A considerable amount of time had passed since I awakened to my true ability.
Throughout that interval, I had been locked in a relentless struggle with the 《Hero》, but the battle was steadily turning in my favor.
What had been a dense grove only moments ago was now a desolate wasteland. The trees were gone, and the earth was gouged and torn in every direction, leaving the landscape as barren as a scorched plain.
Not a single trace of the original woods remained.
(By now, the vanguard of the unit Count Eddington prepared should be arriving in Rugau.)
Reassessing the situation, I caused the mana within my magic sword, Schwarzhase, to swell. It expanded into the form of a massive greatsword, and I kicked off the ground, closing the distance to the 《Hero》 by the shortest possible route.
With my physical capabilities pushed to their absolute limits by 【Culmination《封印解除》】, I was moving at a velocity that no ordinary person could hope to track, let alone react to.
However, my opponent was a 《Hero》—a man who stood leagues above any ordinary human.
I knew all too well from our exchange thus far that a simple, linear charge would be easily parried and met with a lethal counter.
And so, just as I reached the outer edge of the 《Hero》's reach, I activated 【Reflective Wall《反射障壁》】.
Simultaneously, I nullified the gravity acting upon my own body.
By ricocheting off multiple 【Reflective Walls《反射障壁》】 I had positioned around him, I circled behind the 《Hero》 in a blurred instant without losing a shred of momentum.
It was a maneuver that only functioned because of my 【Gravity Manipulation】.
While theoretically possible under normal gravity, the centrifugal force and sheer strain exerted on the body during such high-speed, sharp-angled directional changes would be immense. Unless the situation was desperate, I would never attempt such a move without manipulating my own weight.
The moment I reached his blind spot, I shifted the magic sword from a greatsword into twin blades.
I lashed out with both swords, gauging the depth of the strike to be neither too deep nor too shallow.
By the time I finished the twin arc of my swing, the 《Hero》 was already spinning around, his own sword whistling through the air in a counter-rotation.
I ducked beneath his blade and drove a kick straight into his solar plexus.
Heavy with the added mass of 【Gravity Manipulation】, my kick connected squarely. The 《Hero》 coughed up a spray of blood and was sent hurtling backward for a dozen meters.
He rolled to a stop and stood up, swaying slightly, his face splitting into a smile as innocent and guileless as a child’s.
"Hahaha! Yes! This is it! This feeling of staring death in the face! This is what a real fight feels like! More... give me more!"
Ever since I had begun fighting him on equal or superior terms following the awakening of my ability, the 《Hero》's expression had grown increasingly relaxed. He looked as though he were genuinely enjoying himself.
Given his status and his innate power, there had likely never been anyone capable of challenging him properly. He had probably never known the true fear of a mortal threat.
That was why he was savoring this—this battle with me—from the bottom of his soul.
"Don't screw with me, you battle-crazed freak...!"
As I spat the insult, the 《Hero》 blurred, closing the gap with terrifying speed.
I let go of the magic swords while they were still in their twin-blade form and drew a spare sword from my storage.
I cast 【Durability Up《耐久力上昇》】 on the blade. As the 《Hero》 lunged forward with a sweeping strike, I met him with a heavy blow of my own, reinforced by the crushing weight of 【Gravity Manipulation】 and the explosive power of 【Impact《瞬間的能力超上昇》】.
Our blades collided. The resulting shockwave tore outward, shrieking through the air as the ground beneath us shattered into a spiderweb of deep fissures.
"...【Zero Form: Mont Null《零ノ型》】."
I whispered the command while our blades were locked on the trembling earth. The twin magic swords I had discarded moments ago dissolved into shapeless, pitch-black mana.
The darkness began to coil and solidify, manifesting into heavy chains that snaked around the 《Hero》's body, binding him tight.
"Gugh! What are these chains...?"
Imbued with artificial mass, the pitch-black chains were incredibly heavy. They were dense enough to restrict the movements of even a 《Hero》 with his monstrous physical strength.
In my dreams, when I fought Oliver, I had summoned similar black chains from the void.
I remembered the sensation of creating them, yet that sensation was something I still couldn't quite understand.
It was a feeling so fundamentally alien that the only logical conclusion was that I lacked some crucial piece of the puzzle.
(Those chains in the dream were far more sophisticated than the ones I just made with my magic sword. What exactly are they? If I can use 【Culmination《封印解除》】, I should be able to manifest them too. Does it require a specialized technique like Ki control...? No—save that for later.)
I forced my straying thoughts back to the present and constructed a spell formula while putting distance between myself and the restrained 《Hero》.
"This is the end!"
I flooded the formula with mana and triggered 【Explode《超爆発》】.
With a deafening roar, a blast—carefully calibrated to be non-lethal—erupted directly against the 《Hero》, and a pillar of black smoke billowed upward.
"...【First Form: Mont Eins《壱ノ型》】."
I dissolved the pitch-black chains back into raw mana.
I then gathered that mana into my right hand, shaping it into the form of a longsword. Storing the spare sword away, I gripped the magic sword tight.
I wanted to believe that last attack had settled the score.
But my opponent was the 《Hero》. It wasn't outside the realm of possibility that he was still standing.
Maintaining my guard, I stared intently into the thick of the black smoke.
"—!?"
The smoke suddenly swirled in an unnatural pattern. I reflexively jerked my body aside just as a flash of light tore through the air.
I wasn't fast enough to dodge it completely. A sharp pain lanced through my left shoulder, and blood began to soak through my clothes.
As I used magic to staunch the bleeding, a voice drifted out from the settling dust.
"What was that? Such a lukewarm attack. Don't hold back. Come at me with the intent to kill! ...If you won't do it willingly, then I'll just have to force you to get serious!"
