"How… How could it happen so soon…?"
"Go… Hurry and leave…"
Shizue weakly closed her eyes and gave them one final warning.
When she opened them again, scorching flames filled her pupils.
"Big Sister Shizue?!"
Seeing Shizue suddenly erupt with blazing magical power, Chloe immediately realized what was happening.
She had only just met this kind older girl, just as she had once only just met Takumi.
After hearing about Shizue's past, Chloe had already grown deeply concerned for her.
She nervously clutched the hem of Takumi's clothes and tried to say something, but she was so anxious that the words caught in her throat.
Takumi patted her head and softly reassured her.
"Don't worry, Chloe. Nothing will happen."
"Leave everything to me. Shizue will be fine too. I promise."
His voice was perfectly calm, as though he were merely stating a fact.
A profound sense of security immediately enveloped Chloe's heart, and she nodded firmly.
Takumi then looked at the increasingly unstable Shizue and tapped the air with one finger. An invisible fluctuation enveloped all three of them.
"Amenotejikara!"
In the next instant, their figures vanished from the spot.
Chloe only felt her vision flicker before the three of them appeared in an open area on the outskirts of the empire.
The kingdom Takumi had established was modeled more after modern infrastructure.
Since there were no city walls, the monsters living in the outer district and the adventurer trio all noticed the disturbance.
"Miss Shizu?"
From a distance, Ellen saw demonic energy pouring from Shizue's body as she began chanting.
"It's summoning magic!"
As a spellcaster, Ellen recognized it immediately.
Her two companions also sensed that something was wrong.
"This looks bad. We need to stop her!"
They did not know why Takumi and the others had suddenly appeared there, but no matter how they looked at it, they could not allow Shizue to continue.
The three of them immediately sprang into action, drawing Shizue's attention.
With her mind already controlled by the Flame Spirit, Shizue moved her index finger and flicked it upward.
Boom!!!
A massive explosion erupted without warning!
A wave of scorching force and explosive impact spread outward with her at the center.
Before the adventurer trio could approach, the blast swept them off their feet and sent them flying.
Once they managed to regain their footing, they looked anxiously toward Takumi and Chloe, who had been standing very close to the center of the explosion.
"This is bad!"
"Someone, come quickly!"
"Miss Shizu?! Mr. Takumi?!"
Their frantic shouts abruptly stopped.
As the blast waves rolled outward, they suddenly realized that Takumi was still standing firmly in place.
A little girl stood beside him, and the two of them looked completely unharmed.
The three adventurers, on the other hand, were covered in dust and looked utterly disheveled.
At that moment, Shizue gradually rose into the air and began casting spells without chanting.
The widely traveled Gido let out a startled cry.
"As far as I know, only the Conqueror of Flames can do something like that!"
Ellen instinctively objected.
"How could that be possible? Wasn't the Conqueror of Flames a legendary hero active fifty years ago? Miss Shizu looks so young."
"That's true."
Gido scratched his cheek, realizing he might have overthought it.
Kaval looked speechlessly at his teammates, who were still arguing about this.
"The situation in front of us is what matters! Does it really matter who she is right now?!"
Although Kaval had acted unreliable before, the moment their captain spoke, the trio quickly assumed combat stances.
Shizue, however, now looked somewhat strange.
Her black hair fluttered in the blast wind, reflecting the firelight with a beautiful glow.
She had a charming face and a slender, delicate body, yet her eyes radiated a sinister light.
The corners of her mouth seemed to curl upward in delight at the thought of beginning a massacre.
[Unique Skill Deviant activated.]
A voice resembling an online game system echoed through the world.
Shizue's girlish form was replaced by the blazing giant known as the Flame Spirit Ifrit.
Seeing this, Gido stared in a daze.
"I knew it! She really is the Conqueror of Flames—the strongest spirit user, commanding the giant of fire!"
Among fire spirits, Ifrit was an exceptionally high-ranking spirit, second only to the King class.
Its strength was a terrifying existence above A rank.
Their entire adventurer party combined could barely reach B rank. There was already an enormous gap between B and A rank, much less something beyond A!
"W-Wow… This is my first time seeing one—wait, there's no way we can beat that!"
"We can't win… We're going to die here… Life really is short."
Ellen cried out, then immediately began worrying about her own survival.
Gido had already fallen into despair and looked as though he had given up resisting altogether.
"Aaaargh!!!"
Ifrit, now fully manifested before the palace, released a piercing roar.
Three blazing pillars of fire rose into the air, and the forms of three Salamanders emerged from them.
Even a single Salamander possessed B+ strength.
Converted into the ranking system of Takumi's original world, each had already reached the level of an Advanced-class Devil!
The instant Ifrit revealed its true form and summoned its Salamander servants, its body of raging flames made a casual sweeping motion.
The resulting blast was like hundreds of high-explosive bombs detonating simultaneously.
Roaring fire and overwhelming shock waves surged forward like an avalanche.
Faced with such a terrifying scene, Takumi merely snapped his fingers.
Snap!
"Spatial Prison!"
Takumi had simplified Unlimited Imprisonment to create this technique.
It could sever a section of space and transform it into an inescapable prison.
Unless the target possessed the ability or power to break through space itself, they would remain trapped forever.
As Takumi activated the technique, a circular region in front of him was severed from the surrounding space.
Ifrit, mindlessly attempting to destroy everything in sight, charged headfirst into the Spatial Prison.
Buzz!!
Not even the slightest ripple appeared in space. Only Ifrit's head produced a dull hum from the impact.
The three Salamanders crashed into it at the same time and immediately plummeted to the ground.
Flapping their wings, the Salamanders opened their mouths and spewed scorching flames, but they could not breach the prison or harm anything outside it.
The adventurer trio, who had been terrified moments earlier, and the nearby monsters all stared in stunned silence.
What was this?!
He had trapped an exceptionally high-ranking fire spirit inside a cage with a single snap of his fingers.
The scene looked exactly like animals confined in an enclosure at a zoo.
Seeing them stubbornly continue to ram into the barrier, Takumi casually traced several lines through the air as though playing Fruit Ninja.
"Dimensional Slash!"
Swish! Swish! Swish!!
Invisible slashes severed space itself, instantly cutting the three Salamanders and Ifrit inside the Spatial Prison into pieces.
...
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