While the fierce fighting raged in the warehouse, Ryo raced to the alchemy lab.
As commander of the Imperial Magic Division, Princess Fiona had been among the attackers. She’d obviously come to retrieve Jurgen, so it made perfect sense that she, despite being a member of the imperial family, had put herself in danger and led the charge to rescue him. Ryo held her in high regard for that.
However, Jurgen’s superior hadn’t been among that strike force. Had he turned tail and run like a coward? That couldn’t be. Oscar Luska wasn’t so weak-willed.
Ryo had hated him ever since he’d seen Eto’s injuries in Whitnash and realized Oscar was the cause. That said, Ryo still considered Oscar an excellent leader, and an excellent leader would never abandon his people and escape to safety himself.
Which meant Oscar was still here. But if he wasn’t with the strike force rescuing the imperial prisoners, where was he? Was he given a more important role by his superiors? What could that be?
The box.
It must be the box. With it, the Empire would have the upper hand in its war against the Kingdom. If the box were the only mission, the situation would’ve still been manageable. Unfortunately, Kenneth was with the box. An alchemical prodigy, a treasure of Knightley... Did the Empire know he was in Lune? If Ryo were the emperor, he would’ve said, “Kidnap him too.”
Ryo suddenly burst into the laboratory.
The moment he saw Oscar inside, lifting Kenneth’s limp body, Ryo remembered the sight of Eto coughing up blood and snapped.
“Oh no, you don’t!” Ryo yelled.
Ryo activated his Water Jet Thruster, crossed the room in an instant, and landed a right hook on Oscar’s left cheek, sending the Inferno Magician flying backward.
Ryo caught Kenneth as he fell. Everyone else in the room froze, unable to comprehend what had just happened.
“Hngh...” Kenneth groaned.
Ryo saw no major injuries, so he carried Kenneth to a corner of the room, laid him on the floor, and covered him with ice. Guards and knights of Lune littered the ground. They had probably fallen trying to protect Kenneth.
“Thank you,” Ryo murmured softly to them.
He’d only made it in time because they’d protected him this long.
Ryo turned back to face his enemy, who staggered upright, brushing himself off.
“Ryo the water magician.”
“You didn’t think you’d get away with laying a hand on Kenneth, did you?”
They were both ready for battle.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Folks, focus on protecting yourselves,” Oscar said, calm and composed.
The ten members of the Division nodded in response.
That annoyed Ryo. The Kingdom had been the loser of this scuffle so far. Caught off guard by coolheaded enemies meant their chances of winning were slim, so there was only one thing left to do.
“Let me tell you what I’m going to do, Oscar. After I’m done with you, I’m going to capture the princess, freeze her, and display her from Lune’s gates.”
“You bastard!”
Stripping your opponent of their composure is the most fundamental principle of one-on-one combat.
And Ryo succeeded tenfold. Not only did he provoke Oscar, but the other members of the Division grew enraged too.
“Permafrost.”
“Barrier.”
The Imperial Magic Division used a shield to stave off Ryo’s area-of-effect attack. The fact that they could instantly cast the appropriate counter, even in the throes of their rage, was proof of their training. Then they immediately switched from defense to offense.
“Flame Lance Barrage X.”
“Icicle Lance 100.”
In the air between them, one hundred flame lances met one hundred ice lances.
Oscar, watching the battle begin with a fierce bout of magic, realized something.
“This will get us nowhere!”
Of course, Ryo did too.
“Then let’s take this up another notch!”
Klang.
Their swords clashed, and the sword fight between magicians got underway. They’d both realized a magical fight would take too long, so they transitioned to melee combat.
They were top-tier magicians, so when their blades met, it wasn’t just sparks that flew. Powerful attack magic—strong enough to kill ordinary people instantly—blasted from their weapons, but—
“Ice Wall.”
“Barrier.”
—both men were incredible defenders.
They needed a strong attack that would fell their opponent in one blow, but how were they going to do that in the middle of a sword fight?
“Piercing Fire, scatter.”
“Drizzle.”
Oscar created a sunlike ball of fire, while Ryo leaped backward and conjured a light shower of rain. The powerful spells clashed, filling the air between them with the blinding flashes of annihilation.
But Oscar had anticipated this.
“Come at me!” Ryo called, his voice soft but sharp. He saw his opponent’s high stance and knew he was preparing to strike a decisive blow.
Oscar charged through the sparkling air and swung, landing the perfect strike. But—
“What the hell?”
—it felt wrong. His sword didn’t slice through flesh. Instead...
Squelch.
“It’s an avatar.”
