Book 7 Chapter 12
Episode 161
"Your power is the perfect opposite of Toureina's."
Just before departing for Mythical Peak, Valencidis, who had received some information from me, came to this conclusion.
"The power Toureina wields is Dragon Poison, a 5-star spell created solely for fighting dragons, which severely restricts the power of dragons."
"Surely that fog…"
"That's right. But to maintain it indefinitely, it needs a catalyst. It's the pipe that the Priestess of the Fire Dragon bequeathed to Toureina."
Freide's pipe…?
As if this were the key, Valencidis drew a rough outline of the pipe on the ground with a branch.
But actually, there was no need for that. I had never once forgotten its shape.
"So, to face Toureina, you must ambush her and seize the initiative first. If you control the spell carved into this pipe with Bell Quirius, your chances of victory will increase."
"Wait, I can't interfere much with spells."
I can only slightly interfere with the framework of relatively elementary 1-star and 2-star spells, and some basic 3-star spells.
In fact, it would be a meaningless attempt for the original Bell Quirius, but a Bell Quirius with fire magic has the ability to incinerate that power the moment it interferes to a certain extent, making neutralization barely possible. In other words, I can't steal it.
However, from 3-star spells and above, where the framework becomes intricate and robust, it was an area of non-interference for me, who is not well-versed in incantation-type Altigmas.
"Have you forgotten whose disciple Toureina is?"
I almost laughed for a moment.
Who are you asking that to?
"There's nothing to worry about. Once cast, it's a spell, but the magic formula carved into the pipe is a composite spell of formulaic Rutishen, incantation-type Altigma, forbidden Orbios, and amplification-type Delbeisherts."
"…!"
"Fix Bell Quirius to the pipe and control its power. You won't be able to use Bell Quirius elsewhere, but Toureina also won't be able to deploy the Dragon Poison fog."
Finally, Valencidis raised his head and looked directly into my eyes, speaking.
"From this point on, it's purely a battle of skill. You'd better be prepared."
* * *
The anomaly that arose in the ritual could be observed across the entire Red Mountains.
For the unidentified mirage that writhed hideously above Mythical Peak, engulfing heaven and earth, was gradually losing its power and blurring.
Myria, who had pulled herself onto the cliff, immediately sprang to her feet as if rebounding and ran up the stairs of the Bellakior Temple.
"Aki!"
The temple, which had guarded the mountain peak in beautiful splendor for fourteen hundred years, was vibrating as if about to collapse from the consecutive collisions of immense power.
Myria, who flew through a crack in the temple's outer wall, found Aki crying on the Pollantir Altar.
Choking poison boiled all around, and putting aside the fact that her entire body was instantly drenched in sweat, the temple interior, with its raging heat making it difficult to even open one's eyes, was pure pandemonium.
In the uncompromising struggle with the legendary priestess, Rein had cleverly cast a powerful flame barrier around Aki.
The barrier was protecting Aki from the large and small fragments raining down as the temple collapsed, but to Myria's bewilderment, she was able to pass through it with ease.
"Aki."
"Adooboo-boot."
As soon as Myria sheathed her sword and embraced Aki, Aki buried her face deeply in Myria's chest, as if she didn't want to see anything scary anymore.
"It's dangerous here. Let's get out."
As Myria patted Aki's back and turned, two strange things caught her eye.
One was an orb rolling on the altar, from whose cracked and charred fissures flowed ominous, unknown syllables endlessly.
And the other was something placed opposite Aki, a frozen boy. Asleep in ice, with a peaceful and serene face…
Why?
That was when a dizzying thrill ran through my mind.
"This is…"
Myria didn't know the reason herself, but she just stared blankly at the boy's face, unaware of a tear tracing a path down her left cheek.
At that moment, something sealed on the surface of the ice with high-level magic was released.
What is this?
A letter?
A long string of characters unfolded in the air, and I involuntarily read a few scattered sentences, but there was no time to read the entire lengthy text.
