Having declared that it was only polite to return the favor, Horitake swung his hand downward once more.
The thick mantle of dark clouds overhead churned and billowed, birthing even more violent surges of purple electricity. Vast quantities of lightning converged into a single point, the energy rapidly twisting and reshaping itself.
In the blink of an eye, the mass of electricity transformed into a giant eagle, constructed entirely of crackling purple thunder!
The creature was breathtakingly lifelike. Its predatory eyes, hooked beak, razor-sharp talons, and massive wings were rendered in exquisite detail; even the individual feathers on its wings stood out with crystalline clarity. Its presence was majestic and imposing, its wingspan stretching across twenty meters of the mental sky.
The lightning eagle opened its beak and let out a piercing, clarion screech that echoed through the heavens. Then, with a powerful beat of its translucent wings, it tucked into a lethal dive, hurtling toward the magma giant rising from below!
One was born of fire, the other of storm. They were polar opposites, two elemental forces on a collision course.
The magma giant watched the eagle's descent, showing no sign of fear. Relying on its searing body and its ability to incinerate anything it touched, it swung a massive, molten fist upward, aiming to swat the bird out of the sky.
But while the eagle was massive, it was an aerial predator. Its speed and agility were in a league of their own.
The giant's fist carried immense power, but it moved at a snail's pace. To the lightning eagle, the punch was practically standing still.
With a single flick of its wings and a graceful mid-air roll, the eagle easily evaded the molten blow. It didn't miss its opening, immediately raking its talons across the giant's head.
An eagle's most potent weapons are its claws, and this creature was no exception. Its talons, forged from concentrated purple lightning, possessed terrifying sharpness and destructive power—a perfect synthesis of physical force and magical energy.
Squelch!
With a single, brutal swipe, the lightning eagle tore away half of the magma giant's head. Chunks of cooling, solidifying rock and droplets of molten fire scattered into the air.
With that one strike, the giant lost its momentum and its advantage. Deprived of half its head and blinded, the behemoth let out a gurgling roar of helplessness as it began to plummet back toward the sea of fire, flailing its limbs in a desperate, uncoordinated struggle.
The lightning eagle, however, was a predator that gave no quarter. It banked sharply in the air and dived again, chasing the defenseless giant. Slash! Slash! Two more strikes of its talons tore both of the giant's arms from its torso.
But the eagle wasn't finished. It looped back around for a third pass, its claws shredding the giant's legs into sprays of liquid fire.
In three passes—mere seconds of engagement—the colossal magma giant had been reduced to a pathetic, limbless stump. Its sheer size had been a façade, a hollow threat that proved useless against Horitake's refined will.
In the office on the library's fifth floor, Kyojutsu felt the defeat through her mental link. She was vibrating with a rage that bordered on insanity, her face twisting into a hideous, distorted mask of hate. Her voice was a raspy, terrifying snarl.
"Useless! Worthless piece of trash!"
Cursing her own creation, she began to write even more frantically, trying to reinforce the illusion.
The mangled remains of the giant slammed into the endless magma below. Fortunately for it, it was an elemental construct; even being reduced to a stump wasn't enough to kill it. As it sank into the molten sea, the surrounding lava began to flow into its wounds, mending its broken form.
Slowly but surely, its arms, legs, and the missing half of its head began to reform from the liquid fire.
Horitake, standing atop his clouds, had no intention of letting the creature recover or gloat. Through his mental connection, he issued a command to the eagle.
The thunderous bird let out another long, soaring cry. Then, it folded its wings and dived for the final time, accelerating until it was nothing more than a purple blur.
As it hurtled toward the regenerating giant, the eagle's form shifted. Its wings and talons dissolved into pure energy, and the entire creature condensed into a massive, jagged arrow of concentrated purple thunder.
The bolt of lightning descended with the weight of a falling mountain, screaming through the air toward its target!
The magma giant, having only just regained its senses, looked up in terror. It tried to scramble to its feet to defend itself, but its movements were too slow, and the lightning arrow was too fast.
BOOM!
The massive bolt struck the giant dead center. The concentrated energy erupted in a violent, world-shaking explosion that sent a pillar of purple fire roaring toward the sky.
The shockwave from the blast expanded for hundreds of meters in an instant, causing the entire mental realm to shudder and crack under the strain.
The twenty-meter-tall giant stood no chance. Caught at the heart of the blast, it was obliterated—not a single spark of its existence remained. Furthermore, the sheer force of the explosion blew a gargantuan crater into the sea of magma, leaving a hollow void where the fire had once churned.
Back in the physical world, Kyojutsu suddenly suffered a massive spiritual backlash. Her face went deathly pale, and she lurched forward, coughing up a violent spray of blood!
The blood splattered across the white pages of her notebook. Against the pristine paper, the crimson stains looked shockingly vivid and macabre.
Kyojutsu was wounded—and it wasn't just a physical injury. Her very spirit had been lanced. For a demon, physical wounds were a trifle, easily mended with a bit of regeneration. But a wound to the soul... that was a different matter entirely.
A wave of vertigo washed over her, making the world spin. She felt herself slipping, her control wavering.
However, her twisted pride and bottomless hatred wouldn't allow her to stop. That bastard Horitake... he had dared to mock her art and shatter her world. She would never forgive him. She would find a way to make him suffer, no matter the cost...
Gritting her teeth, Kyojutsu forced her trembling hand to lift the pen. She tried to write, tried to weave the nightmare back together.
But Horitake, watching from within the dream, was done playing games.
Standing high above the smoke and the fire, he looked out over the crumbling wasteland of the mental realm. It was time to end the illusion—and the demon behind it.
He raised a hand, his fingers curling as he exerted his will over the heavy clouds. He spoke four quiet, final words:
"The Celestial Flood."
The moment the command was given, the clouds reacted.
They twisted and churned with a violent intensity, and then, the heavens simply opened.
It was a deluge beyond anything a mortal could imagine. "Torrential rain" was too weak a description; it was as if a Great Sea had been suspended in the sky and then dropped all at once. A vertical ocean of water cascaded downward in a deafening, relentless roar.
The magma below stood no chance.
A normal rain, even a heavy storm, might have been repelled by the intense heat of the lava. But this was a flood born of a superior spirit. The sheer volume of water was overwhelming, and the magma began to hiss and harden into cold, dead stone as the flood of Horitake's will washed the fire away.
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