[85] Light and Darkness, Good and Evil (3)
"Heh heh. Is that a human fist?"
A fist technique that could stand alongside magic. And it didn't stop at a single blow. Ethella held her breath and kept throwing punches in rapid succession. Her wrists throbbed with each heavy strike against the darkness, but the impact felt by her foe was several times greater than what she endured.
Arkein ground his teeth and steadied his mind. Ethella's strikes were not only powerful; the nature of their impact was unusual. Rather than shredding the surface, they generated shockwaves inside the body. The problem was the interference that occurred as those shockwaves overlapped.
"Wave-type. This is dangerous."
Gaaaaaaah!
The Dark Golem writhed in pain as Ethella's flurry continued. Her eyes flashed. She stepped in and slammed her palm into the golem's solar plexus; a vast ripple spread through it, producing roughly four hundred interference events. That meant an internal shockwave erupted with a force 400 times stronger than Ethella's palm itself.
The golem convulsed as if it had swallowed a bomb; its black flesh bulged grotesquely. It looked ready to burst.
"Krrrrgh!"
Arkein's face pinched as he forced himself to hold. If the Spirit Zone broke, the Dark Golem would collapse. When the trembling from the shockwaves subsided, Ethella bit her lip.
"Still not enough, huh? I should've layered it more."
The Yin‑Yang Wave Fist was a boxing art that used ripples to stack waves inside the opponent's body, then drove in a final, devastating surge to explode them from within. It took time to reach its peak, but once the finishing blow landed the amount of shock was terrifying.
But Arkein endured. The damage the Dark Golem had taken equaled four hundred times a Schema practitioner's strike, yet an archmage's mental fortitude was no easy thing to break.
"Not bad, kid."
"This won't end with that. It's not too late to quit."
"Kukukuku! Still got reserves, do you? How fortunate. I'll warm up properly after a long time."
When Arkein raised his hand, the Dark Spiders all began to flow into the Dark Golem's body. The golem swelled and swelled until it finally punched through the cavern ceiling that had hidden the sky.
Ethella's head spun. This was the true scale of Arkein's infamous power that had stood against nations. It could probably level a small or medium city in days.
"How's that? Impressive, right? Call it whatever wave art you like—you'll have to pound at it. The abyss in my golem runs deeper than the sea."
A ten‑meter‑plus golem—whether shockwaves could even propagate properly through so much mass was doubtful. Still, Ethella clenched her fists until they felt like they would crumble. She would become the world's light. Even if waiting meant death, she had to press forward.
Graaaar!
The Dark Golem strode with a thunderous roar. Despite its size, its speed remained unreal. The ability to move at the speed of thought was the main reason the denizens of darkness were classed as overpowered.
Thud!
The golem's fist slammed down where Ethella stood. Seismic waves toppled trees; the ground ground like a hundred moles tunneling beneath it.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Punch after punch struck, shockwaves ravaging the surroundings. At the sixth impact, Ethella changed direction and climbed onto the golem's forearm. She ran up to its shoulder and leapt, crossing her arms as she fell. As she descended, she struck with a flurry of fists too fast to see.
Drrrrrrrrrr!
It was the secret technique of the Yin‑Yang Wave Fist: Thousand‑Hand Guanyin — Thunderclap Strike.
"Krrrrgh!"
Sparks kept popping in Arkein's mind. Impacts exceeding thirty per second flooded in. If the ripples generated per second were roughly three hundred, and it took two seconds to land, that would be six hundred ripples. That alone would create about three thousand interference events. But the essence of the Yin‑Yang Wave Fist lay in the final strike. If that connected—considering interference, refraction, and reflection together—the number of interferences two seconds later would be…
"Sixty‑eight thousand."
A shock amplified sixty‑eight thousand times Ethella's blow would erupt internally. Arkein's hair stood on end. Yet despite the dread, the corners of his mouth twitched into a strange smile.
"Kukuku! Now I feel alive."
He had no thought of fleeing. If the enemy was strong, he would crush them with even greater force. How he had hungered for this—the glory of dueling countless geniuses flashed before him like a procession of lanterns.
GRAAARRR!
The Dark Golem twisted its torso like a corkscrew. Ethella, who had landed on the ground, drew her hands to her sides. The final, devouring surge of the Thousand‑Hand Guanyin—the Great Thunderclap—pressed into her palms. As the golem's fist rotated and descended, Ethella gritted her teeth and thrust both palms forward.
"Great Thunderclap!"
Paooooooom!
A mushroom cloud blossomed from the mountain's mid‑slope.
Within a twenty‑meter radius every tree was uprooted; the once‑thick forest became a wasteland.
* * *
Stars sparkled in the night sky. Ethella blinked, feeling starlight spill through the broken branches.
"..."
How much time had passed?
No—how far had she been flung?
The trees where she'd landed lay snapped and shattered.
At the end of that ruinous trail Ethella lay sprawled on her back, unable to move a finger. Her muscles twitched of their own accord. She had no feeling left in her fingertips or toes.
"Master…"
Ethella was combat‑incapacitated.
"The archmage really is strong."
