Arc 9, Part 49: "The Magic User"

—Explosions of purple lightning danced wildly as Clind leaped through the sky of the battlefield in all directions, moving with total freedom.

『—!!』

Following the light of those thunderous blasts, dragon claws lashed out like a storm, raking through the air. Each time, empty space was torn asunder, and the resulting vacuum waves closed off the dragon-man’s paths of escape. As his options were whittled away, Clind drew the "Dragon’s" aim toward himself, maneuvering through the heavens with both caution and boldness to ensure that not even the aftershocks of the battle reached the ground below.

"You have exceeded my expectations. Marvel."

While dodging, parrying, and neutralizing head-on the Dragon’s rampaging violence—each strike of which could reshape the terrain—Clind could not help but feel admiration for the Usurper’s handling of the Dragon Shell.

As mentioned before, the Usurper had not fully mastered the Divine Dragon’s shell. It was like giving the body of a "Sword Saint" to a newborn baby. Inherently, it was an impossible task. Therefore, Clind was impressed not by the Usurper’s ability to draw out the Divine Dragon’s true essence, but by his greedy determination to use even the shell as a mere tool for victory. He once again respected a facet of the strength of a weak human. However, as the battle began to drag on longer than anticipated, he realized a certain fact—the Usurper was adapting to the Dragon Shell far beyond Clind’s expectations, continuing to grow even now.

"I heard you have crossed blades with the 'Sword Saint' and the 'Sword Demon' until now. Conviction."

Through repeated battles with powerhouses who could not be easily overwhelmed even by the Divine Dragon’s shell, the Usurper was drawing out the Dragon’s potential with considerable intensity. This was a sensation Clind felt more than enough from the radiance of the Dragon Scales and the Dragon Halo protecting the "Core."

"The potential of humans is... Admiration."

How comical was the existence of a "Dragon" that boasted of being a perfected being? Why was it that the Dragon, as the strongest living organism, could walk the earth as if it owned the place? Clind believed the answer lay in those loud, inconsiderate footsteps. They were so assertive that no one could turn their eyes away from its existence. It could not be ignored. That was what allowed the Dragon to act with the most importance on the surface. That was why the Dragon lost its place on this earth and vanished beyond the Great Cascade.

"————"

Even knowing it was misplaced sentimentality, the past flickered through the dragon-man’s mind. As numerous rifts opened in the sky and giant boulders and ice shards swept up by the roaring winds flew about, Clind punched through them with dozens of overlapping shockwaves. In his mind’s eye, he saw the figures of his kin from four hundred years ago—fleeing the earth and flying away.

It is said that on that day, those who remained on the surface were the strays or the eccentrics, while the "Dragons" with sound minds and judgment departed beyond the Great Cascade. But if you asked Clind, it was the opposite. Dragons could be the apex predators because their lives were designed to be the strongest. If so, a Dragon must constantly learn and grow so as to never relinquish that seat. Was not the very birth of a dragon-man proof of that draconic way of being?

"Above all, can you not realize it? —Ridicule."

Turning his shrouded purple lightning into roaring thunder, Clind shattered hundreds of rock and ice masses filling the sky to draw the Dragon’s attention back to himself, then glanced toward the ground. There—

"—Dragon Scales and the Dragon Halo. So that is the trick by which the 'Divine Dragon' neutralized your trump card."

"Neutralized is an offensive way to put it. I would prefer 'nullified' or 'rendered harmless,' if you ple-e-ease."

"Is this any time to be obsessed with trifles?! ...Is the simultaneous activation of different attributes an application of the 'Dual-Attribute Intersection Formula'? But if you mix three types, how do you control the convergence pressure of fire and wind?"

"It’s quite simple. You just place the convergence pressure itself at the core. The imbalance in the formula caused by the interference can be corrected by matching the third type—water to fire, or earth to wind."

"Utilizing the spiral interference of attributes?! Impossible! If you clash attributes of opposite phases, the formulas will cancel each other out, easily exceeding the gate’s critical deviation and... Point Compression!"

"Ho, to reach that conclusion on your own is quite impressive. From what I can see, your formula construction is novel, and you seem self-taught... No, looking closely, isn't that the foundation of a formula left by my predecessor's predecessor?"