Because the next moment, a clash of immense power blew away two or three pillars of the temple, and the Bellakior Temple began to collapse with a thunderous roar.
* * *
"Now, what in the world are you doing…!"
Toureina felt like she was wandering through a nightmare.
Every time she haphazardly manifested magic, spells, and their power, the fog in her mind grew thicker.
The last memories that allowed the girl to exist as Toureina were fading. Fragments of the last world where she could walk with Rein, beside Rein.
Like grains of sand slipping fleetingly through her fingers, even when she tried to grasp just a handful. Now, truly, little remained, neither her life nor her memories.
"…"
When the destructive power that toppled the pillars of the Bellakior Temple, collapsed the ceiling in dust, and made the paving stones tremble, surged forward, the boy painfully bit his lips.
Faces in memory.
Countless expressions flashing through his mind.
A crying face, a joyful face, a surprised face, an embarrassed face, a peacefully sleeping face, a pouting face… but he thought he had never seen such a fear-stricken expression before.
'Yes, it was real…'
One step, he moved forward.
His vision strangely distorted, and a crushing pain surged through his entire body. But it didn't hurt him at all.
Because his heart hurt more.
'Since I'm controlling the Dragon Poison fog with Bell Quirius, I'll definitely recognize it…'
Clutching his chest, he took another step.
Somewhere in his internal organs, not yet recovered from the power of the Hymn of Creation, ruptured, and a clot of blood welled up.
- Master.
Was he going mad? Two visions overlapped simultaneously on his retina.
In one vision, Toureina, wielding 4-star and 5-star magic and spells freely against him, was reflected… In the other, the young Toureina, painstakingly and with difficulty casting 1-star and 2-star magic, was reflected.
Was the past and present confusingly intertwining, transcending space and time?
- Fool, you shouldn't use that magic individually like that. It gets blocked this way.
From the other side of the memory where he had lightly scattered young Toureina's wind magic, he countered the fiercely surging wind spell with fire.
- Why am I so weak?
- It's not that you're weak. It's that I'm strong.
As the past, when he had shrugged his shoulders and lightly tapped her forehead with a 1-star flame spell, scattered from his mind, in front of his eyes, transcendent flames fiercely engulfed Toureina.
- Still, for having learned for a year, it's not bad.
Toureina's hurriedly cast water barrier was vaporized into a furious amount of steam, directly hitting the caster, and Toureina was seen kneeling on one knee, spitting blood.
'The way she combines attributes and utilizes magic when casting spells is exactly the same as mine…'
Ah, it is indeed too similar. So excessively similar that countering is unbelievably easy.
It's not déjà vu.
The way I used magic 300 years ago, the way I combined attributes… everything is surprisingly and admirably identical. It couldn't be any other way. It had to be this way.
'And the way she uses spells is a spitting image of Freide…'
Just a little.
Just a little earlier.
I should have realized. Should have admitted it.
"That pitiful little one has truly grown tremendously…"
I should have suspected and investigated the sense of unease I felt when I met Libeni and Ribadin, instead of blindly defending her just because she was a disciple.
"Alright, all good, but why didn't you protect the most important thing…?"
Fragments falling from the collapsing ceiling shook the temple, stirring up furious dust, and through the cracks, torrents of rain poured in. It was the tears of the abyss.
"I told you…"
Perhaps he judged that he had no room to use the Hymn of Creation while maintaining this large-scale spell, and that a battle of special abilities wouldn't lead to victory.
"No matter what…"
The first disciple charged into the dust storm, thick and heavy in the rain, and soon the staff and scepter clashed, sending sparks flying.
"Black magic, at least──!"
Just like 300 years ago, when they exchanged blows with clumsy skill, and if one's attack succeeded first, the winner would chuckle and run away.
"──is absolutely forbidden!"
He twisted the scepter into the trajectory of the staff aiming for the heart, distorting the flow of its power, and at the same time, spun his body to strike her abdomen with the base of the scepter, sending her flying to the outer wall.
