“Wh-What on earth?! It looked like Stella committed suicide, but then she emitted such a powerful blast of light and heat that we can’t even keep our eyes open! The cameras aren’t able to catch anything either! We have no way of knowing what’s going on in the ring!”
“Agh! It’s so hot!” someone in the crowd shouted.
“Please don’t touch the fence, everyone! You might get burned! Stay in your seats and don’t touch anything metal!”
The Mage-Knights in charge of protecting the audience started running through the stands, trying to restore order. Meanwhile, Saikyou looked down at the stage.
“Good,” she muttered. You need to have more faith in your own potential, Stella-chan.
The one thing Stella had been missing was confidence in her own talent. Despite being more blessed than anyone, she had never been one to shirk hard work. Indeed, she’d come to respect a knight who was the complete opposite of her—someone with no natural talent whatsoever, but who made up for his shortcomings with hard work and technique.
Normally, such humility was a virtue. But from Saikyou’s perspective, it was hampering Stella’s growth. Humility was worth less than dirt to the person who was genuinely the strongest Blazer in the world in terms of sheer mana. Stella had no need to learn from others. She had every right to be arrogant, and arrogance was actually what she needed to make use of her full potential. From birth, she’d been one of the strongest people alive.
In the same way that there was no lion in nature who showed deference to a rabbit, there was no need for Stella to look up to others. No amount of confidence was overconfidence in her case. She needed to believe she was the strongest person in the world. That arrogance, that foolhardiness, that insatiable greed was the fuel she needed to feed her overwhelming talent and make her strength bloom.
Though even I didn’t expect her to be this much of a monster...
At long last, the light and heat faded away, allowing everyone to look down at the ring again.
“What the?!” one of the audience members muttered with a gasp.
Stella and Ouma were still standing in the same spots they had been before she’d unleashed that burst of light and heat, but Stella’s appearance had changed drastically. Lævateinn was nowhere to be seen, and there was a scar on her chest that looked almost like a brand. It flickered with light in time with Stella’s heartbeat, and with each pulse, her skin and flaming crimson hair emitted a tiny glow. Very much unlike the glow from the mana she’d been emitting before, however, it now looked like there was something lighting her body from within.
Before anyone could ask what had happened to her, Stella looked up to the heavens and let out a deafening roar.
“Graaaaaaaaah!”
✦ ✦ ✦
It wasn’t the kind of sound a human should have been able to make. It shook the earth and the seas with the force of a thunderclap.
“Crimson Princess...did you just...?”
“You better defend yourself, or you’ll die.”
Stella leaped forward, closing the fifty-meter gap between the two of them in an instant, and launched one of her glowing fists at Ouma.
“Ngh!”
Ouma knew he’d been taken by surprise, and that it was too late to dodge. Of course, his body was so sturdy that even a slash from Stella’s Device hadn’t been enough to harm him. At the same time, though, his instincts were warning him that she had been right. If he didn’t defend himself, he’d die. He crossed his arms in front of his chest just in time to block her fist.
“Gaaaaah!”
The force of her punch was so strong that it managed to crack his ribs even through his guard. He was knocked clean off his feet and sent flying.
“Stella just blew Ouma away through his guard! This is the first time we’ve ever seen Ouma actually cry out in pain! And it looks like he’s on his knees now! What a punch!”
“It’s not just the force of that punch that’s deadly. Take a good look at Ouma-chan’s arms.”
“Huh?” At Saikyou’s urging, the commentator zoomed the camera in on Ouma’s arms. “M-My god! There’s a burn mark on his arm in the exact shape of Stella’s fist!”
“That one punch quite literally burned his arm to the bone.”
“Aaaugh!”
Ouma cradled his seared arm as he cried out in pain. The heat from Stella’s punch had seared his bones so badly that they’d become superheated and were now burning his muscles and nerves from within.
“Even if you train yourself to withstand external pain, most people have no way of training to handle pain from within like that. Ouma-chan’s gonna have a rough time.”
