Chapter 98 - Anilis - 2

A golden Wing.

Within it, Bera stared ahead, eyes wide.

Spears hammered against the Wing. Explosions thundered. Heat surged. Meanwhile, another spear formed. It shot forth.

Overflowing divine energy allowed Bera to maintain his defense, but the impacts still reached him, shaking him this way and that. His thoughts raced as he recalled what he had just witnessed.

'Sanctuary split apart.'

He had never once imagined such a thing. Naturally. Sanctuary was, quite literally, a god's divine power.

How was that possible? Bera racked his brain to understand the mechanism, and soon found his answer.

Anilis's words had contained it.

'... The spell formula.'

Strictly speaking, Sanctuary itself was not a divine power. It was a phenomenon produced by weaving divine powers into a spell formula. If it was a phenomenon—if Sanctuary was a spell formula—then the formula itself could be unraveled. That must have been Anilis's point.

Of course, it was far easier said than done.

However it had been given form through spellcraft arrays, its foundation was still a god's divine power. A higher-dimensional force. Something no mere mage could interfere with.

And yet Anilis could interfere with Sanctuary. The reason must lie in that face, which was increasingly resembling the corpses'.

Hair turning ever pinker, features growing gentler, a voice thinning to match.

She had clearly taken the serum. This must be the work of that serum—of the ancient species' power.

BOOM-BOOM!

Once again, flame spears hammered against the wing.

Bera frowned. All the while, his thoughts spun faster.

'She can unravel every formula.'

Having broken through even divine powers, Anilis could hardly fail to unravel the formulas he wove.

The reason the Wing remained intact was obvious.

Wasn't delight written all over her face as she stood opposite him, grinning and firing spears?

'So she wants to toy with me.'

Arrogant, and foolish too. One look at the sword in his hand should have told her spell formulas were not his forte.

Bera gritted his teeth, enduring the impacts as he drew up his divine energy.

'The divine powers themselves still work.'

What Anilis unraveled was only the phenomena caused by divine powers. She could not interfere with the powers themselves.

In that case...

"I make a vow."

He simply needed to use a somewhat more primitive method to amplify the power of the sacred mark itself.

Golden light bloomed over his right forearm.

"From this moment until the battle ends, I will not release the sword in my hand. In return, I will suffer less damage from spells. Should I release my sword, I will lose the ability to make a fist."

The vow strengthened the Wing. The storm of mana that had been battering its interior grew considerably calmer.

"I make another vow. From this moment until the battle ends, I will perform no magic or sorcery of any kind. In return, my body will become stronger still. Should I fail to uphold this, I will lose every capacity for magic and sorcery I possess."

Divine energy raced through every blood vessel in his body, seeping into muscle, bone, and organs. What he could not contain within himself turned into golden mist and enveloped him.

Bera exhaled heavily, drew another breath, and charged forward. The Wing vanished, and he burst out from within it.

Anilis's smile deepened. A red magic circle appeared beneath Bera's feet.

The fire spell [Fire Whirl].

The magic circle ignited, turning into a crimson pillar of flame.

WHOOOSH!

Bera accelerated even faster, narrowly clearing the pillar of fire.

The distance closed in an instant.

He thrust his sword toward the left side of Anilis's chest. Her smile grew wider still.

"Dumbass."

With that mocking insult, Anilis's body dissolved into flames and scattered.

Her voice rang out from empty air.

"You stupidly think swinging a sword is all it takes? Did you imagine a mage fighting a knight would have no defense against close combat?"

WHOOSH.

At the garden's ceiling, Anilis appeared within flames blooming in midair. Catching the faint sound of the fire flaring, Bera twisted and leaped upward.

"Yes, you look just like a cockroach, desperately struggling. No, you're worse than a cockroach. At least they know how pathetic they are and hide."

An enormous magic circle appeared, covering the garden's entire ceiling.

Watching Bera approach, Anilis activated it.

'It isn't a good spell to use indoors, but...'

The circle blazed. Its flames turned into hundreds of fireballs, which grew white-hot.

The area annihilation spell [Meteor].

Anilis extended her index finger and wove a small spellcraft array before it.

The target-tracking spell [Stalker].

The white-hot fireballs poured toward Bera all at once. He refined his divine energy into a state resembling aura, then swept it broadly forward.

A golden wave collided with white hellfire. Surface met points, producing dozens, then hundreds of ripples that erupted into explosions.

BOOOM!

The shock wave sent Bera hurtling backward from his upward flight.

Watching him, Anilis wove another spellcraft array. She spoke with a sweet smile on a young girl's face that now bore almost no trace of her original features.

"What entertaining tricks you do. Try blocking it again."

[Meteor] and [Stalker] combined. Anilis layered further magic over them.

The gravity-amplifying spell [Gravity].

The projectile-accelerating spell [Silver Wing].

THUD!

For an instant, the air in the space sank. Each white fireball began sprouting silver wings.

Anilis seemed entirely unaffected. As she waved her hands like a conductor, the meteors shot downward toward a single point.

At the sight, Bera wove divine energy once more. He was not drawing it from within himself. He was pulling in the divine energy of the divine realm hanging in the sky beyond Oriac.

Denser energy, a more brilliant gold, swirled around the Holy Sword.

He fired it forth, and another explosion erupted.

The impact shook the entire Magic Tower.

Even with smoke obscuring her vision, Anilis could clearly sense Bera's presence.

"Aren't you tenacious."

