It was a sea of white.
Snow—a blizzard—poured down upon the capital, where the giant tree stood motionless.
The world plunged into deep winter. A murderous cold, so intense it rendered even such words hollow and lukewarm, now dominated all of Viaysia. While Kanami dueled within the castle, outside, the battle between the new black-haired Sovereign Queen Lorde Hitaki and me progressed. And the blizzard of ice-binding magic she’d unleashed cooled the world endlessly.
White tiarlay and snow continued to fall from the icy barrier enveloping the royal capital. Snow piled up on the city’s rooftops, the streets, the trees—everything. The land, once characterized by its greenery, was being dyed pure white.
I couldn’t keep my eyes open to confirm it. The blizzard lashed my face, threatening to freeze my eyeballs solid. My eyelashes were already completely frozen. Just exhaling made fine ice crystals sparkle; inhaling made my lungs ache with cold. Snow clung to my feet, scattering like water droplets every time I stepped on the road or rooftops.
This was the power of the sister of Kanami, Aikawa Hitaki, the Thief of Water’s Essence. Though she was an Essence Thief, she used no Water magic whatsoever due to her excessively heretical skill and uniquely abnormal magical properties. Instead, she froze everything.
Plants and flowers, the natural world, stopped in the cold. It wasn’t freezing to death but truly stopping. As a skilled mage myself, I understood the mechanics of that magic. A thousand years ago, I’d never had the chance to fight her, but this power could undoubtedly threaten even me, the Thief of Wind’s Essence.
Still, I wouldn’t back down an inch. Even if the enemy possessed the power to freeze, I was the Wind of Freedom.
“Don’t underestimate me, you new Sovereign Queen Lorde! Wynd Umbrella!” In the center of the royal capital, on what seemed to be the widest avenue in the country, I faced my enemy and roared.
Now, standing atop a frozen fountain installed along the avenue, Hitaki faced me as I hovered before her using my wings. I conjured a dense, spherical shield of wind, using it as a barrier to charge straight ahead, slamming my body into the enemy. It was a magical shield punch—a shield bash. With the wings on my back, I fanned the cold air and streaked through the sky.
In contrast, Hitaki merely murmured sleepily. “Ice Parallax Blue.”
Blue magic leaked from her entire body as she stood atop the frozen fountain, constructing a round shield similar to my Wynd Umbrella. Before the fountain, the massive shields of magic collided, initiating a contest of magical power. When it came to a contest of raw strength like this, I had absolute confidence I wouldn’t lose. In fact, if we fought fairly, I would likely win within seconds.
However, the enemy would never resort to straightforward brute force. She was a dexterous Essence Thief, skilled in subtle tactics. Particles of blue and emerald magic danced into the air from the clash of shields. Immediately, Hitaki manipulated those particles, sending them to attack me as I cast my spell.
My hands, which I’d thrust forward, froze from the fingertips. My flapping wings creaked and groaned, growing heavy as stone.
“Gah!”
Realizing I’d crash if I stayed, I abandoned the magical standoff and leaped sideways. The victorious blue shield swallowed my emerald shield whole, charging straight ahead and freezing more of the royal capital. Moisture in the air froze instantly, icicles sprouting everywhere across the city. The aftershock alone created numerous ice sculptures that seemed to reach the sky.
While grieving over the freezing of Ide’s city once more, I pondered the enemy’s affinity. It’d been nothing but this since the start.
Anyway, Hitaki frequently used different magic simultaneously—not handling magic on a large scale but using entirely different spells at the same time. It was a dexterity not found in other Essence Thieves.
Even amid the grand magic of her shield, she generated another spell as effortlessly as taking a breath. Though I might have had the upper hand with individual spells, her second spell would sneakily exploit openings, preventing me from finishing her off.
Feeling impatient, I fired magical bullets from the rifle I’d fashioned from Wind magic on my right arm.
“Blow away!”
“Absolute Winter.”
The bullet slicing through the midwinter world stopped just short of reaching Hitaki’s body. It came to a complete standstill right in front of her eyes. It wasn’t vanishing as if she’d used a countermagic spell; it simply halted in midair.
Clenching my teeth, I began building another spell while trying to move my wings. I felt a weight, and my eyes widened. Or to be precise, it wasn’t weight but the sensation of something catching. The wing I tried to move snagged on something, refusing to move upward. Of course, there was nothing to catch me in midair. If anything, it could only be the snow of this dreaded winter.
