Just a moment behind me came Zoras, using a series of Gate castings to chase after me. I continued using the polygons as footing to jump up and down, left and right, while I used the Twin Minds Method to pull together some magic circles.
“Double Gravity Bomb!”
Succeeding once at that meant I could do it again…even if I’d never managed it before. Zoras escaped the blast using Gate, but three of the polygons were swallowed in the explosion.
I leapt from a polygon to land on the castle roof.
“Even doing all that I can’t hit him…” I grumbled.
Even parallel castings of spells that complex couldn’t hit him. By watching him all this time I could tell that his reactions were far slower than normal when casting multiple spells or when he had to maintain fine control of his spells. But I still couldn’t penetrate his defenses, not at my level of skill.
“Might be impossible unless I can pull off a triple casting of Gravity Bomb.”
I steadied my breathing. I hadn’t even been able to do a double casting before, but I managed it here. Triple couldn’t be entirely impossible.
“You are too persistent!” yelled Zoras. “I don’t have any more time to give a weakling like you! I have tried to explain the futility of it to you, but you still think you can accomplish something here?! It doesn’t matter how hard you try! Just give up already and die!”
Five magic circles appeared as he roared, “Every single person is just a mindless marionette moved only by desire and the higher beings’ will! There is no worth in the hopeless souls of these fools, simply allowing themselves to be swept up in events! What does it matter if one or two of these disgusting worlds are destroyed?!”
Polygons flew at me. I jumped to avoid them.
“I am one step away from becoming a Lower God! And once I do, I will outsmart those pigs and put an end to this entire filthy cycle! Kanata Kanbara! Do not get in the way of my righteous mission!”
Gaping mouths emerged from the five magic circles he made.
“This is getting serious!” I said.
Five spells at once, all of them Primordial Predators. Things seemed quite severe, perhaps because of this time limit imposed by Zero’s curse. I was starting to see him scramble.
With five terrifying screeches, the massive beasts flew at me. They tore through the roof, sending bits flying as they chased after me.
“Die, die, die!”
I laid a Slow World casting behind me, setting it so they would be slowed if they came at me directly from behind. That let me slip between the monsters while using a Gravity Bomb to push one out of my way.
“Why…? Why won’t you just go down…?! Why can’t…why can’t I kill just one human who’s already nearly dead!” Sweat began to trickle down his temple. He was really starting to lose his cool.
“You said you’d kill me in a minute if I was on my own. Guess you got that wrong,” I taunted as Zoras ground his teeth.
This wasn’t a bad situation. I was staying alive, even if it was by the skin of my teeth. If Zoras kept panicking and throwing out big spells, I could assume he’d eventually leave himself wide open for me.
“…I have no choice. I created this spell after thousands of years of meditation…and I didn’t want the higher beings to see it yet,” he murmured. The polygons and beasts he’d made seemed to vanish into the air and disappear. Then he began to float upward.
-7-
“...IF YOU INSIST on living any longer, even I will be caught by Zero’s curse. I just…never imagined I would be forced to use this on someone like you,” he said, looking down at me as he hovered in midair.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ve heard that in your world, there is no magic. Instead, all other technologies have made immense advances, so perhaps you already know this… There are tiny particles that exist in all matter and cannot be separated using normal means.”
I’d heard about this. He was talking about atoms and molecules. I never thought someone in Locklore would figure that out.
“What about—”
“During my many years of meditation, I became aware of their existence and developed an ultimate spell to undo the bonds between them. The physical object itself is destroyed, turning it into incredible amounts of heat.”
“Wait, you’re talking about nuclear power?!”
I couldn’t believe Zoras actually had something like that at his disposal. I had no idea how huge a scale a ridiculous spell like that would be in this situation.
He pointed his staff at me. A gigantic magic circle appeared, centered on me, leaving me no time to evade.
“Space-time Magic Level 25: Horus’s Destruction! I will use your body to call forth the flames of gods! Feel pride as you die…the first test subject for my spell!”
The complex magic circle built up into several layers, expanding, and I couldn’t shake it off even if I rushed around. It was perfectly locked on.
“Forget Zero’s curse! If you use that here, you’ll get wiped out by a nuclear explosion!” I said.
“Zero’s curse is something formed from a mixture of all impure power…I would not survive its activation. Horus’s Destruction, however, cannot reach me while I am in the Garden of the Muse.”