Even the ultimate of the Yin‑Yang Wave Fist had been insufficient to stop the archmage's enforcers of darkness.
Was this what cataclysmic magic felt like?
The remorse of failing to eradicate evil gnawed at her.
If only she'd layered the waves more, if only she'd perfectly mastered the Thousand‑Hand Guanyin's secret form, if only she'd pushed the Great Thunderclap's power higher.
"Ugh. Sob…"
Ethella lifted a trembling arm to cover her eyes. Hot tears streamed like a waterfall.
"I'm ashamed, Master."
Her sobs echoed through the mountains.
Figures (1)
Shirone and Kanis didn't lose track of each other despite the forest's tangled terrain. Their exchange was cautious rather than frenzied, psychological more than a pure contest of firepower. Because light and darkness were opposing properties, a subtle imbalance could tilt the battle in an instant. It all came down to who threw the first punch.
Kanis felt the greater pressure. Though he sought counters against the dark magic, Shirone never gave an opening; his tactical maneuvers alone kept the tension high. Through their neural link the Harvester's thoughts flowed over.
- He's decent. To stay that cold‑headed in a fight isn't something just anyone can do.
- Should we play along and let him fool us? We need to create variables. We can't keep being dragged around.
- Hmm. It's like mirror chess.
Mirroring the opponent prevents the power gap from widening until midgame. Then, when the pressured side slips, you strike that gap. But if the opponent holds their pace to the end, the one who ceded initiative pays dearly.
"He doesn't show any sign of wavering. If this keeps up, we could be in trouble."
Kanis judged it advantageous to seize the initiative. He sent the intent down the mental channel.
- Havi. What do you think?
- Huh? Oh—yeah. The longer this drags on, the worse for us. Let's go on the offensive.
When the reply through the channel came slower than usual, Kanis opened space with a Dark Port and asked aloud.
- What's wrong?
- I felt a seismic wave a moment ago. It's two kilometers from here.
The Harvester's senses were finely tuned; by detecting vibrations they could see, hear, and even taste.
- A seismic wave?
- It's still transmitting. With this magnitude, only Arkein could cause it. He must have cast one of those darkness enforcers.
- Master did? But those darkness enforcers are his trump card. What does that mean?
- Could be good, could be bad. Good means the old man's inspiration is razor‑sharp. Bad means he met an opponent strong enough to make him use those enforcers.
- If the opponent's strong… Alpheas?
- That's the most reasonable guess. Anyway, we should move. If Arkein found Alpheas, we should clean this area up.
- Got it. Let's go.
Kanis closed the distance and struck. Unexpectedly, Shirone didn't fall back and met him head‑on. The ability to instantly sense the shift in flow and hold the initiative was almost animalistic.
Kanis invoked a shadow power. Shadows, shaped by a mage's individuality, took a form; Kanis' version resembled an offensive double‑edged saw of darkness.
When Shirone fired a barrage of photon cannons, the shadow power chipped away like rock lashed by waves. Light was darkness's natural predator, yet Kanis stubbornly clung to dark magic. He could wield basic spells from every school, but this was no time for mere tricks.
"Hold out. He can't cast such powerful magics forever. If we endure, the flow will change."
As Kanis expected, Shirone's mental fatigue accumulated by the second. Even with the attribute advantage, dark magic's defensive capacity was not something to dismiss.
"I need more power."
Photons are highly active and inevitably leak. So Shirone compressed photons faster than they escaped, increasing their mass. It burned more mental energy, but the force swelled; the white sphere of light shuddered and grew.
Kanis sensed the change immediately.
- What's that?
- The power's increased. I'll take this one.
A Harvester stepped in before Kanis, bracing his belly. When the massive photon cannon slammed into him, he clapped his hands to crush the photons. The photons didn't shatter; instead, with a hollow sound the Harvester's body was driven through the forest and flew away.
Kanis' face went slack.
- Havi. You okay?
- I'm fine. Ridiculously heavy. This is a murder‑weapon.
Shirone floated a photon cannon above his crown, then spawned others above both shoulders. Three photon cannons in total swelled with tremendous mass, and the Harvester widened his stance and bellowed defiantly.
"Kikikiki! Tickle! Is that all your trump move?"
"No. That was practice."
"..."
The Harvester's voice cut off. When the second shot—twice as powerful as the first—fired, the trees along the flash split open. Kanis' mental channel accelerated to its limit and the Harvester's thought streamed in.
- Kanis. Dodge this.
- If we start dodging we'll lose the initiative. We can't back down from this fight.
- I don't think we can block it!
- We can. Absorb my mental strength.
- Damn it! You're a real pain!
When Kanis' mental energy poured into him, the Harvester's body swelled enormously. The shadow that split open like a predator's maw roared at the three beams.
"Kraaaaar!"
Light struck darkness.
* * *
Creas was a warm southern city, and it was summer. But at the peak of an impassable bridge a snowy blizzard raged.
Iruki and Neid tightened their collars. The blizzard obscured their view, making Shiina and Lucas blur into the whiteness.
"Ugh. It's freezing. What's going on? Why did Shiina‑sensei cast magic?"
"Maybe she's come to her senses. She might have awakened when she fell off the cliff."