Phantassus Original – Dreamer's Trance
It's begun.
Bermude, who knew more about Phantassus than anyone else alive, was the first to shoot up into the sky.
The air was already damp and heavy. His clothes and hair were soaked through, and instead of wind, he could feel the sensation of slicing through a current of water.
I must not let Dreamer's Trance reach its full manifestation.
Bermude gestured into the empty air.
As if the world itself were answering him, a hundred magic circles unfolded. They loaded dark magic, designated their directions, and calculated the variables posed by every obstacle.
Just as tens of thousands of beams of light were about to come pouring down in brilliance—
Shaaaaaaa!
The world turned deep blue before they ever landed.
Blue Screen.
That was what every necromancer felled by this technique had come to call it.
Bermude hastily clapped a hand over his mouth. A few droplets of water trickled out between his fingers. The hundred magic circles he had so carefully prepared dissolved away, as helplessly as salt melting into the sea.
Seeing it with my own eyes is a first, but I can scarcely believe it.
A low groan escaped his throat.
A curse that materializes one's own dreams into reality.
The world was submerged underwater.
Bermude cast a breathing spell on himself and stared ahead.
A sea had been born, and the sea was pregnant with life. From every corner of the water, horrifying monstrosities began to reveal themselves.
Black, swirling schools of fish. Rays the size of a playing field. Jellyfish spitting out electric currents. Deep-sea fish bristling with jagged teeth.
Like a child scribbling carelessly across a blank page with colored pencils, they were grotesque creatures bearing no coherent biological logic whatsoever—strange, and nothing but strange.
[…….]
[…….]
They made no sound. They simply stared out at Bermude from the darkness with ten thousand glowing eyes.
Aberrations that should not exist.
Ten thousand demons surged toward him in a froth of bubbles.
This is his world. And the way to win inside another's world is—
Bermude's body flared red-hot, like metal thrust into a blast furnace.
—to build my own world within it.
Fwaaaaaash!
Volcanoes erupted across his body, spewing lava. A sun rose in the middle of the black sea, and the swarming schools of fish vanished the instant they touched its searing heat.
More pain.
Bermude's eyes gleamed.
Pain is the very wellspring of my power!
Red energy spread further and further across the blue sea. The monstrous fish were swallowed up by lava and heat the moment they spawned.
Kwakwakwakwakwa—!
Phantassus, trying to drown his opponent inside his own dream. And Bermude, trying to carve out his own domain even within his opponent's dream.
It was a battle between monsters that had long since left the bounds of humanity behind.
According to the reports I received, Dreamer's Trance has one greatest weakness.
Bermude raised his one remaining arm. His gaze turned toward Phantassus, sitting cross-legged on the seabed below.
While he dreams, he cannot move.
The largest magic circle of all he had summoned so far unfolded across the water.
Bermude Original – Diabolos.
From within it burst a red, slender arm.
The three-fingered demon's arm advanced on Phantassus where he sat in his lotus position. Whales and monstrosities threw themselves in its path to shield him, but Diabolos was not the kind of dark magic that could be countered.
The demon's arm destroyed the creatures by nothing more than touching them. Simon and Serne, who had been with him, swung the Greatsword of Ruin and hurled her feathers, but it was useless.
Before long—
Kuuung—!
With a thunderous impact, Phantassus was crushed beneath the demon's arm.
Heh.
The corners of his mouth curled upward.
"Hahahahahahaha!"
He could see the surrounding seawater drying away, the monstrosities withering down to bare bones and vanishing.
Bermude, laughing himself into ecstasy—
Swish—!
—felt pain bloom in his own body.
The sensation of a sharp blade punching through skin, slicing through muscle, parting blood.
Even while coating his entire body in lava, Bermude registered the new agony. And in the instant every one of his five senses locked onto that freshly recognized pain—
Shaaaaaaaak!
The world twisted and changed. A deathly white greatsword was riding along his shoulder, closing in on his neck.
Bermude wrenched his body aside at the last possible moment.
