Chapter 19. Thaumaturgy Battle: Rin vs. Flat II
"Hmm, there was actually someone else who used a similar method, so I picked up a bit of it myself."
Rin smiled triumphantly, as if proud of her adventurous experiences.
"As the saying goes, 'Other colors mixed with red will also be dyed red,' Flat."
The person across from her might have heard, but he had no breath to spare for an answer. Finally unable to keep running, a panting Flat swung his arms to interfere:
" Play ball -Intervene in the Barrage."
Within the elemental rain, a massive number of beams veered off course. They converged toward magical bullets of different attributes with the momentum of a suicide attack, exploding their respective prana and clearing each other out.
Due to the magical interference, the number of elemental bullets closing in on Flat dropped sharply. The few lethal rounds that broke through his defenses were either dodged with a stumble or intercepted by unknown blocks of magical energy Flat manifested.
Despite the ferocity of the rain, not a single scratch touched Flat under the guidance of his thaumaturgical skill as he evaded along a circular path.
However, Flat was starting to look a bit disheveled.
While messily dismantling various elemental rounds, he reached out his hand to counter-attack during the occasional gaps.
"Probing Round (Bullet) · Number Two (Vray)."
Guided by his finger-gun aim, dark fluctuations appeared around Rin, excluding the starry sky behind her which remained impossible to interfere with.
Rin watched the appearance of the magical shockwaves with indifference; as the waves closed in on her, the phenomenon suddenly vanished on its own.
"Dissipated again... Whoa!"
Before a failed Flat could even feel disappointed, he was grazed by a lightning-attribute bullet, his body stumbling from the momentary paralysis.
Fortunately, Flat's reaction speed was lightning-fast; he quickly deployed formed Ether to give himself a buffer, successfully stabilizing himself. Flat gave a hollow "Ahaha" laugh, patted his watch, and continued running wildly to avoid the lethal rounds.
The formation Rin had deployed—[Five Stars of Rotation]. That reactionary device blocked every piece of magecraft Flat threw. Pure magical power was meaningless against Rin.
The strongest attack, the strongest defense.
It was as if...
She was practically a super-artillery turret!
Leaping over lightning, skirting around fire, Flat—still running in circles—finally realized the source of Rin's strength from the perspective of a gamer. For a hybrid "Assassin-Caster" like Flat, he couldn't win a direct shootout with a heavy turret.
As a hybrid, when he tried to seize control of Rin's fire to reflect it, the rounds became difficult to control the moment they were pushed to an area even slightly away from himself. The closer they got to Rin, the higher the difficulty of interfering with the shots became. On top of that, even if he converted all the "Void (Ether)" he could manipulate into high-density magic bullets, he fundamentally couldn't become a turret like Rin in terms of specialization.
Flat's only two choices were to dodge or block. The "berserk" combat style Rin chose had terrible compatibility with Flat, who relied on interference and kiting. Flat suspected that it might be precisely because of this compatibility that Rin had selected this specific strategy.
His intuition told him one thing: continuing to dodge would be bad.
While evading, Flat pointed his finger, triggering several more magical ambushes. But every single one was automatically neutralized. High-output magecraft could not cross that threshold; Flat already knew this.
Flicking his fingers—a mere single-digit number of seemingly casual provocations—he constructed a makeshift Binding-type Mystic Eye. This was already in the realm of ultimate techniques; though such magical, temporary Mystic Eyes could be broken with brute force, they remained fatal to a magus.
However, the moment the Mystic Eye formed, ten gems in the starry sky quietly shattered. An opaque curtain of light shielded Rin, leaving no visible part of her except for the gem still firing magic bullets. Then, the curtain gradually became mirrored, reflecting Flat's own silhouette.
It showed signs of forming a reflection-type Mystic Eye Killer; to avoid the effect feeding back into himself, Flat quickly de-summoned the Mystic Eye. Only then did the light curtain cease its activity and shatter along with it.
"...That domain in the sky really does have automatic anti-magecraft capabilities."
Muttering to himself, Flat reined in his impulsive urge to play a high-intensity shootout and attempted a different, less common approach.
"Total Ether Construction (Overflow the ether)."
This wasn't the small-scale Ether used for blocking earlier, but a direct manifestation of a large, materialized element. An "incorporeal yet undeniably present" shield-like object.
While maintaining his interference to weaken the barrage, Flat stopped and hid himself behind the Ether elemental block.
"One, two, three, four—five!"
He confirmed the consumption rate of the "Total Ether Construction." In an instant, Flat made a "Yes" or "No" judgment in his mind.
The final conclusion: It's doable.
Clatter.
With a clear sound, Flat detached from the shield-like mass, leaving it to its own devices. Then, facing the magic bullets—he began to run toward them.
The goal was to get Flat right next to Rin. For this purpose, he cranked his interference intensity to the maximum. For a moment, it was as if an invisible wall existed; the magic bullets splitting around him almost vanished.
