"......"
There was no feeling in my ankle. Despite the skeletal hand gripping it hard enough to crush the bone, I hadn't realized it until I looked down. It seems there's a paralysis effect.
Could the Redfla assassin control even bones? No, the direction of her abilities is different. This is soone else's power.
Rustle.
More skeletal hands began to erge silently, one by one. They rose from the ground, grabbing Bennett's and Sissel's ankles, slowly revealing themselves.
A warning signal went off sharply in my head. I imdiately shouted,
"Watch out for the ground! It's skeletons!"
"Skeletons? Where are they... Huh?! What the hell is this?!"
Amusingly, Sissel's startled reaction was exactly like her sister’s.
"...Necromancy infused with cold, damn it. This is the magic of 'Corpse Flower!'"
Bennett shouted as he swung his sword of protection, slicing through the bones that bound him. Corpse Flower... That was the identifier for a notorious dark sorceress who had taken over Bennett's sister's body.
It reminded of The Virgin Who Drinks Pleasure, the succubus queen. If this Corpse Flower was on par with the queen, she would be an extrely dangerous opponent.
"Bennett, what do we need to be careful about?"
"First, get off the ground. Climb the trees!"
Fwoosh, crack-!
I wrapped my legs in flas, stomping down to shatter the skeletal hands. Then I grabbed Selvia, who was standing idly nearby, and leaped up.
We dashed up the tree trunk, and I saw that Bennett and Sissel had also jumped onto the branches in one leap.
Clatter, grind. Grind, grind, grind-!
The sound of countless hands scratching and tearing at the ground filled the air. The earth churned as skeletons began to rise one by one from the ground.
No, they surged up.
Rumble, rumble, rumble──!
From every visible patch of ground, bones erupted simultaneously. It continued, endlessly, to the point where it seed impossible.
Soon, a sea of bones about a ter deep ford.
And it began to surge like waves. Despite being solid, the sheer volu made it appear to ripple like liquid.
The insane scale of it all left dizzy.
"Insane..."
"Are those... are those all human bones? How...?"
Selvia, who was in my arms, was also aghast. If we had stayed on the ground, our fate would have been obvious. But it was far too early to relax.
The bone sea that had ford in an instant continued to rise, inch by inch.
"Serpent of Love!"
Sssshhh──!
I sent the fire serpent out, hoping to evaporate the sea of bones and eliminate the threat. The Serpent of Love twisted its body, lting and incinerating the bones, but the coldness within the bones extinguished its flas, sapping its strength.
After about ten seconds, the serpent was swallowed up by the bone waves, leaving nothing behind. I quickly assessed the situation. This required the firepower of Kim Lulu’s level to be effective.
Creak, creak!
The trees were being gnawed at from their bases, beginning to tilt in various directions. We had to move or co up with sothing before we were drowned in bones.
"Is there any chance this spell might lose power and stop halfway?"
"If Corpse Flower is here, she likely brought a horde of souls to replenish her mana. We’d be swept away long before that."
"Then we have no choice but to take out the caster. Let’s go, Sissel, Bennett! The reaction is coming from the direction of the scream! Bennett, carry , and Sissel, take care of Selvia!"
"Yes, I will."
Leap.
Balancing on the collapsing trees, we had to jump to the next one, all while avoiding the sea of bones below—a nearly impossible task for a mage.
Even if I could calculate the movent, my physical ability wasn't up to the task. So, Selvia and I relied on the two in the front as we raced through the crumbling forest. Bennett was surprisingly comfortable to ride.
anwhile, I was deep in thought.
Unless this place was so horrific execution ground for humans or a massive burial site of an ancient cannibal empire, such a massive quantity of bones was impossible.
The situation seed as though sothing was created out of nothing. That phrase itself felt strangely familiar. I had a feeling I knew the secret behind this magic.
As we headed toward the source of the Redfla assassin’s scream, the reaction from the elven relic grew stronger. Simultaneously, a cold, slithering voice echoed through the forest.
Necromancy, and indeed all schools of magic, will eventually face their limits. The limit of 'finitude.' Without corpses or souls, how will you fight?
Clatter, clatter, clatter!
