Here, There Is No One of the Same Blood as You...
Here, There Is No One of the Same Blood as You...
The collision of magic. On a battlefield where countless violent energies surged and overflowed, it was obvious which side held the upper hand.
The Shadows had the upper hand, and the mages were being pushed back.
There was no need to analyze it in any great depth. By simply watching in silence, one perceived it naturally.
"Can you see it clearly, Ela?"
The Witch of Jealousy tapped the crystal orb a couple of times with the tip of a sharp nail. She was currently observing the entire situation from within some pitch-black space.
Ela silently nodded her head beside her.
She, too, could now see what lay ahead. It was thanks to the 'Shadow Eye' bestowed upon her by the Witch of Jealousy.
Furthermore, Ela had also learned that this Witch of Jealousy's name was Ismael.
"How does it feel, seeing my Shadows firsthand?"
Their forms could be infinitely elegant, and also infinitely grotesque. Ela could not even find words to describe the shapes that freely warped and shifted before her.
"Vivid."
In the end, all she could manage were three short words.
"Of course it's vivid. They contain souls, after all."
"Souls?"
"Yes. I drape my Shadows over souls that were preserved without form and manipulate them as I please."
The principle behind the elaborate Shadow legion was simple.
In truth, souls that had once inhabited a body were now imprisoned within the Shadows and puppeteered.
"Well? Having seen them, aren't you even more intrigued?"
Ismael's pupils deepened another shade.
"Once I get my hands on that object, it will grow incomparably greater than anything so far. Do you realize... just how magnificent a thing that is?"
"Mm."
While following Ismael, Ela had roughly pieced together the details regarding the 'ancient rune treasure.'
First and foremost, it was an immense power source.
Allegedly enough to raise a new magic tower at the Academy, but Ela could not even begin to guess how much power that truly represented.
Ela quietly stared into the crystal orb. Having confirmed the might of the Shadows, she nodded her head.
"I acknowledge that. However."
She rolled her pitch-black eyes as she slowly gave her answer. The target those eyes gradually turned toward was Plan.
"Plan hasn't stepped forward yet."
"Huhu. So Plan bothers you, does he?"
The two women peered quietly at the man's form through the crystal orb. What the image of Plan, standing still, conveyed was all too clear.
"Ismael. Does he not bother you?"
Yet Ela obligingly opened her mouth and asked back.
"Plan is rather making use of this situation. To train the other three mages."
Though it had been a little confusing at first, it became clear once she focused like this. Plan was appropriately adjusting the tide of battle to train the three representatives.
"It's no different from toying with your Shadows."
She had assumed Ismael would use a bit more strength or feel a hint of rage, but the witch simply laughed.
A laugh no human could ever possibly produce. The moment she heard it, a bitter cold seeped deep into Ela's bones.
"If he's enjoying himself, let him enjoy it further. If they're growing, let them grow further."
So Ismael murmured, stroking the crystal orb.
"Because the stronger the opponent, the greater the pleasure we will then feel, magnified many times over."
"The souls and Shadows you're spending—aren't they a waste?"
"Not at all?"
The witch turned her head and stared fixedly at Ela.
"I feel sorry for the Blue Cloud Knights, but this battle was meant for you from the start. Every fallen soul and Shadow will be used as nourishment for you, you see."
"..."
The Curse of Absorption.
Calling to mind the power she possessed, Ela fell for a moment into sentiment. She recalled the countless things she had absorbed since entering Berkel.
So long as she could absorb, she did not discriminate between human and demon beast. This moment right now was the instant of greatest power in Ela's entire life.
However.
Her heart still grew complicated when she looked at him. She could not make a firm declaration to herself that she could win.
She could not even discern whether this stemmed from a learned terror or from the truth of the matter.
"Ela~ it seems you are still afraid of Plan, aren't you?"
Ela shook her head without a word.
"It's nothing."
She looked back at the crystal orb.
Plan had begun issuing orders and assisting the other mages, and at some moment the tide of battle was overturned.
Fwooooosh—!
Trixie's blue flame let out a roar. The magic power that swept and surged like a wave swallowed up the Shadows approaching them all at once.
Cr-cra-crack—!