“True that! B-But I don’t understand! How did Stella change so drastically?! What’s the cause of this sudden power up?!”
The audience started clamoring for answers as well, their surprise finally fading. Considering what they’d just seen, their burning curiosity was understandable. Stella had let out an inhuman roar, and now, her glowing body could punch with so much force that it could hurt Ouma when even her sword had been unable to touch him before.
“I see... I understand everything now!”
Unlike everyone else, Ikki figured it out immediately. He’d spent the past few months by Stella’s side, and he understood her better than anyone.
“Ikki-kun, did you figure out why Stella-san got so much stronger all of a sudden?” Touka asked.
“She’s probably been using her Blazer powers wrong this whole time,” Ikki replied with a nod. “In other words, she was never a fire user.”
“Wh-What?! But then...”
Touka was understandably confused. Fortunately, Saikyou, who’d been there for the moment of Stella’s awakening, cleared up everyone’s confusion.
“Blazers aren’t automatically able to use their powers properly from birth. Most of them awaken to them one day without any warning. They suddenly realize they can shoot fire, or control gravity, or what have you. From there, they start experimenting with their abilities and slowly learn how to control them. But sometimes, they mistake what their own power is. I was like that too. When I first awoke to my powers, it was when I made one of my toys float. That’s why, at first, I thought my Blazer power was simply the ability to make things float. But in truth, that was just one aspect of my power. I certainly could use it that way, but my real power was something else entirely. The power to control gravity.
“Stella-chan’s the same way,” Saikyou went on. “Since she was suddenly able to make flames appear in thin air, she probably thought she was a fire user. Anyone would. Most people are like me, and after messing around with their power enough and fighting in a few battles, they realize they’ve misunderstood the nature of their own ability. But Stella was so strong that even while mistakenly using her powers, she didn’t have any trouble beating everyone she faced. That’s why it took her so long to figure out what her power really is.”
“Y-You mean to say Stella isn’t a fire user?” Iida questioned.
“Yep. Stella-chan’s power is actually concept-based, not nature-based. I’m sure you all know what concept it’s based off of too. Think about it. What creature of legend has burning blood coursing through its veins, the ability to breathe fire, and is a symbol of power and fear to cultures all over the world?”
“No way...” Ouma muttered as he looked up at Stella, Saikyou’s words ringing in his head. Of course, his guess was right on the mark.
“The dragon. The apex predator of legend that people have been telling stories about for centuries. That’s the concept that Crimson Princess Stella Vermillion can manifest into herself.”
Flames were merely a fraction of Stella’s true might. They were just the breath she could unleash. Only by tracing the legends of old and imbuing her own body with her flames could she unlock her true power as a dragon. She’d discovered that during her battle with Saikyou. Until now, she’d been fighting people with her breath alone, but she’d broken free of her restraints and was bringing the full awe and might of a dragon to bear.
“I’m still not used to my power enough to control it fully. That means...I’m probably going to completely break you. We probably won’t ever stand on the same stage again, so let me say this now: Thank you, Ouma. For helping remind me of who I am.”
“Ngh.” Ouma realized that he couldn’t afford to hold back anymore. “Heavenly Armor!”
He once again enveloped himself in a highly pressurized armor of wind to prepare for Stella’s attacks. Since she was fighting with just her fists, her range was reduced, but it also meant she was far more effective at extremely close quarters. He needed to keep her at sword length if he was going to have any chance of winning. To that end, he fired off a series of lightning-fast slashes.
“Too slow!”
“Rgh?!”
Stella knocked his slashes out of the way with her bare fists. She struck only the flat of his blade, ensuring her knuckles weren’t bloodied. Every time she riposted Ryuuzume, Ouma felt a heavy shock run down his arms. If he relaxed for even a millisecond, he’d find his sword flung out of his hands. He gripped the hilt with all his might, cold sweat pouring down his forehead.
So this is a dragon’s strength!