✦ ✦ ✦
“Haaaaaaaaaaaa!” Riselia shouted.
The dragon roared, echoing her, destroying the Tri-Flare Burst and the Eye of the Witch orbs altogether. Elfiné’s ebony wings disappeared, and she plummeted to the ground.
“Miss Finé!”
Riselia rushed toward her, the Bloody Sword still gripped in her hand. The last message Elfiné’s avatar had left—kill me—echoed in her thoughts.
Don’t be stupid, Miss Finé! You know I can’t do that!
Racing over the rubble, Riselia wiped her tears. She’d take her back, by force if need be! She didn’t know how to make Elfiné regain her senses now that she’d been consumed by her Demon Sword, and maybe there wasn’t a way of doing it.
And yet—
“—Don’t worry. She isn’t beyond saving yet.”
She heard a voice in her head.
…Huh?
This wasn’t Sakuya’s voice. It was someone else’s, the voice of a girl she heard somewhere. But where…?
“I’ll lend you my aid. That’s a part of me, after all.”
An aura of light appeared around Elfiné’s body as she plummeted—and then, a black crystal that leaked Void miasma floated out of her heart. Riselia instantly intuited this was what had warped her Holy Sword into a Demon Sword.
“Miss Finé! Wake up!”
With all her might, Riselia drove the Bloody Sword into Elfiné’s bosom. The Holy Sword’s glowing blade—
—pierced through the black crystal, shattering it to bits.
✦ ✦ ✦
The Endymion surfaced over the sea, spraying water that cascaded with a loud roar. Its massive, metallic hull soared upward, as if it was being reeled up toward the sky.
“Quite the sight, isn’t it, Blackas?”
Leonis stood upon the ship’s deck, looking down at the view of the Fourth Assault Garden. The reason the Endymion was capable of soaring through the sky was thanks to Levitating Crystals stored in the Realm of Shadows’ treasure vault, spoils of war Leonis claimed when he destroyed the Heavenly Islands. On their own, all the crystals did was make things around them float in accordance to the mana they absorbed, but by setting them all over the ship and supplying them with the massive amount of energy produced by the miniature mana furnace that propelled the ship, they were able to make the entire vessel fly.
“Lord Magnus, the enemy has spotted us.”
“Took the fools long enough.”
A large army of Voids emerged from the tear above the Fourth Assault Garden. They numbered in the hundreds, if not thousands.
“Hmph. That’s their idea of an advance force, then,” Veira sneered in amusement.
“They want to gauge our power first, it seems,” Rivaiz nodded.
“Turn starboard, one o’clock direction!”
Leonis swung his Staff of Death’s Eye like a conductor’s baton. The Endymion’s hull sluggishly turned, steered by the pirate skeletons Leonis summoned.
“—Good. Let’s give the apostles a taste of my power.” Leonis thrust his staff at the large force of Voids blotting out the sky. “Tenth-order tactical destructive spell—Zemexis Jyura!”
Countless spell circles formed, each of them summoning a burning meteorite. The meteorites rained down on the Voids like hail, homing in on them persistently and wiping them out. With nothing left to attack, the meteorites crashed down into the sea, producing massive pillars of water.
“Hmph. That’ll teach you, small fry…”
Leonis was in a great mood—it wasn’t often he was allowed to go all out and fire such large-scale spells without a care in the world.
“Leonis, the human fleet ended up getting caught in the attack and capsizing,” Rivaiz pointed out.
“…Oh. I guess I went too far.” Leonis cleared his throat.
“There’s more of them coming. Want to have a contest over who kills more of them, Leo?” Veira proposed with a smirk.
“A score attack, hm? Interesting.” Leonis held up his staff. “Tenth-order annihilation spell—Arzam!”
“Hear my roar—Dei Argh Dragray!”
Their attacks fired off as slashes, scorching the sky with fire. The air crackled and the Endymion’s deck shook violently. Thousands of Voids were destroyed in the flash of an eye.
“Heh-heh, I win ,” Veira said victoriously.
“No, I clearly destroyed more of them,” Leonis insisted.
“Stop bickering over trivial matters, you two,” Rivaiz said dryly.
“—Now then. From here on out, we go to war as Dark Lords.” Leonis swung down his staff and gave the order. “Dark Lord Battleship Endymion, full speed ahead. Our objective—the Otherworldly Castle!”