Next came a manifestation that rendered the space deathly still. Becky's ice froze the corridor solid, and in the next instant, it all shattered completely.
Toward the frozen foes, Louis's beams of light surged forth. Sharp, thin bundles of straight lines pierced only through the vital points of the Shadows.
...In but a short time, they were already getting into step with one another.
"Did you see?"
Ismael's eyes glinted as she asked. Ela quietly nodded her head.
"Their growth is fast. It's almost like the Curse of Absorption..."
"That is exactly what makes it so entertaining. Both the ones growing and the one making them grow are so very desirable..."
That I wish to make every last one of them a Shadow solely for myself—within Ismael's heart, a desire black as pitch bloomed.
"...Before that, shall we try just one little experiment?"
Ismael breathed dark energy into the crystal orb.
At the same time, the movements of several Shadows halted.
The mages of the Magic Department tilted their heads, scrutinizing the situation.
But in truth, the Shadows had not stopped. Their bellies merely churned as they prepared for the next act.
—This... I think they're going to explode!
By the time they sensed something was wrong, it was too late.
Several of the Shadows exploded completely. The blast blanketed their whole field of view, making the battlefield impossible to see.
"This is merely a blank round, you know~"
Ismael giggled.
The battle dragged on, tenaciously.
Visibility gone, the Shadows charged at the mages, slashing at their bodies...
And then, at a certain moment.
The black fog and the afterglow of the explosions were annihilated in an instant. To the degree that one could not even observe the process, there was no way to describe it other than annihilated.
And then, someone began to walk forward.
Moving one's body upon a battlefield is a common thing.
But to walk with such leisure as this—that was anything but common.
A few Shadows, whose Qi Sense was especially keen, halted their actions and stared at him. As if utterly dumbfounded.
There was no telling when the Shadows might explode again.
The power of the explosion was more than enough to snuff out a human life with appalling ease, so the other mages were putting as much distance as they could.
But precisely because of that, the figure of the lone man approaching the Shadows was strikingly conspicuous.
The eyes of the three mages who watched that sight grew so wide they seemed about to pop out of their heads.
—Don't go near them!
Someone cried out in alarm, shouting that it was dangerous.
Plan.
Bearing no particular armament, he walked slowly, jotting something down on a paper that floated in the empty air.
—Plan!
Even when they shouted loudly from behind, his steps did not halt. He was more nonchalant in that temple corridor than anyone else.
—We, we should do something too!
—Let's go after him!
Belatedly, the three tried to follow after Plan. But Plan merely raised a hand and silently restrained them.
"Things are getting interesting. In that case, from this side as well..."
Ismael breathed a black energy into the crystal orb. This time, every Shadow heaved and churned violently.
But just then.
"...?"
Ismael's brow twitched and trembled.
Plan, who had raised his head, had met Ismael's gaze on the other side of the crystal orb.
There was no way that could be.
She was observing the battlefield without leaving a single trace behind. Just in case, she shifted her body a little.
Plan's pupils quietly tracked after her.
He was unquestionably looking at Ismael.
"...!"
Chills crawled up the length of her spine. Never once before had she been the subject of observation, no matter how many times she had observed others.
At the same moment, a tremendous volume of mana surged toward Plan.
Without realizing it, Ela muttered to herself.
"Absorption...?"
The night spirit Hera draws power from dark spaces and simultaneously converts it into fuel.
In that temple corridor, black beyond measure, he was instead transcending his own total capacity.
Ruuuumble.
The energies not yet absorbed boiled up in a great surge and shook the entire corridor as one.
BOOM—! KWA-BOOM—!
As if something colossal were thundering underground, the ground itself jolted violently.
Plan fully reaped the energy. Behind his back, a vast magic circle came into being.
Plan at last opened his mouth.
Ismael quietly read the shape of his lips.
—Wherever you are... it doesn't matter.
At last, a blue light brightly illuminated the surroundings.
Still staring fixedly at Ismael, he intoned.
—...From now on, behold your own future.
The reverberation that had been shaking the corridor ceased.
And in the next instant.
Countless blue beams of light shot out from the magic circle.
No sound came. Their speed could not even be gauged.