Ryo should’ve been cut down, but instead, he smiled and thrust his sword into Oscar’s stomach... That smile held both innocence and malevolence, deceit and ecstasy, and gentleness and compassion...
“Damn it. Piercing Fire, scatter,” Oscar shouted, jumping backward this time.
“Ice Gate.”
Having no intention of letting him escape, Ryo split Oscar’s spell with an ice tunnel and pursued him.
Klang, klang, klang.
He unleashed lightning-fast attacks one after another: a diagonal slash, a reverse diagonal slash, a horizontal slash, another horizontal slash, and then a thrust.
But Oscar blocked them all. Even with a huge hole in his stomach, his sword play hadn’t weakened...
Ryo was starting to feel suspicious. Something smelled off. No, wait—something did stink.
“Is that burning flesh? You son of a gun...” He looked at Oscar’s stomach, which Murasame had pierced earlier. “Did you cauterize the wound?” Ryo asked, shocked.
“Damn you to hell. You’re bringing back some bad memories,” Oscar cursed. He’d had to use the same technique when fighting a certain elf...
“Well, I wish the last person had finished you off properly. We could’ve had world peace.”
“As long as you exist, the world will never know peace.”
“You mean your world, Inferno Man,” Ryo spat back, closing the gap in an instant.
Oscar stepped forward at the same time.
They were too close to use swords now, which meant they’d have to use their fists!
Ryo let go of Murasame with his left hand and stepped forward. He coiled off his back foot, transferring his body’s momentum up his leg, through his rotating hip, up his shoulder, down his arm, and through the fist he threw right into Oscar’s flank. As he moved, Ryo saw Oscar preparing his own fist, but he ignored it. Ryo knew his aim was perfect, that his devastating liver punch would land before Oscar’s, and it did...
And then a split second after, Ryo felt a burning pain in his right side and the sensation of something disappearing. Instead of following through with his punch, he jumped to the left and realized Oscar’s left fist was glowing with the same bright light as Piercing Fire.
The same bright light as plasma, the superhot state of matter—capable of reaching a hundred million degrees in some situations—which had annihilated even Ryo’s Ice Armor...
Ryo landed, spun around, and dropped to one knee. He gingerly touched his right side and discovered a charred hole in his abdomen. For now, he covered the wound with ice. Oscar must have landed a straight punch—a high-speed blow that required less distance—through a gap in Ryo’s robe. Obviously, the most terrifying element was the plasma...
“How is he able to use something like that?” Ryo scowled.
But when he looked at Oscar again, he saw that his left arm stopped at the elbow. His hand and forearm were completely gone.
“A self-destructive technique?!”
An arm wrapped in plasma couldn’t possibly remain unharmed. Oscar must have known that, yet he had unleashed the technique all the same.
“You managed to jump away before I could hit you with a Cauterize,” Oscar muttered.
“I have to give you credit for the sheer nerve of doing that. However...” Ryo said, narrowing his eyes. “Are you sure you can fight with those injuries?”
“What, are the Kingdom’s water magicians so weak that they can’t fight an opponent who’s lost an arm?”
“The fact that you insist on provoking, even now, only proves you’re an idiot.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, here’s another one: Why don’t you stop babbling and channel that energy into fighting instead? Or are you worried about trying to move with that hole in your side?”
Ryo snorted, glancing at Oscar’s severed arm. “Look who’s talking!”
Then the water magician lunged—except the second he did, he realized Oscar was smiling a small, sinister smile. Ryo used the full power of his Water Jet Thruster to stop on a dime. The next moment, a pocket of air in front of him—no more than one millimeter in diameter—exploded violently. If he’d continued charging, he would now have a small hole through the center of his head.
Oscar had created a trap and used himself as the bait.
“Phew, that was close... I can’t believe I lost my cool.” Ryo was honest to a fault sometimes.
A battle isn’t over until it’s over, and losing your composure often means defeat.
Oscar sneered bitterly, but then—
Fweet! Fweet! Fweet!
—some sort of steam whistle reported three times from somewhere outside.
“Vice Commander!” one of the Division members shouted.
“Damn it. Looks like our time’s up.”
“You better not be thinking of running away, Inferno Man!” Even at this point, Ryo was still taunting him—but he knew that the enemy’s order to retreat was absolute.
“I’ll settle this with you soon enough, water magician.”
With that, Oscar fled with his ten subordinates.
Ryo couldn’t pursue them. His right side was in a worse state than he thought. The ice should have stopped the bleeding, but he’d underestimated the severity of the wound. It was a miracle he could stand at all with so much of his midsection missing...
“Ah, crud... I lost...too much...blood...”
Ryo collapsed.