Hanesaki was a contract killer, so naturally, he had made plenty of enemies. Despite that, he brazenly broadcast over the dark web.
People coming for revenge were common.
People bringing mages as proxy duelists were even more common.
Every now and then, there was even an idiot who had been conned by a fraud pretending to be a mage and ended up flat on his back.
Hanesaki was looking at Evan’s mana now, and he laughed heartily to himself.
It was even more chaotic and pathetic than an ordinary person’s mana.
Hanesaki turned his head toward Jurgens.
“No matter how badly you want revenge, you bring a worthless bastard like this? How much did you spend?”
He grinned as he spoke.
“I’ll rip his head off and throw it at your feet in no time. Filming your expression should earn me a little money.”
Without taking his eyes off Hanesaki, Jurgens spoke quietly to Evan.
“……Watch his speed. You know what I mean. I’ll only get in the way if I join you, so I’ll handle my own role.”
With those words, Jurgens ran.
The situation unfolded before either Evan or Jurgens could show any further reaction.
Hanesaki’s mana surged.
He moved so quickly that even Evan’s mind snapped fully alert for an instant.
Some kind of projectile flew toward Evan, and before he could even identify what it was, he lowered his body.
Hanesaki’s mana condensed once more.
As Jurgens had warned, his casting speed was astonishingly fast. Evan thought he could hear an incantation being muttered, but there was nowhere near enough time to make any judgment.
The moment Hanesaki’s hand pointed toward him, Evan pulled a grenade from inside his cloak and threw it onto the ground.
It was the homemade electromagnetic bomb Lara had made for him.
A simple EMP that temporarily disabled cybernetic implants.
BZZZT—!
People in this era rarely used tools like this.
Practically no one lived without cybernetic parts, and using one carelessly could easily leave the user’s own body completely paralyzed.
“Ghk!”
Hanesaki’s limbs convulsed, and his movements faltered for an instant. The mana he had condensed scattered along with his shaken concentration.
Evan, however, was different.
【SYSTEM Error Detected: Recovering…….】
【Recovery Complete.】
The security System was the only cybernetic implant inside Evan.
He rapidly closed the distance and swung his dagger.
SHRAAK—!
Hanesaki barely managed to pull his head back. The blade only grazed his skin, drawing a few drops of blood.
“Whoa. That was close.”
Before Evan could launch a second attack, Hanesaki’s System recovered, and his mana rapidly condensed once more.
A brilliant flash erupted in the sewer at night.
In the instant it took to blink, Hanesaki vanished along with the light.
Evan spun around violently, his cloak tracing a wide arc.
Hanesaki stood behind him.
He had moved at the literal speed of light.
“What a disappointment. You came here acting so confident that I expected something…….”
Hanesaki’s lips curved upward, exposing his yellow teeth.
It was a sneer.
The betting totals suddenly skyrocketed as the dark-web viewers who had joined late began placing their wagers.
Before Evan could react, Hanesaki extended his left hand.
Light flashed once more.
This time, it was not merely blinding.
A ray that burned flesh and pierced bone erupted from his fingertips.
ZAP—!
A line of light pierced the exact center of Evan’s forehead.
His head snapped back as though his neck had broken, and his body tilted backward.
<The pot has increased! >
<The pot has increased! >
<The pot has increased! >
Option 1 Bets: 41,212,311 credits
Option 2 Bets: 3,030,032 credits
Hanesaki’s gaze shifted toward the display board.
‘Did I finish it too quickly?’
Just as he licked his lips while watching the board.
BANG—!
Blood sprayed from Hanesaki’s left shoulder.
Hanesaki’s mouth, which had been twisted into a nasty smile, opened wide in shock. Burning pain came rushing in a moment later.
“What…….”
Hanesaki looked at Evan.
Evan’s hand was pointed toward him even as his body leaned backward. Smoke dispersed from the handgun’s muzzle, and the faint smell of gunpowder spread through the air.
Evan raised his head again, revealing his expression.
His eyes were nearly blank.
His mouth was smiling in stark contrast.
“People in this world replace their bodies with hunks of metal the moment anything goes wrong. I need a confirmation process. It’s a nuisance.”
“Ghk……!”
The bullet had buried itself precisely in Hanesaki’s bare flesh.
It had avoided his countless cybernetic parts and landed a clean hit.
Hanesaki could not believe what had happened.
‘Was he waiting?’
Until he could tell where to attack?
While doing something insane like deliberately taking the hit?
Hanesaki stared at the spot between Evan’s brows, the place he had aimed for.
Fragments resembling shattered glass were cascading down Evan’s face from the forehead that should have been pierced.
‘Defensive magic!’
Evan gave him no time to think.
He gripped the handgun with both hands and repeatedly pulled the trigger as he advanced.
BANG-! BANG BANG—!
PING—!
Bullets punched through Hanesaki’s body in rapid succession.
Two penetrated, while one ricocheted away.
“Your left leg is metal.”
BANG—! BANG!
PING! PING—!
Evan continued pulling the trigger as he walked forward.
“Right arm. Left abdomen. Your entire chest.”
He was checking which parts of Hanesaki’s body were ‘soft.’
He even muttered his findings aloud.
His tone was not that of someone fighting for his life, but of someone dispassionately checking items off a task list.
CLICK—!
“You’ve replaced quite a few limbs. At that point, aren’t you just a robot?”
“Ugh, you son of a bitch…….”
Hanesaki staggered but did not fall.
Evan had already realized that none of the shots had been fatal.
Several deformed lead bullets dropped from inside Hanesaki’s cloak and struck the ground.
“You noticed?”
“Noticed what? That you’ve never had a dental checkup? Or that you’re from a school that controls light and would aim between my brows?”
