Novel

The night sky seemed to be down than it usually was.

Everyone present held the same misconception. This was because the stars in the night sky appeared to be at a much lower height than usual. No, those weren’t stars. Those lights were the countless magic bullets shining like stars as they floated around Sienna.

This might be stating the obvious, but Sienna was furious.

She was just as angry as she had been after meeting Iris, who had transformed into the new Demon King of Fury. Sienna was just as enraged as she had been after she saw the elves being slaughtered by Iris, who had been corrupted into a dark elf three hundred years ago.

These were the Lionhearts. They might not be related to Sienna by blood, but they were Eugene’s close family and relatives. In fact, Eugene’s own siblings, Ciel and Cyan, were both down there. Sienna had met the twins several times before, and there was also Carmen, who had been a great help to them during the subjugation of Iris.

And all of them were injured. Ciel was coughing up blood while gasping for breath, and Cyan was supporting his younger sister as best as he could. Carmen stood on her feet with a fist extended, but she didn’t look to be in good shape. It was clear that she was forcing herself to stay standing while enduring extreme internal injuries.

How dare he!

Light swirled within Sienna’s eyes. No one could have imagined that someone would actually dare to target the Black Lion Castle. Everyone was focused solely on Nahama. And in truth, Amelia Merwin and all the demonfolk supporting her were still in Nahama.

This man had enough strength to single-handedly assault the Black Lion Castle and push its defenders to the brink of defeat. And this bizarre and sinister dark power....

Sienna furrowed her brow in disgust as she spat out, “Who are you?”

“...How did you get here?” the specter asked instead of answering Sienna’s question.

He had blocked the warp-gate. He had also deployed a barrier of dark power to prevent any communication magic from getting in or out.

Until just a few moments ago, Sienna had still been in Aroth. She had been smiling in utter happiness as she chose the clothes she would wear when the time came to reunite with Eugene — as well as the rings that they would exchange when the time came to promise their futures to each other.

But right now, there was no smile to be seen on Sienna’s face. There was only one emotion that the specter had been hoping to bring to the people here. Rage.

“If my communication link suddenly gets cut off, then of course I would be suspicious,” Sienna said as an explanation.

While she was away in Aroth, she had lent Ciel a communicator in case something unexpected happened. Although they didn’t regularly use it to contact each other, Sienna had always paid attention to the signal coming from it.

But today, that signal had been suddenly cut off. Sienna had tried to contact Ciel to see what was going on, but her attempts to contact the Lionhearts just couldn’t get through.

“It was quite troublesome having to break through your block on the warp-gate,” Sienna admitted.

However, she was still able to successfully open a way through. Sienna had calculated the coordinates of the dark-power-fueled defense barrier and forged a new path around it. As long as something was even theoretically achievable with magic, there weren’t many things that were truly impossible for the current Sienna.

“If you didn’t want me to come here, you should have just destroyed the warp-gate instead,” Sienna said as she pulled out Frost and held it with both hands.

Whiiiiiing!

The magic bullets floating around Sienna began to spin in a circle. Swirls of vibrant colors also began to spin in Sienna’s eyes, which were shining like jewels.

Sienna was right. If the specter really hadn’t wanted Sienna to come here, he should have just destroyed the warp-gate outright. However, if he had done so, wouldn’t that have left more problems for the Lionhearts to deal with after he had finished his business here and left.

The specter muttered, “...I didn't want you to come here, but that doesn’t mean I wanted to destroy this place comp—”

“You,” Sienna suddenly blurted out, interrupting the specter as he was speaking. “...Your voice.”

The intruder was wearing a mask. Sienna had already attempted to use magic to pierce through his disguise several times, but no matter what she did, she couldn’t see his real face. The mask itself was a mass of dark power, and all that she could see beyond it was an ominous haze.

But that voice. She remembered it from somewhere. It wasn’t just his voice. Even the impression given off by his figure reminded her of someone.

Sienna realized exactly who this was. However, that didn’t cause any change to her current feelings.

