The monster of rotting meat—the Crawling Devourer—roared and kicked off the empty air toward Lest.
It galloped through the sky without wings, charging forward with its split maw stretched to its limit.
"Thunder Cannon!"
Lest unleashed his magic reflexively.
A fierce strike of lightning showered the Crawling Devourer.
“GYAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
“...!”
Even with the direct hit, the Crawling Devourer didn't flinch. It snapped its ferocious fangs at Lest, trying to tear him apart.
“Ugh...!”
Lest augmented his physical capabilities with magic and leaped high into the sky. Manipulating the wind to fly, he opened up distance from the monster while firing off more magic.
"Amaterasu!"
A lethal beam of light. He concentrated the surrounding sunlight into a single point and released it as a focused laser.
“GYA...!”
The Crawling Devourer let out a short, sharp cry. A fist-sized hole was gouged into the massive body of congealed rotting meat. No blood flowed from the aperture; it wasn't so much a wound as it was a hollow void.
“GYAOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
“!”
The damage didn't last. The flesh around the hole surged and swelled, instantly filling the cavity Lest’s magic had carved.
“What on earth is this thing...?!”
It was fundamentally different from any living creature. If he were asked to define it, he couldn't find an answer. The closest thing his knowledge could provide was a zombie of some kind, but the Crawling Devourer didn't exist in any of Lest’s records.
(Is this that man’s cheat ability? Some kind of summoning power...?!)
Lest glanced out of the corner of his eye at the man who had summoned the beast—Japanese Yoichiro.
“............”
Japanese remained silent. He floated in the air with his arms crossed, looking down at Lest with eyes that seemed to be observing an insect rather than a living human being.
(He’s just testing me? Don't underestimate me!)
“GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”
“Don't get cocky!”
Lest evaded another snap of the Crawling Devourer’s jaws and released a surge of mana. He converted his infinite mana into pure heat, manifesting Fireballs all around him. Dozens, then hundreds of Fireballs rained down upon the monster in a relentless barrage.
“Eat this!”
“GYAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...?!”
The Crawling Devourer’s rotting body was scorched and whittled away by the flames. Screams erupted from the beast’s throat, yet Lest did not slacken his assault. He single-mindedly generated more Fireballs, overwhelming the creature with the sheer force of his infinite mana.
“Ah... I see. The Circle of Ouroboros.”
Suddenly, he heard Japanese mutter. The man, who had been silent until now, spoke with an air of realization and interest.
“It's a subtle, temperamental ability. You seem to be handling it quite well, but I wonder...?”
“This is the end!”
Ignoring the commentary, Lest prepared his final blow.
“Fireball! Amplification! Compression! Accelerator!!”
He activated the magic through a Quartet. He compressed the volume of an oversized Fireball and fired it with explosive velocity.
“GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAA...!!!”
The Crawling Devourer exploded as it took the full-power strike. Already weakened by the hundreds of previous hits, the grand technique shattered it into fragments. Charred bits of meat rained down onto the ground and into the river below. The pungent stench of burnt flesh stung Lest's nostrils, and he instinctively grimaced.
“Alright, that’s one...!”
“Well, well. Not bad at all.”
“............!”
But Japanese spoke again. A chill ran down Lest’s spine. He looked up to see the space distorting around Japanese as the man floated against the clear blue sky.
“It's a shame you won't side with us... and that's why it's so sad that I have to kill you.”
New Crawling Devourers began to emerge from the air around Japanese. Not just one, but two, three, four, five... a total of twelve meat monsters appeared, each opening its massive maw.
“““““GYAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”””””
“You’ve got to be kidding me...!”
At this, even Lest was shaken. A single one had been a handful. Cold sweat broke out on his back as he felt the genuine threat to his life. Twelve of them at once was nothing short of hopeless.
(If I were alone, I could escape. But can I protect Urula against twelve of these things?!)
Should he fight back with the resolve to sacrifice himself, or flee for his own survival? The agonizing choice weighed on Lest for only a heartbeat. He immediately began to knead his mana, preparing to unleash everything...
“Blue Heaven is Dead, Yellow Heaven Shall Rise.”
In the next instant, two colors of light erupted.
Blue and yellow. The moment the two lights flashed, all twelve Crawling Devourers were incinerated, reduced to nothing but ash.
“Wh—?!”
“So you’ve come,” Japanese said, his voice calm.
“I have. I am here.”
Lest gasped in shock as a third voice answered. He turned to see a third man standing in the sky between himself and Japanese.
“Japanese Yoichiro... I suppose it has been a hundred years since we last met face-to-face?”
The man wore a gray robe and had long, flowing white hair. He looked young enough to be a youth, yet old enough to be a sage; his true age was impossible to discern from his appearance.
“Leonardo Gascoyne...!”
Lest knew him well. They had met and spoken once before.
The head of the Council of Sages. The man known as the World's Best Magician cast a cold, sharp gaze upon both Lest and Japanese.