With the sound of bones clashing and entwining, a giant serpent of bones rose from the bone sea. It opened its jaws wide, ready to swallow whole, with sharp, spiraled rib bones inside its maw.
"Bennett, jump!"
"...Jump here? You an to get eaten?"
"I'll maneuver us out of it—just jump!"
Without hesitation, Bennett launched himself into the air. I imdiately cast a spell.
"Booster!"
Using fire magic as propulsion, I maneuvered Bennett through the air. We perford a graceful dive, much like a swallow, in a daring aerial maneuver.
Crrrrrack!
We narrowly passed through a small gap between the bone serpent and the bone sea, evading the attack. The serpent only succeeded in grinding up an innocent tree in an instant.
A drop of cold sweat trickled down Bennett's neck. That must have been nerve-wracking. I was a bit shaken too.
That’s why I thought. Human emotions are limitless, so to surpass the limits of magic, one must learn... 'how to harness emotions,' just as the gods in the heavens do.
"Brother, what on earth is she rambling about?!"
"Well, that is..."
Tap.
As we evaded the giant bone wave, we reached our destination: a beautiful clearing where white bone flowers blood. In the center stood a woman seated on a throne of bones.
Next to her, clutching her perforated waist and glaring at us, was the Redfla assassin.
Her ash-gray hair, tinted a deep green by the magic’s influence, was a poisonous hue that looked like it could be addictive just by looking at it. Her features resembled Bennett’s closely.
Bennett, his voice filled with bitter anger, muttered through clenched teeth,
"Corpse Flower..."
"It’s been a while, Bennett. I heard you’ve been living a happy life, leaving your sister behind. If I’d known you were that cold-hearted, I would’ve put a different kind of leash on you."
"You’ve co all this way with such heavy steps. I didn’t expect to et you here, Corpse Flower. Now, give back my sister’s body──!!"
"Do you really think that’s possible? No, let explain why. Where was I... Oh yes, I was talking about the pinnacle of magic."
Swish.
With a casual wave of her hand, the undead soldiers rose. The bone sea behind her stirred with a chilling, grating noise that set my nerves on edge.
My indirect connection with this dark sorceress began the mont I joined the Academy. In the secret facility beneath the Academy, she had set up a magic circle to amplify emotions, waiting for the right mont.
Now, that circle had been repurposed into a session-based auxiliary battery, rendering it practically useless. But looking back now...
The fact that she set up a magic circle to amplify emotions, rather than draining souls or siphoning mana, was significant.
And the dark sorcerers’ covert operations at the Academy? She sought to harvest a massive amount of fear through them.
"After 300 years of repeatedly dying and reviving, I finally reached the realm of the gods. 'Materialization of Fear'... I can create corpses without bodies and summon souls without souls."
Corpse Flower looked down at the Redfla assassin, soliloquizing as if to boast about her achievents.
"That’s why I didn’t bother creating an idol of the dark god. I didn’t need the god’s power; I could do it myself."
In other words...
Her necromancy, which draws power from fear, was on the sa level as my hologram technology, which converts belief into physical force.
I had never considered the possibility of losing a magic duel based purely on skill.
My high-performance brain is objectively monstrous, and the so-called geniuses I’ve encountered thus far have all been outmatched by my calculative abilities. Only Yuna could compete with .
But now, even considering I was weakened by being fragnted into dozens of pieces──
"Corpse Explosion, Bone Spear."
"Fla Harpoon, ugh... Why does it always have to be such a dirty, underhanded trajectory!"
I was getting pushed back.
The pinpoint spells of Corpse Flower systematically countered and strangled the magic I cast in response.
The experience accumulated from 300 years of necromancy and her talent in using emotion as a power source allowed her to intuitively strike at my vulnerabilities with deadly precision.
Hummm──
"Academic Radiance...!"
"Brother, did you steal my Transcendence?!"
Even when I tried to launch a mini-sun I had arranged myself,
"Bone Needle."
"No way, damn...!"
She accurately struck the trigger that would detonate the spell in mid-air, causing it to disintegrate. Even I was left dumbfounded.
It was like shooting a needle at a bullet during a firefight and causing it to explode inside the gun.
