“Baptism of Holy Light!”
Loke shouted as the ring on his hand suddenly erupted with sacred radiance, flashing once through the gaps in Yuka’s defenses, then again.
Flash!
Flash, flash!
“Ah! My eyes!”
The burst of light was so intense that Yuka could no longer keep his eyes open.
His vision blurred until he was practically blind, and even his head began to spin.
Loke, on the other hand, had anticipated the effect and closed his eyes before the spell went off.
Tears streamed from Yuka’s eyes as he instinctively raised both hands to rub them.
Whatever battle he had been fighting could wait; right now, preserving his eyesight seemed considerably more important.
Unfortunately for him, his opponent had no intention of giving him that chance.
Loke surged forward, closed the distance, and drove a heavy fist straight into him.
“Judgment of Light!”
The blow launched Yuka across the ruins and sent him crashing to the ground some distance away.
Loke calmly straightened his collar afterward and adopted an exceptionally smug expression.
“So much for one of Lamia Scale’s best.”
Cana’s fight ended almost as quickly.
Cards flew from her hands in rapid succession, unleashing three different attacks at nearly the same moment.
“Heavy Thunder!”
“Frost!”
“Wind Weasel!”
Lightning struck faster than the eye could follow, electrocuting Sherry until smoke rose from her blackened skin.
A sudden wave of freezing air caught Toby before he could react and encased him inside a block of ice.
At the same time, razor-sharp blades of wind reached Angelica in an instant and tore the enormous rat apart.
“What…?!”
“Ugh…”
“Squeak…”
Cana looked down proudly at Sherry, who had collapsed on the ground.
“You can stay down there and do the repenting yourself.”
…
While the others fought, Noah continued walking toward the Moon Drip ritual one unhurried step at a time.
One of the nameless Mages maintaining the spell recoiled when he saw him approaching.
“D-Don’t come any closer! Lord Reitei won’t forgive you!”
“Don’t panic!” another shouted.
“No matter how strong he is, he’s only one man!”
Noah sighed.
These people had absolutely no awareness of their role as disposable henchmen.
Battles were never decided by which side had more bodies.
They were decided by which side had the bigger cheat.
The Moon Drip ritual itself consisted of three stages: gathering lunar energy, converting that energy into Moon Drip, and finally pouring the resulting magic onto the target spell.
Those stages did not have to be performed separately.
The people before Noah were gathering, converting, and channeling the lunar energy simultaneously.
Some of the resulting Moon Drip was already being poured onto Deliora, while the rest of the accumulated lunar power remained gathered within the ritual.
That reserve was what Noah wanted.
“Word Magic: Creation—Bullet Barrage!”
He swept out one hand.
Light flared behind him as a massive red-and-white Magic Circle appeared, and hundreds of firearms materialized in the air.
Every ritualist froze. This story is hosted at g.com.
“?!”
Then the guns opened fire together.
The deafening barrage swept across the ritual site in a single overwhelming volley, blasting every nameless henchman off their feet.
The chanting stopped at once.
Smoke and dust rolled across the ruins.
When it cleared, the ritualists were sprawled unconscious across the ground, obviously in no condition to continue anything.
Noah nevertheless stopped walking.
“My opponent is you, then?”
A short, mysterious figure had appeared in front of him, wearing a mask and a heavy coat that looked as though it had been made from woven grass.
“I am Zalty!”
Noah stared at him.
‘What kind of introduction is that?
For a second I thought you were about to say Groot.’
Of course, Noah knew exactly who stood before him.
Ultear Milkovich.
His eyes gleamed faintly.
The man calling himself Zalty was merely a disguise created through Ultear’s transformation magic.
Ultear was Ur’s daughter, born with an enormous reserve of magic power.
Even as an infant, the amount of magic inside her body had been too great for her to endure, forcing Ur to send her to a research facility for treatment.
Unfortunately, the director of that facility had been anything but benevolent.
Ultear had been turned into a test subject for magical experiments, while Ur was falsely informed that her daughter had died.
When Ultear eventually escaped, she discovered Ur living happily with her disciples, Lyon and Gray.
Seeing the smiles on their faces convinced her that her mother had abandoned her, and that misunderstanding eventually turned into hatred.