His attacker was none other than Simon. Strapped to his back were the artificial wings Serne had crafted for him from her feathers.
Too shallow!
Simon bit his lip.
Fwarrrk!
Bermude forged a sword from lava and swung it. Simon answered in kind with the Greatsword of Ruin.
Clang! Kang! Kshaaaang!
White and red trajectories collided in a chaotic flurry, splitting the water with thunder.
Impossible.
Bermude's brow furrowed.
When he came to his senses, Dreamer's Trance was still active, and the demon's arm was hammering away at empty ground. Phantassus, still seated cross-legged, and Serne, still standing beside him, were far, far away.
His memory of killing Phantassus had been nothing more than a dream.
I…… fell asleep?
He had been dousing his entire body in lava exceeding two thousand degrees.
And yet a human had felt drowsiness, and slept?
Kyaaaaang!
At the center of it all, the two of them ground their blades against each other and simultaneously fell back.
"Serne!"
At Simon's shout, light flashed across the feathered wings. Simon's body traced a white tail, arcing in a wide curve before plunging in from the right.
Bermude tracked the movement with narrowed, focused eyes.
Baby Legion Commander or not, a Legion Commander was still a Legion Commander. Let his guard slip for an instant and he would pay for it. He discarded the cumbersome lava sword, spread a large magic circle before his palm, and aimed it at the oncoming Simon.
Paff—!
But the pain came not from the right—from his left arm.
A feint!
Bermude used the pain once more to tear himself free of the dream.
Simon was swinging from the left. Bermude predicted the blade's path, twisted his body, and let the strike slide past.
This is a human's reaction speed?
Simon couldn't help but be stunned.
Rotten or not, a Tower Master was still a Tower Master. It was no accident that the man led an entire faction.
Fwarrrrrrk!
Simon hastily thrust the Greatsword of Ruin forward, catching the lava Bermude spewed out in counterattack.
"Kgh!"
Having devoured the lava, the Greatsword of Ruin turned a vivid green.
"Please, Kal!"
Simon swung the greatsword with all his strength.
Kal Original – Chimimouryou.
Kwuong!
Kwang! Kwang!
Dozens of hounds of ultimate poison streaked out along the path of Simon's swing.
Bermude first threw up a defensive magic circle facing front—then quickly poured in more Jet-Black and reshaped it into one that wrapped around his whole body.
Puuuuong!
Puuong!
This time, the direction was right. As the poison crawled across the defensive circle and ate it away, Simon rocketed back up into the air.
"Haaaaaah!"
Then he plummeted at high speed, bringing the greatsword he had raised over his head down in a single cleaving arc.
From above? Or—!
Bermude, a counter-spell already loaded, had to make a choice.
Then—
Pain lanced through his waist.
Behind me!
Fwaaaaaaaaash!
Lava surged from his left hand and incinerated the space at his back.
~Silly boy~
Serne's voice rang out. Two thousand degrees' worth of molten lava had done nothing but burn away a single feather clinging to his waist.
~How many times are you going to fall for it, Father?~
Damn it all!
She had read him—read his total dependence on pain as his compass.
Bermude twisted sideways in a panic, but—
Shaaaaaaaak!
This time it landed true. The Greatsword of Ruin came cleaving down and took Bermude's last remaining left arm with it.
"Gyaaaaaaaaagh!"
Bermude, wracked with agony, ascended into the sky as blood poured from his twin severed stumps. In the opposite direction from Simon's descent.
I need to buy more time.
An arm meant nothing, but here, he had no path to victory.
Dreamer's Trance was running out—as was the dungeon itself. He would have to fight after he got outside.
"Kgh!"
Simon scrambled after the fleeing Bermude, but Bermude was faster.
Break that technique, and I win.
All around Bermude as he climbed higher, the dungeon was groaning and splitting apart.
And then, in a single instant—
Clap!
A sharp crack of fingers sounded at his ear, and the world flipped upside down.
"Sweet dreams?"
Phantassus's voice.
!
Before he knew it, Bermude was plummeting toward the ground—not the sky.
