Yukinoshita Yukino had never forgotten exactly how she had lost to Sharon the first time.
After she had unleashed the power of her Longinus and exerted her full strength, Sharon had once seemed driven to a dead end, barely holding on under her fierce assault. But just as Yukino prepared to deliver the final blow, Sharon revealed a hidden trump card. She showed Yukinoshita Yukino that her previous struggle had been nothing more than a masquerade orchestrated for ultimate victory.
Sharon had been secretly preparing a counter-attack all along, enduring until the final moment to play her ace—activating a light-based magic circle designed for annihilating devils. It had overturned the situation in an instant, nearly purifying Yukinoshita Yukino on the spot.
The reason Yukinoshita Yukino had remained fixated on that battle was precisely because of this.
It wasn't that she couldn't accept defeat, but she could not accept being outmaneuvered and played for a fool.
Therefore, since then, Yukino had not only trained her body more rigorously but had also studied harder. She had practically read through the entire library of the Eligos household, acquiring a vast amount of useful knowledge.
Then, to wash away her previous disgrace, she prepared the exact same thing Sharon had used.
"!"
When Sharon, her body wreathed in dark aura, raised her two hideous blades to deliver the final blow to Yukinoshita Yukino, her figure froze.
It wasn't that she wanted to stop, but she suddenly realized that her body was unable to move.
"Wh-What is this—?!"
It was only then that Sharon noticed that at some point, the environment around her had changed.
In the room that had been frozen into an ice field by Yukinoshita Yukino's artifact, ice-blue magic circles had appeared unnoticed.
They unfolded silently while emitting a staggering chill, allowing plumes of white, mist-like freezing air to spread soundlessly across the frozen world.
Compared to the freezing air blown by Yukinoshita Yukino's artifact, this mist seemed almost negligible. It possessed neither the power to flash-freeze everything nor the scale to whip up a blizzard. Yet, as it spread silently and filled the entire icy space, the atmosphere of the room seemed to condense into solid ice, making every movement feel like wading through lead.
Freezing air swirled around Sharon, causing her to feel as though breathing had become exceptionally difficult. It was as if the oxygen she inhaled was severely insufficient, leaving her body weak and oxygen-deprived.
"—Has it finally taken effect?"
Watching this scene, Yukinoshita Yukino smiled as if a heavy burden had been lifted.
"—What did you do?"
Sharon spoke with great difficulty. Her chest felt as if it were about to burst, an unbearable sensation.
"Can't you tell what I've done?" Yukinoshita Yukino forced her body upright, looking at Sharon with a smile. "When you saw those magic circles, you should have guessed what I was doing, shouldn't you?"
"After all, you've done the same thing before, haven't you?"
As Yukinoshita Yukino spoke, a massive magic circle gradually appeared on the ground, completely enveloping the spot where Sharon stood.
"When did you—?!"
Sharon's expression finally changed.
She naturally understood what Yukinoshita Yukino had done.
This woman was just like she had been—seemingly driven into a corner, but in truth, she had been secretly inscribing magic circles, preparing for the ritual she was activating at this very moment.
But how was this possible?
Just because she could do it didn't mean others could do the same.
At the very least, Sharon believed that if Yukinoshita Yukino had been doing something stealthy during the battle, it would have been impossible for her not to notice.
Yukinoshita Yukino was merely a reincarnated devil of a few months; her eyesight was limited, her background shallow, and her experience severely lacking. Therefore, when Sharon had secretly prepared her winning ritual under Yukino's nose, the probability of the other party not noticing was one hundred percent.
But what about herself?
She was a veteran of a thousand battles, having survived countless conflicts of all sizes. How could she fail to see the hidden trick of a newly reincarnated devil?
She was certain that in the battle just now, Yukinoshita Yukino had indeed been driven to the brink. She shouldn't have had any capacity to prepare anything in secret.
In that case, where did these magic circles come from?
"It's true. Unlike your situation last time where you intentionally acted as if you were cornered, I truly was driven to the edge by you. Logically, I shouldn't have had the ability to prepare these under your nose."
Yukinoshita Yukino spoke as if she could see through Sharon's thoughts.
"But just because I didn't do it, doesn't mean this little one didn't."
As she spoke, Yukinoshita Yukino raised a hand, causing the freezing air beside her to churn.
A second later, from within that white mist of frost, a crystalline, dainty little cat suddenly appeared, leaping onto Yukinoshita Yukino's hand and coming to a rest.
"This is—an Ice Sprite?"
