A blue robin silently returned to the clock tower.
It perched on the shoulder of the pitch-black girl, its beak letting out a series of soft, birdlike cries.
"I see… so they've finally started to move?"
The girl's voice was as clear as an oriole's song, yet her tone carried the depth of a witch whispering from the shadows.
"Aoko's doing well too… and still got her backside smacked, huh?"
She fell silent for a moment.
Then, the corner of her lips curved slightly, like she was recalling something amusing.
But the faint smile faded just as quickly, replaced by a cold, razor-sharp expression once more.
"Flat Snark, don't hold back."
She didn't really need to say it.
The familiar known as Tsuki no Abura ("Moon's Oil") was never the type to hold back anyway.
Even when its Master explicitly ordered, "Don't kill," it would only grin and reply, "Ah, oops, killed them by accident," blatantly twisting its Master's command. Its personality was utterly vile.
It was, after all, a familiar born of pure malice; expecting virtue from it would be absurd.
Now the enemy had finally made their move. Seeing fresh turmoil erupt on the ground below, the Moon's Oil's mood turned almost gleeful, thrilled at the chance to slaughter again.
Down below, Aozaki Aoko had vanished at some point.
Ryoji was sprinting alone toward the center of the amusement park. His legs struck the ground with explosive force, propelling him so fast that even the monstrous beings, each over ten meters long, couldn't keep up.
A frontal charge?
How foolish.
The Moon's Oil sneered inwardly, steeped in contempt.
Unless someone located and destroyed its true body, the barrier would never dissipate. No matter how many wraith-like monsters were cut down, new ones would simply rise again.
His target… the Ferris wheel?
The Moon's Oil focused its attention on the "insect" darting across the ground below.
On the surface, Ryoji's intent didn't waver. He raced straight toward the towering Ferris wheel ahead.
Every "bread man" that tried to block his path was hurled aside by sheer impact. He didn't even bother channeling magic power to destroy them, he just ran, head down, a relentless surge of motion.
The Ferris wheel noticed his approach. It immediately shifted course, no longer rampaging aimlessly through the park. Instead, it turned and accelerated, choosing to ram directly into Ryoji's path!
Its central axle spun like a massive drill, the spokes revolving at breakneck speed.
Both sides were moving fast, terrifyingly fast!
In the blink of an eye, the distance between them closed: Two kilometers. One kilometer. Five hundred meters. One hundred, and then, less than two meters.
A man barely two meters tall, and a Ferris wheel towering eighty meters high, colliding within the span of a single breath. The sheer intensity of the moment left even Aozaki Aoko and Alice, watching from afar, holding their breath.
Just before impact, Ryoji suddenly stepped aside, his powerful legs shifting his body out of the oncoming path.
The Ferris wheel roared past, missing him by mere inches.
Snap!
In that instant, Ryoji's hand shot out, seizing one of the spokes as it swept low. His raw strength pulled his body upward, his movements lithe and precise as he vaulted onto the rotating frame.
Clang!
When that spoke reached its highest point, Ryoji kicked off from the wheel's body, borrowing its tremendous rotational force, and shot skyward in one explosive bound!
He's exposed?!
The Moon's Oil reeled in disbelief.
It had assumed he meant to clash with the Ferris wheel head-on, but instead, he'd used its rotation and momentum as a springboard to launch himself into the air!
This guy… what kind of lunatic move is that?!
But even that wasn't enough.
The creature's real body hovered at least five hundred meters above the ground. Without flight, reaching that altitude should have been impossible, or so the Moon's Oil believed.
Moments later, however, it found itself struck dumb once again.
That human, soaring well over two hundred meters into the sky, had somehow landed squarely atop the colossal Eastern dragon's back.
A feat so precise, so impossibly acrobatic, it bordered on the absurd.
That's right.
Among the fairy-tale monsters roaming this amusement park, few possessed the ability to fly, and among those, only that dragon could reach such heights!
Damn it!
The Moon's Oil fumed in frustration. To think the wraith puppet it had painstakingly crafted had ended up serving as the enemy's stepping stone!
But anger aside, it recognized danger closing in.
Aozaki Aoko had been correct, fairy-tale familiars were inherently fragile. A single direct hit could shatter them entirely.
It needed a shield, and fast.
"Hūūū, !"
A bitter wind shrieked without warning.
High above, the murky green clouds gathered and twisted, writhing until they formed the unmistakable shape of a massive skull, at least a hundred meters wide!
Standing on the dragon's back, Ryoji steadied his balance. His stance evoked the image of an ancient god astride a celestial beast, eyes sharp as blades as he read the shifting currents of the sky.
The skull was made purely of clouds, an empty façade without substance.
But within its left eye socket floated a pale green moon, blazing with fury so intense it felt almost alive.
"Crack, !!"
The freezing wind roared louder, and the moisture in the air condensed at an astonishing rate, layering everything in frost and ice.
Ryoji's gaze sharpened, pure, unstoppable resolve blazing in his eyes.
He slammed one foot down against the dragon's back.
A flash of silver, his katana appeared in his right hand, its blade gleaming with fierce, unyielding brilliance. The tip pointed straight at the sickly green moon above.
"BOOM!!!"
A thunderous sonic boom ripped across the heavens!
Shockwaves rolled outward, tearing through layers of smoke and cloud alike.
Ryoji's entire body soared upward like a hypersonic missile, leaving behind a streak of white vapor as he pierced through the very fabric of time and space itself.
He had set his speed, beyond all limits, beyond the enemy's reach. In that instant, his acceleration surpassed the Moon's Oil's ability to condense its ice shield.
He crashed headlong into the still-forming wall of ice!
"KA-CRASH!"
That massive block of ice, meant to fall like a meteor and annihilate everything within the barrier, never fully formed. The Moon's Oil's reflexes simply couldn't keep up. Ryoji's velocity outpaced every command. His strike demolished the half-formed ice wall in a single explosive instant!
Shards erupted in all directions, scattering like fragments of shattered crystal.
The Moon's Oil's eyes went wide, its ghostly green skull contorted in a mix of fury and fear.
Below it, Ryoji, his body glowing like a sword of pure light, cut through the cascade of shards, closing the remaining hundred meters in a blink.
Too late!
No matter how much power the Moon's Oil poured into its body, there was no time left.
Ryoji continued channeling mana through every fiber of his being, pushing his speed even further, just enough to reach it.
Clink.
The katana's silver tip touched the center of its core, the heart of that eerie green moon.
"BOOOOOOM, !!"
In the next heartbeat, countless cracks veined across the moon's surface.
And with a deafening explosion, it shattered, splitting apart into a storm of magic that radiated outward, consuming the sky in a cataclysmic burst of light and energy.
That single strike, split the moon in two.
(End of Chapter)
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