Instead, Sienna’s rage just grew even greater.

This couldn’t be helped. Just like how Molon had become enraged upon seeing the specter, Sienna also grew furious when she saw who this specter was. Everything that had already happened here was enough to send her flying into a rage, but the fact that the one who perpetrated all of this was Hamel’s Death Knight only poured even more fuel onto the flames of her anger.

Like Molon, Sienna didn’t hesitate, nor did she make the slightest effort to figure out the specter’s intentions. Such an attitude was only natural. If any of Vermouth’s old friends had seen Vermouth’s descendants covered in blood from all their wounds like this, even if it was Molon standing here, they would definitely become enraged and let out a roar of fury.

But like the specter had said, he had come here not to bring them despair or fear but rage. Because of that, Sienna’s current rage was precisely what the specter had intended all along.

Well, that might have been the case, but honestly, the specter hadn’t intended on sticking around to see the results of his efforts in person. The specter recalled the smile he had seen on Sienna’s face earlier. He had to admit to himself that his handling of the warp-gate was sloppy.

This was the Wise Sienna, after all. He had underestimated her abilities as the most powerful wizard in all of recorded history.

“...,” the specter silently wondered what he should do.

Right now, the question of why the specter was doing this wasn’t of any importance to Sienna. What was currently of utmost importance to her was her desire to tear the specter into shreds.

Although, if she could have her way, Sienna wanted to kill the specter outright, she felt it would be more appropriate to leave that duty up to Eugene. Having decided this, Sienna raised Frost higher.

The next moment, it appeared like the stars themselves were falling. Hundreds of thousands of magic bullets all flew at the specter at once. The torrential flow of stars looked as if the Milky Way was pouring down toward them from its lofty position in the night sky.

This attack, with a form that went beyond all common sense, was beautiful, intricate, and destructive. The magic bullets raining down in a single stream were all aimed precisely at the specter, and there wasn’t any scattering.

The specter’s figure disappeared. In an instant, he had widened the distance between himself and Sienna and had appeared in a completely different location, but the thousands of magic bullets had changed their trajectories and begun to move towards the specter before his figure had even fully reappeared.

The specter couldn’t help but be flustered as he saw the galaxy of stars raining down on him. Had his movements been predicted? No, he simply hadn’t been fast enough to escape the pursuit of the spell.

It was impossible to avoid or outrun the attack. Even if the specter ran all the way to the other side of the world, these magic bullets wouldn’t stop chasing him. That was part of the magic incorporated into the attack.

The reincarnated Hamel had learned magic and had even reached the level of an Archwizard, but the specter with Hamel’s memories had never learned any magic. But that said, even without having learned much about magic, the specter could still tell that the spells Sienna was currently casting weren’t anything ordinary.

No, this attack had gone beyond the limits of what could just be called magic.

Whether it was swinging a sword or punching with a fist, it was impossible to never miss an attack. Yet despite that, these thousands of stars were able to ignore the process of cause and effect and determine an accurate result before it had even happened. This attack had somehow incorporated a rule that it would definitely hit its target.

‘This can’t just be magic, can it?’ the specter questioned.

This display of magic was simply absurd. If another wizard were to see this spell and understand the principles behind it, they would realize just how inferior all the magic they had learned until that point was in comparison. In fact, when Sienna had conceived and realized this spell, the Archwizards who had been spectating had all let out gaps and sighs.

This was Sienna’s Absolute Decree.

Although everyone present had called it her new Signature spell, Sienna herself didn’t think of it as a real Signature. Sienna’s goal was to overcome the wall between the Ninth Circle and the Tenth Circle — no — to overcome the wall between being an ordinary human wizard and a goddess who could control magic itself. This Absolute Decree was only an ability she had learned as part of the process of becoming the Goddess of Magic.

On top of that, in Sienna’s opinion, Absolute Decree couldn’t really be called complete. This was because there were still limits to what rules could be imbued and the outcomes that could be determined.

