Mirror of Despair
Lencar Abarame crouched in the suffocating shadows of the Kiten Dungeon's treasury. He was perched high atop a mountain of gold coins, his body wedged tight behind an oversized chest encrusted with emeralds the size of fists. The [Concealment Magic]: [Void Wrapper] clung to his skin like a second, colder epidermis, suppressing his mana output to a whisper that was virtually indistinguishable from the background radiation of the dungeon itself.
But while his magic was silent, his biology was screaming. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic rhythm that threatened to bruise the bone.
Below him, the battle had erupted not with the grace of a duel, but with the violence of a collapsing mine shaft.
"Crystal Magic: Harpe!"
The voice was devoid of inflection, a drone that sounded like stones grinding together deep underground. Mars, the Diamond Kingdom's ultimate weapon, swung his right arm. The air screamed as the mana condensed instantly, bypassing the liquid state and solidifying directly into a massive sword generated from his own armor.
It wasn't metal. It was translucent, pink-hued crystal that hummed with a heavy, oppressive mana. To Lencar's enhanced senses, it didn't feel like magic; it felt like gravity given form.
The blade smashed into the floor.
BOOM.
The shockwave was physical. It rattled the teeth of everyone in the room and sent a cascade of gold coins sliding down Lencar's hiding spot, the metallic chink-chink-chink lost under the roar of destruction. The floor of the treasury, made of ancient, rune-reinforced stone, cracked like a dropped dinner plate.
Opposite the titan, Yuno was moving like a leaf caught in a gale.
"Wind Magic: Tower of Tornadoes!"
Yuno spun mid-air, his four-leaf grimoire glowing with a fierce, blinding jade light. He didn't try to block the crystal blade—that would have been suicide. Instead, a pillar of twisting wind erupted from his hands, catching the flat of the crystal blade and deflecting the kinetic energy just enough to alter its trajectory.
The sound was screeching, a high-pitched wail of wind grinding against diamond-hard mineral. The crystal sword missed Klaus Lunettes by inches, the wind pressure alone flinging the bespectacled noble backward into a pile of silver chalices.
Lencar watched, his eyes narrowing behind the crack in his wooden mask. He wasn't just a spectator; he was a student studying a masterclass in violence. He dissected every movement, every mana flare, every micro-expression.
He's a monster, Lencar thought, his mind racing as he watched Mars conjure a wall of spikes to block a retaliatory volley from Klaus without even flinching. The anime made him look strong, but feeling his mana in person is terrifying. It isn't just volume; it's density. It feels like wet sand filling the room, heavy and suffocating. Most mages project mana outward; Mars condenses it inward. He's definitely at Peak Stage 3—his raw output is absurd. It's bordering on the unnatural, likely the result of those mage stones embedded in his flesh acting as external batteries.
He watched Mars move. The crystal armor wasn't just defense; it was a fluid extension of his body. He didn't cast spells in the traditional sense; he didn't chant, he didn't gesture with a wand. He simply willed the environment to attack. His control was surgical, devoid of wasted movement. It was the efficiency of a machine built for murder.
Lencar shifted his gaze to Yuno.
The Golden Dawn prodigy was flying circles around the heavy crystal attacks. His wind was sharper, faster, and more aggressive than Lencar expected. Yuno was banking off pillars, using the uneven terrain of the treasure piles to break his line of sight, and firing wind blades that sang through the air.
Yuno is stronger than he should be, Lencar noted, watching a wind arrow find a gap in Mars's defense and actually crack the shoulder plate. In the original story, he could barely scratch Mars at this point. His wind just bounced off. But here... look at the compression. He's layering his wind spells to create a drilling effect.
Why?
Lencar's mind flashed back to the snowy courtyard of the church in Hage. To the nights he spent practicing Mana-Forging while Yuno pretended to sleep a few feet away.
Maybe my presence pushed him, Lencar theorized, his grip tightening on the jeweled chest. Living with a hidden rival. He didn't know I was strong, but maybe his instincts picked up on the anomaly. Maybe he sensed the mana I was gathering and felt unsafe, forcing him to evolve faster than his canon counterpart. I might have accidentally accelerated the protagonist's growth curve.
But even with that extra edge, the gap was too wide. Mars wasn't just a mage; he was a living fortification. He was a tank that hit like a siege weapon.
"Steel Magic: Steel Castle's Wall!"
Klaus reacted with the desperate speed of a man realizing his mortality. A thick, reinforced wall of steel erupted from the floor, interposing itself between the Golden Dawn and the crystal behemoth.
CLANG.
The sound was like a church bell being struck by a meteor. Sparks showered the room. The steel wall buckled, a deep dent forming in the center, the metal screeching in protest as it barely held against the follow-up strike.
"Do not underestimate the Golden Dawn!" Klaus shouted, pushing his glasses up his nose, sweat already beading on his forehead and dripping onto his lenses. "My steel is the hardest in the Clover Kingdom! It is the shield of the nobility!"