"Ngh...!"

"By now, 'Balanced Circulation,' which treats the mana flowing through the body as a ring, is the mainstream. Those old documents were supposed to have been discarded as worthless... The records were lost long ago, but could it be you?"

"T-To master the path of magic requires a greater or lesser degree of resolve! Besides, those documents were covered in dust at a street stall! From them, I derived 'Integrated Circulation' and drastically improved the efficiency of mana usage in spellcasting!"

"How brazen of a thief to use another's theory."

"I admit it was the spark for the idea, but refinement and improvement are the norms of progress! Then are you suggesting you've never received any training or teaching from anyone!?"

"————"

"Don't just go quiet! In the first place, even if I concede a hundred steps, it's not your achievement, but the great legacy of your predecessor's predecessor, Lady Roswaal J. Mathers!"

"That is also something like me, is the point. —Let us return to the topic. I had never considered 'Integrated Circulation.' If you understand the problems of the 'Dual-Attribute Intersection Formula,' then I needn't explain why 'Triple-point Gravity Control' is unsuitable for 'Multi-Attribute Intersection,' ye-e-es?"

"Are you mocking me? If the number of simultaneously activated attributes increases by one, the disruption of the spiral interference is multiplied. Even if 'Triple-point Gravity Control' can handle three attributes, anything more... No, you just realized the simultaneous control of five attributes. How on earth?"

"I see. You wish for the answer. Very well, I shall reveal it. I believe the true essence of magic lies in verifying one's own inquisitiveness and the profound mysteries of the arcane, but if your passion is only of that level—"

"Wait, wait, wait, shut up...! Five attributes, spiral interference, point compression... No, his formula is 'Balanced Circulation'... I see! Overlapping Parallelism of 'Triple-point Gravity Control'!"

"—!"

"In other words, you ran two sets of three-attribute activations in parallel using 'Triple-point Gravity Control'! Of the three attributes in that second set, you used the activated Yang attribute to assist your own gate, and by placing the convergence pressure from the spiral interference at the core, you established the point compression of three and two attributes to achieve that..."

"Yes, exactly! That is the breakthrough that proves the existence of the 'Five-fold Resonance Point'!"

"Are you a fool?! One step, one moment, one hair's breadth! If even a fraction is off, it will cause a spiral collapse and it's over! You'll create a second Gauslow Gully with yourself at the center!"

"But it did not happen. —That is the high and distant peak of the magical arts."

"————"

"Are you afraid, Ezzo Cadner-kun?"

"Yes, I am terrified. Of my own heart that desires it, Roswaal L. Mathers."

—Indeed, on the ground, two magic users were clashing and refining their respective studies against one another.

"What a lively expression. Unexpected."

Clind had a role he had been entrusted with. Therefore, fighting on the front lines against the "Dragon," shrouded in purple lightning, was a task he had taken on by choice. However, even if he hadn't been entrusted with that role, Clind would have followed his own convictions and chosen to exchange purple lightning with his former Dragon Shell like this.

The competition and refinement between humans were about to give birth to "something" new.

That was the wish of Volcanica, the "Divine Dragon"—the dragon-man Clind—who had chosen the path of being left behind on the surface, branded a heretic by his kin who would not accept new values. For it was the strongest pillar of a mentality that was never consumed by the Witch Factor of "Melancholy," which demanded the closing of possibilities as its price.

△▼△▼△▼△

Roswaal knew almost nothing about Ezzo Cadner, who now stood beside him.

He had heard the name. A new addition to the Felt Camp, recognized as a capable internal affairs official who had quickly become one of the camp's central figures. He had information that the man was a magic user, but he had dismissed him as a mere amateur who had studied under no known master—and since he was indeed self-taught, that assessment wasn't entirely wrong. However, that perception of him as a "pseudo-magic user" was overturned the moment Roswaal faced the real Ezzo and saw his magical construction theories. —He was the real deal.

And between two people who recognized each other as the real deal, many words were unnecessary.

"Rest for a moment and catch your breath. I'm going to need you to be reckless at least once more."

With those words, Ezzo jumped down from the foothold he had created to match Roswaal's eye level, stepped forward onto the battlefield, and looked up at the sky.

