"I am Revolte — the Divine Technique."
Following Schlacht's command, Revolte finally seized his chance — four long blades, four strikes of Divine Technique: Sword Shatter!
In hand, the blades were light as down; falling, they turned heavy as a mountain — a fusion of speed and power enough to cleave a peak in two.
More than that, the blades themselves were forged from some special material, unbreakable no matter what struck them. Calling this a Divine Technique was no exaggeration.
Nanoda had already felt the power of Divine Technique: Sword Shatter firsthand. Meeting it head-on, even a heavy blow layered with Severance Magic only managed an even trade.
Perhaps because she knew the blades' material was unusual, she couldn't quite picture severing them outright.
"Nanoda, I'll remember you — a warrior of our own kind."
If the blades couldn't be dealt with, then deal with the one holding them instead.
"Impossible."
The blades struck the ground with a thunderous crash, four cracks of varying depth spreading outward as all four long swords buried themselves deep in the earth.
By the time Revolte tried to wrench them free, it was already too late.
Two arcs of light flashed across his throat, and two lines of blood sprayed out!
With nothing more than a light, casual sweep of her Severance-Magic-laced broken horn, Nanoda flickered past Revolte's massive frame — and just like that, reaped the life of a Demon General.
No matter how he turned it over, Revolte couldn't understand why his blades had failed to strike her.
With a heavy thud, Revolte collapsed, his hands still gripping the long swords.
Paradox Magic: Zeno's Tortoise.
The half-step that could never be closed.
A paradox within a paradox.
It was the very magic she had once used in her battle against the King of War, years ago — and now, after all this time, Nanoda called on it again.
For as long as the spell held, no attack could touch her.
Nanoda closed the distance under a barrage of attacks that could never land, and the instant the spell ended, she struck — sealing his throat in a single blow.
"Impossible..." Schlacht, silent until now, finally made a sound, his mismatched black-and-white eyes widening slightly.
In the future he had foreseen, Nanoda should have taken Divine Technique: Sword Shatter head-on, severed one of Revolte's arms, and finally fallen into a state of exhaustion.
Zaha's Imperial Prison Dragon would grind down Nanoda's Defensive Magic with its breath, Solitär's Mana Scatter Magic would land a hit, and Briz would block the broken horn she hurled with her very last strength.
The result should have been Nanoda taking serious injury from that Mana Scatter Magic strike.
That was how it was supposed to go.
"What magic did you just use?" For once, Schlacht lost his composure.
Revolte's death had shattered the delicate balance in an instant.
With him gone, no one remained who could create an opening to pin Nanoda down in close combat.
More importantly, that spell was something his foresight had never shown him.
In Schlacht's eyes, the future kept shifting endlessly, as though nothing were fixed anymore.
"Why don't you guess? Aren't you the one who can see the future?"
Nanoda let out a breath of relief. The strain was still within what she could handle, and she remained comfortably in control.
Perhaps it was the peculiar nature of Zeno's Tortoise as a Paradox Magic — the sense of restrained, locked-down movement she'd always felt with it before had vanished entirely this time.
Behind her, Revolte's fallen body was slowly dissolving into invisible Mana particles.
"Why... couldn't I land a hit..."
His cold voice carried a note of grief, and all that remained were his four long swords, lying silent on the ground.
"Things seem a bit off, don't they, Schlacht? Was his death just groundwork for our victorious future?"
Even with an ally dead, Solitär still wore that same hollow smile, chalking everything up to Schlacht's grand design.
"So that's it." Realization dawned through Schlacht's confusion, and he slowly closed those eyes that could see the future. "It seems I'm the one who's been played for a fool."
"Lord Schlacht, what exactly is going on?"
Briz suddenly noticed his own body was gradually turning transparent.
It wasn't just him — Zaha, still astride the Imperial Prison Dragon, and even Schlacht himself showed the very same symptom.
"Time's up. I've lost again. But you can't kill me — I never belonged to the 'present' to begin with. I'm destined... to die in the past."
Nanoda, wary of Solitär and the Imperial Prison Dragon and already moving to finish off her next target, slowed her steps to a stop.
Schlacht drew from within his robes a weathered, glowing stone.
In a flash of white light, only Nanoda and Solitär remained — the two Demons left on the field.
The three Demons who had come from the past to the present vanished without a trace, as though returning to that very past.
In Solitär's mind, Schlacht's telepathic voice still lingered.
"Surrender. Choose to live."
Revolte was dead, and the rest of her allies had vanished without a trace.
The smile froze on Solitär's face.
Had the correction of the future failed? What was she supposed to do now?
"Again?"
This wasn't the first or second time this time-space travel magic had gotten under Nanoda's skin. Last time, being dragged into it out of nowhere had nearly cost her the peaceful life she'd built.
She turned her gaze to Solitär, the only one left.
The urge to kill began rising within her.
From their first clash to now, Nanoda felt that Solitär was someone forever walking a different road from her own.
It was a shame to kill off a top-tier Great Demon, but removing a threat to Gaderia came first.
"Sorry... Solitär..."
Just as Nanoda raised her blade — her horn — and stepped forward, Solitär suddenly dropped to her knees.
The smile was gone from her face, and her voice, once tinged with warmth, turned flat and cold. Expressionless, she begged, "I surrender. Please don't kill me."
It looked utterly insincere, without a trace of a desperate struggle for survival.
"Surely you don't think you'll walk away alive at this point."
"I'm willing to submit to Aura's Magic of Obedience. I'll do anything you ask — just spare me."
Hearing this, Nanoda hesitated, if only for a moment.
If there were conditions attached to the Magic of Obedience — some agreed-upon terms...
Aura was the perfect example of it.
Perhaps it could be controlled after all.
"Did Schlacht teach you this?"
"Yes. He told me to survive, but the idea itself was mine." Solitär answered, looking every bit sincere.
Nanoda couldn't tell whether this was some scheme Schlacht had left behind to steer the future.
Kill her, or not? Should she give Solitär one more chance?
Nanoda suddenly thought of that night in Gaderia.
Yuna, going out to find Übel after she'd snuck out of the orphanage, had run into Solitär there.
Solitär had nearly harmed her own disciple's disciple.
If she were Frieren, she probably wouldn't hesitate for even a moment.
"I'll give you one chance. Remember — I could kill you at any moment."
Solitär understood Humans well. She'd just always put that understanding to the wrong use.
Solitär blinked, caught off guard. She'd meant to say, before Nanoda struck, something like: What's the use? I begged for my life, but you're going to kill me anyway, aren't you?
Revolte's death had shaken Solitär's faith in Schlacht's careful planning.
"By the way, why haven't I seen Grausam?"
Throughout the entire battle, Nanoda hadn't once caught sight of the enemy she considered the most troublesome.
"I don't know. Schlacht said he couldn't see Grausam's future, and he never found him either." Solitär answered obediently.
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