“Get away from him!” shrieked the giant Livia replica. Its enormous hand shot ahead toward Arcadia.
Mia thrust her own hands outward. “Is that…Miss Olivia?!” She conjured a barrier several layers thick to protect herself, but even that was no match for the giant Livia.
Arcadia struggled to comprehend the ridiculous power the enemy was exhibiting. “What is that thing?! Are these really old humanity’s descendants?! Impossible, simply impossible. Not even new humanity could wield this level of magic!” He abandoned his attempts to analyze the foe’s data. “Princess, wasting time will only weaken us. We must unleash another of our most powerful attacks.”
Arcadia meant the one with the same strength as his main cannon. Mia had enough power to discharge it again; the only reason they hadn’t been able to unleash it in quick succession was that she hadn’t yet absorbed enough demonic essence from the air.
“I have located the Licorne. It is in the center—no, the chest—of that giant. If we aim for it and destroy it, the giant should disappear,” said Arcadia.
Following his advice, Mia took aim with her right hand while unleashing a torrent of spikes. “I have no grudge against you or the other girls, but I cannot allow what happened to go unpunished! Let me have my vengeance, since you stole my knight from me!”
Red-black light gathered at her palm and hurtled toward its target. Mia had seen the destruction it could cause, but this time she concentrated even more power, making the attack more potent than before.
Yet despite Mia’s confidence, the giant Livia’s hand knocked the energy ball aside. It changed direction and exploded in the distance, sending up a plume of seawater. The intense shock wave that resulted caused an outright tsunami below them.
Arcadia’s eye bugged in rage and horror, his whole body vibrating. “This is outrageous! No one should be able to deflect such a powerful attack so easily!” he howled with incandescent fury.
Livia spread both arms out wide. “I’m going to save you now, Mr. Leon,” her voice echoed.
A thousand magic circles formed, launching another powerful offensive at Mia: a combination of types of concentrated magic in the forms of fire, water, electricity, and light. Mia accelerated into the air to evade the attacks, but Livia’s magic honed in on her and gave chase. Her attempts to combat it by unleashing her own magic were futile. Several hundred blasts rocked her body, sending her flailing.
“Gah!” Mia cried.
Having safely chased Mia away, the giant Livia wrapped her arms around the fortress deck to protect Arroganz. Since the giant was only a simplified replica, its face was too simple to clearly represent its controller’s emotions. However, knowing Livia’s love for Leon, she had to be smiling. Her hands were graceful and gentle as they cupped Arroganz.
Mia couldn’t stand it. “It’s not fair for you to have your partner when you murdered mine!”
She unleashed another of her most powerful attacks. In the same instant, a second woman manifested along the giant Livia’s back, this one with much longer hair. The Livia part of the giant bent forward, curling in on herself to make it easier for the new woman who’d sprouted from her base to move. Much like Mia, this figure appeared only from the waist up. Her hands shot forward to intercept Mia’s attack, rocking the sky with a powerful explosion. When the smoke settled, her body appeared completely unharmed.
None of it made any sense. Arcadia trembled with rage. “How can someone in this age rival the power of myself and the princess? There shouldn’t be anybody out there who can compete with new humanity!”
Most of all, it bewildered him that the royal army hadn’t opened with this instead of squandering its own people.
Mia was incredibly vexed by the giant’s overwhelming power. Try as she might to escape it, it managed to capture her. “Were you holding back against us all this time? I hate you even more for that!”
She managed to escape by firing off everything she could, launching herself higher into the sky. From high above the giant, she turned her sights back on Arroganz.
“You’ll soon know how heartbreaking it is to watch the person you love die before your very eyes.” If even one of the attacks she launched reached Arroganz, it would be fatal.
The giant Livia leaned forward, using her own body to shield Arroganz. Mia’s spikes and blasts pelted her.
“Keep hounding them, princess!” Arcadia said, adding his power into the mix to assail the giant before them.
The second giant torso thrust an arm toward Mia, knocking her away. This time, it was Angie’s voice that cracked the air, her words burning with intense fury. “Anyone who messes with Leon will have to answer to me.” She managed to snatch Mia out of the air, then flung her toward the sea.
Unable to resist, Mia plunged into the ocean, the momentum of Angie’s throw sending her far from the battlefield. It was unnerving just how much stronger they were than her.
Tears streaked Mia’s cheeks. “This is so unfair!” she wailed. “I can’t even avenge my knight!” She gritted her teeth, hands curling into tight fists. Finally, she burst back out of the water. “Even if it kills me, I’ll at least have my revenge for—”
Her voice cut off. There was something odd about the enemy; the giant’s outline had grown indistinct somehow. It seemed like she might disappear at any second.
“Aha. There’s a limit to how long they can keep that up!” Arcadia declared, gleeful at his realization. “Performing such a powerful spell requires equally substantial energy. Even with the Sacred Tree to help them, they cannot keep something like this up for hours at a time.” It was a great relief to him to watch Livia’s form dissolve and disappear.
Mia raced back toward Arcadia’s deck. The battle had damaged her and Arcadia severely; they had shrunk in size, their outer layers largely carved away by Livia and Angie’s attacks. Having used so much energy, it was impossible to maintain their previous enormous form. But diminished as they were, they were still powerful enough to finish off Arroganz.
“There,” Mia said. “Now there’s no one else to get in our way.” She was as eager as Arcadia to put Leon out of his misery.