"————"

Due to the consecutive firing of Great Magic and Ultra Magic, compounded by the collision between the "Dragon" and the dragon-man, the blue sky had been churned into an abnormal weather phenomenon of shimmering rainbows by the dramatic influence of stagnant mana. There, countless chains of purple lightning explosions continued as the dragon-man fought his solitary battle across the sky. Even after Roswaal had fallen from exhaustion, Clind continued to fulfill his role—

"Why is he fighting alone? You are mistaken."

"...What did you say?"

"Do you think magic users cannot interact with others? No, harmony is our true essence!"

Before Roswaal’s wide eyes, countless water orbs floated around Ezzo. The water orbs contained several fragments of shattered rock within them, and while carrying them, they surged upward all at once—plunging into the intensifying battlefield between Clind and the "Divine Dragon."

"That is—"

Roswaal struggled to grasp Ezzo's intention, thinking it was more reckless than meaningless. Though he was impressed by the skill required to easily manipulate nearly a hundred orbs despite it being a single-attribute control of water, water orbs of that level wouldn't even serve as a distraction to the "Dragon," even if slammed into it along with the rocks. If anything, it might even disrupt Clind's tactics as he fought the "Divine Dragon" single-handedly.

"I'll say it again, Roswaal. —You are mistaken."

Roswaal gasped at the sight that followed Ezzo's declaration. The countless water orbs he had floated were not meant to attack the "Divine Dragon." —The exploding purple lightning caused the water orbs and rocks to burst, and Clind, gaining a foothold to spin through the air, increased his speed by another gear. As if guiding the path of the accelerated Clind, the water orbs scattered over a wide area, providing the dragon-man with launchpads that made his strikes sharper, heavier, and more vivid, piercing the "Divine Dragon's" scales. As the roar and shockwaves reached the ground, Ezzo continued as Roswaal was buffeted by the wind.

"Certainly, he has the ability for solo aerial combat. But I suspect the original specification of that magical light isn't that, but rather its remarkable defensive performance. Because he is a seasoned expert, he can fight using it differently, but if you remove the dissipation of power, its original potency is incomparable."

"—But if you provide footholds in the sky, won't it make it harder to keep the enemy's aim scattered? Won't Clind's strength of being able to kick the air freely be neutralized?"

"Do you think him an amateur who cannot switch between them and master them as needed? If so, what you lack is not just consideration for others, but an eye for people."

"————"

"Roswaal, fighting alongside someone is not the same as trusting them and not worrying about anything. It is about entrusting what should be entrusted and supplementing what should be supplemented. In your way, a hundred and a hundred might become two hundred without interfering with each other, but they will never become a thousand by elevating each other."

While stating his theory, Ezzo did not slacken his support for the battle overhead. In this rocky wasteland, there was no shortage of boulders to float. Even if Clind consumed the water orbs as footholds at a speed faster than the eye could see, the rate at which they increased far overwhelmed his consumption.

『Tch, I thought it was getting annoying, and it's you, Sensei-san!』

Finding Ezzo as the source of the footholds being utilized, the "Divine Dragon" roared fiercely. Dragon claws shattered a hundred water orbs at once, and a breath was unleashed toward the magic users on the ground—

"I don't recommend looking away, like so. Proof."

Clind’s feet, having leaped, smashed into the "Dragon's" jaw from directly below. The breath that couldn't be unleashed exploded inside the "Dragon's" mouth, and its fangs could be seen flying out from the impact.

『Y-You...!』

The "Divine Dragon" recoiled from the self-explosion, and the air around it distorted and twisted. A magical light, unstable but guaranteed to be powerful, expanded as the "Dragon" attempted to cast a Great Magic by imitation. While Clind, who could use purple lightning as a barrier, and the "Divine Dragon," who could rely on its Dragon Halo for defense, might endure it, Roswaal and the others would be obliterated if it fell to the ground.

"—In that case, we shall simply make it explode in the sky."

Fortunately, there was an abundance of randomly released mana and countless water orbs of magic based on the "Integrated Circulation" he had been observing closely beside him. —He would intervene in the composition of that magic and rewrite its properties.

