The abandoned cellar beneath the Royal Capital was damp, cold, and entirely silent, save for the muffled, distant thumps of the ongoing invasion above. Dust motes drifted through the weak beams of moonlight that managed to pierce the cracked wooden floorboards of the ruined tavern overhead.
Lencar stepped out of his dark purple spatial portal, his heavy black cloak absorbing the meager light. The featureless wooden mask secured over his face hid his exhaustion, but his shoulders carried the distinct weight of a long, chaotic night. He had just successfully mitigated a disaster with the dwarven Black Bull, and now it was time to finish his primary objective for this particular location.
He gently deposited the unconscious form of Yuno onto the smooth, dry stone floor of the cellar.
The Golden Dawn prodigy was completely dead to the world, his chest rising and falling in a deep, rhythmic slumber. His dark hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat, and his usually pristine uniform was scuffed and covered in ash from his battle with the witch.
Lencar stood over the sleeping boy, his gaze drawn immediately to the grimoire resting near Yuno's hip.
The four-leaf clover grimoire radiated a latent, pristine magical energy that felt entirely different from the chaotic, desperate mana of ordinary mages. It pulsed with a quiet, confident destiny. Lencar had harvested many attributes tonight, but the opportunity to peek into the source code of a four-leaf grimoire was something he could not pass up. He didn't intend to permanently cripple the boy—the Clover Kingdom needed its heroes for the wars to come—but a quick application of Absolute Replication would give Lencar a profound understanding of the highest tier of wind magic.
Lencar crouched down, his boots making no sound against the stone. He reached out with his gloved hand, his fingers brushing against the cool, smooth leather of the grimoire's cover.
He prepared to channel his soul power, ready to pull the boy into the silver mist of the Soul Realm.
"What are you doing with Yuno's grimoire, you bastard!!!"
The scream was incredibly high-pitched, piercingly loud, and erupted from directly above Yuno's head.
Lencar flinched, his hand recoiling instantly as if he had touched a hot iron. He snapped his head up, his eyes widening in shock beneath his wooden mask.
Hovering just inches above Yuno's sleeping face was a tiny, glowing figure. It was a fairy, no larger than a human hand, with translucent wings and a dress made of pale green light. Her small face was twisted into a mask of absolute, furious outrage. She was glaring directly at Lencar, her tiny fists clenched so hard they were trembling.
Crap, Lencar thought, I completely forgot about the wind spirit.
He had been so focused on managing the chaos of the capital, dealing with Catherine, and suppressing Charmy's awakening, that he had entirely neglected the basic rules of elemental spirits. When Yuno had passed out from mana exhaustion, Sylph hadn't vanished or dispersed. She had simply retreated into the boy's latent mana pool to rest and recover alongside her master, rendering her virtually undetectable to standard sensory magic.
And now, she was wide awake, fiercely protective, and staring at a masked man trying to steal her master's most prized possession.
Before Lencar could raise his hands to cast a defensive spell, or even attempt to formulate a calming lie, the tiny wind spirit took a deep breath. Her small cheeks puffed out comically.
Then, she blew at him.
It looked like a child blowing out a birthday candle. A tiny, concentrated puff of air left her lips.
For a fraction of a second, nothing happened. Then, the fundamental laws of physics inside the cellar violently shattered.
The tiny puff of air caught the ambient mana in the room and instantly, explosively magnified. It didn't become a gust of wind; it became a catastrophic, localized natural disaster. A roaring, howling tornado erupted from the point of her breath, expanding outward with enough kinetic force to rip a warship in half.
Lencar was hit with a force solid enough to sweep away robust buildings
He was thrown backward off his feet, entirely losing his grip on the floor. The deafening roar of the wind drowned out his grunt of surprise. The sheer pressure of the tornado pushed against the stone walls of the cellar, and within a single second, the structural integrity of the underground room failed completely.
The heavy stone ceiling above them detonated outward. The floorboards of the ruined tavern, the foundational support beams, and tons of cobblestone street were ripped violently into the air.
The heavy stone ceiling above them detonated outward. The floorboards of the ruined tavern, the foundational support beams, and tons of cobblestone street were ripped violently into the air.
Lencar found himself sucked directly into the heart of the swirling vortex, tumbling wildly through a chaotic blender of pulverized stone, splintered wood, and roaring emerald wind. The night sky above the capital suddenly became visible as they were launched out of the underground crater and high into the open air.
Through the spinning debris, Lencar caught sight of Yuno. The boy was also caught in the updraft, floating helplessly in the violent currents, still miraculously asleep.
And right there in the center of the chaos, glowing like an angry green star, was Sylph.
Lencar's mind raced, processing the variables at a terrifying speed. He was still clutching Yuno's four-leaf grimoire in his left hand. As long as he held it, the spirit would direct the absolute maximum of her destructive output directly at him, with zero regard for the collateral damage to the surrounding city. Worse, if the grimoire was damaged in the crossfire, it could permanently affect the boy's potential.
Since she wants the book I will just give her the book for now.
Using his own wind magic to briefly stabilize his tumbling body, Lencar planted his boots against a massive, floating chunk of tavern masonry. He pushed off, angling his body toward the center of the storm.
He locked eyes with the glowing fairy and threw the four-leaf grimoire back toward her with a precise, calculated flick of his wrist.
The heavy book sailed through the violent crosswinds. Sylph gasped, abandoning her aggressive posture for a split second. She darted forward, her tiny arms wrapping fiercely around the heavy leather cover, catching Yuno's grimoire in a desperate hurry. She immediately flew down and placed it securely against Yuno's chest, pressing her small body over it like a mother hen protecting an egg.
Lencar hoped the gesture of returning the book would de-escalate the situation.
He was wrong.
Sylph looked up from the grimoire, her glowing eyes locking onto the masked man floating in the debris. The anger hadn't faded; it had hardened into lethal intent. He had touched Yuno's property. He had threatened her chosen human.
With a vicious, sweeping wave of her tiny hand, Sylph commanded the storm.
The roaring, blunt-force winds of the tornado suddenly changed frequency. The howling turned into a high-pitched, metallic shrieking. The outer layers of the spinning vortex compressed, flattening out into hundreds of massive, razor-sharp wind blades.
The blades detached from the main current and shot directly toward Lencar, cutting through floating boulders and thick wooden beams as if they were made of wet paper.
This is bad, Lencar thought, his eyes tracking the impossible speed of the incoming projectiles.