Lencar moved.
He didn't jump down from his perch. He didn't shout a heroic battle cry to announce his presence to the world. He simply tapped the silver ring on his finger and focused his mind with pinpoint precision.
"[Spatial Magic]: [Targeted Displacement]."
He didn't target the falling crystal blade. He didn't target the unconscious Clover Knights. He targeted the massive, heavy, immense mana signature of the Diamond General himself.
A black, jagged ripple in the fabric of space tore open directly beneath Mars's feet. It didn't make a sound. It didn't flash with bright light. It was simply a hole in reality, a tear in the canvas of the world.
Before the executioner's blade could connect—before the razor-sharp crystal even came within a foot of Asta's neck—the floor beneath Mars ceased to exist.
Floomp.
The twelve-foot-tall crystal Titan fell into the rift. The spatial tear snapped shut instantly, leaving behind perfectly smooth, unbroken stone where a monster had stood a fraction of a second before.
The heavy, suffocating mana pressure in the room vanished in a microsecond. The sudden absence of Mars's oppressive aura created a physical vacuum, a rush of cool, stale air that swept over the bloody treasury, rustling the torn cloaks of the fallen knights.
The room was completely silent, save for the ragged, desperate breathing of the unconscious Clover Knights. They lay amidst the scattered gold and the broken pink crystal, entirely oblivious to the fact that they had just been saved by the very thief who had doomed them to this unwinnable fight in the first place.
Lencar stood up on his perch, his muscles uncoiling. He brushed a speck of crystal dust from his black cloak. He looked down at the sleeping heroes. Mimosa's chest was rising and falling steadily; her residual plant magic was already working on a subconscious level, emitting a faint green glow that sought out their critical injuries to stabilize them. If they didn't wake up soon, backup from the other Magic Knight squads currently securing the upper levels would arrive. They were safe.
But Lencar wasn't finished.
He had to catch Mars before the General realized what had happened, reoriented himself, and started destroying the landscape blindly.
Lencar pulled his wooden mask down tighter over his face, feeling the rough bark against his cheeks. He felt the hum of the Demon-Dweller Sword stored within his Void Vault, the ancient weapon practically vibrating with anticipation against the confines of the dimensional pocket.
He was going to test himself against the mountain that had just broken the protagonist.
"Rest well, heroes," Lencar whispered to the empty, glittering room, his voice barely audible. "The shadow will take the night shift."
He tapped his ring, visualizing the coordinates he had set just moments before. He pictured the freezing, stormy peaks miles away from the borders of the Clover Kingdom.
"[Spatial Magic]: [Coordinate Shift]."
Lencar dissolved into the shadows, leaving the Kiten Dungeon and its treasures behind, ready to face the monster he had just stolen.
The transition was instantaneous. One moment, Lencar was breathing the stale, metallic air of the underground treasury; the next, his lungs were filled with freezing ozone, electrified rain, and the raw fury of the Thunder-Crag Peaks.
He materialized on a flat, obsidian plateau near the summit. The storm was violently beautiful tonight. Lightning arced horizontally across the bruised sky, illuminating the jagged, black rocks in strobe-light flashes of purple and blinding white. The wind howled like a wounded beast, tearing at Lencar's cloak the moment he arrived.
Fifty feet away from him, the Heavy Titan was already on its feet.
Mars had landed hard, but his crystal armor had absorbed the shock of the spatial drop. The Diamond General was looking around, his massive crystalline head snapping back and forth. His mana flared, chaotic and confused. He had gone from a subterranean vault to the peak of a hurricane in the blink of an eye.
"Welcome to the Thunder-Crag Peaks," Lencar called out. He didn't shout, but he layered his voice with a pulse of [Wind Magic], carrying the sound perfectly through the howling storm so it reached Mars's ears with crystal clarity. "I hope you aren't too disoriented, General," Lencar called out.
Mars turned. The massive twelve-foot golem of pink crystal locked its faceless visor onto the lone figure standing in the rain.
"Who are you?" Mars's voice grated from inside the armor, distorted and thick with sudden rage. "A spatial mage? You dare interfere with the Diamond Kingdom's conquest?"
"I don't care about your kingdom's conquest," Lencar replied, stepping forward, his boots splashing in the puddles of rainwater.
Mars didn't speak again. The crystals on his back flared with blinding light.