As if all of space and time had been pinned in place, the Shadows' bodies were pierced through before they could react at all.
A single blow that permitted not even a suicidal counter-detonation.
Those rays melted the Shadows as though melting snow before one's eyes—and at last even the crystal orb Ismael was watching through was...
CRACK—!
...made to fissure with a fracture.
"What utter nonsense—!"
Ismael hastily cut off the crystal orb. It was an act untouched by thought, almost pure instinct.
The fact that there existed something she could not understand, the sight of Plan she had observed for the very first time—all of it was riddled with questions, but for now she had no choice but to do so.
Shatter—!
In the end, however, the crystal orb broke apart.
"..."
A single bead of sweat slid down the witch's forehead.
What was left for Ismael and Ela.
Was nothing but silence and darkness.
◈
The heart of Berkel.
Scarlet, the Knight of Embers, stood leaning against the massive body of the Dead Dragon. She was simply lost in thought, whiling away her boredom.
That she could even approach a Dead Dragon—which dissolves everything it touches into a terrible poison—was astonishing in itself, but for Scarlet, who was counted among the successors to the 'Sword Saint,' this much was far too easy and entirely to be expected.
But it was not that nothing weighed on her mind.
Since some unknown point, Plan's presence had kept making itself felt from within the danger zones.
"...Running wild all over the place like an insolent fool."
Scarlet quietly muttered.
"That whelp is strong, and meticulous besides. There seems little cause to describe it as insolence."
When the Dead Dragon followed up on her soliloquy, she irritably glared at the Dead Dragon's skull.
"Shut your mouth. Before I crush it."
Even at Scarlet's warning, the Dead Dragon did not cease speaking.
"Knight of Embers, why do you loathe him so?"
"There is something you ought to know first. The House of Yudit has one source of pride, and one source of disgrace."
"The pride would be you. In that case, who is the disgrace."
"That wretch. There's nothing to even ask, is there."
Even as she gave her curt answer, Scarlet's expression crumpled. The fellow she wished to have absolutely nothing to do with had crawled all the way to the danger zone after all.
The knight recalled the words Plan had spoken that day.
—It might already be a mage family by then.
"Dead Dragon. How does it look in your eyes."
Even knowing it was absurd, Scarlet voiced her own thoughts from a lingering feeling of "what if." It was, after all, a rule that one grew all the more eager to talk about things that remained uncertain.
"That wretch—is he even capable of laying you low."
"Me?"
"Yes."
At that, the Dead Dragon clacked its jaw softly. It was laughing.
"...So that is what you have secretly been curious about."
But Scarlet had no time to hear an answer.
"..."
Scarlet, who had been waiting for an answer within the heavy silence, at some moment raised her sword and aimed it far into the distance.
She gave it a single, light swing.
And in the next instant.
KWAAAAAA—!
An impact that shook heaven and earth.
The inherent ability of 'Ember' resonating within the blade. In that moment, a world dyed red. A half-moon-shaped flame shot out head-on and devoured everything that touched its body.
Fwooooooosh...
Scarlet's flame carved a long line across the entire span of the danger zone.
The world, fallen silent, held only the sound of something burning.
"...It dodged."
Scarlet quietly muttered.
The Dead Dragon, too, perceived what had been lurking at the far end of those flames.
"Is that the presence of a high-grade Maine."
"Yes. It seems to be a witch who manipulates Shadows."
Though but a fleeting instant, in the end the attack missed. The target had apparently already fled the spot at speed.
Even so, she could not disregard it and leave it be. A race like the Maine would, if left idle, worm into the frail hearts of humans and seek to coax them.
"I will have to step out for a moment."
With that as her last word, Scarlet began to move.
The ground that extended in a dead-straight line was entirely scorched.
A single unbroken trace where a crimson sword aura had swept away terrain that had been densely packed with countless things. Scarlet walked quietly upon it.
"O Knight..."
Left alone, the Dead Dragon laughed, rattling its jaw.
It had held many conversations with Scarlet, but this time there had been a story it could not agree with.
Yet this time, its intuition was certain not to be wrong.
"Here, in this place, there is no bloodline like your own..."