"You, that's my magic!?"

"Magic belongs to no one. The path is always open. —That is my master's teaching."

In an instant, he gathered the water orbs he had seized control of, drew in the surrounding mana, and performed point compression—interjecting his own interpretation into the Great Magic the "Divine Dragon" was trying to create, deliberately sabotaging the construction of its finished form. What was triggered was the spiral collapse Ezzo had feared—a grand explosion of polar light that once again shattered the sky, which had already broken many times in this battle. Scorching heat and extreme cold raced alternately; the rocks in the sky melted, froze, and shattered. Lightning burned away even the remnants, and wind pressure blew the ash and dust kilometers away—a catastrophe.

"Are you insane?! You almost blew away our ally along with it!?"

"But you protected him. —This is what you call 'harmony,' is it no-o-ot?"

Closing his yellow eye in a wink, Roswaal silenced the frantic Ezzo. In fact, it was Ezzo's skill that had surrounded Clind—who had been caught in the massive explosion mid-air—with multiple layers of water bands, suppressing the destructive firepower to its limit and ensuring the defense reached him. Roswaal knew that if it were Ezzo, he would perceive his intention and do it. If their roles had been reversed, this "right person in the right place" would never have succeeded due to the difference in skill and consideration. As expected, he was a heartless villain. —Just one with room for refinement, improvement, and progress.

"Even so, this deed made me doubt your sanity, Master. Fiend."

It seemed he could almost hear Clind's grievances after narrowly avoiding a fall thanks to Ezzo's quick thinking, but the lecture while facing his cold expression would have to wait until after the battle was over. And—

"Ezzo Cadner-kun."

"—What is it, Roswaal L. Mathers?"

It was amusing how Ezzo, upon being called by name, called back as if in competition. Roswaal hid his inner thoughts behind his makeup, which was crumbling from blood and sweat, and exhaled. Then, looking once more at the "Grey," Ezzo Cadner—

"—I want you to help me. With the inception of a new magic, the likes of which has never occurred in this world."

Roswaal shamelessly thought to himself that this was a cowardly way of putting it. —For someone immersed in the path of magic, there was no way he could resist such a temptation.

△▼△▼△▼△

—In the midst of constructing the formula, Ezzo Cadner was on the verge of tears without realizing it.

"Fool, fool, fool, these ridiculous tear ducts. Don't work now, stay idle."

He scolded his own bodily functions, tightening his cheeks to stop the tears that were about to spill. Ezzo hated being idle. That was because the Small-person race was blessed with neither physical strength nor excellent gates, and many of his kin were required to exert more effort than other races to achieve their goals. Uniquely, the Small-person race had a racial trait of being easily granted Divine Protections, but unlike others in the Felt Camp like Cambury, Ezzo was a clear "have-not" who had lost that lottery as well.

Ezzo hated being idle. It wasn't because he had been forced into a harsher way of life than others. It was because he couldn't stand being looked down upon with an "Ah, as expected" just because of his Small-person origin. Even if Ezzo failed to reach a goal he had set, it wouldn't be because he was a Small-person. He knew well that if you allow yourself an excuse once, laziness and negligence will invade in an instant, turning you into a mushy, melting, overly-sweet human being. Or rather, his older brothers and sisters were like that. Ezzo was the youngest of ten siblings, but all his siblings except himself had been granted Divine Protections, and they were enjoying a slack life by relying on them. He wouldn't say that was bad. It was his siblings' lives. He wanted to say it was bad, but he wouldn't. He would endure.

However, he couldn't stand it if that became his own life. That was why Ezzo Cadner, when he discovered the dust-covered magical documents tucked away at the back of a box at a street stall, dedicated his life to that inspiration and vowed never to make excuses.

"You're the same, aren't you, Roswaal? ...I can tell just by looking."

Despite holding the position of the Kingdom's Court Mage and the title of a "Color" who had mastered an attribute of magic, Roswaal was famous for not teaching others or interacting with them. Even if he was capable as a Margrave, his status as a magic user was something he had bought with his lineage and political power. —The past where Ezzo doubted Roswaal and challenged him was an unforgettable dark chapter of his life.