"Crystal Magic: Talos Puppet Swarm!"
Mars didn't just summon clones; he summoned a small army. Dozens of jagged, humanoid crystal figures erupted from the wet obsidian floor, each armed with blades growing directly out of their forearms. They swarmed forward, a tidal wave of pink minerals intent on tearing Lencar to shreds.
Lencar's heart rate spiked, a thrill of genuine, life-threatening adrenaline flooding his system. He didn't draw his sword. He wanted to test his magical capacity first.
"Let's see how long my mana holds out against a battery," Lencar muttered.
He raised his hands. "[Wind Magic]: Crescent Hurricane!"
Lencar spun, unleashing a localized tornado of razor-thin wind blades. The blades shrieked as they hit the crystal puppets. Lencar's wind magic, refined through months of brutal training, was highly compressed. It sheared through the first wave of puppets, shattering their torsos and sending crystal shrapnel flying into the storm.
But Mars's magic was relentless. For every puppet Lencar destroyed, two more rose from the earth.
He's using the ambient moisture and the minerals in the rock to supplement his spell, Lencar analyzed, dodging a spear thrust from a puppet that had gotten too close. He's a walking terraformer. If I stay at range, he'll just drown me in numbers.
Lencar activated his Strider's Plumes. He became a blur of black and grey, darting through the swarm. He used [Earth Magic: Bedrock Anchor] to manipulate the ground beneath the puppets, causing the obsidian to turn into liquid mud for a fraction of a second, tripping them up before he blasted them point-blank with concussive bursts of wind from his Black Iron Gauntlets.
He was moving with terrifying efficiency, treating the battlefield like a violent dance floor. But Mars was not a stationary target.
The Heavy Titan charged through its own swarm, shattering its puppets to get to Lencar. Mars swung a fist the size of a boulder.
Lencar saw it coming. He didn't have time to dodge completely. He crossed his arms, flooding his gauntlets with [Reinforcement Magic], layering his bones and skin with dense mana.
CRASH.
The Titan's fist connected. The impact was astronomical. Lencar was thrown backward like a cannonball, skipping across the wet obsidian plateau. He tumbled, grinding to a halt near the edge of a sheer cliff.
Pain flared in his forearms. He tasted copper. Two ribs had cracked under the sheer kinetic transfer.
Fast. He's incredibly fast for his size, Lencar thought, coughing as he forced himself to his feet. He didn't panic. He tapped his ring, allowing a trickle of the Quintessence to flood his system. He felt the warm, green fire wash over his cracked ribs, knitting the bone back together in seconds. The pain vanished, replaced by a surge of vitality.
"You are a pest," Mars rumbled, advancing slowly. "Your magic is weak. You lack the mass to harm me."
"Mass isn't everything," Lencar said, wiping rainwater from his mask.
Lencar threw out his hands. "[Earth Magic]: Obsidian Lances!"
He used the environment against Mars. Massive, jagged spikes of the black volcanic rock erupted from the plateau, angling sharply to impale the Titan.
Mars didn't even slow down. The crystal armor clashed against the obsidian. The volcanic rock shattered. Mars's Nemean Armor was simply too dense, its molecular structure superior to the natural stone.
Lencar fought for another ten minutes, cycling through most of the offensive spell in his grimoire. He hit Mars with compressed wind drills, he tried to trap him in sinkholes, he used spatial tears to redirect Mars's own crystal shards back at him.
But it was like fighting a glacier. Lencar could chip away at the ice, but the glacier simply kept moving forward, regenerating whatever minor damage Lencar inflicted. Mars was an engine of a massive, oppressive magic.
Lencar vaulted backward, putting fifty feet of distance between them. He was breathing lightly, the rain plastering his hair to his neck beneath his hood. His mana reserves were still healthy, but the output required to defeat Mars without killing him was inefficient.
"You're right," Lencar said loudly, his voice cutting through a crack of thunder. "My magic lacks the mass to break your armor. You are a masterpiece of magical engineering, Mars. A perfect, impenetrable battery."
Mars stopped. The Titan raised its massive sword, pointing it at Lencar. "Then die."
Lencar let out a low, breathy chuckle. It wasn't a sound of defeat. It was the sound of a predator deciding to stop playing with its food.
"I said my magic lacks the mass," Lencar corrected, rolling his shoulders. "I never said I did."
It was time to toggle the switch.