She followed it with shrill laughter. Defeat never entered her calculations. She was fighting after going so far as to administer the serum. Fighting at the risk of damaging her own magnificent intellect.

How could defeat possibly enter her mind?

Suddenly, Anilis felt her insides seethe.

'Because of that little brat!'

Rage surged. The heat felt as though it were burning her from within. No, it truly was. She could distinctly feel all her organs burning and melting, even as they regenerated without pause.

The pink in Anilis's eyes deepened. Veins began bulging across her body.

Even as emotion began devouring reason, her mind was rapidly assembling spell formulas.

Mana burst from her fingertips, turning into magic circles that began packing the space.

These were no simple arrays. Circular, planar arrays. Polygons enclosing the edges of each plane. Three-dimensional shapes assembled from those polygons.

A high-level spell formula was manifesting.

The space became enclosed within it. A different formula operated on each face of the octahedral enclosure, beginning to twist the laws within.

The world inside the formula transformed completely. Lava surged over the ruined flower garden. Fire rained from above. The heat rose beyond anything an unprotected body could endure.

"Little boy, this is what you were trying to do, wasn't it?"

The space-altering spell formula [Greater Flame Realm].

"Watching someone like you struggle to use spatial formulas was so fucking pathetic."

Bera held his breath against the heat engulfing him and wrapped himself in divine energy. He could not stop the heat, but he at least had to prevent the burns it would cause.

Watching his desperate struggle to stay alive, Anilis curled her face in contempt.

"You vermin."

Anilis spread her arms.

Four more formulas she had woven joined the eight that formed the space.

Twelve different formulas interlocked, and the space began to warp.

Her unique spell formula, [Inferno].

Hellfire swallowed the space. It burned all the oxygen, burned the space itself, and reduced the concepts beyond it to ash. This magic struck at existence itself. It was a formula that touched the shadow of providence.

"Shall we see how long you last? You seem to be relying on the divine realm's energy. How long do you think that will remain?"

Bera ground his teeth and burned his divine energy. He had no rebuttal. She was right.

The gateway to the divine realm that Renée had torn open would not last forever. It might close soon—perhaps before he could even escape this space.

He had to find a way.

His vows and the divine realm's energy were keeping him alive, but if he merely endured this assault, the battle would eventually end in his defeat.

'Think.'

He needed to keep thinking, but the disappearing oxygen was making breathing difficult.

"Hhh...!"

He inhaled as much oxygen as he could and held it within himself. His gray eyes reflected red as they took in the world steeped in hellfire.

'Interfere with the formula?'

Impossible. It infuriated him, but he had to admit the truth. His skill with spells fell short of that goddamn old hag's.

'Wait for her mana to run out?'

That, too, was impossible. It was a game of chicken, little better than a gamble. He had no certainty which would happen first: the gateway to the divine realm closing, or the tower master's mana running dry.

As Bera watched Anilis hovering in midair, looking down at him without moving, his eyes suddenly narrowed and another thought occurred to him.

'... She isn't moving.'

Ever since casting the spell, Anilis had remained in that spot, doing nothing but running her mouth.

In his current state, she could have picked up a sword and stabbed him. Failing that, she could have used simple magic to wear away his divine energy. Yet she made no move at all.

It meant only one thing.

'... She can't move.'

Anilis must be unable to move in that state. Not just move—she must be incapable of doing anything except speaking.

As his thoughts continued, Anilis spoke again.

"Little boy, how long do you think you can hold out? Why not at least try swinging your sword?"

She snickered as she spoke, but her words instead cooled Bera's heart.

'She's provoking me.'

She wanted him to move. She was trying to wear down his stamina. No, perhaps she wanted his movements to make him use up oxygen faster.

Realizing this, Bera grinned.

"They really are right about old people getting more talkative."

"... What?"

"I'm saying it's hilarious watching an old hag who should've dropped dead long ago make a fool of herself."

The amusement vanished from Anilis's face.

Seeing that, Bera continued his sneering insults.

"I should've known when I saw your taste for little brats. Can't you act your age? No, is it because you're all too aware of your age? That would make sense. When you're old enough to be at death's door, I suppose you'd want to suck the vitality out of children. But you know what? That won't make you any younger."

It was a counterprovocation meant to shatter her composure. For some reason, Anilis was acting emotionally, and he judged that this would surely unsettle her.

The heat surged. He had the illusion that the whole world was ablaze, and his breathing was growing increasingly labored.

But he could not let it show.

He already knew that merely maintaining this formula was straining Anilis. He had to keep pushing her, even if this was the only way.

"Time really is merciless. Has forgetfulness made you forget shame as well? I'd have hanged myself out of humiliation before ending up like that. Ah, perhaps—"

"Shut uuuup!!!!!"

WHOOOSH!

The flames surged violently.

Anilis's gentle features, now identical to the corpses' faces, twisted all at once into something fit for a witch in a story.

"You! What do you know! How much I've sacrif— for this world..."

"Sacrifice, my ass. For a horny old hag, you're very good at making excuses."

The taunts continued.

Trembling from head to toe, Anilis shed bloody tears from eyes stretched so wide they seemed about to split. She had opened them so far that their corners had torn.

CRACK.

Cracks began forming in the formulas that constituted the space.

Bera snorted and adjusted his grip on his sword.

'Dumbass.'

A dumbass who couldn't even control her emotions was master of the Magic Tower. Had the Empire truly sunk this low?

Feeling the relief of unleashing a string of insults for the first time in a very long while, Bera charged at Anilis.