Before Lieutenant Colonel Callis Kritz, a battle that shook heaven and earth was unfolding.

The King of Dogs, the King of Cats, and the Progenitor.

It was truly a clash to decide the fate of the world. Even if it wasn't, it made no difference to Callis.

Her own fate hung on its outcome.

The clanking chain around her neck yanked her along. Callis instinctively threw herself after it, but even then she couldn't keep pace with its pull and ended up tumbling ignominiously across the ground.

Even as the chain strangled her, she repeated just one thing to herself.

'I can't give up on life. I'm going to live. I'll survive, somehow. Survive... get back up above... Father's legacy...'

But could she?

Moments earlier, the Progenitor had driven a straight punch into the frenzied Nabi's chest.

It had been far too devastating to dismiss as a mere punch.

The instant that clenched fist touched Nabi's chest, something snapped with a sickening crunch. Red blood energy erupted like a sun from the point of impact.

Then Nabi shot backward like a bullet, hurtling down the corridor without so much as flailing her limbs.

Had she been an ordinary living creature, her chest would have caved in and she would have died on impact.

But this was the King of Cats.

Still airborne, Nabi opened her red eyes and unleashed a chest-voice roar. She twisted acrobatically in midflight and landed on the wall, then licked a forepaw as she glared sharply their way.

Then she concealed herself in the darkness.

Once the cat hid her presence, she might as well have vanished from the world. No one could see her. No one could hear her. Nabi existed in the world only when she chose to show herself.

That forced the Progenitor and Azi onto the defensive. Each had a shackle of her own.

The Progenitor was protecting the convict laborer...? Or whatever that thing was.

And the King of Dogs was protecting Callis. More precisely, keeping her from dying in the crossfire.

'The King of Dogs... is trying to keep me alive. Perhaps even harder than I am.'

And yet all she was doing was holding the King of Dogs back. Bound by the neck, holding her own life hostage.

The absurdity almost made her laugh, but there was nothing Callis could do.

'Even if I resist now... what would it change?'

What if she resisted? What if the King of Cats lost?

The people in Tantalus were criminals, captured and thrown here by the Military State. Siding with them would earn her nothing but a bleak future.

But if the King of Cats won, and the Lords of Creation achieved their objective, what Callis stood to gain was...

All she would gain...

What would it be?

As Callis wrestled with that question, Rash's right thumb suddenly caught her eye. She instinctively moved to grab it, but...

CLANK.

The heavy chain around her neck pulled her back.

'... A chain.'

The chain that had dragged her around, strangled her, and tried to kill her.

That was the only thing she had gained by following the Lords of Creation.

The medal she had once displayed with pride, only for it to prove utterly useless.

The suicide packet disguised as hope.

The chain wrapped around her neck in the name of orders.

The King of Cats.

All they had ever done was try to kill her.

Meanwhile, Rash and Azi, who had tried to save her, were now lying battered and wretched on the ground. They were bleeding in her stead to keep her alive.

Callis quietly repeated what Rash had told her.

'... Father's legacy is me.'

She might have been her father's precious daughter, but Callis mattered to no one else.

She had risen all the way to lieutenant colonel, yet she knew nothing.

What the Lords of Creation were planning. Whom they had used as disposable pawns.

Despite being a lieutenant colonel of the Military State, she was no different from a Level 1 citizen. No, she was worth even less than a Level 0 convict laborer. At least that convict laborer...? had possessed the resolve to strangle a colonel to death.

... Though she wasn't sure he really was a Level 0 convict laborer.

Like him, Callis had to follow just one guiding principle if she wanted to survive this moment.

"I have to... break the chain."

There was no need to think about what came afterward. Callis was an insignificant human who didn't even deserve her rank. Thinking about her future or prospects was as futile as trying to read the waves while watching a storm rage over the sea at night.

Such things were the exclusive province of those capable of them.

Callis wasn't guaranteed even another second.

She had to do everything she could to survive each passing moment.

"Even if I only start now."

Callis grabbed her belt.

There were no more bundles. The secret supplies bestowed on her by the Lords of Creation had long since run out. All she had left was a small memento tucked deep inside.

The inheritance her father had left her.

A house, a motor carriage, a gold-leafed sword, and military armament.

The only inheritance she could carry with her... the military armament, lay hidden deep inside her belt pouch.

She wore a belt with a pouch precisely so she could always keep it with her.

It wasn't particularly impressive. It was an outdated model, and only covered part of the left arm. The Military State hadn't even recognized it as military armament and had discarded it.

But that was why it had come into Callis's hands as an inheritance—her only weapon.

"Call to Arms."

Murmuring the words, Callis inserted the military armament packet into the biometric terminal on her left arm. Alchemical light immediately shone forth, and the compressed steel unraveled strand by strand.