However, for now, she could still set a target for a spell and imbue a rule that the target must be hit. No matter how fast the target was, even if it moved so quickly that Sienna herself couldn’t keep up with it, Absolute Decree would determine that the result of her attack was that it would absolutely hit.

‘What is this power?’ the specter wondered.

It was impossible to outrun or avoid. To him, it seemed far too unreasonable that such an ordinary mass attack spell could have such power. The specter immediately called upon his dark power to block the magic bullets.

Fwooosh!

His dark power rose like a fog and collided with the magic bullets. Each time a magic bullet was forcefully erased by the fog, it resulted in an immense drain of his dark power. Any ordinary demonfolk would have died in just a few hits.

Even after experiencing Sienna’s new power personally, the specter still couldn’t understand it. How could she have fired thousands of these attacks imbued with this strange power? Even if Sienna was an Archwizard, her mana would have to be truly infinite to launch such a powerful and large-scale attack. After all, wasn’t it only natural that the more powerful the magic, the more mana it required?

‘This is inexplicable,’ the specter thought.

But was that really the case? The specter paid close attention as he blocked the magic bullets. The moment they touched his fog, the magic bullet exploded in a whirlwind. During this process, an excessive amount of dark power was consumed. But the mana contained within a single magic bullet couldn’t be all that much.

‘The nature of her mana is something different,’ the specter realized.

Was it possible for a spell to change the very nature of her mana? Had she converted her original mana and specialized it towards countering dark power?

Although the specter was sincerely surprised, he didn’t feel like he was in danger.

Even if Sienna’s magic had been specialized towards countering dark power, the specter was the Incarnation of Destruction. Just like a Demon King, the specter could extract an infinite amount of dark power, and the dark power of Destruction could destroy any form of mana.

If this turned into a war of attrition, the specter would eventually win. And this didn’t necessarily have to end in a war of attrition if the specter decided to actively attack.

“...,” the specter silently shook his head.

The specter’s goal wasn’t to kill Sienna. Chewing on his lower lip, he drew out even more dark power.

Cracracrack!

His dark power formed into a blade that oozed an ominous aura and sliced through the space between them. The magic bullets that slipped past this slash crashed into the specter’s body and exploded in a whirlwind of destruction, but he didn’t care, even if his body was destroyed.

However, he still couldn’t afford to stay calm when the next attack came.

Boooom!

An awl of magic pierced through both the slash and the specter’s body at the same time.

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All the nerve endings within the specter’s body were set on fire.

These flames then traveled back through the specter’s body towards the source of his dark power. The attack was aimed at the source of immortality that all high-ranking demonfolk possessed. The attack was also imbued with a killing intent that seemed like it could even slay a Demon King by Sienna’s Absolute Decree.

“Gargh,” the specter coughed as black blood spilled from his lips.

Barely managing to lift his head, he saw Sienna approaching, a jewel-like sparkle still in her eyes. Although they were filled with completely different emotions from when he had last seen her like this, Sienna was still as beautiful as ever.

“...,” Sienna silently stared at the specter.

She knew exactly who her opponent was, from both his voice and physique. Although the air he gave off was different, and his face was covered, this was definitely the Death Knight created from Hamel’s corpse.

‘I don’t understand this,’ Sienna thought with a frown.

The Death Knight’s body had been destroyed during the battle in the Rainforest. It had barely managed to escape with only its soul remaining, then it seems to have been bestowed with the dark power of Destruction during its time in Ravesta.... That was all part of the facts that Noir Giabella had revealed to them when they met in Shimuin.

“You,” Sienna spat out. “So you’ve realized that you’re a fake.”

From the fact that he was wearing a mask to conceal his face to the way he had said that he was here to bring them rage — the evidence may have been weak — but Sienna was confident of her conclusion.

The Death Knight had somehow realized its true identity. But in the first place, if this thing really did still think of itself as Hamel, it wouldn’t have done something like this.

