“Jirasd.”
Hellfire chains sealed his movements while black lightning struck. But the Two-Law Usurper evaded both while drawing his own magic circle. His hand sparkled with dusk for a brief moment before Jirasd was reflected back onto me. I glared at it with the Magic Eyes of Destruction, but it couldn’t be completely erased. The reflected spell had several times the might of what I had actually released.
I sliced the lightning bolt in two with a Vebzud-covered hand.
“Intriguing magic. Show me more,” I said. I layered Jirasd over Jio Graze and fired it at him wildly.
“Such a shame,” he replied. “You are strong, but your magic is still shallow. If you had studied the depths more, you would’ve been able to compete with this Two-Law Usurper.”
He slowly moved his fingers, counterattacking with Dogda Azbedra. A blue shooting star easily swallowed the lightning-wrapped sun, exploding it with a thunderous boom. Pillars of blue flames rose to incinerate me, but I dodged them, slicing them apart as I ran. More and more copies of me appeared from the blue flames.
I had used Lynel to clone myself, then used Najira to hide my true body. Ten of my clones stood around the Two-Law Usurper in a circle.
“Zen.”
The man’s spell created a faintly glowing bell in the air. When that bell chimed, the shadows from my Lynel self disappeared.
“Fakes don’t have shadows, is that what you think?” I taunted.
The Two-Law Usurper tried to charge at the real me, then suddenly turned left. There was nothing there—except for my shadow.
“Guh!”
Blood dripped from his chest. My Veneziara self had used Vebzud to pierce his body.
“Did you think there was only one real body?” I asked, but a magic circle suddenly appeared behind the Veneziara shadow.
“Dagdra.” The Two-Law Usurper stepped on the shadow, blowing the possible version of myself away into nothingness. “An embodiment of possibilities?”
The Zen bell chimed again, and he looked around at the shadows around him. He had seen through Veneziara in one look and countered it. Those were no normal Magic Eyes.
“It seems shallow magic isn’t entirely hopeless,” he said hoarsely.
In the opening Veneziara had created, I had wrapped my hands in condensed purple lightning. Bolts fell from my hands, spreading left and right to draw a total of twenty magic circles.
“Ravia Gieg Gaverizd.”
The overlapping circles of purple lightning fired at the Two-Law Usurper. Thunder roared in a deafening howl, the lighting dyeing the entire woodlands in purple light. Lightning of destruction raged throughout his body. Just that purple lightning alone couldn’t be stopped completely.
But this wasn’t Militia’s world. Thus—
“Ravia Gieg Gaverizd.”
My Veneziara selves circling the Two-Law Usurper cast more lightning of destruction. Two spells, four, then six—I layered the destructive magic I cast on him while observing the damage to the world. A total of twenty Ravia Gieg Gaverizd dyed the woodlands the vivid color of ruin. It was something that Militia’s world would never be able to endure.
“I commend you for refining shallow magic to this degree.”
A shadow moved calmly in the middle of the apocalyptic lightning.
“Demud.”
While still being struck by world-ruining lightning, the Two-Law Usurper drew a black pentagram, a magic circle emerging behind him from which a large blue shooting star emerged. Demud had amplified Dogda Azbedra’s magic power to an unimaginable level.
“This is my tribute to you,” the Two-Law Usurper said. “You may brag of it in the afterlife.”
“Bwa ha ha. What ridiculous magic. That’s more like it.”
I cast a multilayered turret of magic circles and turned it towards him. Black particles slowly swirled to form a seven-layered spiral. The ground split apart and trembled as trees from here all the way up to the horizon were uprooted and destroyed. But still, the damage wasn’t as bad as it would’ve been in Militia’s world.
Good. This place was much sturdier than I’d thought. This world wouldn’t break from the shock waves alone.
“Egil Grone Angdroa.”
Apocalyptic flames were released at the Two-Law Usurper, who released a Dogda Azbedra in response. The blue shooting star wrapped in firefly light collided with the seven-layered spiral of black fire. Blinding light engulfed the area. The two spells struggled for dominance, nearly canceling each other out. The blue star was slowly burning into black ash, and the apocalyptic flames were dying out.
In the end, after shaking the entire world, the victor of the struggle was Egil Grone Angdroa. The magic of the Two-Law Usurper had been entirely turned to ashes, and the seven-layered spiral flames shot forwards and directly hit his outstretched hand.
“Leion.”
My Magic Eyes widened. His dusk-covered right hand reached out and grabbed Egil Grone Angdroa—a spell that could turn the worlds it touched into ashes. The apocalyptic flames were entirely contained within one of his palms.
“You are strong. But magic is deeper than you know.”
He quietly drew his arm back and—against all expectations—threw the Egil Grone Angdroa back at me. The seven-layered spiral shot through the air. Just like the earlier Jirasd, it was several times faster and stronger as it directly hit me.
The woodlands were set ablaze, turning everything in ash until the woodlands were woodlands no more, but a sea of black flame.
“Bwa ha ha. The sea is vaster than I thought. To think I’d meet a man who can throw Egil Grone Angdroa back like it’s nothing... Color me shocked,” I said, strolling leisurely through the sea of black flames.
The Two-Law Usurper’s Magic Eyes narrowed slightly. His gaze was focused on my right hand—to be more precise, at the dusky stain there just like his, and the apocalyptic flames grasped in my palm.
“You were right,” I continued. “Without further study of the depths, I’m at a slight disadvantage. It was quite the effort to decipher all the many unfamiliar runes I saw today, but thanks to your examples, I think I’ve got the hang of it. Leion, was it? That’s the kind of spell I love.”
For the first time since he appeared, he took a step back. Any spells grasped by Leion were reflected back with more force. As someone well aware of its effect, it was only natural for him to distance himself.
“It’s my turn now. If you don’t catch it—”
I wound up my arm, added more magic power, and threw the Egil Grone Angdroa back with all my might. The apocalyptic flames shot forwards like an arrow once again, burning any remaining trees—and now, even the sky—black with its shock waves alone.
“You’ll perish.”