I didn’t know where she was drawing from, but the endlessly multiplying skeletons were still advancing. To sweep them away, I’d need a powerful, large-scale spell with casting ti.
"If I use Fla Angel Level 3..."
"No, Selvia. Turn off Fla Angel."
"Rafflesia of the Battlefield."
Fwoosh──! Poisonous gas spread through the wind. I quickly raised a wall of fla to burn away the toxins.
Right. She’s not giving a chance to cast anything big. That’s why I had Selvia shut off Fla Angel.
While it increases her destructive power, Fla Angel drastically reduces her defense, aning one hit would be fatal in a fight this precise. Against an opponent capable of such precision attacks, it’s basically a suicide mission.
"Life Extraction - Leash Your Neck!"
Sissel was holding back the sea of skeletons attacking from the rear. She was using gravity to pin them down, preventing them from advancing, but that alone was taking all her strength. She had no energy left to help us.
And Bennett...
"I'll make sure to put a hole in your side──!!"
"Move aside. I have no ti to waste on you."
"Don't be ridiculous, you're going to die here, grr?!"
Clang, clang!
Bennett was engaged in combat with the Redfla assassin, whose bone club was wrapped in dark red magic. His fighting spirit was more intense than I had ever seen before.
Bennett fought without hesitation, as if willing to sacrifice his life if it ant he could reach his sister. His fierce determination was so overwhelming that the assassin was being pushed back.
"I told you to move aside."
"...Are you seriously underestimating ?!"
However, it didn’t seem like the battle would be decided quickly.
If we wanted to turn this fight around, we’d need to build our strategy around Bennett. Whether it was the burning power of his heart or sothing else, he was fighting better than ever.
Bennett’s strange awakening was a stroke of luck, but this was still a brutally difficult battle. A necromancer should be powerless without corpses, right? If she can create them from emotions, doesn’t that cease to be necromancy?
Then again, I’m in no position to criticize, given that I use illusion magic to do just about everything.
"I’ve heard a lot about you, Crazy Mage. I hear you ruined the precious magic circle I set up at the Academy?"
"Oh, I noticed it was terribly inefficient, so I fixed it up a bit!"
"Thank you. Now I’ll take it back. 'Funeral of the Insects.'"
"As if... Selvia, to the right!"
Corpse Flower's voice was calm and taunting. It was infuriating. She spoke with the confidence of soone who knew she had the upper hand.
Even at the most optimistic, this was a crisis. I couldn’t think of any way to break through with fire magic. If it were illusion magic, I might have tried sothing!
But that doesn’t an all hope was lost.
We had one last resort!
Dodging the incoming bone spear with a swift arm-maneuver, I used the ti I gained to shout to Bennett as I sent a fireball toward the Redfla assassin.
"Bennett, use it!"
"...Understood."
Bennett pulled out the Violet Tower Master's wish ticket from his pocket. Though half a year had passed, the ticket was still in pristine condition.
Without hesitation, he tore it in half.
A burst of light erupted from the ticket, sending an invisible signal skyward. Yuna would arrive soon. The mont she did, the tide of battle would turn drastically.
From now on, it was a race against ti. We just had to hold out until Yuna arrived. If we focused solely on defense, we could manage that.
Soon.
Creak- Crack.
A crack appeared in the sky. Through the gap, Yuna’s enlarged eye calmly peered out, as a swirl of illusions filled the air, mixed with the cries of various animals.
It was a scene that felt distinctly cosmic horror.
"...W-What is that now?!"
"Don’t worry! That’s Yuna, the Violet Tower Master!"
I reassured the panicking Selvia.
Yuna’s Transcendence, Realm of Illusions: Opening the Gate.
She was using her power to blur the line between illusion and reality, casting a spatial transfer spell to this marked location. Since she was coming through the realm of illusions, the visual was nightmarish due to her psychological state.
This battle was won. There was no way we couldn’t hold out for that long, and if the enemy tried to flee, we had the ans to capture them.
How’s that for a twist? I checked Corpse Flower's expression. But...
"Hahaha... Hehehe."
She’s laughing?
I quickly tightened my focus. It didn’t seem like she was bluffing. Did she have a trump card? Sothing strong enough to face Yuna?
