“Maysa!”

Kadram shouted at the sight of the lightning raining down from the sky. Only an Arabion noble could unleash such powerful bolts from up there. There could hardly be another wizard of Arabion blood that powerful with ties to Turan, so it was a natural deduction.

Contrary to his expectations, however, she was nowhere to be seen in the sky. Even if lightning magic allowed its point of origin to be set far away, remaining so completely out of sight should have been difficult.

Taking advantage of their momentary confusion, Turan made his move on the ground.

“Hm!?”

“What is this...?”

He uncapped a large bottle seemingly produced from nowhere, and a transparent liquid spread out in a fan. The surrounding nobles were surprised by the inexplicable sight, but not particularly wary. Plain water was hardly a useful means of attack unless it battered its target with overwhelming mass. Poison went without saying.

Only a few cautious souls quickly retreated to avoid contact. Many merely frowned and shielded their faces with their hands. Before long, of course, they paid the price.

“Aaaaargh!”

“It burns!”

“Water, water! No—”

The Water of Death proved truly outstanding in its first use in actual combat. The excessive firepower of the Spirit of Fire or another offensive spell would have risked harming the hostage. With this, however, there was no possibility of the damage spreading as long as he properly controlled the liquid itself.

While several careless nobles screamed as the Water of Death burned into their flesh, Turan darted in and snatched up the fallen Melo. Kadram and the others nearby had leaped back, leaving no one to interfere.

“Stop him!”

Before Kadram had even finished giving the order, the wizards forming the encirclement unleashed their spells. Had they decided Turan and Melo could die now that Maysa had appeared? Every incoming attack was vicious enough to suggest they did not care if the two were killed.

Shielding the unconscious Melo, Turan activated his guardian magic tool and deployed the green shield: a powerful defensive magic tool he had taken from a Baraha noble, which moved automatically to intercept lethal attacks.

The shield immediately whirled through the air, deflecting electrical attacks from the two Arabion elders, then spells from Kadram and the other upper-tier wizards, before returning to Turan. Yet even after safely weathering the assault, he could hardly laugh it off.

‘What is this mana consumption...?’

A huge chunk of his strength vanished, leaving him dizzy with weakness. At this rate, he would have been better off taking a few hits. Of course, that would have killed Melo in his arms, so he had to bear the cost.

As Turan withdrew, another bolt fell from the sky, incinerating three knights and a noble from a vassal house. Only then did the encircling forces falter in confusion, seemingly realizing there was more than one enemy.

“Maysa! Where is Maysa!? Even if that bastard gets away, we must capture her!”

Kadram shouted at a noble carrying a large stone tablet. It was the detection magic tool Maysa had once used during the Dark Elf subjugation, which displayed nearby living creatures. That was probably how they had detected Turan’s approach as well.

“Th-there is something flying up there... but the dot is red! It’s a monster, not a human!”

“What?”

“And according to the position the tool shows, we should be able to see it from here, but there’s nothing there!”

Just as he said, the one bombarding them with lightning from the air was Vije, not Maysa. The Arabion nobles apparently could not imagine that a mythical-class monster was dropping lightning bolts from the sky while using stealth. Then the noble holding the tablet shouted again.

“Two more humans are approaching! They’re incredibly fa—”

[“Raaaaaargh!”]

A mighty roar rang out from afar. Solif burst onto the battlefield like a huge monster, smashing through every tree in his path. The wizards’ eyes widened at the halo that formed behind his back.

“What? Why is Baraha—”

A Sun-bloodline wizard had appeared out of nowhere. Before they could even react to the surprise, Maysa silently approached from the opposite side and thrust her sword at one of the Arabion elders.

“Gah!”

“Block it!”

An invisible shockwave struck with a deafening boom, hurling five or six nearby wizards into the air. Her long, thin thrusting sword had been forged from a Zahar noble’s magic tool and could release shockwaves with thrusts and slashes. It had been made to provide the physical force she lacked, since her principal means of attack was electricity.

“Aaargh!”

“That one is incredibly powerful too! Don’t let your guard down!”

Ironically, even looking at Maysa’s face, the Arabion nobles failed to recognize her at once. That was how vast the difference was between her present appearance and the emaciated, corpse-like skeleton she had once been.

The sheer chaos of the situation played a part as well. Before they knew it, they had gone from surrounding their enemy to being surrounded themselves and subjected to a one-sided assault.

Kadram amplified his voice with wind magic and shouted.

“... Do not fall back! We still have the advantage in strength!”