As the smoke cleared, I saw the 《Hero》 glaring at me, his eyes burning with a cold, sharp fury.
"...Oh, you've got to be joking. Do you plan to erase this entire area!?"
The space surrounding his sword blade was distorting. Because I possessed 【Gravity Manipulation】, I understood exactly how dangerous that distortion was without even having to think.
It was a compression of power that dwarfed the attack I had barely managed to stop with my shield earlier.
If he swung that thing, everything in the vicinity would quite literally cease to exist.
"On the contrary, this is perfect," the 《Hero》 muttered, leveling his sword.
"Tch!"
To intercept his strike—no, to stop him—I fed even more mana into my magic sword, drawing from the reserves I had been continuously compressing within my storage magic tool.
"I'm glad to see you're finally in the mood. Now, show me your best!"
With a roar, the 《Hero》 swung his blade down, unleashing a concentrated mass of repulsive force capable of annihilating everything in its path.
"Heavenly Flash《天閃》!!"
In perfect synchronization, I swung my magic sword, releasing a crescent of pitch-black mana imbued with both 【Gravity Manipulation】 and 【Impact《瞬間的能力超上昇》】.
The mass of darkness and the colorless void of force collided.
Under normal circumstances, the point of impact would have leveled the surrounding countryside. To prevent that, I had applied 【Gravity Manipulation】 to the Heavenly Flash.
My goal was to redirect the ensuing torrent of destruction.
The two clashing powers ground against each other before surging upward, a pitch-black pillar of energy roaring into the heavens.
Even so, the collateral damage couldn't be reduced to zero.
The pillar, thin at first, rapidly swelled in diameter. It expanded until it swallowed both me and the 《Hero》.
Having foreseen this, I had transformed my magic sword into a shield immediately after the swing and encased myself in a cube of max-density mana walls. I remained unscathed.
The 《Hero》 was likely using his own ability to defend himself, but he almost certainly hadn't been able to negate the impact entirely.
After a short while, I confirmed the black pillar had vanished and dissipated the mana walls, leaving only the floor beneath my feet.
Looking down, I saw a gargantuan crater.
In the depths of the pit, where the sunlight barely reached, the 《Hero》 lay unconscious and battered.
"............"
Returning my shield to the form of a longsword, I cast 【Space Leap《空間跳躍》】, teleporting the 《Hero》 out of the hole and onto the surface.
I leaped off my mana foothold and landed a short distance away from him.
"Don't take it personally. This only happened because your people decided to invade."
I spoke to his unconscious form. He needed to stay alive for questioning, so I began constructing the formula for 【Exheal《快癒》】. Suddenly, I sensed a presence nearby.
I snapped my head toward the sensation. Standing there was the woman in the robe from 《Amunzaas》—the one who had attacked my disciples six months ago.
"............Orun."
(Why is she here? Did she plan to finish me off while I was exhausted?)
When our eyes met, she seemed to catch her breath.
"Those eyes..." she whispered, her voice trembling with a strange, hopeful note. "Do you... remember me, Orun?"
"...As if I could forget," I started.
Her face instantly brightened with a radiant, joyful expression.
"—Why would you think I’d ever forget the person who tried to murder my disciples?"
I finished the sentence in a voice like ice. Her radiant smile froze for a heartbeat before slowly shattering. She managed a strained, fragile smile that looked as though it were barely holding back a sea of grief.
"Right... of course," she murmured softly.
Looking at her expression made my chest tighten with a sudden, inexplicable ache.
(...Not again. What is this feeling?! Why do I feel so much guilt...?!)
While I struggled with my own confusing emotions, the woman in the robe masked her pain with a defiant smirk.
"To think you’d win even against a 《Hero》. You really are something. I suppose there was no point in me coming at all."
"No point? Didn't you come here to kill me? Unfortunately for you, I still have plenty of strength left. I don't plan on making it easy for you."
I shifted into a combat stance, warning her.
I was drained from the fight with the 《Hero》, but I had a decent grasp of her strength from our last encounter. To be honest, my chances were probably fifty-fifty. But even now, I wasn't so weak that she could simply walk over me.
"I can't blame you for thinking that, but I have no intention of killing you right now, Orun. What happened six months ago was entirely our fault. I... I am sorry for that."
Despite my hostile posture, she bowed her head deeply, leaving herself completely vulnerable.
(...What is she after?)
As I tried to discern her true motives, a man’s voice called out from behind me.
"Your Highness, honestly... give me a break. What are you doing sleeping in a place like this?"
I spun around. Standing there was a man in what looked like a scholar’s white lab coat, though it was stained so thoroughly with blood it appeared a visceral crimson. He stood with his shoulders slumped in disappointment.
"Well, whatever. I suppose it just means this man couldn't live up to our expectations. That's all there is to it. Yes, quite."
The man in red muttered to himself, treating us as if we weren't even there.
"Oswell Macleod...!"
The woman in the robe hissed the name, glaring at the man in red with pure, unadulterated loathing.
So his name was Oswell. It was clear the two of them weren't on friendly terms, but I had too little information to go on. I couldn't get a read on the situation.
"My, my, if it isn't the 《White Demon》. Don't look at me like that. You'll ruin that pretty face of yours, won't you?"
"————"
In response to the man's taunt, a murderous, freezing aura erupted from the woman.
In the blink of an eye, the man in red was encased in a massive block of ice.
...Was that original magic?
Regardless, her magic was as abnormal as ever. The best way to describe it was as if the spell were manifesting while skipping the process of mana infusion entirely.
I had been trying to figure out the trick to her magic since our first battle, but I hadn't come up with a single solid hypothesis. An "ability" was the most likely answer, but what kind of ability could produce such a result?
"None of your business," she said.
Her clear voice rang out through the sudden silence of the wasteland, the man in red now nothing more than a frozen statue.