Sharon recognized it at a glance; it was an ice elemental.
It was the familiar Yukinoshita Yukino had contracted in the Familiar Forest, the one she had named "Fuyu-fuyu."
"I only realized it after the contract. As an Ice Sprite, this little one not only shares an affinity with me but can also harmonize with nature. Or rather, it can perfectly blend into ice and snow, becoming a part of them. It helps me control the power within the ice and expand its range and potency."
Yukinoshita Yukino stroked Fuyu-fuyu's body, a faint smile touching her pale face.
"So, I couldn't help but wonder if I could have this little one help me inscribe magic circles within the ice and snow, preparing a ritual to turn the tables."
That was how these various magic circles in this frozen world came to be.
They weren't prepared by Yukinoshita Yukino, but by her familiar.
Yukino's original intent for contracting a familiar was to enhance her combat power. Although she had passed over the stronger Frost Dragon in the Familiar Forest in favor of the Ice Sprite Fuyu-fuyu, it turned out that the sense of kinship she felt at the time was right, and her choice was correct. While Fuyu-fuyu's direct combat power couldn't match a Frost Dragon, its ability to assist her in channeling her powers and rituals was no less significant than contracting a Frost Dragon.
"These rituals were also specially prepared for you. I practiced them for a long time."
Yukinoshita Yukino reached out, pointing toward the magic circle beneath Sharon's feet.
"The function of the surrounding magic circles is to continuously produce ice dust so fine it's invisible to the naked eye, mixing it into the air. When you inhale that air, your lungs are actually slowly freezing."
"Every corner of your internal body, once covered by that ice dust, slowly freezes until you are rendered immobile."
"As for the one beneath your feet, it has only one effect."
Yukinoshita Yukino activated the ritual within the circle, causing the surrounding freezing air to be sucked in as if by an invisible whirlpool, pouring continuously into the magic circle.
The circle immediately pulsed with an ice-blue radiance. As time passed, the light grew brighter and more intense.
"All the freezing air filling this entire space will be sucked away by it and compressed to the extreme."
"Once it reaches the critical point, the freezing air within will be released all at once."
"Why don't you guess which is stronger: the power generated by so much freezing air compressed to the limit, or the ritual you used last time?"
Looking at Yukinoshita Yukino's pale face and her smile, Sharon felt a string snap within her heart.
"Yukinoshita Yukino—!"
The nun let out a desperate, shrill cry, but she couldn't help but cough up blood mid-scream.
Her blood was laced with shards of ice. One look was enough to know her internals were being filled with frost.
She wanted to move, to brandish the Demon Slayer in her hand, but her body remained paralyzed. Every attempt at movement brought agonizing pain.
"—Although I used a bit of a scheme to stall for time, the result is my victory."
Watching this, a trace of complex emotion flashed in Yukinoshita Yukino's eyes, but it was immediately replaced by a look of resolve.
"This is to return your hospitality from last time. Accept it well."
The moment her voice fell, the ice-blue radiance within the magic circle at Sharon's feet reached its limit and began to overflow.
"BOOM!!!"
In the next instant, an ice-blue pillar of light that plummeted the room's temperature to absolute zero shot toward the ceiling, swallowing Sharon's figure.
The pillar was composed of freezing air condensed to the absolute peak. The moment it appeared, the ground began to freeze at a staggering speed starting from the center.
When the pillar struck the ceiling, the ceiling also rapidly froze. Finally, the frost met the ice spreading from the floor along the walls, turning the entire room into an ice cavern until nothing but frozen rime could be seen.
"..."
Yukinoshita Yukino slowly lowered her hand, her body leaning weakly against the wall once more.
Beside her, Fuyu-fuyu licked the blood and wounds on her arm, causing her to let out a weak, soft laugh.
"I'm fine, don't worry."
Patting Fuyu-fuyu's small head, Yukinoshita Yukino forced her body up again.
"—Is that the passage to leave this place?"
She saw a passage appear in a corner of the wall that hadn't been there before, and she took a deep breath.
After a moment, Yukinoshita Yukino slowly shifted her feet. With one hand clutching her abdomen and the other propped against the wall, she walked toward that bottomless passage.
Behind her, the ice-blue light had dimmed and gradually vanished. In its place stood a massive pillar of ice situated in the center of the room. The magic circle beneath it had disappeared as well, as if it had never existed.
And within that pillar of ice, the nun holding her hideous blades was frozen inside like an ice sculpture.
The sight, surprisingly, possessed a lingering trace of tragic beauty.
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