She continued to speak nonchalantly as she unleashed attacks.
"Bennett. Aren’t you curious about the 'Nightmare Summoning' spell that was delayed because of your betrayal? It’s a secret technique once researched by the old Violet Tower. Its effect is... to summon the most terrifying thing the target has ever experienced."
"..."
"I’ve been preparing this spell for a very long ti. Once I use it now, it’ll take about a hundred years before I can cast it again. That’s why... I had to choose my target very carefully."
If it really was a spell that summoned nightmares, and if she used it on Bennett... Wouldn’t that an the dark god from the session would manifest in reality? A being that could manipulate the universe?
Surely not.
It couldn’t be such a simple spell. Otherwise, you could just make a child imagine a planet-sized octopus and cast 'Nightmare Summoning' to summon it.
She’d probably need data. The more detailed her knowledge of the target, the more concrete and realistic the nightmare would be.
If that’s the case...
"Crazy Mage, I heard you had a conflict with the boy knight... the Empire’s Sword Saint. The Violet Tower was half destroyed, wasn’t it?"
That’s right. That was when Irid finished the first session.
I had witnessed the clash between the Violet Tower Master and the boy knight.
"You must have been very impressed. Probably trembling with fear. Your genius brain would have thoroughly analyzed just how powerful the Empire’s Sword Saint really was."
Exactly. Now that I had more data on Transcendence and Sublimation, I could imagine the boy knight’s strength in great detail.
It’s the brain of a monster. I might rember it more vividly and accurately than anyone else in this world, excluding the boy knight himself.
"The reason I accepted Faceless’s request for help wasn’t just because I was tempted by the elven relic... but because I wanted to et you, Crazy Mage. To draw the boy Sword Saint out of your mind."
Her eyes, with pupils tinted green, curved into a satisfied smile.
"Damn it, shadows underfoot, the darkness peeking through the wardrobe crack..."
I imdiately prepared a mind-clearing spell, intending to erase the mory from my brain. If I could wipe out my consciousness and data, Nightmare Summoning wouldn’t be able to extract anything.
If the boy knight manifested as an enemy, it would be a tough fight, even for Yuna. I had to stop it.
But...
"It’s already too late."
Right. When a mage starts talking, they’ve already completed their preparations.
Looking back, Bennett’s brief daze earlier might have been a hint that Corpse Flower’s magic circle was laid in this forest.
A sinister black light glowed in Corpse Flower’s hand.
"Nightmare Summoning."
The spell was cast, targeting .
The world was engulfed in darkness in an instant.
Then, magic and emotion swirled together.
This was the accumulated power of a dark sorceress who had died and resurrected repeatedly over 300 years. The amount of reagents, resources, and ti spent was staggering. A vortex of purple light spiraled toward the center of the darkness.
Yes. This was the mont Corpse Flower had been waiting for. She was ready to greet the clone of the Empire’s Sword Saint that was about to be born. It might be sowhat rebellious, perhaps difficult to control, but...
She had prepared thoroughly for that too. Finally, she was about to obtain the sharpest blade in the world. Once she had that power, she could achieve all her desires.
Gradually, a form began to take shape.
The deepest fear engraved in the Crazy Mage’s heart, sothing so horrific it could never be forgotten, finally began to reveal itself.
A rigid body. A figure less than a ter tall.
...It’s not the boy knight. Corpse Flower bit her lip. She had expected it to be the Sword Saint. It wasn’t what she anticipated, but that’s okay.
If this insane mage, who’s a powerful sorcerer in his own right and a wrecker of all sorts of dark sorcery, truly feared this entity, then it would be strong enough. Maybe even stronger than the Sword Saint. The Lamb had hinted that the Crazy Mage might be connected to an evil god.
Finally, the Crazy Mage’s fear manifested.
As the darkness and mist cleared, a tallic, sleek figure erged into the world, causing the Crazy Mage’s legs to give out. He collapsed, trembling with terror, and scread.
"Aaaaahhhhh!!"
It was a being without emotions, indifferent, thodically, and relentlessly swinging a feather duster.
It was a cleaning golem.
"?"
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