In their estimation, Turan was a Zahar noble somewhere between the upper tier and the edge of the top-ranking tier at most. Adding two unidentified top-ranking nobles and a mythical-class monster would not tip the scales. Just how many wizards had they gathered here, and what formidable magic tools did those wizards possess?

Rallied by their commander’s shout, the wizards began attacking the exposed Solif and Maysa.

“Ugh, you bastard...!”

A snow leopard appeared from nowhere and lunged at Solif with a growl. Slightly larger than a tiger, it was, astonishingly, capable of holding its own against him in close combat.

It was a mythical-class monster with strength equal to a top-ranking noble or better. With a top-ranking noble coordinating support for House Nagin’s prized treasure, the battle quickly reached a stalemate.

Even so, Solif moved nimbly, killing the other nobles and knights attacking him one or two at a time. But each kill came with another cut on his own body.

Meanwhile, Maysa flew skillfully through the sky, ravaging the battlefield with electricity and shockwaves. A few nobles finally recognized her and cried out in shock.

“Lady Maysa!?”

“It can’t be!”

Her appearance might have changed drastically, but there were few top-ranking Arabion wizards with long auburn hair, especially women. All the more so when their captain, Kadram, had mentioned her name only moments earlier.

Several nobles from vassal houses, who believed Maysa had been kidnapped, reeled at the shocking realization that the person they were meant to rescue was attacking them.

Kadram glared sharply at Turan as he used the confusion to carry Melo off the battlefield.

“That bastard...!”

An illegitimate son born to some Zahar noble. A layabout seeking to rise in the world by using a treasure imbued with the power of the now-vanished Mimic to lure away a great house’s young lady. That was all Kadram had thought him to be, so the present situation could only come as a shock.

What was that hydrochloric-acid-like substance he had used earlier, and where on earth had he found a Baraha noble this powerful? And why had Maysa become so strong?

‘Could it be—’

For a moment, Kadram recalled the great sea serpent that had recently turned the North Sea upside down. Then he stopped that train of thought as he watched Maysa dominate the battlefield. This was no time to dwell on such things.

‘First, I need to subdue that. Securing it alone would fulfill our original objective.’

Maysa was overwhelming two Arabion elders while fending off attacks from dozens of wizards below. She had already surpassed her former self, who had been called the strongest heir, and reached a level where she could put up a good fight against the weaker Heads of the great houses.

And on top of that, her pitiful appearance was gone, replaced by beauty...

‘How enviable.’

He might currently inhabit a man’s body, but after so many years of life, distinctions between men and women had long since ceased to matter. Rather than possessing Maysa as a man, Kadram imagined possessing her body itself. If that beautiful, powerful body were his...

But that was a desire forbidden to him. The body already had an appointed owner. Considering the time and effort invested in it, there was no possibility of Maysa’s body being given to him.

“Tsk.”

Kadram clicked his tongue regretfully and extended his hand. At that instant, Maysa turned in midflight, struck by a sudden sense of danger. Certainly, Kadram was among Arabion’s most powerful wizards, but there were several here whose abilities rivaled his.

Even so, an overpowering instinct warned her not to ignore that gesture.

“Gah!?”

Green radiance erupted from Kadram’s hand and surged toward Maysa, traveling far faster than sound.

Fortunately, she flipped over quickly enough to avoid a direct hit. But her grazed forearm and leg burned, then began to bleed. A direct hit would clearly have done far worse.

‘Divine magic...’

The special power used by the fallen gods. Obtaining such power was the very reason they had trained in soul magic, though they still had no idea how to do it.

Maysa swiftly called down lightning on Kadram as she maneuvered evasively. Astonishingly, he merely stood still and grinned as the bolt struck him. The crackling electricity circled his upper body before vanishing as though absorbed.

“It can’t be—”

As Arabion’s former heir, Maysa knew what it was.

The Sky Guardian. A legacy of the Thunder Lord, and one of Arabion’s prized Holy Relics. Normally, only the House Head could use it, but they seemed to have brought it here as a special exception, determined to capture her.

Realizing that her lightning attacks had been completely neutralized, Maysa resorted to propelling herself with the Spirit of Fire as she dodged Kadram’s attacks. Naturally, she could not deal with the other wizards’ attacks at the same time.

Even the paltry fireballs of knights and mediocre nobles began to take their toll as they struck her again and again.

‘This isn’t easy...’

She glanced over to see what Vije was doing and found her locked in a fierce aerial battle against four Arabion nobles. They had illuminated the night sky with orbs of light to prevent stealth, relentlessly pursuing her and forcing a battle of attrition.

Of course, Vije flew much faster and could choose when to strike. But simply being driven from her vantage point above the battlefield effectively deprived her of any ability to intervene. Chirping furiously, she raked her talons across one noble’s face.