Mars didn't speak. He simply twisted his wrist.
The crystal blade didn't retract; it grew. Spikes erupted from the flat of the blade, driving into the steel wall like nails through paper, shattering it into brittle shards of scrap metal.
"Move!" Yuno shouted, his voice raw.
He grabbed Mimosa by the back of her robe and threw her backward just as the steel wall exploded into shrapnel.
"Wind Magic: Gale White Bow!"
Yuno formed a massive bow of compressed air. He didn't fire one arrow; he fired twenty in a single second. Thwip-thwip-thwip.
Lencar watched from the shadows, his eyes tracking the projectiles with the cold analysis of the Sovereign.
Precision, Lencar noted internally. Yuno isn't aiming for the chest plate. He's aiming for the joints. The neck. The armpits. He's looking for the gaps in the lattice structure.
The arrows struck. Most shattered against the impenetrable armor, dissolving into harmless breezes. But one managed to wedge itself into the joint of Mars's knee armor, vibrating with kinetic energy.
Mars paused. He looked down at the arrow of wind buzzing against his leg.
"Annoying," Mars droned.
The crystals on his armor shifted, flowing like liquid mercury. They enveloped the arrow and crushed it instantly. Then, the crystals on his back flared with a blinding pink light.
"Crystal Magic: Crystal Clones."
From the main body of the General, four distinct shapes broke off. They molded themselves into perfect replicas of Mars, each one wielding a different crystal weapon—a spear, a hammer, a sword, and a shield.
"He can split his mana source?" Klaus gasped, stepping back, his wand trembling. "That's... that's impossible for a human! Mana doesn't divide like that!"
He's indeed not just a human, Lencar thought, his grip tightening on the jeweled chest. He's a battalion. Those stones embedded in his body allow him to act as a hive mind.
The fight turned into a chaotic melee.
One clone charged Klaus. The noble mage gritted his teeth, his pride forcing him to stand his ground.
"Steel Magic: Spiral Lance!"
He summoned a rotating drill of steel and clashed with the clone. Steel ground against crystal, sparks flying like fireworks. Klaus was strong—his drill chipped the clone's shoulder—but the clone didn't feel pain. It didn't flinch. It swung a massive crystal hammer that forced Klaus to drop to one knee, his steel barrier cracking under the sheer weight of the blow.
Two clones rushed Yuno.
Yuno was a blur of green light. He used [Wind Magic: Heavenly Wind Ark] to create a platform of air beneath his feet, surfing through the room. He banked off a pillar, dodging a crystal spear that pulverized the stone where his head had been a second ago.
He spun, unleashing a [Wind Magic: Crescent Moon Sickle]. The blade of air was razor-thin and moving at supersonic speeds. It sliced through the neck of one clone, decapitating it cleanly.
The clone's head hit the floor with a heavy thud.
But the body didn't stop. It simply grew a new head from the stump, the crystals knitting together in seconds, and lunged again.
"It regenerates?!" Yuno gritted his teeth, blasting himself backward with a pulse of wind to avoid a pincer attack.
Meanwhile, the fourth clone had bypassed the fighters and was heading straight for Mimosa.
Mimosa was on her knees, her Plant Magic: Dream Healing Flower active, trying to patch up a deep gash on her own arm so she could support the others. She looked up, eyes wide with terror, as the crystal golem raised a spear to impale her.
"Plant Magic: Magic Flower Guidepost!" she screamed, creating a 3D map of the room's mana. "Yuno! Behind you! 45 degrees! Incoming!"
Yuno didn't question her. He trusted the intel instantly. He spun in mid-air, blind-firing a Wind Blade behind him without looking.
It struck the clone attacking Mimosa, knocking it off balance just inches before the spear tip could pierce her heart.
"Thanks!" Mimosa cried, scrambling to her feet. "His mana... it's densest in the chest! The crystals are regenerating from a core in the center!"
"The center," Klaus yelled, rallying despite his exhaustion. "Combine attacks! Yuno! Now! We hit him with everything!"
Klaus summoned his largest spell yet, pouring every drop of his remaining mana into it. "Steel Magic: Blazing Spiral Lance - MAX!"
A drill the size of a tree trunk formed, spinning with terrifying torque, the friction causing the steel to glow red-hot.
Yuno flew alongside it, his eyes glowing. "Wind Magic: Swift White Hawk!"
He wrapped his wind around Klaus's steel, accelerating the drill to impossible speeds, adding cutting power to the blunt force.
The combination spell roared across the treasury, a missile of steel and wind aimed directly at the real Mars, bypassing the clones.
Mars stood still. He didn't dodge. He didn't summon a wall.
He simply crossed his arms.
BOOM.
The impact shook the entire dungeon. Dust billowed out in a massive cloud. Lencar had to shield his eyes as gold coins rained down from the ceiling like hail.
"Did we get him?" Klaus panted, adjusting his cracked glasses, hope warring with fear in his voice.