exhausting."
Serne whined as she rose from her spot.
"Looks like we'll both suffer for having an incompetent senior."
"Watch it."
Simon smiled faintly and raised the Greatsword of Ruin. Thanks to the breather, he'd recovered just enough mana for a few more swings.
"Our chance is coming soon. Don't miss it."
SHAAAAAAA!
The battle between Vermund and Phantassus gave neither man a moment to breathe.
Phantassus rode the waves at blistering speed and flung curses, but Vermund deflected them with chained Cancellation and drove Phantassus into a corner with wide-area, four-element magic.
"Stall all you like — I am not going to die of exhaustion."
Vermund said coolly.
"You need only outlast the duration of the empty Sleep you've already spent……"
FWOOOOOOOONG!
The waves suddenly accelerated.
Two walls of water surged up around Phantassus — and shot forward at five times the speed of before.
He was hiding it!
He'd been capable of this burst from the very start, and had dawdled all this time simply to let Vermund's eyes grow used to his speed — to carve out an opening.
Two waves were closing in from left and right.
Vermund judged that Phantassus rode in one of them. Whether by Sleep or by martial arts, Phantassus had to close the distance to land a blow.
Vermund responded with perfect calm.
Left first.
He stretched out his right arm and triggered a magic circle prepared in advance. The wavelength of lava surged to blast the wave apart — and in that instant—
SHING!
The wave split in half first.
JJEEEOOOOOOONG!
The world itself split down the middle, and Vermund's eyes went wide.
His right arm was sailing high into the sky.
A slashing strike?!*
Far away, he could see Simon heaving for breath, the Greatsword of Ruin still arcing through its swing. The waves had been nothing but a feint.
SHAAAAAAA!
The one remaining wave swung around to Vermund's blind, armless right side and surged forward. And inside that wave was Phantassus.
Pointless.
This time Vermund traced a sigil with his left index finger.
GGWADEUK!
A magic circle etched itself across Vermund's abdomen, and a spear of glacier ice shot out, punching straight through Phantassus's body.
SHARURURURUNG!
But—
The moment the ice struck home, Phantassus's body dissolved into a flurry of snow-white feathers.
"……!"
[How many times are you going to fall for it, Father~]
Serne's voice rang out from the scattering feathers.
[It was no accident that Father believed I died on the 100th floor. I spent every single day analyzing his perception patterns and detection habits just to fool him.]
KUWURURURU!
The real attack was from below.
Phantassus, having dove beneath the surface, was rising up toward the water Vermund floated on.
[Oh, and by the way — the way I always smiled in front of Father? That was an illusion too. I was grimacing the whole time.]
Vermund's eyes went wide.
"Serne……!"
TEUEOOOOOOOONG!
A mountain of spray erupted skyward, and Vermund's body was launched into the air. And above him—
SHAAAAA—!
A staff — suddenly possessed of eyes, a nose, and a mouth — kicked up sand as it waited. Vermund's vision vanished, swallowed whole by sand in the blink of an eye.
"Everyone — commencing."
Simon, now clothed in gold, moved his hand.
⟨Herseba Original – World of Sand⟩
WHIIIIIING—!
Vermund opened his eyes.
A featureless field of sand stretched to the horizon beneath a blue, empty sky.
"A strange power, this."
He murmured, surveying his surroundings.
"So you've sealed me inside a dungeon."
Sand winds soon rose from three more directions as Simon, Serne, and last of all Phantassus entered the World of Sand.
"Mm! A truly splendid combination, my junior Simon and my junior Serne!"
Phantassus looked around.
"And I quite like the venue you've arranged, my junior. Now we can focus entirely on the battle, without a thought for the people around us."
"Then that's a relief……"
[Hold on! What is this, kid?!]
Herseba's voice rang through his mind as a thought.
[You give me a thimbleful of Jet-Black and expect what?! I can't even summon my mummies properly!]
Sorry — this is my limit right now. How long can you hold it?
[Five minutes, tops!]
Simon looked helplessly at Phantassus.
"How long can you maintain it?"
Phantassus seemed to have grasped the situation at once. Simon answered quietly.
"Five minutes, sir."
"Hahahaha! More than enough!"
Phantassus laughed loudly — then plopped straight down where he stood.
"In that case, I'll be taking my nap now!"
"Sir?"
And with a soft coo, his head tipped sideways in an instant.
"Wait — that's completely reckle—"
CHWAAAAAAK!
Vermund's body closed the distance to Phantassus's nose in a heartbeat.
"I will not let you sleep!"
His remaining arm — the left — vanished beneath a lattice of magic circles.
The moment it carved through the air toward Phantassus's face—
KAGAK!
A white blade blocked the way.
KKANG!
Simon slammed the Greatsword of Ruin against Vermund's arm and hurled it back. As his left arm was knocked away, Vermund watched the magic circles coating it shatter against the blade.
That wreck of a boy — half-dead after the Tower went berserk — how does he still have……!*
Vermund retreated and roared.
"Do not interfere, Legion Commander!"
WOONG! WOONG! WOONG! WOONG! WOONG! WOONG!
Behind him, countless colossal magic circles deployed in ranks — magma, ice, lightning, all smoldering.
Simon leveled the greatsword before him, his face hard as stone.
"Die."
WOONG! WOONG! WOONG! WOONG! WOONG!
But then — magic circles unfolded behind Simon as well.
"Well, well~"
Serne was drifting to Simon's side, fluttering the feather in her hand like a fan.
"I'm afraid not."
Vermund and Serne spread their arms at the same instant. Dozens of magic circles belched forth colossal elemental magic that flooded the battlefield in every direction.
A veritable feast of the elements. A titanic detonation of Jet-Black elemental magic — the signature art of the Ivory Tower's necromancers.
Whoa……!
Simon broke into a grin of pure awe.
We just neutralized the Lord of the Ivory Tower's attack head-on?
"How dare—!"
Vermund shrieked in irritation. His body coated itself in even more lava, and magic circles three times the scale of anything he'd cast before began to form.
"Di—!"
The moment he moved his arm—
He sensed something was wrong.
His arm was heavy.
And—
The air is…?
He had merely swung his arm, and it came back damp.
Phantassus's dark magic was already complete.
[Now then — let us begin.]
⟨Phantassus Original – Dream State of Selflessness⟩