Ultear later destroyed the research facility and joined Grimoire Heart, where she obtained control over the Lost Magic known as Arc of Time.
Grimoire Heart was one of the most powerful Dark Guilds the magic world had seen in decades.
Before news of the Balam Alliance became widely known that year, it could practically be regarded as the leading force among the Dark Guilds.
Ultear had committed more than her share of atrocities during her time with them.
She had even manipulated Jellal into causing the tragedy surrounding the Tower of Heaven.
Now she and Jellal were both secretly operating within the Magic Council for purposes few people understood.
“You’re going to stop me?” Noah asked, pretending ignorance.
“Are you another one of Lyon’s companions?”
Ultear readily played along.
“I only joined them recently. Apparently, they’ve been working on this plan for three years, but the moment I became involved, someone discovered it.”
She laughed softly.
“I suppose those children really were incapable of reviving Deliora on their own. In the end, I’ll have to handle things myself.”
“You?” Noah asked with exaggerated confidence.
“All those small fry are unconscious now. Without anyone left to maintain the ritual, what exactly are you going to do?”
Ultear giggled.
“Who said the ritual needs people to continue?”
Noah blinked.
‘Hm?’
He looked past her.
Sure enough, the Moon Drip ritual had not stopped despite all the ritualists lying unconscious.
The brilliant purple light was still descending from the sky in an orderly stream, continuously converting lunar energy into magic and pouring it into the cavern below.
Noah’s surprise this time was genuine.
“Impressive. How are you doing that?”
He truly did not know the exact mechanism, though he had already guessed that it probably involved her magic.
Ultear apparently enjoyed having the opportunity to show off.
“Hehehe… have you ever heard of the Arc of Time?”
In a sense, time was simply a measure of how matter changed.
Manipulating time therefore meant manipulating those changes themselves.
An object could possess countless possible states, but broadly speaking, those states could be reduced to a few fundamental opposites: motion and stillness, existence and absence.
Of course Noah had heard of it.
He knew it extremely well.
“Nope.”
He lied without the slightest hesitation, wearing an appropriately puzzled expression.
“Sounds like some kind of time-related magic, though.”
“That’s right!” Ultear said proudly.
“It lets me manipulate the time of matter, advancing it into the future or returning it to the past.”
She held a crystal ball in one hand.
“All I need to do is send the moonlight into its future state, and an endless supply of Moon Drip can continue flowing.”
Noah stared.
‘That works too?’
“I won’t allow you to interfere with the ritual,” Ultear declared confidently.
“If you want to get past me, you’ll have to defeat me first.”
Her smile widened.
“Though whether you’re capable of reaching the other side of me is another question entirely.”
Noah quietly watched her finish showing off.
Only when she had said everything she wanted did he finally speak.
“I see. So as long as I defeat you, the ritual stops?”
“Yes! Exactly!” Ultear spread her arms.
“Come on, then. Show me what the famous Sage Noah can really do!”
“No.”
Ultear froze.
“What?!”
Noah grinned.
“I, Noah, specialize in doing exactly what people don’t expect.”
Ultear’s thoughts abruptly ground to a halt.
What was going on?
Hadn’t this man come here because he accepted the villagers’ request to lift their curse?
Wasn’t he supposed to stop the ritual for Gray’s sake and prevent Deliora from being revived?
Then why was he refusing to fight?
Ultear’s limited ability to process this particular brand of nonsense completely failed her.
Noah showed absolutely no intention of attacking.
In fact, he casually sat down and began looking at the scenery.
She stared at him in bewilderment.
‘What is wrong with this guy?’
‘Where did this situation go off the rails?’
At that exact moment, an ice dragon lunged toward Noah from behind, striking from a blind spot at a speed intended to leave him no chance to defend himself.
Unfortunately, Noah had sensed it long before it arrived.
“Earth Style: Mud Wall!”
A wall of earth surged upward to intercept the attack.
Word Magic gave Noah an enormous range of possible spells, but if he wanted to cast something instantly, having a familiar technique name ready made the process considerably easier.
The problem was that Noah could rarely be bothered to invent proper names for every spell he used.
So more often than not, he simply borrowed the names of techniques he remembered from his previous life.
After all, everyone already knew what they were supposed to do.
End of Chapter 14