But when he actually saw the lack of waste in the magical constructions Roswaal deployed and the beauty of the formulas being drawn, Ezzo felt ashamed of himself from the bottom of his heart.

Ezzo and Roswaal were of the same generation. And Ezzo had arrogantly believed that no one in his generation had worked harder than him. He thought he had spent all his living time to touch a fraction of what magic was. But he was completely wrong. —Between Roswaal and Ezzo, it felt as if there was a gap of more than a hundred years in their pursuit and refinement of magic. That was an absolute truth that allowed for no excuses of talent, race, or birth—and that was why Ezzo Cadner was so happy he was about to cry.

"—"

He was glad that the one standing in the realm he yearned for was someone who had worked harder than himself. That understanding, respect, and gratitude made Ezzo's heart swell, and for the first time in his life, he ordered his tear ducts to be idle—he who hated idleness more than anything.

With such thoughts in his heart, Ezzo also concentrated his consciousness to show the results of his accumulated research. Magic requires one to strongly imagine the resulting outcome. It is equivalent to an act of laying bare everything about what kind of person you are—what you think, what you desire, and what you define as the shape of your wish. Therefore, there are no lies in magic. —If you look at someone's magic, you can understand everything about that person.

"—Hey, you can tell, can't you, Roswaal?"

Was that a question he had actually voiced? Or was it an illusion shown by a gate being overworked like never before and a concentration that shaved away his very life?

"...Yes, I can tell, Ezzo Cadner-kun."

However, contrary to his heart that doubted it was a phantom or a hallucination, there was an answer. In the extreme heightening of mana, the scenery turned white, and even the thunderous roar of the purple lightning fighting to protect them could not be heard; yet, their existences were so close it felt as if even their heartbeats could reach each other. Through the magic being woven together, the consciousnesses of the two magic users, laying themselves bare, intersected.

Roswaal's accumulated days, the results of his single-minded research, and the time he spent continuing to walk toward the summit alone, with no one catching up to him, were transmitted. Results that go too far unintentionally make a person lonely. Roswaal, too, had remained lonely. But, swearing on the tears he did not shed, Ezzo had to tell Roswaal.

"I don't know how far you are trying to go all by yourself. But no matter how many people try to make you a distant existence, I alone am different."

If effort and refinement brought him there, then he could do the same—no, even more.

"No matter how much you prefer solitude, no matter if you choose to die alone, no matter if you try to go to a place no one can reach, I alone will cling to you."

He didn't understand the feeling of wanting to give up, but Ezzo understood the feeling of wanting to lament. Just by doing the best he could, he realized there was no one around him. —No one wants to think that's their own fault.

"You were appointed the titles of those who mastered attributes: 'Red,' 'Green,' and 'Yellow.' But you yielded the seat of 'Blue' to Mr. Felix Argyle, and you still leave the seats of 'White' and 'Black' vacant. —Do you know what this means?"

"————"

"Do you know what I am called? 'Grey' Ezzo Cadner. What colors do you think make up grey? —Roswaal, I am someone who will reach you."

Therefore, he offered the same gratitude Ezzo Cadner had tasted to the great magic user.

"—You shall never be alone on this path."

△▼△▼△▼△

The color of the sky had already been lost. The blue had vanished from the clear firmament, replaced only by a fading curtain of greyish-white, as if the value of the atmosphere itself was thinning and vanishing fleetingly.

A flash of light tore through that faded sky. Clind, racing like thunder while trailing purple lightning like a ribbon, was no longer merely "leaping" but moving with a force as if kicking through the sky itself. Opposing him was a giant shadow protected by Dragon Scales and a Dragon Halo, dancing its faintly glowing Dragon Shell through the air—each time the dragon claws flashed, the void was torn, and vacuum faults surged toward the dragon-man along with a roar.

"————"

There was no room to speak. Only the purple lightning crackled. Next, the dragon wings flapped, and countless light bullets released amidst the gusts flashed through the sky. They were scattered like stardust across the grey sky, tracing ferocious trajectories as they closed in, closed in, closed in on Clind. —Thunder flashed, piercing the rain of hundreds of light streaks, and countless sparkles colored the lonely sky. The aftershocks of the explosions were biased upward and diffused, so that not even a fragment of a star reached the two magic users on the ground.