His direction had been reversed.
And dead ahead stood Phantassus, waiting.
Bermude was closing the distance himself. He was mid-acceleration—he couldn't stop now even if he wanted to.
"There's no dodging this one!"
Phantassus dropped his stance and spread his open hand.
"Even better!"
Bermude roared. Magic circles etched themselves across his body, and the demon's arm burst forth once more.
Bermude Original – Diabolos.
If he killed his opponent here with this power while he was at it, so much the better. Watching Jet-Black coil around Phantassus's hand, Bermude called out.
"Now that Dreamer's Trance is released, Sleep won't work on me!"
"There are many ways to put a man down that have nothing to do with curses, my friend. And the finest of them all—"
Phantassus clenched his enormous palm into a fist, straightened his bent knees, and launched himself skyward.
"Sleeeeeeeep—!"
The demon's arm came swinging down at Phantassus from above. Phantassus twisted his hips and hurled his fist with everything he had.
"PUNCH!"
KKKKOOOOOOOOM!
The demon's arm snapped like a straw beneath Phantassus's fist—then punched straight through and slammed into Bermude's face.
Bermude's face caved in, and with a thunderclap he shot upward faster than light.
The shockwave sent every grain of sand for miles around erupting into the sky, heaven and earth trading places—a sight enough to turn any witness's knees to water.
"Hahahahaha!"
Phantassus laughed at the top of his lungs, flexing his boulder of a fist.
"PERFECT—!!"
A Sleep that caught anyone, one hundred percent of the time, with a single punch. A Sleep, of course, from which one would never, ever wake.
Watching from the sky above, Simon let out a helpless laugh.
Seriously…… why is Sleep that senior's main weapon?
When the World of Sand's duration ran out, Simon's party and Bermude returned to the outside world.
Bermude lay sprawled flat on his back, his face caved in, his legs and arms twisted at grotesque angles. The dark magic sustaining his body had all vanished.
"Master of the Ivory Tower. Bermude Eindark."
Phantassus walked over and stood before him. Simon and Serne flanked him on either side.
"Have you any last words to leave the world?"
"Heh…… heheh…… heheheh."
Bermude turned his head and looked at Serne.
"Taking…… you in…… was never…… a mistake……."
"If you intend to use someone, you'd best be prepared to be used yourself."
Serne smiled sweetly and stirred her hand through the air.
"Goodbye, Father."
Her feathers drifted down over the cooling body of Bermude.
"Being your child was a damn shame."
The feathers scattered into a thousand shreds, veiling his face. Others blossomed into flowers, blanketing his body.
"May I never see you again."
A farewell only Serne could give. She turned her back and walked away first.
By the time they emerged from the dungeon, the sun was rising in full.
Bermude Eindark died then and there.
In truth, ever since Future Simon's attack had punched a hole through his abdomen, he had been a dead man walking—he had merely clung to life by channeling the power born of agony.
Perhaps he had pushed himself that far to seize Simon and deliver him to the Cabal. But Phantassus's appearance had turned it all to foam on the water.
Afterward, the barrier shrouding the Ivory Tower Headquarters lifted, and its people streamed inside. They raged at the sight of the collapsed Tower of Time and Bermude's corpse, but thankfully, Daniela Villenne had recovered his senses and gave his testimony.
Everything was by design of the Tower Master.
"Eliminate everyone connected to this incident. The guests, of course—and the youngsters from Kizen, the Ivory Tower Kids, every guard and scholar working in the Tower of Time. All of them."
The revelation that the man commanding the Ivory Tower was nothing but a puppet answering the Cabal's orders sent the Tower's people into an fury without measure.
On top of that, testimony from the other necromancers and the invited guests came flooding in, and Bermude's crimes rose fully to the surface at last.
Then, as if they had been waiting, Kizen's agents appeared, followed by investigators dispatched from the Dark Alliance, who launched a full inquiry.
Simon and Serne were tied up all day giving their statements. Fortunately, Nephthys and the Ivory Tower Headquarters both sent student advocates on their behalf, and the two of them managed to slip away at last.
