[84] Light and Darkness, Good and Evil (2)
Clearing his thoughts, Canis glared at Shirone. His stomach twisted at Shirone's fresh-faced looks—as if he'd never known hardship.
"Hmph. You must think I'm the villain. But—"
Dark power rose from Canis's shadow. It was being cut by illumination magic, yet its regeneration was astonishing.
"You are the real evil!"
As the dark power surged forward, Shirone swept the ground clean with photon output. He hurled the photon cannon mounted on his right hand. The Harvester intercepted it with its body. The photon cannon sank into the torso with a hollow thunk and the Harvester's bulk slammed back into the forest. Instead of collapsing, it twitched a long finger and taunted Shirone.
"Kukuku. Come on, come on."
The forest was practically home turf for a dark mage, but Shirone charged into it without hesitation. He rained dozens of photons overhead, left to right, right to left.
Dudududududu! Dudududududu!
A hundred illumination rounds ripped through the forest ceiling. Nade and Iruki stared in disbelief at a sky bright as midday.
"That bastard really went full power."
"He must know what he's doing. If Shirone can't stop him, the game's over for us."
Iruki turned his gaze slowly. Lucas was following Shirone into the trees. Seeing gray smoke rising ahead, he launched himself forward. An Atomic Bomb exploded with a bang, and Lucas staggered back ten meters in an instant, glaring at Iruki with terrifying eyes.
"You bastard—"
"Don't do anything pointless. We're thinking the same thing you are. Just stand there."
"Unbelievable."
No matter how reckless, a mere mage trainee stepping up to fight a B-rank criminal? Lucas drew his twin swords; a metallic rasp rang out. The temperament flowing through the Spirit Zone shimmered like heat over burning logs.
The range of bodily enhancements schema could grant was endless, but imbalance brought severe side effects, so most people stuck to tried-and-true builds.
A one-sided build wrecked the body. If you pumped the nervous system too much, for example, the muscles couldn't keep up with the nerves' speed and would tear.
Lucas's build was the mitochondria build: reinforcing mitochondria—the body's energy factories—to spike energy efficiency for a short time.
Its drawback was rapid stamina drain, but the overall, simultaneous boost across the body was tempting, which is why most users started with it.
"This could be dangerous…"
Iruki checked Nade's condition. The cold look in Nade's eyes brought back that summer five years ago—the day they collided in a downpour. That Nade could smile now was almost a miracle. He would probably never show his old face again. He hated a face that resembled the person he loved most in the world.
"Be careful, Nade. He's a schema user."
"I know. Increase firepower and suppress him early."
Lucas found the word "be careful" absurd. That was the sort of thing you told someone crossing a rickety bridge, not someone whose head might be cut off by blades any moment.
"Sigh. Kids these days…"
As Lucas scratched his head, his outline blurred. At the same time a golden flash of light appeared between Nade and Iruki. The light of instantaneous movement flickered, and the two reappeared ten meters from Lucas. Iruki checked his chest—his clothes were sharply sliced and blood seeped from the gash.
"You all right?"
"Not fatal. But he's fast."
Magic could be a transcendent force, but a mage's body was still human. Outside of magical effects, their ability to react to a schema swordsman's movements lagged.
The reverse was true too: schema couldn't simply shrug off magical power. Even student-level magic, if it landed cleanly, could be fatal.
Nade and Iruki focused their fire. Chain explosions of Atomic Bombs hissed like a serpent; Nade calculated Lucas's trajectory and fired predictive shots. But Lucas's movements weren't the mechanical patterns they'd trained against at school, and they couldn't land a decisive hit.
"Damn! These kids are better than they look."
Lucas wasn't exactly relaxed either. The mitochondria build was burning his stamina by the second. Pushing his metabolic rate to the max shot his speed up. He bypassed a wide radius in an instant, leapt up from Iruki's flank, and swung his twin swords. Nade charged from the opposite side with electricity crackling in both hands. The Electric Shock struck Lucas's abdomen, alternating vibrations shaking his body sixty times a second.
"Iruki! Now!"
Iruki was ready. Gray smoke bloomed over Lucas's face as he fell into a stunned state. Watching the detonation reaction up close, Lucas tried with all his might to move. His muscles felt charred and wouldn't respond.
"Damn it! Damn it!"
To be put on the brink of death by rookies. Was he really going to die? Thrown into an unexpected situation, even reality felt like it was slipping away.
Iruki was certain it was over. With the detonation triggered, it wasn't a hasty judgment. But suddenly the Spirit Zone vanished. Before they could figure out why, paralysis crept up from their legs. Someone else's shadow spread under their feet. Iruki didn't even need to see Arin's handiwork to know whose it was.
"Damn it!"
Lucas fought the alternating vibration with everything he had and broke free. He lunged at Nade, who had humiliated him. Pushed to death's door, his rage peaked and a furious look crossed his face.
"Nade! Run!"
