Zora’s heart skipped a beat. She glanced nervously down at her leg and froze. Somehow, without her noticing, her foot had turned to stone.
“No… no way…”
“I’ll fix it…” Origa said calmly, already reaching into her pouch to retrieve a curative item.
“Do you think I’ll let you?” Vitor growled.
There was no chance he’d stand by quietly.
The instant Origa moved, he charged forward with ferocious speed, closing the distance in a heartbeat.
“Not happening!”
Routier fired a spell to intercept him, but her magic missed; he was too fast, too fluid, his body impossible to track with the naked eye.
“Heh. Too slow. Now then… say goodbye to your foot.”
“Tch! Gah?!”
“Huh?”
Lulune had forced herself up again, blood still trailing from her lips, and launched another desperate strike at Vitor.
Just like before, the impact rebounded straight onto her. Her own attack carved into her body, and she went tumbling across the ground once more.
Vitor glanced down at her coldly, sighing in irritation.
“Just as I thought. As soon as I get serious, you all fall apart. Acting tough when you’re this weak… it’s pathetic. You’ll never overcome my power.”
“That’s not something you can just decide…”
“Huh? Oh?”
Before he could react, Origa was already behind him, silent as a whisper. She slipped into position and locked her arms around his neck in a chokehold.
Origa wound one of her legs around Vitor’s, locking him in place as she tightened the chokehold. It wasn’t just about cutting off his breath; she was physically restricting his movement.
From an outsider’s perspective, it might have looked like a reckless, suicidal move. But Origa wasn’t just anyone anymore.
After challenging a dungeon alongside Seiichi, she’d become one of the Transcendants. Her stats were far beyond the norm. And she had one more plan in mind.
“Zora… Routier. Now.”
“Y-Yes!” Zora responded, eyes sharp.
“Got it,” Routier exclaimed, gathering her strength.
“Take this,” Lulune growled.
Using the moment of opportunity created by Lulune’s strike, Zora, who had just been healed by Origa, turned her uncovered eyes toward Vitor. He was still trapped, held firmly in Origa’s grip.
Normally, a petrification gaze like Zora’s would risk affecting anyone in its line of fire, but her power worked only on whatever her gaze directly landed on. Origa, being smaller and mostly obscured behind Vitor’s bulk, was safe from the effect.
This time, Zora wasn’t aiming for his legs; she was aiming to kill.
Her gaze locked on Vitor’s face, and sure enough, the stone began to spread.
“H-Huh?”
Vitor’s confusion turned to panic as his skin cracked and greyed. His cheeks, nose, and brow turned rigid, the petrification crawling upward from his eyes.
Still holding tight, Origa spoke softly, her voice calm and clear.
“You didn’t dodge our glutton’s attacks… But while you were getting hit with Zora’s petrification just now, you dodged Routier’s spell.” She narrowed her eyes. “Your ability only works on one opponent at a time. That’s why you couldn’t nullify both Zora’s petrification and my chokehold. You couldn’t reflect them both.”
“Y-You… little brat!”
Vitor’s face twisted in fury, but the motion froze as the stone overtook him. From his eyes up, his entire face was encased in grey, the petrification creeping down toward his jaw.
“And to finish you off—”
“I’m going to burn you alive.” Routier stepped forward, her eyes blazing.
Behind her, it wasn’t just a black flame-wreathed hand. A towering giant of jet-black fire materialized, rising like a demon born of vengeance.
“You’ll burn with me!” Vitor screamed, thrashing in Origa’s grasp as the last of his mobility slipped away.
“I’m only going to burn you. Isn’t that obvious?”
“Damn you—GRAAAAAAAHH!!”
The black-flame giant behind Routier lunged forward, its colossal arms reaching to crush and incinerate Vitor once and for all…
But in that very instant—
“—Just kidding,” Vitor said.
“Huh? Wait—ghk?!”
“O-Origa-chan?! What—ah!”
“Origa?! Zor—GAAAAAAHHHHH!!”
It all unraveled in a single breath.
Origa was suddenly yanked backward, an invisible force strangling her by the neck. Her fingers clawed at empty air, desperately trying to pry it loose. Zora, who had just turned her gaze into a weapon of stone, was now completely petrified herself, statue-like, unmoving. And Routier was engulfed by the very flames she had summoned to destroy Vitor, the fire turning on her in writhing black heat. The demon-flame giant didn’t stop. It didn’t hesitate. It didn’t care who it was burning.
In mere seconds, the entire coordinated counterattack was torn apart. And Vitor stood among their fallen forms… completely unscathed. Not a bruise. Not a burn. He gazed down at them with casual cruelty, like a child looking over broken toys.
“So? How’s it feel?” he said, his voice low and taunting. “You had that moment, didn’t you? That little spark. Maybe we can win. And then… bam. Gone.”
He crouched beside Origa, who still writhed weakly, trying to breathe, her limbs trembling. Vitor leaned in, a twisted smirk on his face.
“You know, it’s always the small fry who think they’re clever. They believe that if they think hard enough, maybe they can land a hit on someone stronger. But you know what?” He tapped her forehead with a single finger. “They’re small fry for a reason.”