…….
The two of them sat side by side on a park bench, gazing at the rubble of the fallen tower.
After a long silence, Simon looked at her and spoke quietly.
"I saw it again."
"……Saw what?"
She smiled faintly and went on.
"Me fighting Bermude for Kizen's sake?"
"That too."
Simon continued, his voice soft.
"But especially the matter with Mayrin."
Serne just smiled and smiled, saying nothing.
"I'm sorry I misunderstood you all this time. Truly."
Serne's promise to make him the next Master of the Ivory Tower had come within a hair's breadth of ending in the saddest way imaginable.
If Serne had sacrificed herself unbinding the Absolute Seal, then Mayrin would naturally have become the next Master of the Ivory Tower.
It had been unexpected.
The Serne who toyed with people's minds had been a tyrant. Always haughty, always proud—but at the same time willful and capricious, faithless in the free will of others, and, he had believed, hollowed out somewhere deep in her heart.
And yet.
She was a person too. Someone capable of laying herself down, quietly and willingly, for another's sake.
Given the perfect chance to break Kizen, she had set down her greatest ambition—simply because she chose to protect someone.
"When we get back to school, I'll take responsibility and set Mayrin straight about the misunderstanding."
Simon said.
"Once she learns what you actually did, the two of you will be close again."
"No."
But Serne shook her head.
"Please don't."
"Wh—why not?"
She tilted her face slowly up toward the sky.
"Because I didn't do it hoping for anything in return. I did it because I wanted to."
Simon's expression hardened.
"You're fine with Mayrin hating you like this, forever?"
Their relationship might never go back to what it was—but the thought of it curdling into one where Mayrin despised her outright was something he could not stomach.
"Then, a question."
Serne crossed her legs and spoke in a calm, even voice.
"What happens if Mayrin learns the whole truth?"
"……That would—"
"Her mental state would be shredded to ribbons, obviously, no? Every single nasty thing she ever said to me would come flooding back, and she'd be shuddering through sleepless nights. Would she even be able to look me in the eye anymore? Could she ever snap at me again, curse me out, treat me like she used to without a second thought? Honestly, I'd imagine it would become awkward enough to choke on."
"……."
"And above all—if Mayrin knows the truth, she loses her one crystal-clear reason in life: to defeat me. Her reason for entering Kizen, gone."
She shrugged her shoulders.
"I like it the way it is now. Mayrin burning with righteous fury, standing across from me and swearing to put me down. Mayrin on the verge of tears when she loses to me. Mayrin cursing me with her eyes, Mayrin baring her teeth, Mayrin going red in the face. And—"
Serne slowly rested her head on Simon's arm. Simon flinched and went rigid.
"—Mayrin flying into an absolute frenzy whenever Simon and I play at being even a little bit cozy, like this. I love all of it."
"……."
Simon let out a long breath.
Certainly, Serne's sacrifice had been her own unilateral decision, made without ever asking the one it concerned.
It was a noble sacrifice, and at the same time—
a twisted form of affection.
Knowing Mayrin's temperament, she would far rather Serne had laid everything out honestly and searched for a solution together.
Why didn't you tell me the truth? Did you really think I'd be happy if you pulled a stunt like this and died?
Mayrin might well have raged at her. And it was true that Serne's words and actions had left wounds on Mayrin that could never be washed away.
I like it the way it is now.
Those words of Serne's carried meanings within meanings.
"All right. It'll be as you wish."
"Thank you."
"But still……."
Simon's lips wavered, as if he were hesitating—then he spoke with sudden, aching earnestness.
"From now on, we'll still…… get to go to school together, right?"
A silence fell.
Simon watched her, wound tight with tension. Serne, still leaning against his shoulder and gazing up at him, let her eyelids lower.
"……That, I'm afraid, may be a little difficult."
The Master of the Ivory Tower, Bermude, was dead.
And the next successor was her. Serne.
She was the Master of the Ivory Tower now.