Diablo didn’t immediately understand what Aira meant. This rumbling, that felt like rolling thunder, like an earthquake, was actually footsteps? Was this some kind of metaphor? Diablo thought to demand an explanation, but then he saw something impossible in the edge of his field of vision.
A castle, floating in the sky.
“...What...?”
“What’s that?!” Horn asked, pointing up at it.
Outside, beyond the castle’s spires, a black shadow floated in the heavens. Its silhouette definitely was that of a castle. Structures seemed to extend in all directions from within the castle. It was too big for Diablo to fully perceive its full size.
Diablo had only experienced something like this once before, back when he was playing the game. There was a special story involving a Legend Dragon. The players would arrive on a deserted island, and the twist was that the island’s surface itself was actually the Dragon’s back. It was a special boss battle in the game where one needed to keep their balance while fighting the dragon at the same time.
But this world had no concept of balance adjustment. And if that castle in the sky belonged to the Empire of Gelmed, it was an enemy they must defeat.
“Hey! Is that an Imperial castle?! Answer me!” Diablo pressed on Aira.
“...Yes. That castle belongs to Emperor Gelmed. The Magimatic Castle, Viovix.”
A Magimatic Castle?
Looking at it again, Diablo noticed the structures expanding from the castle were moving ever so slowly. They were as large as the ridges of a mountain, and moved as they tore into the clouds.
“Are those... legs?”
Those legs were as large as walls, but they had to be to support the castle’s considerable weight. The legs rose slowly, and with each time they landed back on the ground, they caused a massive tremor.
Aira was right. These were footsteps.
“...A fearsome presence is hanging over this place,” Lumachina said fearfully.
“Mm?”
Diablo couldn’t sense any mana in the vicinity, but... Looking up, he did see dark clouds brewing. He remembered this. During the last battle, magic was used to project an image into the clouds. Once again, the image of a wrinkled old man surfaced in the sky.
“Ooooh...”
A rumbling moaning could be heard from above.
“E-Emperor... Gelmed...” Aira flinched.
So that was the Emperor, after all...
“Ooooh... The Girl of the Vessel...!”
The image turned solid. Like a flying 3D image, the Emperor’s face swooped down on them. And below the Emperor’s face was what looked like a black serpent’s torso. Diablo though it was just an image, but Aira moaned in fear.
“Emperor Gelmed sent a Shadow after us already...?!”
Diablo didn’t know any method of transforming into anything like that or any monster like it.
Is this some kind of magic?!
“Lord Diablo!” Lumachina raised her voice with uncharacteristic harshness. “You mustn’t look away from that!”
“I know!”
He actually didn’t know at all. Up until now, the things he knew from Cross Reverie seemed to apply in this world, and because of that, when Diablo was faced with an unfamiliar enemy he always had to stop and observe it. But doing that now could be a fatal mistake, it seemed.
It didn’t matter what shape or form it took. That thing was an enemy.
Emperor Gelmed’s objective was the Girl of the Vessel — Rem. He couldn’t allow it to get near her.
“《Lightning Storm》!” Diablo fired a spell.
It was an offensive spell that was perfectly capable of damaging a Magimatic Sol, a level 140 light and wind element spell. It created a tornado that blocked the enemy’s movements while attacking it with bolts of lightning.
“Oooooooooooooooh...?!”
The black serpentine Emperor, the Shadow, dispersed like a puff of smoke. Diablo remained cautious, however. Having fought countless unfamiliar opponents, Diablo gained an odd, almost additional sense. It was similar to what swordsmen called ‘a response,’ the feeling that you’ve successfully landed a blow.
Magic normally wouldn’t have anything like that, and if this was the game, the victory fanfare would jingle as a popup appeared informing the player of the EXP and item drops they’d gained. But this world had nothing of the sort. Was he to assume he’d defeated his opponent just because they were gone?
No, they’re still here!
His intuition warned him, and sure enough, within moments the dispersed smoke reconverged. The Shadow was recovering, and looked completely unharmed. Diablo clicked his tongue.
I can’t believe it. I misjudged its elemental affinity?! Or was my spell lacking in firepower?!
All the opponents he’d fought so far seemed to have been at least somewhat susceptible to magic. But Gelmed’s people seemed to simply shrug it off. Was it just that the logic they operated on was too different?
“Kuh... 《Buster Napalm》!”
He fired a highly powerful fire element spell that had a long windup time. The Shadow’s tail was so long that its movements were relatively slow. A massive blast boomed above it, staggering the Imperial soldiers with its sheer force. Some of them screamed in shock, and Aira shielded her head with both arms.
“Ah, this is... incredible... Is this really Human sorcery?!” she asked in shock.
“How do you like that?!” Diablo exclaimed.
Emperor Gelmed disappeared, but within moments, the smoke-like Shadow reconverged like a cloud of angry flies and approached the balcony Rem and the others were in. Diablo had no more powerful spells to shoot, and any attack he unleashed would also hit the girls.
“How can this be...?!”
Never before had his magic been this ineffective.
†
“Take a 《Triangle Shot》!” Shera shot an arrow.
But even high level magic couldn’t push the Shadow away, so her attack disturbed it no more than a light breeze. The most her arrow could do was make its form waver ever so slightly. The Shadow had a black serpent’s body and the old man’s face, its expression contorted in glee.
“Ooooh! There can be no mistaking it! It is her!” he exclaimed, his eyes fixed on Rem.
“No, it didn’t work!” Shera said, faltering back.
“Kuh...” Rem clicked her tongue.
“I’m sorry, Rem!”
“...It’s too soon to give up,” Rem said, taking a deep breath.