He was very close now, both strategically and in terms of distance. Strategically, this was undoubtedly the correct choice; in terms of distance, despite being filled with magic bullets, it was only a hundred meters.
He wasn't good at close-quarters combat. However, Flat had confirmed he didn't need a prolonged melee.
Breaking through the rain of magic bullets. Deflecting those super-messy contents. Small bursts of fire, small gales, and the occasional flicker of electricity and damp, dark fluids left the ground behind him riddled with holes.
The Average One (Five Element Wielder) is terrifying!
With a strained smile, Flat worked the Magic Circuits throughout his body without pause.
As the magic bullets successively self-destructed, a streamlined Ether polymer briefly appeared in front of Flat.
"Alright, right now, Charge~!"
Loudly hyping himself up, Flat sprinted like a soldier charging through a hail of bullets with a shield.
"Honestly, you..."
Even Rin wore an expression of not knowing what to say.
Despite it being a foolish and impulsively high-spirited decision, he was truly closing the gap with Rin. The magic bullet rain, forcibly weakened by eighty percent, struck the formed Ether elemental block, clearly slowing him down, but the elemental block showed no signs of collapsing.
'But what if I just back away while synchronizing a mass of thaumaturgical formulas? What will you do then?'
Rin held her forehead in exasperation, but for the moment, she abandoned that move and didn't retreat an inch.
She simply continued to balance the gem on her fingertip, firing Gandr like a finger-gun.
60 meters.
At this distance, she didn't expect this level of Gandr to be enough to handle him.
"One through three, rotate in sequence."
Four gems descended from the "Starry Sky," spinning around the tips of her left hand.
"First Spring Thunder, Second Hundred Thunders, Third Thousand Thunders. Dance, connect, and thus run wild."
Subsequently, only one gem remained on the tip of her left index finger.
Yellow, purple, and red gems drifted to the side where they wouldn't obstruct the firing of Rin's right hand, spinning to form a magic circle.
The moment the gem on her right hand—the one firing bullets—shattered into dust, Rin snapped her right arm back, pressed her left arm against the magic circle, and suddenly thrust it forward:
"Using the First of the Beginning as the lead, transform into wings—This is the Magic Sword of All Creation (Vorübergehend schwert schmieden)."
Flat's eyes widened.
Aimed straight for his face—
A volley several times stronger than the previous magic bullets crashed forward without mercy!
"Waaaaaaaah!!"
Flat let out an extremely exaggerated scream.
This was, for once, a quantity that exceeded the amount Flat was accustomed to interfering with instantaneously. Before he could even begin to interfere, the Ether shield had already sparked countless eye-searing special effects.
" Play Ball-Start Interference! Play- Just Intervene!"
Though it differed slightly from the panic of an ordinary person, Flat was indeed panicking now.
Tohsaka is too strong!
Encountering a "Super-type" strike he hadn't even predicted, the damage exceeded his calculations. It was like thinking the opponent's character level was 50 when it was actually 70—a sense of disorientation where he couldn't tell left from right.
Because the opponent was an Average One, interfering with this elemental rain was difficult. The main reason was that the types and flow of the elements were too chaotic, and combined with a quantity meant to drown a person, it was hard to sort through. It was only thanks to Flat's exceptionally large mana capacity that the Ether shield didn't disintegrate immediately.
'If she added that sword at her waist, I bet she'd gain another 30 levels.'
Amidst a wave of respect, Flat's rapidly spinning brain finally thought of something.
"Oh, right... Game Select-Interference Start!"
"...?"
Precisely because the opponent was exceptionally strong, there was a simple way to block this set of moves.
Flat's consciousness went not toward the bullet rain, but toward the ground.
"Game Over!"
Flat clapped his hands with a beaming smile—and at that instant, the ground split open.
The ground from Flat to Rin was completely flipped over, and from within, countless magical energies with elemental properties erupted, clashing directly with the rain of bullets.
The violent elemental collision caused even the magical arrows themselves to dissipate, returning from physical form to incorporeal turbulence.
The four gems in front of Rin's fingers shattered, falling to the ground as mundane debris. Although Flat wore a look of regret, the Ether elemental block used as a shield finally dissolved beyond his control after enduring such devastation.
Only magical mist and dust drifted between the two, along with the shattered floor.
Flat and Rin stared at each other.
"Since Miss Rin is so strong, you definitely buried traps at the impact points while firing Gandr, right? So I thought I'd just put them to use! Seriously, that was a huge help!"
Flat clapped his hands cheerfully and, without stopping, charged toward Rin.
True, Rin had forgotten that he was also a genius. Dammit.
But...
"Could you not say stuff like that while looking so bedraggled?"
The sound of shattering gems layered upon itself, and what erupted with a roar was the next round of firing.
Giving him absolutely no room to breathe, a massive bombardment of light followed up immediately, swallowing Flat's silhouette.