No matter how much he hated someone or wanted revenge, there was no way that Hamel would go looking for Vermouth’s descendants and blindly attack them like this.

Even if he said that he wanted to get revenge on someone, Hamel... would never have done something like this. The very act of doing this would be unbecoming of someone who thought he was Hamel.

Sienna felt that something wasn’t right here. This guy had done something that Hamel would never do. However, was his purpose for doing so really revenge? If his goal had been revenge, then, in the first place, there wouldn’t be any reason for him to cover his face, and there also wasn’t any reason for him to not have killed anyone.

“...Even though you know you’re a fake,” Sienna said thoughtfully.

The specter grabbed the awl that had pierced its body with both hands.

Sienna aimed her staff at the specter as she finished voicing her doubts, “Just why have you put on such a disguise?”

Even if the Death Knight had realized that it was a fake, what reason could there be for it to stubbornly insist on such a disguise. Sienna just couldn’t comprehend this.

However, she didn’t hesitate to take action.

Even if she didn’t know that Hamel had been reincarnated, she never would have accepted this thing as Hamel’s replacement. Because the very thought itself of doing so would be an insult to Hamel.

‘Because of that, you’re something that can’t be allowed to exist,’ Sienna thought with a frown.

The Death Knight’s very existence was an insult to Hamel. There was very little emotional turmoil that could be seen in Sienna’s shining, jewel-like eyes. All of her intense killing intent was still being directed toward the specter.

Booom!

The specter’s body shattered to pieces. The silent array of spells that Sienna had cast completely destroyed every physical trace of the specter’s body. Not a single drop of blood was left behind. She had no intention of leaving even the slightest trace of its existence in the world.

“Haaaah,” Sienna exhaled deeply even as she kept up the destructive torrent of magic.

She finally lowered her wand and then scratched her head in frustration.

“It didn’t work,” Sienna spat out as her brow furrowed in a frown.

She was in the midst of making progress, but she had yet to reach the level where she could consider herself the Goddess of Magic. Even her Absolute Decree was still incomplete.

‘...On top of that, this Death Knight is something else,’ Sienna thought in concern.

Her intent was to burn and destroy the source of his dark power, but that move had failed. The moment that her attack got close to the source of his immortality, it was the flames that had been extinguished instead. The thing that existed where the source of the specter’s dark power should be was a deep, empty void that even Sienna couldn’t fathom.

She knew what it was as soon as she saw it. It meant that the Death Knight had become an existence that couldn’t be called a Death Knight or even a demonfolk. Although she thought it was absurd, that thing... it seemed to be a Demon King. She had also sensed that its nature... was somehow close to that of the Demon King of Destruction.

‘Although my last attack landed, I’m not sure how effective it really was,’ Sienna thought.

Since it had managed to hit him like that, she thought that it should have at least inflicted a serious injury that would require significant recovery time, but was that really the case? Sienna let out another deep sigh as she shook her head.

He had escaped.

Sienna didn’t even know how he had managed to get past her. He had exploded, burnt, and his physical body was destroyed, but even after he had received such a beating, he hadn’t chosen to use his powers of regeneration. Instead, he had just disappeared from here as if nothing had happened.

It wasn’t like Sienna hadn’t taken precautions in case he tried to run away. Even though she had spread strings of her mana and her magic over this entire area, she still hadn’t been able to stop him from disappearing. She didn’t know how he managed to escape, but it must have been a method outside of Sienna’s comprehension.

‘Escape?’ Sienna let out a snort of laughter at this thought.

In fact, she couldn’t really call it an escape. At no point did she have him at a disadvantage. That guy hadn’t even put up any real resistance to Sienna’s attack. Although he had put on a show of blocking Sienna’s attack, he hadn’t truly tried to attack her directly....

“...What the heck,” Sienna muttered, her shoulders slumping as she floated down to the ground.

The truly fortunate thing was that no one had died here today.

However, even if there were no casualties, Eugene was sure to be angry.

Sienna was afraid to even imagine such a sight.