Military armament completes an officer.

The Military State was a young nation, with only twenty-five years of military rule behind it.

Having overthrown the monarchy in a coup and taken its place, it had solidified its standing among neighboring nations by integrating every kind of technology to rapidly expand its military strength.

CLICK. CLACK.

A sleek gauntlet made of metal scales formed over Callis's arm, covering it from elbow to fingertips. Once it was fully equipped, she clenched her left fist. Metal scraped harshly against metal.

This armament had a simple function: protecting the body.

It was a paltry piece of military armament, nothing more than a good glove.

Callis wasn't disappointed. A tool was only as good as its user. Even with better military armament, she wouldn't be able to draw out its full power.

But this armament, which had been with her for half her life, would surely help her accomplish her purpose.

Trusting in it, Callis grabbed the padlock securing the chain.

The chain was Level 4 alchemical steel. Callis could never break it with her abilities.

But the padlock securing it was another matter.

Lieutenant General Ebon had thought Callis dead and intended to put this chain around the colonel's neck. The padlock had therefore served only as a clasp to keep the chain from coming loose. There had been no reason to use anything precious.

Of course, that didn't mean she could easily smash the steel padlock attached to the chain.

But if she could dismantle it instead...

Callis gripped the padlock with her gauntleted hand and drew mana from her entire body.

The Military State's standard-issue magic.

"Set, Re, Re, Re, Re..."

Lieutenant Colonel Callis Kritz of the Mage Corps.

She had been singled out by the Lords of Creation from a corps composed entirely of officers due to its specialized nature.

Like all mages, she wasn't particularly useful in small-scale combat, but the true strength of standard-issue magic lay in its versatility.

Wreathed in mana, the gauntlet grew hot.

Body-mediated magic was an antiquated method of manifesting miracles through one's own flesh.

Mages of old had used it often, but it had fallen out of use because the caster had to bear the full backlash of overwriting the world's rules. All it left behind was the saying, "The stronger the mage, the sooner they die."

But after the Military State invented biometric terminals and clothing packets, part of the price the body had to pay could be transferred to a packet through an Arche Avatar. Standard-issue magic had since taken its rightful place as a branch of magic.

"... Re, Re, Rialche, Decay, Mund."

Mana gathered, and the magic began.

Undo Alchemy, Corrosion, Fracture.

Three spells, each Level 2, manifested simultaneously.

Combination magic: Alchemical Material Decomposition. Provisionally rated Level 3.

The Level 3 spell, which crumbled alchemical substances touching the body, slowly ate away at the padlock.

Once the lock had heated sufficiently, Callis clenched her gauntleted hand.

CRUNCH.

Cracked, corroded, and decomposed, the padlock shattered inside her fist. In exchange, the palm of her gauntlet turned to powder and scattered. Because she had configured the spell in haste, some of her skin decomposed too, leaving blood seeping from her palm.

But...

Whatever the cost, she was free of the chain.

The chain felt lighter. It was as though her constricted throat had opened up at last.

Savoring that refreshing sense of freedom, Callis flung the chain from her neck.

"King of Dogs!"

Fully freed, Callis shouted at Azi.

"I'm free! Stop worrying about me and fight!"

"Woof? Woof! Woof..."

Turning at the chain's clatter, Azi saw Callis free and barked happily.

"... Idiot! Woof!"

Callis felt momentarily faint, but quickly pulled herself together and shouted.

"Focus on the cat!"

"I know, woof!"

Nabi sprang out of the darkness. Sensing her instinctively, the King of Dogs prepared a counterattack and tried to defend first.

But instead of rising, Azi's right arm hung limp below her shoulder. Puzzled, she looked down at it.

"Woof? Yipe!"

Nabi lunged like a predator at Azi as she desperately twisted away. Azi hurriedly ducked. The forepaw that missed her head smashed through the concrete wall as though it were tofu. Amid the scattering dust, Azi rolled across the ground to escape Nabi.

The chain was gone, but their ordeal wasn't over.

The chest-voice roar emerged when a beast's life hung by a thread.

When survival required killing an enemy, a beast unleashed pure killing intent. Stripping away everything else, it brought every ability it possessed to bear on killing that "enemy."

At this moment, the King of Cats was a beast bent on killing, eliminating her enemies in the way she knew best.

"Yipe, yipe!"

Wounded from protecting Callis, Azi could only take the one-sided beating as Nabi struck from the darkness and retreated.

The Progenitor stepped forward to help Azi... but every time she did, Nabi hid in the darkness. The movements were clearly intended to keep the Progenitor in check.

Unable to leave the convict laborer's side, the Progenitor bit her lip and stepped back again.

Dogs could not unleash a chest-voice roar. Wolves bore all of it for them.