"I told you dozens, hundreds of times…"
I know.
The reason this foolish disciple, who was clever at every moment and never disappointed me once, had no choice but to touch the abyss.
Because of an impossible wish, because of a desire that remained unfulfilled even after 300 long years.
"Hey, you pathetic little brat…"
Because she couldn't let go of that wish, didn't want to let it go, she must have embraced that wish for 300 years, even immersing herself in the abyss, and lived alone all that time.
A true master would have flushed red and erupted in anger. If truly for the sake of the disciple, they should have unleashed fury to correct what was right and wrong.
But what I was doing then was agonizingly squeezing out my voice amidst tears, everything visible through them blurred hazily by countless sources of light.
"With what heart did I, Freide, teach you? How could you use that power like this…?"
Pipi, whom I had earnestly told not to come out until the battle was over, fearing she might be hurt in her heart rather than her body, flew up from Celesia's arms.
"Toureina, Toureina, Toureina."
As it circled before her eyes, calling her name anxiously, the past girl, who coughed up blood and raised her head, had trembling eyes.
What is this parrot?
It must have been something precious beyond compare. But it doesn't come to mind. Neither the memory, nor the recollection, nor the feelings of that day.
But as she looked at the boy staring down at her with a face that seemed on the verge of tears, a thrill ran through her chest for some reason.
No, not for some reason. At last, she could faintly see it. The texture of the soul she had so desperately searched for… though it had changed, mixed with the dragon's soul.
Truly, after such a very long time, after 300 years, this feeling she seemed to be experiencing again… what was its name?
And so, although the inner workings of this affair remained incomprehensible, she dazedly pulled out that language she had cherished in her heart like a broken treasure, her whole life.
"…Master?"
That was the last moment a master and disciple, who had been torn apart for an eternity of 300 years, could exchange voices with each other.
The magic circle, deeply engraved on the temple floor with dozens of circles, runes, and characters, began to blaze so brightly it seemed to burn the retina.
The owner of that incomprehensible power, that unreal momentum, was the Beltar Divine Stone, whose cracks were gradually widening.
"Ha shi ke bal drudem, His will shall be done… lift the veil of fate… the path to His throne through the fall of light…!"
Amidst the oppressive sensation of heaven and earth shaking as if about to collapse onto the ground, in a storm where clothes flapped wildly, a viscous abyss, flowing like tentacles from the magic circle, seized Toureina.
"Toureina!"
Toureina's life force, as she lay sprawled, spitting blood, began to be sucked into the magic circle through the connected tentacles.
Is it trying to take over her body?
The boy felt the blood in his veins flowing backward.
Don't be ridiculous.
Bell Quirius, the seven-leaf pure white divine spear, flashed chillingly.
An immense volume of knowledge unfolded rapidly in his mind, as if hundreds of books were simultaneously spread across his vision. This must be what information saturation feels like.
In pain as if his brain was burning white, he interpreted the magic circle Toureina had created over her lifetime at an insane speed, and blood flowed from his eyes. A gush of nosebleed poured from his nose.
"Gu hu de, it's meaningless… that human will be torn to shreds in the storm of fate and become one… with that long-desired, unfulfilled wish…"
The darkness spewed out in all directions by the Beltar Divine Stone raged into an overwhelming vortex of destruction.
No, don't.
I can't release Bell Quirius's casting here now… It was Valencidis who ran forward and cast a barrier in front of the boy.
"…!"
Valencidis was also a powerful mage, but if the opponent was an ancient noble, the story changed.
"Hurry, Rein Ludwig!"
As cracks began to spread across the translucent barrier with a desperate tearing sound, the boy's eyes frantically searched through the surge of information.
Where is it?
Faster, faster, even faster.
Where is it, where in the world is it…?!
The word he sought amidst the tumultuous waves of pain hit his eyes—or more precisely, his consciousness—at the critical moment, just before the barrier shattered.