His voice dropped to a whisper.
“Doesn’t matter how smart you are. A weakling is still a weakling. That’s just how the world works. Right?”
“Ghh… ah…”
“What’s wrong?” he whispered mockingly. “Can’t breathe? Funny. That’s exactly what you were doing to me, wasn’t it? Didn’t your parents ever teach you not to do things to others that you wouldn’t want done to yourself?”
He chuckled, then turned away, disinterested now that the fun had ended. His eyes wandered across the fallen girls: Zora frozen in stone, Routier unconscious and scorched, Origa limp and gasping.
“Aaah, what a letdown. Not a single one of you had what it takes to entertain me.”
“No…”
Barely lifting herself off the ground, Lulune stared at the aftermath before her.
No… this can’t be… This can’t be what happened.
Just then, as if suddenly remembering her presence, Vitor turned his gaze toward Lulune. A slow, sinister smile curled across his face as he began walking toward her.
“Well, well… That’s right. I almost forgot,” he said, voice brimming with mock cheer. “You gave me such a good time earlier. I owe you a little something in return, don’t I?”
“Wh-What are you…”
“What do you mean, what?” he replied, chuckling. “I’m going to give back exactly what you gave me. Blow for blow.”
As he grinned, seemingly lost in some twisted fantasy of revenge, a chill ran down Lulune’s spine. For the first time since arriving in the Wailing Land, she realized it: this man in front of her was more dangerous than Demioros, the Apostle who had once attacked Barbodel Magic Academy. Far more dangerous.
This… this is bad.
She tried to move, but her body wouldn’t respond. The lingering damage from before was still weighing her down, leaving her completely helpless.
Vitor advanced one step at a time, savoring every twitch, every flicker of fear in Lulune’s eyes. He lived for this: the moment his prey realized just how absurdly powerless they were. How broken the rules of reality had become.
Vitor still didn’t understand.
He didn’t know what true absurdity looked like. He didn’t know that there were people in this world for whom even “impossible” had already given up.
There was a human—if he could even still be called that—for whom both reason and common sense had long since raised the white flag.
“Well then… shall we get star—GUUUUUUUAAAAAAUUUUUUUUHHHHH?!?!”
“?!”
Suddenly, something faster than sound collided with Vitor’s gut.
The impact twisted his body into a violent spiral, launching him like a ragdoll through the air. And whatever had struck him didn’t stop; it tore right through his abdomen, breaking the sound barrier with a thunderous boom that gouged a deep scar into the earth.
“Gah—! Wh-What the—GHHK?!”
Before he could recover, another supersonic projectile smashed into his cheek, snapping his head around with such force that his neck spun a full rotation.
It was the kind of attack that should’ve been fatal. And yet, like before, his body instantly regenerated.
Even so, he staggered as he rose again, unsteady, gasping.
“Wh-What is this… What’s happening?! The wounds are gone. I healed! I healed, didn’t IIIIII??!!”
It didn’t matter. Whatever it was, the assault didn’t let up.
From above, below, from every direction, it rained down.
One after another, a hailstorm of supersonic strikes tore through Vitor’s body like divine punishment.
Lulune stared blankly at the scene before her… until she suddenly sensed one of those flying objects heading straight for her.
She still couldn’t move, her body frozen from the earlier damage. So instead, she caught the high-speed projectile with her mouth.
“Guh—?! Hm?”
Despite having been launched at supersonic speed, she bit down, crunching the thing in her mouth without a second thought. It was absurd, really, but somehow, not out of character for her.
As she ground it between her teeth, she paused, tilting her head slightly. “Is this… some kind of seed? But what is this taste… this sensation?” Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t hate it.”
After swallowing the strange object, Lulune’s gaze turned back to the sky, following the stream of projectiles that were still barreling toward Vitor.
“This is food. A type of food I’ve never seen before!”
Her hunger ignited like dry grass to a spark.
She leapt into action—still wounded, still shaky—but now driven by a primal need. She began catching the flying objects with her mouth, hands, and even her feet, stuffing them down with wild precision. One after another, she devoured them without pause.
Of course, she couldn’t catch them all. A handful slipped past, continuing their path toward Vitor.
“Tch! I missed another one! What a waste!”
She clenched her teeth. Vitor’s suffering was irrelevant to her; what infuriated her most was that he was getting even a single bite of the unknown food flying through the air.
Curiously… though her body had been battered moments ago, she now stood fully healed. Even more… something strange was happening. A pulsing strength was flooding through her limbs.
Not that Lulune cared. That detail, to her, was utterly trivial.
What mattered was that she was eating something new. Something unknown. And that, above all, was sacred to her.
Even if it wasn’t of this world. Even if it wasn’t meant to be consumed.
“LIKE HELL I’M LETTING YOU HAVE THISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!”
“NOOOOOOOOO, GIVE IIIIIIIIIIIIT BAAAAAAAAACK TO MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
Vitor, impaled by a storm of sonic projectiles and pinned in place, howled in sheer agony, both from the damage and from the sight of Lulune devouring his mysterious tormentors with delight.