『————』

In the next moment, in a true sense, everyone saw a star in the heavens twinkle. Falling from beyond the faded sky, from far away, was a starlight drawn by an immense gravitational pull, plunging straight toward the ground—the hesitation lasted less than a blink.

"—!"

A particularly intense burst of purple lightning surged, and the chained thunderous explosions propelled the dragon-man upward toward the sky where the star was falling.

『————!!』

The "Divine Dragon's" breath, the released torrent, became white heat and scorched the sky, but without turning its point toward the dragon-man in the heavens or the magic users on the ground, it flew toward a distant land. The bursting purple lightning and the "Dragon's" roar mixed together, and the star shattered at the edge of the sky shone strongly, strongly, brilliantly illuminating the faded heaven and earth—

"—Al Sextet."

The incantation made the horizon tremble, and the heavens held their breath.

Every mana that formed the world was given the roles of six different colors, and the powers that began to run intersected and fused. Normally, the interference that should have collapsed instantly gave birth to a single rhythm, and using the colorless world itself as a medium, it formed a beautiful circle. Eventually, the six-colored torrent converged into one, becoming a pillar that severed the boundary between heaven and earth. The pillar did not lean toward any of the six colors, but simply chose the polar light where the very source called "Magic" manifested as its own color, and the pillar of light was reduced to a power that swallowed everything.

—In the center of that pillar of light, the giant shadow of the "Divine Dragon" was captured.

The claws of resistance, the wings, the breath—all were swallowed by the void, and the "Dragon's" power became the fuel for the magic as it was, the pillar of light growing even thicker and shining even more strongly. The light extending to the heavens pierced the cloudless sky, illuminating the far upper atmosphere and the horizon beyond in white. At that moment, the laws of heaven and earth were momentarily rewritten.

—It was an absolute miracle that neither the "First Magic User" nor even the "Witch of Greed" had ever achieved since the inception of the system of magic.

『—Ah.』

In the world where sound had vanished, that sound, which echoed so unreliably, was a praise far too modest compared to the event that had been triggered. But it was enough to lead to certainty. —Here, the "Divine Dragon's" Dragon Halo was shattered. And—

"—Seal Shackle, Third Release."

In the midst of the world where the sky was torn, the earth was scorched, and the six attributes maintained their balance to become a pillar. Piercing through that vortex of polar light, the only thing that retained color—the purple lightning—descended from the heavens. Like meteoric iron falling after shattering a star, his body plunged from the edge of the sky while shrouded in lightning. Making the feet that kicked the air explode, he made himself a supreme arrow that pierced a single point.

The target was the Reverse Scale. —The only weak point carved into the "Divine Dragon's" neck, a single hole in the armor that boasted absolute defense. The final wall leading to the "Core" of the "Dragon" whose Dragon Halo had been stripped away after being swallowed by the light pillar.

"Gratitude. —Gratitude."

The purple lightning, like a comet trailing a tail, pierced through both the sound barrier and the protection of the Dragon Scales, and a fist was driven in. The brilliance of the pillar and the torrent of purple lightning overlapped, the impact shook the void, and with the sound of shattering, bands of light ran across the "Dragon's" entire body. The strike of his whole being connected with the pinnacle of the miracle called magic, unparalleled in history, and now punched through the "Core" sleeping in the deepest, deepest part of the "Divine Dragon's" shell.

『————』

Pierced by a definitive strike, the "Divine Dragon" spreading its wings in the mid-sky slowly looked toward the ground. Recognizing the tiny existence there that was truly at its last gasp, the "Dragon's" claws cut the air near its own head. —As if habitually reaching for the metal fittings of a helmet it thought it was wearing.

『Tch, pathetic. ...After all this help, I can't even... blame it on the stars.』

Thus, resentfully, with a vulgarity far removed from the majesty befitting a "Divine Dragon," the absolute existence that had ruled the heavens was pulled by gravity and fell to the earth. Trailing the remnants of shimmering light, tearing through the void, it fell with a roar.

—That was the conclusion of the battle with the Usurper who had stolen the shell of the "Divine Dragon" Volcanica.