Turemibesta 1.
Gushy = bix, ⅱ\/ziy^ 1.98224.
The term referring to Toureina and the symbols and numbers assigned to it. Remove that phrase from the equation of special abilities. Fill the removed equation with imaginary numbers.
This is what calibration is.
Because the power was too immense, the magic circle itself could not be nullified. The best option was simply to exclude Toureina from that equation and change the target.
"Hmm, hmmm…?"
The unidentified voice of the Beltar Divine Stone let out a low groan.
The intricate mathematical formula of the magic circle, a sophisticated combination of spells, magic, and black magic, twisted. The tentacles that were siphoning Toureina's life force suddenly released her as if being sucked into something else.
Instead, they immediately changed direction and surged towards the frozen boy who lay at the exit of the magic circle. The abyss began to entwine the ice stone like tentacles.
"It'll be a bit cold in there."
The Prayer of Minor Chains and Great Barriers is more a sealing technique than a healing one, something even Toureina couldn't undo on her own.
If I trap him in there…
As a part of the mathematical formula, woven more intricately than gears, was negated, the magic circle's power began to surge violently in reverse, like interlocking gears shattering due to their own friction.
"Toureina, snap out of it! Toureina!"
"Toureina, Toureina, Toureina."
When black, red, and yellow tentacles erupted from various parts of the magic circle, I urgently cried out, cradling the fallen Toureina's face, but…
Kuh-goo-goo-goo-goo…!
That ferocious reversed power was strong enough to crush bones. If I hadn't protected my body with magic, I would have already been torn to shreds.
The problem was that the temple's magical-energy-less framework had no way to withstand that power.
Spiderweb-like cracks began to spread across the temple, which had barely maintained its form.
"It's a rebound! We have to get out of here… Rein Ludwig!"
By the time Valencidis turned around and urgently shouted, it was already too late.
Because as the pillars crashed down, the three-story ceiling they supported collapsed in sequence, and massive stones poured down on the boy's head, who was cradling Toureina's head, creating a violent dust storm.
It was not a level that could be protected by a barrier. By the time Valencidis barely escaped from that violent collapse, the temple lay completely ruined, with only its foundation remaining.
"What? Why are you alone, where is he? Did he not come out?"
Myria, who was comforting Aki outside the temple, asked in a dazed voice, but there was no way to answer her.
"Ah, Abe, Abua-bat!"
Aki whimpered and reached out her hand in that direction… and a presence began to fill the void left by the silence of the collapse.
"Valencidis! Explain! Why didn't he come out?! Where is he?!"
There was no need to explain, nor was there time to explain it.
Because the situation wasn't over yet.
Just as primal fear seemed to race through both their minds, with a deafening roar, the ruins of the collapsed temple and the earth were torn apart and melted away. And from within it, something massive surged forth.
"…?!"
"…?!"
It was a conglomeration of poison.
Dark blue feathers fluttered everywhere, and the sight of trees and the ground instantly rotting and decaying where the feathers touched was terror itself.
Valencidis, recognizing the identity of the being that elegantly flapped its wings once and smoothly descended to the ground, felt his mind go blank.
"Ah… Baal pe gyu tagus, truly a fitting vessel to serve my will."
Unremarkable dark brown hair, facial features, and freckles scattered around the bridge of his nose.
Though said to be eighteen in life, his physique, clad in black monk's robes with a blue stole, was as small as that of a thirteen-year-old boy.
But his true identity was that of the 11th Archmage, a hero from 300 years ago who had pacified an era of turmoil and fallen in battle…
"…Rein?"
If there was a difference from 300 years ago, it would be the grotesque crow's eye wriggling in a long, torn slit in the middle of his forehead, and the three pairs of hideous crow's wings that had sprouted from his back.
"Pedankeris, the time has finally come for all eyes to behold the truth of darkness. Kneel before Nariaduke, true servant of the King."