“Ice Arrow!”
“Damn it! Wynd Arrow!”
An icy arrow flew toward me, my body slowed by the unfamiliar sensation. Just as I tried to shoot it down with a wind arrow, I felt the same snag in my magic’s generation.
“Hey! What’s...?”
It wasn’t just my body—even my magic felt heavier! The sense of unease was so overwhelming that I couldn’t help feeling that way.
And then I knew it was true. I looked at my hands in a sudden panic. My body, which hadn’t frozen once since becoming the Thief of Wind’s Essence, was now trembling from the cold. And it wasn’t just my body. Even the magic power wrapped around my hands was trembling.
At the same time, I realized my earlier assumption that I couldn’t break through was wrong. It was the opposite. Without me noticing, only I had been under a relentless attack all along. This stalling tactic, this magical counterattack battle, was likely Hitaki’s offense.
Dragging out the battle, gradually enveloping the field in cold air, slowly siphoning heat from the enemy’s body—that was the tactic of this new Sovereign Queen Lorde. It was a power diametrically opposed to mine, which spectacularly scattered enemies.
“Gah!” I shook my trembling body, trying to create some distance between us. But every movement felt heavy, agonizing, and unbearable. Too much magic and body heat had been stolen by this winter world. I felt my chances of victory slipping away with every passing second. In a short battle, I would have held an overwhelming advantage. But our fight had dragged on far too long.
Gritting my teeth, I flew over the capital, now completely dominated by Hitaki, reexamining why I hadn’t been able to settle this in a short fight. First, my desire to fight while protecting this royal capital of Viaysia was getting in the way. No matter how different this Viaysia was from the one I knew, it was undeniably the future of my former homeland. Above all, I had promised Rouge that I would fight while causing as little destruction as possible. That was why I’d held back on using my big moves.
Then there was another thing: the presence of my little sister, the childlike girl enduring the cold in the rear with her elementless Vibration magic. Protecting Snow inevitably restricted how I could fight.
“Snow! Are you okay?!” I called out as I leaped backward. She had collapsed onto the snowy plain.
But the only response was a weak, trembling voice. “I’m sorry, big sis! Protecting myself is the most I can do!” Snow, her lips turned pure white, was now sheltering inside a magical sphere. It was a resilient defensive barrier created by my wind and her magic. Still, the situation was intense. Even a Dragonewt, the species supposedly more resistant to cold than any other, couldn’t adapt to the deep winter.
“Good! Holding out this long is impressive enough!” Confirming Snow’s safety, I immediately turned back to face Hitaki. I also glared at the Apostle who was laughing where she stood behind and to the right of the fountain.
When the battle had begun, Snow and Sith had been fighting while the younger Aikawa and I were in a one-on-one situation. But now, it was two against one. The situation was worsening by the minute.
Fortunately, Apostle Sith had left the fighting to Hitaki and was just observing. It seemed she wanted to see her new Sovereign Queen Lorde defeat the old Sovereign Queen Lorde.
“Heh heh. It’s futile, queen from a thousand years ago! You cannot defeat my Hitaki. But you needn’t feel ashamed. It was decided from the start that no one could win! That’s how the world is! After all, you were merely the strongest in a world without us! The true strongest is now Hitaki! The Hitaki I prepared!” She didn’t fight, yet she strutted around proudly in the rear.
I wanted to knock that Apostle’s teeth in somehow. But my body felt too heavy and my magic output was poor. True, I’d fulfilled about half my lingering attachments in the underground battle and was therefore weakened, but even so, this was too strange. As long as Hitaki was an Essence Thief, she was strong. That was to be expected. It was natural.
“Ix Wynd!” Deciding minor tricks wouldn’t cut it, I attempted to construct the magic I’d used against Kanami in the labyrinth a few days ago. It was magic that turned my body itself into a bullet, piercing the world. I unfurled an emerald magic circle at my feet, attempting to expand it to a scale surpassing that of the royal capital. But midway through, my spell construction was punished.
“Freeze Nibelheim.” With just those words murmured by Hitaki, the surrounding cold instantly intensified. The magic circle’s deployment was suppressed by Ice magic and frozen in place.