Even while stunned, Nade generated electricity in both hands. Lucas opened his twin swords and tried to split left and right. As the blades sliced the air, two unexpectedly thick pillars of ice erupted on either side of Nade.
Clang—the twin swords struck the ice and lodged. Lucas's pupils trembled in shock. His swordsmanship could split rock, yet he was stopped by nothing more than two columns of ice.
Lucas turned slowly and saw a familiar face. The female teacher he had thrown off a cliff a moment ago stood there.
"Teacher Shiina!"
Nade cried out, his face lighting up. Shiina said nothing. Her eyes were emotionless and unreadable; she looked only at Lucas.
* * *
"Hah. Hah."
Ettela's knees, braced against a tree trunk, felt like they might give way. She'd been in a thirty-minute chase. Still, she couldn't shake Arkein completely.
"The poison is spreading. I can't delay treatment any longer."
Sitting down, Ettela tore open the waist of her monastic robe. Blackened blood flowed from the scar above her navel—a wound from the Poison Cutter. She'd been using breathing techniques to slow the poison, but that was only temporary. She had to draw it out by mouth, but the location made that difficult.
Ettela slid her hands behind her hips and gripped the tree trunk, interlocking her fingers. Lowering her head and bending over, her spine creaked. Stretching her spine with her erector spinae muscles, her hips lifted and her back arched sharply. Curling her body into a spiral, she finally reached under her navel with her lips.
She pushed the toxins that had spread through her body back into the wound. Then, filling her lungs, she sucked. The moment the poison left her, a burning agony surged through her. She winced and forced her head up. Spitting black blood onto the grass, the blades withered in an instant.
Life returned to Ettela's face. She removed her crooked glasses and tossed them aside, then balled up the torn robe she had ripped at her waist and struck herself with it.
"Whew. I'll live a little longer now."
The trembling Spirit Zone regained its integrity, and the surrounding energies poured into her in a rush of synesthetic sensation. Eyes wide, she kicked off the ground and launched herself upward. Dozens of inky black hands pushed up from the earth like spilled ink.
"Already up to here…"
That she could relentlessly pursue Joner, a search specialist, proved how agile a dark archmage could become when she embraced darkness.
"You've removed the poison, I see. The more I see you, the more I like you."
Slitting through the curtain of darkness, Arkein appeared. But Ettela no longer needed to run.
"It won't be easy from now on."
"Decided to get serious? Then I won't hold back—I intend to enjoy this."
Ettela clenched her fists and the force of the Yin‑Yang Wave filled her. Arkein detected the change instantly. She had completely abandoned the Spirit Zone.
Mages used the Spirit Zone; swordsmen used schema. Monks trained both. A monk's purpose wasn't to climb to lofty places, but to embrace the world with the broadest heart.
Arkein disliked that. If she'd focused on one field from the start, no one on the continent would have been ignorant of her name.
"How unfortunate. Talent that could stand at the top of the world chose asceticism? But it's pointless to lecture someone who doesn't even intend to climb."
Arkein extended a hand and spoke a spell. There were counters for schema users.
"Servants of the Darkness."
Countless spiders crawled from the forest shadows. The sight of spiders the size of human heads skittering about sent chills up the spine.
Grrrrrr!
But the true worth of the servants of darkness was yet to come. Beside Arkein, a Dark Golem over three meters tall rose.
Its face was buried in its shoulders; its torso and limbs swelled as if wrapped in yarn. Its arms were long and its legs short.
The servants of darkness were shadow minions that converted one hundred percent of mental energy into physical force. They differed fundamentally from dark powers that absorbed external energy. They weren't immune to light like magical constructs, but at night there was no war engine more devastating.
"Go, my servants."
The opening salvo came from Dark Spiders. With so many tangled together, it was impossible to tell how many moved.
Ettela threw jabs and sent spiders scattering in every direction. Then she struck a straight into a cluster and the shadows exploded with a bang.
Arrrrrr!
Through the scattering spiders, the Dark Golem charged. As Ettela sprang through the air like a flying squirrel, the golem's thick forearm slammed the ground. The earth rippled like waves and finally couldn't take the shock and shattered. The force rivaled the earth magic Eruption and Ettela's face went pale. The archmage's entire mental power had been converted into brute force; its strength was beyond imagination.
The golem planted both hands in the earth and tilted its head. Then, swinging its arms like war hammers, it struck again.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
A flurry of attacks—its two fists spinning like windmills—forced Ettela into a relentless retreat. Speed, flexibility, and destructive power combined: the Dark Golem was a terrifying weapon.
She couldn't keep falling back forever, so Ettela stamped the ground at the end of her dash and faced the golem head-on.
Arrrrrr!
Leaping into the hulking mass like she'd leaped into a wall, Ettela drove her fist into its flank.
Thud!
The enormous golem staggered. An exchange of equal force occurred, and a shock of Arkein's mental power surged inward.