Which meant my only option was to hit him hard and interrupt the spell. Zoras was focused on weaving together the magic circle… I might be able to get an attack in now.
“Double Gravity Bomb!”
I let loose two Gravity Bombs, caging Zoras in, but he used a series of Gate castings to fly away, easily evading my attack. He didn’t seem flustered at all.
“I can take my time casting Horus’s Destruction. No need to chase after you while focused on my plan. Evading your spells is far too easy.”
The layers of the spell kept building up, getting more complicated. I couldn’t stop it now. How powerful was the explosion from Horus’s Destruction going to be?
I had a vague idea of how things were going in the capital, since I caught glimpses now and then as we fought. Veranta had mobilized the huge masses of golems that were stored in the tower and sent them to save people, but the scope of their reach kept shrinking. I couldn’t see people in the process of evacuating anymore, so the evacuation itself must be done already.
I stopped moving, since I realized I couldn’t shake this spell off even if I did. I glared up at Zoras and started casting my own spell.
“Huh, you still haven’t given up?” he said.
I couldn’t hit him now. I knew that full well.
I’d spent this whole battle observing Zoras, watching for openings. He was most open just after casting something big. I would hit him with a gravity spell in that brief moment, right when he showed that fatal opening.
I gave up on stopping Horus’s Destruction.
“Goodbye, Kanata Kanbara, traveler from another world,” he said.
It felt like I was being melted from the inside out. There was a boom, and my sense of hearing cut out. My vision went white, then empty of anything at all. I could feel my life slipping away…
“Ha ha ha! It was even more powerful than I expected. It’s turned the entire capital to ruins! The lich girl was fairly close by, but I doubt she would have died in that. Now to finish my last job of wiping out this worthless everything!”
Zoras hovered above me.
I raised a trembling arm to point my sword at him and activated the magic circle I prepared before I died. “Gravity Bomb!”
He was completely defenseless, and the Gravity Bomb latched right on.
“Gah! What in the—?!”
He didn’t even know what was going on as he got dragged into the shimmering darkness of the implosion and resulting explosion, then fell to the ground in front of me, covered in blood. He couldn’t maintain the magic circle for Garden of the Muse, and it disappeared.
I drew on my last remaining strength to slash his chest. Blood spurted out, and he collapsed.
“How…are you alive…? This…is impossible… Is this really the end…? I…I…I still haven’t accomplished anything…” he gasped, dumbfounded.
A broken snake ring slipped from my finger.
OUROBOROS WHEEL
VALUE CLASS: GODLY
A mere shadow of the legendary two-headed serpent that decimated an entire continent during ancient times. The serpent could not be killed, so it was defeated with a curse that caused it to turn to silver and shrink into its current form. Even now, the immortal snake’s wicked will was sleeping inside the metal.
In case of death, the ring consumes a portion of the wearer’s magic power and resurrects them.
It was one of the items I got from Lunaère. It’d been with me ever since my training days back in Cocytus. Apparently it couldn’t withstand a close-range Horus’s Destruction, but it revived me one last time with just enough strength that I could move my body, if barely.
The items in my magic bag were vaporized too. It was a good thing that at least my sword, the Heroic Sword of Gilgamesh, survived. I wasn’t going to get another chance like this if I couldn’t take him down here and now.
The biggest obstacle for this strategy was whether or not I’d be able to maintain a magic circle until after the Ouroboros Wheel activated. I needed to attack Zoras after taking the hit from Horus’s Destruction, when his guard was down. There would probably be a similar opening when he cast the spell, but he would obviously be cautious then.
The problem with the Ouroboros Wheel was that you completely lost consciousness for an instant. I had nothing but my force of will to snap myself back as quickly as I could, maintain the magic circle, and cast the spell fast. Obviously, I’d never tested this before. It was a crazy gamble, but I had no other option.
I tried to pick up the Ouroboros Wheel, but it crumbled to gray sand.
“That ring held so many memories of my time with Lunaère-san…”
-8-
ZORAS
IN LOCKLORE’S ANCIENT TIMES, the gods didn’t have the experience necessary to balance it. The world ended up teetering on the brink of destruction every time there was a monster calamity. There were organizations dotted throughout the world with fighting power of the highest level, and the balance of power between countries was incredibly unstable.
How could a country stabilize itself in a world as chaotic as that? They called for a powerful king—one who would never grow old, so there would be no need for a change in power.