Evan lowered the muzzle.
The empty magazine fell to the ground.
“The Luxen School. Since it controls light, it naturally has an advantage in the speed of its Ritual Formulas. But light loses power against materials with low absorption. And.”
Evan pulled a second magazine from his belt and inserted it as he continued.
“Mages like aiming between the brows. They’re the sort of people who obsess over dramatic presentation.”
Even as Evan spoke, the fragments clattering down from his forehead were not pieces of ordinary defensive magic.
They were thick shards of ice.
A soul invisible to everyone else flickered behind Evan.
It belonged to the ice mage whose soul Evan had claimed in Asle.
『Soulcraft·Manifest, Phantom Spirit Replication』
Mana was merely a slightly unusual soul dwelling within a mage.
This was the fate of a soul bound to a dark mage rather than acting by its own will.
“I thought you weren’t a mage.”
“Who knows? What do you think? I could be an elementary-school physics teacher.”
Hanesaki bared his teeth and smiled again, but much of the ease and mockery had faded.
Anger and confusion had replaced them.
“…….”
For a brief moment, silence befitting the night-shrouded ruins lingered.
Then both moved at once, without either needing to go first.
Cold sweat ran down Hanesaki’s face as he abruptly raised his palm.
At the same time, Evan raised his handgun again.
Mana condensed above Hanesaki’s palm and exploded.
A flash erupted.
In that flashing instant, Hanesaki’s lips moved rapidly.
‘Luxen, Medar, Augeris.’
Condensation, Diffusion, Realization.
Just as black magic followed three principles, the magic of the Mage Tower followed three principles as well.
The caster condensed the mana of their school in the required amount, diffused it through repulsive force, and then ‘programmed’ a predetermined structure into it.
The sequence was extremely fast and unstable, requiring delicate control.
Incantations, hand seals, and magic circles aided that process.
This meant a mage’s strategy was inevitably exposed in one way or another.
Reading those signs was how mages conducted their contests of moves.
That was why Hanesaki concentrated entirely on Evan’s hands and lips, while simultaneously hiding his own move by blinding Evan with an intense flash.
The incantation was completed swiftly and skillfully.
Hanesaki scattered a handful of sand he had been holding.
Each grain, which had been falling limply, took on the properties of a photon.
At that instant, Hanesaki covered his entire body with his cloak.
The cloak, which shone like silver foil, reflected every particle.
They became completely irregular bullets moving at nearly the speed of light.
The pieces of glass and mirrors installed throughout the enormous sewer, which had been buried in darkness, revealed themselves all at once.
They were preparations Hanesaki had made to ‘entertain’ intruders.
The light bounced from the mirrors and refracted through the glass fragments, indiscriminately destroying the salt pillars and the sewer’s ruined facilities.
“Could that ‘ice magic’ of yours block this too?”
Against an unpredictable enemy, he responded with uncontrollable destruction.
If he could not control it, then his opponent could not respond to it either.
A poker face was meaningless in a game where the players bet without seeing their cards.
Evan should not have had time to respond in the first place.
No school could keep pace with the Luxen School in speed.
In fact, Hanesaki had detected no movement from Evan forming a seal, and there had not been enough time for an incantation.
It was checkmate, with no room for variables.
Certain of his victory, Hanesaki lowered his cloak.
He even tore off his blindfold because he wanted to see the result with his own eyes.
And at that moment.
CRASH! CRASH!
Thick ice spikes pierced Hanesaki’s body.
One through his chest. Another through his right arm, left abdomen, and left leg.
Every strike had precisely targeted a cybernetic implant, damaging all the functions that enhanced his body and senses.
SQUELCH—!
Then a dagger flew through the air and buried itself in Hanesaki’s right shoulder.
“Ghk!”
What had happened?
Hanesaki barely managed to raise his neck, which trembled under neural overload.
What entered his sight was…….
“……?”
Threads of ice spread throughout the entire space like a spiderweb.
Every thread ended just short of Evan.
As though time itself had stopped.
They were the traces of every grain of sand freezing in midair before it could reach him.
“What is this? This…… this mana…….”
The countless grains of sand had been given the properties of photons.
However, their fundamental nature was still not light. Mana that was stronger and of a higher level could overwrite those properties with something else.
In other words, the meaning of the scene before him was clear.
The ice magic Evan had cast was several Grades stronger than Hanesaki’s.
There was no way magic that powerful could have been manifested without any preparation.
Had Evan formed a hand seal in that brief interval?
‘No.’
Evan’s hands were still near his waist, having barely moved.
Then had he recited an incantation?
That was physically impossible.
Even conceiving that it might be possible was difficult.
Then what was this magic?
“……This is advanced magic at the very least.”
Hanesaki’s voice was completely dazed.
It was powerful enough to turn the intermediate magic he had cast as a secret technique into a joke.
“A magic circle…… At least two. Or four lines of incantation. At the absolute minimum, one seal using both hands…….”
As Hanesaki muttered the ‘minimum conditions’ for advanced magic like someone who had lost his mind, Evan spoke in a kindly tone.
“Someone does it for me.”
“For you?”
The burning soul behind Evan continuously recited incantations and formed seals with its hands.
Of course, there was no way Hanesaki could see any of it.
“I suppose you could call him the ‘teacher’ who taught me the magic of this school.”
Evan strode toward Hanesaki.
The countless threads of ice between them struck Evan’s body, shattered, and fell away.
The strangely glowing night sky cast a cold reflection across the fragments.
“And you’re a mage of the Luxen School, right?”
Evan removed his glove and extended a hand.
His left hand.
The bare hand on the side without the exoskeleton gauntlet.
“That was a fairly good lesson. I’ll put it to good use.”