The sound of rushing wind tore past her ears, a ceaseless, deafening roar.
The sheer, brutal acceleration drove the air from Aozaki Aoko's lungs. Instinctively, she locked her arms around Ryoji's neck, the only thing anchoring her to reality. Simultaneously, she released a mist of Magic Power, shrouding her body to prevent the friction of their speed from scorching her skin.
They ascended, dropped, and tore sideways in a series of bone-jarring shifts.
This couldn't even be called flying, it was more akin to a series of controlled, standing explosions.
… Except the distance they covered with each blast was absurdly long.
Half a minute later, the two arrived at the smoking outskirts of the forest.
"It's… completely destroyed…"
Aoko scanned the wreckage.
In a battle whose participants she couldn't even guess, the entire forest had been reduced to ruin. The ground was torn apart, streams vaporized, and countless deep, fused trenches crisscrossed everywhere, the stark evidence of devastating magic cannon fire. The devastation was exponentially worse than the fallout from Ryoji's earlier clash with the golden Phantasmal Beast.
There was no time to think. Aoko followed close behind Ryoji, running toward the heart of the destruction.
"Alice! Where are you!?"
Ignoring the risk of drawing the enemy's attention, Aoko shouted at the top of her lungs, her voice trembling with dread for her friend.
"…Over there."
Ryoji's heavy voice came from the side.
"But… you'd better prepare yourself."
"What do you mean... ?"
Before she could finish, Aoko followed his gaze.
And then, her voice caught in her throat. No matter how she tried, no sound escaped her lips.
On the torn-up, still-smoking ground…
…lay what remained of a body.
Scorched by an obscene, concentrated heat, no recognizable features remained. The upper half, a ruin of pitch-black char, still faintly steamed. Nearby, scraps of burnt, black frilled fabric hinted at what was once a gothic dress, proof enough of who it had once belonged to.
"This… this has to be a joke…"
Aoko's trembling hand covered her mouth. Her voice was barely more than a whisper.
But there was no mistaking it.
That was the corpse of the girl who had been laughing and talking with her just an hour ago, her roommate.
Even in the ruins, faint scars of the Magecraft Circuits were visible, etched not just on her arms but deep into her internal organs, Rune-work her mother had branded upon her at birth. A vast, intricate Magic Crest, proof of the lineage of the greatest witches.
The girl who had always faced the world with a calm, cold indifference, because she lived every moment under the phantom pain of her inherited mark.
…Ah.
That's right.
If she had been hit directly by that kind of attack, not even ten lives would have been enough to survive the force of it.
Aoko crouched down, reaching out a trembling hand, but couldn't bring herself to touch the remains.
"Was it you who did this?"
Ryoji's voice was low and lethally sharp. He tore his eyes away from the corpse and fixed them on a distant silhouette standing silently amidst the wreckage.
A black robe that blended into the night. The outline of a woman. A lower face painted with violet lipstick.
'A Witch.'
That was the only word that surfaced in Ryoji's mind the moment he saw her.
The woman said nothing.
Thick, black magical power mist rose from her body, giving her an ominous, devilish aura. The earth beneath her pulsed with foul energy. More accurately, she was a siphon, continuously draining the leyline's latent magical power into herself.
"…If you won't speak," Ryoji said coldly, "I'll take that as a confession."
He raised his blade... ... and charged.
In the blink of an eye, his speed exploded to its absolute limit. The air split apart with the sheer force of his dash; in a single second, he crossed more than twenty meters and drove his sword straight toward the Witch.
Clang... !
A resonant chime echoed like a tolling bell.
The mist of magic around the Witch shimmered and condensed, forming a solid barrier that stopped Ryoji's strike head-on. The black haze wavered under the pressure, but held firm.
As though startled by the sheer force behind his blow, the Witch leaned back slightly... ... and then her robe fluttered open like the wings of a butterfly, instantly lifting her high into the air, dozens of meters above the ground.
Bzzzz... !
Her lips began to move again.
In an instant, countless magic circles of varying sizes appeared in the sky, forming an upside-down bowl that sealed Ryoji in from above.
His expression hardened.
A quick glance told him there were nearly a hundred magic circles surrounding him!
"BOOOOM!!"
A storm of tiny magic cannons fired simultaneously, converging on Ryoji's position in a coordinated blast.
"Tch!"
Without hesitation, Ryoji kicked off the ground with blinding speed, bursting out of the encirclement before the barrage struck.
Every magic cannon blast missed its mark, detonating harmlessly into the scorched earth.
Ryoji twisted midair, righted his stance, and then launched himself again, sword in hand, cutting through the shockwave. The ground cracked under the force of his jump as he shot upward, blade aimed straight at the Witch's back!
His movements were lightning fast... ... but the Witch's reactions were no slower.
The hundred floating magic circles immediately rotated in unison, their barrels pivoting toward Ryoji again... ... and fired another perfect, synchronized volley.
"Now!"
This was the moment Ryoji had been waiting for!
In that instant, he pushed his speed beyond the Witch's activation rate, his airborne acceleration surged explosively, the air detonating behind him with a deafening boom as he broke the sound barrier.
Before the magical cannons could even fire, Ryoji's blade had already pierced toward the Witch's back!
But...
"Clang... !!"
The ringing impact was sharper, louder, like metal crashing against metal.
The black magical mist shrouding the Witch's body rippled violently under the strike… yet still didn't shatter.
Ryoji's blade hadn't even grazed her actual flesh, it was stopped cold by the shield of stolen Magic Power enveloping her. It was a defense born of the land itself, unyielding and absolute.
"Tch!"
Landing back on the ground, Ryoji clicked his tongue in frustration. His eyes shifted toward the Witch's feet.
That was the leyline node.
The Witch was continuously draining the massive magical energy of the earth itself. Not only did that energy fuel her endless barrage of magic cannons, but it also served as her impenetrable, natural shield.
With the leylines as her defense, her barrier's density was beyond imagination, even Ryoji's near-full-power strike couldn't make a dent in it.
"I have to cut her connection to the leyline!"
The realization flashed through his mind. He had identified the key to victory, but how?
He knew nothing about Magecraft. He had no idea how to actually sever such a magical link.
At this point, only instinct could guide him.
Ryoji stopped thinking, and let his body act on pure reflex.
And just like that, his gaze turned naturally toward Aoko.
Aoko…!
Of course!
The Aozaki family were the Keepers of this spiritual land. They had constructed the Boundary Field to gather and command the leyline's entire flow. Even with most anchor points destroyed, the one at the park was still intact... That meant Aoko still held the ultimate authority over this leyline!
If she could activate the barrier, she could wrest control of the Magic Power away from the Witch!
But... The Witch seemed to have realized the same thing. She knew her single fatal flaw had been exposed.
So she turned every single magic circle in the sky, all at once, and aimed them straight at a single, broken girl on the ground.
"Aoko! Get out of there, now!"
(End of Chapter)
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