The Progenitor couldn't move. If she left her position, the convict laborer...? would be in danger.

Right now, Callis was the only one who could help Azi.

And she had to help her.

If only to survive.

"Set."

The gauntlet clicked. Drawing on all her remaining mana, Callis enunciated firmly.

"Re, Re, Re, Re. Fahrenheit, Celsi, Kel."

Establish mana. Condense, condense, condense, condense. Then heat it.

In an instant, Callis wrapped mana condensed through four stages around her left arm.

What manifested was superheating. The gauntlet glowed red-hot. Its steel scales expanded in the heat and rose in unison, scarlet flames flickering through the gaps as though it were breathing fire.

Callis gritted her teeth against pain so intense it felt as though her arm would cook. The gauntlet offered some protection, but heat seeped through her exposed palm. Her blood bubbled and boiled.

The fierce heat was destroying not just her military armament, but her own body.

Yet she couldn't stop.

Azi falling was a greater problem than her arm burning away.

Callis layered more mana over the armament already raging with it.

"Set, Aqus, Re, Pascal...!"

Add water and compress the wind. The heat gathered in her left hand greedily swallowed the water. She compressed the screaming droplets to their limit, squeezing them tighter and tighter.

Then, just before Nabi attacked Azi...

She released the power.

"Steamstream!"

Violent steam burst free.

Superheated steel, and a drop of water falling within it. Boiling steam surged as it repelled itself. Callis gathered that force to its limit, then fired it at a single point.

It was steam—water turned to wind.

HISSSSS!

Steam blasted forth. With a deafening noise, heat made visible in pure white gushed out as though to overturn the world. A Level 2 spell with a measure of offensive power and utility.

A mere Level 2 combat spell. It might work on an ordinary cat, but against their king, it was a paltry trick that couldn't harm a single hair.

And yet...

"Hiss!"

Startled by the unexpected attack, Nabi leaped away.

Surrendering to the chest-voice roar meant forgetting reason and following instinct. To the King of Cats, who hated both water and heat, hot steam was something indescribably awful.

A paltry trick or not, magic twisted and deceived the world. Callis sprayed hot steam, driving Nabi back.

"D-don't come any closer!"

With a scream closer to a plea than an order, she scattered steam around Azi.

Azi herself didn't seem to welcome the white steam either, thumping her tail against the ground in displeasure, but Callis ignored that and stood beside her.

"She's already wounded. We just have to hold her off like this! If we buy enough time, the chest-voice roar will subside!"

Shouting as though to reassure herself, Callis maintained the spell and aimed it in every direction.

An oppressive silence consumed the bottomless pit. No one made an unnecessary sound. Any stray noise might make them lose track of the cat hiding in the dark.

Whenever Callis heard anything resembling a sound, she immediately fired steam at it. She didn't know whether she had guessed right or wrong. She only hoped it helped.

Time passed slowly.

Sweat dripped down her hair. The heat seeping into her body spread throughout it, drenching her in sweat. On the brink of exhaustion and dehydration, Callis barely held on to her spell.

Meanwhile, the Progenitor was raising black knights to fill the darkness. If the King of Cats tried to launch a surprise attack from the shadows, she would know at once.

After repeatedly licking her wounds, Azi recovered enough strength to move again. She planted both hands on the ground and crouched as though ready to dash forward.

'Good. If we can just keep this up.'

She would live. She would survive.

Having defied a lieutenant general, she could never return to the Military State. She would never see the things she had left behind again.

But if she still had another chance, if she still had time...

This time, she would build better memories.

As though it had heard her wish, the thumb in Callis's hand wriggled.

An intuition bordering on foresight came to her.

"I'm here!"

She had heard that voice only a handful of times, yet she already missed it. Callis's expression instantly brightened.

Rash, the undying one. What a welcome name.

He would not die even when killed. He always returned. His very existence was a source of reassurance to Callis.

Now they had another ally. Their chances of surviving the King of Cats had improved.

And she was one step closer to the future she envisioned.

Feeling as though that hopeful future was drawing near, Callis let her guard down for just a moment.

"Get out of the way!"

By the time the convict laborer shouted, she was too late to react.

SHUNK.

A tearing sound came with excruciating pain.

Callis tried to groan, but couldn't even manage that. Something seemed to be gripping her body tightly, refusing to let go.

The heat circulating inside her escaped through her abdomen. With difficulty, she lowered her head to see what had pierced her belly.

Three blades protruded from her abdomen.

They resembled something she had seen before. Three blades mounted a finger joint's width apart.

Surely those were the lieutenant general's claws... weren't they?

"For traitors... there is only death. You know that, Lieutenant Colonel."

Lieutenant General Ebon, his right arm missing, whispered coldly to Callis.