‘At this rate—’

Just as she thought they were in danger, a thunderous, explosion-like roar rang out in the distance. The now-familiar sound drew a sigh of relief from Maysa.

She stopped her evasive maneuvers and looked down to see a gaping hole torn through one side of the encirclement.

* * *

After using the opening Maysa and Solif had created to escape with Melo, Turan first checked his condition.

“Melo, are you all right? Can you wake up?”

Melo was badly injured and remained unconscious, as though they had beaten and tortured him. His cheeks were sunken too, perhaps from days of starvation. Fortunately, however, his life did not appear to be in immediate danger.

Turan flew swiftly for a few minutes and hid Melo in an underground shelter. By the time he returned, the battle was in full swing.

Solif was fighting fiercely with a snow leopard Turan had not noticed earlier while taking hits from dozens of wizards. Maysa, pursued by the two Arabion elders, was desperately trying to evade attacks from Kadram and the other wizards.

The power emanating from Kadram now placed him at the pinnacle of the top-ranking tier, somewhat stronger even than Maysa had been in the past. It seemed he, too, was fully exercising his strength as a vessel. Rather than plunge straight into battle, Turan maintained his stealth and searched for the noble with the detection magic tool.

‘Where... There he is.’

The man was desperately shouting something at his commander, but Kadram was so intent on targeting Maysa that he failed to notice. He had probably detected Turan’s return and was trying to report it.

Turan immediately formed a wind channel and threw an ordinary stone, blowing off the head of the noble holding the tablet. The battlefield was so chaotic that no one noticed his death.

Of course, they were not fools. They would soon catch on if these attacks continued. He now needed to achieve the best possible result with a single blow.

‘That happens to be another specialty of mine.’

What Turan took from his pouch was an enormous iron ball the size of a human torso. Of all the iron balls Maysa had made, this was the only one designed for use against monsters and armies rather than individual opponents.

It was a properly crafted version of the projectile he had improvised during the fight against the great sea serpent. Naturally, his regular sling could not accommodate it, so he also needed a special sling prepared in advance.

‘The trajectory... Good. Right here.’

His attack would not spare allies, so he needed to plot a path that avoided Solif and Maysa while catching as many enemies as possible in the line of fire. The ultimate target, naturally, was Kadram, their commander, who was threatening Maysa with unidentified magic.

A short while later, with every calculation complete, he formed a wind channel, launched the iron ball, and detonated the Spirit of Fire. Accelerated first by the sling, then again by the explosive pressure of the enormous quantity of Spirit of Fire packed inside its massive bulk, the iron ball tore through the heart of the battlefield.

“Wha—”

Zahar’s stealth could conceal the caster’s very actions, but even that had limits. The flash of the explosion drew the wizards’ eyes toward Turan, yet by then it was already too late.

The iron ball had absorbed a tremendous amount of Turan’s mana through dozens of rotations and been accelerated by the Spirit of Fire. That concentrated mass of overwhelming violence mercilessly shredded everything in its path.

Ordinary knights, nobles of considerable skill, even the snow leopard’s master, a top-ranking Nagin noble equipped with a defensive magic tool that could have blocked one or two ordinary sling shots—all were torn apart.

But when the iron ball reached Kadram after dismantling more than a dozen wizards in an instant, a golden flash erupted from his upper body to meet it. An immense quantity of electricity burst forth, and moments later, Kadram emerged unscathed.

“Damn it. I thought I was dead...”

Turan did not know that one of the Sky Guardian’s functions was an Electric Charge Barrier, or that it had instantly melted the metal projectile away. Through the Mimic Holy Relic, however, he could see the immense power emanating from the armor on Kadram’s upper body.

Approaching Kadram, Turan used the mask’s power to inspect the symbols within him. As expected, two previously unseen symbols had appeared alongside the Storm Bloodline he had observed earlier.

‘Rapids... and a bloodline I’ve never seen before?’

One of Kadram’s symbols looked like two mingled drops of water. Its shape was clearly different from the Rapids bloodline’s flowing river.

While that symbol remained apart, the clouds were shedding raindrops along with lightning. Apparently, the water-controlling Rapids bloodline was interacting with the Aeromancer bloodline.

As Turan examined his opponent’s secrets, Kadram, who was watching him in turn, spoke.

“Originally, I intended to simply kill you. But now there are all sorts of things I’ll need to ask after taking you alive. How on earth you performed alchemy, for one, and what that power just now was.”

“Then we’re of the same mind. Disgusting as that is.”

They smiled as they stared each other down like wolves eyeing their prey.